Fairest of All
Page 14
He felt his anger mounting, raging out of control as he stormed his way to the West Wing. Monster! His claws gouged the wooden banister as he went up the long stairway, wishing it was flesh and blood, not splintering wood.
Monster!
There was very little light in this part of the castle. It was completely dark apart from the moonlight that came through the tattered red draperies of his bedroom. Leaning on the far wall were stacks of different shaped mirrors covered in white moth eaten cloths. Among the mirrors were portraits, some of which had been destroyed by his anger and frustration, the visages mocking him as the witches had, taunting him with his former likeness.
Monster!
He couldn’t light a fire in the staggeringly large fireplace or the torches on the wall brackets. His paws couldn’t master tiny things like matches, and the servants weren’t allowed into the West Wing. Not even the sisters came to this part of the castle. He had escaped their mockery for long stretches of time when he spent most of his days here in the beginning—hiding away, letting his anger swell to epic proportions, fearful of what he was becoming, yet intrigued concurrently.
It had been that way at first, hadn’t it? Intriguing. The subtle differences in his features, the lines around his eyes that frightened his foes when he narrowed them. Using a look rather than words to strike fear into his enemies was very useful indeed.
He had looked upon himself in the mirror in those days, trying to distinguish which sorts of deeds caused the most horrific alterations in his appearance. Knowing that this was a degenerative curse that wouldn’t abate.
The sisters seemed to know of his compulsion and teased him about it, saying he would suffer the fate of their cousin’s second wife if he wasn’t careful. The sisters were always talking nonsense, always speaking in fragments, and suffered from fits of laughter so severe he hardly knew what they were on about most of the time. He was not sure even they were aware. Could it all be the rambling of maddened minds? Here he was—taunted by insane crones. He, who had once been a prince.
Once. And now…now he couldn’t even venture out of his gardens or approach a wounded stranger who might wander from the forest to his castle in the night without sending him running in fear.
What did Belle think of what little she saw of him by dungeon torchlight? But he knew, didn’t he? She’d called him a monster! Leave her to the servants, then; let them weave tales of his dastardly deeds! Let them confirm how vile and ugly he was. He cared not! After all, he was a monster. And monsters knew not feelings, especially the sentiment called love.
His anger and confusion were quelled as his head spun from exhaustion. He sat on the bed, wondering what to do next. The sisters implied that the girl was his only hope of escaping the curse. Liars! He could make her fall in love with him easily enough if he looked as he once had—handsome, well groomed, some might say arrogant.
Women were easily managed then. A few flowery words of love, feigning some interest in what she had to say, perhaps showing a pretense of vulnerability and the girl was his. And often he didn’t even need to resort to such nonsense; only if the girl was exceedingly beautiful would he bother to try to win her admiration. Typically, his looks alone were enough to catch them spellbound.
But the way he looked now…He had no idea how to go about this with Belle. He pushed himself onto his feet, feeling the rough and tattered sheets with the pads of his paws. Perhaps he should let servants in to make the bed, dust the windows, and mop the floors. To have him live more like a human being than the monster he had become.
He stood on shaking legs, still dizzy from the rush of animal anger he’d felt when he heard Belle call him a monster. He moved to the mantel, where he kept the enchanted mirror the sisters had given him long before. He stood there for a moment, taking a deep breath before he looked at himself. It had been far too long since he had seen his own reflection. He had to see how his odious deeds had etched themselves upon his face.
His paw rested on the sheet that was draped over the frame. Then, in one movement, he tore the sheet away and tossed it aside, revealing the looking glass and the tarnished reflection that stared back at him.
Monster!
The only indication of what he had once been was his soulful blue eyes, which teemed with humanity. Those hadn’t changed. They were still his.
But in all other respects, he had become exactly what he had feared. And, indeed, it was worse than he ever could have fathomed.
His knees buckled as his world started to close in. His scope became narrower until he found himself in utter darkness, spiraling into a vision of his past—of himself as he’d once been, before he became a monster. Before he became the Beast.