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

by Liz Braswell

  “WAIT!” the Beast roared—then cursed himself for roaring. He held out his hands, his paws, claws sheathed, harmless and empty except for the mirror. “I’m here to ask you for help. I need your help. Belle—Maurice’s daughter—is in trouble!”

  There was a strange moment of silence.

  “Belle?”

  The man who asked had his gun leveled completely motionlessly at the Beast’s heart. His eyes were ice-blue and the Beast had no doubt that with the slightest flick of his finger there would be blood and fur on the wall behind him.

  The scene swam in front of his eyes. They were going to get him. These foul-smelling omnivores with their machines and ugly teeth were going to swarm him. He had to attack first, he had to get away….

  “She’s in trouble,” the Prince whispered, fighting the Beast within. “I need you to help me help her.”

  “Maurice was…right?”

  This was asked by a man sitting at the bar. He hadn’t grabbed a gun. In fact, he hadn’t even released his hand from his tankard. He was watching everything more with interest than anything else.

  “It’s the beast!” someone else cried. “Maurice was right!”

  “Fangs, and long snout!” a third person yelled, standing up from the bar and bracing himself for a fight. “It’s him!”

  The man with the deadly aimed gun looked confused. “No…There’s not actually a beast….”

  “He’s right there!” an old barmaid swore.

  “YOU TOOK BELLE!” a short man with a long ponytail swore, pointing. “J’accuse!”

  “No!” the Beast said, backing up against the door. He wasn’t one to lie, even as a spoiled child. But maybe now was not the time for setting straight confusing truths. “She’s being held captive…tortured…but not by me! I came here to try and get help to rescue her!”

  The fire in the giant hearth blazed high and hot. His fur was growing matte and damp and itchy. The faces in front of him were ugly and mistrustful. Hands tightened around knives and muskets. The barest hint of relieving cool came from the frosty pane of a window nearby. He looked at it longingly. The moon shone behind. He could just break out and leave, flee this pack…

  “Look,” he said, desperately trying to focus. He pulled out the mirror.

  Everyone leapt back, perhaps thinking he had a gun or a weapon. Confusion spread from one dim face to the next as they were instead confronted with the delicate silvery object.

  “Show me Belle.”

  There was a gasp as the mirror revealed her, and what was happening to her.

  “That is Belle!” the short man shouted, now pointing at the image.

  Several men shuddered and turned away at what they saw. The barmaid nearly screamed in horror.

  The man with the gun was slowly letting it drop to his side. “Monsieur D’Arque?” he whispered.

  “What is he doing to her?” the man with his hand on the tankard demanded. “That swine!”

  “I always knew he was a bad one,” someone said. “He doesn’t just take the insane. I knew it.”

  “Foul son of a pig!”

  “Is he doing that to all of the other inmates?”

  “Belle is just sort of kooky…not crazy….Why is he doing that?”

  “I don’t understand…” said the man who the Beast finally began to understand was Gaston. Although he had only seen the hunter from a distance, he now recognized his scent. This was the killer and the wedding ambusher, who wore far too much eau de cologne. His handsome face was pale. “D’Arque was just supposed to capture Maurice…so Belle would marry me….”

  “What?” the barmaid asked, the one person in the room who was actually listening to what he said.

  “It made sense at the time,” the short man with the pointy finger explained.

  “She wouldn’t marry you so you had D’Arque, what—torture her?” the barmaid demanded.

  “No, no, no!” Gaston said, aghast. He stepped forward and went to take the mirror.

  At first the Beast wanted to resist—it was his magic mirror. The only possession he cared about besides the golden clasp his parents gave him before they died. But it was obvious that any show of force would be met with poorly.

  And besides, if it helped Belle…

  He turned his head away, not wanting to breathe in Gaston’s hateful scent. Before too long he wouldn’t be able to resist slicing the boy’s throat.

  “D’Arque…he was giving me advice…he liked the idea of Belle marrying me….” Gaston was obviously feeling sick; it was apparent in the thick, throaty way he spoke. “I didn’t know anything about this….He’s a monster…JUST LIKE THIS ONE RIGHT HERE!”

  Gaston suddenly pointed to the Beast, much like the short man had before. Finally, an emotion won out over Gaston’s face: rage. His brow darkened and an angry snarl distended his otherwise pretty lips.

  “What?” the Prince asked, confused.

  “All I wanted was to marry Belle,” Gaston growled. “I didn’t know this thing really kidnapped her…and now suddenly she’s imprisoned by D’Arque? It’s obvious they’re in on this together!”

  The Prince felt his eyebrows knitting together and a howl of frustration coming on. “If…we were…in on it together…why would I come here and ask for help?”

  “I don’t trust you, beast!” the hunter growled, sighting down the barrel of his gun. He let the mirror drop—his friend caught it just before it fell to the floor. “Everyone, stand aside while I put this thing out of its misery!”

  “You were the one in league with D’Arque!” the Prince protested.

  “You twisted him! You made him do this to Belle! It wasn’t anything I did!”

