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

by Liz Braswell

  “Belle?” The man looked at her in surprise. It was Monsieur Sauveterre, who ran the fancier dry goods store. “Where have you been? Your father has been going quite mad about you….”

  “It’s a long story,” Belle said impatiently, standing up. “What happened here? Where is Monsieur Lévi?”

  “Yes, a shame that,” the man said thoughtfully, looking at the ashen remains of the place. “Someone set it, obviously. The fire started from within. A harmless old academic, that Lévi. I don’t know who would do it.”

  “Is he all right?” Belle demanded.

  The man shrugged in a particularly Gallic way. “I don’t know…no one said anything about a body. I think he was away. It’s probably why they set it. I have to get home, Belle. The children are waiting to eat. Go see your father! He’s worried sick about you!”

  Belle let him go, collapsing back onto the street again.

  The Beast was suddenly there again, looming above her, a silent shadow.

  “Let’s go in,” she said after a moment.

  Listlessly she rose and trudged over to the wrecked store, stepping through what remained of the doorframe, not caring about the soot and ashes getting on her worn shoes.

  “This was your…favorite place,” the Beast said slowly, coming behind her.

  “In the whole world. Even more than my own bed,” Belle said bleakly. “Every time I came in, it was like a whole new unexplored land would be there waiting for me. Another story to step into. And Monsieur Lévi was a friend and a guide and an explorer who took me to these new places. This was home, as much as my own home was.”

  She looked at the shelves, covered in lumps and black bricks that were once books. Very little of it looked salvageable. Even the ones that were only lightly singed had sort of compressed and crushed together with the heat of the inferno. The chairs she had loved to flop into were skeletons, their fabric and flesh burnt away, only thin bony laths of wood remaining.

  “Belle…I’m…sorry,” the Beast said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  Belle grabbed it with both of her hands and began to cry. She couldn’t stop. Tears flowed town her cheeks like rivers, quick and endless.

  “I…was looking forward to seeing your favorite place,” he added clumsily.

  “I know,” she sniffed.

  “I’ve never been in a shop before,” he continued, trying speak lightly.

  “What?” Belle asked. She wiped her face on her sleeve. “Really?”

  “Really. Merchants would come to the castle and show us their wares. We never had to go see them. And only the finest ones were let in. They had golden balls, and lead soldiers, and stuffed bears made with real bearskin and glass eyes…”

  “All right, all right,” Belle said, shaking her head. “I get it, Your Majesty.”

  “I’m just trying to…distract you.”

  “I know. I appreciate it.” She took a deep breath and tried to shake practicality back into her arms and head. “Can you…can you smell anyone…dead? Like you did with Alaric?”

  The Beast frowned and widened his nostrils. “I think maybe a couple of mice were caught up in here when it happened. But other than that, no.”

  Belle let a large breath out in relief.

  “Well, that’s something.”

  Belle tried to divert her grieving soul away from the sadness with the mystery of what had happened. The moment I find out my mother was an enchantress and Lévi himself is several hundred years old…he suddenly turns up missing with his shop burned down?

  A very unlikely coincidence.

  “The stairs are all right…I’m going to look upstairs,” the Beast said.

  Belle didn’t stop him but didn’t join him, either. She would feel strange going up to Lévi’s private apartments herself…it would be like invading his privacy. Somehow it mattered less when someone who didn’t know him did it.

  “Everything seems normal up here,” he called down. “Um, except for there not being a roof.”

  Belle put her hand to her forehead, thinking. Where could Lévi be? He went several times a year to the big book fairs in cities, or on little vacations…But now? Was he somehow warned about the attack, and had he disappeared beforehand? And was it because he was a charmante? Had the disease of the little forgotten kingdom made it here, across the river? Is nowhere safe for these people?

  Belle poked around the charred remains of his desk, where he tallied up the sums of people who actually came and bought or sold books, kept what little money he earned, and hid a small bag of pistachios he often shared with her. All of it was burned and black except for the metal hinges on his lockbox and some coins within. And something else, tarnished and gray…

  A mirror. A small, yet very familiar-looking mirror.

  It was round and pocket-sized, perfect for a gentleman’s vest or a lady’s grooming kit. Except for some smoke damage, the object was untouched by the fire; rubbing her sleeve on the glass quickly caused it to become bright and gleaming. Tiny roses decorated the rim.

  “Beast!” Belle cried out.

  Silently, faster than should have been possible, the Beast was flowing down the crumbling stairs and next to her, having heard the tone in her voice.

  Belle showed him the mirror, holding it in the palm of her hand.

  As if brought to life by the warmth of her palm, the silver-gray surface rippled and began to show images. A girl’s face appeared, filling the whole thing.

  Familiar, but so young…

  With a start Belle realized it was her mother. This was the first time she had seen her up close and looked directly into her green eyes.

  The girl smiled in the mirror, as if satisfied. Perhaps her chin was a little pointed and catlike for true perfection, her eyes too knowing and intelligent for an insipid romantic painting.

  Belle almost dropped the mirror when the girl—her mother—nodded seriously, then pushed a stray piece of hair back over her ear.

  “She looks just like you,” the Beast said.

