The sisters looked at each other, and with a nod from Lucinda, Ruby took a necklace out of her pocket.
“We got you this!” She dangled the pretty little necklace from her fingertips, swinging it back and forth in an attempt to distract her. It was a beautiful necklace, braided silver with light pink stones.
“Yes! We got you a present, Circe!” said Martha as Circe narrowed her eyes at her scheming sisters.
“Do you think I’m stupid and so easily distracted?”
Martha frowned theatrically. “We thought you would like it! Try it on!”
Lucinda ran toward Circe like an excited little child, her pale face haggard and her red lipstick smudged. “Yes, try it on! I think it will look lovely.”
Lucinda went behind Circe to put it around her neck. “Okay, fine! Let’s see what it looks like if it will make you happy,” Circe said.
And when Lucinda fastened the clasp, Circe slumped into her sister’s waiting arms. “That’s right, little sister, sleep!” The three witches carried Circe into her room and placed her on the soft featherbed, where she slept blissfully so her sisters could continue their fiendish deeds undisturbed.
“We will wake you when it’s over, our sweet little sister, and you will thank us for avenging your broken heart.”
“No one hurts our little sister!” “Shhh! You’ll wake her!” “Nothing will wake her, not until we take the necklace from her pretty little neck.…” “She won’t be angry with us, will she?” “Oh no, she couldn’t be, we’re doing this for her own good!” “Yes, her own good!”
The sisters had seen enough of Belle and the Beast over the past several days to know where this was heading; what with their daily frolics, bird watching, and disgusting looks of tenderness, it was all the sisters could do to keep themselves from retching. If either of them got the nerve to kiss, it would be over. The curse would be broken. Thank Hades Belle and the Beast were each too bashful to make the first move, so for now the witches’ curse was safe. What they needed to do was focus their attentions on someone who could rip Belle and the Beast apart before disaster struck—and that was when they had their idea.
They gathered again near the fire, this time tossing in a silver powder that sparked and made a putrid smell.
“Make her miss Father dear, show Belle her greatest fear.”
The witches’ laughs grew into a cacophonous maelstrom that traveled with the winds to the Beast’s enchanted castle, casting an ill omen over the lovers holding hands in the moonlight.
The sisters watched.
“Belle, are you happy here with me?” The Beast’s large paws enveloped her little hands as he waited for her answer.
“Yes,” she said, turning away.
“What is it?”
She looked heartbroken.
“If only I could see my father again, just for a moment. I miss him so much.”
“There is a way,” he said.
The sisters were still watching and holding their breath.
“He’s taking her into the West Wing!” Ruby whispered, as if the two lovers could hear the sisters’ remarks.
“Show her the mirror!” Martha screamed.
“Calm yourself, Sisters. He’ll show her the mirror,” Lucinda said, smiling, as they watched to see what would happen next.
“Shhh!” Martha hissed. “He’s saying something!”
“This mirror can show you anything, anything you wish to see.”
The sisters had to cover their mouths to muffle the squeals of glee threatening to burst from their tiny ruby-red lips.
“Take it! Take the mirror!” Lucinda screamed, trying to will Belle into taking the enchanted mirror from the Beast. “She took it!”
“I’d like to see my father, please,” Belle said as she looked into the little hand mirror.
The sisters chanted their wicked words one more time.
“Make her miss Father dear, show Belle her greatest fear!”
Their cackles echoed across the lands, and along with them, their foul magic. Belle felt a terrible chill. “Oh, Papa! Oh, no! He’s sick, maybe dying, and he’s all alone.”
Ruby knocked over the scrying bowl, its water spilling over the gingerbread house’s hardwood floors. They could no longer see Belle or the Beast or force their will upon them.
“Martha, quick, get more water!” Martha took the silver bowl and filled it with water, splashing some on her way back to her sisters, who were now on the floor anguishing.
“Here! I have it!” she yelled. “Look! They are starting to appear! What’s happening?” Ruby was slamming her fists on the wet floor again and again so violently her hands started to bleed.
