by Liz Braswell
She remained lying down but opened her eyes a crack. Fortunately, nothing moved on the wall, not even a spider.
“Miss?” the voice persisted.
“Young lady?
“Dinner…?”
Eventually he went away.
Castles, even more modern ones, didn’t creak like houses. Or at least this one didn’t. Wind picked up for a moment outside; she could hear it past the very expensive glazing in the windows. But nothing squeaked or rocked or shifted. Solid.
The silence was absolute.
Belle might have drifted off to sleep; it was hard to keep track between the hush of the shadows, her tears, her hunger and—if she fully admitted it—fear. She lay on her side like a lumpy, sick child. Just like the time Maurice tried to get her to go out and play with the three little girls he had rounded up as companions for her. She hadn’t needed companions. She had him. And her books. That was all she ever needed.
“They’re meanies,” she had insisted with a pout. She could hear her father making stuttering, muffled apologies in the kitchen, either to the girls or to their mother.
“You just need to get to know them,” Maurice had said brightly, coming into her room to get her. “It’s human nature to avoid what’s new….Maybe they just need to get to know you…to see that you’re no meanie…yourself.”
“You don’t have friends,” Belle pointed out.
“Well, I’m too busy now. But I had some…rather odd friends once,” Maurice said. “Can’t for the life of me remember their names…or what they looked like…Ah, well. A lifetime ago. But the point is we got to know each other and became thick as thieves. The scariest, most frightening person can turn out to be quite a lovely character…if you give him time.”
Young Belle sat up, considering this. There was that one time Gaston had bumped her into the puddle…and Paulette had let her borrow her hankie to get the worst mud spots off. Maybe there had even been a flicker of sympathy in the girl’s eyes.
She took a deep breath and wiped her face. She opened her mouth to call out to the other little girls—
“We don’t want to be friends with her anyway,” came the unexpected chirp of a voice. Probably Laurette’s. “We’re just here because Mama and le prêtre said to. For charity.”
Belle threw herself back down onto her bed with a solid finality.
“I DON’T WANT FRIENDS.”
Trying not to weep at the other girl’s callous statement, she pulled out her latest book and deliberately and firmly turned to the last page she had read, the one right before the picture of the galleon being tossed about in the waves.
A quick pitter-patter of six feet sounded in the next room, away into the outside world. The girls were gone, free to enjoy the day as they chose, which probably meant avoiding the sunshine so they wouldn’t ruin their creamy complexions.
Belle’s father sighed and sat down heavily at the edge of her bed. He smiled when he saw what book she was reading and shook his head.
“Belle, girl, you can’t find real adventures that way. You have to go out into the world…you have to meet people…”
“You don’t,” she protested.
“I did when I was younger,” he said gently. “That’s how I met your mother. True love doesn’t just fall into your lap. You have to go out and find your other half.”
“But your…my…she fell out of your lap. She just kept going.”
Maurice blinked, obviously surprised by this pithy, intelligent observation from his daughter. Then he put his arms around her and pulled her until she was sitting in his lap like a much younger girl. She didn’t resist, snuggling into him.
“You can’t have adventures without risk. You can’t have great things if you constantly fear loss. And I am a much, much better person because of your mother. If nothing else, she gave me you.”
He kissed her on the forehead and hugged her tight.
“Oh, Belle, what are we going to do with you, my little dreamer?”
Adult Belle shifted uncomfortably on the bed and shed a few more tears at this memory. She was finally having her adventure—and it had cost her everything: her father, her home, her books, her life. It was too much.
She was shaken out of her reveries by a loud banging on the door. Thundering, really; the whole thing shook. A lesser door would have been torn off its hinges.
Of course it was the Beast this time.
“I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO COME DOWN TO DINNER!”
“I’M NOT HUNGRY!” she screamed back, rage billowing out of her more forcefully than she had imagined possible. Thinking of the triplets and their behavior hadn’t improved her mood.
