As Old As Time: A Twisted Tale (Twisted Tale, A)

by Liz Braswell

  …make their meals, tend their garden, earn coin for comestibles they couldn’t grow or forage themselves, spend days inventing—all things he did before she was old enough to help him…when he was taking care of her….

  Her lip quivered. Of course he was fine.

  Wait…

  “You think he did a more than all right job?” she couldn’t help asking.

  The Beast shrugged, suddenly embarrassed.

  She found herself smiling.

  Was he—was he almost smiling back? In his eyes, at least?

  But after a moment, grim reality set in again.

  “Now, what?” the Beast asked, indicating the failed mirror.

  But Belle was exhausted and out of ideas. “I don’t know. It’s been a long day. I’m very tired.”

  He did give her a smile this time—albeit a wan one. “Me too. Might as well…go to bed…” he said, shrugging.

  “I guess we have forever to figure this out,” Belle said softly.

  As they turned to go back through the door, they walked together, side by side, in companionable—if wistful—silence.

  They didn’t speak until the Beast had walked her all the way back to her bedroom door.

  Belle started to open the door, then stopped. She never found words hard; her whole life she had always had a pert answer or a gentle insult or a funny riposte to anything the villagers said to her. Now she found that pulling them from her heart—and not her mind—felt like dragging something jagged and reluctant out of a well.

  “I’m…sorry,” she said quietly. “I really am. I shouldn’t have touched the rose.”

  She made herself look straight into his eyes. His very unanimal eyes.

  The Beast gave her a sad smile. “You were my prisoner. Why would you listen to anything I said? And…it wouldn’t have mattered….Anyway…you’re right. I wouldn’t have broken the curse on my own.”

  He looked down at his feet. Silence gathered over them like soft snow.

  “Good night,” Belle said finally, opening the door and stepping inside.

  But the Beast, black as shadow and twice as silent, was already gone.

  As soon as Belle closed the door behind her, a complete and heavy hush fell over everything. She leaned back against the firm wood and closed her eyes. Maybe she would push a chair up against the door, but somehow she didn’t think the Beast would come back that night. It was unclear what she would be barricading against.

  She rubbed the palms of her hands over her face. She felt dry and drained. Remembering the princess-pretty basin and pitcher on the bureau, Belle went over and poured some water onto her cupped hand and smoothed it over her face.

  “There’s a towel, there, if you like,” the wardrobe said helpfully from behind her.

  Belle didn’t so much jump as shiver at the sudden voice. Also, she felt a little foolish: hanging right there was a lovely, soft facecloth.

  “Thank you.”

  “If you want some hot water, we can order it right up for you,” the wardrobe added helpfully.

  “No, I’m all right, really, thank you.”

  The idea of a hot towel was, in fact, incredibly appealing. To get one at home Belle usually had to time it just right with making dinner or breakfast; they only had two pots and one had the meal in it. Her father’s automatic watering system made it easy to get cold, clear, pure well water any given moment of the day—the heating it up was what took effort. Sometimes she put a pot on top of his forge if it was going.

  But she couldn’t deal with any more odd little animated “inanimate” objects right now. The wardrobe’s…presence…was enough.

  Before she could even finish that thought, however, there was a tap on the door.

  “Come in,” she found herself saying politely before she could stop herself.

  “Sorry to bother you, miss.” A funny leather and metal thing whose original use she couldn’t even begin to guess at came waddling in with several stout logs balanced carefully on its…back. Lumière came hopping behind.

  “I thought we would…top you off, so we wouldn’t disturb you tonight,” the little candelabrum said. His companion carefully stacked the logs on the hearth and then fiddled with some twigs and other kindling in the fireplace itself. Bowing gracefully—and dramatically—Lumière managed to light it with a single flick of his flame-hand. In no time it was roaring, orange and friendly.

