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

by Liz Braswell

The magic mirror!

  Eagerly he pulled it out of the bag he carried. “Show me Belle!” he commanded.

  Immediately the screen fogged and cleared and showed Belle, tied up and struggling in a small space. A box, maybe. A large, padded one? It looked like she was bouncing around while a hooded assailant tried to hold her down.

  What sort of box could she be put in that moved?

  Cursing himself for a fool, the Beast ran out the front door of the house and looked up and down the road. Just turning around the bend, on the road away from the village, was another black carriage. It tipped dangerously onto two wheels as it went, gaining speed.

  The Beast ran after it, full out, on all fours.

  The carriage turned off the main road and onto one that climbed up a stark, precipitous hill. This path was twisty and turny, cutting back and forth across the stony escarpment that hid the top from the land below. Thick, stunted and gnarled trees clung to the cliffs and further caused the road to take some additional twists—yet the carriage never slowed down. The Beast himself slipped once or twice in his desperation to reach Belle, and only managed to keep from falling by grabbing onto roots and scrabbling quickly.

  At the top the carriage finally slowed.

  The road ended at a large stone building that reminded the Beast of his castle a little. This was ugly and squat, however, with no real windows except for high up, on the top floors only. The back side was built into the hill so that half of the construction was underground. The air around it smelled vile and sick, too human for such a remote and wild place. When the wind blew right, screams could be heard issuing thinly between the stones.

  Rage once again overcame caution and he leapt—

  —turning himself midair and scrambling behind a tree when someone came out of the building to meet the carriage. Several someones, by the smell of it, with hard boots and muskets.

  “Ah, I see you managed to bring our little guest. Excellent. And no worse for the wear, really…”

  The Prince dug his claws into his own flesh at Belle’s muffled whimpers and cries. More than anything he wanted to jump up, roaring and growling and slavering, and tear everyone from gut to throat until Belle was safe.

  The Beast within him roiled.

  Guns who cares guns make them pay kill them save Belle.

  The Prince shut his eyes, trying to force the blood in his veins to calm. It would feel so good just to give in to it, to be free and terrible….

  But if he failed, what good would that do Belle, or him, or anyone still trapped in his castle?

  He took a deep breath. Again, what would Belle do? There were too many guards, too many guns, and that building had a huge and very sturdy door. It could hide an army—an army of whatever those horrible, pitiful screaming things were.

  He couldn’t do anything immediately, on his own.

  He needed a plan.

  He needed reinforcements.

  Belle couldn’t scream.

  The gag—a clean piece of cloth, part of her mind noticed—wasn’t tied tight enough to stop her breathing, but it was bunched up in the middle to prevent her from making any noise beyond what she could manage in the back of her throat.

  She managed quite a lot.

  Her father hadn’t been in the house. Something had felt off from the moment she went in—she should have left immediately. She should have gone to get the Beast. But she wasn’t used to having backup; of all the many resources her prodigious mind was capable of accessing, help wasn’t one of them. She was used to doing things on her own.

  Almost as silent as the Beast, her captors had descended upon her, forcing the gag in her mouth before she could cry out, kicking her knees out from beneath her so she crumpled immediately to the floor. Someone tied a bag over her head. It was all over in less than a minute; she was picked up and rushed out the door…the front door…and into what was probably a carriage from the way it moved.

  She struggled against what seemed to be a pair of large, strong men and the uneven movement of the vehicle, but it was useless.

  Why were they doing this? Who were they? What had she ever done? To anyone? Did this have anything to do with the burning of Lévi’s shop? With her mother? With all of les charmantes? Were they actually trying to grab her father for some reason, but settled for her instead? Did her father owe someone money? Did he borrow from the wrong person to pay for his metal, his inventions?

  The carriage turned off the main road and started going uphill. Steeply uphill.

  The asylum? Belle wondered. They’re taking me to the lunatic asylum? It was the only thing on top of the one steep hill near the village.