“Ruby, stop! She’s leaving! She’s going to her father! He’s released her!”
Ruby’s face was streaked with black tears. “But did he give her the mirror? Is she taking it with her? We were unable to finish the incantation!”
Lucinda looked up at her exhausted sisters, worn from long days of witchery. “Not to worry, Sisters, she had the mirror when she left.”
Ruby smiled a mischievous grin. “Everything is in place, then. Perfect.” The sisters’ odious laughter filled the room as they focused their attentions now on someone who wouldn’t need much persuading to commit a bit of chicanery.
Gaston was sitting down to a large banquet in his dining hall, which was heavily decorated with the various animals he’d killed during his many hunting excursions. The chair at the head of the table, at which he was seated, of course, was adorned with elk antlers and draped with animal skins and furs. His cleft chin was jutting out a bit farther than usual, which was a manifestation of his extreme good spirits—that is, until the odd sisters clamored in, disturbing his banquet for one.
“Look here, foul witches! I won’t have you popping in and out of my home unannounced!”
“Sorry to disturb your meal, Gaston, but we have news that you might find interesting.”
Gaston slammed his knife into his wooden dining table. “First you send that foul slinking creature to watch over me, and now this! Showing up whenever you desire, to make requests of me, no doubt!”
Ruby twitched her head to the right, about to speak, but it was Martha who defended Pflanze. “She’s not here to spy on you, Gaston. She’s here to help you.”
Gaston’s laugh rivaled the witches’ own; it filled the hall and reverberated in the witches’ ears. “Help me? Help me? Why, I am the strongest, most attractive man in the village!”
The sisters stared blankly at him, wondering if he, or anyone else, really believed that.
“Yes, help you, Gaston. We’ve found Belle, and she’s on her way to her father now.”
Gaston fixed his gaze on the witches for the first time since they’d arrived. They had finally gotten his full attention. Their dresses were deep red, the exact shade of their lips, which were painted to look like a baby doll’s. Their raven hair was fashioned in shoulder length ringlets around their pale faces and adorned with large red plumes. They were painfully thin and looked ludicrous in all their finery, like skeletal beings brought back from the dead to attend a fancy dress ball.
“You’ve found Belle?”
“Oh yes, we’ve found your dearest love!” Ruby sang. “She won’t be able to resist you!”
Gaston looked at himself in the reflection of his shiny knife and said, “Well, who can?”
Lucinda grinned, trying not to let Gaston detect her repulsion. “We have arranged some assurances, on the slightest chance she can.” Gaston raised one brow in curiosity, but Martha continued before he could comment. “We would like you to meet a friend of ours,” she said with an evil smile cracking her white face, her makeup causing her to look even more freakishly beautiful. “A very dear friend who we think would be more than happy to help you.” Gaston had to wonder what sort of people
the witches kept company with. “His name is Monsieur D’Arque. He runs the sanitarium,” Lucinda answered, as if she heard his very thoughts.
Gaston wasn’t surprised that the sisters were friendly with the rapscallion who ran the sanitarium.
Martha elaborated. “Maurice, Belle’s father, has been raving about a beast, has he not? Perhaps the sanitarium is just the place for him.” Ruby twittered in delight when she added, “Though I’m sure there would be no need for him to be institutionalized if Belle were to marry you. I’m sure between the two of you Maurice would be well taken care of.”
Gaston grasped their meaning instantly, and he was thunderstruck by the brilliance of the idea. He would of course take the credit for the idea entirely.
“Hmmmm. Poor old Maurice has been raving like a lunatic. Why, just the other night he was gibbering incoherently about Belle being captured by a beast.”
“See? You would be doing them both a favor if you married Belle. Someone needs to take care of the poor fellow.”
D’Arque was more than happy to comply with Gaston’s request to put Maurice into the sanitarium if Belle did not agree to marry him. He knew very well Maurice was just an odd little man who loved only one thing more than his clanking apparatuses, and that was his daughter, Belle.
