As Old As Time: A Twisted Tale (Twisted Tale, A) (21 page)

“Hey, hey, Belle, hey,” he said after a moment, tapping her on the knee with one of his claws.

“What?”
she demanded, surprised out of her concentration.

He gave her a grievous look. “I think I found something,” he said piteously.

“I’m sorry. Please share it. That’s great news.”

The Beast cleared his throat and held up the book, delicately indicating his place with one claw while he read.

“…
‘And the long-failing spring on the western side of the town at Parson’s Rock was restored to its original vitality by a local woman of sorcerous nature known to many. It was said she was the most powerful of all hereabouts and thus entreated to carry out the job. Whether or not all the stories concerning her are true, everyone agreed that her magical abilities were only exceeded by her beauty; her golden hair and green eyes that caused some to call her Angel.’…

“You see?” the Beast said excitedly. “Golden hair and green eyes. It has to be her!”

“Fantastic!” Belle said, grinning. “What else does it say about her?”

The Beast’s face fell as he scanned the text. “Nothing. It’s mostly stories about fairies and woods people, folk doctors who could heal better than city doctors. It’s all sort of mixed up…someone was collecting interesting local legends and personages. But at least we know this was real. It happened around the time I was born.”

“But…hang on…just…” Belle’s mind spun dizzily. “Besides my
mother
the
Enchantress
, there were…ah…just, like, fairies and stuff? Around here?”

“Sure,” the Beast said, shrugging. “Not a lot. And I guess they were dangerous. I remember my mother and father talking about how they just wished they would go away.”

At first, that sounded utterly horrible and barbaric to Belle. Wishing for fairies to go away? Belle had spent most of her young life wishing to see one, and reading every book about them she could get her hands on. And they were
here
all along!

And yet…

If they were all like my mother, powerful and ready to dispense curses at the drop of a hat…
Well, she could sort of see the king and queen’s point. Was whatever her mother had been angry about
worth
what was essentially the destruction and erasure of the last magical kingdom in the world?

“Maybe we don’t have to find my
mother
,” Belle said slowly. “Maybe we just need to find
another
powerful enchanter.”

The Beast shrugged. “There aren’t any. Anymore. I remember people saying she was the last.”

“Of course. I should have guessed. All right, back to looking for
Maman
, then….”

“What was her name? Maybe we can find more about her in one of those books of tax records.”

Belle put her book down and drew her legs up into her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

“I don’t know,” she admitted in a small voice.

“WHAT?”
the Beast roared.

But it wasn’t that which made Belle shudder. It was her realization. She felt cold and strangely terrified.
Maman
and
Papa.
Maurice and…?

How could she not know her own mother’s name?

“I don’t know her name….I don’t know why, I just don’t. Remember the whole ‘magic’ thing? I would bet it has something to do with that…and forgetting….”

The Beast stared at her for a long moment.

From frozen in shock to blurry motion, he let out a roar of rage. The books she had just been looking at were suddenly sliced into ribbons of paper and leather. She gasped and drew back her hands—but his claws had been nowhere near them.

“
That
wasn’t very helpful,” Belle said as soon as she got her voice back.

“Neither is looking for a woman whose name we don’t know!”
the Beast roared.
“THIS IS USELESS!”

“DO I LOOK HAPPY ABOUT THIS?”
Belle shot back. “I’m not! This is the first time I ever even
realized
I don’t know her name! How strange and horrible is
that
?”

The Beast lowered his eyes, and his ears drooped.

“youreright,”
he mumbled.

Belle shook her head and rubbed her temples. “All right. We know she used to live here and was, obviously, well known. We know I was born here, from what I saw in the broken mirror. So if we search the census books we should be able to find some record of
my
birth or baptism, and my father’s and my
mother’s
names.” She took a deep breath. “And possibly the record of her death—and its cause. I don’t know what knowing that will get us, but it’s
something
.”

“That…makes sense,” the Beast said grudgingly.

“
You
can start with that one right there,” Belle said primly, pointing at the ruined mess. “Try to figure out at least what years it was for.”

Meekly, the Beast obeyed.

At first it all looked the same to Belle…rows and rows of taxpayer names, peasants who apparently didn’t even merit being named at all, and an absolutely astonishing number of people named Jacques and Francois.

On top of that she realized that only very rarely were older
women
recorded at all—it was mostly only male heads-of-household.

The handwriting of the archivist was so tight and cramped and crowded that Belle often missed when a season turned, and it was from this that she had to figure out when the year changed.

But long before she got to her own birth, about twenty years before the curse, she noticed something that had nothing to do with what they were looking for. Some of the people listed started getting the addition of funny little symbols next to their names. Curious, Belle flipped back and forth between different seasons, trying to see if it meant an increase in tax, a change of life status, or some other thing that would have been important to the castle’s treasurer. Nothing.

The only thing that linked them was that generally the people who received these symbols didn’t show up anywhere later—either as a death or anything else.

They were all different ages, both sexes, and held different occupations. She couldn’t see any connection between them.

“Found it!”
she suddenly cried, forgetting the symbols for a moment. “I found me! My birth record!”

The Beast swooped over in his silent, unbelievably predatory way to stand behind her on the couch and peer over her shoulder.

“‘Belle, female, born to…’ Oh.” Her face fell. “Maurice. Nothing else.”