  She began to panic, far more seriously than when they first grabbed her. Like all children in the village she had crept up the hill and snuck a look at the place, goaded by stories and rumors. It was a frightening estate despite all of the “modern” and “scientific” methods Monsieur D’Arque spoke so highly of on his rare visits down to the village.

  “Eh ee OW!” she enunciated as clearly as she could. “I nah cwayzy! Eh ee ALK an I splain! Eease, ake a ag off!”

  The two men were silent.

  Soon the carriage stopped, the door opened, and she was—surprisingly carefully—let down to the ground. A clean breeze blew; she sucked it in greedily. There wasn’t much time before they moved her into the building. Belle had to think fast. She couldn’t talk—she couldn’t argue rationally or plead poetically with her captors, two things she excelled at.

  What did one do in these situations, without a hidden knife, or a ring of invisibility, or a plan?

  What would the Beast do?

  Oh…

  Something she wouldn’t normally do. Something he often did. Something she never did.

  Lose control.

  “YIYIYIYIYIYIYUAYYAGG!”

  She ululated in the back of her throat the best she could manage, having read about the technique in one of her adventure books. With the terrifying cry she spun, throwing her torso out as far as she could—her arms were tied behind her back. Like an off-center top, she kicked and hurled herself against any solid object she came in contact with.

  “What the…?”

  “She really is a loony….”

  “Ooof!”

  It seemed like she actually managed to connect with some of her captors’ more tender, fleshy bits.

  As soon as she felt some space in the air around her, Belle turned and ran.

  She could see just a tiny bit of ground by staring down her nose, a patch of light where the bag had hitched up.

  All right, all I need to do now is watch for where the ground changes….

  Even if she ran off the cliff, her plan was to tuck into a ball and protect her neck as best she could. There were trees and bushes to break her fall, and maybe she would luck out and land on the road, and then…

  …and then someone neatly picked her up as easily as if she were a child, hands on her waist, and held her up in the air.

  She kicked madly but hit nothing.

  Shrieking in rage and frustration she still had to bear the indignity of being calmly and slowly carried into the building, without even a satisfying curse or jeer from her captors. The smell of chemicals hit her face: antiseptics, alcohol, and traces of the sickening, sweet solutions used to dull the senses and knock you out.

  Also urine, and fear.

  She heard the door close solidly behind her and couldn’t help letting out a sob.

  Would the Beast be able to find her here? Would he even come after her?

  Or would the curse just gradually take him over, leaving him to wander the wilds around the village, growing more and more beastly until someone like Gaston shot him?

  “Ooo an ake a ag ff ow,” she said with as much calmness as she could muster.

  “Not until you’re safely stowed away,” one of her guards said with frightening patience. Apparently he had been doing this long enough to be able to completely understand the otherwise unintelligible wor
ds coming out of her mouth. He put a firm hand in the small of her back and gently propelled her forward.

  Belle resisted, trying to sidestep him.

  “All right, missy,” he said with a sigh. “We’ve been told not to hurt you. And we won’t. But there’s hurt and there’s hurt. Beating you on the soles of your feet until you piss yourself from the pain, for instance, won’t actually leave a mark. No one will know or believe what we did, no matter what you tell or who you tell it to.”

  Belle swallowed a cry. Outside of books she had never been in the presence of someone so terrible…so evil before. Bullies, yes. Idiots with barbaric ideas about women and weddings, yes. But never anyone so calmly vile, who spoke of cruelties as casually as if he were talking about a game of cards.

  Giving up, she slumped and let him lead her.

  “There’s a good girl,” her captor said. “Smart, you are. Just like everyone says. You just do as you’re told and everything will be fine. No one is supposed to hurt you while you’re here.”

  While you’re here. That sounded like the whole thing wasn’t permanent….

