Phillip screamed.
Ivan was now pinned between Drew and the hearth. She raised the broadsword again and leveled it at his chest. "If you try anything so foolish again, I will gut you like the pig you are. Now, where is she?"
"Don't tell, Ivan. She's all we have!" Phillip whined from the shadows near the staircase.
Without turning from Ivan, Drew extended her hand. Black-gloved fingers, long and menacingly mean, pinched the air as if squashing a bug. Phillip screamed again as ceramic plates, crystal vases and a variety of other earthenware shattered all around him. Something against Ivan’s chest popped with a sickening sound and he scrabbled in his clothing, his fingers coming back empty. Drew had crushed Marguerite’s talisman where it had hung about his neck.
"Now give me what is mine or I will begin to pull you limb from limb... and you can imagine which member I’ll begin with."
Ivan looked stricken. Drew turned to Phillip. "Bring her!"
"The — the key!" Phillip pointed frantically to his brother. "He has the key!"
Ivan had just begun to pull it from his vest when it vanished.
"And now you have it," Drew’s faceless voice corrected Phillip. "Fetch her. Now!"
The younger man scrambled up the stairs on all fours.
Marguerite groaned. Ivan looked to Drew; she shook her head, but backed up a little so that she could keep them both in sight. Upstairs, a door crashed open and footsteps rushed overhead. A moment later, Angelique all but flew down the stairs.
"Drew!"
Drew shifted the sword to her right hand and extended the left. Angelique melted against her. Without taking her eyes from the others, Drew asked, "Are you all right? Have they hurt you?"
"No. I’m fine. You came — you could come?" Angelique laughed brokenly, fingers running along the edges of the crimson cowl. Angelique lifted her hands toward the cowl and paused, asking permission. Drew nodded once. Angelique pushed the cloak away and beamed into Drew's familiar face.
Phillip, who had crept down the stairs after Angelique, let loose a shocked cry. Ivan shouted, "No! It can't be. You're her Liege? You?” But Angelique only smiled and kissed Drew boldly on the mouth.
Marguerite groaned and sat up. Drew looked to the woman and started. Angelique felt a tremor run through Drew's body.
"What is it?" Angelique asked.
But Drew just stared.
Marguerite turned her face fully toward the couple and smiled slowly. Taking her time, she brushed her hair from her face and dabbed at the cut the tapestry frame had made on her forehead. "Ah, Drew," she breathed. "We meet again at last."
Angelique looked from one to the other, confused. Then, slowly, realization dawned.
Marguerite rose, a bit unsteadily at first, then more confidently. "Did you think I could forget you? You and all your sins? Did you think I would actually let you achieve some sort of a normal life? Experience love? That after all this time I wouldn't be watching?" She laughed. It ended in a shriek that sent Phillip running up the stairs again.
Ivan cocked his head at her. She looked at him. "Ivan, dear boy. Don't think I don’t love you. You are... sweet. But you were just a useful pawn in a much, much larger game."
He colored dangerously and took a step towards her. "What —"
Marguerite cut him off with a wave of her hand and he slumped down, unconscious. She turned back to Drew.
Drew faced to Angelique and said quietly, "You stand aside. I don’t want you hurt."
"How very touching," Marguerite remarked. "When I found you were still living it was an unexpected surprise. When I heard you'd taken a... concubine, I decided to come and have a look for myself. How convenient that Ivan just happened to need a wife, one with some knowledge of," she paused and spat, "business."
Her grin grew wicked. "So, Drew, has your heart grown cold and bitter during your many years of imprisonment? Haven't those vile passions of youth tainted all your ambitions? Surely you're not still confined to simply controlling one insignificant wench at a time? How much time have you given over to planning your revenge? Against me? Against my daughter, the very one you thought loved you, as if such an act were possible? Love you?" She laughed again as though she found this thought too comic for words.
"Drew," Angelique's voice pierced the cackling laughter. "Don't listen to her."
But Drew stood as if caught in a dream. She had cocked her head a little to one side and was looking at Marguerite with a strange half-smile on her face.
"I love you, Drew." Angelique cried. "From the moment we met. And I have pledged myself willingly to you. Please, Drew, don't listen."
Marguerite looked at Angelique as if seeing her for the first time. "Pledged yourself willingly? To a magickian? To a woman? Don’t be a fool, child. There is no such thing as free will in the company of such a monster."
"You lie!" Angelique shrieked.
"Why would I lie, child? I have nothing to gain."
"Nothing to gain but my eternal imprisonment," Drew said suddenly. "And isn't that what you wanted all along? Or was I just a convenient means to an end? You wanted my father’s wealth and you knew I found your daughter beautiful. I was an easy puppet to play, wasn’t I? So young and naive, having grown up in a country where nothing was denied me, yet nothing truly given me either."
Drew took a step toward Marguerite and then another. When they were almost face to face, Drew said, "It’s funny, but I thought you were... taller. You seemed much more menacing to me when I was hardly more than a child. But now, you are a foolish old woman, still playing at childish games. You have no power over me any longer, Marguerite."
The woman laughed. "Oh, but I do." She lifted her hand and a whirlwind erupted in the middle of the room, sending chairs, broken crockery and half-burned candles whipping through the air. Angelique cried out and took refuge behind an overturned table, peeking out to keep her beloved in sight.
Drew had not moved, but stood in the center of the maelstrom, blood-red cloak unfurled like a flag. For a long time, the wind shrieked in the house and Marguerite laughed. Angelique, understanding for the first time how terrible Marguerite must have seemed to a younger Drew, felt her own rage bubbling up inside her. She poured her love out into Drew, opened her heart so that her own beloved could feel it washing over her like summer sunshine and springtime rain. And for a moment, the wind seemed to pause.