  “Thank you, Lumière,” Belle said warmly. She could have lit the fire herself, of course, and she could certainly tend it herself, unlike the sort of princesses who had probably stayed in this room long ago. It was the “not disturbing her tonight” bit that made her grateful.

  He gave her another bow, less inclined to chattiness than usual, and hopped out of the room. The other thing, perhaps once a footman, followed close behind.

  The fire crackled happily now, more highlighting the quiet than breaking it. Belle stretched and yawned and began to unlace the back of her bodice.

  “I have some lovely nightgowns, if you like,” the wardrobe said eagerly.

  “Ah…no…not tonight, thank you,” Belle said. “No offense.”

  “No, of course not,” the wardrobe said, a little too promptly.

  “It’s been a strange…very long…day,” Belle said as patiently as she could. “I just want to…sleep. In my own clothes tonight.”

  The wardrobe moved in ways Belle couldn’t have described: softened somehow, rubbery around the edges.

  “I understand, honey,” she said in a much more sympathetic tone. “You get some sleep. It has been a long day. Even for us.”

  “Thank you,” Belle sighed. She carefully took off her apron and pinafore, then her shirt, and carefully folded them and put them on the chair. If the wardrobe thought they would be better kept inside her drawers, she wisely didn’t say anything.

  Clad in her slip and underthings, Belle pulled back the incredibly warm and soft duvet and slipped underneath. The pocket her body made against the silken sheets was icy cold initially, but she knew that in a few short minutes it would be warm enough from her body that she could uncurl out of the fetal position she was currently in.

  She thought about her mother.

  Belle tried to dismiss the same quick, almost violent succession of images she had seen when touching the rose. She tried to concentrate on what she did remember. It was very, very little. She thought she recalled a smile, wide and warm, and far less toothy than that of the woman in the vision. She remembered the smell of roses and the feel of sunlight. The roses and sunlight and her mother were all mixed in together, like they were all part of the same thing, and one couldn’t exist without the other two.

  Which woman was real? The one she didn’t really remember, or the one in the vision?

  But before she could even begin to ponder the answer, another question asked itself immediately:

  Of the two, who was more likely to leave her baby daughter and husband?

  Belle couldn’t pin down when exactly her mother had left. It was all a continuum, and at one point her mother was there and most of the time she wasn’t, and Maurice was always there. And Phillipe. And the rose garden.

  When the townspeople were feeling kind, they told Belle how sorry they were she didn’t have a real mother to raise her. Some even offered to take her under their wing, to teach her how to be a “proper” girl. Obviously she was a little bit…off…having been raised by her papa, like a boy. It wasn’t really her fault.

  Were they right? Even just a teeny bit?

  If her mother had stayed, how would it all have been different?

  Would she have brushed Belle’s long hair at night while her daughter talked about her day and the mean girls in town? Would she have taught her how to bake pastries, take care of her nails, milk the goats more efficiently?

  Or would she, Belle thought bitterly, have taught me how to grow magic roses and curse people and summon lightning from my hands?

  That would have been something.


  Despite the warming of the bed, Belle grew less comfortable, tossing and turning as these jagged thoughts tore at the inside of her mind, opening holes and letting in painful new ideas.

  Eventually sleep found her anyway, inserting its curling tendrils into her eyes and nose and mouth and consuming her, even as she resisted.

  Her eyes shot open in the middle of the night.

  Belle had no idea what time it was. Maurice had clocks—several of them—and even without those she could tell by the movements and noises of the chickens and the animals and the feel of the house which hour of the watch it was.

  Here it could have been five minutes after she fell asleep, or five hours.

  The room was dark except for the orange bubble of space illuminated by the fire. Outside that she could feel it was also cold. All was as silent as when she went to sleep; there wasn’t even the scurrying of a mouse or a rat to remind her of a normal night at home.