“YOU’LL COME OUT OR…I’LL BREAK DOWN THE DOOR!”
“HUFF AND PUFF ALL YOU LIKE, YOU MONSTROUS WOLF!” she spat. “GO RIGHT AHEAD! IT’S YOUR CASTLE, AFTER ALL. DO WHATEVER YOU WANT WITH IT. I’M JUST YOUR PRISONER!”
There was a pause. She thought she heard voices in the corridor besides the Beast’s own, entreating him.
“willyoucomedowntodinner?” the Beast finally muttered.
“NO!”
“It would…give me…great pleasure…if you…would…join me…for dinner. PLEASE.”
“No. Thank you,” Belle replied just as formally and twice as icily.
“YOU CAN’T STAY IN THERE FOREVER!” the Beast roared.
“JUST WATCH ME!” Belle spat back.
“FINE! THEN GO AHEAD AND STARVE!”
“I ALREADY PLANNED TO!”
The Beast let out a wordless snarl. He made no noise leaving, no stomping off. Much like the now-still wardrobe, there was just the utter silence of an absence of presence.
Maurice hadn’t thought it possible to fall in love with another human even more than he had with his dear wife…and yet he had to be forcefully persuaded to give up tiny infant Belle when it was time to feed her. He handed her over reluctantly, utterly taken by twinkling topaz eyes and chubby pink cheeks.
Her mother loved her differently: with a fierceness that grew warier as the days drew on.
Smoke from arson fire was a more than occasional sight first thing in the morning, and always of a charmante business or house. It was not safe for charmantes to walk the streets alone at night now; disappearances were becoming more common, and their bodies rarely showed up.
It was hard to say which was more frightening, the growing list of the missing—or the utter mystery of how it was done.
The fever that had taken out several towns to the north had finally reached the little kingdom; the king and queen did close the borders, but perhaps too late. And so the place seemed more claustrophobic and inescapable—and at the same time frailer, like it was slowly diminishing from the inside out. Vanishing, along with les charmantes.
Far fewer friends than Rosalind would have liked came by for Belle’s christening—not even any of her old nemeses who might have jokingly cursed the baby with a penchant for hating carrots or a tendency to sneeze when suddenly exposed to sunlight.
“There were supposed to be seven of us here,” Rosalind fretted, rocking little Belle protectively in her arms. “Seven to weave the charms to keep the baby safe. It has always been thus.”
“I am only still here because of you, and the baby and the celebration today,” Adelise the faun said. She crossed and uncrossed her goat’s legs, stretching them out after taking off the giant boots she now felt inclined to wear around town. “When we say farewell tonight, I shall depart for islands south of here, to join my cousins in the Summer Lands—if they still even live. Rosalind, you are not being kind. Your friends would come if they could. Some cannot because they cannot.”
Her gift was an acorn blessed to grow quickly into a tree that would protect the new family. Rosalind had it in her fingers and was rolling it anxiously.
“I’m going to stay,” Bernard said. There was nothing outwardly charming about him—at least literally. He had to hunch over to fit in the house, and squeeze his arms around his knees to fit in
the circle of friends. “My family has been here for centuries. We have always been peaceful. Surely people will remember that. It will all pass. It always does…this sort of foolishness.”
His gift was a plain-looking stone that would guarantee the help of the earth for whatever the family endeavored, wherever they buried it.
“Yes? And what about the fever everyone is coming down with in the eastern quarter?” Adelise demanded. “How soon is it going to be before someone blames a witch for cursing the kingdom, or a goodwife for cooking it up in her cauldron, or a dryad in return for something a woodcutter’s done? Leave now, I say, before the quarantine is fully in place and you cannot.”
“If we turn the cheek, as it were, and cooperate…and show we are as good and loyal citizens as everyone else, we’ll be fine.”
