by Laura Kenyon
Belle blinked no less than a dozen times and then swiped her eyes. A crown of brown frizz surrounded her head. Her tiny body looked more than a little off balance, and the ridiculous yellow ball gown in which she’d arrived was almost as battered as her spirit. Wobbling before the window, the displaced Queen of Braddax looked ethereal. She’d tried to reapply her makeup, Rapunzel noticed, but her eyes still glowed red, the skin below her lashes was still puffy, and a field of splotches traveled from her cheeks to the notch in the center of her neck.
“I like the bow that way,” Rapunzel said, pointing to Belle’s waist, around which wound a fraying silk sash. “Very devil-may-care. But how about we brush out your hair a little?”
Belle gave no response when Rapunzel floated behind her and began unpinning her unusually flat waves. She ran her finger purposefully down the back of Belle’s neck to make sure she was actually alive. Not even a shiver.
“I still don’t believe it,” Belle whispered to the air. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Rapunzel could actually feel herself melting a little. She didn’t like it. “Everything’s going to be fine. You don’t need him. You never—”
“I know. I never needed him,” Belle said. “You’ve been saying that for years. That we let men pick us out like show ponies and parade us around when it’s convenient.”
Rapunzel thought for a moment. That did sound like her. “Sure, but I didn’t—”
“I just never believed it. I still don’t believe it. I saved him. We got married. That’s supposed to be the end of it.” Rapunzel dropped the nest of hair. The rising squeakiness of Belle’s voice told her she’d need both arms soon. “I meant my vows when I took them.”
Rapunzel skirted around her friend and pulled her close, just in time for the waterworks. She was getting pretty good at this.
“You were right. My parents were right,” Belle wailed into Rapunzel’s neck, her eyelashes flitting like panicked butterflies. “Happily ever after is a big inside joke. True love and fidelity and ‘till death do us part’ is all—” She paused to take a shaky gulp of air. “One person distracts the other with pretty words and flowers and music … but all they really want is a paper giving them control until they get bored. One person always winds up left behind.”
“Shhhhh,” Rapunzel repeated, trying to make sense of her friend’s ramblings. For once in her life, she didn’t know what to say. She’d never heard Belle talk about love with anything but angel eyes and absolute devotion. She always seemed to be in love with love. And while it was true that Rapunzel thought the phrase “happily ever after” needed to be struck from the history books, and that the fabric of society needed to be torn up and restitched in multiple places, she didn’t want Belle to lose faith completely. She knew love gave her hope, and comfort, and provided some invisible meaning to life. She knew it did that for some people.
“Now you’re giving me too much credit. Since when do I know what I’m talking about?” Rapunzel unwrapped her arms as laughter drifted in from outside. “This is just a temporary setback on the road to something better, okay? If you believe what I say so much, believe that. Now let’s get some fresh air.”
After a weak nod and the slowest walk Belle had taken since her wedding march, the circle of friends was complete. Cindy immediately abdicated her soapbox and steered the conversation to old memories she knew would make Belle laugh. For hours, the women screeched over Penny’s mad-as-a-March-hare bachelorette party, clucked about the time two men proposed to Rapunzel via skywriting on the same day, and relived the horrible-yet-glorious day Hunter’s mother died in the pit of cobras she’d been planning to use on Dawn.
“And I thought my mother-in-law was a nightmare.” Penny sighed, drawing a shawl around her shoulders. The evening wind had picked up, and the sky pulsed in brilliant shades of tangerine and gold. “That reminds me. Letitia’s making me plan her anniversary party for some godforsaken reason.”
Half the table immediately shot protective glances toward Belle, while the other half stared bullets at Penny. The word “anniversary” was not to be tossed around in front of someone about to lose her marriage—even if in this case it referred to Letitia’s anniversary with the throne rather than with her late husband. But after three hours of drinking and laughing, the transgression was quickly forgiven.
Rapunzel, queen of the Marestam buzz party, straightened up and put on her business face. “Well, now I can help you out with that.” She shielded the side of her mouth in a mock-whisper. “Two words. Open bar.”
