“I can’t help it!” Otto retorted.
Belle turned around. “Shh!” she cautioned, glaring at them both.
They had left the study where they’d found Otto and were now looking for Henri.
“I’m sure he can’t hear us. Who could hear anything over that horrible music?” said Otto.
Belle and her friends were approaching the conservatory, and the music they’d heard earlier was louder now, the notes harsher and more discordant.
“What if it’s Henri who’s making that horrible music?” asked Lucanos.
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Belle as they reached the conservatory. The room’s huge double doors were open and folded back against the wall. She inched up to one and peered around it.
A marionette was seated at a harpsichord, playing. His movements were jerky, his shoulders sharp under his moth-eaten jacket.
Worried he might suddenly turn around and see her, Belle stepped back out of sight.
“Is it him?” Lucanos asked.
“It’s him,” Belle whispered, leaning against the door. A shudder ran through her. “How are we going to get the coin?”
“It’s very simple,” said Otto.
Lucanos rolled his eyes. “What do you suggest? That we hug him to death?”
“No, that we cut his strings. He’s a marionette, isn’t he? He must have strings,” said Otto.
“Otto, that’s brilliant!” Belle whispered. “If we cut his strings, he can’t come after us.”
Otto grinned.
Lucanos crawled to the doorway, then crawled back. “I don’t see any strings,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean they’re not there,” Otto said. “When the countess enchanted him, she would’ve made them invisible. If we can just get to him, we can finish him off!”
“Yes,” said the beetle. He cast a worried glance at the doors. “As long as…”
“As long as what?” Otto prompted.
“As long as he doesn’t finish us off first.”
BELLE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY, her scissors in her hand.
Her heart was thumping so hard now, she was certain Henri would hear it.
Summoning all her courage, she slid one foot in front of her, then the other. Step by step, she crossed the room. Lucanos and Aranae crept noiselessly behind her. Otto stayed by the doors in case he clanked.
Henri continued to play his jangling, macabre piece, and Belle prayed that he would be too absorbed in the music to sense her presence. As she drew closer, she saw that something was vibrating above him.
His strings! she thought. Otto was right!
The countess’s magic was releasing its grip, even on Henri. Belle saw that the strings ran from his head, jaw, shoulders, and wrists. More were attached to his legs. Her eyes followed them up. They seemed to disappear into the air.
Which do I cut first? she wondered. The strings controlling his hands, so he can’t grab me? Or his feet, so he can’t run after me?
Belle remembered the malicious expression on Henri’s face after she’d given him her coin. She remembered how he’d forced her into the summer house. What if she couldn’t cut the strings before he realized what she was doing? What if she couldn’t cut them at all?
Belle’s nerve almost failed her right then and there, but she willed herself to keep going.
Just a few snips, she told herself, and you’ll have the coin back.
Slowly, quietly, she closed the distance between herself and Henri. Ten yards became eight, then three. And then she was right behind him, close enough to see the badly sewn patches on his jacket, the wig made out of a horse’s tail, and the joints of his wooden hands.
Now, Belle, she told herself. Be quick. Be brave.
She raised the scissors, opening their blades wide.
And that was when Henri’s head spun suddenly, sickeningly, around.
HENRI’S GLASS EYES GLINTED MADLY, his lips twisted into a cruel smile.
“Do you like this piece, Belle?” he asked her. “I composed it myself. I call it ‘Prelude to a Death.’”
Then he shot to his feet and knocked the scissors from Belle’s hand. They clattered to the floor.
“No!” Belle cried. She lunged for them, but Henri grabbed her wrist and jerked her back.
“Let me go!” she shouted, trying to break free.
But he only tightened his grip, squeezing her wrist so cruelly that she sank to her knees. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like this story anymore?” he asked.
Otto, clutching his cutout heart, ran into the room. “Hang on, Belle! I’m coming! I’ll save you!” he shouted, heading for the scissors.
