Belle: A Retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” By Cameron Dokey (15 page)

And it was because of him, this strange combination of man and beast that stood

before me.

“No,” I said. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

He made a dark sound, deep within his chest, and I understood that my own pain

was nothing.

“Then let go of the Heartwood,” he commanded.

I set my teeth. “I’m trying.”

It was Corbeau who broke the deadlock, turning his head without warning to sink

his teeth deep into the Beast’s shoulder. The Beast gave a startled exclamation, released the Heartwood, and stepped back. The second we were no longer touching the wood

together, my fingers loosened of their own accord. I released the branch and it fell, landing on the bundle of my belongings.

I cradled my hands in my lap, one curved inside the other. My fingers were stiff

and painful. I flexed them, rubbing them as if to bring back the circulation after too long out in the cold. Without a word, the Beast bent to retrieve my bundle and the branch of the Heartwood.

“I can get down myself,” I hurried into speech, throwing one leg over Corbeau’s

neck as I did so. I slid along his flank to the ground, the impact of the cobblestones jarring every bone in my body. I leaned against the horse for a moment, waiting for my legs to steady. “And I can stable Corbeau as well, if you’ll let me. I’d like to.”

“As you wish,” the Beast said, turning away. I turned to the horse.

“All right,” I whispered against his neck. “It’s going to be all right. Come along now, Corbeau.”

The horse followed me obediently, as if I were the one who cared for him every

night. Just as we reached the door of the stable, the Beast spoke once more.

“Why did you think the horse would be called Midnight?” he asked. “And why

were you pleased when he was not?”

I paused, one hand on Corbeau’s neck, though I did not turn back. “Because of his color,” I answered. “And because it seemed too obvious a choice.”

Again, he made that sound in his throat that had so startled me before.
He’s

laughing
, I realized.

“I think you’ll find not much around here makes the obvious choice. Thank you

for caring for my horse, Annabelle.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“I’’ wait for you inside.”

If you’re trying to make me hurry, that’s not the way to do it
, I thought.

I did turn back then, to ask how in the world I would find him inside that great

stone house, and discovered he’d pulled the trick I’d expected earlier.

He’d vanished into thin air, for he was nowhere in sight.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I stabled Corbeau, taking off the saddle and harness, finding the place to stow them where they belonged, then caring for him as carefully as if her were my own horse. I brushed him so long and well I could almost see myself reflected in his glossy dark coat, and he, himself, was stamping in impatience, eager for the meal that was still to come.

At long last, more reluctantly than I like to admit, I put the brush and currycomb away and fed Corbeau. I stayed beside him, leaning my head against his smooth, warm flank, listening to his strong teeth make fast work of his evening meal of oats.

“You like him, don’t you?” I murmured. “And he likes you.” The stable was as

immaculate as Corbeau himself. “That’s good news, isn’t it? That he’s capable of

affection?”

Because you’re hoping what, precisely, Belle?
I thought.
That he’ll like you, too?

Be satisfied with not being eaten and be done with it
.

Corbeau blew out a great snuffling breath, as clear a request to be left in peace as if he’d spoken. Which, come to think of it, I suppose he had.

“All right,” I said. “I’m stalling. I admit it. There’s no need to get all huffy.”

Corbeau turned his head then, regarding me with one dark eye. “I’m going to go

inside the house now,” I said. “I am, honestly. Just as soon as I remember how to breather.”

For, abruptly, I felt dizzy and light-headed. My heart pounded, as if I’d been

running.

I stamped my foot in frustration, and Corbeau showed his teeth. “This is

ridiculous,” I said. “And it’s going to stop right now. What was the use of coming this far if I won’t go any farther? I’m going inside that house. I’m going right now.”

On impulse, I leaned over and gave Corbeau’s neck a kiss. Then I turned and

walked from the stable, wishing I didn’t feel like I was leaving behind my one and only friend.

The doors to the great stone house were shut, and though I did not give myself

permission to take this as a sign to turn around and run in the opposite direction, I did put off going inside for one moment more. For the doors gave me a surprise. They were made of wood and elaborately carved. And, like the gates I’d passed through to enter the Beast’s domain, they showed a man and a woman, reaching toward each other.

It was easy to see that the couple was nobly born. For the carving was so intricate and detailed I could see the lace the man wore at collar and cuffs, and the long string of pearls the woman wore at her throat.

Who are you?
I wondered.

Once again, with the doors shut fast, the couple’s hands were joined. I hesitated a moment longer, reluctant to break that clasp, for it seemed to me that these were two who should never be parted for long.

Nor will they be
, I chastised myself.
Only for the amount of time it takes the doors
to open and close. Stop putting off going inside, Belle. You can’t stand on the front step
forever.

I sighed. Then I walked up the last two steps, setting my hands against the place where the couple’s hands met. That was all it took to get the doors to open. As the gates had, the great wooden doors of the house swept back silently. The arms of the figures on the doors swung wide, in a gesture that looked like a grand welcome.

I stepped across the threshold.

The entry hall was a dazzle of colors as the light streamed in from stained glass windows high above. It both obscured and illuminated the images on the tiles beneath my feet. For, just as Papa had described, the entry hall of the house was covered in a mosaic, many parts working together to form a whole.

Everything here tells a story
, I realized. Whether it was the same one, over and over again, or some fresh tale each and every time, I couldn’t yet tell.
Perhaps with
enough time
, I thought, then caught myself short.

I was here to discover what lay hidden within the Heartwood branch. That, and

nothing more. The sooner I did so, the sooner I could keep my promise to Celeste, and to myself: the sooner I could return home. I had no business getting sidetracked by whatever stories might lie hidden in this place, no matter how artfully told.

