“Otto? What’s wrong?”
He looked at her, confusion in his eyes. “Oh, my. Oh, dear,” he said. “Is this also love? This terrible pain?”
Belle nodded.
“Love is hard. I had no idea how hard. Is it worth the pain?”
“Yes,” Belle said. “It is.”
“Please, Belle,” Otto said. “If I have to go, I want to go with my friends around me…with love….”
Belle steeled herself. Then she grasped the key and pulled it out. The light went out of Otto’s glass eyes. His smiled dimmed. He slumped over.
Belle pressed a hand to her own heart now. It hurt terribly.
She remembered the words of her friend Agathe. Love is not for cowards, she had said.
“You were the bravest, Otto,” she whispered.
“The château is half an hour from the summer house by coach, and you’re on foot. We must get going,” Lucanos said. He was still sitting on her shoulder.
Belle nodded. “Then let’s go.”
Lucanos flew off ahead of her.
But not before Belle saw a shimmer of tears in the beetle’s bright black eyes.
BELLE, SO EXHAUSTED she could barely walk, leaned against a tree near the countess’s château to catch her breath.
Her dress was covered with dust from the dirt road. Its hem was torn from thorns and brambles, and wet from dragging along the edge of a weed-choked pond where she’d stopped to throw away Otto’s key.
It had taken her over two hours to walk from the summer house to the château because the road was now densely overgrown. In places, she’d had to fight her way through branches and step over thick tangles of vines.
The extent of the countess’s enchantment became apparent to Belle as she walked along. What she’d thought were lush pear, apple, or cherry orchards actually contained spindly black trees bearing pomegranates. Large, tumbledown stone barns had been made to look like the Palais-Royal, with pillars propped up in front of them and half-rotted wagons standing in as carriages. The ride she and the countess had supposedly taken from the château to Paris, Belle now realized, had probably carried them no farther than this very dirt road.
Lucanos, tired himself, was resting on Belle’s upturned palm. “I can barely see the château,” he said.
The trees that lined the graveled drive had grown so tall, and their branches had knotted so closely together, that they obscured it.
After she’d rested for a moment, Belle made her way up the drive. It was dark now. The moon was behind a cloud, but it still gave off enough light to illuminate her way.
As she neared the château, she saw that many of its windows were broken. A hole gaped in the roof. Moss had crept over the two stone lions that flanked the crumbling, once-elegant staircase.
Belle stopped when she reached the steps and looked up at the house. She saw the ghostly glow of a candelabrum moving past the windows.
“She’s here,” she said grimly.
Then she started up the steps.
BELLE STOOD IN FRONT of the door to the countess’s dwelling and grasped its immense bronze handle.
She felt as if the task ahead of her was all but impossible. She and Lucanos had tried to come up with a plan as they’d made their way here, but had discovered that it was difficult to make a plan when you had no idea what you were planning for.
“How are we going to do this?” Lucanos asked now, his voice a whisper. “How do we get the bracelet?”
“Ask the countess for it politely?” Belle offered, with a mirthless laugh.
She pushed on the door. The hinges moaned softly as it opened; Belle desperately hoped that no one else had heard them.
She crept across the foyer now, listening for voices or movement. Someone had been walking through the house with a candelabrum only moments ago. Who was it?
An instant later, she had her answer.
Mouchard, in human form once again, came bustling into view, heavily laden. Trotting along behind him was another servant, a young woman.
A wide stone staircase spiraled up from the foyer to the upper floors. Belle, Lucanos, and Aranae had just enough time to crouch down in the hollow under it.
“Her Ladyship has retired for the evening,” Mouchard said, stopping only a few feet away from Belle and her friends. “She’s not to be disturbed. Tell the other servants to stay off the third floor.” He piled the heap of clothing he was carrying into the maid’s arms and continued.
