He curled himself at her feet, his head level with her own. “I was saving this for a day when you needed it.”
Her smile was soft. “I think it is my favorite.”
“I thought it would be. I have shared it with very few.” He read the curiosity in her look. “Anastasia was the guest that preferred roses. She loved them so much that she always had some in her room. Sometimes she even carried them around with her. I assumed she would enjoy other flowers, but when I showed her this place, she turned her nose at it, calling it boring.”
“Oh, it is most definitely not boring.” Her smile came, and his nose twitched.
“She preferred bright colors. She was almost garish in her taste of clothing. She played the piano, but her pieces were always loud and fast, and she always seemed to run about as if life were a race.
“How long did Anastasia last?”
“Eight weeks.” He paused before asking, “Won’t you tell me of your father?”
She sighed and focused on a cluster of bachelor buttons. “He is…was the kindest man I know.”
“He is deceased?”
“No. At least, I do not think so, but I wonder sometimes if he might be.”
“Then, you did not live with him?”
She sighed again and turned to face him. “Do you remember that first night I was here and I spoke of my sixteenth birthday?”
“Yes.”
“My father had brought a roast for my birthday and my younger brothers had attempted a cake.” She sniffed, her finger darting across her face. “We celebrated that night and played games and sang….” She whispered. “That was the last time I saw them.”
“The man that came here, the one that promised you in recompense…”
“No, he was not my father. He kidnapped me. It has been over three years and much has changed, including me.” A long low growl emerged from the beast and she turned to look at him. “Are you angry?”
“Yes. What sort of man kidnaps another’s daughter?”
“A very very awful sort of man. He told me you would eat me, but that if I returned he would sell me to a very bad man that would use me ill.”
Luke showed his teeth as he growled, and Helen reached up to put her hand on his shoulder.
“I am here now, and safe.” She paused before continuing. “He is known among his equals as the Deceiver, for he is very charismatic but very practiced at lying. He is so good at it, that sometimes I could not even tell if he was lying. He has long held a grudge against my father, who ruined many of his plans and is full of goodness. I believe now that he planned to kidnap me for two purposes; to allow him to keep his own daughter and to destroy my father with the pain of it.”
“He is the father from your story?”
“Yes. His name is Manwaring.”
There was another short growl. “And do you know what has happened to your father? Or your brothers?”
She shook her head. “I once attempted a letter, but was not successful. I think he was hoping I would despair and I’m afraid I did get swallowed up in despair for a time.” Helen looked back up at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. It is very painful to speak of.”
“You may write them while you are here.”
“I may?” She sat up straighter, facing him. “Really?” Her face broke into another smile, and he shook his shaggy mane before turning away.
“Of course. As much as you’d like, and I will ensure they are delivered.”
“Oh! Luke, thank you! Thank you, so much. I will, that is, if you don’t mind, I would…” She had stood and he understood her purpose.
“Go, go. I will see you later for lunch?” His voice was wistful and she stopped and turned back, her hand once again on his shoulder.
“Of course!”
Luke found her an hour later staring at a blank piece of paper, tears silently falling unheeded. She smelled him before she heard him, his bulk coming to rest next to her.
“You are well and safe, and for now, that is enough.”
She looked up at him, her face white, her eyes red, grateful she didn’t need to explain. “Is it? There are three years to…and I cannot find it in me to tell him what I have endured.”
“For now, it is enough.”
She sat there silently. Then lifted her pen slowly and starting writing. She paused and turned. “Luke?” He was nearly to the door, but she heard him stop immediately. “Thank you.”
My dear father, Paul, and Jack,
I am well and safe and have escaped my kidnapper who was, as you may have guessed, Mr. Manwaring. The owner of this estate has given me sanctuary and friendship, and has now promised to see that this letter is delivered. I hope you are all well. Please tell me how you are and what I have missed these past few years. I will endeavor to do the same in future letters.
With love,
Helen
Ben was dispatched with the letter and told to only return with a reply. Helen plied him with questions to ask and made him promise to describe thoroughly everything he saw. A grin spread across Ben’s face as he watched Helen light up.
“Miss Helen, I’m sure it will all be well.” Pink with his promise, he bowed, then left. Helen strained to hear the hoof beats of his horse until they were well out of earshot.
Turning around, she found Luke watching her, his hazel eyes unwavering, and blushing, she tried to defend herself. “I…I haven’t….well, I know it’s silly, but….”
“There is nothing silly about your letter, Helen, or caring for your family. We are only glad to help.” He had come forward now, his eyes following her hair, which fell in waves across her shoulders.
Helen wrapped her blanket tighter about herself as she reached for the courage to ask her question. “I want to ask you something.”
His eyes followed her hair and his tail twitched. “What is it?”
“Can you tell me how to break the curse?” Her head tilted and with it, her hair.
He batted it with his paw, his tail delighted.“You do not need to worry about that. You and I are friends, and that is enough.” He batted her hair once more, and she stepped back.
“Yes, but I’m not a plaything, Luke.” A smile came, and he sat up and curled his tail around himself.
“Of course not.”
“Perhaps you need to let mice in so you can play with them.” She teased and he rumbled, changing the topic back to her question.