D’Arque was quite content. His coffers were filled, he had made a new alliance with Gaston, and he was about to partake in some good old-fashioned skullduggery.
He was aware of how intimidating he appeared, illuminated by the torchlight, and he loved nothing more than causing fear. Gaston and his mob were gathered in full force in front of Maurice’s home. They were a rowdy bunch collected by Gaston from the tavern at closing time. There was nothing quite as menacing as a bunch of hooligans after a long night of drinking with gold in their pockets and hate in their hearts—all of which, in this case, was supplied by Gaston. There was little doubt Belle would agree to marry the braggart, and why not marry him? She couldn’t possibly do better. Who else in town would have her with all her strange ways?
Belle answered the door, her eyes filled with fear. “May I help you?” she asked.
“I’ve come to collect your father,” said D’Arque. His withered skull-like face looked horrid in the torchlight.
“My father?” she asked, confused.
“Don’t worry, mademoiselle, we’ll take good care of him.” Belle was seized with fear. She understood when she saw D’Arque’s wagon in the distance. They were taking her father to the asylum.
“My father is not crazy!”
In the Beast’s small study, where the witches had found him brooding, they watched through Pflanze’s eyes everything that was transpiring.
“Look! Look here! She’s going to betray you!” said Ruby, but the Beast wouldn’t come to the mirror the witches had brought with them so he could see what Pflanze saw.
“She won’t betray me, I know it!” The witches’ laughter filled the Beast’s head, driving him mad.
“She never loved you! How could she?” “She was your prisoner!” “She only pretended to love you so you would let her go!” “How could she ever love someone as loathsome as you?”
The Beast’s anger rose to dangerous heights. His roar caused the chandelier to rattle and the room to shake, frightening even the sisters, but Lucinda persisted. “Look! Here’s proof if you don’t believe us!” And she showed him the mirror. Belle was standing in front of an angry crowd. Holding the enchanted mirror, she screamed, “Show them the Beast!”
His face appeared in the mirror, ugly, frightening, and foul, his roar terrifying the mob.
“See! See? She’s betrayed you!” Lucinda said as she danced in the Beast’s study.
“She never loved you!” screamed Ruby, joining Lucinda in her absurd dance.
“She’s always loved Gaston!” chimed in Martha, prancing about like a deranged peacock with her sisters as they taunted the Beast.
“They’re to be married in the morning after he kills you!” they all sang as they danced in a circle. “It was their plan all along, you see!” They cackled as their dance grew even more repugnant.
The Beast was finally defeated. Completely diminished and heartbroken, he could barely bring himself to meet their gazes when he asked the sisters to leave. “Please leave. You’ve gotten what you wanted. I have suffered for hurting your sister. Now, please, I want to be alone.”
Lucinda’s laugh was more sinister than he’d ever heard it before. “Oh, and you shall be alone! Alone forever, forever a beast!” And the sisters were gone before the sound of their laughter left his drafty study. He was alone and he knew he had brought all this on himself.
Only one thing comforted him: he had finally learned what it was to love. And the feeling was deeper and more meaningful than anything he’d felt before. He felt like he was dying. To die, one must have first been alive. And the Beast could finally say that by finding love, he had lived.
The tall green house with black shutters and a witches’ cap roof was silhouetted a little too perfectly against a deep blue twilight, like a paper cutout of a dollhouse. Nothing about the witches ever seemed quite real, not even their house. Inside, the witches danced while watching the Beast’s demise in the many enchanted mirrors they had placed around their main parlor. They drank honey wine, splashing it on their deep purple dresses, which blossomed about them as they spun in circles, laughing in the face of their own frenzied insanity. They would stop their bacchanalian antics only to mock the Beast and praise themselves for having seen the curse through.
“He’s given up!” raved Ruby. “He wants to die!”
