The Servants and the Beast

by R. A. Gates

  “I was the one demanding perfection and orchestrating the conversations,” the Beast said. “I was the one punishing the mistakes and shunning the non-conformers.”

  “Is that how you came to be cursed?” Beau asked hesitantly.

  “My selfishness cursed me. My pride and my foolishness. And it cursed not just me but everyone who had ever been around to support me. My failure became their burden to bear too.”

  To hear him say it, so clearly, so heartfelt, I had never truly expected. But there it was.

  “Somehow my failure became my family’s to bear as well,” Beau said. “But please, my troubles are little compared to yours.”

  “No trouble is little if it is affecting your life to that point,” the Beast challenged, gesturing at Beau’s face.

  Beau cleared his throat, and put down his teacup. “My father would not call it little either. A man is supposed to bring his family a pretty young woman to make his wife. And with that marriage, the sons to continue the family legacy. No wife means no sons, means no future, means no family support.”

  The Beast had perched at the end of my cushion, leaning forward as the man talked. “You could not find a girl?” he asked, the curiosity in his tone revealing his excitement.

  Beau shook his head. “It did not take courting many girls for me to realize my life was not taking me down that path.”

  “So, your family shunned you because you could not choose? Why, our problems are one and the same. I remain cursed because I cannot find a girl to love, who will love me in return.”

  “No, dear Beast,” Beau whispered, and I stifled my surprise as well as I could when he reached forward, running a fingertip down the length of one of the Beast’s horns. The Beast shuddered but did not recoil. “My family shunned me not because I could not choose, but because I would not. They cast me to the woods in the middle of that snowy night, where, with the threat of wolves in my wake, I ran and ran. In my fright, I tripped, and a tree branch tore open my face, mutilating me, branding me for the rest of my life—because I would never choose a girl.”

  The Beast shook his head slowly. “Beau . . . you are not mutilated.”

  “Estienne, do you understand my meaning?” Beau said in a strained voice, as his fingers drifted from the Beast’s horn to his furred cheek.

  Then, the Beast answered in a way I did not expect, that I had only dreamed was possible.

  “And do you understand mine? You are possibly the most beautiful man I have ever known.”

  The Beast’s confession and Beau’s truth hung in the air, and, like the ever-steady fall of sparkles, they slowly settled onto the two men, and the servants who had been brave enough to sneak near. I tried desperately to remain still with the Beast upon me, to not let a single creak or twitch of cloth interrupt the magic that was transpiring before us.

  Beau let out a soft gasp as the Beast laid his hand over Beau’s. For a wonderful moment, the possibility of happiness shone.

  “Perhaps it is fate that you came upon my castle.”

  But then Beau took his hand away, and with great sadness in his eyes, said, “All I could ever do is hurt you, if a girl must break your curse.”

  “The greater pain would be if you leave,” the Beast countered.

  “I’ve been foolish to stay so long. I have been hiding from my troubles, and helping you hide from yours.” Beau stood, and the Beast rose immediately after, reaching a clawed hand to rest gently on his shoulder.

  “Must you leave?”

  Beau removed the Beast’s hand and took two steps backward toward the door. “I want you to find humanity and happiness again.”

  The Beast clasped his hands tightly to his chest, and his voice wavered as he said, “I have felt more human these past weeks as a Beast in your presence than I ever did all those years ago as a Prince.”

  My heart wept at the Beast’s words. But the look in Beau’s eyes was only that of admiration, or perhaps longing.

  “Thank you so much for your kindness, your hospitality. If only all men could be as you have been to me.”

  “Please, Beau, please don’t go.”

  “It is because I care for you that I must.”

  And as he left, the Beast went after him, servants scuttling out of the way in the halls as they passed. I galloped to keep up, still too stunned by what had transpired to speak, to try to convince the young man to stay.

  The Beast stopped in the foyer as Beau donned his cloak, pulled open the grand door, and disappeared into the gray, wet morning.