  Meanwhile, the little man had been looking into the mirror with wonder. “If he is doing this to harmless little Belle, and Maurice,” the short man said slowly, “what’s he been doing to everyone else up in there? Like…my great-aunt Foufou? She was just a little crazy….”

  “D’Arque took my cousin,” someone said grimly. “Said he was a danger to us.”

  People began to growl and mutter, and conversations about what was happening and what was to be done began.

  “But what about him?” Gaston demanded, jerking his chin at the Prince. “He’s a…he’s really a beast! We should kill him now, and then figure out everything else later! Come on!”

  “He’s demonic! Get him!”

  “Wait—why did he come to ask for help, then?”

  “Put him in chains, at the very least!”

  Everyone began shouting an idea or opinion. Guns were waved around as well as knives and fists.

  The Beast thought desperately. What could he do? What could a beastly prince do, who couldn’t order or insist these men, or charm them with wit the way Belle might have?

  Suddenly, he knew.

  Beg.

  Yet another thing he had never done before.

  He knelt down on the floor. He looked up at the crowd beseechingly. At Gaston in particular, whose eye color, he realized, was actually not that far off from his own.

  “Do whatever you like to me after we rescue Belle. I swear on my honor I will let you. Lock me up, kill me, what have you. I will turn myself in. Please, just help me get her free first.”

  Everyone quieted. Gaston was working his jaw, trying to decide what to do.

  “Don’t do it,” someone said. “He’s a demon bewitching you with false visions. He’s a liar.”

  But the man didn’t sound enthusiastic; he said it tiredly, like someone had to say it.

  Everyone else began to murmur assents.

  “Gaston,” the short man said, poking at his thigh. “My aunt.”

  The hunter looked ready to kill his friend—ready to kill anyone, just to channel the conflicting emotions and hatred that couldn’t find an outlet anywhere else. The Prince almost sympathized for a moment. Not all beasts look like beasts. He wondered what Gaston’s own enchanted portrait would look like.

  “We’ll deal with you lat
er,” Gaston finally said, grabbing his gunpowder belt and munitions bag. “But right now, we need to save Belle!”

  Belle had never felt so terrible—and alone—in her life.

  It wasn’t just the pain.

  It was that each of the little pains she felt now, each unusual purple bruise, each scabbing pinprick, each ache from where she had unconsciously strained against the table and the straps, was inflicted on her with purpose. With intent. A man had chosen to cause these myriad pains to her. A man had made her stomach swim and head pound and now the light from the lanterns blazed and flickered such that it sent agony through her eyes and down her spine.

  And she had no idea when her tormentor would be back.

  What did I, the bookworm and crazy inventor’s daughter, do to deserve any of this? she couldn’t help asking the world.

  She had led her quiet life reading—and then tried to rescue her father, and then tried to help the Beast after she messed up everything. She had never done anything purposefully bad to anyone beyond the mild nastinesses of childhood.

  And Frédéric D’Arque had been one of her father’s friends! Poor Papa couldn’t even remember that….

  The mad “doctor” was also her mother’s kidnapper and betrayer. He was responsible for stealing away one of the most important people in Belle’s life.

  “Maman,” she wept quietly, wanting her more than ever before.

  Suddenly the air felt loose around her.

  Confused, she sat up.

  Her restraints had fallen away.

  She blinked exactly once. The old Belle would have sat and tried to figure out what had happened—she was certain that when she came to, the straps had been tight around her legs and chest and even across the top of her head.

  The new Belle didn’t bother, taking the opportunity to run. Who knew why D’Arque had left her—and how soon he would be back.

  There was no one in the prep room. Belle crept past the empty gurneys, trying not to breathe in the antiseptic stink.

  The door out was locked, but from her side; why anyone would want to try to break into it was beyond her. Perhaps D’Arque was afraid of someone interrupting his experiments.

  She carefully slid the giant bolt and let the door open toward her a crack. Two corridors fed into an open area where three stools sat empty…and one was filled by a man so large she was pretty sure he had giant in him somewhere. If he were a charmante. He was cleaning his nails with a particularly nasty-looking knife.

  She cursed and quickly let the door close—quietly—again.

  Belle looked around the prep room, panicking. There were scalpels and knives on the counter in one corner, and she took one—why not?—although she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be much good in her hands against someone so large. Otherwise, there was nothing else useful.

  The only other place to go was the room from which she had come.

  Belle bit her lip and forced herself to ignore the blind panic building inside her and went back into the operating room.

  The machines that had been used on her loomed large and evil in one corner. Across from them, on the other side of her blood-spattered table, was another door that she hadn’t noticed before. A small one that gurneys could not fit through.

  Belle tried the handle.

  It was locked.

  She closed her eyes and said a few choice words she had learned from reading novels. Then she took a deep breath. The whole building was set up more like a medieval prison than a modern hospital; the lock was not going to be that complicated. She bent down and carefully inserted the scalpel into the keyhole. Relief settled upon her when it became clear that it was indeed an old Roman-style lock without barrels—just a simple latch. A few careful twists and turns succeeded in moving it a little…

  snikt

  …before the knife snapped. Belle cursed; now the blade was stuck in the door and if someone came by he would immediately realize what happened. But at least it was unlocked. She slipped in and closed the door quickly behind her.

