Beast
A Tale of Beauty and the Beast
by Lydia Eberhardt
copyright May 2017 Lydia Kuznicki
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise—without the prior permission of the author.
for Bekah
books also by
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Ruth A.D.
Fairy Tales Retold
Beast: A Tale of Beauty and the Beast
Science Fiction
Global Warning
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Author's Note
Sneak Peek of Global Warning
~Prologue~
I wasn’t always a beast. I was born a prince. To this day I’m still not sure why I was turned into a beast, because the incident that led to my enchantment happened long before I was born. This is what I do know: my great, great, great,…..great, great grandparents did something that offended an enchantress, but for some reason she couldn’t use a spell to curse them. So she decided to bide her time until one of their descendants was weak enough for the spell to stick. Well, it stuck on me. I still remember the day that it happened, even though it was many, many years ago.
I had gone out hunting with a group of courtiers who were visiting from a faraway country. I was very excited to be going, because I had been ill and unable to go riding for quite a while. The hunt began as hunts normally do, the hounds sniffing out ahead for signs of animals. After a rather uneventful and, frankly, boring first hour, the hounds finally scared up a wild boar. The hunt was on! I had been near the front when the dogs first began running, but my horse was not cooperating with me and I had fallen behind. I had finally gotten my horse to listen to my commands when BAM! A tree branch knocked me off my horse and threw me to the ground, knocking the wind out of me. I got up, cursing the tree that unseated me. As I brushed off the leaves and twigs that had become stuck to my clothing, I looked at my horse. My hands stopped their cleaning efforts and my jaw fell open most unroyal-like. The horse was laughing at me!
Now, I have always been known for my bit of a temper, and I am sad to admit now, but it got the better of me that day.
“How dare you laugh at me—you stupid, careless horse! I am your master and king, and you are nothing but a worthless beast!” I raised my riding whip and hit him.
Well, I thought my horse was a he, and I thought he was a horse. For my horse was gone. In its place a beautiful woman now stood, the sight of which terrified me. Her dress was of the finest white silk I had ever seen. Her hair was shone golden like the sun and hung in a long braid down her back. A thin circlet of polished silver encircled her head. But her face is what terrified me and set my legs trembling.
No, she was not ugly; in fact, she was very beautiful—the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. But the look on her face is what was frightening. It was a look of triumph and joy, yet completely sinister.
“At last!” she cried, raising her arms and hands high into the air in triumph. “At last the time has come! All the years I have waited, watching your pompous family, waiting for my chance at revenge. You,” she almost snarled, lowering her hands slowly until her long, slender fingers were pointing at me in the most menacing way. “You shall suffer for the wrongs of your forefathers. You called your horse a worthless beast, but it is you who is a beast. And so I shall turn your appearance into a beast to match the beast inside.” But then she paused and crossed her arms in front of her, gently tapping the side of her chin in a thoughtful manner. Her steely gray eyes stared at me and I was unable to move or look away. With a small, irritated sigh, she continued. “But because it was not you who did the original misdeed, I will give you a chance at redemption. As long as your attitude and behavior remain beastly in nature, you will remain a beast. However, if you learn to change your ways, show true kindness and love, there is a chance. If you are able to find someone who will be able to see the real you and love you in return, the spell will be broken.”
I tried to speak, to possibly get her to change her mind, but it was too late. With a flash my enchantress was gone and the spell began to take effect. I could feel bones lengthening, muscles changing, and hair sprouting all over my body. The pain of transformation was excruciating. It knocked me to the ground where I writhed in agony. I screamed at the pain, and the screams soon became the terrifying howls of a monster.
And so I became a beast. Even my mind was beastly. I ran through the woods, snarling and chasing animals. I don’t know how long I ran. My thoughts were no longer human. Hunger and anger were my constant companions, while food and shelter were my goals.
After what could have been months or even years, my mind began to settle, and pieces of my human consciousness began to return. I remembered who I had been and what had happened, so I decided to return to my kingdom. It took me many months, for I had traveled far in my beastly wanderings.
When I got back to the castle, I found the enchantress had been at work there also. A large hedge wall had formed around the castle grounds, completely closing it off from the outside world. I walked the entire way, looking for a way in, but there was no humanly way to get in. However, I was no longer human, and so with one powerful leap, I jumped over the hedge and landed in the overgrown courtyard.
All the servants and occupants of the castle at the time of my transformation had also been affected. The enchantress had made them invisible. I could hear them running away as I approached the front door. It took a long time for them to become unafraid of me. Truthfully, it took a while for me to become unafraid of me. The beast I had become was still untamed. It was still many years before I regained control over myself so that I could walk like a human and speak in words instead of grunts and howls. I still have problems sometimes, but I really am getting better. But I still am a beast, and how can anyone ever love a beast?
