A Father's Sin

Avila Griffon Le Gris (Chapter Fourteen)

Avila Griffon Le Gris's journal was very peculiar, compared to the other Le Gris' journals I had gone through so far. He did not reference anyone and he wrote like he had been there first hand and had witnessed it all. The emotions he felt which are mostly various forms of hatred and anger was were very tangible in his descriptions.

He was angry at everything and hated everything with a passion that should be feared. He must have led a very joyless life, pathetic and pitiable be who was I to judge? The other Le Gris mean wrote about their anger also, but there was also grief and a longing to lead a normal peaceful acceptable life. To live freely and be accepted by the world and accepted by themselves, because when the turned the castle became their confinement.

From my other findings it became more apparent that En Hébé could be referencing the goddess of life because in other journals she was referred to as the goddess of life only. From Greek mythology Hebe the cup bearer of the gods was the goddess of life and En Hébé seemed like French for Hebe.

The goddess of life that gave the gift took it away, the giver, the taker, who later became the persecutor. If that was so, Avila Le Gris must be the man that brought the curse upon his family. I maybe wrong but I found throughout the account of his life; by him, pages were missing where he would begin to talk about himself not being in the wrong and blaming the gods for his fate.

I could not find anywhere what it was that he did and why he thought he was not wrong. Up until his dying days he showed no signs of remorse in his writing only an increasing hatred towards the gods. It has to be him because in his journal I also found what looked like the account of the exact words En Hébé used to curse him and his family as reported by him. It roughly translated into;

"Since you like to look upon yourself so much; to you and anyone else that lays their eyes upon you. You will be the most hideous creature that they have ever laid their eyes upon and your descendants will continue to turn into hideous creatures when they come of age.

Suffer they will for your iniquities whether they deserve it or not, to serve as a reminder never again to follow in your path. Until they find a good soul willing to help them find and restored the ability and priceless treasure you miss used.

For within every creature is that treasure, the ability to recognize it and give to others willingly and freely is what makes it priceless."

That presented me with the real problem – or the solution to the real problem; finding the treasure that was lost should break the curse. The problem was; what is that treasure? Avila never found it nor did his descendants after him, was it really that hard to find that generations of men could not find it?

If it really is, what in this vast universe made me think I could help Bevan at all? In that moment I started to feel bad I had let him put his faith in me, I was only human how could I help him?

The only help Avila had was paid help and people he had forced to help him. Those brave enough to cheat him out of his money did, he in turn ended their lives when he found them. He never had anyone willing to help him break the curse out of their own will.

He much have had no friends at all, not one did he mention the any of his family members what a lonely life he must have led. They all did just like Bevan was doing right now. Not so lonely, he has his mother and me...that must part of all of it. Finding someone willing to help him unconditionally was a step to breaking the curse I was starting to think. Did he also think so? I needed to talk to him about it.

Later in the day sat to eat lunch together out in the late afternoon sun that wasn't very hot and it wasn't very cold outside, sun rays were accompanied by a light breeze. We were sitting outside the winter garden on the veranda east of the glass wall of the winter garden that faced the forest.

"I believe you are closer to breaking the curse, closer than your ancestors were."

"How so?"

"You have me."

"I do...?"

He said his bushy eye brows riding up his forehead.

"From what I found from Avila's Journal, the goddess said until a willing soul is found to help in breaking the curse would it be possible to break it."

"Oh that is I good thing then".

"Has it never occurred to you, do you think the willing soul means something else?"

"Of truth I never thought I would find a willing anything, human or otherwise that would be willing to help me."

"So you know what finding a willing soul means?"

"Whatever the meaning is, it does not change the fact that everything with a soul is all the same..." "We are all afraid of things we don't understand even if we don't understand even if it means us no harm." "We are all attracted to beautiful things even if it brings us to our end we remain curious." "I believed the curse was never meant to be broken, until I met you." "You were afraid but your curiosity was bigger than your fear, something I did not except to find in a human." "You continue to surprise me."

His last sentence made me feel special and I really wanted to believe I was special, I wanted to believe him. I had lost my train of thought but I still had questions to ask.

"Living here with just your mother and the servants must be really lonely; don't you ever have guests or any other kind of visitors?"

I asked this because in the short time I had been there no one ever came by. Some of the servants ran errands to very far away cities to buy supplies for daily living in the castle. Other than that the castle was virtually cut off from the rest of the world.

"On very rare occasions so travelers get lost and wonder into the castle." "About 5weeks ago some old man wondered into the castle."

"Did you let him stay?"

"Well he was welcomed to stay, but I don't take too kindly to thieves."

"He stole from you?!"

"He took my journal, said it was for his daughter that loved reading."

"What did you do to him?"

"I coming after him the morning he was leaving to go back to his village and warning him was enough."

"You frightened him."

"Almost to death, I told him if dared to come back here I would hunt both him and he daughter down. For an old man he ran very fast"

"You know, he couldn't have known it was your journal your library has thousands of books. He may have just been trying to do something nice for his daughter."

"Still you don't go around taking things that don't belong to you. "

"True, but maybe he forgot to ask."

"Errr..."

"You just let him leave like that? What if something had happened to him out there in the forest?

"I went after him when I noticed he had left without his horse, not very wise."

"Considering your last words to him? His swift departure was very wise."

"He got really far, I found him unconscious not very far from a village which I assumed was where he was going. I took him close enough to be found easily and left."

"I do hope he is fine."

"Me too."