“Oh that’s a given,” Penny said. “I’m gonna need as much liquid courage as I can get my hands on. It’s only a couple weeks away, but Letitia already fired every planner in the realm, so now I get the reins. Lucky me.”
Words of support swirled around the table.
“Have you considered a memory room?” Dawn’s ordinarily soothing voice now slid like melting butter—the signal that she was about to reminisce about her life before the Great Sleep, before a curse put her former kingdom into suspended animation for three hundred years. “My parents did that once. Well, in truth theirs was a memory wing because Selladóre had so much more history than Marestam does.”
Rapunzel turned her face to the sky. Good grief.
“But that’s beside the point. All you have to do is assemble some artifacts—family jewels and old journal entries and drawings of the palace throughout the years. Call it a tribute to her, and Letitia won’t be able to contain herself.”
“That sounds neat,” agreed Cindy. “You could get your peas from the Hall of Curiosities and put them front and center. I’m actually borrowing my glass slippers now. The curators will try and talk you out of it, but they have to give them to you.”
Penny nodded and murmured something into her goblet. Then she noticed the guest of honor’s glass was still full. “Don’t like the wine, Belle?”
Belle righted her head and blinked a few times. “Hmm?” She looked at the glass. “Oh it’s fine. I just don’t like drinking when I’m depressed.”
The ensuing silence spoke for itself. Wasn’t that the perfect time to drink?
“It’ll just make me wallow,” she added, not helping matters. Finally, she leaned forward and grabbed a chunk of the ten-minute fudge she’d whipped up when everyone thought she was in the bathroom. “But these are perfect.”
“Long as you’re not pregnant or anything,” said Rapunzel. “We don’t need another year of sober parties. But I absolve you for tonight, under the circumstances.”
Belle toasted the air with her fudge and gave a drowsy smile.
“So what are you going to do now?” Penny asked, reaching for the plate and passing it around.
“She’s gonna stay here,” Rapunzel said, yanking the guest of honor to attention. “I’ve got tons of space and no one to share it with.” Belle started to protest but Rapunzel held up her hand. “You can repay me in fudge—or rum cupcakes or peach strudel or those fake poisoned apples you made for Snow’s birthday. People talked about those for months.” She paused to catch a flickering idea. Her clients could use that sort of domestic flare at their launch parties. But if living with Belle didn’t kill their friendship, working and living with her certainly would. “They were delicious.”
A chorus of agreement struck up. Belle straightened in her chair. The puffiness had moved from her eyes to her cheeks, and the only splotch left was the scar behind her uncombed bangs.
“I know it’s not ideal,” Rapunzel added, softly, “but you can’t be alone right now. And us bootstrap gals need to stick together.”
Belle pinched her wedding ring—a fat chunk of metal choking a red diamond—and spun it around her finger. “It won’t be for long, but thank you.” She took a deep breath and tried to shake on some happiness. “All of you. I’ve got five sisters by blood, but you’re the only ones who treat me like one.” Hands reached for tissues all around the table. “Still, I know what Donner and I have is stronger than
some floozy who nabbed him at the wrong time. We said some things in the heat of the moment that we didn’t mean, and we just need a day to cool off. He’s probably on his way over here right now to beg me to come back.”
Rapunzel clenched her teeth so tightly she felt her cheeks throb. The rest of her friends were nodding at Belle and smiling as if she’d just been swaddled and left on their doorstep, but Rapunzel didn’t buy it. Belle couldn’t honestly believe that this was Donner’s first and only mistake, or that he’d race back to her with open arms. But she wanted to. And in Rapunzel’s mind, that was just as dangerous.
Chapter Four
BELLE
The displaced Queen of Braddax went to bed with wrung-out eyes and a head pounding from worry and white chocolate. Maybe she should have just pretended not to see the bright red underwear—the lace landmine—poking out from beneath his nightstand. After all, as Dawn so delicately pointed out earlier, Donner was the one with the royal blood. The castle belonged to him. The beautiful dresses and shoes that were now languishing in her empty (she hoped) dressing room had been gifts from him. Her entire rise from a disgraced merchant’s daughter to a beloved celebrity queen hinged on her marriage vows. Wasn’t that worth a little sexual exploration? Or was that exactly what she’d been telling herself for years?
