by Lisa Jensen
And as wary as I am, I’m surprised at how exhilarating it is, to have a kind of voice again. And someone to hear it.
Mistress of a chamber or two, where I swept and scrubbed.
“A maid!” he cries, as if it were the noblest occupation on earth, and I the queen of all maids.
Yes. One of many.
“That must have been a thankless enough task in this big place,” says Beast. “Were you happy here?”
I would be frowning in confusion if I could. Jean-Loup cared no more for the feelings of a servant than he did for the beauty of a rose. And the chevalier would know better than anyone how little reason I had to be happy here.
But Beast continues to gaze at me, expecting an answer, in all apparent innocence. As I study his face, from where I’ve been stuck up here among the books, I also notice a spider busily spinning in a shadowy corner of this shelf just out of my light. Beast’s gaze is too intent on me at the moment to see it. If he is playing some game, it is my turn to move.
I would be happier now down on the desk, where I could see you better.
Beast reaches for me, so eagerly he doesn’t notice when his paw snags the new web — until the spider drops into his fur and starts scrambling up his arm.
I wait for his shriek of terror at the very least. But when Beast catches sight of the spider, he only pauses for a moment, arm still outstretched.
“Sorry, old goodwife,” he murmurs, sliding his other paw under the creature and lifting her gently back up to her shelf.
He takes me up and calmly sets me back down to the writing desk, not the least bit disturbed by the encounter.
But my thoughts are reeling.
The only time I ever saw the chevalier completely lose command of himself, shuddering in horror, was when an unfortunate spider touched him. He could not help his response at that time; it was an impulse he could not control. How could he now pretend not to be affected?
I can think of only one answer.
Somehow, as impossible as it seems, this is not Jean-Loup.
It’s grown darker outside. A storm is gathering. The wind whistles like an eerie flute, and rain spits at the window like handfuls of gravel. The weather seems as disturbed as my thoughts.
How can I disbelieve the evidence of my own eyes? I saw the chevalier transformed into Beast! And yet, I have never sensed any of the chevalier’s crafty slyness in Beast’s words — or his actions — not since the night he shut me up in the attic cupboard. Jean-Loup has disappeared, with his cruelty and his handsome face and his fear of spiders. Beast is someone entirely different. How can such a thing be possible? But magic is alive in this château — no one knows it better than I — and magic obeys its own rules.
Beast, meanwhile, is pleased to have me at eye level again, sitting in the chair opposite me. He wants to ask me more questions, but I am intent on my own.
Beast, when did you come here?
He eyes me thoughtfully for a moment. “I don’t know exactly. It was cold; that’s the first thing I remember. I woke up out in the park, shivering under a bush. I wandered around the grounds for days before I dared set foot inside the château. I was certain that such a grand place must be full of people, but I never saw anyone go in or come out — not even to chase me off when I grew bold enough to enter the yard or cross the moat. At last I found my courage and came inside.”
He sighs, thinking back. “But there was no one here. I poked my head into every room but could never find another living soul. One day, I worked up the nerve to climb up to the attic because I felt so strongly that there was somebody up there.” He tilts his head slightly and raises one shaggy brow at me. “That is when I found you.”
But how could you know I was alive?
“I don’t know that, either, but I sensed it. It was not as if you were . . . speaking to me, as you are now.” A brief smile plays across his face. “I never dared hope for that! But I felt the presence of an intelligence, a personality so nearby.”
He shakes his head a little, unable to offer any more explanation.
“And what about you, Lucie?” he goes on more eagerly. “Tell me how you came to be here.”
Fair enough, I suppose. I’m not the only one with questions.
There is little enough to tell. I come from a very small, very poor village. You won’t have heard of it. My mother worked the landlord’s fields.
“And your father?”
Cold in his grave these many years.
“Oh, I am sorry.” Beast pauses out of respect, but he’s anxious for our conversation to continue. “What was he like?”
He was poor. And good, and very, very kind.