“Cooperate?” Monsieur Lévi laughed. “Perhaps if by ‘cooperate’ you mean politely stick our heads out for the peasants to bludgeon….No, my dears. This is why I moved my own bookshop to the village beyond the woods, near the river.”
His gift was a pretty picture book whose brightly painted images seemed to move whenever you weren’t looking straight at them. And perhaps its stories didn’t always end the same way.
Rosalind spun to look at him. “I thought you were going to the New World.”
“Well.” He took off the little moon-shaped spectacles he now always wore and polished the lenses carefully on his shirt. When he put them back on, he looked meaningfully at the baby. “Since you named me godfather, I figure it would be best if I stuck around long enough to see her grow up…in the neighborhood, at least.”
Rosalind sat down but continued to move nervously, dandling Belle on her lap. The baby clapped her hands as a large pink butterfly appeared, its languorous and unlikely wings propelling it in slow circles around her head.
Maurice was refilling everyone’s teacups and cordial glasses in the kitchen and listened carefully to everything.
“I don’t want to leave,” his wife said. “I love it here. I love the people, I love—”
“The people you love are gone,” Lévi said bluntly. “Everyone else is either looking the other way or helping to harass the remaining charmantes. The countrymen out where I have moved may be uneducated farmers who have their own prejudices, but they certainly haven’t locked anyone up over it yet. They’re sane, if boring, naturels. No disrespect, Alaric.”
The groomsman shrugged. “There is no such thing as different kinds of people—except for the good ones and the bad ones. And the bad ones do seem to have the upper hand these days.”
His gift was a perfectly forged horseshoe, to hang above the door to Belle’s room for luck.
The door jangled open; a twitchy and nervous Frédéric fell rather than walked in, like a scarecrow looking for shelter.
“Sorry I’m late,” he mumbled. His attire was, as always, perfect; his hair back in a neat, unshowy ponytail tied with a sober black ribbon.
“Frédéric!” Maurice cried delightedly, coming in and clapping his friend on the shoulders. “I thought you weren’t going to make it!”
Frédéric gave a thin smile at his reception, both embarrassed and pleased by it. Then he looked around at the room and his face went pale.
“You were going to weave a charm with this as one of the seven?” Adelise whispered dramatically to Rosalind.
“Weave a charm?” Frédéric demanded, horrified. “What is this? What are you doing? I never agreed to be part of any…magic….”
“And what do you have against magic?” Adelise said, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. “I thought—besides actually being a charmante yourself—you were educated, unlike the ignorant pig-people who are running around like thugs, murdering everyone!”
“Now, now, settle down, everyone,” Maurice interrupted, standing between them. “This is a christening celebration. That is all, as far as you are concerned, Frédéric. Can we please just drop it, for a few moments? For Belle?”
Guiltily all the grown-ups turned their regard to the baby. She had passed out despite all the noise and slept with a perfectly peaceful face against her mother’s breast.
“I have a gift,” Frédéric said awkwardly in the silence that followed. He held out his hand. It clutched an expensive, delicate-looking little toy carriage.
Even Bernard the ogre looked skeptical.
“She’s a baby,” he said in his deep, rumbly voice. “She could eat that.”
“We’ll keep it for when she’s older, really, a lovely gift,” Maurice said quickly, taking it and obviously admiring the workmanship.
“I, uh, also used my own accursed…‘gift,’” Frédéric admitted. “For the last time…before I remove it. I have discovered a cure! But more on that later. I called forth a vision…for you.”
Everyone in the room looked at him in surprise.
“Thank you…” Maurice said in wonder. “But…why?”
“Because you’re a friend. And because she is innocent.” He pointed at the sleeping baby with one long, skinny finger.
“And what do you mean by innocent, Monsieur?” Adelise demanded with thinly veiled disgust.
“You know precisely what I mean,” Frédéric said. “The child has no powers whatsoever. She is pure.”
“Pure? You…”
But as Adelise started forward, Bernard put a gentle, giant hand on her foot.
