by R. A. Gates
“Breaking the curse,” His Highness said finally. “That is—”
“Or is the answer not quite so cerebral?” The woman’s smile took on an alarming gleam. “Does it take something a little more, you know, earthy? I don’t mind if you don’t. I’d do a lot for all that beautiful jewelry.”
I was confused. I had read enough books that I felt I ought to know what she meant (psychology, west wall, shelves 22 through 28)—and Isadora had shunted off in the way that meant she was embarrassed, so perhaps she understood. If she did, I certainly ought to. But the Prince looked befuddled too, or at least he wasn’t saying anything in the sudden silence.
Of course, the silence only lasted about four seconds anyway, before the woman put her hands on her hips, giggled and said, “Well, come on then. There’s a couch right there.” And she winked.
I caught her meaning then, and my confusion morphed into horror. Because I couldn’t leave. At least Archambault and Quillsby could run away. I shrank down in my chair, covering my eyes with my hands.
“Oh my word,” Quillsby muttered, “most improper, most improper!”
Fortunately for everyone in the room, His Highness somehow turned red through his fur and said quickly, “No, that’s not the answer. No. Definitely not.”
Another peal of laughter made my head hurt, but I was still profoundly relieved.
“Oh, very well,” she said, in what was probably supposed to be a coquettish tone, and flounced off across the room. “I suppose a bit of romancing first, if you’re shy.”
I had never known the Prince to be shy, in any realm of life. Including this one, if rumors could be believed. In a way, I was surprised at his new reluctance. But on the other hand, considering this woman…
I didn’t realize she was heading toward the harpsichord until she plopped down in front of it. “Really you ought to serenade me,” she cooed, bringing her hands down on the keys in a discordant clang. “But I suppose I can sing for you. My mother always told me I had musical talent. I was simply meant to. That’s why she named me Musette.”
Then she sang. Loudly. Very loudly. And badly. Very badly.
I put my hands over my ears. It helped barely at all, and I felt for Isadora, who didn’t even have hands. Quillsby leaped from my frame and fled out the library’s door, and even Theodore had disappeared from sight.
That woman’s voice was piercing, echoing all around the room and repeating on top of itself in an ever-rising cacophony of noise until I thought she was going to bring the entire place down around our ears. Or that the books would leap off the shelves and flee in protest.
And then a bellow cut across the noise, a bellow I had heard too many times and never before welcomed. “Enough!” the Beast roared—and he was, indeed, a Beast in this moment. With one huge paw he reached out and swept an entire shelf of books onto the ground in a thundering crash that made me flinch. “I will not listen to another moment of you and your wretched voice! I tried to control my temper—no one can say I didn’t try—because I need you to break the curse, but I can’t do this.” Another crash as a second row of books was knocked to the floor. “Being polite is pointless. I don’t care if your hair is an attractive shade, I don’t care what you think you deserve, and I don’t CARE about YOU! Get out!”
The echoes of the roar died away, and fortunately that woman had stopped singing. Musette stared at him for a moment in silent affront. Then she rose to her feet, head held high. “How dare you speak to me that way. Do you have any idea who I am? I’m the prettiest girl in my village, I’ll have you know, and—”
“I will just have to settle for the second prettiest,” the Beast growled, before seizing her arm and hauling her toward the door.
“How dare you!” she protested, stumbling after him. “You can’t treat me like this. Let me go and apologize this instant, or I’m leaving!”
“So leave!” he shouted, and stormed out of the library, pulling Musette behind him.
A blessed quiet descended on the room. Very slowly I took a deep breath, and tapped one palm against my ear. I did still have my hearing. I had worried.
An anxious-looking feathered hat appeared above the back of the armchair. “Is she gone?” Archambault asked.
“I think she’s going,” I said. “I think he’s throwing her out.” For a moment I felt a surge of relief. And then disappointment. “So…she isn’t going to break the curse.”
“I don’t think it was going to be true love anyway,” Isadora remarked, sliding closer along the shelves. “And some things are worse than being cursed.”
“No woman who hates books could be suitable,” I agreed. “Her Majesty never would have accepted someone like that for her son.” Considering that Queen Marie had been warm-hearted and accepting of very nearly everyone, whoever they were and wherever they came from, there were few condemnations I could make that would be worse.
I looked down at the tumbled pile of books on the ground, victims again of the Beast’s rage, and slumped. “I don’t see why he had to take his fury out on our poor books, though.”
“We’ll get Darwin to set them to rights again,” Isadora said comfortingly. “And just think how much damage he would have done if she’d stayed longer and he’d grown even angrier.”
“True enough,” I said. If he had actually married her—I doubted a single book would have survived, and who knew about the rest of us? No, on the whole, this solution would have been worse than nothing. I tried to put the fallen books out of my mind for now. I leaned out of my frame, brushing the pink dust away, and plucked another book from the shelf. “Perhaps we can get down to a little good reading now.”
Chapter Four:
Painting the Aftermath
In which the easel, piano, and quill wait because of ill-fated curses
M
y hinges creaked as I turned toward where the grand piano, my dear Maximus, rested. How many times had I played out our wedding in my mind? I could have left this wretched place, lived and married as Madame Rebecca Stein; my own happily ever after.