“Clean the comtesse’s traveling cloak, polish her boots, and shine her walking stick. Have them ready by morning,” he instructed. “The fever has broken out in Venice. She wishes to depart at dawn.”
The maid gave a curt nod and scurried off in one direction. Mouchard continued in another.
“I know what to do!” Belle whispered excitedly as soon as they were gone.
“Well, dear girl, don’t keep it to yourself,” Lucanos said.
“The countess is asleep. She’s bound to have taken her jewelry off and put it down somewhere—on a table or in a jewelry box. All we have to do is sneak into her room and take it!”
“What a wonderful plan!” Lucanos said. “All we have to do is rob Death herself. Nothing to it!”
Belle gave him a sidelong look. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Lucanos.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Belle, stepping out from her hiding place. “We know where her room is, thanks to Mouchard.”
The three crept up the stairs silently. When they reached the third-floor landing, they saw that a wide corridor led off in two directions. The eastern half lay in darkness. Candles burned in wall sconces in the western half. More candlelight was shining out from under a door at the corridor’s end.
Lucanos pointed at it. “Something tells me that’s her room,” he said.
Belle, Lucanos, and Aranae quietly approached the door. Belle put her ear against it but heard nothing. She grasped the knob and turned it.
Light flooded her eyes as the door swung open. Pillar candles, at least a hundred of them, were burning in the room.
A heavy, spicy scent filled the air. Belle recognized it as the countess’s perfume. But she’d smelled it elsewhere, too, and now she realized where—at funerals held in Villeneuve’s church. Myrrh, oils of cinnamon and clove—these things were used to anoint the dead.
The thought unnerved her. It reminded her, as if she needed any reminding, of just whom she was dealing with.
The room was cold and sparsely furnished, its ceiling high and peaked. The countess reclined on a massive four-poster bed. Its pillars had been carved to resemble skeletons. On its headboard another skeleton was carved, this one sitting on a throne and wearing a laurel wreath on its skull. It reminded Belle of a tombstone.
The countess’s eyes were closed. Her right hand rested on her chest; her left was at her side. Belle’s heart sank as she saw that the countess hadn’t taken the bracelet off. It was still wound around her wrist. How would they remove it without waking her?
“This just got a lot harder,” she whispered.
She moved toward the bed, but Aranae held up one of her long legs, stopping her.
Noiselessly, the spider scuttled up the headboard, positioned herself at the top of it, and started to spin, tossing her sticky, silken thread over the countess.
Clever spider! Belle thought.
Quickly and diligently Aranae worked, careful not to cover either the bracelet or the countess’s face, lest the countess feel the threads on her skin and wake. A quarter of an hour later, her body was blanketed in white spider silk and bound to the bedframe.
“Thank you, Aranae!” Belle whispered as the spider climbed down.
Aranae nodded. Belle crept toward the sleeping figure. Her heart was pounding. She had to squeeze her hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
When she reached the bed, she took a deep breath. Then she bent over the countess and carefully released the catch on the bracelet
’s gold clasp.
The clasp snapped open.
And so did the countess’s eyes.
“YOU.”
The countess spoke the word coolly. She tried to get up, but couldn’t. She looked calmly down the length of her body; then her eyes found Belle’s again.
“There are a thousand ways to die, my dear,” she said. “Some are easy, and others are very, very hard. Yours will be in the latter category if you take the bracelet from me.”
Gulping with terror, Belle quickly unwound the bracelet from the countess’s wrist.
Then she ran for her life.
OUT OF THE COUNTESS’S BEDROOM, through the long corridor, and down the spiraling staircase Belle flew, with Lucanos and Aranae leading the way.
Just as she got to the bottom of the stairs, Mouchard—drawn by the noisy echo of Belle’s boots on the steps—came hurrying into the foyer. He squawked with anger as he saw Belle, then charged at her.
She had no hope of ducking by him; he was too large and too fast. She looked around wildly, not knowing which way to run. Then Lucanos, who was on the floor between Belle and Mouchard, yelled, “The bracelet, Belle! Throw it to me!”