  “I…” Belle wasn’t sure what she was going to say. Know?

  It looked like the girl was shaking her end of the mirror. The picture faded.

  Belle had to keep herself from shaking the mirror as well, to see if it would clear. But she didn’t have to; it restarted of its own accord. Unlike the Beast’s mirror, it obviously didn’t need to be told aloud to show something.

  She saw her young mother looking bored and annoyed as her parents—Belle’s grandparents—stood and talked with other adults at some sort of fancy occasion. Belle’s mother wore an amazing pale pink dress with a gold sash, which she was trying very hard to keep neat and stay fancy in—even when one of her friends ran up to her and dragged her off to play.

  The friend’s feet had cloven hooves.

  “What—” Belle began.

  “Hmmm…a faun,” the Beast said, only vaguely interested, like it was an unusual squirrel.

  The scenes shifted faster, as if sensing Belle’s impatience; while all of this was fascinating, it had nothing to do with now or the direness of their situation. Scenes of the kingdom, possibly through the witch’s eyes: a festival, Christmas, a flood one rainy spring. A fight between two young men in which one died, struck by magical lightning. A brawl breaking out among the spectators. Palace guards rushing in to break it up—slamming the heads of the magical people against the ground, rounding them up, and beating them.

  More scenes of the guards looking away as charmante girls were nauseatingly and physically harassed by street thugs and charmante boys beaten up. Sometimes so badly they couldn’t walk. Sometimes so badly they never got up—or opened their eyes—again.

  “Papa!” Belle cried when she saw Maurice enter the scene.

  She and the Beast watched the Enchantress and the inventor court; they watched them spend time with friends late into the night. Then they watched them wait for friends who never showed up. The couple turned from sunny and happy to nervous and angry as the flavor of the kin
gdom changed.

  They saw her mother go to the palace….

  “Mother. Father,” the Beast whispered.

  …and entreat the king and queen for what was obviously protection and help for les charmantes. They saw the king and queen turn her away.

  The Beast made a noise in his throat, somewhere between a whimper and a curse and a no, ashamed of his own parents.

  They witnessed Belle come into the world—in a little too much detail for the Beast, who had to turn away in shock.

  They too experienced sadness and fear as charmantes left, one by one, or disappeared, and the kingdom grew bleak and frightening.

  They saw fever and plague come and bodies and incense burned, and a quarantine thrown up against the outside world, too little, too late.

  They saw a little family fleeing a dying kingdom.

  They saw a midnight rider….

  “Alaric,” the Beast said mournfully.

  They saw him come, again and again, to the little house in the village, often when it was dark and there was no moon—and always with a rider or two behind him. They saw Belle’s parents usher the fleeing charmantes inside and give Alaric some food and hot wine for the trip home. They watched les charmantes moving on the next night, loaded up with more food and sometimes money, heading on out to the world….

  “It wasn’t just one charmante,” Belle said slowly. “It was…dozens. It was like…they were helping all of them…escape….That’s why there were all of those lists and tables in his notebook. He was smuggling. Charmantes. Lots of them.”

  Belle noticed, also, that she never appeared in any of the scenes with Alaric and those he rescued. Her parents did a very good job of keeping her from witnessing any of it.

  Then Alaric stopped coming. They saw a pale and waxy king and queen beg Belle’s mother for help, and her refusal…And Belle was torn between shame and wonder at a woman who saved some people and refused to help others…

  …until the next scene, which showed the Enchantress back at home, waving her fingers and staring into the distance. The castle leapt into view again, and white sparks like rose petals gently fell over it, disappearing as they landed. A sleeping boy, the young prince, shifted in his sleep with a faint smile, receiving the sparks happily.

  “She’s casting a spell?” Belle asked, confused.

  Then it cut to her mother handing Monsieur Lévi the little mirror and clasping her hand around his, enclosing it within.

  And then the mirror faded.

  “It’s a…diary.”

  The Beast spoke aloud first, guessing the truth of it. “My mirror just shows exactly what is going on in the present—right now. This shows her…memories.”

  “She gave this to Monsieur Lévi….” Belle turned the little mirror over in her hand, a look of wonder on her face. “Like she was asking him to keep it for her, in case something happened to her. Like she knew.

  “She was thinking about me. She didn’t just leave and forget me….”

  “She’s your mother, Belle,” the Beast said gently. “She wouldn’t have.”

  The mother she had dismissed for so many years—by magic as well as inclination—had forced her way back into her daughter’s life. And she was not only a more complicated person than Belle had believed, but more motherly.

  “What was that last spell she cast? After she left the castle?” she said, dismissing the intriguing—but immediately unhelpful—new thoughts in her head.

  “None of the children or babies in the castle ever got sick with the fever. Like me. I was fine,” the Beast said. “Some people said it was a miracle. Maybe it was your mother.”

  “But she let your parents die,” Belle said bleakly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Now what?” the Beast asked impatiently, obviously not wanting to think about it anymore.

  “Now we go see Papa. Hopefully he can clear all this up. Maybe when we show him this it will remind him, or free his memory, or something.”

  “All right. To Belle’s father.” He held his arm out and she took it, her face growing grim as they stepped over the ashes and charcoal that had once been furniture and books.