  Like there was a possible end to her capture. Maybe someone just thought she was crazy and they were going to give her some kind of test or exam, and then let her go? There were already too many jokes in town about “crazy old Maurice” and occasional references to the asylum. Maybe someone had finally decided to act on their—incorrect—beliefs.

  “Carefully now, twenty steps ahead. A bit slippery.”

  She had just put her toe down on the second step when someone—or something—let out a scream. Far more terrifying than her war cry; this came from the heart, as if it were being ripped out of someone while they were awake.

  “Easy there, just a patient wanting his medicine,” her guard said, pushing her forward.

  She forced herself to move. She would not be picked up and carried again.

  Strange clangs and muffled whumps came from around her. She jumped at every sound, desperately trying to tilt her head and look up through the gap in her bag and failing. It was all black with only occasional flickering lamplight.

  “Here we go. In you go. Number fifteen. Big and bright. Lucky girl.”

  She was pushed forward harder, and down another step. This time no one told her about it and she stumbled.

  Belle felt her head yanked back and her throat exposed; terror overwhelmed her as she pictured a cold knife—or disgusting lips—touching her.

  But her captor was just removing the bag, and then the gag.

  She spun around to confront him. But he was as large and hooded and anonymous as a giant chess piece. His companion looked exactly the same. They swung the heavy barred door shut. Belle closed her eyes at the expected but still horrible sound of a heavy lock being drawn in place. Despite any boots they wore, her captors were silent as they walked off.

  Her cell wasn’t actually uncomfortable. It was large, had a stone bench for a bed with a fairly thick mattress, and a plain if functional chamber pot nearby. A little light filtered through a grate high in the wall, but most of the illumination was provided by the hanging lanterns in the hall, whose light was sickly and dim by the time it reached her room. There were more bars in the two walls perpendicular to the door, little windows to the cells next to hers.

  “My whole life I’ve never set foot in a jail cell,” Belle murmured, trying to see the humor in the situation. “In the last few weeks I’ve been in two. What a reprobate I’m becoming.…”

  She went to the door and tried to push her face through its window as far as it would go, looking up and down the hallway. There wasn’t much to see; on the right were only a few more cells and then a wide area with equipment and supplies for the jail keepers. Leather-padded batons, trays for food, mops, and the like. The hall went in the other direction at least thirty or forty feet, with more cells, these closer together. It was hard to tell because of the darkness, but at the end seemed to be an ominous black door.

  Belle sighed and went back to the other side of the room, to try the high grate that looked outside. She couldn’t reach it, and it looked fairly well hammered into the wall, but maybe if she…

  A spate of coughing from the cell next to her froze her in her tracks.

  Familiar coughing.

  She ran over to the window.

  “Papa?” she called, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu.

  “Belle? No!” His voice degenerated into another peal of coughs, but it was definitely her father. There was the sound of shuffling, and then he came out of the shadows.

  “Papa,” Belle said, sighing. He looked—well, not quite as terrible as he should have. There were bags under his eyes and he moved poorly, but there was also a pinkness to his cheeks and a fire in the depths of his pupils.

  “You escaped from the Beast!” he said, putting his arms through the bars. She clasped his hands to her heart, touching her forehead to his skin.

  “Yes. Escaped,” she said ironically. “And then came to find you and got thrown in here. But the Beast isn’t bad, Papa. It’s a long story. I have to help him. What happened to you? Why are you here?”

  “I tried to get help. To go get you,” Maurice said sadly, holding his daughter’s hands. “I went to the pub….No one believed me. They threw me out. And then Gaston—that pig!—he grabbed me. With LeFou. When I was walking through the woods, after you.”

  “Gaston?” Belle asked in surprise, drawing back.

  “Yes! Gaston and D’Arque! They’re in it together! Their plan was to kidnap me and force you to marry Gaston to get me out.”

  Belle ran that through her head. It didn’t add up.

  “But then why kidnap me?” she asked slowly. “I don’t see another ambush wedding in here. Why would they put us together?”

  “Ambush wedding…?”

