The Belles

by Dhonielle Clayton

I face a semicircle of smaller platforms. Three to the left and two to the right. Seven-year-old girls stand on them like jewels on velvet cushions. They’re as different from one another as pearls and rubies and emeralds, showing how uniquely we can use our arcana to beautify.

  I know my sisters’ work: Padma’s subject has limbs the rich color of honey bread; Edel shaved her girl’s head close to the scalp; the eyes of Valerie’s subject twinkle like amethyst stars; Hana’s girl has the body of a dancer, long legs and arms and a slender neck; Amber’s subject has a cheery round face just like her own.

  The other Belles have created tiny masterpieces.

  It’s my turn to transform a girl.

  The king and queen nod at Du Barry. She waves her hand in the air, signaling for me to get ready.

  I glance up to the heavens for strength and courage. Belles are the descendants of the Goddess of Beauty, blessed with the arcana to enhance the world and rescue the people of Orléans. Blimps crisscross above me and block the stars with their plump forms and silhouette banners.

  The last platform lifts directly across from mine. It completes the set of six and creates a perfect half-moon curve. The girl wears a long shirt, which is an excuse for a dress; its frayed hem kisses the tops of her feet. Her hair and skin are as gray as a stormy sky, and wizened like a raisin. Red eyes stare back at me like embers burning in the dark.

  I should be used to the way they look in their natural state. But the light exaggerates her features. She reminds me of a monster from the storybooks our nurses used to read to us.

  She is a Gris. All the people in Orléans are born this way—skin pallid, gray, and shriveled, eyes cherry red, hair like straw—as if all the color was leeched out of them, leaving behind the shade of freshly picked bones and ash. But if they earn enough spintria, we can lift away the darkness, find the beauty underneath the gray, and maintain their transformation. We can save them from a life of unbearable sameness.

  They ask us to reset their milk-white bones. They ask us to use our gilded tools to recast every curve of their faces. They ask us to smooth and shape and carve each slope of their bodies like warm, freshly dipped candles. They ask us to erase signs of living. They ask us to give them talents. Even if the pain crescendos in waves so high it pulls screams of anguish from their throats, or if the cost threatens to plummet them into ruin, the men and women of Orléans always want more. And I’m happy to provide. I’m happy to be needed.

  The girl fidgets with the camellia flower in her hands. The pink petals shiver in her grip. I smile at her. She doesn’t return it. She shuffles to the platform edge and looks down, as if she’s going to jump. The other girls wave her back and the crowd shouts. I hold my breath. If she were to fall, she’d plummet at least forty paces to the ground. She scoots back to the center.

  I exhale, and sweat dots my forehead. I hope she earns a few leas for the stress of participating in this exhibition. Enough for her to purchase a square of bread and a wedge of cheese for the month. I hope to make her beautiful enough to receive smiles from people instead of fearful whispers and frenzied glares. I don’t remember being that small, that vulnerable, that terrified.

  I flip open the beauty caisse beside me. Du Barry gave each of us a different chest, engraved with our initials and the flowers that we’re named after. I run my fingers across the golden carvings before lifting the lid to reveal a medley of instruments tucked inside endless drawers and compartments. These items mask my gifts. Du Barry’s morning instructions repeat in my head: Display only the second arcana, and what has been instructed. Keep them wanting more. Show them what you truly are—divine artists.

  Three scarlet post-balloons, carrying three trays, float up to the little girl’s stand. One sprinkles little white flakes—bei powder—all over her, and she ducks as it coats her like snow. The other dangles a porcelain teacup full of Belle-rose tea, an anesthetic drink steeped from the roses that grow on our island. It sloshes and dances near her mouth. She refuses to have a sip. She swats at the cup like it’s a nagging fly.

  The crowd cries out as she nears the platform edge again. The last post-balloon chases her with a brush smudged with a paste the color of a cream cookie. To her left and right, the other girls shout at her, telling her not to be scared. The crowd roars. Onlookers try to convince her to drink the tea and wipe the brush across her cheek.

  My stomach knots. Her constant squirming could spoil my exhibition. A surge of panic hits me. Every time I imagined this night, I never thought my subject would resist.

