Beauty & Cruelty

by Meredith Katz

  The Cat, lurking under Talia's throne on the other side, and only visible as a pair of distressed glowing eyes, shut the gate behind them as soon as they were through. Immediately, people gathered around, checking them for injuries, congratulating them, asking questions. Talia sank into her throne, dropping the Enchantress beside it; Cruelty noticed a fresh chip on the side of the throne where the bullet that had taken the path with them had struck. Odette let out a loud honking wail, rising up, wings spread. Her gaze was fixed on the sight of Sixth sitting with pain creasing his brow, his sword in his hand, blood dripping down his arm; a moment later Odile too fell by his side, ripping her skirt into ribbons to treat him.

  Cruelty tuned the chaos out, closing her eyes and focusing on just breathing as her heart slowly calmed to a regular pace again.

  When the initial flurry of activity had calmed, she opened her eyes, exhaling slowly.

  "Beast Enchantress," she said, "we need a favor of you."

  The Enchantress lifted her head, the movement nearly mechanical. "Of course," she said, "if it is within my power."

  It wasn't said the way it normally might be, a prideful offer; instead, it was full of that emptiness, a tone as if she expected there was nothing she could do. Cruelty frowned a little, ready to continue; before she could, the Beast scuttled forward, rising on his limbs and waiting, watching her.

  It seemed to take her a moment to recognize him. "Ah," she said. "You."

  "Lady," he said. "I recognize I have met none of your conditions. But for the sake of this world, if you are willing to remove my curse in front of an audience..." He sounded uncertain himself, as if he didn't know what to expect, whether to hope or plan for rejection.

  She lifted a hand, took one of his in it; his face changed immediately from indecision to a pure, unadulterated horror as he felt what Cruelty had felt.

  "I cannot," she said. "I have nothing. I am nothing. I am an enchantress no longer."

  That feeling, still lingering in the pit of Cruelty's stomach, curdled. "What do you mean?"

  "I was captive," she said. "Low on energy. That show of power was a... mistake. I had not been restoring myself at all, and finally when I cursed someone... they attacked me. My public display made me a target. I used the last of my power calling for help." She closed those dull eyes. "Emptied, I was brought to that place. But there was nothing there to restore me at all there. Rather, they examined me. Over and over, I was tested, I was studied, I was disbelieved. Oh, the fact I had shown power was believed. But not what I was. A psychic? An alien? Anything but what I am. Was. And so I am nothing any longer. I am barely even something that holds a shape. If you had been any later, I would have stopped being that, I think. I am just nothingness in a tangible form. So I can't break this spell, because it's mine no longer to break. It will only break if you fit the conditions. If not, it won't. That's how things are."

  She let go of the Beast's hand, closing her eyes again. She leaned against the throne as if it were the only thing propping her up.

  Talia made a noise almost of pain. And then she gathered herself. Voice firm, she told her, "We are trying to restore this world. If belief comes back, it can restore you as well. Don't give up; we'll do what we can."

  Cruelty, still chilled by the thought and not wanting to spend longer thinking of it, turned away from them to face the gathered crowd instead. "All right, then," she said, tired and grim. "Well, we can't do that plan. We'll have to find some other way to display something in public to gain belief. Maybe I can capture an ogre and we can bring it in or something." She looked at Martin. "You were going to expand on your plan?"

  "Right," Martin said, after a too-long moment. He sounded shaken, looking at the Beast who was standing in a strange position, bent over himself and staring with his bulging eyes at the hand the Enchantress had touched. "All right. There's still things we can do, I'm sure. The thing is... back home, I actually work at a news station. I think I mentioned that to you before, Cruelty. I'm not in broadcasting or anything. I'm in the financial department. But I can get in no problem. I'll have some questions to answer, sure, but... if I can go back there, I can take something that can maybe help you guys get in? And then, I'll give you a good time to show up, put on a show and talk about whatever you want, do whatever you want, in the middle of the evening news."

