by Liz Braswell
Maurice let out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding, the buzzing in his ears so loud he forgot his manners and didn’t wish them a good day. Rosalind squeezed her baby tightly.
“Magic always comes back on itself,” Rosalind whispered.
“And also kindness,” Maurice pointed out.
So the little family rolled quietly out of the forest and into their new life. Belle sat on her mother’s lap, reaching for the tiny white moths that fluttered at the periphery of light and dark where the sun just began to meet the forest floor. Hours passed in contemplative silence for all three of them.
Maurice felt some of the weight he had been bearing lift away as they crossed the bridge over the river and into the little village. They were running away, yes, but it was to a new beginning. Their house was a nice, sunny little place on the outskirts of town where the fumes and noises from his inventions wouldn’t bother anyone—and the occasional showy spell wouldn’t be seen. Rosalind would, for now at least, doff the role of enchantress and confine most of her magic to plants and research. Until the world was safe again.
The first moonless night they spent there she paced out a new garden and circled it three times widdershins, chanting. She also planted the magic acorn and ancient pebble, singing to them as she did. Maurice held the baby in his lap and had her look on, wondering if his daughter would pick up some of the magic, despite the fact that, as Frédéric had accurately deduced, she was not a charmante.
The next day, under the full sun where everyone could see, Rosalind began planting normal things. Roses, herbs, and even more roses.
Maurice rigged up a wheel in the nearby stream to pump water into the house and the new garden. He mounted a small windmill to the top of the roof and ran belts to various things in the kitchen; the roasting spit and a mechanical spoon over the stove, for instance, to ease their household tasks now that magic had to be hidden.
The little family went into the village proper as often as they could to visit their old friend Monsieur Lévi. He loved his little goddaughter Belle and played with her and made her laugh and gave her all sorts of treats: books and pretty mirrors and tiny kaleidoscopes. But Maurice and Rosalind tended to restrict their visits to market days when there was so much else going on they wouldn’t attract much notice, when gossip about everyone flowed as freely as the cidre.
Alaric was one of the few friends from their old life who ever visited, using “trying one of the horses out” as an excuse to make the half-day journey to the village over the river, breaking the quarantine with the king’s permission.
Whenever he came it was a happy time for all. Maurice and Rosalind stuffed him with wine and cheese and pulled their chairs close to hear news about the kingdom they had exiled themselves from. It was mostly bleak tidings, however; fever had established a firm grip in the poorer sections of town, and those few who could have done something about it—les charmantes, witches, and the like—were missing.
But the stablemaster had also wed his merry housekeeper, and that was cause for some joy. He showed the little family a miniature he kept of her in his pocket, next to his journal, and swore they would all celebrate together properly one day.
And then one day Alaric showed up at night, long after Belle had been put to bed.
There was a rider behind him on the horse, a small, terrified-looking woman-thing with eyes that were all black, even the whites, and long, folded-over green ears that spoke of goblin lineage.
“Ah,” Alaric said uneasily to Maurice and Rosalind, who came to the door in their dressing gowns, “a thousand pardons for the interruption of your evening….I was wondering…maybe you could give my friend here a night’s stay…and maybe a loaf of bread to start her on her way in the morning?”
“Of course,” Rosalind said, glancing uneasily over to her daughter’s room to make sure she was asleep. “Any friend of yours is a friend of ours.”
“But why?” Maurice asked, oblivious as always to the finer nuances of emotion in the air: his old friend’s barely concealed nervousness, the obviousness of deep night outside, the hastily thrown-on aspect of the woman’s clothes: it looked like she wore everything she owned, all at once. “What’s wrong?”
“They come for me,” the woman rasped in the hissing, guttural tone of a goblin. “Thona saw them. A pair of men, all in black, with masks and whatnot. Coming for me in silence like the dead.”
Alaric nodded grimly. “I found her hiding with a rat—uh, Thona—in my stables. It seems as if whoever is targeting les charmantes is getting sneakier. Just clubbing them over the heads or whatever and dragging them off in the middle of the night. And no one’s finding the bodies.”
“Like ghosts, they are, and God knows what happens to them that gets taken,” the woman said, shivering,
Alaric gave her a pitying look. “She had to get out—it wasn’t safe for her to stay. And with the quarantine, no one can leave now. Legally. So…”
“Oh, my goodness, you poor thing,” Rosalind said with a sad shake of her head. “Why don’t you go on inside, wash your hands and face. We’ll get you a blanket and some hot tea in a moment.”
The woman pushed past them into the warmth without a thank-you—that was not the goblin way—but then turned and looked back for one piteous moment, her black eyes wide and begging as if her hosts could do something.
“I lived there all my life. I sold swamp herbs. Good, honest swamp herbs. Wild begonia for colds and moss for packing into wounds. I never did black magic or poison arts. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows old Jenny!”
Then she hobbled in through the door, coughing back tears—crying, which was the human way.
“…And then the problem was obviously that the main keep had grown too organically from its medieval origins, and so the symmetry needed for a true baroque makeover was impossible. I speak, of course, of the high middle-gate and flanking annexes you see elsewhere, as in Mansart’s Chateau de Maisons….”