  Belle wasn’t sure what she expected on the other side, but it was certainly not what she found.

  Skulls.

  Many skulls.

  Some of the skulls were inside glass jars and still had bits of brain matter attached to them.

  There was what she was pretty sure was a preserved torso in a glass coffin filled with pickling liquid. The skin over the belly and heart had been pulled back and metal tags attached to what were apparently relevant bits underneath. There were, she couldn’t help noticing, six nipples on the chest, and what looked like fur beginning above the hips.

  A desk covered in notes—and the occasional unseemly splatter—sat strangely primly amongst the horror, a beautiful long quill awaiting use in an inkpot.

  Unable to help herself, Belle took a look at the notes.

  Sadly, unable to find a living specimen of the were variety. The corpse brought to me was already beginning to decay, and the brain completely unusable. Cannot confirm theory of charmante node. Body, however, utterly fascinating. I began with an incision…

  She turned away, unable to read more.

  There was a narrow spiral staircase in the corner of the room. She made for it, hoping to escape the cloying, nauseating smell of embalming fluids.

  Up and up and through the darkness it climbed, round, metal, and cold. It felt like she passed several floors before coming to a place where she could step off.

  She emerged, dizzy and sick, in a dark and narrow room that looked like a connecting hall at first. She took a candle out of its sconce and raised it, frowning into the gloom.

  Books.

  Hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand.

  The cold black walls were covered in shelves, and the shelves with books.

  On the Extirpation of Witches in the New World

  Surprisingly Accurate Trials to Determine Associations with the Devil, as Determined by John Hathorne

  Taxidermy, a Layman’s Guide

  The Necronomicon

  The Evils of Res Supernaturae

  Deconstructive Anatomy

  Successful Torture Methods of the Late 11th Century

  Belle picked a book at random. The page it opened to had an etching of a screaming woman with horns being opened from gut to nose by a calm surgeon.

  She dropped it, feeling tainted by its very touch.

  Then reason overcame disgust and she carefully picked it up, placing it back where it belonged.

  Everywhere she looked, every nook and cranny, was crammed with black leather-bound books that fairly reeked with evil—couched in a very weak coating of “science” and “religion.”

  Toward the end of the aisle were large folio-sized journals and diaries, all of the same style as the one she had seen in D’Arque’s lab. She picked the thickest, blackest one and opened it. This was entirely unillustrated, just tables of entries and notes.

  Madame Annabel Salvage—female, forty-three at time of entering possession. Famed “compounder” of unlikely potions and tonics. CURED. Survived. See notes, re: charmante node removal, blood purification.

  Anonymous—female, short, speaker to animals. CURED. Deceased.

  The list went on and on. Here were all of les charmantes who unfortunately fell into his power, and a clear list of the experiments he performed on them to remove their magic.

  “‘Cured. Deceased!’” Belle spat, forgetting herself for a moment. She slammed the book back onto the shelf. She longed to destroy it, as all the good books in Monsieur Lévi’s shop had been. But when they brought D’Arque before a court of law, this would be prime evidence.

  Belle hurried on, holding her hand around the flame so it wouldn’t go out, more determined than ever to escape, to rescue her parents, to survive and bring terrible retribution on the monster who ran this asylum.

  The library door opened into a broad, well-lighted area shaped like a bottleneck. She shrank against the wall as noises traveled down multiple halls to her: clinking and cl
anking, voices raised, the occasional shriek.

  The narrow end of the room had one giant set of double doors with wide bars, allowing whoever was outside to watch what lay beyond them.

  “Who’s the keeper tonight?” came a voice from the other side. It was rough and male and deep. Belle thought of her masked captors.

  “It’s Filthy Mary,” another voice said with a laugh.

  “Faugh! May as well leave it alone, then.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Keeping her back against it, Belle crept along the wall farthest from those voices and peeped around the corner down the first hall. There was a large locked door built into a heavy stone frame just a few feet away. Through the grill in it she could hear the moans and cries of the now truly insane.

  She passed quickly by and moved on to the next hall, praying no one was watching.

  Same thing. A locked door, the cries of the deranged beyond.

  Same for the next hall.

  The one after revealed something different.

  There was no locked door set into it; instead, it widened and opened into a sort of a storage area. There were piles of neatly folded, surprisingly clean laundry on shelves, unused chamber pots ready to go, shapeless robes with wide belts…and trays being laid out with bowls and bread for dinner.

  Doing the laying-out was a woman whose very shape made Belle almost buckle with rage.

  Without thinking, Belle ran on quiet tiptoe as fast as she could, picking up speed and slamming the older woman as hard as she could in the middle of her back.

  The hateful woman fell, the one who had “accompanied” Belle for her “comfort” to the room of torture. Who hadn’t even felt the need to wear a mask, ever.

  She moaned as her face hit the table in front of her and her legs collapsed.

  “What…” the woman began.

  Belle grabbed the closest thing she could, a tin chamber pot, and smashed the woman across the head with it.

  The woman slumped, silent and bleeding.

  Belle took one moment to breathe.

  She took another moment to reflect on what recent events were turning her into.