Beauty and the Beast

by Deanna Coghlan

  Chapter 1: The Manners of a Prince

  Once there was a Prince. His name was Adam and he wasn’t a very nice child but people usually excused him for it by saying

  “He’ll grow out of it. He is only ten years old and the Prince’s were always such a pleasant family.”

  He was well aware of this allowance and he milked it remorselessly. His parents Mr. and Mrs. Prince had died when he was very small and since he barely remembered them he felt no compunction at using them to achieve whatever ends he desired. He was raised mostly by the servants because his aunt Laura who was supposed to be his godmother preferred to spend her time travelling and hadn’t volunteered for the job in the first place.

  She didn’t even send Adam postcards on his birthday.

  One day it rained quite a lot. This happened from time to time and usually no one really minded it, but today it was the first unfortunate thing in a day that proved to be disastrous for everyone in the Prince household.

  Adam had had his heart set on playing adventures in the woods that day, but the housekeeper Mrs Hughes forbade him from going outside in the wet so instead of burning energy by playing robbers in the woods outside he spent his time sulking around the house and demanding snacks.

  The second unfortunate thing on this dark and rainy day was that the kitchen staff was foolish enough to give him the sweets he demanded. By dinner time he had refused to do any of his school work, set a drapery on fire, knocked over a whole sack of flour in the kitchen pantry, and greased his favorite dog head to toe in butter.

  Dinner was a battle and by the middle of it, they were all more than ready to lock him in his room with no bedtime story and call it a day.

  Adam and Mrs Hughes were locked glare for glare in a battle of wills over a bite of shepherd’s pie when the doorbell rang.

  Of course Adam in his present excited state of mind instantly dashed away from the table to see who was at the door when it was opened.

  The poor spoiled boy was expecting to see someone exciting. Like a pirate or a bandit or a giant. He became extremely ill tempered when it turned out to be only a poor bent draggled old woman. He stuck out his lip and clenched his hands into fists and began to work himself into a really spectacular temper.

  The old woman looked past the angry child in the doorway and asked for a place to spend the night. She said any old corner would do, she simply needed a dry place to lay her head and she would be off in the morning. It was a simple request, humbly made and the butler was opening his mouth to offer her the use of a bedroom in the servants quarters, as the late master of the house undoubtedly would have done when a shrill voice rang out. “NO! She won’t spend the night here!”

  Everyone froze, some in horror, some in pure embarrassment. They looked around and collectively saw him as if for the first time that day, and a pang went through the hearts of all but one as they took him in standing there, small chest puffed out and heaving, brows knit together in a crooked line, the dark circles and glisten of tears under his eyes declaring him to be up past his bedtime.

  Before the butler could form an adequate response to the situation, as he was after all the one most in charge of Adam’s rearing the boy had tried to slam the door on the old woman who sidestepped it more nimbly than anyone present could have expected.

  She looked scornful and offended as she reached under her cloak and brought out a single long stemmed rose, still in bud.

  “I presume you to be the young master of this grand house”

  she said, and her tone was the only thing about her that still seemed humble.

  “I am not asking much and I offer payment to match. This rose will bloom very lovely if you put it in a vase with some water.”

  She held the flower out to Adam and he crossed his arms tightly as he turned his back on her with a flounce.

  Many things happened then very quietly.

  Adam was ashamed of himself for he wasn’t really a bad boy, just a very spoiled one who had had a bad day.

  The butler wished the floor would open up and swallow him, for none of his own children would have done such a thing if their life depended on it.

  The old woman who was a fairy in disguise lost her temper for she had never been treated with more disrespect by anyone in either realm.

  Her eyes narrowed and she stared hard at Adam. His back felt hot and he wished more than anything to be safe in his bed in his own nice cool room.

  “So,” The fairy said coldly “These are the manners of a Prince. I had heard better things about your family.”

  She withdrew the rose and caressed it gently with one finely tapered finger.

  “You have no idea what you have refused, brat. This flower is a luck token, meant for my sister. I was caught in the rain with no shoes and my wings are too wet to carry me home. As your family is known to be hospitable folk and no rowan tree guards your door, I thought perhaps that you would offer me shelter and I intended to give you a bit of good fortune in exchange for the kindness.”

  She stood tall now, and they all saw that her hair was not gray with age, but silvery as moonlight. Her face which had looked so wrinkled and careworn at first was simply streaked with rain. A trick of the light. She was tall, she was slender, and her eyes were hot and proud as she pointed the rose like a wand at Adam and showed her sharp white teeth in a predator’s smile.

  “You are merely a spoiled child, raised by common folk who know no better. If you were prettier and had better manners I would take you home with me to be my pet, but alas I have no taste for fat little boys with mud colored eyes.”

  She pursed her lips and tapped her chin with one long four jointed finger. Then she smiled and it made them all feel cold. This was when they all realized that they were frozen in place. Not one of them could speak or even move enough to make the sign to ward off evil.