  “Please stop moving,” I call out.

  Du Barry’s gasp echoes through her voice-trumpet.

  The crowd goes silent. The girl freezes. I take a deep breath.

  “Don’t you want to be beautiful?”

  Her gaze burns into mine.

  “I don’t care,” she yells, and her voice gets carried off by the wind.

  The crowd erupts with horror.

  “Oh, but of course you do. Everyone does,” I say, steadying my voice. Maybe she’s starting to go mad from being gray for so long.

  “Perhaps they shouldn’t.” Her fists ball up. Her words send a shiver through me.

  I paint on a smile. “What if I promise it’ll all turn out well?”

  She blinks.

  “Better than you expect? Something that will make all of this”—I wave at our surroundings—“worth it.”

  She nibbles her bottom lip. A post-balloon putters back up to her with tea. She still refuses it.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Her gaze finds mine. “Drink the tea.”

  The post-balloon returns.

  “Go on. I promise you will love what I do. You’ll feel better.”

  She reaches toward the post-balloon, then pulls back like it will burn her. She looks at me. I smile and motion for her to tug it forward. She grabs its golden tail ribbons, then lifts the teacup from its tray and sips.

  I examine her, noting the details of her small, undernourished frame. Fear flashes in her red irises. Her body shakes even more.

  “Now, take the brush,” I gently goad her.

  She wipes it along her cheek, and it leaves behind a milky streak as a color guide for me.

  A blimp shines a sky candle over the carriages, and I catch my reflection in the glass again. A smile creeps into the corner of my mouth as I see myself. I abandon Du Barry’s instructions: the snowy skin, the black hair, the rosebud lips. An idea leaves behind the warmth of excitement.

  The risk might cost me, infuriate Du Barry further, but if it allows me to stand out from my sisters, the gamble will be worth it.

  It will be unforgettable. It has to be.

  I close my eyes and picture the girl inside my mind like a small statue. When we were little, we practiced our second arcana by manipulating paint on a canvas, shaping clay on a pottery wheel, and molding fresh-dipped candlesticks, until we were able to transform them into treasures. After our thirteenth birthday, we moved on from using our teacup dogs and the stray teacup cats that lurk on the grounds to enlisting our servants as subjects of our beauty work. I’d give my room servant, Madeleine, bright sea-glass-green eyes when the red seeped in. At fourteen, we changed the babies in our nursery chambers, giving color to tiny fat legs and little wisps of hair, and just before our sixteenth birthday, the queen gave out voucher tokens to the poor to help us train and perfect our skills.

  I am ready for this.

  I summon the arcana. My blood pressure rises. My skin warms. I heat up like a newborn fire in a hearth. The veins in my arms and hands rise beneath my skin like tiny green serpents.

  I manipulate the camellia flower in the little girl’s hands. I change it, just as I will the little girl, shaping the flower’s fibers and veins and petals.

  The crowd gasps. The stem lengthens until the tip hits the platform, like a kite’s tail. She throws the bloom and inches away. The flower quadruples in size, and the petals lengthen to catch her. They wrap around her small, squirming body, until she’s
swaddled inside a pink chrysalis like a writhing worm.

  The crowd explodes with claps, whistles, and stamping. The noise turns into a rolling boil as they wait for me to reveal her.

  I will be the best.

  It will be perfect.

  I love being a Belle.

  I hear the whoosh of the little girl’s blood racing through her body, and the thrum of her pulse floods my ears. I say the mantra of the Belles:

  Beauty is in the blood.

  3

  My childhood is a blur of quick images, like the twirling of a télétrope. I can never quite remember it fully. Not my first word or image or smell. Only the first thing I ever changed. The memory appears like a sharp ray of light. Du Barry took us into the solarium in the north wing of the house for a lesson. My sisters and I were folded into the scent of flower nectar, and arranged ourselves around a table.