But I didn’t leave all those years ago. And now? We existed as pink dusted objects, waiting for the Beast to learn what he didn’t seem to want to understand. We all took it in pained measure, but Maximus? He seemed less and less of the exuberant man he was and more a lost soul if there ever was an embodiment for such a thing.
He nimbly played on ghost ridden keys; it was a quiet tune and a personal favorite of mine for painting in the late afternoons. He must have realized I was watching because his music played with more vigor and performance. His eyes were no longer the gorgeous sea green that he was blessed with as a man, but the warm grains of the piano lumber still held his expressions. But, most days, his eyes were tired and worn with unfocused pupils. But, his confident play pulled my attention and I inched closer to listen. “That’s quite beautiful, Maximus.”
The music paused and his deep voice, richly layered with piano vibrato, said, “It’s about you, you know.”
I creaked the rest of the way over to where he rested in the study, and he rolled slowly in response. We stopped inches from each other and yet it was miles. I leaned forward, the edge of my canvas on the corner of his darkened cover. If I could dream while awake, then I would hold his hands in my own. How I longed to feel his touch, to steal the kiss he offered me as we planned to elope from this place. How I blamed myself for not leaving right as the words left his mouth, because of course I wanted to!
A sigh escaped as dust from the depth of my wooden frame, and gushes of paint whooshed across the blank canvas balanced across my middle; it erupted with wild color before settling into an image of a blue rose lost in a raging red volcano.
Maximus said with a shaking sound, “I feel the same way, my love.”
Monsieur Quillsby floated in and whispered gently from the nearby credenza. “Mademoiselle Tempera, you must be more careful when you look at him.” His feathers ruffled. “It is growing quite easy to determine your emotive
state, my dear. And you must not let the Beast see you this way. You know how he gets.”
Maximus rumbled, “Let him see! Let him see how he’s ruined the lives of others! Let him know of the love he stole from us. It’s been so long. I don’t care to cater to him.”
Monsieur Quillsby undeterred, huffed and said, “Well, you might try a little bit harder so we can all have a standing chance to leave this place! Granted, we are at odds you and I, most times, but I would much rather not see you broken because of a fit he chose to take out on you.”
I straightened my wooden legs and relaxed to a more appropriate position for an easel. I cleared the canvas to a blank slate, only to have the image of broken love replaced with a graying sun, sparse and thin over the fabric. “Maximus, he’s right, darling. We mustn’t lose hope that—”
Maximus slammed his keys with a dissonant chord. “That what? That women such as the disaster that waltzed through here yesterday could possibly sway him into loving someone more than himself?” He grumbled and rolled away from me to his usual spot in place by the window. “No, I should think not.”
Monsieur Quillsby whispered to where only I could hear, “What provoked Stein today?”
I wriggled the painting and finally the canvas remained empty. “Maximus has better days than others; today is not one of those days.” Without meaning to, the likeness of his human form wandered over my mind and bled into the canvas. I could almost feel his brown hair and nimble fingers. I could almost see his long lashes and light eyes. I almost smelled his oaken scent and felt his warm touch on my shoulders.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Tempera, you might want to save that image for a more private moment, perhaps?” I looked down and saw that I had painted a portrait not of just Maximus, but of the two of us together locked in an embrace and lips parted inches from the other.
When the emotion cleared from my middle I said, “Of course, you are right. Which is why I have to limit my interaction with dear Monsieur Stein.” My voice was different now, and often sounded as though my words rippled within the layers of variant brush strokes. I didn’t altogether mind it, but sometimes it felt separate from me, as if it weren’t even me at all.
Quillsby fluttered. “I don’t know how you tolerate him after all these years.”
The sadness built in paint again and I shook it violently away. “We are in love, Monsieur Quillsby. Have I told you that? Even after all this time, we ache in that love. He asked me to leave this place just before we were cursed.” More images began to take shape over my canvas and I shook them away heartily and nearly shouted, “It is bad enough to be under a spell, but to have one's personal thoughts constantly on display? It can be downright humiliating.”
Quillsby's feathers ruffled as though he were nodding and then he sneezed as the pink sparkles flitted in about what I presumed was his face. With as much dignity as a quill could manage, he adjusted himself and said, “Well, no one blames you for your emotions, dear.” More flecks wound themselves within the curve of his feathers. “Oh those dastardly glitter specks are most invasive. Why that so-called good fairy felt the need to keep them here, I’ll never understand.” He roamed the large oak credenza and fluttered with conversation: “And why she cursed us as much as she cursed the Prince? Especially with all these dastardly glitterlings? They are most distracting and quite dangerous, you know.” He sighed and wriggled a few extra sparkles from his feathers. “All of this was his wrong-doing, not ours.”
Maximus spoke from his place in front of the window. “It doesn’t matter why we were cursed, only that we were. Every day, I watched the view hoping to see the one who will bring the cure for our conditions, but having only one deflated the dwindling hope I held onto. Besides, he doesn’t seem to mind being a beast with how he still treats everyone. He has learned nothing.”