Drew turned her head a little and Angelique could see the beginning of a smile cross those fine lips. Then Drew bent her attention to the woman standing across from her. She lifted her hand toward Marguerite and the woman lifted from the floor.
Shrieking in indignant surprise, Marguerite struggled, but Drew closed her hand into a fist and the struggling stopped.
"You made one fatal mistake," Drew said, her voice lifting above the renewed rise of wind. "You never anticipated that someone would love me, would give herself to me and embrace the whole of who I am. And because Angelique has done just that, your curse has been nullified. It’s over Marguerite. And I have won."
The woman glared, but Drew held her tightly. Lightening flashed and thunder boomed in the room. Still Drew did not falter. She lifted her other hand and shouted something into the rising storm.
Still held aloft, Marguerite began to age and wither; all the years that had passed since their last meeting suddenly caught up with the witch as Drew pealed away the woman's spell of longevity. In moments, Marguerite had become nothing more than dust that fell to the floor amid the broken crockery and fire’s ash, and at last the magick winds faltered and died.
For a long moment, there was a terrible quiet in the room. Slowly, Drew turned toward Angelique and extended her hand. The young woman rose from her hiding place and came into her lover’s arms.
"What did you do?" Angelique asked.
"I took away her powers," Drew said gently. "She was hundreds of years old. Once mortal again...."
Angelique shivered. She looked at her brother, Ivan, crumpled like a doll i
n the corner. "What of him?"
Drew shrugged. "Would you like me to turn him into a toad?"
Angelique laughed. "Can you really?"
Drew winked.
"No. I think it would be better to leave him. We never have to see them again, do we?"
"No. You never have to come here again, beloved," Drew replied.
"But," Angelique began. Her eyes went to the staircase and her mothers rooms beyond.
"I think there is a solution to that problem as well," Drew said.
Upstairs, Angelique knelt at her mothers bedside, Drew close behind her, while the nurse stood wide-eyed to one side.
"I fear they poisoned her the other day to distract me from Aloysius' death and to give them a chance to steal the brooch."
Drew stepped to the side of the bed. Lifting one hand, she let it move over the woman’s frail body several inches above the quiet form. After a moment, Drew said, "She has been ill. And you were right. It was from a mild sort of poison. But she is safely through it now."
"And if they should try again?" Angelique breathed.
"You worry so much, my child," her mother whispered, coming fully awake. "Why should I want to live forever?"
"Mama, this is Drew."
Drew knelt beside the bed as the woman said, "At last. My daughter's fine magickian."
Drew offered a hesitant smile. "I hope you approve."
"I do." The old woman's eyes fluttered as if they might close.
"Madam?" Cautiously, Drew took the woman's hand in hers. "I have something to ask of you."
"If I can grant your wish, I will," the old woman allowed, eyes coming open again.
"You are not safe here. And I know it would make Angelique very happy if you would agree to come and live with us."
"Ah, the palace of wonders and strong wishing spells."
"The very same. There is a way for you to make the journey."
"A magickal way?"
Drew smiled. "A very magickal way. You have only to pledge yourself to me and it can be so."
A faint laugh, then, "I willingly pledge myself to one so gentle," she answered, her voice soft with sincerity.
To Angelique, Drew said, "You are witness to this oath." Angelique nodded. After a pause, Drew straightened and called, "Culdun."
The nurse fainted with a sharp cry and a thump as the Old One stepped into the room from nowhere. He noted her with a sigh. "My Liege?"
"Angelique's mother is to return with us."
Culdun smiled and shook his head at Angelique's worried expression. "I've seen the ailment before, Mistress. I won't break her." Angelique nodded. Gingerly, he picked up the woman and stepped through the magickal portal again.
They made their way back downstairs. At the hearth, Drew bent and retrieved something from the ashes. "This belongs to me, I think." She held up the two bits of the ivory broach. A few words later and it was whole again and unblemished.
Angelique let out a breath in relief. "I'd thought for certain they had destroyed it."
"It takes a great deal more than a mortal's hand and witch's fire to destroy a bit of a not-so-mortal soul, my love."
Drew reached for Angelique's hand again and they crossed the threshold together. The stallion neighed, head tossing and hoof pawing the cobblestones. Somewhere, a meadowlark began to sing. "Dawn is breaking," Angelique observed and shivered once.
"There is time enough." Drew sheathed her sword, mounted and lifted Angelique up before her. "Do you imagine my powers are solely limited by the mere cycling of night and day, beloved?"
Drew kissed Angelique gently. As they drew apart, Angelique stroked the soft curve of her lover's cheek, but said nothing. There was nothing left to say.
Drew pulled her heels into the stallion’s sides. With a leap, he lunged through the shimmering portal.
The meadowlarks trilled. In the east, the sun crested over the distant roofs and broke apart in glorious shafts of molten gold to touch the fields beyond. And far away, another sun rose upon two lovers, safe now and forever in their own timeless haven.
The End
About the Author
Before her untimely death from cancer in July, 1997, Chris Anne Wolfe had published four novels, including the rousing Amazon adventure stories Shadows of Aggar and Fires of Aggar.
The story of Beauty and the Beast was always a favorite of hers and she was quite proud to see her unique and moving interpretation of the story in print. Her beautiful illustrations complete Angelique and Drew's magical journey.
Luckily, Chris Anne's legacy lives on, not just in these tales, but also in the numerous short stories and novels which were given to Windstorm Creative at her request and which will be published in the coming years.
She had many friends world-wide and is missed by all.
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