But before he could reach them, he tripped, fell, and collapsed in a heap. One of his ears fell off. His left leg bent backward at the knee.
“Otto? Is that you?” Henri asked contemptuously. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping my friend,” Otto said, struggling to sit up.
“You’re an automaton, you fool. You have no friends.”
“I do,” Otto stubbornly insisted, pointing to his fabric heart. “Belle gave me this. She loves me.”
Henri laughed, showing his porcelain teeth. “You’re nothing but a clattering pile of junk! You don’t even know what love is.”
“I didn’t know what love was,” Otto admitted earnestly, “until Belle loved me.”
“She only loved you when she thought you were her father,” Henri said.
“Well, now she loves the real me. Otto. Who clanks and stumbles and drips oil.”
Henri snorted. “A lot of good it does you. You’re so broken, you can’t even stand up!” He shook his head. “Of all the idiotic emotions humans possess, love’s the most idiotic. Don’t you agree, Belle?”
Belle looked at Otto, who had struggled, and failed, to straighten his twisted leg and was now pulling himself across the floor, inch by inch, still trying to get to the scissors. Otto, who rattled and stumbled and dripped and fell apart, but who didn’t give up.
She thought of Mrs. Potts making her tea and bringing her toasted cheese sandwiches. And Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Plumette helping her clean the library. And Chip sprinkling breadcrumbs in the snow with her.
Because they love me. Because they’re my friends, she thought.
She thought of the Beast skating with her, even though he was bad at it, because it made her happy. She remembered him giving her the library because she loved to read. She remembered him fighting off a pack of wolves for her.
Maybe I’ve been wrong about him, she thought. Maybe he is a friend. Not the easiest one I ever had, but still…a friend.
She thought of Pere Robert, Agathe, and her father.
And then she got to her feet. “No, Henri, I don’t agree,” she said. “Love isn’t idiotic. It’s hard and messy, confusing and wonderful. But to love and be loved…that’s all that matters. Can’t you see that?”
“Mmm, no. I’m afraid not,” Henri said, feigning regret.
“Let me go, Henri. Please,” Belle begged.
And then, miraculously, Henri did.
THE MARIONETTE’S WOODEN HANDS released Belle and dropped to his sides. As they did, the cut ends of two strings slipped through the air with a hiss and landed on the floor.
“Thank you, Henri,” Belle said, relief coursing through her.
“What? No! Don’t thank me! I didn’t mean to do it! What’s happening?” Henri bellowed.
He jerked his shoulders, trying to raise his arms, but he couldn’t. He looked up. Belle did, too. Lucanos, clinging to one of Henri’s strings high above them, saluted.
“We climbed up here while you three were chatting about feelings,” the beetle said. “Aranae bit through the string that works Henri’s right hand. I bit through the one that works his left.”
As the beetle finished speaking, there was a loud twang, and then Henri lurched alarmingly to his right.
“What the devil?” he yelled, looking around wildly.
&
nbsp; Otto stood there, balancing uncertainly on his bent leg, scissors in hand. He’d severed the string to Henri’s right shoulder.
“Stop it, Otto!” Henri shouted. “Squash the bugs and seize the girl! Now! Or you’ll answer to her!”
There was another twang as Otto cut the string to Henri’s left leg. Henri lurched forward, pivoting in a circle on his right leg.
“Come!” he shrieked. “All of you! Come to me, now!”
Belle glanced toward the door.
“Otto, cut the string to his jaw!” she shouted, but it was too late.
Henri had summoned the rest of the creatures in the summer house. They were shuffling toward the conservatory now with whatever magic was left in them.
Otto quickly snipped another string, then another. Henri’s head lolled forward, then his torso. As Otto severed the string that was attached to his bottom, Henri clattered to the floor like a pile of firewood.
As he did, dozens of puppets and dolls began crowding through the doorway.
“There’s no way out!” Otto cried.