  She couldn’t remember ever waking up anywhere besides the little farmhouse she shared with her father—or the woods on a warm summer night, if they stayed out while foraging. And there she would have been surrounded by the familiar songs of insects and night birds.

  belle…

  It wasn’t a sound, it wasn’t a thought. It was like a wisp of a memory of an idea—almost; something you catch the faintest hint of that reminds you of something else. But when asked, you can’t explain what it was.

  Belle sat up.

  The wardrobe stayed still. Asleep? Drowsing? Dreaming?

  Hardly aware of what she was doing, Belle threw her legs over the side of the bed.

  Shadows crackled along the ceiling—they were just the result of firelight playing over the objects in the room. Probably. She frowned, squinting at them. There was no way there were little…things…running back and forth between the other shadows, slim as smoke—right?

  Slowly she rose out of bed. After debating a moment, she took a thick taper out of a sconce and lit it in the fireplace, cupping her hand around so the flame wouldn’t go out when she pulled back.

  Taking one last look around the room, she opened the door as silently as she could and let herself out.

  Belle stood in the utter darkness of the hall, feeling foolish for a moment.

  As her eyes adjusted she could just begin to make out the dim and hazy outlines of things. With no light except for her one tiny candle flame, it was surprising how those things shifted and moved so much out of the corner of her eye. She could have sworn strange, thin feelers of blackness had begun to web the corners of the walls and ceiling.

  belle…

  She drifted into the great hall beyond, trying to follow or escape whatever it was calling her. Dark, rich carpet softened her footsteps and only added to the eerie feeling.

  The statues that she had initially dismissed as Greco-Roman replicas did not, she suddenly realized, depict gods and heroes; they were actually of howling, toothy demons.

  She stopped, blinking at them. Had they always been like that? Even when she first came inside the castle? And she just hadn’t noticed?

  Even the most normal, angelic-looking one had a mouth open in a vicious snarl, revealing sharp, inhuman teeth.

  Above, what she thought were alabaster cherubim supporting vaulted arches now had hideous expressions on their faces and strange closed eyes. Their hands reached out as if to grab anyone who came too close. Candlelight flickered off their frightening details: eyes and fangs and claws.

  She backed away, bumping into a table behind her. She felt a vase tip and spun around to catch it…and then caught her breath. The legs of the table it was on looked like slavering monsters, wretched and angry to be supporting such a weight.

  belle…

  Something was in the once-forbidden West Wing. Something was left there, something they missed.

  It wasn’t forbidden now, but that did not mean she wanted to go up there alone, in the middle of the night. Even the Beast’s presence would have been acceptable. Maybe he would even be there, asleep.

  The thought gave her courage.

  Trying to steel her nerves, she walked forward more forcefully, as if this were her choice. As if she were just going to seek out a mystery she forgot. Not a scared, lonely girl in her nightgown with a candle, like some daft heroine from one of the lighter romance books she read. This thought, too, gave her courage; she was Belle, not an idiot.

  She started to march up the stairs and then thought—

  Wait, who else but an idiot would just be propelled forward by her overactive imagination?

  The castle was getting to her. Something about the shadows made it look like she was ascending into a gigantic cage, reminding her of the ivory webs on the outside walls. The stairs resembled nothing more than a ramp up into a trap like the one for rats her father designed.

  Maybe she should just go back to bed, or see if one of the little serving creatures was up….She turned around.

  There, in the middle of the steps, as if it had always been there, was a statue—made entirely out of ivy.

  Belle was too frightened to even scream. She put a hand over her mouth and bit her knuckles—a tiny, dim portion of her mind saying, Aha, that’s why people in stories do that. It’s so they don’t break down into useless, screaming piles of insanity.

  Little pools of water were forming from snowmelt. For some reason, watching the slow drips was the most frightening thing of all. It must have come in from the garden, Belle thought insanely. There didn’t appear to be anything under the leaves and vines; they wove around themselves to make the vague semblance of a person. Perhaps a woman. Its green and amorphous arms were lifted up, entreating.