  And the anguished howl that escaped the Beast will haunt me for the rest of my days.

  The greatest despair had befallen the castle. As the hours passed, wailing winds and harsh rain pounded the castle walls, and the Beast lay consumed with grief, locked in his bedchambers at the end of the West Wing. But worst of all, the servants had all gone mad.

  Many were certain we would never be human again, and worse, that the Beast would die and the fairy would return and somehow put blame on us. The duties that had become so important a routine for those of us who could move, that had become erratic when Beau arrived, completely ceased upon his departure. Navigating the halls and the grand staircase soon involved struggling against swaths of dazzling dust.

  “We have to stop this,” Quillsby proclaimed, his roughened feather quivering.

  “And how do you propose we do that?” I asked.

  “We give the Beast an ultimatum,” a voice boomed.

  We turned to find Darwin at the top of the staircase, the joints of his armor so packed with sparkles that his movements were stiff.

  “My good sir, what exactly do you have in mind?” Quillsby asked.

  “He must break the curse or face our wrath.”

  “Preposterous,” some of the servants cried. “Impossible.”

  Robert stood beside Darwin, his mop-head caked with sparkles. “We cannot be trapped here. It will not end like this. Not when we have so much we could live for, not when we have people we love.” He glanced down the stairs, where Lady Jayne stood in the shadows.

  Then Darwin picked Robert up, and held the mop out like a sword. “Who will go with me to challenge the Beast?”

  “Don’t do this,” I said, but my voice was drowned out by the chorus of agreement, from the creaking of wood to the humming of strings. They shuffled, bounced and climbed up the stairs, and I followed behind with an ever-growing dread in my heart. Outside, the rain continued to pour, darkness and chill enveloping the castle.

  There was no way this could end well.

  The servants burst into the Beast’s chambers, where the dark red curtains of his large bed were drawn tight. Out the bedroom windows, little light came in through the clouds. But a burst of lightning flashed sparkles that floated in the air, reflecting gleams of pink about the room.

  “Go away,” the Beast choked from behind the bed curtain.

  “This must end today!” Darwin declared, throwing the curtain back, but the Beast hid under richly colored blankets. Darwin’s declaration was followed by roars of agreement from the servants. “We will no longer wait for you to choose to end the curse! It is ending now!”

  “How do you expect to do that?” the Beast’s muffled growl came.

  “Why did you waste so much time with Beau?” Archambault asked.

  “You can’t possibly want to stay a Beast,” Charles strummed.

  “You don’t care about us!” Robert cried.

  As the others added their voices to the cacophony, I stood behind them in horror, unwilling to raise my voice in an attempt to get them to stop.

  Then finally, the Beast uttered a mighty roar, throwing the blankets from himself to reveal his tattered, glitter-filled fur and furious snarl. Another bolt of lightning highlighted his horrifying features.

  “Enough!”

  The uproar hushed as many servants leaned back, like the mere inches of distance they added between themselves and the Beast would be enough to save them from his wrath.r />
  “You couldn’t see how much I cared for him?” the Beast said, his fist clasped upon his chest. “I would change this if I could! I would love the next girl to cross through those doors, if I knew it wouldn’t be a lie.”

  “A lie wouldn’t end the curse,” I said, and many eyes darted my way before refocusing on the Beast.

  Rebecca’s frame creaked. “But will your love for Beau, monsieur?”

  Everyone’s silence gave way to the pounding of the rain and howling wind, as the Beast stood on the bed and we all waited, breaths held, for what would happen next.

  “No, I don’t think it will. Perhaps I must remove myself from all of this.”

  “Your Highness?” Archambault said, his voice wavering.

  “Perhaps, if I perish, the curse will end for all of you.”

  The Beast stood to his full height, and leapt off the bed, over us. He bounded down the hall, down the stairs, and we all stumbled over each other to follow, some of us shouting for him to go, others for him to stay, and in the confusion of it all, I would not be able to say who was on which side.

  We tumbled down the stairs in his wake, the fall softened by the piles of sparkles on the steps.