Belle looked at the back of the room. Broken furniture lay strewn across it. Its far wall was lined by three pairs of French doors. “Get to the doors, Otto!” she yelled. “Hurry!”
She knelt down and quickly dug through the pockets of Henri’s jacket. She found her coin, shoved it into her own pocket, and ran to the back of the room.
Aranae had climbed to safety high up on a wall. Lucanos, too. Belle grabbed the handle to a pair of doors and twisted, but it was locked. She tried the others, but they were locked, too.
“Destroy them!” Henri shouted. “All of them!”
Belle looked behind her. Otto was hobbling toward her as fast as he could, but it wasn’t fast enough. The puppets and dolls were closing in on him. He was trying his hardest to get away from them, but his bad leg slowed him. Terror was etched on his face.
“No!” Belle screamed. “Get away from him!”
She dashed to him, slung one of his arms over her shoulder, and dragged him to the back of the room, where she leaned him against a desk.
Henri’s evil army kept advancing. A puppet’s head lurched sideways atop its neck. A doll’s button eye dangled on a dirty string.
Belle grabbed a candlestick off the desk and used it to smash one of the glass panes. She reached through the broken glass and tried to turn the handle from the outside, but it still wouldn’t move.
The creatures were only yards away now. Belle turned in a frantic circle, desperate to find a way out, a way to save herself and her friends.
Her eyes fell on a chair. It was pushed under the desk. She pulled it out.
“Belle, get out of there! They’re coming straight for you!” Lucanos shouted.
Belle dragged the heavy chair over to the French doors.
“Time to start writing my own story, Lucanos,” she said.
Using all the strength she possessed, Belle hoisted the chair over her head. And then, with an ear-splitting yell, she launched it straight at the French doors.
GLASS SHATTERED AND WOOD SPLIT as the heavy chair burst through the doors.
It left a gaping hole in its wake.
“Let’s go!” Lucanos urged, swooping down from the ceiling. He was outside in an instant.
Aranae was right behind him. Belle ran back to Otto.
“Leave me, Belle,” he said. “I’ll only slow you down.”
But Belle didn’t listen to him. She gently raised the lower half of his leg, meaning to rotate it, but the movement caused him to lose his balance. He pitched forward into the desk.
The shambling conglomeration of puppets and dolls was closing in. Some were upright, others slumped—their sad, empty eyes staring straight ahead.
Belle knew she had only seconds. She twisted the bottom of Otto’s leg roughly, then jammed the metal ball joint of his knee back into its socket.
Otto gasped.
“Come on!” Belle shouted, grabbing his hand.
She shot through the doorway, pulling him after her. They made it out by a hair’s breadth.
Lucanos and Aranae were waiting for them. “Let’s go!” the beetle said.
“That was exciting!” Otto said.
“Yes, Otto, it was. A little too exciting,” Belle said. “How’s your leg?” she asked him.
“It’s fine!” he said, shaking it. “See?”
“Good. We’ve got to hurry. Can you run?”
“I can,” Otto said gamely. “I love running! And escaping—I love escaping!”
“I am going to kill him before this is over. Or myself,” Lucanos declared.
“I know what we’re running from,” Otto said, “But what are we running to?”
“To the château. To find the countess,” Belle replied, with a new determination in her voice. “She doesn’t get tell my story. I do.”
Belle checked that she still had her handkerchief and her coin, then ran down the drive toward the dirt road that led back to the château, with Otto rattling along beside her, Aranae hanging on to her shoulder for dear life, and Lucanos flying right behind them.
“THIS WAY! HURRY!” Chip shouted, zooming down the long row of bookcases.
The Beast was right behind him, along with Lumiere, Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, Plumette, and Froufrou.
Chip raced to the end of the row, turned, and dashed to a door between two bookcases. It was slightly ajar.
“I had no idea there was another room back here!” Lumiere said.
“It was a workroom,” the Beast explained. “For the castle’s librarian.”