~1~
My life in the castle was very lonely. Sure, there were plenty of people around, but I couldn’t see anyone. Yes, I could hear them, the whisper of their voices, the tapping of shoes as they walked across marble floors. It felt more like living in a haunted castle than one full of life. There weren’t even any animals around. No birds, no deer…although I can’t blame the deer for not wanting to be there, they would not be safe from me.
So I took to exploring the castle. I had never had time to do that back when I had been a human, because there were always balls or meetings or other stately functions that required my attention. But not anymore. I have to admit, at first it was kind of fun scaring the invisible staff while I was exploring. The first time it happened, I didn’t mean to, and the person fainted dead away. How do I know this if she was invisible, you ask? Well, I know because she was dusting an enormous vase in the fourth large sitting room. When I walked in, I saw a vase just floating in the air, which caused me to bark in surprise. This startled the maid and she screamed the vase began to fall. But it didn’t fall like a dropped vase would; it fell like, well, a fainting person. Luckily, another invisible servant was in the hallway at the time. I have no idea how, but the invisible seem to be able to “see” where another invisible is, so he could help her. Apologizing profusely—which was a new thing for me; I had never apologized to a servant before the “incident”—I quickly left the room. Because of this, I fell into the habit of humming as I explored, so that I would not startle
anyone else. Sometimes when things became a little boring, I would sneak around and try to scare the servants.
Scaring the servants really wasn’t very easy to do anyway, because the only way I knew if they were there was if they were moving something. Most of the time it was something rare and breakable, so then I would not scare them because then they might drop the object, and it might break, and then they might hurt themselves on the broken pieces. I didn’t want them to get hurt. It wasn’t their fault they were stuck in the castle and invisible.
So most of the time I hummed.
Through these explorations, I discovered much about my castle. One of the best discoveries was the network of secret passageways that went throughout the castle. This enabled me to move about without causing so much stress upon the invisible inhabitants, for they were less likely to come around a corner and come face to face with me.
The best discovery I found was in one of these passages. It was a mirror, but not your ordinary look-into-it-and-see-yourself mirror. Sometimes it showed scenes from outside my castle, and sometimes I would see rooms inside the castle. But through this mirror, I could see the people in my castle!
The mirror was not a huge one. It fit easily into my hand. Admittedly it would not have fit quite so nicely in my human hand. I took this mirror with me, because then I could make sure the “invisibles” as I took to calling them, were all healthy and safe. Then one day I discovered that if I asked the mirror to show me a specific spot, it would oblige me and show it.
In my explorations I found many rooms that I could not use in my enchanted state-such as the library. I had tried to read a book once, but it did not work out and the book was wrecked. Claws do not turn paper very well. I also found a music studio, which had several instruments in it. I did not dare touch the piano, even though I had played very well as a human; as a beast, I was afraid I would break it.
Now the art studio I found was fun! Getting the paint out of my fur, though, was not. So I took up wood carving instead. My claws were natural tools. It also helped keep my claws trimmed and short, which had become a problem when I returned to the castle. I couldn’t trim them myself, and the invisibles were afraid to. I did manage to find one gardener who was willing to help me. I am pleased to say I became quite good at wood carving, and soon there were many beautiful carvings throughout the castle.
Seasons came and went, and years passed, but I was still a beast.
~2~
When I woke up that day, I did not expect it to be any different than any of the past days. But it was.
It was not a pleasant day out for anyone, even a beast. It was cold and raining. I was sitting in front of a nice, warm fire, looking at the magic mirror, which I had propped up on the table next to me. I was not really paying attention to it. I was almost asleep when the scene it was displaying caught my eye. It was showing me the front gate of the castle. Now that in itself was not what was different, the mirror often showed the gate. But what was different was what was coming toward the gate.
It was a man riding on a horse. I looked closer; it was not anyone I recognized, so I knew it was not anyone from my castle. Plus there hadn’t been a horse inside the hedge since, well, since before the hedge had been there. I looked again. How had this man gotten through the hedge? I routinely walked the length of it, and always there was no path through. Yet here was a man riding a horse towards my castle gate. I picked up the mirror to get a closer look at this man.
His hair was graying, and he looked weary as if he had traveled a long way. The wind whipped at his cloak as he tried to clutch it closed to keep out the rain. I immediately sent an invisible to open the gate for him, and to have the stable hands care for the horse. Being near lunchtime, I had the cook lay out a sumptuous meal for him next to the large marble fireplace in the small dining hall. But I warned them to be careful and not let him “see” them. For while the man obviously needed help, I did not want my servants to be harmed. I still did not know how he made it through the hedge, and this worried me.