The more Belle thought about it, the more she realized she’d known Donner’s secret for some time. She’d just never admitted it, for the same reason she was playing dumb with her friends now. Had she known for sure, she’d have been forced to stand up for herself and lose—lose her home, her lifestyle, her title, her very identity when it came down to it. Even now, as the walls around her crashed to the ground, she was still trying to play oblivious housewife—pretending the shards just needed some glue and a good dusting. She’d done the exact same thing when her father’s bad investments tore her family apart. While her sisters became bloated with anger and self-pity, Belle had taken care of the house, diluted her father’s whiskey, and held a microscope over every blessing she could.
Perhaps that had been naïve. But then again, if she’d been cruel, her father never would have gone out of his way to pick that enchanted rose for her—the rose that riled a beast and incurred a debt only one of his daughters could pay; she never would have volunteered her own freedom to save him; and King Donner of Braddax (whom the public believed was on sabbatical at the time), would never have returned to human form.
That’s why she needed to keep her chin up now. She’d always wanted a family above all else—a real family with two parents and six o’clock dinners and kids who played games together (nice, voluntary games) on rainy afternoons. The wheels for this were finally in motion, in some secret place inside of her, and she refused to give that up. Donner would come back for the baby, of that much she was sure. But wouldn’t it be nice if she could convince him to come back for her first?
Before pulling back the sheets of her temporary bed, Belle selected the least vulgar of Rapunzel’s nightgowns to borrow and drank three cups of hot cocoa down to the powder. Her brain was exhausted, but not calm enough to shut down. When she finally slipped through the cloudy edges of slumber, she found herself standing in ankle-deep fog in the middle of a sprawling garden.
As far as she could see, majestic weeping willow branches swept over her head. Purple wisteria hung like garland on pockets of air. A pack of cardinals fluttered over chiseled statues, dove through an obelisk fountain, and whistled for each other to keep up. She was in the gardens at Braddax Castle—but not as she’d seen them for years. These were the grounds she used to dream about back when she was Donner’s prisoner, before she knew her dreams were being hijacked by magic and the handsome prince she kept imagining was actually Donner, nudging her toward breaking his spell.
But it had been years since he last tapped into her dreams. Was he setting up to apologize or to fling salt in her wounds? She covered her belly protectively and edged forward, slowing near bushes behind which sinister things could hide. Then, as she pressed past the last line of trees and through the spiral hedges that opened up to the castle, the breeze began to hum their wedding song.
Belle felt her chest lift and relief pour over her like a warm rain. Her mind lit up with thoughts of a tearful confession and an airtight embrace. She pictured a renewal of vows, a romantic dinner, and Donner tossing around the children they were finally going to have. She saw holidays and snowball fights and autumn hikes through an orange hillside. For one shining moment, she saw the marriage she’d always wanted but never really had.
Then her arm hairs spiked and everything before her turned to ash. The ground froze instantly, stinging her bare feet and catching her toe. Pain shot from up her leg. She tripped forward and cursed—instantly clapping her palm over her mouth. With the click of a switch, spring had wilted. In its place stood gnarled thorn bushes, stripped branches, and a chunky mash of mud and snow. The music was gone. Where the castle stood just moments before, Belle saw nothing but a black cloud and a fat metal door. Instead of a typical knob, it had a deep red diamond, just like her ring … which, yep, she’d forgotten to take off before bed.
Belle rubbed her arms and hobbled up to the door. She knew walking through it would end the dream—and possibly start a nightmare. But choosing to wake up instead would accomplish nothing. At least if she could talk to Donner in person, maybe—
She wrapped her fingers around the blood red stone and turned. It didn’t move. She wiped the dampness off her palms and tried again. Nothing. A laugh rang out from somewhere in the atmosphere, and her optimism liquefied into hot fury.