  The Beast couldn’t bear seeing her so sad. “If everything goes all right…if we break the curse and I become a…real king…I’ll rebuild the bookstore. I’ll make it bigger. Maybe…maybe I’ll give you your own bookstore.”

  Belle gave him a sad, pleased smile. “Thank you. I’ll hold you to that.”

  They walked quietly for a few moments, each wrapped deep in thought.

  “There it is,” Belle said after a few moments. A wide smile grew on her face and her eyes brightened as it came into view: a snug little house, as comforting and…odd as Belle was. None of the other houses they passed had windmills, for instance.

  “Very…homey,” the Beast said, trying to think of something nice to say.

  “Look, a light’s on!” she said excitedly. “In the kitchen! The little table lantern! He’s home!”

  When they got to the door, Belle reached up to push it open—then stopped and turned to the Beast.

  “Ah…maybe you should let me go first,” she said delicately. “The last time he saw you, you threw him in a prison cell.”

  The Beast immediately slumped, remembering.

  “I’ll say I’m sorry,” he promised.

  “Which is great,” Belle said, squeezing his paws. “But maybe I should just bring him up to date on what’s happening before you two meet again. Then I’ll come out the back and get you.”

  “All right,” he grumbled. “I’ll hide in those bushes over there, behind the house.”

  “Thank you,” she said, standing up on tiptoe to kiss him on the side of his muzzle. “I won’t be a minute.”

  She turned and he flowed back down the path like an inky shadow, silently inserting himself among some snowy bushes to wait.

  The Beast tried to listen in after Belle stepped inside, but the door was solid and there were few windows.

  He growled. This was ridiculous. He was a prince, a king really, and here he was hiding outside in the cold. He was a beast, too, huge and thunderously strong, crouched and camouflaged like a rabbit.

  If he were…a prince…a real one, a human one…would he get to just go inside with her on his arm? What would her father say? A prince on the arm of his daughter? What would happen then? Could they…could they marry? There was no one left in the kingdom to object to him marrying below his station.

  Would Belle even like him?

  Did she like him now?

  She hadn’t pulled away when he had kissed her, before…and she had kissed him just now. That was something, right?

  It was hard to think about the future or have thoughts that were complicated and abstract. He didn’t want to reveal this to Belle—but it was getting harder. Any quick and thoughtless instinct—food hunger run smell good smell bad itchy scratch it—came first, before rational thought. It was hard to ignore.

  His tail lashed, its brushy fox-like fur whipping snow off the leaves, a veritable cataclysm of noise to his sensitive ears.

  He settled down.

  Where was she? Hadn’t she had enough time yet for a tearful reunion?

  The Beast was never cold under his thick fur. But something about the little village and its empty streets made the Prince shiver. While he had never been in a shop before, he had certainly been elsewhere in the kingdom, on horseback or on inspection or parade or just out for a jaunt with his mother, and it had been a much busier, larger, happier town than this. Many more people and houses and buildings, and none of the people looked at strangers as suspiciously as they seemed to do here.

  It seemed so chilly and quiet in this town…almost like an empty, haunted castle, turned inside out.

  A carriage rumbled by, a black one. Then another, this one maybe almost black. Despite his superior vision, he had trouble differentiating colors. That was one of the reasons he liked his royal blue and gold jacket; they were shades he could te
ll apart easily and looked nice, he thought, all bold and bright.

  A couple of crows flew overhead, making the lighter caw that differentiated them from ravens. He liked crows. They weren’t as standoffish as their larger cousins and were much smarter than the little brown songbirds he occasionally couldn’t resist snagging and gulping.

  A third vehicle, an old cart, bounced and creaked its way by, driven by a sharp-eyed matron.

  This was boring.

  He began to whack the ground spastically with his left hind foot, like a buck rabbit.

  “Where is she?” he growled. “This is taking too long.”

  Of all the various creatures his body was a hideous amalgam of, cat wasn’t one of them. He had no patience for the lie-and-wait kind of hunting.

  “Gah!” he finally said, tearing himself from the bushes and loping up the path to the back door. If anyone on the road was actually looking in his direction, they would have seen little; he stuck to the shadows and hid at each available opportunity: drinking well, rock, strange giant metal contraption, wall.

  He pressed his ear up to the door.

  Nothing.

  Surprised, he gently pushed it open with the pads of his paws.

  It didn’t even creak. Nothing alleviated the complete silence of the place.

  The Beast entered cautiously, sniffing the air. Belle had been here; he caught traces of her scent. And scents of other people, too: masculine, one of which could have been her papa…but he didn’t think so.

  Panicking, he dropped to all fours and leapt around the small house, smelling everything and poking into every corner. Nothing, nowhere.

  He ran his claws through the fur on his head. Where could she have gone? What happened? How could she disappear?

  His overwhelming instinct was to break out of the tiny, confining building and lope up and down the road, searching for her.

  What would Belle do?

  She would take stock of the situation and think of all the resources available to her and then make use of them in a logical and consistent manner.

  “I don’t have anything…” the Beast said aloud, thinking of their pack and the few provisions it had. Along with…