  She spoke again

  “You are all very lucky that it was I you scorned and not Queen Mab or one of her knights. And since you are already so lucky, instead of the rose I think I’ll give you a bit of mischief.”

  She pointed at the butler.

  “You should have taught this child to comport himself like a Prince and not some ill tempered commoner. So until he has grown and learned his manners, and found himself a girl who likes his manners enough to marry him, you and all of your fellow servants shall be...”

  She paused, and then laughed. “You shall all be invisible!”

  They all immediately disappeared.

  Now she turned her attention to Adam. He was quaking from head to toe.

  She pointed the rose at him.

  “In a fairy mound we show better hospitality for every day of one hundred years to every weary traveller who finds us than you have showed me tonight in a quarter of an hour. You have behaved like an ill mannered beast and so you shall look like one. You shall be ugly, and hairy, with great fearsome teeth like a wolf, the lumbering gait of a bear, and a great long tail like a cat!” She laughed and her amusement made her look a little less angry. Her eyes sparkled with mischief and her eyes were surrounded by lines of merriment. She pursed her lips and tapped them with a finger. “But you shall also have the gifts of these animals. You shall have keen ears, a keen nose, great strength, and you will still be able to speak like a man. This curse will be lifted once you acquire the manners that fit your station and have received the consent of a girl to marry you.” She paused as she was about to turn away from him and spoke once more; “Lest you decide that you enjoy being a beast, I add this stipulation. You must show the courtesy that you refused me to any and all who ask it of you. Anyone who asks humbly will be invited to spend the night in this house. And if that person is a woman, you must ask her to marry you!” She took a
fit of the giggles now as Adam with wails of fear and dismay changed into the beast she described. When the transformation was complete, she dropped a curtsey to him. “Goodnight little one. I am going to bed. Enjoy the night, for I very much doubt you will rest!” And she swept away in search of a bedroom, her laughter echoing with Adam’s moans.

  She left in the morning and none of them ever saw her again. Not that they wanted to. That day the butler sent two kitchen maids and a gardener out to the forest to gather rowan berries to plant at every door, but somehow they never took root no matter how much steaming manure was piled on them, or how faithfully they were watered.

  It was quite the social event, that many people being made invisible at once. There wasn’t really a way to keep it a secret so it was fortunate that the house was located in the middle of a vast estate with thick woods all around it. Even so, lives were bound to be disrupted. Three engagements were broken off, and several families had to relocate and live on the Prince estate so as to be near an invisible parent or spouse.

  Chapter 2: Master of the House

  Over the next ten years Adam progressed from being nearly a complete animal to being slightly civilized. He came to enjoy reading, and took up rose gardening. He still had a fearsome temper, and probably the most awkward aspect of his transmogrification was that he now absolutely ignored the existence of clothes. His thick fur coat made a modest enough covering, but the lack of clothing only made him seem more bestial. Not many people stopped by hoping for shelter. As attractive as an open invitation to spend the night in such a grand house might sound, no one in the neighboring towns really wanted to sleep in a cursed dwelling. Especially one full of invisible people.

  Then one particularly nasty night in November, full of sleet and wind, a man knocked on the door. He was blue with cold and looked very frightened. He said his horse had been killed by wolves as he tried to cut through the woods to get home. He begged their hospitality and wondered if they might have a horse that he could buy to take him home the next day.

  Since the man had asked politely, of course Adam was obliged to say yes. Not that he would have turned the man away on such a night. He wasn’t a bad person after all though he privately found it amazing that the man’s horse had been killed by wolves when he himself had not smelled a wolf on his property in over a year.

  He decided that the man must be some kind of smuggler, unwilling to disclose his real business to a stranger. Adam after all, was still only twenty years old and his romantic imagination was not yet dulled by adulthood. Having determined that the man must be a smuggler, Adam decided to have dinner with him and found himself very much entertained by the man’s conversation.

  The man, whose name was Mr Martin, claimed to be a merchant. From the stories he told he sounded as if he was a very successful man. The butler who stayed mostly in the background as any good butler would, was greatly cheered by this event. Adam seemed to like this man very much and he had never seen the boy put on such a convincing display of good manners for anyone since he had been cursed. It was good to know that the boy knew how to behave even if he chose not to most of the time.

  Martin on the other hand, was taking a very shrewd measure of Adam during this dinner. He had only been living in the area for about a year and had heard some terrifying tales about the young master of this grand estate. He had dismissed them as mere fiddle faddle and had come to see for himself if the tales of open hospitality and a fierce and terrifying manbeast were true. So far he had been amazed to discover that it was true, except for the fierce and terrifying part. Uncouth, naive, and gruff, the boy certainly was. But not terrifying or uneducated. And any simpleton could see that the child was not the type to turn cannibal. The seeds of a plan began to grow in Martin’s clever mind and he resolved to speak to his wife’s brother about it. If he could find the man without being able to see him, they might be able to work out an arrangement much to the benefit of all involved.

  Adam went to bed very happy. He liked this Mr Martin a great deal and was actually disappointed to see him go the next day. That is, until he discovered that three of the finest blooms on his favorite rosebush had been cut.