The Beast started to let out a roar. Without looking, Belle put her hand up over his mouth to stop him.

“What
is
it about your mother?” he demanded around her fingers. “It’s like she doesn’t appear anywhere.”

“She erased herself, somehow. For some reason.” Belle sighed. “I guess this is what happens when you have an enchantress in the family. But look, here’s something. This little symbol I’ve been seeing everywhere. It’s in the place where my mother’s name
would
be. Like it was supposed to be associated with her.”

“So?” the Beast said.

“So does it mean anything to you? Do you recognize it?”

“No,” he said, frowning.

“It must be something important. Everyone who has one by his or her name disappears from the records eventually. See?” She flipped back and forth to show him a few examples. “Where did they all go?”

“There was a plague,” the Beast said bleakly. “When I was a child.”

“No,” Belle said, shaking her head, gazing back and forth between two books.

The Beast gave her an incredulous look.

She suddenly realized how awful that “no” sounded.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean to seem so callous. I just meant that doesn’t explain these people all disappearing from the town records. Look: here it clearly says the person died of
fever.
And here, and here. There are
hundreds
of entries that say that. The people with the symbol don’t…
die
of anything. They just don’t appear again.”

“Maybe they moved, like you did.”

“
All
of these people? I think, despite the world being made to forget about your kingdom, someone would have noticed a mass exodus around these parts. The peasants in the village where I grew up don’t like
anything
new or strange. They would have at least complained about it.”

The two lapsed into a depressed silence. Belle felt like there was no solidity anywhere, that even the chair she sat on was just going to tip her over and disappear. Nothing made sense; there were no facts to hold on to. Only a pile of ancient paper confetti on her lap, words and information now rendered useless.

“Alaric,” the Beast suddenly said.

Belle looked up. He was staring into the space in front of his head.

“Alaric, the stablemaster. He disappeared, a few years before…before the curse. See if he has one of those little marks next to him.”

“What exactly do you mean, disappeared? What do you remember?” Belle asked, pulling up one of the undamaged books.

“He just…didn’t show up for work. And his family didn’t know what happened to him, either. My parents said it was my fault. They said I was too nice to him and now he was leaving us and his family for a new life—the way ‘his type’ always did whenever they had a little gold.”

“That is a
terrible
thing to say to a child,” Belle said, aghast.

“I
did
sneak him coins,” the Beast admitted. “And little treasures. Just like I snuck carrots and sugar to the horses. I didn’t think I was hurting anyone.”

This
was a child “with no love in his heart”?

“You gave sugar to the castle horses on the sly?” she asked with a smile.

“I loved them. I always loved the horses,” the Beast said sadly. “When…this happened…I let them all go free. They were terrified of me in this form.”

That was a strange image: the big monster opening up a bunch of stalls so his childhood companions and pets would go away forever now that they couldn’t stand him anymore. Not a
beastly
thing to do at all.

“Well, let’s see if Alaric is in here,” she said, trying to sound businesslike again. He looked so sad….“What was his surname?”

“Potts.”

Belle stopped, blinking.

“What?” she asked, unsure if she had heard correctly.

“Potts. Alaric Potts.”

“Like…
Mrs.
Potts?”

“Yes. That’s his wife. Or…widow.”

Belle dropped the book.

“
All of those creatures were real people?
Cogsworth? Lumière?”

The Beast looked at her as if she was an idiot. “Of course. They were all my servants. What did you think?”

“And all of these…
people
…were turned into what they are because of your curse?”

“Yes, the entire castle was enchanted,” he said, still confused by her reaction.

“My
mother
turned an
entire castle
of
people
into
furniture
when she was punishing
you
?”

“Well…” The Beast thought about it. “I suppose the idea was to freeze them in time or something so they wouldn’t age while the curse lasted. Maybe? Why are…why are you so upset?”

“Cursing a spoiled eleven-year-old prince is one thing!” Belle groaned. “I mean, it’s terrible. But what did
these
people do to deserve their fate?”

“I never thought about it before,” he mumbled. “They were just…servants.”

“‘Just servants.’ Well,
thanks to me
, your ‘just servants’ will remain wardrobes and candles forever! God’s
BLOOD
!”

She collapsed into the couch, pulling a pillow over her face. Tears begin to roll down her nose.

“It’s not—” the Beast started.

“You didn’t,” he tried again.

Belle knew she was being self-indulgent. Feeling bad wouldn’t help the servants. Only somehow breaking the curse would help them now. She took a deep breath.

Then she forced herself to sit up, crushing her hands into her eyes, making the crying stop.

The Beast had his face shockingly close to hers, she noticed when she could see again. His jaw was working, still trying to find something to say.

A small voice below them cleared its throat.

They both looked down. Cogsworth was standing there, wringing what passed for his hands.

“Just thought I would ask if there were any preferences for the dinner menu tonight,” he said with a meek cough.

“We—we were just about to see Mrs. Potts ourselves. We will talk to her about it,” Belle said with as much dignity as she could muster.

She quickly rose and walked out of the room, before looking at Cogsworth any longer caused her to break down again.

Belle made her way back to the kitchen, the Beast silently keeping up with her. Cogsworth awkwardly waddled behind them, obviously unsure whether to address his master or leave well enough alone.

Lumière appeared from behind a curtain—Belle could have sworn she heard giggling—and cocked his middle candle inquisitively at the expressions the strange little party had on.