Belle did. The beetle caught it. He held onto one end and tossed the other to Aranae. Pulling it tight between them, they tripped the charging Mouchard. He went sprawling and hit the stone floor with a shuddering thud.
“Run, Belle, run!” Lucanos shouted, lobbing the bracelet back to her.
Belle caught it and raced out the door. She flew down the steps and headed for the drive. But it was gone. Rosebushes had completely overgrown it.
Belle hurried through them, trying her best to navigate toward the portal. Thorns as long as her thumb jutted from the rosebushes’ shaggy canes. The roses themselves had grown as large as dinner plates. Their petaled faces followed Belle as she ran by. She was sure she heard them whispering to each other.
As soon as she was through the roses, Belle was confronted by another obstacle—a solid wall of green. The yew trees had formed themselves into a maze. Branches, densely grown together, blocked her way. Narrow paths snaked off to her left and right.
“Which way?” Lucanos asked.
“I don’t know,” Belle said. She would have to guess and hope for the best. “Head to the right,” she said.
The three hurried along, moonbeams lighting their way. Moments later, the pathway pinwheeled to a dead end.
“Crumbs!” Belle said frantically. She turned around, ready to retrace her steps, and gasped.
A toad blocked her path. Belle had seen him once before, but he’d been only as big as a cat then. He was the size of a pony now. His gold eyes appraised her, then swiveled to Lucanos and Aranae. A thick string of silvery drool dripped from the corner of his enormous mouth.
Aranae chittered fearfully.
“Yes, I see that it’s a toad. And yes, I know what toads eat!” Lucanos said nervously.
The toad shuffled toward them on his stumpy legs. His giant white belly dragged on the ground.
“Don’t even think about it,” Belle cautioned, pushing Lucanos and Aranae behind her.
But the toad kept coming.
Thinking fast, Belle broke off a branch from a yew tree.
“Last warning,” she said, waving the stick.
But the greedy toad paid her no attention, so Belle whacked him across his snout. The creature squealed in pain, then burrowed under some low branches.
Belle struggled on. Night birds called out, their songs sinister and harsh. Creatures slithered and scuttled underfoot.
She and her friends went down one new pathway, then another, trying to get to the middle of the maze, but again and again they found only dead ends.
After yet another fruitless try, Belle—her hands and arms scratched from the thorns, sticks and leaves in her hair—stopped, desperate to get her bearings. Panic started to whisper in her ear, telling her that she would never get out of the maze. But she refused to give in to it; she knew that if she did, she would be truly lost.
She started walking again and had just found a new pathway to try when she heard it—a low, deep sound. It sounded like millstones grinding. Or as though someone were pushing open the heavy stone door of a tomb.
“What is that?” Lucanos asked. “It almost sounds like growling.”
The sound came again. It was closer this time. So close it seemed to be on the other side of the hedge wall.
Belle’s blood ran cold. “Aranae, Lucanos…run,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Run!”
“Run? Why?” Lucanos asked. “What’s going—”
The beetle’s words were cut off as Belle snatched him up. There was no time to explain. She grabbed Aranae, too, then shot down the new pathway she’d found, praying it was the right one.
The noises they’d heard could have only one source, and Belle knew what it was.
The countess’s stone lions.
STUMBLING AND TRIPPING, Belle ran down the path. Her dress caught on a branch. She tore it free.
“What’s going on?” Lucanos demanded. “Unhand me this instant!”
“Lions…” Belle panted. “The statues…from the staircase…”
A roar ripped through the night. It was followed by a second one. They seemed to be coming from two different directions now.
“They’ve split up,” Belle said. “They’re stalking us.”
She turned a corner and continued down the path, following it as it snaked off farther into the maze.
Where’s the portal? she wondered frantically. Maybe at that next corner up ahead. We must be getting close.