  Garden servants buzzed about, pruning, watering, and extracting perfume to be used in the Belle-products. The sun beamed down through the curved glass above me, warming my day dress, turning me into a hotcake. Du Barry gave each one of us a flower potted inside a wire birdcage, and instructed us to change its color and shape. I was so excited that my flower exploded, the petals bursting through the wires like thick tentacles, knocking my sisters’ cages to the floor, and stretching between us like an octopus creature.

  I have more control now and make fewer mistakes, but I still feel that tickle creep over my skin. When that happens, I know the arcana have done exactly what I wanted.

  I open my eyes. The camellia flowers peel away from the Gris girl’s body like wax, exposing her to the crowd. Voices gasp and cry out with excitement.

  “Bravo!”

  “Magnificent!”

  “Impossible!”

  “Brilliant!”

  The chants make the glass vibrate. My blood pressure decreases. My heart slows to a normal pace. Sweat disappears from my brow, and the flush in my cheeks drains away.

  The girl wears a small replica of my pink dress, made from the camellia’s petals. Her skin matches the exact shade of mine—a sugared beignet fresh from the oil, golden brown and glistening under the lantern light. I’ve put a tiny dimple in her left cheek to mirror my own. Dark curls are swept high into a Belle-bun, the hairstyle only we wear.

  She is my twin. The only difference: her eyes glow crystal blue, like the color of the water in the Royal Harbor, while mine are an amber brown like my sisters’.

  The other girls gape and point at her in awe. I name my little subject Holly, after the flower that can survive even the coldest Orléans snows and still remain lovely. The crowd thunders with applause. The excited rumble fills up every part of me.

  She gazes at the reflections of herself, and her mouth falls open. She twirls around like a spinning toy, gazing at her arms, legs, and feet. She touches her face and hair. The blimps drop new screens that capture her image. Her look will only last a month before she fades back to gray. But in this moment, no one thinks about that.

  After Holly’s picture appears in the paper and on the newsreels, I hope a childless lady adopts her. I want her life to change so much she won’t recognize it anymore. The people of Orléans love beautiful things. She’s now one of them, ready to be collected.

  Her eyes find mine again. They spill over with happy shock, and she curtsies.

  I gaze down at my sisters. The moon winks light across the carriages. They stare up at me with heavy eyelids and tired expressions, but clap and wave. Each one of us looks different from the next: Edel is as white as the flowers surrounding her, Padma’s black Belle-bun catches the light, Hana’s eyes are bright and slope in a beautiful curve, Amber’s copper hair looks like curling flames, Valerie’s figure is like the beautiful brass hourglasses Du Barry turns over to time us when we practice the arcana. We’re the only ones in Orléans born unique and full of color.

  The crowd shouts a Belle-blessing: “La beauté est la vie.”

  The queen lifts a golden spyglass and stares at me and Holly like we’re bugs trapped in bell jars.

  The world goes silent.

  My breath catches in my throat. I clasp my hands.

  The queen sets the spyglass in her lap, and she claps. Her jeweled rings sparkle like tiny stars caught between her elegant fingers.

  My heart thuds to the beat of her applause. It might burst with excitement.

  She leans to her right, whispering into the ear of the Royal Minister of Beauty. Courtiers lift ear-trumpets, eager to catch any words they can. I wish I could do the same.

  The Beauty Minister rises to stand beside Du Barry, and the two of them converse. I’m too far away to read their lips. The princess’s fan freezes in front of her. She glares at me so hard, it burns deep in my chest.

  Du Barry motions for me to bow. I press myself all the way to the carriage floor to thank the queen and the Beauty Minister and the crowd for watching my exhibition. My chest heaves as I wait the customary minute to show the utmost level of respect. The queen must’ve whispered good things about me. That’s what I tell myself.

  “One more round of applause for Camellia Beauregard!” Du Barry announces. “And for all the new Belles. Before the appearance of the evening star tomorrow, as tradition demands, all will know the name of the favorite. Until then, happy guessing and wagering. May you always find beauty.”

  Women and men wave their gambling tokens in the air. The kingdom’s lotteries try to profit from being the first to know the favorite, readying women to cash in any royal tokens earned from the queen for a chance to dine, socialize, or even have a beauty service completed at the palace by the favorite Belle.