Lumière was hopping ahead to light the way, obviously bored by the direction the tour was taking. Belle was interested; she had read all about Mansart and dreamed of seeing his palaces in Versailles. But Cogsworth’s stories were also strangely banal. Here was a talking clock, for heaven’s sake. And everything he was telling her seemed straight out of a normal history book. There was nothing about evil wizards, angry gods, or why the castle was the way it was: enchanted and forgotten.
“All of these weapons and armor don’t seem to be very baroque,” she interrupted gently, waving her hand at a pair of crossed battle-axes on the wall. The hall they were in definitely had a medieval slant; tarnished suits of armor lined each side and she was pretty sure she heard them squeaking despite their apparent stillness.
“Ah, yes, well, you can never entirely strip the gothic influence from the French,” Cogsworth said proudly. “We’re not ashamed of our heritage.”
Belle pretended to ignore the suits of armor as she passed, which were now quite obviously turning to watch her. She felt less threatened by their martial stance than unnerved by their attention. It was like the first market day after she had developed a figure. That was the moment the tone of the villagers’ gossip about her had changed: from look at that strange little child to what a waste looks like that are on one like her.
“AS YOU WERE!” Cogsworth snapped at the armor, seeing her distress.
Immediately, with dozens of identical clacks, the suits resumed their original watchful positions.
They entered a wide foyer but walked right by a grand marble staircase that was an exact duplicate of the one that led to the wing where Belle’s room was.
“What’s up there?” she asked.
“Oh, uh, nothing important,” Lumière said quickly. “Nothing to interest Mademoiselle…and all the…uh…stairs…”
Aha.
“Ohhhh. Stairs. My goodness. So tiring for a delicate girl like me. So…if there’s nothing there, then it doesn’t matter if we go see or not,” she said
, turning to go up.
“NO!” Cogsworth stuttered, running forward. “The West Wing is utterly boring. Nothing up there to interest you!”
Lumière whacked his friend with the brass end of one of his hands.
“So,” Belle said, hesitating a moment with relish. “This is the forbidden West Wing.”
“What he meant was…we have so many other places to go first,” Lumière amended quickly. “The gardens, for instance.”
“Too cold,” Belle said, continuing to move forward.
“The armory?” Cogsworth said hopefully. “The orangerie?”
“Too spooky. Too late,” Belle said, not turning back.
“What about…the library?”
Belle whirled around. Somehow Lumière managed a look of pleased satisfaction in his flames.
“Library…?” she asked slowly.
“Oh, yes, the Master has so many books,” the little candelabrum drawled.
“Yes, yes!” Cogsworth said, leaping forward to stand next to his friend. So close, Belle saw distractedly, she was surprised he didn’t catch fire. “Rooms and rooms of them!”
“Really?” she asked despite herself.
Rooms of books.
When other children dreamed of mansions with fountains and big silky beds and servants to do their bidding, this was what Belle dreamed about. The money to buy all the books she ever wanted from all over the world—and a place to keep them.
“Yes, yes, yes, come,” Cogsworth said. “You can spend the whole night there if you want. Biographies, histories, twelve different translations of the Bible, romantic adventures….”
It was tempting.
But the library would be there tomorrow. She had forever, right?
These little guys were trying to hide something. Just like they tried to hide whatever had happened ten years before…She just knew all of the answers she sought would be revealed upstairs.
Including why I have never heard of this castle and kingdom…And who is the Beast? How did he come to rule all of these inanimate objects? Where are all the actual people who should be living here? On what grounds is it considered acceptable to throw a harmless old man and his daughter into prison…?
…And why did no one want her going into the West Wing?
She started climbing the stairs again.
Lumière looked stricken. “Please, don’t go…the Master asked…”
“I only gave my word to stay. Nothing else,” Belle repeated firmly.
Nothing would stop her from satisfying her curiosity about the most interesting thing that had ever happened to her.
In the sleepy little village, Maurice kept improving his inventions, and Rosalind refined her bespelled roses—all the while both were learning how to properly feed (and butcher) their chickens, milk the goats, tend the bees, and other new and unfamiliar chores of country life.
Belle grew, reading voraciously, running around barefoot, watching the clouds and dreaming of a life beyond the fields and the plants; the days so similar they all seemed rolled into one.
Meanwhile, in their old kingdom, the fever redoubled its strength and began to spread faster, just like the plague had in horrible days long before. It utterly destroyed the population; young or old, rich or poor, man or woman—it didn’t matter. People were dying like rats in the town below while the king and queen hid themselves in their high castle and barricaded their doors against potential contagion. No one was allowed in or out, including the servants…and therefore Alaric.
But the village where Rosalind and Maurice and Belle lived seemed strangely unaffected by the disease rampaging around them. Perhaps it was because of the other town’s closed borders and quarantine.
Or perhaps it was because of Rosalind’s wards. Or a certain quick-growing oak tree. Or the special broth made by another relocated goodwitch.
Whatever the reason, not a single person west of the river was affected. Nor were the other villages that received the fleeing charmantes.