  “What if we die when you do?” I strained to ask, but in all the commotion, no one heard, and before we could stop him, the Beast disappeared into the storm.

  The moment the Beast left the castle, we knew something was horribly wrong. The creak and whine of strained wood echoed through the halls and towers, which, accompanied by the force of the wind and rain, made us fear the entire castle coming down. Sparkles fell like snow, catching the candlelight like pink-gold stars twinkling.

  It was the thickest and fastest the magic had ever been. Servants spoke over each other in a confused rush.

  “We’re sure to die.”

  “He’s abandoned us.”

  “Why did we drive him away?”

  “Theodore, we have to get out of here.”

  The last words caught my attention enough for me to look up from my despair. There was Archambault, repositioning his hat and helping Rebecca to her easel legs.

  “Why?” I asked helplessly.

  “The sparkles are growing,” Archambault lamented, the layers of glitter becoming thicker on the floor even as we watched. Robert swept them into the corners, Quillsby flew about dusting little paths on the staircase banisters—

  “If we stay here, I don’t know what will become of us,” Archambault continued.

  “But what about the Beast?” I cried.

  “What could we do?”

  “We must get to higher ground, before the sparkles drown us,” Darwin said, helping the others up the grand staircase, the steps now slippery with mounds of sparkles. But going up could mean being trapped. It could mean being swallowed whole by the castle and the suffocating sparkles. I was too terrified to go up, too terrified to go out, and instead stood in place, like the glitter had solidified around me.

  And then the grand doors swung open, wind and rain pushing the piles of sparkles deeper into the foyer. There, in a drenched cloak, stood Beau.

  “You have returned!” I cried.

  “Where is he?” Beau asked. “I saw the storm gather above the castle from miles away. I knew something must be horribly wrong—I could not stay away.”

  “The Beast has abandoned us,” Archambault managed, the wet wind throwing his hat from his hooks.

  “Where would he go?”

  When we did not respond, Beau repeated the question, the fear and concern in his voice shaking me to my core.

  “We should know this!” This time the words came from Archambault, and they were directed at me.

  “I don’t know, why would we know?” I replied.

  “We used to travel with him to the outside, before all this, do you remember?”

  Even the words he used overwhelmed me. “No, no, I don’t remember outside the castle—”

  “We carried his effects and readied his carriages,” Archambault continued, his voice wavering, like it pained him to remember the outside world. I tried to recall: the front path, the gardens to the left, the stable to the right, the bridge . . . over . . . the . . . what was it? I could hear the rushing sound, the bubbling something beyond the hedges—

  “The river!”

  My excitement at recalling things that far away quickly fell into peril. Beau’s expression stretched thin.

  “No. No, no, no. I will go to him, before it’s too late,” he declared, clutching his cloak to his chest with a tight fist.

  Then off he ran, back into the storm, the doors still wide, water mixing with the glitter into a deadly soup.

  “We need to help him.” I couldn’t believe these words had left me.

  “Theodore, you must go, you are faster than me.” Archambault waved his small arms, his coat rack legs hardly visible above the glitter.

  “But it’s raining, I would get soaked!” I cried. The storm punctuated my fear with another bright flash, a pink explosion of light. The rain, a torrent of wet, scared me to my core—my wooden, vulnerable core. If I spent too long in the downpour, would it ruin me?

  “I will go with you.”

  It was Darwin, holding Robert still.

  “No, we will go with you!” the mop added.

  Darwin’s formidable stature and Robert’s immediate support gave me unexpected confidence.

  “Together, we may be able to save him yet,” I declared.

  And when I galloped into the rain, Darwin’s rusty joints screeched beside me.

  It was far worse outside than I could have imagined. The rain beat down on us, and when I dared to look back, the castle was shrouded in clouds that flashed strangely pink. I shivered as I saw we left sparkles in our wake, swirling eerily into the slushy snow.

