Beauty and the Beast (20 page)

“I like her!” Father says, slapping me heartily on the back. “She is quite the spitfire.”

I sit down on the couch, which groans under my weight. A handful of soggy flowers are deposited on my lap.

“No one has ever given
me
flowers!” Alexander teases. “So very romantic. I apologize for laughing, but her tugging on your hair is one memory I shall
never
forget.”

“Nor I,” I reply.

“Are you all right, Riley?” Mother asks, putting her hand on my shoulder. “She is quite a girl, is she not? Alexander chose well.”

Before I can answer her, Alexander says, “Not exactly the beauty I had expected.” Followed closely by, “Ouch! Mother! Must you keep pinching me? I am practically an adult!”

“Then you must behave like one, Alexander. She is a lovely girl.”

Alexander mutters something under his breath.

“I am not certain how I feel,” I admit.

“I believe you are blushing,” Father says, sitting down next to me.

“I am not!” I exclaim, as though he is accusing me of stealing the last plum pie. I put my hands to my ample cheeks. They do feel warm. “What does that mean?”

“It means you like her,” Father says. “And why would you not? She is truly quite extraordinary. Taken away from all she has known to live with a beast, and she did not run away in fright.”

“Not yet,” I admit. “But she is hiding in her room. She may never come out.”

“Let her adjust,” Mother says. “It might take a few weeks.”

“I don't have much more than that left.”

“I know,” Mother says. “But we must try to be patient.”

I admit, my heart has never stirred like this before. Like Father said, she is indeed a spitfire. Bold and strong, and the melted snowflakes made her hair glitter in the most interesting way. I shake my head to clear it. Why am I noticing her hair? I am not supposed to fall in love with her, only she with me. Right?

“Prince Riley! Prince Alexander! Your Majesties!” Freddy shouts, pounding down the stairs. “Come quick! You need to see this!”

I jump up from the couch, smacking my head on the ceiling in the process. Rubbing my head, I ask, “What is the matter? Is Beauty all right? Did she jump to freedom from her second-story window?” I could not blame her if she had.

He shakes his head. “Nothing like that. Come!”

So we follow after him, looking like one very odd parade — one skinny page, one huge beast, and three invisible members of the royal family. Freddy leads us upstairs to my laboratory, of all places. “You didn't blow anything up, did you?” I ask as we climb. “We just got that wall fixed.”

“I did not,” he replies, and gestures for me to enter first. I step into the doorway while my invisible family squeezes around me. The first thing I see is Godfrey, standing by the window looking a bit embarrassed. And is that a …
monkey
sitting on a stool by the counter?

Freddy tugs on my sleeve and points to the center of the room. I force myself to turn away from the monkey (who seems to be partly green) to find Beauty standing beside the boiling cauldron, stirring it with one of my glass rods.

“Oh, hello,” Beauty says. “I hope you don't mind my interruption.”

As I stare, she adds two more ingredients to the mixture. A splash of vinegar and a pinch of some yellow powder, which I do not even recognize. “No,” I finally say. “Of course not.”

“Good,” she says, dipping a ladle into the cauldron. She pours the mixture into a small beaker, not spilling a drop. Then she heads to the sink where she dips the beaker into a pot of water, no doubt to cool it off. I watch her lower it with fascination. How is it this girl knows her way around a laboratory? What is she doing? Making a slow poison, perhaps? I instinctively clamp my mouth shut.

She walks over to me, holds out the beaker, and says, “Here. This should rid you of the green on your fur. My sister had a similar problem. I mean, not with fur. Obviously.”

I take it, ashamed that I suspected her of anything underhanded. “Truly?”

She nods.

“Thank you,” I say, lifting the murky orange liquid to my lips.

“Wait!” she says, reaching up. “You do not
drink
it. You rub it on.”

“Oh,” I say, then begin to laugh. “That is good, for it does not look too appetizing.”

“Here,” she says, taking it from me. “Let me help you.”

She leads me over to the sink, and orders me to hold my arm over it. She pours the liquid on the offending greenness, and rubs it in. She runs cool water over it, then scrubs some more. After a few minutes, the green color runs off into the sink.

“There,” she says, patting it dry with a rag. “Now you look like a normal beast again.”

Every time Beauty pats my arm, my heart beats a little faster. “I can do that,” I tell her, snatching the rag perhaps a bit too quickly. She takes a step back.

“Wait, I am sorry. No one, well, no one outside this room, has shown me any kindness in a long time.”

She nods. “Freddy here does seem to like you. And Godfrey. The monkey did not give his opinion.”

I turn to Freddy. “Would you care to explain the monkey?”

He shakes his head. “Not really. Merely an experiment gone amiss.”

“And is Godfrey's hair slightly … green?”

“I shall tend to them,” Beauty says, heading back to the pot for more of her secret mixture. I watch as she patiently de-greens both the monkey and Godfrey. Mother takes this time to whisper in my ear, “I know you cannot see, but I am dabbing my eyes with my skirt.”

I roll my eyes. But I would be lying if I didn't have a tear or two in my own. This girl brings out my tender side. I didn't even know I had one.

Godfrey leads me down to breakfast, and I am so tired I nearly trip every other step. When I met his friends (and the green monkey), the anger I felt toward the beast started to slip away. By the time I had de-greened him, it was gone entirely. In its place was curiosity and sympathy.