Under Beast’s sympathetic gaze, I permit myself to think back to my girlhood, before my stepfather ruled our lives and my mother’s affections.
He worked in the stables of the alehouse in our village. Travelers on pilgrimage or off to the university stopped there to change their horses. I can barely remember. It all seems so long ago now. All day he would listen to their talk. He lapped it up like — like their mounts drank from his trough.
Beast lets out a soft whuffle of laughter.
That was why I wanted —
My thoughts come to an abrupt halt.
“What did you want?” Beast asks. “What did the stabler’s daughter dream of?”
I haven’t thought of this in years. My father’s stories were so exciting. I wanted to be a scholar, too. My father even found a learned woman in our village to teach me my letters. I wanted to learn things and be useful to people in some way.
Beast considers this. “And yet, you came here.”
It takes a moment to compose my thoughts. My father died of a fever. My mother found another husband, with his own plot to work on the landlord’s property and his own brood to raise.
I don’t like to think about my stepfather, his oily glances, the rights he thought he could claim over me. My mother kept me safe from him the only way she could.
So my mother sent me into service. She thought I would be better off here. She couldn’t have known . . .
Beast’s dark eyes are more alert than I would like, his muzzle slightly raised.
“Known what?” he asks very softly. “What happened to you here, Lucie? Why are you here all alone?”
I don’t know if I dare reveal my secret to Beast. What would he think of me if he knew?
“It’s painful for you,” Beast says gently. “I’m sorry. I don’t need to know.”
But his dark eyes are so full of concern, his manner so gentle, I have a wild impulse to risk his opinion of me to be rid of the burden of my shame. “But — perhaps I can help in some way,” Beast suggests. “Do something for you.”
I muster my resolve. Doesn’t Beast deserve the truth?
There’s nothing you can do. It’s already been done.
Beast’s expression darkens. His face is very close, his eyes as sharp as stars. “Somebody hurt you,” he whispers. His thick, tawny brows lower as if he’s peering into my soul. “Jean-Loup.”
And so, I begin to tell my tale, my thoughts halting at first. But the more I tell, the more I begin to feel a kind of relief to let it out at last. This is what my newfound voice is for. I’ve never had anyone to tell my story to; Mère Sophie already seemed to know about it in her witchy way. And the more I reveal, the more outrage I see kindling in Beast’s eyes.
As my tale ends, he impulsively reaches out a paw but stops far short of touching me. His paw drops again into his lap, and he sits farther back in his chair, as if to make room for the horror that’s burst into the room between us as ferociously as the storm outside.
“Monster,” Beast rumbles at last, his voice low but fierce. “What a monster he was! I am so sorry, Lucie,” he goes on, shaking his great head. “You deserve justice for what was done to you.”
Justice has been done. Jean-Loup is gone.
“But you’ve lost your human form. How can that be just? You’re not the one who should
be punished.”
But this was my choice, I insist.
He looks surprised.
To be free of my weak human body, so easily hurt. I became what I am out of vigilance, to witness Jean-Loup’s downfall.
Beast peers at me, puzzled, trying to piece it all together. “But if Jean-Loup is gone, why are you still enchanted?”
To see that he will never return, I realize now — a far greater purpose than I had before, when watching him suffer was my only goal.
But before I can form these jumbled thoughts into an answer for Beast, a sudden volley of hailstones crashes against the high round window, like an alarm, a warning, making Beast jump. The howling of the wind seems to triple in strength and violence. Beast clambers out of his seat, scenting the air, his ears straining upward. Some mischief is afoot, but there are no other windows to see out of up here.
He pivots about to stare again at me. “Something is out there!”
I don’t ask how he knows; I feel something, too, and his senses are far more acute than mine.
“We must see what it is,” Beast exclaims, and springs for the desk. He grasps me again in his paw, and we head for the stairwell as the storm shrieks outside.