  "The news being the most reputable form of public media," Cruelty explained to a couple blank and somewhat shell-shocked stares. If Martin had mentioned where he'd worked, she hadn't noticed it, but she supposed he must have. "It's only supposed to report fact in an unbiased way. It probably doesn't, but that's its reputation. It's not a bad idea, if we can get in and out before anyone shows up. Staying too long would be risky, though. We wouldn't want to end up like her." She nodded at the Enchantress.

  "Right," Martin said again, even more hesitantly. "They won't have anyone to take responsibility for it, either, and can't explain it, so they'll just try to distance themselves from it. But it'll be out there, and they'll be the 'source'. It's just... well, to get in there, I need to be released from the promise to stay with the Beast. I was thinking, if he was going to get uncursed, that wouldn't be a big deal, but..."

  He didn't finish it, but he didn't have to. In this situation, would the Beast really want to be left alone? Should he be, even?

  "You can go," the Beast said, not turning to face him, still hunched over his hands. His bubbling voice was soft.

  Martin's eyes widened slightly. "Are you sure?"

  "You can go," the Beast said again. "I release you from your debt to me. It was just a flower. You can go free."

  For a long moment, Martin stood still, unsure entirely how to react. Then he approached the Beast, reached out a hand, put it on the bend of the Beast's back. "But... I mean, thank you. I'm sorry. I know this is an awful way to say goodbye."

  "This isn't goodbye," the Beast said, and raised his head. "I may not be able to change back, but everyone else has already risked themselves. I will expose myself as well, and hope that this will be enough evidence."

  "You mean—" Martin's eyes were still wide, fixed on the Beast's face.

  "I will go with the rest," the Beast said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cruelty spent a little while discussing with Martin where his home was, determining which gate he'd wandered through and deciding which of her own was close enough for his use. After, she focused on it to open it, and shook his hand before he went. He was carrying a number of plants in his pockets—mostly seeds, a flower, a long thin coiled vine. All of these were in preparation for the day they'd take action, and he promised to make good use of them. Flowers seemed fitting, he'd said, under the circumstances.

  So with that, they let him go.

  He'd warned them that it would probably take a week or two before he could get it into action. There'd be bureaucracy to deal with—the police, the news covering things with him since he was part of this strange story, convincing his job that he wanted to work as soon as possible and that that he was even fit to work. Imagining him just walking back into his workplace was unrealistic. So with that in mind, they agreed to remain on a low alert. They would remain ready to gather together and act whenever he tore the petals off the flower to signal her that it was time, but in the meantime they would just continue things here as best they could.

  They weren't idle, of course. Keeping in mind it would probably be a while, Talia had Cruelty open the gates again, taking people in just as they had before. They'd sweep them out, she'd said, when it was time, and shut the gates behind them once more. This they'd do as many times as seemed necessary. The unspoken side was that they couldn't necessarily trust Martin to do his part, or to be able to do his part. Cruelty too never forgot the possibility that he might just abandon them, take his chance to leave and run with it. But even if she'd once have expected that, and even if she still acknowledged it, it didn't seem believable. She just couldn't see it as something he'd do.

  Mos
tly Cruelty rested, tried to conserve her energy. She'd been noticing for a while recently, but her power hadn't been returning as well as it had earlier. It still returned when she stayed in touch with nature, lay in the grass, walked through the woods, but in smaller amounts. She couldn't tell exactly where the bottleneck was happening, but there was one. Was it this world, which was already at its limit, and unable to offer too much for her? Was it something wrong in herself? She hadn't been behaving fully like herself for a while now, she thought, and regaining power did involve being 'who she was'. There wasn't much in her that even wanted to be cruel any more—so what was left for her?

  She tried to keep her thoughts from wandering down those paths; it unnerved her, especially as she couldn't seem to stem the change. Instead, she just focused on what she was doing now. It was all any of them could do these days: focus on what was right in front of them.

  Time passed: days, a week, another half week. She was wrapped in a small cocoon of vines in Talia's room and resting, trying to store up all the energy she could for the upcoming plan, when she felt the flower she'd given Martin begin to tear. She and sat up at once, unwinding the cocoon from around her.

