by Liz Braswell
“Is he still here? Where is he?” Rosalind demanded, color beginning to flush her cheeks as she forced herself to sit up.
Maurice made shushing noises and took her hand. “Don’t grow excited. It’s not good for you or the baby. It’s over now.”
Rosalind took his hand and squeezed it and kissed it, then put it on her belly.
“You’re sure it’s a girl?” he whispered.
“As sure as anything,” Rosalind said with a wan smile. “An enchantress knows these sorts of things. Don’t forget—when you go out this afternoon, stop by Vashti’s. I want her for my midwife. She was my aunt’s, and my aunt just loved her.”
“Absolutely, dear. Anything for you and my baby daughter.”
But the midwife wasn’t to be found.
When Maurice stopped by her house the door was open, hanging there like an ill omen.
“Hello?” Maurice called out tentatively.
After a few moments and no answer, he let himself in—keeping one hand casually on his knife.
“Vashti? Hello? It’s Maurice, Rosalind’s husband….”
The midwife was old but in good health. In the back of his mind Maurice feared finding her on the floor with a broken hip or worse, but he suspected that was not the case. Here and there things looked out of order in the tiny house: one chair of three was pushed far aside, a single crock lay broken on the floor. And on the table lay half a baguette, a nice piece of cheese, and some grapes. Dinner, untouched.
“Hello?”
The inventor fretted. It didn’t look like a robbery—nothing was stolen, not even her fine woolen blankets. It was like she had just…vanished.
After a few more minutes of looking around, he left and asked her neighbors about her whereabouts, but no one knew where she had gone. Or even that she had gone.
Or, he gathered as he watched some sets of shifting eyes, they didn’t want to know.
He decided to see if any of Rosalind’s other friends had heard from Vashti—perhaps there had been some sort of emergency, a birth gone wrong, that she had been summoned away to.
But as he walked through the town Maurice noticed other doors that had nasty graffiti smeared on them, sometimes in charcoal and occasionally in something that looked very much like blood.
If the friends he sought were home, they ushered Maurice in off the streets quickly—or made a big deal of talking to him loudly where others could hear, about nothing in particular, emphasizing again and again how nice it was to have such a normal friend who wasn’t one of les charmantes.
None of them knew where Vashti was. No one even knew she was missing.
With a confused and heavy heart, Maurice decided before he went home empty-handed that he would at least fortify himself at the tavern with a drink and a chat with his friends.
There was a sign on the door.
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. NO DOGS, ITALIANS, OR CHARMANTES.
Maurice hesitated, unsure what to do. But habit took over his feet, and he found himself continuing in.
The place seemed darker. Small groups spoke in loud, lively tones, but it sounded forced. A new and sour-looking young woman made a big pretense of wiping down the bar with an already filthy rag.
Frédéric and Alaric were in their usual seats. The doctor had never moved in with the groomsman, even after Maurice had moved out; there were some differences of station that were insurmountable beyond drinking at a bar together. Yet they had still managed to stay friends. Both brightened upon seeing Maurice.
“Where is Josepha?” he asked in a low voice, indicating the barmaid with a tilt of his head.
“She was…bought out,” Alaric said distastefully. “Not of her own free will. Told to move to a more…accepting part of town.”
“She was paid,” Frédéric noted. But he regarded his cordial glass with a skeptical eye, obviously unconvinced of its cleanliness.
“Where did she go? Has she set up elsewhere yet? We should go see her….”
“No one has seen her since…this happened,” Alaric said. “Some suspect foul play.”
“Or she has merely seen which way the wind is blowing, taken her fee, and left town,” Frédéric suggested.
Alaric rolled his eyes.
“This is getting out of hand.” Maurice said. “All of it! This…boy…wrote some very nasty things on our door. Lots of doors, it looks like. And my wife is dead set upon this Vashti woman for her midwife, and she’s nowhere to be found. And no one will talk about her. I have a terrible feeling about it. What is going on around here?”
Alaric sighed and played with his cup. “Things are growing worse between…regular people—”
“Les naturels,” Frédéric interrupted primly—“and les charmantes.”
Alaric gave him a black look, then continued. “I’ve never seen it this bad. It’s out of control. Idiots are hassling anyone even the slightest bit unusual—from a self-declared goodwife peddling love potions, to Babbo, who sings to himself and makes those little toys out of twigs and moss. They are badgering them, pestering them—and, occasionally, beating the tar out of them.”
“Things are not out of control,” Frédéric said with the patience of someone who had been arguing the same thing with a friend for a long time. “Anymore. That is precisely the point. Normal people are trying to keep control of things, to keep things safe. And they are not hassling anyone who is innocent.”
“Innocent of what?” Maurice demanded. “Magic? Since when is that a crime?”
“It’s a crime against nature.”
“But you yourself are…”
“Tainted!” Frédéric hissed. “Yes, I know! Keep your voice down!”
Maurice slammed his fist on the bar, exasperated.
“But…but what about Vashti? Rosalind will be terribly upset if I don’t procure her for the birth. Where did she go?”