We racket down the little wooden staircase and into the attic corridor. We cross to one of the front-facing rooms, and Beast shoves aside the abandoned furnishings to get to the window that overlooks the courtyard. The rain is pelting down now, and deep explosions of thunder rattle the glass. Lightning illuminates the courtyard, and we see a shape, a figure out on the bridge that crosses the moat, beyond the gate. It cowers in the feeble shelter of the low stone wall of the bridge. A few paces away, a horse stands snorting and pawing, tossing its mane in alarm, but keeping close to its master. A human. A man.
Beast is all aquiver with eagerness, paw and snout pressed to the glass, watching. How long has it been since a human was in the château? Three months? More? It was autumn when I visited Mère Sophie, and we’ve already weathered the worst of the winter snows.
By flashes of lightning, we see the man creep almost all the way across the bridge, but the stone wall around the courtyard prevents him going any farther, its gilded iron gate firmly latched. He casts about in desperation for any other form of shelter as his horse jitters and whickers behind him.
“Please,” breathes Beast. “Let him in.”
The two halves of the iron gate unlatch and sweep open into the courtyard of their own accord. The man draws back in alarm, but his horse lifts its head and its tail and trots boldly into the courtyard. The man follows cautiously, and the two of them progress up the long driveway under the arch of roses. They emerge at the foot of the grand front steps, where the man pauses. But the horse canters off toward the east wing and the track that leads around to the back of the château as if he senses he’ll find comfort there.
“Stables,” whispers Beast. “Feed him and curry him.” The magic seems willing enough to oblige.
The man can’t hesitate for too long in the driving rain. Abandoned by his horse, he climbs the steps to the shelter of the colonnaded porch.
“Door,” murmurs Beast, and I can hear the great double doors below us creaking open into the entry hall.
Beast’s movements are stealthy as he creeps down the stairs to the second-floor landing. I, too, feel curious but wary, and I manage to dim my flames so we are concealed in darkness to get a better view of our unexpected guest. The stranger stands bewildered in the entry hall, below, gazing fearfully all around in the dark.
“Light,” whispers Beast, and for the first time since the night of the transformation, flames blaze to life in the hall sconces. The stranger gasps and turns around again. He’s an old man with a short grey beard, made straggly by the rain. His cloak is made of fine stuff but much worn with use. It leaves a puddle of water on the marble floor.
“Hello?” he calls out in a voice frail with apprehension. “Is anyone there?”
“Dry and warm him,” Beast requests of the air, and a fire roars into being in the grate of the nearest sitting room, illuminating the doorway. The old man jumps at first, but then draws near, too wet and weary to wonder anymore where his salvation comes from.
Upstairs, Beast hurries to the dining salon and throws open the door. “Food!” he exclaims. “Wine!” The sideboard overflows with roast meats, tureens of soup, and platters of fish. Fruit of all sorts piles up in bowls, vegetables steam in silver pots, and a decanter of wine appears on the table beside a handsome setting of plate and silverware. At a nod from Beast, the sconces light, and a fire glows in the grate; then he crosses back to the railing overlooking the stairs, still gripping me in his paw.
The fire has gone out below, and the old man is drawn back into the lighted entry hall. “Here,” murmurs Beast, and the stairwell sconces light up, illuminating the grand staircase. The old man hesitates for only a moment before obediently climbing the stairs. We fade back into the deepest shadows as the stranger arrives on the second floor. All is in darkness but for the blaze of warmth and light wafting out of the dining salon, along with the irresistible aromas of hot food. He goes straight there, never pausing to notice what might be lurking in the shadows.
Inside, he stumbles to the table, throws off his cloak, and slides into the chair where his place is set. Groaning platters arrange themselves on the table before him, and food dishes itself onto his plate. His hand trembles as he reaches for the decanter to pour himself a glass of wine; it sloshes over a little when he sets it down again, as full as it was when he first began to pour. But before he drinks, he pauses with his hands hovering before him in the air.
“Thank you,” he quavers. “Whatever fairies or gods have done this, I thank you. I am in your debt.”