“Someday when you leave, I will have happy memories of your time here. That will be enough.”
“But surely – ”
“You have been here long enough to suspect there is nothing more to be done. Now you must acknowledge it as the truth. There is nothing you or anyone can do to break this curse, Helen.” He turned, dismissing her with his back as he left the room.
***
Helen entered the kitchen and stood in the doorway wondering how to word her request. A soft looking woman with her brown and grey striped hair in a loose bun was chatting, kneading dough with practiced hands. Her friend was one of the footmen, who sat on a stool hulling strawberries. He turned to see Helen and immediately stood.
“Miss! What can we get you?” He bowed, and the cook bobbed her head, her hands still in the dough.
“No, please, nothing. I beg your pardon, I did not mean to interrupt.”
“Well, come on in then. There’s muffins over there if you’d like, or if it’s work you’re wanting, you can help Nate.”
“I would love to help, thank you. Forgive me, I have not met either of you yet. I assume you are the cook of all the delightful meals I have eaten here?” Helen’s gentle smile was returned by both.
“I am. Everyone calls me Cook. This is Nate, and he’s nice enough except when he’s off flirting with the maids.”
Helen smiled and sat on the stool next to Nate. “It is a pleasure to meet you both.” She looked at Cook. “I particularly enjoyed your hazelnut tart my first night here. The crust fairly melted in my mouth.”
/> Cook eyed her, one eyebrow raised. “I notice you left out the part where it came back up again.”
Helen blushed and looked down.
“Don’t worry about it Miss Helen. There’s not much you can hide from us in this place. And anyway, it’s a pleasure to cook for someone who does not inhale their food.” She said this with a glare at Nate. “Well then. You’ve buttered me up well and good. You must want something.”
Helen smiled. “I do. You see, I have noticed that Luke does not eat much when we have our meals together, which he attributes to his bad manners. I imagine it is very difficult to cook for someone with paws the size of….”
“Melons?” Cook smiled.
“Pumpkins?” Nate’s laugh came easily.
Helen added a little chuckle. “Yes, exactly. I had thought of a few ideas that may work so that he can eat at the table without feeling like a beast.”
Cook stopped shaping her loaf and looked at Nate, whose eyes were wide.
“I’m sorry, is that not….” Helen looked from one to the other.
“No, no, it is unexpected, that is all.” Cook looked down at her loaf again.
Nate hesitated. “Tell us your ideas and we will see what we can do.”
Encouraged, she laid out her ideas. “I had thought soup in a bigger bowl that he could drink?”
“We have one, miss, and he uses it regularly.”
“Oh, that is good to hear. But he has never eaten soup in front of me.”
Nate hurried to explain. “I think he’s worried about eating in front of you, miss. He usually eats here before the meal and then joins you afterward so as not to alarm you with his…well, his teeth.”
“And his manners.” Cook added.
Helen smiled. “But I am not alarmed by either.”
Nate and Cook exchanged a look of disbelief, and she protested, “At least, not anymore.”
There was a pause as they waited.
“I used to make a loaf of stuffed bread for dinner for my family. I would roll the dough out and put layers of meat and cheese and spices, then roll it up and bake it. It made an easy meal with very little fuss. I thought perhaps a few of those…”
Cook wiped her hands on a towel and leaned on the table. “That is an idea, miss. One I just might be able to do.”
The three of them brought their heads together to come up with a small but reasonable list of things Luke could eat at the table, and soon Helen was tracking him down to invite him to dinner.
It was only when she tried for the fifth time to persuade him, her hand resting on his shoulder, that he finally agreed to eat with her. Even then, he waited for her to begin before he started with tentative bites that were still alarming.
“Why did you do this?”
Helen looked up from her loaf of stuffed bread. “Do what?”
“Why did you bother to make it so I could eat with you? I’m already going to be here, there’s no need for me to eat in front of you.”
Helen leaned forward. “Luke, that is what friends do. And friends don’t sit halfway across the room either.”
He cocked his head at her, then moving on all fours, he began to pad his way over to her side. The footman moved a set of chairs away as he situated himself, looking over to see if she approved.
“That’s much better.” Turning back to her plate, she pretended to ignore his eating while making short work of her own dinner.
That night, Helen made her way to her bed to find a small bundle on her pillow. There were three small brown sticks wrapped in a bright green ribbon. Her eyes lit up in recognition as she picked it up and smelled the exotic sweet scent of, “Cinnamon!” A scrap of paper fell out with a short note:
I hope these bring only happy memories. Thank you for reminding me of friendship.
***
Two weeks to the day, Ben returned, a packet of letters in one hand, with a bouquet of garden flowers sent from home. Helen ran down and snatched them up, her nose pressed firmly into the wilted flowers, her feet bouncing as she looked through the letters.
Her father’s letter made her cry, while Jack’s made her laugh. It was Paul’s that was most helpful, though, telling her more of how her family was – assuring her that they were alright.
Our Dear Helen,
Words cannot express our happiness to know you are alive and well. Father assumed Manwaring’s involvement, but had no proof or means with which to find you. Even Mr. Brown had vanished and we had no way of knowing where you had been taken. We could only pray each night that you were well. How did you escape?