“She probably left after finding pig’s blood smeared all over her door,” the groomsman said moodily. “Les charmantes are leaving…disappearing out of the last safe haven for the fey and magical left in this world.”
“I would suggest that your wife choose another for her imminent birth, and seek her no more,” Frédéric suggested crisply. “Find a good doctor, perhaps.”
Maurice ignored him. “But surely the king and queen…I mean…well, the whole point of this place is that it’s safe, and different, and…”
“The king and queen are doing nothing about it,” Alaric said with a sigh. “Just like they are doing nothing about the salt scarcity and the trade embargo with Guerende. Perhaps they feel threatened, ever since they lost a couple of guards to errant spells. Or maybe they’re lazy and just don’t care. I’m not really sure what they do up in their towers all day. Guess I’ll find out. They certainly don’t take their precious stallions out enough for exercise.” He brightened suddenly. “Which reminds me! I have great news! Drinks are on me tonight, old friend!”
“What’s the occasion?” Maurice asked, cautiously hopeful for something to offset the gloom of the day.
Frédéric gave a thin smile. “You are looking at the new Master of the Royal Stables. Bow, as is only appropriate—but do not breathe in, for the aura of horse is hard to avoid.”
“And it’s all thanks to this chap here,” Alaric said, toasting his drink rather sloshily at the doctor. “He put in a good word for me to the king himself!”
Maurice smiled and shook Alaric’s hand formally but heartily.
“Marvelous news, Alaric! You’re moving up in the world!”
“Oh, in more ways than one,” the groomsman said with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. “There’s a head maid there in the castle, soon to be the housekeeper…”
Frédéric rolled his eyes. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
“And you? Any good news in your life?” Maurice pressed.
Frédéric’s dour face looked strangely, timidly pleased.
“As a matter of fact, yes. The king and queen, still impressed with my
ability to cure their son—utter hogwash, by the way—have given me my own facility for research. It’s all hush-hush, but trust me when I say the freedom I have is more than I ever thought possible going to a traditional college….Let us leave it with the fact that I am able to practice my skills in surgery at leisure, in cutting out that which is too infected to save. I may even be able to cure…myself, someday.”
Alaric and Maurice exchanged a look and a shudder.
“The downside is that it’s all the way out near that boring little village on the other side of the river,” the groomsman said quickly, trying to change the subject.
“We will never see you anymore,” the inventor protested.
“I am not disappearing off the planet,” Frédéric said primly, though obviously pleased that someone cared enough to miss him. “I came today specifically to see you and congratulate you on your wife’s pregnancy.”
“Thank you kindly, Monsieur Doctor!” Maurice said with a little bow. “Have you had any visions about my baby girl? Can you tell me her future?”
Frédéric looked away. “It does not work like that, and I do not encourage their…coming to me. Frankly, the very fact that you know your baby’s sex is disturbing.”
Alaric flushed at the word sex. Maurice just sighed and shook his head at his friends. It was strange to think of them as possible uncles to his little daughter. Well, maybe she could learn something from them at least—the skills of a physician, perhaps some basic horsemanship….
Belle ran to Phillipe, carefully staying out of the way of his hooves. She tried to keep from panicking but the big horse’s fear was infectious. Usually nothing could spook the staid, untroubled beast. He was from an ancient line of war mounts who were bred for size, stamina, and most of all calm in the midst of battle.
Phillipe had also spent most of his life around Maurice’s often exploding inventions. Almost nothing could distract him from a nice patch of clover or a nap.
But now he bucked and snorted and rolled his eyes like a pack of wolves was after him.
“Where is Papa, Phillipe? Did you make it to the fair? What happened?”
The log-splitting device seemed to be more or less altogether on the cart, though some of the more delicate pieces were missing. Had it been a robbery, the thieves would have likely taken whatever seemed precious, including the thing’s grill, which gleamed gold. Belle carefully disengaged the cart and pushed it aside, still holding the reins.
“You’ve got to take me to him, Phillipe,” she said, throwing herself up on the big horse’s back. She pulled his bit firmly, forcing his enormous head back around toward the forest.
Phillipe resisted at first, trying to yank his neck out of the old rope. When he finally gave in, it was with a weary chuff—as if even he knew they needed to go back for Maurice.
Belle had only been on the road through the forest once or twice, and never alone and never that far. Although instinctively she started to direct Phillipe to the left, where the path divided and eventually led to the next town, the horse snorted and pulled to the right, down an ancient, overgrown road that obviously led to places less visited.
The storm had already lent an eerie darkness to the end of the day. That, coupled with the thick, almost monstrously exuberant foliage around them, left the path unnaturally shadowed. Little white moths that should have waited until much later to emerge from their daytime sleeping spots flapped around Belle’s face like it was a lantern they were drawn to. Strange, nearly invisible insects made very different noises from their cousins in the fields or carefully cultivated orchards of the village. Dry leaves crackled in the underbrush, disturbed by things Belle couldn’t see.
She found herself, very much against her will, thinking about how useful it would be to have someone like Gaston along with her on this quest.
Or, actually, someone else with a gun. Anyone else, really.
