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

by Liz Braswell

  “I think, maybe, we should all retire,” Lumière suggested, trying to sound like his old self again.

  All the spoons, cups, mops, garden equipment, and assorted animated household things clipped and clanked and clopped stiffly down from the table, onto the chairs, and finally to the floor. Some of them weren’t moving too well at all; one of the spoons seemed so sleepy and stiff that she had to be carried by her friends. Belle wondered about that—but then Cogsworth’s face chimed. It was late. They were probably just tired, and didn’t show it the way normal people did. Maybe, like Cinderella, the magic changed at midnight.

  “I just have a few more dishes,” Belle said, also getting up.

  “Leave it, dear,” Mrs. Potts said. “We’ll deal with it fresh and early in the morning.”

  “But the whole point was to give you all a night off!” Belle protested.

  “You’ve done enough—I mean that sincerely,” the teapot said, turning this way and that but keeping her spout directed at Belle. The gesture seemed to be the equivalent of a knowing smile. “You’ve done more to bring life—and change—into these walls than anything has in the past ten years.”

  Belle’s look turned dark.

  “I wonder if maybe your whole kingdom was cursed long before my mother showed up. Disease…ethnic cleansing…a king and queen who didn’t care for their people…”

  Mrs. Potts sighed. “It wasn’t always like that. It used to be quite a magical place, in all senses of the word. Ah, well.”

  She struggled to waddle her way to the edge of the table, the end of the parade of creatures retreating back to the kitchen. With some alarm Belle reacted before she thought, gently picking up Mrs. Potts and setting her on the floor. She wasn’t sure if it was breaking some sort of unspoken code among the cursed, but it just felt right.

  Mrs. Potts felt warm but unmoving in her hand—just like a real, normal teapot. If it weren’t for the twitch of her spout, Belle never would have known she was anything but.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Mrs. Potts said, shuffling off into the kitchen.

  Belle wondered who babysat the baby cups during the dinner party. A nursemaid pitcher?

  Sighing at how crazy her life had become in the last few days, Belle tiredly—and stiffly, too, in her own way—headed up to her room.

  She held the balustrades tightly as she ascended the stairs, pulling herself along, deep in thought.

  In adventure books there weren’t awkward pauses or embarrassing social scenes. In morality plays and farces there were rarely serious discussions of racial tension, mob mentality, pogroms, or plague. In scientific books there were no dinnertime revelations of a terrible matter.

  Life is a strange mixture of all of these genres, she mused, and it doesn’t have nearly as neat and happy an ending as you often get in books.

  When she got to her room, the wardrobe was asleep. Or—very still.

  Belle undressed slowly and climbed into bed, head spinning with all she had learned.

  A kingdom at the end of its time, corrupt with evil and disease.

  A king and queen so removed they were as bad as Nero, literally doing nothing while their kingdom burned.

  A curse on an eleven-year-old, delivered by an enchantress probably enraged by the treatment of her people and angry about the neglect of the kingdom as a whole.

  But did the boy prince really deserve his fate?

  And here was Belle, who had hurried that unhappily ever after along. Unless they found out what happened to her mother—or managed to find some equally powerful member of les charmantes—the Beast and his servants would be stuck that way forever, riding out the remainder of time in the forgotten castle in the middle of the woods.

  Magic…always comes back on itself….

  One last thought occurred to Belle before sleep finally claimed her:

  What if, since her mother was the one who cast the spell, Belle was the only one who could break it?

  Maurice looked out the window of the automatic carriage with a strange mixture of desperation, revulsion, and regret.

  Regret because despite the dire circumstances, he was being carried home by a marvel—a magical thing that figured out the way without eyes or ears and trotted along without a horse. He wished he had more time and the ability to observe it properly, poke at it, tinker with it. See if it obeyed anyone other than the Beast.