The last time she was locked outside in the snow, she was nine years old and her sister Julianne had yanked her out of bed, screaming that their father was having a heart attack on the front lawn. Before she knew it, she was barefoot in freezing temperatures, begging for her sisters to let her back inside while her father slept off his whiskey dinner on the kitchen floor. Their fun ended when Belle, panicked, slipped on a patch of black ice and cracked her head open on the front steps. The scar ran an inch above her eye and could pass as an early worry line these days, but she hated having the reminder. Each time she looked in the mirror, she hated seeing that helplessness—for her—was elemental.
“Donner,” she called into the sky, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but if you want me to go through this door, you better unlock it.” She yanked the tiny nightgown further down her goose pimpled legs and waited. Nothing. She felt something snap and screamed so loud her throat went raw. “Right freaking now or I’m leaving and this was a tremendously stupid waste of your time!”
As Belle’s heart beat triple-time, a gust of wind swirled around her. The snow picked up but was no longer cold. Then she heard a click and a slow creak. “Always so damn dramatic,” she muttered and shuffled over the threshold. “Like a phone call wouldn’t have worked just fine.”
Moments later, Belle was fully awake but standing in her dressing room. On all sides stood row upon row of clothing racks and shelves of floor-to-ceiling color. Her trembling hands began to steady. She looked around. Everything seemed in order and her mirrors were still in one piece. At the foot of the rolling ladder sat one of Donner’s enchanted trunks, capable of holding an infinite number of items without ever getting heavy. What was he up to?
“Are you happy, Beauty?” The voice thundered through the room like a cannon blast. Belle jumped back, sending one of her earring trees clattering to the floor. Donner had asked her that same question every night when she first came to the castle. It usually preceded the mortifying, “Will you marry me, Beauty?” Perhaps she should have read more into his motivations at the time.
“Are you happy, Beauty?” the voice repeated.
Belle let out a pop of breath that sent her bangs rocketing into the air. “Yes, I’m thrilled,” she hissed, embracing her fury again. Donner was becoming quite good at bringing it out. “I have no home, my husband’s a lousy cheat, the paparazzi is scouring the realm for
me, and the only dress I took with me feels like a straight jacket. Yes, I’m absolutely wonderful. Now why did you bring me here?”
No sooner did the final syllable escape her lips than a half-dozen sandals rocketed off their shelves like popping corn without a lid. They landed in a heap beside her, followed by a ticker tape sprinkling of scarves and shawls. Belle bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Then she knelt down and felt the cold marble beneath her favorite pashmina.
“Did you really bring me here just so I could watch you destroy my things?” she hollered, pulling the cloth to her chest. The storm continued—swirling with skirts and dresses and sequin handbags. With a heap of fallen comrades in her arms, Belle rushed through the chaos toward the trunk. She shrieked as a stiletto heel brushed her shoulder, etching a dotted trail of blood.
Belle screamed for him to stop. Another rogue projectile and their baby could pay for Donner’s tantrum. The pain would be unbearable. He’d disintegrate with guilt—his temper the cause of his own undoing. It was a horrid thought. Seething, she lurched forward and unloaded an arm full of designer treasures. Just as her elbow slammed into the chest, she heard a loud crack from behind.
Instantly, everything that had been shooting through the air flowed straight into the trunk like a horizontal waterfall. Then there was calm.
“What in heaven’s—”
Belle looked up. In the doorway tottered a chesty blonde with a wide beach hat and jeweled sarong. A frosted hurricane glass with a tissue paper parrot wavered by her lips.
“Upon my word! I swear, the two of you are going to send me to an early grave,” Donner’s mother scolded, bringing her free hand to her hip and jutting out her elbow. “Donnie! Wherever you are. You get your arrogant ass down here this instant!”
The air cracked again, as if something had slashed it open. Belle’s brooding husband appeared. His designer chaos hair was now just chaos, and she could barely see his eyes through the mess—not that she was looking. Rather than his usual dark and glossy ensemble, he wore an old blue sweater that time had stretched past his fingertips. Years ago, Belle used to slip it on during cold nights and laugh about how close it came to her ankles. She remembered it felt like wearing a bedspread.