Quillsby shook and shivered as he teetered this way and that, the way a feather might float on a breeze, until he found the inkpot seat he sought. He sat and mumbled half to himself, “Thankfully, not all of the objects are people. I would feel just awful if this inkpot was more than just an inkpot.” He straightened and said to the both of us, “Well, did we expect anything different when that fairy came along? Have you seen how he makes Theodore follow him around simply because the poor dear was turned into a favorite sitting chair?”
I shivered as ravaged images of black clouds and a burned mountain spread across my canvas, sore from a rampage of intense heat. I left the image and whispered with a swishing sound, “If only the Prince could remember what it meant to be kind, like his mother taught him to be.”
A rippling among the feather emulated a shake of the proverbial head, “It is most unsettling. Humiliating!”
Maximus, my dear love, was now silent. He rolled forward and backward in small pacing patterns. Sparkles swayed around his movement; constant reminders that magic was at play with our livelihoods.
I sighed and said, “I hope that the one true love will see past those things.”
Maximus heard me and stopped his pacing. He spoke with deep chords before turning away from me, “Timing is everything.”
My feelings filtered across the canvas before I could stop it; white flecks of hard rain blended over blue from the blackened soil before I quickly blanked the imagery. If Quillsby saw my sadness, he kindly chose to ignore it. He cleared his throat and shimmied away foreign sparkles that tried to cling to him.
Maximus said nothing, not even a grunted melody.
I shuddered as the same pink flecks kept grazing my wooden spine. “The Prince needs to understand what he has forgotten.” My voice, a soft bristling, faltered for a moment as I thought of his mother and the cruel way the king treated the Prince after she died. I turned so as to face Monsieur Quillsby and said, “But how could he even understand unselfish love if he was so denied it after the Fair Queen died?”
Quillsby huffed as glitter abused his otherwise silky feather and then said, “Well, women like that monster who came to him will never teach him anything outside of what he already knows.” He hunched over dramatically. “If that is all we have coming through, then—”
Maximus spoke up. “Then we are quite doomed to remain cursed.”
I focused on the woman and created an intentional image across my canvas. “She was quite selfish, wasn’t she?” I painted a version of the beautiful woman, and then distorted it with childish embellishments of what I envisioned the woman's true character: green skin and warts over her body. Then, I painted the ghoulish woman holding a mirror who saw nothing but a blooming flower.
Quillsby laughed, a wind-like swoosh of a sound, and said, “Oh brilliant! Just brilliant, Mademoiselle.”
The wood that housed my limbs creaked a bit as I leaned downward, an attempt to create a ladylike bow. “Thank you, thank you. I'll be here for all eternity.” I tried to make light with the joke, but the reality of the word eternity sank deeply. I cleared the thought before they could see the dread that inevitably would show, and instead asked, “Do you think the right woman will find him?”
Quillsby's feathers fluttered as he said, “Well, only time will tell. Truth be told, I'm grateful he didn't choose that selfish one. If she stayed, she might keep the servants following her like objects, even if we were no longer, well, objects.” He shivered. “No, I should say that while I am saddened to live without my human body, I would much rather be a glitter dusted quill than a servant to a woman like that.”
My dear Maximus’s frame tilted in such a way that indicated he was sleeping. He had grown more and more tired as the years waned on, which made me nervous. The curse affected our humanity all in different quantities it seemed, and while I was patient with it, Maximus was restless from the beginning. Oh, how he boomed his anger with loud symphonies and cantankerous melodies, but his desire to keep hold of his humanity sank deeper and out of sight. Yes, he was quiet now, and my heart mourned in the echoes of his silence.
I worked back to my favorite place in front of the window
. The sun was at midday, and the grounds were somehow alive and lonely. I felt the scene paint rapidly across my chest, the colors winding gently over one another until the final product was the lone fountain centered in the middle with no water to please it. I shook the art away.
I could feel the artist that I was disappearing, slowly replacing my mind with that of a mere observer. What if we lost sense of our human souls altogether? What if a day came where I no longer worried about emotion fleeting across a blank canvas because a blank canvas was all I was left as?
Chapter Five:
Another Young Lady Arrives
In which a second visitor sets the castle musicians off-key
“A
re you trying to get yourself smashed to bits?” I demanded, smacking Victor’s violin bow away from his strings to stop him from playing. I’m a cello and my bow is bigger, and mightier. Though I would’ve preferred becoming a lute when that damned good fairy’s spell cursed us all. Ladies loved the lute. Especially when I, Charles Melody, played it.
Victor leaned back, aghast, and then plucked up his bow and ran it across his e-string multiple times in retort.
“Don’t use that tone with me,” I told the Stradivarius. “I don’t care how softly you were playing. The Beast has impeccable hearing.” As Beasts do. “You know how he detests Vivaldi.”
Victor played a couple notes.
“I’m not sure but I think a woman and a few bottles of Merlot had a lot to do with it. You know how those Italian fellows are.” Personally, I believed the composer was overrated. Sure, his violin concertos were genius, but what about the cello? No one ever writes good concertos for the heavenly intonation of the cello. Or the lute.