Minutes played out into what seemed like hours on the lonely black path. Belle’s initial excitement and adrenaline rush were worn down by time and the lack of anything imminently dangerous. The forest was sinister, nothing more.
Her fear for her father grew, however; there was no sign of him at all aside from the occasional cart track that revealed itself in a sandy bank or thick wedge of mud.
Slowly the land began to change around them: the ground rose up steeply on either side of the path, making a ravine that widened out into a small valley. Whatever was left of the sky was obscured by high, sharp hills and black pines. Thick and thorny plants clustered unnaturally at the squat, square roots of trees.
Wait. Square?
Belle gasped as she realized that what she had mistaken for particularly unnatural growth were the ruins of old buildings. She stopped paying attention to where Phillipe was headed and tried to distinguish outlines and patterns in the stones and bricks. The vines that covered them weren’t thick; certainly not more than fifty or a hundred years old. But Belle had never heard of a village this far into the forest and no one in town had ever mentioned it.
“What is this place?” she murmured.
Phillipe stopped, huffing nervously. They were in front of a massive rusted iron gate that hung a little open—but it was not so far decayed that it fell off its hinges. The gap was just wide enough to fit through.
Phillipe pawed the ground with his hoof and snorted.
He would not be going in.
Belle took a deep breath and dismounted. She gave his warm, comforting flank a pat and regretfully left him behind. Then she slipped through the crack in the gate, unwilling to make it squeal by trying to open it farther.
Beyond was a twilit courtyard: wide and gray with a dry and dusty three-tiered fountain in the middle. The whole scene possessed but one splat of color: a dirty mustard-yellow sun hat that lay discarded on the ground.
“Papa!” Belle cried, rushing over and picking it up. There was no other sign of her father—of anyone, really—and no footprints on the cobblestones. She looked around, up at the main building, and started at what she saw.
No inn or hunting retreat this; what she had thought was the entrance to a mews was the base of what appeared to be a small but perfectly preserved castle.
In the gloom it was hard to see the whole thing, but there were shadows of turrets, towers, parapets, and delicate roofs with merlons and crenels too slim and decorative to be of any real use.
Belle frowned. While she hadn’t traveled the world or gone on “The Grand Tour,” she had read enough to know that this wasn’t an ancient castle. It was too tiny, too perfect, and too battlement-free to be from the dark times of yore when neighboring kingdoms often battled each other.
It wasn’t unreasonable to imagine her father, having noticed the mysterious ruins, deciding on a whim to investigate them. Like Don Quixote and his golden helmet of Mambrino, she thought, looking at his yellow hat. Off on a silly quest.
That idea and the notion that he was somewhere on the grounds gave her courage.
“Papa?” she called, slipping through the giant iron-banded—and strangely unlocked—front door.
The abandoned building was almost pitch-dark, of course.
“Papa?”
Her voice quickly echoed back at her off tapestry-covered walls and furniture and statues that she could barely see…statues with seemingly dead eyes, claws, and fangs.
Did she hear footsteps up ahead, pattering and quick?
Was that the golden glint of a lantern, shining briefly off a slick, cold mirror?
“Hello? Papa?”
Unsure it was the right thing to do, she hurried after it.
The carpet under her feet was cold but soft and mostly unworn. The columned loggias beyond the foyer were unlike anything Belle had ever seen in person; she had only sighed over pictures of them in books about warm foreign countries. Suits of armor, alabaster urns, and enormous ancient paintings decorated every possible inch.
Not paying attention at all to her feet or where she was going, Belle
almost tripped over the giant formal staircase that led up to the mezzanine.
There it was again—the slightest tap against the floor. Normally she wouldn’t have said her father was delicate or light-footed, but noises echoed strangely in the castle….
And there was no one else there…right?
Thieves, she told herself quite reasonably, and highwaymen—they would have accosted me already.
Right?
They would have already grabbed her and divested her of…whatever it was they wanted from her. She had been yelling; they would know where she was.
She climbed up through the castle, heading toward where she thought the sounds were coming from. The walls grew closer and the stairways became narrower until finally the steps began to spiral steeply and she had to stoop. I’m probably in one of the towers, she thought. The air was colder and damper here, and the cobwebs thicker.
She unconsciously put her hand to her neck, forgetting for a moment that she hadn’t brought her cloak and therefore couldn’t clasp it any closer.
“Papa?”
A niche in the wall was lit by the happy glow of a little candelabrum, which should have cheered Belle. Instead it only made her shiver—who lit it? And left it there? Wouldn’t her father have taken it with him?
More pitter-patter. The slide of something wooden against an uncarpeted floor.
“Hello?” she called out, trying to make her voice, at least, seem brave. “Is anyone there? I’m looking for my father! Please…?”
“…Belle?”
Her heart leapt as her father’s voice echoed weakly through the stone halls.
“PAPA!”
She ran down a bleak corridor whose dire accoutrements hinted at the cruel purpose of this place: iron manacles and rotting, long-unused stocks. Ringing the room were a number of identical doors that were heavily banded and locked.
A single torch flickered in a sconce next to the first one and Belle hurried toward it.
“Papa!” she cried.