We had stayed up until very nearly sunrise. I told him about what I learned at the apothecary shop, and he told me of his experiments in the laboratory. We spoke of a mutual love of books and reading. He told me he can tell the exact date by studying the stars. I told him of our fire, and of losing everything we owned. Perhaps I should not have shared so much, but he is easy to talk to. He reminds me of Handsome, in that way. I cannot imagine what Handsome would think of all this, of me being here, of me choosing to come in Papa's place. He would likely march down here and demand my return. Not that I know where
here
is, exactly.

As forthcoming as he was with everything else, the beast shied away from anything personal — he spoke nothing of his life before the curse, nothing about how he befriended Freddy or Godfrey. The two of them were similarly tight-lipped when first I had stumbled across them in the lab.

I have yet to figure out what I'm actually doing here. The beast clearly does not seem to want me as a servant, since he has been the one to ask after
my
needs, not the reverse. Perhaps he simply wants a friend. I truly do not know. All night he kept asking me if he was boring me, and I kept assuring him he was not. He is actually the most interesting person I have ever met. I have never stared up at the stars before, nor questioned the milky cloud that spans the heavens. But for him it is an unending source of mystery and fascination. Under all that fur he has a very big heart. I choose to ignore the fact that he could slice a regular-size person in half with one swipe of his claws.

Also, he makes me forget about my own appearance, and for that alone, I am grateful.

“Are you all right, miss?” Godfrey asks.

I nearly stumble again as I drag my thoughts back to the present staircase. “Yes, thank you, I am just tired.”

“Did you not sleep well? I can get you a new mattress by tonight.”

“No truly, 'tis fine. I was up late.” I feel my cheeks begin to heat as I add, “Talking with the beast, I mean.”

“He is quite special,” Godfrey says, not looking directly at me. “Is he not?”

I nod, although I know he cannot see me. Before the beast, the only male other than Papa who I had befriended was Handsome. And Handsome did not make me feel like this after less than a day. A pang of guilt strikes me as I realize I have not yet thought of Papa or Clarissa this morning.

The beast awaits me in the dining room. He looks a little tired around the eyes, but otherwise he is quite well groomed. A green ribbon holds his hair back from his face. His cheeks are smooth, and while wide, they frame his face nicely. He catches me looking at him and smiles. I quickly focus on the gold plate before me.

The food is so excellent and plentiful that I manage to eat enough food for three people before the beast offers to take me on a tour of the castle. The first stop is the library. I cannot help but stare. Although I have only the monastery library to compare it to, this is beyond anything I have imagined. Thick velvet rugs and oak-paneled walls, glorious oil paintings on the walls between shelves. And the books! Rows and rows of them. Plain and ornate, ancient and new. Every shelf has a few gaps where the books Papa now owns once rested. To my utter surprise, I find myself feeling guilty that he took them away from this place, which is so clearly their home. And then, of course, I feel guilty for feeling guilty!

“What do you think?” he finally asks.

“Your library is truly magnificent.” I squint at an object on the floor by his foot. “Is that a dead leech?”

He quickly scoops up the bug, pushes open the window, and tosses it out. “What dead leech? Imagine, a beast like myself, the king of the castle, with a dead leech on the library floor.”

I pretend to curtsy. “Again, my humblest apologies. It was so clearly a piece of dust.”

“You are forgiven,” he says. “But I shall be keeping my eye on you.”

I blush, and so does he. “Come,” he says, hurrying from the room and the awkward moment. “There is much more to see.”

The next few hours pass quickly. Although the snowstorm has passed, the air outside is cold. Still, we walk through the castle gardens, where fresh vegetables, herbs, and fruits have managed to escape the frost. They surely should have been harvested by now, but with only a young boy, an old man, and a beast (whose age I cannot even guess) to tend them, I am not surprised that they remain in the ground. The flower garden, however, is in full bloom and well cared for.

As we walk, I tell him of finding the map inside the book. I do not go into detail, for it is Veronica's story, not mine.

“We must return to the library!” he exclaims when I am done. “Maybe one of our books has a secret map hidden within!”

I laugh. “Trust me. I have taken apart many a book, and no other ones will contain such a secret. Your books are far too precious to destroy.” I tell him how the book was not the only thing we “borrowed.” When I mention how Handsome and I took the two robes from the monks, he stiffens a bit, and I fear I have offended him. “Do not worry,” I say quickly. “Veronica returned them, only a little worse for wear.”

He does not reply at first, then says, “Handsome must be very … handsome.”

I turn to him in surprise. Is that a hint of jealousy I hear in his voice? I laugh. “He does not think so. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?” Then I feel my cheeks grow hot. “I mean, I know I am not beautiful, and my name … well, you are the first person not to laugh or cough or otherwise react negatively when you heard it.”

He examines me so carefully I have to look away.

“Have you
seen
me lately?” he asks. “Who am I to judge another's appearance?” He looks down, then back up at me again. “I am sorry that you were treated that way in the past. But, Beauty, you must know. You are quite beautiful.” He looks down again and I am glad, for I do not think I could meet his eyes. No one has ever spoken to me like this. It feels … odd. And it makes me feel grown-up. And a little giggly, which is embarrassing.

“And I do not mean beautiful only in comparison to me,” he adds. “Although it does help that you are not made out of various animal parts.”

I laugh, grateful to have an excuse to do so. “Thank you, I think.”

I swear I hear a woman sighing behind us, but, of course, no one is there. I follow him across the garden path toward the kitchen, looking back over my shoulder. As we step inside, I ask, “Do you ever get the feeling your house is haunted by invisible ghosts?”

“All the time,” he says, quickly locking the door behind him and leaning against it. “All the time.”