  “It’s a very long story.” She smiled ruefully. “Maybe you picked a bad day to go to a fair.”

  But…when she thought about it…if he hadn’t gone and been seized by the Beast, then she wouldn’t have left to look for him. She never would have found the haunted castle and met Mrs. Potts and Lumière and Cogsworth…and the Prince…and had the adventure she had always longed for….Assuming they all got out of this all right, really, was it such a bad thing to have happened?

  “Look, Belle, I have a lot to tell you,” Maurice said, his voice shaking. “And I don’t know how much time we have. I don’t know what they’re planning to do to us. Listen…”

  He took a deep breath and looked her straight in the eye.

  “Your mother was an enchantress.”

  Belle was suddenly overwhelmed with an urge to giggle.

  “I know,” she said, trying to limit her hysteria to a smile.

  “You know?” Her father looked baffled, stepping away from the window as if to get a better look at her, as if he couldn’t see how this was possible.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Because I…couldn’t remember, exactly. I had difficulty remembering her.” He shook his head. “I think it was protective—a forget spell in case anything ever happened to her. It would keep us safe, from knowing too much.”

  “How come you can remember her now?”

  “Because I saw her! She’s here!”

  “Mother?” Belle gasped. “My mother?”

  “Oh, Belle, I saw her….” He began to weep. He leaned against the wall and sobbed and choked. “Belle…she was taken from us all those years ago. She didn’t leave. They took her and have been taking all the magic out of her. That’s what D’Arque does, Belle. He removes magic from everything. Everyone. That’s what those screams are! He’s…torturing the magic out of them. Out of your mother. She’s mangled, Belle…your beautiful, strong mother. She’s a husk of bone and skin….”

  Belle remembered, with nausea, the monster she had seen in the mirror that the Beast had broken. It was her mother. The beautiful lady with the rose and mirror who cursed the Beast was now a scrawny, scarred vic
tim of torture that left her looking like a monster.

  I thought she didn’t love me. That she left me and Papa for her own reasons. But she was stolen from us. Kidnapped—and brought here.

  And even in her weakened state she still summoned the strength to try and reach me.

  “Dark,” she suddenly said aloud, remembering what the vision in the mirror had said. “Stay safe away from dark… D’Arque! She meant stay away from D’Arque! She was trying to protect me!”

  She put a hand to her head, feeling both overwhelmed and exhausted. “We have to get out of here,” she said as calmly as she could. “Papa, we have to do something. I’ll do something. I’ll get all three of us out. The Beast can help….”

  “The Beast who captured us?” Maurice asked, alert and skeptical.

  “He’s the prince Maman cursed. When he was a child. I…touched the rose she cursed him with and somehow completed the spell. I’m trying to help him break it.”

  Maurice looked at her, dumbfounded. Then he shook his head. “Magic always comes back on itself….”

  A voice, old and female and guttural and chatty, came from up the hall. A nearly inaudible masculine grunt replied. For some reason the sound of both made Belle sick.

  The newcomers approached the door and unlocked it. One was a large unmasked man wearing a plain tunic and breeches. His arms were the size of hams. The woman with him was also wearing a plain, clean outfit. They looked almost like nurses, but there was something terribly not right about the whole thing.

  “Hello, girly! The doctor’s all ready to examine you, now!” the woman said with cheeriness that wasn’t so much false as terrifying.

  “No!” Maurice yelled, standing up straight. “Stop. I am her father. There is nothing wrong—or magical—about her at all!”

  “The doctor will get it all sorted. And don’t you worry about your precious girl. I’m along here to make her feel comfortable and safe, nothing naughty or untoward happening with her.”

  The man unlocked the door. Belle’s first urge was to get away, even if just to the back of the room.

  Both “nurses” must have guessed at what she was doing, because they sprang into the room faster than seemed possible; they were well used to people resisting. The man had Belle’s hands behind her back and held tightly before she could move.