Giselle

**Giselle** is a main character in *The House of Fata Morgana*.

 **Unnamed father**

 **Unnamed sister**

University student
(Requiem for Innocence)

Giselle is a pale skinned woman with long dark hair and emerald green eyes. As The Maid, she wears her hair in a long braid that reaches her ankles, with a white mobcap on her head. She also wears a long purple maid's dress with a white apron and ruffle.

In the past, Giselle has short hair that reaches below her ears. She wears a green medieval dress with a red corset.

## Story

The Maid is the first character you meet when you wake up, and she qualifies you as the Master of the manor you are in. She is particularly mysterious, and has skin as pale as it is cold, as well as jade eyes. She seems to be quiet by nature and acts and speaks with elegance. The Maid tries to be welcoming and warm with You, but there is a coldness coming from her that is similar to that of the mansion, and both seem devoid of life. She is the one who, in an attempt to bring back your memories, takes your hand and guides you through the mansion, showing you the different doors, inside which you discover the past stories that took place here. Although these stories take place in very different times, The Maid is present in each of them.

### The Fifth Door

As You refuse to accept The Maid's revelation that you are in fact The White-Haired Girl, the maid panics a bit, and You finally see the true version of the story of 1099. After these revelations, You realize that your identity is in fact Michel Bollinger, and that The Maid is Giselle.

Giselle is a young girl from a medieval merchant family who decided to look for work to support her siblings. She was hired by the Bollinger family as a servant. However, the head of the family took advantage of her and her need for money to help her siblings live, and then regularly raped her, sometimes torturing her with a knife. Giselle could do nothing about her situation, and one day her affair with the head of the family was discovered by his wife, Lydie Bollinger. Hysterical, and thinking that everything was Giselle's fault, she accused her and decided to send her to live in an almost abandoned mansion to take care of their son whom they considered cursed, Michel Bollinger. When she arrived there, she tried to get as close as possible to Michel, and to lighten the atmosphere between them, but the young man stayed away and distrusted Giselle, his mother having sent him a letter saying that she had committed an "unforgivable fault".

One day, Giselle enters Michel's room which he had forbidden her to enter, and Michel discovers it at once; he then threatens her with a knife, reminding Giselle of the aggressions that her father made her undergo. She flees then from the manor and takes refuge in a village, which is not so far from the manor. There she meets Amédée, with whom she becomes close, and who allows her to live in the village. However, some time later, the whole village, as well as Amédée who had proposed her to live with him before, turns against her when a robbery takes place, using the pretext of the "foreigner" to charge her with the crime. She flees to the manor, but the villagers pursue her; she owes her rescue only to the intervention of Michel, who by his appearance and his "curse" makes the villagers believe that he is a kind of demon. After their departure, Michel shouts at Giselle that it is her fault, but she finally breaks down and screams at him the truth about her departure from the Bollinger family, telling him that her father raped her and that if he blames her, Michel can kill her. Caught off guard, the young man decides to listen to her story and to accept Giselle into his home. The two gradually fall in love with each other, but unfortunately, a new tragedy occurs when they are attacked by men. Michel locks Giselle in the observation tower to protect her, and is killed right in front of the door where the girl is standing, helpless.

### The Sixth Door

After Michel's death, Giselle hears the voice of the witch, Morgana, who tells her that Michel's "reconstruction" is assured, and promises her that she will be able to see him again if she waits long enough, while staying with the witch. After that, Giselle becomes The Handmaid, who is neither alive nor dead, and who is trapped in the lifeless mansion in which she lived with Michel with the only presence of Morgana, who speaks to her in her head. She remains there entirely alone from the year 1099 until the 17th century, without any other presence, not even that of insects. Shortly before 1603, Mell and Nellie's grandfather returns to the manor and settles there, with whom Giselle learns to speak the language that has become popular over the years, as well as the manners of a servant. He dies poisoned without Giselle being able to do anything about it, but he teaches her before he dies how to bury her feelings inside herself so she won't be hurt again. The only other two encounters she has after the Rhodes family leaves are with The Beast, who forced her to do things like cut up the flesh of the men he tortured and killed for his meals, and with Jacopo in the 19th century, both of whom are the new masters of the manor. The return of Michael's soul to the manor at the beginning of the story was then meaningless to The Maid, who by then had buried most of her feelings, and did not recognize him.

### The Eighth Door

Unfortunately, even as they meet again after so many years in this mansion cut off from time and the world, Morgana separates Michel and Giselle. They eventually meet again, however, Giselle having learned the story of Michel, who was born a woman, then transformed into a man; but this does not take away her love for him. They are then both sent back in time, Michel physically, and Giselle as a presence in his head, to the time when Morgana was locked in the observation tower. However, after a while, Giselle's presence fades, and Michel panics, finding himself alone. Giselle does not reappear and it is Michel, alone, who ends up putting an end to Morgana's curse by bringing her back to reason. Michel, wounded by the blow of his brother's soul, waits for him in the void, before his soul disappears for his next reincarnation ; but Giselle appears only after the disappearance of the one she loves, and promises then that in the next life, they will meet again for good.

It is in the 21st century that, at last, the new incarnation of Giselle finds Michel, who is in the very place where the manor house in which they lived all these tragedies once stood. Both of them, remembering all those years of hell between 1099 and the present time, can finally live happily together.

## Quotes

* *"If you cannot remember who you are, then who am I to serve?"*