I have gone into law, which I freely admit had much to do with your disappearance. My knack paved the way for my entrance into an excellent school and I am at the top of my class.
Jack works with Papa, and together they spend the better part of the day cooped up in his shop. I think Papa spends so much time there to forget his sorrow at losing you. Your words did much to cheer him, however, and he has started a new invention that will speed up the mail delivery system. As Jack is of a similar temperament, he also is working at a feverish pace.
We are impatient to see you and hope you will come home to us soon, dear sister. Until then, do write and tell us more of how you are and all that has transpired.
Love,
Paul
Rumpelstiltskin
“Get the cripple a shovel.” Rose pinched her nose at the dead mouse in the back doorway.
Helen put her hands on her hips and faced her mistress. “I’m not a cripple.”
Rose stepped towards her, the offensive rodent forgotten. “You’re exactly what I say you are, girl. Hunch-backed, twisted little cripple.”
Helen took a breath, determined to stand her ground. “I am NOT a cripple. And you can move the mouse yourself for all I care, you spoiled, selfish cow.” She shoved the shovel at Rose, who only grinned a merciless grin.
“Biter. Charger. Hold.” The dogs stood up, their mouths open as they growled at Helen, circling her into a cage. “Barker, get the whip.”
Helen blanched, already regretting her rebellion.
“It’s time you learned some manners.” She walked forward with the short whip that Barker had tied bits of sharp rock to, and Helen swallowed.
“Dogs’ll be on ya in a sec, girly.”
Helen glanced at Barker, then wisely changed her mind about running.
Rose looked at the whip fondly. “Step on a crack, break the girl’s back.” The rhyme didn’t even make sense, but she counted to seventeen before it stopped, grateful when a visitor arrived and interrupted her punishment.
Only a few days later found her looking at her feet while another punishment was being debated.
“She scorched clean through my silks, papa, I’m sure it was on purpose!”
“Yes, Rose, I believe you, but I need her alive. She’s a bit ragged lately. Disobedient and headstrong, aren’t you, girl? That’s alright, there are ways of beating it out of you that hurt much more than a few blows to your back.”
Helen held her breath – what could possibly be worse than the whip?
“Only give her dirty water. Nothing from the well. Barker, you hear?”
“Yessir.”
“She’d get sick from the ditch water, but Rose, you can show her what to drink.”
Rose grinned, her teeth bared. “I’d like nothing more.”
***
Helen had been at Mr. Manwaring’s house six months before she found a way inside. Her attempts to escape had been too easily thwarted, and later attempts had led to massive scars from the dog’s teeth. She had been threatened with her life if she tried again, and the truth had rung so clearly even from Mr. Manwaring, that she had put escape aside, at least for now. Her only goal was to send a letter to her family. One message, she knew, could change everything.
The event was carefully planned for an absence of Mr. Manwaring and his daughter Rose.
That night, her plan was to wait until everyone was in bed before sneaking i
n; if no one else knew, they couldn’t call the dogs on her. She climbed to her hay loft, and waited for the lights to go out. She knew the dogs would be in the study, and Ivan the kitchen boy slept by the stove, so she planned to sneak in the window of the front parlor and search for paper there. Her eyes closed for a moment, exhausted from having done the entire household’s laundry herself that day. She opened them a moment later and was confused to see streaks of pink in the sky. Swearing, she realized it was sunrise and she’d slept the night through. Furious with herself, she came down the ladder to see Barker leave with a shovel.
Days passed as she waited for an opportunity that never seemed to present itself. One night, Cook stayed up late with her sister who had come to visit at this unexpected reprieve. Worried they’d hear a noise, she decided against trying her luck. The next night, she fell asleep again before she could stop herself, and a further night passed unused when the dogs were put to sleep outside when they wouldn’t stop barking. As the days continued to get away from her, she began to notice how odd everything looked. The house had seemed to age overnight as the brick slowly revealed itself to be wood. The porch sagged, the paint was chipped and peeling, and the shutters disappeared. One afternoon, she brought in a load of wood for Cook and as she turned to leave heard, “Oy, and she’s not a cripple anymore, ain’t she?”
She turned back to see Cook looking at her in amazement. “Of course I’m not a cripple. I never was.” Confused, she turned to leave as she heard Barker respond.
“There’s summat fishy going on round here.”
That night she crept up to her loft again and waited. This night, she knew, would be the night. The air hummed in anticipation, and not once did she feel the urge to close her eyes. The moon rose high, its sliver of light just enough to see her path. The window was closed now that it was getting colder, but it was unlocked and she easily let herself in, quietly dropping to the floor. As she looked around, unfamiliar shapes began to reveal themselves as furniture. She went to the fireplace and felt along the mantle until she reached a candle stick. She felt along further until she reached a cup of matches, and giddy with her success, lighted the candle. There in the corner was a small desk, folded up for convenience. Crossing the room, she opened it and found a few sheets of paper and a set of pens. Breathing again, she sat and began her letter, forcing tears back so that she could be quick.
The Unbreakable Curse: A Beauty & the Beast Retelling Page 6