She was halfway to the corner when a creature rounded it from the opposite direction.
Belle froze.
Carved of white marble, the lion glowed in the moonlight. A lush mane flowed down its neck to its powerful shoulders. Muscles rippled under its fur with every step it took. An eerie blue light flickered in its eyes.
As those eyes found Belle, the lion snarled, revealing a set of sharp, pointed fangs.
Slowly, Belle backed away. She glanced behind her, and as she did, the second lion appeared at the other end of the row, blocking her escape.
Heads down, tails lashing, they closed in. There was nowhere for Belle to go.
“No,” she said, her eyes wide with fear. “Please…no!”
Her legs started to shake.
“There’s no way out, Belle. It’s over,” Lucanos said brokenly.
“No, Lucanos. I won’t let her do this. There’s always a way. If I can’t go left or right, then I’ve got to go up!” Belle said resolutely.
She faced the hedge, grabbed a branch, and started to climb. Aranae scuttled up ahead of her. Lucanos flew.
When the lions realized what the three were doing, they broke into a run.
“Hurry, Belle. Faster!” Lucanos shouted.
He flew underneath her and poked her in the rump with his sharp horns, again and again.
“Ouch!” Belle yelped, scrambling higher.
The yew’s branches were dense. They slapped at Belle’s cheeks and poked her eyes. The bark scraped her skin. She ignored the pain and kept going. In only a few seconds, she was a good ten feet off the ground.
The lions circled below her and roared. One started to scale the yew. Like most lions, it was a good climber—but unlike most lions, it was made of stone, and the yew’s branches snapped like matchsticks under its weight.
Higher and higher Belle climbed. Now almost at the top of the trees, she was just about to put her right foot on a sturdy branch when the limb beneath her left foot broke.
Belle screamed. Her hands tightened around the branches they were holding. Her legs dangled over the path. The lions jumped as high as they could, swiping at her feet with their lethal claws, but they couldn’t reach her.
After what seemed like an eternity, Belle managed to plant her right foot on a branch. Then her left foot. She resumed her climb, and a moment later, reached the top of t
he tree line.
She looked over the edge to the other side, and let out a long, loud whoop of relief.
Below her was the book. And with it, the way out of Nevermore.
She was almost home.
“ALMOST THERE. KEEP GOING. One step at a time,” Belle said to herself.
She was most of the way down the other side of the yew hedge, and almost out of the maze. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the book, right where it should be. In only seconds, she’d be walking through it, leaving Nevermore and the countess behind her.
She jumped the last few feet, landing with a whump on the ground.
“Thank you, Lucanos. Thank you, Aranae!” she said to her friends, who were already down. “I think we’re going to make it.”
But Lucanos didn’t reply. His eyes were on Nevermore.
Belle followed his gaze and saw that the silvery shimmer of its surface wasn’t rippling as it usually did. It wasn’t moving at all. It was perfectly still, glassed over like a winter lake.
Belle pressed her palm against it. It was as hard and as cold as ice. She looked through it, expecting to see the workroom and the table and desk inside it.
Instead she saw the Beast. He was holding a blue ribbon in his paw—her blue ribbon. He was looking into the pages of Nevermore.
Belle could see him and the others because the workroom was illuminated by candles. On this side of the book, however, there was only darkness; they could not see her.
She stared at the Beast, quizzically. She would have expected him to roar and rage, to lash out and smash something.
Instead, he looked heartbroken.
And as she gazed at his face, Belle saw something she hadn’t seen before—that the Beast truly cared for her.
“Someone stole her!” Cogsworth declared. “We must arm ourselves, master! We must go after the rogue who committed this foul deed and bring Belle back!”
The Beast slowly shook his head. “You don’t understand, Cogsworth. No one took Belle—she left. Because she wanted to. I’d go in if I could, but it’s impossible. Belle made a choice, and it was hers and hers alone.”
Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book Page 18