Lucinda scoffed. “He’s heartbroken, Sisters. He’d rather die than live without that stupid girl!” All three sisters laughed. “Now he knows what it is to be heartbroken!”
The sisters were even more excited to see Gaston’s mob arrive. “They’re attacking the castle!” Gaston’s mob would have laid waste to the castle if it weren’t for the servants.
“Bloody fools!” screamed Lucinda. “They’re trying to defend the fiend!”
Martha spat at the outrageous spectacle between the mob and the servants. “Sister! Don’t spit on our treasures!” scolded Ruby, and then she saw a most welcome sight. “Look! Gaston! He’s there! They’re fighting on the roof!” The sisters stamped their feet, flailing wildly in a manic dance while chanting “Kill the Beast!” over and over. They said it until their voices were raw as they watched the bloody encounter between the old friends, who now were cursed so that they did not remember each other. The Beast didn’t even try to fight back. Gaston was going to kill him, and it seemed the Beast welcomed it, as the sisters had hoped he would.
“Kill him, kill him, kill the Beast!” they yelled, as if Gaston could hear their words, but something changed, something wasn’t right. The Beast saw something the sisters could not. Whatever it was gave him the will to fight.
“What is it?” they screamed as they scurried from mirror to mirror, trying to surmise what could possibly have inspired the Beast to fight, and then they saw.
Belle.
That horrible girl, Belle!
“We should have killed her when we had the chance!” Ruby cried.
“We tried!” Lucinda, Ruby, and Martha watched as the Beast overpowered Gaston. He had him by the throat, dangling him over the side of the castle.
“Quick, get the scrying bowl!” Lucinda scrambled in the pantry for the oils and herbs they needed for the scrying bowl while Ruby filled the silver bowl with water, and Martha got the egg from the icebox. The egg floated in the water like a malevolent eye while Ruby tossed in the oils and herbs.
“Make the Beast remember when they were young.” Martha and Ruby looked at Lucinda, mouths open.
“What?” Lucinda was panic stricken.
“That didn’t rhyme, Lucinda!”
Lucinda rolled h
er eyes, vexed. “I don’t have time to think of a rhyme! Just say it!” Ruby and Martha looked at each other but didn’t repeat the phrase. “What?” Lucinda asked again.
“It’s not as fun if it doesn’t rhyme.”
Lucinda checked the mirrors. The Beast still had Gaston by the neck and was about to drop him. “Sisters, say it with me now if you want to save Gaston!”
Ruby and Martha relented. “Fine! Make the Beast remember when they were young.” Their voices were flat and unenthusiastic.
“Say it again!” screamed Lucinda. “Say it louder!”
“Make the Beast remember when they were young!” the sisters screeched.
“Remember when you were boys and he saved your life! Just for a moment, remember each other,” Lucinda cried. Then, looking at her sisters, she added, “Don’t look at me like that! I dare you to do better!”
Ruby was transfixed by something in the mirror nearest her. “Look, it worked, he’s letting him go!”
The Beast was bringing Gaston back onto the roof by the scruff of his neck. “Get out!” he growled, tossing Gaston aside. The sisters knew Gaston wouldn’t leave. They counted on it.
“Beast!” It was Belle. She was reaching her hand out to him as he climbed up the turret to kiss her.
“No!” wailed the sisters. “No!”
But before Lucinda could recite another incantation, her sisters screamed in glee at the sight of Gaston plunging a large knife into the Beast’s side. Their delight transmuted into fear, however, when they saw Gaston lose his footing and fall from the castle tower to his death below.
It didn’t matter. Gaston didn’t matter anymore—not to the witches. He had given them what they wanted; the Beast was dying. He was dying in his lover’s arms, heartbroken.
“Let’s get Circe! She has to see this!”
Lucinda crept into Circe’s room, gazing at her sleeping little sister. She looked so peaceful and beautiful sleeping there. As she unfastened the necklace, Lucinda knew in her heart that Circe would be thankful for what her older sisters had done for her.
The Beast Within Page 10