“Please listen. I saw her future—you have to go, Rosalind,” Frédéric said bluntly. “Listen to your friends. Get out. The fever will spread. No one will be able to leave because of the quarantine. Things will…get out of control. They will look for someone to blame. They will come here. You should never have revealed yourself to the king and queen. That was a foolish move.”
“I had to stand up for my people!”
“YOUR PEOPLE,” Frédéric said sarcastically. “Your sick, diseased versions of true humanity? Your community of supernatural lepers?”
“That’s enough, Frédéric!” Alaric swore, standing up. “I am ‘pure’ and have never felt threatened by les charmantes. And they are your people, too, do not forget. They will come after you just like everyone else, no matter how much you wheedle and whine to join their ranks—or try to treat yourself with sulfurs and bloodletting.”
“You have seen this?” Rosalind demanded of the doctor, ignoring everything else.
“Yes,” he said without taking his eyes off Alaric, whose hand had started to go to his belt. “You and the baby will be trampled escaping a riot. Maurice will be beaten nearly to death and lose his sight.”
He tried to speak as coldly as he always did, but there was a catch in his throat.
“Even if you left now, there is no guarantee of your safety, Rosalind,” he added quietly. “Only Maurice and the baby. Things get…hazy as the future opens up and paths multiply, but you cannot entirely escape your fate.”
Everyone in the room was silent for a moment.
“You did your best, Enchantress,” Adelise said gently, putting a hand on her arm. “You always have. But the war, I think, is over, and our time in this place is done. Your priority now is raising that child, safe and free and made to understand that things like we seem to be enduring are not right—and shouldn’t be. And should never happen again.”
“We should stay. And fight…” Rosalind half-asked, half-said to Maurice.
“Then you will lose,” Frédéric said simply. “Everything.”
Belle refused to give in to hunger.
But when she had slept and cried as much as her body could stand, her mind grew hungry.
All your life you have been waiting for adventure, it said. And now that adventures have found you—you’re just lying around?
If Belle closed her eyes and curled into a fetal position, she could pretend she was in her own bed, back home.
This is dumb, her inner voice persisted. Lying in this—albeit ridiculously comfy and beautiful—bed when you’re in a castle with talking teapots and wardrob
es who gossip. Did Gulliver do this when a prisoner at the Brobdingnagian court? Just sulk and lie around? No, he enjoyed the adventure while doing whatever he could to get home!
Belle sniffed one last time and realized her mind was right. She was acting like a baby.
She had given her word she would stay here forever.
But what, precisely, was “here?”
Certainly not the cell—he had led her out of it.
Certainly not this room; he expected her to go to dinner.
So…
She took a deep breath and rose from the bed as quietly as she could. The wardrobe did nothing; it didn’t speak, it didn’t bend its wood in strange and elastic ways imitating human movement, it didn’t so much as creak. Perhaps it was asleep or hibernating or doing whatever talking furniture did when it wasn’t talking.
Belle quickly smoothed out her dress and pushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. Then, with gentle, stealthy moves, she tiptoed over to the door and let herself out.
Where to go first?
The teapot. Find her and see if she will talk to me.
Belle frowned thoughtfully. In smaller manses the kitchens were often in the back of the main building so the heat wouldn’t suffocate everyone in the summer. She decided to just head that way and descend any staircases she found.
The rich carpets on the floor seemed mostly clean but still puffed up little clouds of dust every ninth or tenth tiptoe. She put her finger out on the handrail as she went down the smooth, potentially deadly stone steps—and her fingertip came back a little gray. What a beautiful place this could have been, cleaned and polished, the sconces filled with beeswax candles.
Belle’s mind populated the castle with royalty from all the eras she could imagine:
Recent ones with great powdered wigs and hats in the shapes of fanciful things like ships, great skirts that billowed out, ugly garish makeup on the faces of those who gossiped behind embroidered silk fans.