  "It's time," she said.

  "Get the Beast," Talia said, stiffening with the sudden tension.

  She teleported to do so; speed was of the essence now. As she shifted through here and there, she felt the wild pressure through the space between the worlds as Talia abruptly forced out the humans she'd since brought in. She'd have to close the gates again shortly. Cruelty didn't let it distract her, passing through the Beast's castle grounds quickly and calling up to him, "It's time!"

  For a moment, she had a chilling sense of doubt. Would he come out at all? The thing he least wanted in the world was to be exposed to a large public. His agreeing to do so had happened weeks earlier; he'd probably doubted his decision a hundred times, a thousand times.

  But he emerged, moving slickly on his many hands, body writhing in its rise and fall as he scurried out to meet her.

  "I am ready," he said, though he sounded a little sick.

  They returned to the Great Hall of Talia's castle, and Cruelty closed the gates again, breathed. She had enough energy for this, for their plans, so long as she was careful.

  First, she activated the seeds she'd told Martin to hide everywhere he could in the station. She had advised him to distribute them around as spread out as possible so she could make it into a net; the best option was to put everyone in the news station to sleep, so they could get in and out without people right on site to try to stop them. With that in mind she'd given him as many seeds as she could spare. From here, it was impossible to tell how successful he'd been in it, but there was no room for doubting him. Remotely, she activated them, sent vine out to meet up with vine, to cover the entire building he was in as best they could and throw everyone under the pall of sleep.

  Then she activated the gate, the vine she'd told him to lay out in a circle wherever he could manage to do so. Ideally, they'd appear in front of the cameras, but she didn't think that he'd have likely pulled that off. They'd probably appear elsewhere in the building and need to make their way to where they needed to be. His coworkers might not notice seeds hidden around the broadcasting stage but they'd certainly notice a circle of vine laid out.

  "Let's go," she said, and stepped through the gate.

  They arrived in front of a small cubicle. All around them, other people were slumbering at their desks; Martin had fallen off his chair at the cubicle and was crumpled on the floor. Cruelty stepped out of the circle, gathering the vine up to take with her, and nudged him.

  He blinked awake slowly, at first seeming confused, but delight crossing his face shortly after. "Hey," he said softly. He sat up, reaching past Cruelty.

  The Beast placed one of his hands in Martin's and tugged him upright. "We should hurry," he said, voice more a hiss than a whisper.

  "Right. You bet a lot of viewers are wondering why the broadcasters are asleep right now," Martin said. "The network'll probably send people to the station soon. Come on, after me."

  The three of them were led by Martin through a few corridors to a larger room, lights and cameras fixed on the central broadcast desk. The broadcasters were collapsed against it, and everyone around had been operating the equipment was likewise asleep. The cameras were left running, focused on those sleeping figures.

  "Beast," Talia whispered. "You go first. We need your image."

  "I understand," the Beast murmured, his tone one of endurance, and released Martin's hand. He paused for a moment, back hunched, wringing his hands. Then, with a long exhalation, he set forward, moving from offstage to on, stopping when he was behind the desk in the center.

  With the lights focused on him, the full horror of his form was hard to deny, cracked and oozing, bent in all the wrong places, many hands shifting and moving, the hints of personhood on his face all the more stark and tragic for the scaled and cracked flesh with hair pressing out of it. His sour wounds glistened vibrantly under the lighting. He gazed into the cameras with concern and anxiety, then folded his hands against his bulk and sat back.

  "I am the Beast," he said in his bubbling, sibilant voice. "I once was a person, but was cursed. You have probably heard this story. I am real, as stories are real. They are true life experiences. Look at me, and know that I am real enough to appear before you, before all of you. If that makes you afraid, then so be it. Feel fear."

  He seemed to run out of words then, glancing aside. Talia took a deep breath, then seized Cruelty's hand, tugging.

  The two of them went out together.

