Axel Bonafette - The Storyteller Revised

         Alice Young had been an angel in the form of a woman, I swear it so. She had the face of one, the heart of one, and just like an angel, she can fall. Did fall. Her name had once been Axel Bonafette, wondrous baker and even better caregiver for the local orphans in that old stone-and-brick building. I swear, it used to be an office, it smelled so much like regret in there. I digress, the events that conspired to recreate Alice aren't going to be told by a bumbling man. Not today.

Her story begins in late February 1692, when the Salem Witch Trials were rampant and unforgettable. She hadn't changed much since then, I can assure you, the same honey brown eyes and fair complexion that men would die for. So she had wed, to her no one can remember, but all we can see is that she had wed the man Young, as her last name had told us. That aside, she had been accused of witchery. Why? Because she had four beautiful girls, and no boy. This, along with her valiant push on slave freedom and her overwhelming need to mother those less fortunate - an act that was seen as odd and to some, a gateway for ' magical experiments ' - made her the first Salem Witch Trial to occur, albeit not in Salem. Hers had been held elsewhere, seeing as the trials hadn't a name and people wanted it public as possible. Hartford, Connecticut, in fact. They had moved her there from her home in Windsor, away from her husband and children.

They had executed her at dawn.

Or at least they thought they did, thought that she didn't have a will strong enough to permeate death with the calm, clouded life that somehow banded through her system. What can I say, what can anyone say, other than some deity had saved her from an end not her fault? Her body had disappeared day the next, but if by human hand or her own will, the people shall never know.

Years later, centuries 3, a woman had appeared. She seemed fair, beautiful, and just as caring as Alice Young had been. She called herself Axelle Bonafette, and said she had just moved to America from France. She had soon gotten a job at the orphanage in our town, beautiful and small, virtually unknown. She had been there for years, three if I recall correctly, before the deaths had begun.

First it was Sherrod, a small, stringy boy with big, doleful eyes. We were surprised to say that he had committed suicide. Why? None know too well, just that the boy was gone now, even if he had been Axel's favourite child. From thirteen to twelve.

Next, Jeanine. People had expected her less than Sherrod, she had the hopes and aspirations of becoming a chef, planning to go to Harvard what with her amazing grades. But no, she too had taken her life. From twelve to eleven.

Then it was the whole lot of them. Each died that day, fall of 1947 if I remember correctly, all of them fell. All at once, a mass suicide. The bodies had never been found, unlike Jeanine and Sherrod. I clearly remember visiting the unusually pale Axelle the next day, seeing her eyes empty and clouded over, still clutching that little tome, what was it, the Necronomicon? An odd book in her hands, an odd book indeed. I remember speaking to her, asking her what was wrong. She had looked up and cried red, bloody tears from her eyes. I was worried for her health, and had stayed at the orphanage.

Horrible mistake.

In the night she had come to my sleeping body and tried to strangle me with fishing wire. It cut into the skin around my neck slightly before she had let go. Shoving an old, yet empty, book, she had demanded that I write her story before she ended my existence. I had, but her black eyes on the back of my neck hurt. She even told me how it was to go after she killed me, after she burned her beloved orphanage to the ground. And I wrote.

After she finished with me, the wire had cleared my neck and wrapped around my spinal cord, and she had stopped as not to sever it. She took the slightly bloodsodden book from under my hands and kicked me over, before dumping a gallon or two of gasoline on my body. She set a small portion of my hair alight before running. But not fast enough. Her God was merciful and let her go with minimal injuries - just some burns around the eyes.

How can I give such clear writings of how she had looked after?

Her God had mercy on me. And I had taken a new name, as had she, and we ruled that town. Terror and death to those out after eight o' clock. Killed those that had left the orphanage alive, rest in pieces Emmanuel. Rest in pieces Duke.

Rhedd and The Storyteller, how had we ruled.

Ruled, then faded. Hid away for fear of discoverance, when the faceless man had warned us.

" Do not be seen. " He had said, " Do not let power go to your heads. " And he had left, we hadn't seen him ever again. Or at least, not that I know of.

Axel wants something. I must be off. Let it be known that I wrote to the best of my ability, and that mayhaps you learn something. Although you probably haven't.

;_)_