  Revulsion because when he dreamed of a world filled with carriages that could drive themselves and carts without horses, he never imagined such a sickly insectoid thing. The magical conveyance didn’t roll—it didn’t have wheels at all. Instead it creeped along on its shafts and axles, making a terrible scurrying noise. Like a giant cockroach.

  And desperation because he had to go find someone to help him get Belle—immediately!

  But who?

  He didn’t really have any close friends, and he suspected that Monsieur Lévi probably wouldn’t be up to a raid on a magical castle. The man was easily twenty years older than Maurice himself.

  Who was young and strong enough to help? Who could round up a posse of helpers to go after the Beast?

  And then it hit him. There was only one person, really, and it should have been obvious.

  As soon as the carriage turned onto the main square, Maurice started to pull at the door. He needn’t have tried so hard; it was unlocked and swung open easily, causing him to tumble out onto the wet, cold stones. The carriage thing screeched to a halt.

  “Uh, good-bye, thank you,” Maurice called distractedly. He wasn’t sure what the etiquette was with a thing like that, but it never hurt to be polite.

  The carriage executed a strange four-legged curtsy or bow—just the way he imagined elephants in the Far East did to let people up and down their enormous backs. Then it scuttled off in its nauseating fashion.

  Snow was falling, Maurice suddenly realized. He had been so preoccupied with everything on the trip back he hadn’t even noticed. Running carefully on the slick cobblestones, he made for the pub.

  It seemed as if the usual crowd had been drinking there for a while that night already; the sounds of laughter and singing spilled out into the otherwise silent town.

  The wind caught the door as Maurice threw it open, slamming it loudly and theatrically. It wasn’t what he intended, but the resulting effect was useful: everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare.

  “Help! Everyone, I need your help!”

  “Maurice…?” the old barmaid asked, concerned.

  “He took her and locked her in a dungeon!”

  Damn his inability to speak clearly. Communication had never been one of the inventor’s strengths…and it was definitely a liability now.

  “Who?”

  That was LeFou, Gaston’s little friend. He wasn’t a bad sort if you could get him away from the hunter. Not that bright, but fiercely loyal and game for just about anything. Exactly the sort of man you would want along on a beast-hunting expedition.

  “Belle! We have to go! Not a minute to lose!”

  He grabbed LeFou’s hand and spun to leave, wildly checking the rack of guns and firearms and other weapons that were kept by the door. They would need to be heavily armed.

  “Whoa, slow down, Maurice! Who’s got Belle locked in a…dungeon?”

  Suddenly, Gaston was between him and LeFou. For a big man he moved surprisingly quickly. Even in Maurice’s addled state, he noticed there were odd patches of mud that had been carefully brushed off—but not entirely removed from—the man’s inappropriately fancy pants. Was he hunting in formal gear when he fell into a pig wallow?

  A mystery for another time…

  “A beast. A terrible, horrible beast!” Maurice made his arms go as wide as they could.

  Gaston raised his eyebrows at the patrons at the bar, who had all turned around to listen.

  “Is it a…big beast?” one of them asked.

  “Huge!” Maurice said, shuddering.

  “But did it have sharp, c
ruel fangs?” another asked.

  “Yes! But it spoke like a man! And walked on two feet!”

  “What about…a long, ugly snout?” a third asked.

  “Yes, yes!” Maurice said, exasperated. Who cared what the Beast looked like in detail? It was dangerous and had his Belle. “Will you help me?”

  “Of course,” Gaston said politely. He gestured with his chin to the barflies. “We’ll help you out.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you,” Maurice said with a sigh.

  The inventor turned back to the door. The village was a touch-and-go place, filled with people of questionable morality, but when push came to shove, his neighbors really did…

  Suddenly he found arms under his shoulders and his feet dangling off the floor.

  “We’ll help you out!” someone cried.

  The door was thrown open in front of him. Maurice was pitched out into the black cold.

  “No!” he shrieked, spinning around immediately.

  But the door slammed in his face.

  He hit it again and again as hard as he could with his fists.