The Beast cautiously entered. His servants followed him. He immediately saw that Belle was not in the room—but something else was.
Near the window, an enormous book stood open, its pages showing a picture of an overgrown garden. The picture looked as if it were behind thick glass.
The Beast’s hackles rose as he looked at it. A menacing growl escaped from his throat. He knew that the library contained enchantment, but his instincts told him that this one was new and different, that it was a dark, malevolent thing.
“What is it, master?” Mrs. Potts asked.
“It’s a magical book, but one I haven’t seen before. I’m not sure what it does.”
“Stand back, everyone!” Cogsworth declared. He grabbed a measuring stick that was leaning against a wall and thrust it at the book.
It made a sharp sound as it hit the page, as if it had struck ice.
“Belle’s in there,” Chip said.
“How do you know that, Chip?” Lumiere asked.
Chip pointed at the floor with his handle. Lying on it, just in front of the book, was a blue ribbon—Belle’s ribbon.
“She left us. She’s gone,” said Chip.
The Beast knew what the heaviness in the youngster’s voice meant. By losing Belle, the staff had lost their one and only chance at breaking the curse that had changed them into what they now were, that had bound them to this castle, this life, this fate…forever.
Mrs. Potts turned away from the book, but not before the Beast heard a small sob escape her.
He knew she wasn’t thinking of herself, or him, or any of the servants. She was thinking of one person only—Chip, her little boy. She was thinking of how his life would now end here, in this cursed castle, before it had even begun.
Cogsworth put the measuring stick back where’d he gotten it, silent for once.
Lumiere, his flames dimmed, traded heartbroken glances with Plumette.
The Beast picked up the blue ribbon and turned away from the others, speechless.
“LEFT OR RIGHT?” Lucanos shouted as they neared the dirt road at the end of the driveway.
“Left!” a breathless Belle shouted back.
She ran full speed into the road, Aranae still clinging to her shoulder, then glanced behind her to make sure Lucanos and Otto were still there.
Lucanos was, but Otto wasn’t.
“Otto! Where are you?” she called, doubling back.
She soon had her answer.
He was lying on the ground at the edge of the road, looking dazed.
“What are you doing?” she asked, helping him up. “This is no time for fooling. We have a long way to go!”
“I—I fell,” he said, pushing himself off the ground. He walked shakily toward the road, but as he tried to walk into it, he bounced backward and crashed to the ground again.
It was as if he’d walked into a wall.
“What’s going on?” Belle wondered aloud. She took his hand. “We’ll walk through together,” she said, pulling him after her. But it didn’t help. She could walk into the road, but he couldn’t.
Lucanos, who’d been flying around in circles, landed on Belle’s other shoulder. “It’s the countess’s work,” he said grimly. “She’s bound him to this place.”
Otto nodded. “He’s right. That’s why all the other marionettes and mannequins in the summer house aren’t wandering away from it. You have to go on without me,” he said.
“No,” said Belle. “There must be a way to get you out of here.”
“There isn’t,” Otto said. “And you’re losing time. You have to go. Now, Belle.”
“But what will happen to you?” Belle asked. “What if the countess finds out that you helped us? What if she punishes you?”
“She can’t punish me if she can’t wind me,” said Otto. “Take the key out of my back and throw it away. Toss it into a pond. Down a well. Someplace she’ll never find it.”
“But that…that means…the end of you,” Belle said softly.
“It’s all right, Belle,” Otto said, smiling bravely. “I’m quite sure that I’ve lived, and loved, more in one hour than many humans do in a lifetime.”
Belle put her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
Otto hugged her back. “Before you go, promise me something, Belle…” he whispered to her. “Keep being the author of your own story. Never let anyone else write it for you again.”
“I promise,” Belle said, in a small, choked voice.
Otto held her tightly for a few more seconds, then released her. His smiled faded. His gaze turned inward. He clutched his red silk heart.
Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book Page 17