“There you are,” I heard the Beast say, interrupting my thoughts. He materialized at the back of the entry hall, perhaps from the study where my father had sheltered. He strode forward into the light until we were both illuminated by the colors streaming down from the windows above. I, in a pool of yellow; he, in a patch just a shade lighter than indigo. I looked up and saw that the color came from the sunlight passing through the image of a woman dressed in a dark blue gown.

Look how he manages to find the shadows even when the sun is shining on him
, I thought.

“I wondered if perhaps you meant to stay in the stables with Corbeau,” the Beast

went on.

So there was to be no reference to the strange and uncomfortable moment in the

courtyard, when he had all but begged me to look into his face, to gaze into his eyes. That was perfectly fine with me.

“I considered it,” I answered lightly. I did my best to seem as if I was really

looking at him, casting a quick glance upward in the general vicinity of his face, before letting my gaze settle on a place slightly over his left shoulder, at about the height on his earlobe – if I’d actually been able to find his earlobe beneath all that hair. For now, as I did my best
not
to look at him, I seemed to see a hundred things that I had not before.

He had a man’s hair upon his head, just a shade darker than the copper fur that

covered the backs of his hands. It curled in wild profusion, long enough to brush down to his impossibly broad shoulders. It was almost as if the very form of him could not quite make up its mind. Was he a man, or was he a beast? I wondered, abruptly and

uncomfortably, whether this might be the true definition of a monster: a being that was neither one thing nor another.

“Let me show you to your room,” the Beast – for by now I was incapable of

thinking of him by any other name – said, precisely as if her were an innkeeper and I, a guest to be welcomed and made comfortable. “Perhaps that will make you feel better about coming indoors.”

And perhaps I’ll learn to sing like a nightingale
, I thought, though I chose not to mention that possibility aloud.

I nodded to show that I would follow his lead. We proceeded up a broad set of

central stairs, side by side. They were made of the same gray stone as the rest of the house, but running down the center was a wide runner of bright blue.

“I feel as if I’m walking up a waterfall,” I said.

He made what I sincerely hoped was an appreciative grunt.
And walking next to
you is like hiking up on mountain with another at your side,
I thought.

I had seen that he was tall. It was the first thing that I’d noticed. But it was one thing to
see
it, looking down from the back of a large horse, and another thing to
feel
it, walking with him. My head reached no higher than the center of his chest.

Just high enough to peer into his heart
, I thought. Then I wished I hadn’t, for I wasn’t all that sure I wanted to discover what a Beast’s heart might hold.

The stairs ended in a broad landing with three halls heading off in different

directions. One straight ahead, and one each to the left and right.

“I have put you this direction” the Beast said, indicating that we would proceed

along the passage to the right. “On this side of the house, the windows overlook the lake.”

And the Heartwood Tree
, I thought.

“Where are your rooms?” I asked, then did my best to not wince, for it sounded as if I was trying to find out how far apart our rooms were without asking the question directly.

“All around you, the Beast answered shortly. “For everything here is mine. But if you’re asking where I sleep, I have no fixed place. Sometimes I stay indoors at night.

More often I do not.”

So you are nocturnal, like an animal
, I thought.

“Don’t you have a favorite room?” I asked, determined to find a safe topic.

“I do,” the Beast replied, after a brief pause. “The study. Where your father spent the night.”

“You are fond of books, then,” I persevered.

“I am,” he said. “Though I am also rather hard on them.” The Beast made a

strange gesture, clicking his long, sharp nails together. “this is your room.”

The Beast stopped before a closed door, turned the knob, and pushed the door

open wide. Before me stretched an endless carpet of fresh spring green, precisely the same color as a new lawn. To the left, a great canopy bed swathed in pale peach silk rested on a dais of white marble. On the right was a great wooden wardrobe. But it was what I saw straight ahead that captured my attention and held it.

For the back wall of the room was not a wall at all. Instead, it was a series of

windows so clear I would not have known they were there save for the frames that held the panes in place. Through them I could see the sparkle of the lake, the movement of the clouds as they scudded across the clear blue sky. I was across the threshold and moving toward the windows almost before I realized what I’d done.

“You like it, then,” the Beast said.

“Of course I like it,” I responded. I could see that there was a wide

balcony bordered by a stone balustrade outside the windows. In the center was a little table with just one chair pulled up before it. Hidden by the bulk of the wardrobe was the door that would take me to the outside. It was made of mahogany, polished until it gleamed ruby red. In its center was a crystal doorknob.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Everything about it is beautiful. Do the windows open?”

“Place your hand upon whichever pane of glass you choose and it will yield

before your touch,” the Beast said. “When you wish it to return, call it back.”

I stopped short, astonished, then continued the rest of the distance to the windows more slowly. I lifted one hand, then pressed my palm against the closest pane of glass. I felt a sharp cold, as if I’d plunged my fingers into ice, and then, with a sound I thought might be laughter, the glass seemed to whisk away and my hand moved through into the open air.

I snatched my hand back, considered it a moment, then extended it again. This

time my hand passed straight through. The glass was simply…not there. I wiggled my fingers experimentally, then brought them indoors once more.

“Thank you very much for the demonstration. Now come back, please,” I said.

I heard a sigh, as if someone had exhaled a breath into the room, and saw that the pane of glass was back in place.

“Stay put now, if you please,” I said, and set my fingertips against it. The glass did as I instructed. It was precisely as the Beast had said. If I willed the pane of glass to open, it would do so. Otherwise, it was simply a pane of glass.

“I thought you might be joking,” I said as I turned back toward the Beast.

“Why would I do that?” he asked. “How much humor do you think a beast has?”

“I imagine that depends on the beast,” I said. I frowned, for I realized suddenly that he was still standing in the hall. “Why are you out there?”