  Blimps release little Belle-cards that feature our portraits. They shower from the heavens like rain. A smile fills my entire body. I look for my own, but I can’t make out a single detail among the flurry.

  My platform lowers. The little girls watch me descend. They hop and jump and wave. The imperial attendants place me, glass carriage and all, back on the wheeled base. The crowd whistles even louder. Fireworks streak across the night sky, creating the emblem of the Belles—a golden fleur-de-lis, with a red rose twisting around its center like a ribbon of blood.

  New silhouette banners sail overhead, reminding future customers of our names and faces. For a brief moment, I spot myself high above, my face massive and full of light. My eyes look clever, my smile sly. Well done, little fox, Maman would say if she could see me now. I feel like one of the famed courtiers depicted in the beauty-scopes or painted on Trianon’s promenades and avenue boards.

  The previous generation of Belles stands up onstage. They throw their Belle-roses at our carriages. The roses burst open in full bloom, their petals as big as porcelain plates. I wave at the crowd.

  I want to stay forever.

  4

  I used to believe my sisters and I were princesses living in a palace at Maison Rouge de la Beauté. I loved the house’s pointed roof, the four wings, the endless balconies and their gilded railings and silvery spindles, the soaring ceilings full of house-lanterns, the coral-pink salons and wine-red chambers and champagne-blush parlors, the legions of servants and nurses.

  But none of it compares to Orléans’s royal palace.

  The carriages sit before the southern gate like a series of pomegranates dipped in honey and lined up on a tray. Red velvet covers cloak the glass. Brass handles and glistening wheels sparkle under the night-lanterns. I press my face against the gate. The outline of the palace shines in the distance, stretching out in so many directions it has no beginning or end.

  I don’t join my sisters just yet. Du Barry fusses with Edel. I linger near my carriage at the very tail of the procession, wanting a moment to myself. The excitement of the carnaval wraps around me like a pair of arms. Maman’s arms.

  An imperial guard patrols just a few feet away. He walks back and forth in circular motions, like one of the wind-up soldiers in our childhood playroom. My legs tremble and my arms shake. I might be exhausted,
or still exhilarated. Perhaps both.

  The roars of the crowd in the Royal Square taper off, like the winds of a storm drifting out to sea. The blimps and festival-lanterns leave light streaking through the night. It holds the promise of something new.

  We will sleep here. The queen will announce the favorite tomorrow afternoon. Everything will change.

  “You were better than expected,” a voice says.

  A boy leans against the outside of the gates. His jacket and pants blend into the night, but his bright persimmon cravat burns like a flame in the dark. He doesn’t wear a house emblem to identify himself. He scratches the top of his head, loosening his hair from the short knot he wears it in. His smile shines like moonlight, and the soft glow of the night-lanterns smoothes out the hard edges of his pale white face.

  I look for the guard. He’s gone.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be back in just a minute. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “ You should be afraid. Not me,” I say. He could be arrested and spend years in the palace dungeons for being alone with me. Two months ago, the queen put a man in a starvation box in the Royal Square for trying to kiss Daisy, the Belle at the Fire Teahouse. His portrait filled the newspapers and télétrope newsreels. After he died, the guards left his body, and then the sea buzzards carried it off in pieces.

  “I’m never afraid,” he says.

  It’s strange to hear an unfamiliar voice. A boy’s voice. A buzzy feeling settles under my skin. The only other boy I’ve spoken to outside of a treatment salon was the son of Madam Alain, House Glaston, who I caught in the Belle storeroom powdering his face and smothering his lips with rouge-sticks while waiting for his mother to finish her treatments. He wanted to be a Belle. We were eleven and had laughed more than we’d talked.

  This boy is more of a young man. Du Barry taught us to fear men and boys outside the confines of a treatment salon. But I’m not scared. “Who are you? You’re not wearing an emblem,” I say.

  “I’m no one.” His mouth lifts in the corner. He moves forward, closing the gap between us. He carries the scent of the ocean, and watches me with such interest, it’s as if he’s touching me. “But if you want to know so badly, feel free to have a look at my name. I’ll even unbutton my shirt so you can see the ink better.”