  “No! I saw it! I saw it!” he screamed. “Will no one listen?”

  Gaston stuck his head out a window to take one last look before shutting it.

  “Crazy old Maurice…hmm…”

  “I’m not crazy!” Maurice shrieked. “Will someone help me?”

  But the town was dead, everyone inside with their families or loved ones, doors and windows barred tight.

  “I’ll just have to go rescue her myself,” Belle’s father said quietly, once the reality of the situation sank in. He was a dreamer, it was true—but no inventor lasted long in his or her career by giving in to dreaming. The moment something didn’t work, either due to a misunderstanding of how a metal behaved or how steam would push a certain way, you had to immediately stop and think and figure out what the cause of the problem was and start again from there. Practical, pragmatic, dogged—these were all the adjectives used to describe successful inventors.

  Maurice turned around in the cold night and headed steadily for home.

  He wished, however, that his wife were there to help. She was…he vaguely recalled…extremely useful and handy at times like these…even if he couldn’t exactly remember how….

  Dawn was a paling of the black-and-blue sky to the east; the sun was at least an hour from rising. The fire was nothing but embers, and Belle realized she had been shocked awake by the cold on her face. She turned over in bed and saw, to her dismay, there were no more logs in the neat stack.

  Immediately she felt ashamed; only two days in a castle and already she was coming to expect service, perfect and punctual!

  This is no worse than home on a winter morning, she told herself, closing her eyes and bracing herself for the quick emergence from bed that such mornings usually prompted. It was like jumping into a freezing lake.

  She threw back the covers quickly, hoping against hope that the warm spot her body made would still be there after she returned with more wood. Her feet didn’t slap against a floor like ice as they would have at home; there was a thick rug to protect them here. She thought with longing about what warm clothes might be in the wardrobe, but opening the thing up while it was sleeping seemed wrong. An invasion of privacy—or worse.

  So she crossed her arms against the frigid air and slipped her shoes over bare feet, preparing to make the long trip down to the kitchen and storerooms.

  But when she threw open the door a statue was standing there.

  For some reason, Belle didn’t scream. She did jump back. It was too early in the morning, her head was too sticky and murky with sleep, and it was too cold for her to think about much else except for how cold she was.

  This time the leaves were slightly more “arranged” to copy human features…or possibly inhuman ones. Belle was reminded of the haunting Green Man images she had seen in books about ancient British churches: broad leaves flanking the face like a mane, smaller ones making a flat nose and unseeing eyes. The ivy near its “feet” was covered with delicate white tracery of frost. Like the other one—it had come from outside.

  “What the…? What on earth is that?”

  Any thought Belle had that she was dreaming was immediately banished by the banal, confused words of the wardrobe.

  Belle spun around and put a finger to her lips. Now was not the time to interrupt.

  “Were you sent by my mother…?” she began as she turned back.

  But the statue had changed in that moment: an arm was now raised, and a finger pointed to something behind Belle.

  She turned to look. There was nothing really there.

  “The window…?” she started to ask, turning back.

  But the statue was gone.

  “That,” the wardrobe said, “was spooky.”

  Belle ignored her, too wrapped up in what was going on to care about being rude, and went over to the window.

  Thin strands of pale webbing had somehow reached it, crossing lightly back and forth in front of the pane. In dismay Belle pressed her face against the glass and tried to see how much more of the castle had been covered.

  A surprising amount. Thick ropes had breached the top of the perimeter walls and thin, sickly-looking runners were shooting out from them, spreading out over the open ground, as if looking for the next vertical edifice to attack.

  Belle shuddered and had to fight down a surge of panic. Eventually the webs would blanket the entire castle, enshrouding it and everyone within.