And then, late one dire, rainy night, long after Belle was put to bed a third time after trying to read under her covers with a jar of fireflies, there was a knock on the door.
Rosalind and Maurice looked at each other once and leapt up, expecting to see their dear old friend again.
Instead, an unknown person stood hunched over in the cold, a pale and milky moon making his tired eyes seem even more sunken.
“You are to come to the castle. At once. The king and queen would see you.”
“We are no longer citizens of that fair kingdom,” Rosalind said with a barely contained snarl. “We do not need to obey any demands or requests of the rulers there. They hold my allegiance no longer.”
Maurice put his hands lightly on her shoulders, curiosity always stronger in him than outrage. “What do they want?”
The man sighed. “The disease which ravages the countryside is now inside the castle walls, killing royalty and servants alike.”
“I don’t…” But Rosalind trailed off whatever she was going to say. Her anger deflated in the face of needless death, and the worry in the messenger’s eyes. Perhaps he, too, had a loved one who was sick.
Rosalind looked back at Maurice.
“You should go,” he urged. “People are in trouble. And you can see Alaric once you’re inside the castle! That would be good….”
“All right. My husband is a kinder man than I.” Rosalind was suddenly swirling a warm gray cloak around her neck. “But I shall make my own way there. Just as you must make yours wherever you would go now.”
After she disappeared into the night, Maurice was left, somewhat awkwardly, with the exhausted messenger.
“Can’t have you in,” he said apologetically. “Plague. And all. I could…get you a cup of tea? Which you could take. With you. As a…souvenir?”
The castle was very different from the last time Rosalind had been there. Lights were dim and servants kept to the shadows; the deep chanting of priests echoed in the corridors. There was so much incense clouding the air she almost couldn’t breathe.
The king and queen were on their thrones, looking tired. The boy prince was nowhere to be seen.
“Enchantress,” the queen said, her voice a little scratchy but otherwise as firm as ever. “You are forgiven for the high crime of breaking quarantine. In return, we would ask you use what powers you possess to secure the safety and health of our royal selves and the castle.”
Rosalind blinked.
“What?” she asked, for once in her life at a loss for words.
“The queen stated it quite clearly,” the king snapped. “We have out of the graciousness of our hearts cleared you of illegally crossing the border to fly like a coward from our kingdom in distress. In gratitude, perhaps, you will…fix…this….” He waved a hand vaguely around the room, trailing a handkerchief that no longer smelled of perfume and flowers but of salts and bitter medicines in hopes of warding off the plague.
“I am not a criminal,” Rosalind stated as calmly as she could. “I fled this…nightmare of a place and live in a new one now, where no one smears insults on my door and my neighbors don’t just disappear without investigation because of their background. You can forgive me of imaginary crimes or not as you like. I have no desire to come back here ever again, and your words are meaningless. Go fetch yourself a doctor and be done with it.”
“The…doctors…who remain…have been unable to affect any cure or treatment,” the king added, choosing his words carefully. “Frédéric is apparently a gifted surgeon but a terrible healer.”
“All who could have helped you have disappeared or been forced into exile,” Rosalind hissed. “If one were more religious-minded, one would think God had brought this down on you to punish you for your sins.”
“I am a king,” the king said, his arrogance returning. “God alone may judge me.”
The queen waved her hand at him. “If you must blame us—do so. But help us. We beg you to save what is left of us…what is left of the
castle.”
“Never,” Rosalind spat. “The last free country of les charmantes is gone because of the atrocities perpetrated while you looked on without so much as lifting a finger….I will never help you.”
The room was silent, though because all within it were stunned or just weary, it was hard to tell.
“We ordered you here for a spell, not a lecture,” the king finally said with a sniff. “Do not try to debate morality with us you base creature.”
Rosalind spun around and began to walk out.
“Wait!” the queen leapt up. “My son. I have a…son. You have a daughter. I don’t—I don’t care what happens to the rest of the kingdom. I don’t care what happens to us. But please…he is truly innocent of anything we’ve ever done….”
Rosalind spun back. “Innocent? MY DAUGHTER was at risk in your kingdom because her mother is one of les charmantes…. And you think your son should be safe because you are a queen?”
“Please,” was all the queen said, her eyes lowered.
The king looked away and said nothing.
“I shall consider it,” Rosalind said coldly. “While I am here, considering it, I wish to see your stablemaster. He is an old friend of my husband’s.”
“Who?” the king asked, sounding utterly uninterested.
“Your stablemaster. Alaric Potts. We haven’t seen him since you barricaded your gates and hid yourself in the castle with your trusted servants, forbidding them to leave.”
“Oh. The horse fellow. He’s gone,” the king said, rolling his eyes. “Disappeared. Just up and left when things grew tough, I assume. Ran away from his family and the quarantine.”
“If he’s dead, it isn’t of the plague; they haven’t found his body,” the queen added. “I almost hope he is dead. The Prince has been utterly inconsolable without his daily ride. All he does is cry about his horse. Servants never consider the consequences of their actions—how it affects others.”
“Alaric. Potts. Would never. Just. Run. Away.”
A wind of rage and agony built inside of Rosalind, threatening to tear her and everything in the room apart.