  "Thank you," Talia said to the Beast, then turned to face the cameras.

  Cruelty did so as well, though she felt exceptionally silly standing there. This was their big public announcement, and it was to a room of sleeping men and women. The cameras were focused on them, and she had no concept of who was watching. It could be many people. It could be none. When the broadcasters fell asleep, were the viewers focused on it, concerned, wondering what was happening, why nobody was waking up, why nobody was coming on to wake them up? Did they text their friends and tell them to turn on the TV and check it out? Or did they just decide the show was boring, they wouldn't see any more, turn it off? It was impossible to tell, from the focused lens of the camera, who they were reaching. But, she thought, perhaps that was how it almost always was with stories. The actors may be able to tell audience reaction to their performance, but the original scriptwriter wrote without knowing how it would be received. Every book she'd ever read had been written by someone who didn't know who would read it, if anyone would read it. Every TV show was made like this, performed to nobody but an uncaring camera lens. If they were going to tell their story like that, if they were going to try to author themselves to the world, perhaps it was appropriate if they didn't know whether or not they were speaking into the void.

  "I'll make this quick," Talia said to the cameras. "I'm sure we only have so much time to speak before someone comes to try to shut this down, so listen while I speak. Pay attention to us now if you never have before."

  Cruelty turned her gaze from the meaningless camera lens to Talia. She looked, Cruelty thought as she watched her, so beautiful. The bright lights streamed down on her, caught in the curls of her light hair, reflecting the brightness and energy of her eyes back into infinity. It almost felt like she couldn't look back at the camera, caught instead watching Talia as she spoke.

  "My name is Talia," Talia said. "I am said to contain the beauty of the moon and the stars. You've probably heard of me as well as my friend the Beast. I was once Sleeping Beauty, but I'm not that any more. Perhaps I'm fortunate that I had another name already, Talia, to help draw me out of that tale." She leaned forward, pressing her hands on the desk between the sleeping announcers, and gazed up into the cameras. "I am Beauty Awakened, I am the Beauty who will not tolerate being trapped in sleep, I am a Beauty who has been freed from a curse, who refu
ses to be just the cursed girl anymore. The women who sleep and wait to be rescued are an old concept, aren't we? More a mockery than a reality. I want to think I can be your fairy tale now—ah, but I am a fairy tale. We are fairy tales. But tales can be true or false, can't they? A tall tale, a true tale. I am talking to you now: so which am I?

  "I am," she continued, "something that is real, and as I was a princess, so too am I a ruler. It's been a hard time for tales, hasn't it? I'm sure people will disbelieve this, try to debunk it. A prank. We brought the Beast—who kindly came despite his own troubles—in the hopes you would look and believe the truth of your eyes. I'm speaking to you, despite a certainty you will try to disbelieve me, in the hopes you will listen and believe the truth of your ears. I know how easy it is to disbelieve, or to make us something other than what we are. We recently rescued one of our own who is a shell of her former self. She was captured by your people, was disbelieved to her own face. Perhaps that's what we're risking now. But we will risk it.

  "We have been kidnapping people. You must have heard of us by now, though I'm sure you didn't believe that what was doing the kidnapping was the truth behind stories. Belief is hard to come by these days, and so we are trying to show people the truth to their eyes. We will keep taking people, but we will not harm these people, and will return them. That's a tidy thing to say, but the truth is that I will not harm them, and I will attempt to help them. But our reality is a harsh place. We will take them, and they will be put in danger. There's no doubt about that. Our world is full of rules and tricks of survival that rely on belief. Reread your storybooks, and perhaps when you come here you will understand how to use those rules. And if your friends, family vanish, and return later with a fantastic tale—believe them. If these are the people you trust, believe them, even if you don't believe us now. If you are one of the ones we stole and returned, if you happen to be watching right now: it is real. It happened. Perhaps you met me or one of the people with me. Even if people doubt you, know that we are here to tell you that what you experienced is real. Every experience is true, at least insomuch that you experienced it."