Belle Adams' Butler

All these years when she heard Lucas telling her the story of Romeow and Julisqueak, she had considered it to be a made-up story but who knew that the book actually existed! And that too with so many pages. With the tragedy she knew that took place at the end of the story, she didn't feel like reading it. 

"What are we going to do with this?" Belle asked him. 

Lucas had a subtle smile on his lips, "Look closely and you might find just what you need," he said to her. 

At the moment, Belle and Lucas were the only customers in the library, and standing two racks behind from the counter, Belle took another glance at the book that was being held by Lucas. Lucas cleaned the front of the book as it appeared that no one had pulled the book from there for years. There were also cobwebs present in the rack. And as he finished cleaning it, she noticed how the title was no more what she had read earlier. 

There was no Romeow nor the word Julisqueak on the book and instead, it read 'After Death'. 

"What do you see?" he asked her. 

"After Death…" Belle blinked her eyes before taking the book from his hand and she asked, "What is this?" 

"It is a saving grace after death. You will understand when you read it. Come," he said, taking her around back to the counter where the old man who sat looked at the couple who came forward, "We'll be taking this book."

Once the old man was done filling up the name of the book in his registry, they left the library. When the carriage arrived back in the mansion of the Adams', hooves of the horses clattering against the stony ground, Barron who was roaming in the mansion freely until a servant would show up and he would hide quickly. Hearing the carriage, he now ran back to the room where he was supposed to be. 

Belle reached her room and opened the small book that barely contained ten pages in it. The story back had turned to a book of horrors. It spoke about the spirits and how to contain them in the land of the living. Belle didn't know when it was written because Lucas had not mentioned it except for giving it to her to read. 

'Once you are done reading the book burn it,' was his words. 

The spirits were the same being that had tried to come for her body, her vessel. What Lucas had taught her was to contain them but this spoke about how to remove the beings when they possessed someone, to send the creature back from where it had come from. 

Belle took two to three days, going through it before she burned it in the fireplace without leaving a residue. At the same time, news had arrived about Olivia Stlinkson whose body was recovered from one of the forests. 

It was Simon, her friend who had come to visit her who spoke about it, "I heard the body was mutilated. The officials didn't give away too many details except that her head was cut off from her body. They didn't find the head with her." 

Belle frowned, wondering who would have done and at the precise time Lucas arrived with tea, "Lucas, did you hear that. Olivia was found dead." 

"How unfortunate," Lucas commented, "How did they identify it was her?" he asked as if he had no clue about the death. 

Simon chimed in, "She had her rings on her hands that were not taken. It is obvious it wasn't murder for theft but for revenge. A very cold on."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Belle answered as she didn't like Olivia. She didn't mind if the lady rotted in hell in the pits of fire. 

"It is good to know that she gave the house back to you. Would have been a hassle. You get to keep the mansion as well as the butler," Simon whistled looking at Lucas where the butler looked back at him. 

"One must be really jobless to be hanging around in here, isn't it?" Lucas asked in his polite tone. 

"What can I say. I have enough money that I don't have to lift a finger to do any work," it was more than an hour since the boy had come to visit Belle as if trying to familiarize in the house again and Lucas would not let the boy hover around more than necessary. 

Lucas wondered if he should shift the bodies as it would take time to mutilate and decompose. The rain had been growing heavier and heavier in aways that were washing away the silt and the mud away to bring up what was hidden and buried in the ground. Though there weren't many bodies, it was slightly troublesome if all the bodies started to resurface that would turn the forest into a graveyard before someone starts to hunt, and the person who would do it was the one in the council. 

Simon was finally shooed and life at the Adams went back to how it was in the evening. 

Barron who had overheard the conversation caught up with Lucas when the butler was making his daily rounds at night in the corridors of the mansion. 

"Since how long have you been breaking the laws that have been placed in the realm?" asked Barron walking next to Lucas while keeping up with the butler's long strides. 

"Does it matter?" Lucas asked him back, going to the windows and pushing the glass surface to make sure they were locked, 'You break one or you break two, they still are broken."

Barron could tell that once the higher-ups would find out how many people or laws were broken by the thirteenth Grim, they would increase the probability of his death and along with him, Barron would be added in the equation as it would appear that he was helping the reaper.