  Ahead, I spotted Beau, his dark cloak streaming out behind him as he ran, his arm across his face to shield him. Past him, I could make out the large stone bridge that crossed the river. There was no sign of the Beast.

  I pushed forward, the rain soaking into my fabric, into my wooden frame, weighing me down. Darwin seemed similarly hindered, as he held Robert aloft ahead of him. Forward we strode. And when we reached the bridge, Beau gasped and pointed down at the river.

  There, the Beast floated with the current, the river bloated and swift due to the rain. Beau ran to the river’s sandy bank downstream of him, calling the Beast’s name into the wind.

  Then the Beast’s head raised out of the water. When he reached out a hand toward Beau, and began struggling against the current, my breath caught with relief. But I dared not go closer, the rain still slowing me, and the mud an even more formidable enemy.

  But closer, Darwin went. He struggled to the bank, his joints stiffer than I had ever seen them.

  I could just barely make out Robert’s voice in the storm. “Point me toward him!”

  With Beau’s help, Darwin held Robert out, above the water, to hopefully intersect with the Beast as the current pushed him downstream.

  The Beast reached for Robert, and his mop strings reached back. Then a surge in the current pulled the Beast under. With a yelp, Darwin lurched forward—I couldn’t hear the splash as he too went under.

  I feared the worst, my helplessness and despair insurmountable. Beau called the Beast’s name and ran down the bank. For a terrible moment, with the rain still soaking me, nothing happened. Then it was with uncontainable elation that I cheered when Robert reemerged from the water, clasped tightly by Darwin, dragging the Beast by his cloak. They all collapsed onto the shore. Beau met them, and soon gestured up at me to join them.

  With Darwin’s help, the Beast was placed upon me, my damp upholstery stretching from the strain.

  “He’s alive,” Beau said, his wide eyes shining. “But he’s unconscious and shivering. We need to get him back inside.”

  We made a much slower trek back to the castle, in the wind and cold.

  Finally, we passed through the castle’s grand doors
, and I slipped past piles of wet sparkles until we reached the closest fire. Servants gasped and cried and let us through. Once there, I dropped to the floor, my legs giving way underneath me.

  Darwin graciously relieved me of my burden, laying the Beast close to the warm fire. Beau collapsed by his side.

  “Estienne, I am here. I came back!” He shook the Beast’s shoulders, and when the Beast remained still, Beau cried out, “I shouldn’t have left you, I shouldn’t have been afraid. Now I’m only afraid to lose you!”

  “But you cannot break the curse,” Archambault said, his voice heavy with remorse, while many of the others voiced their agreement.

  “Did that evil fairy truly say that a woman had to break the curse?” Beau demanded. “I love him, I love my Beast—isn’t that enough? Isn’t that what matters?”

  Rumbling surrounded us—an unsettling reverberation—that started quietly everywhere at once, then grew and grew. A peculiar feeling began within me; it spread out through my frame, then my batting and fabric. Around me, the other servants became restless, and their unrest grew with the noise that was rapidly increasing.

  A wind picked up, taking with it swirls of sparkles. And as the wind increased in speed, the sparkles reflected an unknown light, and became so thick and bright in the air that I was blinded. And that strange feeling within me grew in equal measure, until for an intense moment I was overwhelmed with feeling and sound and pink light.

  When my vision returned, I blinked, and coughed, the sparkles caught in my throat.

  My throat. My throat. My hands shot to my neck, my cheeks, and I took a deep breath and cried out in triumph. I was me again! Flesh and bone and blood and the same butler’s coat and vest I had worn all those very many years ago. And I could recall the castle grounds, and the river and valley and villages beyond. I could recall Paris, and France, and the world. I wept, and the warm tears on my cheeks were the best blessing.

  Finally, I could take in the sight before me, the other servants—my friends and colleagues, similarly transformed.

  And in the center of it all, the Beast—no, Prince Estienne—sat up, his long brown hair in wet tangles across his cheeks. Beau brushed the hair out of his face, and the men laughed, a tender, beautiful sound.