  Then she noticed that the view of the grounds seemed strangely foggier than the weather should have allowed. It took her a moment to realize that there was a thin film of ice caught between two of the white strands. It was rippled and crazed, and what it showed was not a blurry version of the landscape beyond, but something else entirely:

  Her house, at night. A dark rider approaching it—no, two riders, on the same horse. Galloping at breakneck speed, pulling up at the very last minute with a silent buck and protest from the horse.

  Belle drew back, terrified by this strange vision. Nothing about the situation seemed right.

  The lead rider jumped down, then turned to help the second rider off. This was a tall, graceful boy who flowed off the horse like water—Belle could see this in the splash of yellow light from the now-open doorway.

  “No! Don’t go out!” Belle couldn’t stop herself from whispering. But her mother was in the doorway now, speaking to the rider, appearing nervous. Then Maurice was coming forward, clasping the first rider’s hand…

  And then the vision restarted.

  “No,” Belle said, frustrated. “What is this? What is happening? Is he a relative? Is one of them a relative? Is that an uncle? What is happening? Why are you showing me this? Is he the one who betrayed you? Did you move out here to get away from all of the death and violence, and he tracked you down?”

  “No idea, dear,” the wardrobe said with a yawn. “But if you figure it out, let me know. I’m going to get a few more winks of sleep…good luck….”

  Belle stayed and watched the vision, again and again and again, for hours, all thoughts of going to get the logs forgotten. Eventually, when the inside of her mouth tasted like death and she couldn’t feel her legs, she went back into bed, curled up like a mouse.

  When Belle woke up the second time, the sun was high and sparkling yellow.

  “Morning, Miss,” the wardrobe said brightly. “You figure out what that statue was?”

  “Um, no,” Belle said. She struggled for words. “I feel like…I feel like this entire castle is full of…my mother. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead but it’s like everything here has been…filled with her, somehow. Her memories. Her…soul, almost. She’s definitely trying to tell me something.”

  “I wish she’d find a less creepy way of doing it. Your old dress is washed, pressed, and ready to go,” the wardrobe said, throwing her doors open brightly. Indeed it was. So clean and crisp it was almost new. The apron was sp
otless and her shirt’s sleeves puffy and shining white.

  Next to it was a glittering yellow ball gown and a heavy pink dress with bell sleeves so long they might have almost been tippets, with a matching fur-trimmed stole.

  “Snowed last night,” the wardrobe said innocently. “Thought maybe if you wanted to go skating, or…”

  “Skating? I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but we’re trapped on the grounds of this castle now. No way out. I don’t think we’re getting to the river any time soon.”

  “Oh, there’s a tiny viewing pond in the larger bailey, past the stables. I’ll bet it’s nice and solid by now.”

  Huh. That was interesting. So if she got a little too stir-crazy in the next few months, at least there were courtyards. “Thank you,” Belle said, reaching for her old dress. “Maybe later.”

  Between her mother, the curse, the disappearance of les charmantes—and her apology to the Beast—there was too much to do to spend time skating.

  She hurried downstairs so quickly she almost didn’t register the pale glowing toadstools that had begun to pop up in clusters on the steps. When a particularly bright and ghastly group of them finally caught her attention, she stopped to take a closer look.

  It seemed like they were springing directly out of the gray streaks in the marble. The mottling on their stalks and umbrella tops looked like faces pressed up against cloth, screaming or trying to say something, shrouded before they were fully dead.

  Belle felt her stomach turn. Some of the markings were moving, just a little, further making them look undead.

  Part of her couldn’t help thinking: Wait, my mother worked with plants. Ivy and roses. Mushrooms aren’t technically plants, right? Not like ones with leaves?

  “I need to eat something,” she said aloud. That would make everything better, including her stomach. A chat with Mrs. Potts, some bacon, and a bright friendly stove would banish any lingering gloom.

  But when she got there, the kitchen was as cold as her room had been the night before. The fire on the stove was so low it was almost out. Everything was still and silent. The waitstaff couldn’t still be asleep, could they? Had they indulged in whatever magicked drams animated objects could after she had left last night? Were they now all passed out?