When the old man has eaten and drunk his fill and begun to drowse by the fire, Beast causes his way to be lit to the nearest of the private bedchambers. Dust is banished, and a welcoming fire appears in the grate. The soft, down-filled quilt peels itself back, and our guest crawls happily into bed to sink upon the instant into untroubled sleep. He should scarcely look so peaceful if he knew what terrible visage was watching him from the shadows.
I wonder if Beast will keep this vigil all night, but at last, he wrenches himself away and carries me into the dining salon. The food has completely vanished, but Beast sniffs all around the table and chair as if to pick up the human scent, to accustom himself to the novelty of a person in the château again. Beast follows the trail downstairs to the entry hall, restless, probing everywhere, until he finally sets me down in my usual place on the windowsill.
“What are we to think of this, Lucie?” Beast murmurs.
No more do I know what to make of this unexpected visitor, but I know how eager Beast is for human companionship.
Let him rest, I suggest to Beast. We will sort it out in the morning.
Beast nods at me and melts back into the shadows.
He’s an old man who has lost his way in the storm. Really, what harm can he do?
I find out the next morning.
The sun rises pale but resolute after last night’s storm. Raindrops glisten in the red roses; it looks like a garden of rubies. The sound of tentative bustle upstairs tells me our guest has awoken and is making his way back to the dining salon. I have no doubt another lavish feast awaits him there to break his fast. I don’t see Beast anywhere in his garden.
After a while, the horse appears out in the courtyard, his saddle oiled, his coat shiny, his head and tail held high. He waits patiently at the foot of the steps, and soon enough, the old man comes down the stairs into the entry hall. His cloak is clasped across his chest with the hood thrown back. His thinning grey hair is neatly combed back, and his sparse, pointed little beard is tidy and clean. At the foot of the grand staircase, he stops once more to look around and marvel at the luxury of the place.
Then his eyes fall upon me, aglow in my window, my silver surface gleaming.
He glances at me as he moves toward the doors
, then pauses and looks back, measuring me with his eyes. With one last swift glance all around the hall, he steps up and grasps me with one hand. I feel my flames rising up in outrage. How dare he touch me? The old man tilts my tapers toward him and tries to blow out my flames, but, of course, he can’t do it. Undaunted, he swirls his cloak over me, lighted flames and all, and hastens through the double doors, out onto the porch, and down the steps.
At the bottom step, he signals his horse and, without ceremony, thrusts me into one of his saddlebags. But I don’t fit all the way in; my tapers are too tall. He leaves the flap unbuckled and hurries to his horse’s bridle to lead him down the drive. I am livid! I will scorch this saddlebag to smoking ruin before he gets as far as the gate!
But it’s the glorious rose garden that halts him in his tracks. The gates stand open at the end of the drive, but he is too awed with looking to mount his horse. He crosses to the edge of the drive and gazes at the wall of roses soaring upward to arch over his head. His hand reaches out to touch one leaf; then his fingers caress a beautiful rose in bud, perfectly formed and dewy with rain. After another furtive glance all around the empty garden, his fingers close on the base of the stem, and he gently plucks the rose.
He has scarcely turned a single step back toward his horse when a thunderous roar splits the air, as if the storm were beginning again. Beast stands at the top of the steps, howling like a demon, his horns agleam, his dark eyes fierce, and his paws upraised, claws extended. He is swathed in a cloak of Jean-Loup’s he has found somewhere, burgundy velvet, trimmed in gold. It falls to only a little way below his haunches, but the effect is both regal and terrible. He is a nightmare come to life, and the old man is so affrighted, he drops the perfect rose into the wet gravel.
“Human!” thunders Beast. “Why do you steal from me?”
The old man is so terrified, he can barely speak. “I — I . . .” stammers the old man. “Oh, forgive me, sire . . .”
“Silence!” roars Beast, striding down the steps. His hooves crunch menacingly in the gravel, and the old man, incapable of flight, falls to his trembling knees and cowers in terror as Beast approaches. “Have I not fed you, warmed you, provided you with the most civil hospitality?”