  He stormed about in a bad temper, snapping at people, growling, and complaining about the massive ignorance and unbelievable ingratitude of everyone who had ever stayed in his house as a guest. For a week after that everyone for once, was happy to be invisible, and Adam was served cold meals and no one made his bed for the duration of his ranting and raging. Eventually his love of fresh sheets and hot toast outweighed the great injustices that had been done to his sensibilities by a certain houseguest named Martin and he went from raging and pacing to sulking and then back to normal.

  Ten years was a very long time to be cursed and everyone was beginning to feel the strain. Even the loving and loyal Mrs Hughes was heard by a footman to remark to the butler that if they simply drugged Adam and married him off in his sleep to some fortune hunter or other, surely that would be enough to satisfy a curse and let them all be normal again. The footman who was listening was one of the unfortunates who had had his engagement broken off due to the curse and he thought this idea sounded perfectly marvelous, and spread it around to the other staff as quickly as he could. They were all so heartily sick of being invisible that they all found the notion as attractive as he did, and Mrs Hughes’ word out of turn became the unspoken agreement between everyone who worked in the Prince household.

  By the time a girl named Bella who gave her last name as Thomas instead of Martin came along and knocked on the door, Adam’s fate was decided. She arrived with the first snowfall of the year displaying nothing but courtesy and asking for a place to spend the night. He hated having to extend hospitality to a girl of marriageable age, but of course he had no choice. Overnight, the heaviest snowfall ever seen in Adam’s lifetime buried the house to the second story windows. When he woke up, he couldn't even see out of his window and he was conscious of a cold suspicious feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of the pretty brunette sleeping in one of his guest rooms.

  Of course there was no question of the girl leaving until the weather broke, and because of the curse he had no choice but to let her stay. She seemed very eager to make herself useful, and spent the days doing little chores which helped her get to know the invisible servants and she seemed unaccountably attached to the butler. Adam couldn’t imagine what she found so interesting about the man but it seemed as if they were always together, talking and working.

  Every night, Adam did as he was physically compelled by the spell to do, and asked the girl to marry him. He had found over the years however, that though the curse might force him to say the words, it had no power over the volume of his voice, or the clarity of his speech. So when he mumbled a slurred sentence somewhere in her vicinity every night, she either didn’t hear, or ignored it entirely.

  As the long winter wore on, Adam decided that the girl wasn't so very terrible although he found her to be entirely more confident than was desirable in a girl and her attitude seemed to him to almost verge on sassiness when she corrected some pronunciation of his, or reminded him to use his napkin at the table. One afternoon he confided to the butler that he thought she would do well to be more respectful, if she ever hoped to find a husband. It was fortunate that the man was invisible, and Adam was spared the sight of an extremely scornful and eloquent eye roll. An expression that seemed to say that Adam had no idea what he was talking about or that it didn’t matter in the slightest what his opinion of the girl was. Although Adam couldn’t see this expression he could sense the attitude behind it, and having never encountered it from any of his staff it made him feel a little uneasy. He felt as if something was propelling him toward a foregone conclusion but couldn’t for the life of him think what or how. He was in for a surprise.

  Chapter 3: Taming the Beast Within

  The first major change came with the thawing of the snow. The house was no longer entirely buried, and the grocer had
finally begun to make it to the house to bring fresh food without making a three day expedition of it. Bella showed no signs of leaving just yet, and she and Adam were eating breakfast together. She was just suggesting that perhaps they could venture out and scatter some seeds for the birds that had been hardy enough to survive the deep freeze. Adam was minding his own business, eating his porridge and pretending to listen to what she was saying when some invisible person laid a great coat, a long shirt, and some trousers over the back of the chair next to him. He looked at the pile of wool and cotton and then frowned.

  “What’s this?”

  Bella laughed. “I was just saying that I found these gigantic old clothes hidden away upstairs. Someone in your family must have been a giant. I took the liberty of tailoring them to your...unique shape. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Adam was flabbergasted. Speechless. He looked at the clothes, then at her, and then back at the clothes.

  “Well,” he said “It wouldn’t much matter if I did mind, since you already sewed them.”

  She blushed a little, but met his gaze, her blue eyes sharp and bright. He felt a little ashamed for being so blunt, and tried again a little awkwardly

  “I mean, thank you of course for the kind thought, but as you can see, I don’t wear clothes anymore...My fur makes them quite redundant.”

  She immediately blushed even more, and changed tack. She began apologizing.

  “Of course, how thoughtless of me. I feel so silly, forgive me, I’ll just go put these back where I found them”

  She got up, leaving her breakfast half eaten and made as if she was about to go all the way up to wherever she had found the things to put them away. Adam felt even worse now.

  “No, don’t bother with it now,” he said “It was a nice thought, I appreciate it. Putting them away can wait until later.”

  She sat back down, but didn’t pick up her spoon. She was still blushing furiously, and didn’t look at him. She just sat there fidgeting with her hands.