  Belle stumbled up the stairs backwards away from the thing, keeping her eye on it. It didn’t move.

  Shaking and making little whimpering noises in the back of her throat, Belle kept moving, backing all the way up to the top of the stairs, almost tripping as she reached for the next step that wasn’t there. Her foot came down hard on the floor instead, sending a shivering jolt through her ankle and up her spine. She let out an involuntary cry and stumbled onto the landing, barely catching herself. But she managed to keep a firm grip on the candle, not daring to let it go.

  Realizing she had taken her eye off the statue, she stood up quickly and spun around.

  It was now farther up the stairs, just feet behind her.

  Belle sobbed.

  Its arms were by its sides, like it knew Belle would just finish going where she was being herded, of her own free will. It was there only as a reminder.

  Belle took a deep breath—and then ran the last thirty feet to the Beast’s lair. She started to put her hands on the ugly, monstrous bronze handles that opened the door to his room…and then stopped, a different sharp pain suddenly in the sole of her foot.

  She looked down: a giant shard of glass was stuck into her flesh. Blood slowly crept along its edge and dripped. With a wince, Belle reached down and pulled it out. The piece was from the giant mirror on the wall, the one that had been shattered by the Beast—no doubt after he caught his reflection in there.

  Belle looked up at what was left of mirror now, raising her candle and moving it around. It was hard to tell exactly with so little light and all of the shards pointing every which way, but even so Belle could see that they weren’t reflecting her, or anything around her. She frowned and looked closer.

  One piece of glass showed a blond lady carefully guiding a little girl’s fat hand over a hole in the ground, to drop seeds in…

  …another had the woman throwing leaves on the girl like a snowfall…

  …a third showed the woman and the girl in sort of matching outfits, spinning and laughing….

  Belle suddenly realized with a shock that these were all scenes of her and her mother doing things together: her mother squeezing her tight; her mother running after her with Belle running away, crying; her mother and Maurice both cuddling her together on their tiny bed….

  S
ome showed Belle as a baby, the little family in a smaller apartment that she didn’t recognize, with no rose garden at all and an eerily familiar castle in the background.

  Belle gasped. She had lived here? In this kingdom? This was where she and her father had moved from when she was a baby?

  She didn’t remember any of it. It was like watching something else—like seeing other people through the Beast’s magic mirror. This was a different family, something that happened another time to someone else.

  “No,” Belle whispered. “Why can’t I remember this? Maman? What is all of this?”

  As if in answer, suddenly all the shards went dark.

  A single face appeared in the blackness: scarred and shadowed and monstrous—even more monstrous than the Beast, for this was at least part human. Mangled, scarred, bloody, and torn apart, whatever features remained were erased, deep in shadow.

  belle…

  It croaked—then suddenly lunged toward her…

  betrayed was betrayed stay away stay safe away from dark

  Belle fell back, screaming.

  She couldn’t stop screaming. All of the terror and insanity of the night welled up and burst out of her. She felt like it would never end, the screams and terror and the blackness would just roll up out of her forever.

  The large doors opened and suddenly the Beast was there. He gathered her up in his big, revoltingly furry arms and she began to kick and scream louder. He held her carefully at arm’s length so she couldn’t reach him and loped away, back to her own room.

  “NO!” she shrieked. “I’M NOT GOING BACK IN! The shadows! It’s too dark!”

  The thought of being shut up there with the blackness outside the fire and the talking wardrobe and the shadows and no easy escape was too much.

  The Beast paused for a moment, then carried her into the study where she had tied him up earlier. Sleepy-looking objects peeked around corners, fluffled up the fire, and generally watched, curious, as the Beast set her down on a divan.

  “Here, have a drink of this,” Mrs. Potts said. She wore, Belle noticed distractedly, a knitted kettle cozy, the way one might wear a dressing gown. The cup she offered was not Chip, and the liquid in it was not tea.