I returned my gaze to the mirror and watched his approach. When the servant opened the gate, the man stopped his horse and shifted nervously. After all, he could not see the servant, just the gate opening. But then he gave himself a little shake and rode into the courtyard. Another servant opened the front door, and the man, shrugging his shoulders, got off his horse and walked inside. He then went into the room where the meal had been laid out, and after the chair “pulled itself out”, he sat down and began to eat. After eating his fill, he fell asleep.
While he was sleeping, the groomsman brought in his saddlebags and set them by the door. After watching in the mirror for a few more minutes, I ordered the invisibles to find a new set of clothes for him, and to fill his saddlebags with jewels and fine fabrics and put them back on his horse. Why, you may ask, when only a short time ago I acted so afraid of this man? I did this for two reasons. One, his clothes, while once fine, were now patched and threadbare. I realized he had fallen on hard times, which reminded me of my own suffering. The second reason was that he mumbled in his sleep. He said, “I am sorry daughters, we have nothing.”
By this time it had stopped raining, the sun had come out, and it was warming up nicely. At times like this, I liked to go out and walk in the expansive gardens surrounding the castle. I was especially proud of my rose bushes. These bushes grew the biggest, most beautiful, and longest lasting roses in the world. I was very protective of these roses. They had been my mother’s, and even the gardeners knew that I was the only one to care for them. They were only to cut roses off the bushes if the flower was wilting.
So I decided to go walking in the gardens, and I took the mirror with me, to keep an eye on my guest.
I saw him wake up. I saw him as he exclaimed over the fine clothes an invisible had put there for him. I watched him eat the light meal that had been prepared for him. I watched him get up and cautiously walk back out through the front door. Then, instead of walking towards the stables, where his horse was tied up outside, he approached the gardens. This made me a little nervous, for I was in the gardens, and I did not want him to see me, for I knew it would frighten him. But thankfully because of the mirror, I was able to stay away from him.
He stopped and looked around marveling at the different flowers. When he turned the corner to Mother’s rose garden, he stopped and stared, his mouth wide open in awe. Suddenly he began to walk closer the rose bushes. This made me very nervous, because I was hiding behind the rose bushes. But he stopped at the rose bush nearest him, staring at it as if it held him under a spell. I watched as he leaned forward and took a deep breath, smelling the wonderful fragrance of the roses. Then he reached up and picked a rose.
While I had been getting better at controlling my temper, being a beast had not helped much in this, and like I said before, I was very protective of my roses. So when he picked the rose, my anger flared up out of control. I leapt out of where I was hiding and bound over to him.
“How dare you pick my rose!” I roared at him, not noticing that he had fallen to his knees, cringing away from me. “After the hospitality I showed you in your time of need! Is this how you repay someone’s kindness?”
“Please, sir,” he pled. “I meant no harm. Please let me explain. I am a merchant. But a series of misfortunate events lead to my loss of everything. I was forced to sell much of my and my daughters’ possessions and move to a small cottage far from our old home. About a month ago, we heard that a ship that had been believed lost had come to port. Before I went, I asked my daughters what they wanted me to bring back for them. But when I arrived at the city, I found that there was very little money left after paying the crew and a few debts that had not been previously covered. I left to return to my daughters, unable to bring back what they had asked for. But then I saw your roses, and remembered that my youngest daughter had asked for a rose. I knew that your roses, the most beautiful roses I had ever seen, would bring much joy to my daughter. So I beg of you si
r, please forgive my grievance against you.”
By this time I had calmed down some, but I was still not happy with his action. “Very well,” I said. “I will forget your grievous act on one condition.”
“Thank you, most gracious master,” the man said bowing low. “What is your condition? If it is in my power, I will do it.”
I was silent. I had not actually thought of what I would ask of him when I had said it. I hadn’t had a conversation with anyone in so long I forgot he would expect an answer. What did he have that I did not? My gaze fell on the rose and I knew what I wanted. “This is the condition: in two weeks, this rose will wilt and fade. At that time, send the daughter for whom you picked it to live here in my castle. If you do not, you will die. Bring his horse.” I yelled to the stableman I knew was in the courtyard.
The man climbed dejectedly onto his horse. Placing the rose he had picked in his hand, I repeated, “Two weeks.”
~3~
My threat to the man that he would die was really an empty threat, because in order to carry it out, I would be required to leave the castle grounds, and the spell had bound me to the castle grounds as soon as I had returned. But he did not know that, so two weeks after he left, he returned. The daughter was with him.
I saw their approach in the mirror. They each rode a horse—his brown, hers black. The invisible that saw them coming opened the gate for them. The man then turned to his daughter, and it appeared to me as if he was begging her to reconsider. Stopping her horse, she turned to him and said something, then rode though the gate. Sighing, her father followed her.
Beast Page 1
