Mrs. Beast (22 page)

    
"Bwockhead!
 
I am a writer!
 
Get rid of these canvases and bring me parchment, wots of parchment!"

    
Beauty shoves the mirror back in her satchel.
 
"Oh, my beloved Beast, I miss you so," she laments, then turns and steps into the Black Forest.

Chapter Nine

Flowers In The Blood

   
Beauty has been walking slowly, savoring the discovery that her additional ten pounds have straightened her spine, rolled her hips forward, and made her steps seem substantial.
 
She has lingered at patches of fragrant wild ginger and woodland forget-me-not that grow in late spring, even in the deep shade of the Black Forest.
 
Now a dull ache in Beauty's sacrum urges her to rest awhile on a fallen oak.

    
Beauty opens her satchel and drinks from her wineskin.
 
She has just bitten into a pungent loaf of pumpernickel, when she hears the excited squeals of children.
 
The tree shakes beneath her, pine needles fall like rain, moss beds break and crumble, and she spies them coming, a boy and a girl, four feet tall and three feet wide.
 
They wear stained bed sheets fastened with clothespins: hers at the shoulder, his at the waist. Globes of fat bulge their ruddy cheeks, making their pug noses and tiny ears obscenely disproportionate; shoulders, elbows, and knees undulate with layers of lard; twigs, leaves, dirt and dead bugs collect in the creases.
 
The two move with the surprising speed of startled hippos.
 
Their pendulous lips press together and open in two syllables: "Gim-me, gim-me, gim-me."

    
Bearing down on Beauty, their fingers grab the air, and they shove and bump against each another.
 
"I got dibs, Gretel!" the boy bellows.

    
It dawns on Beauty that these corpulent children mean to steal her food.

    
"Uh-uh, Hansel!" You ate more than half of the last gingerbread house," Gretel screeches and lumbers forward.
 
Her pudgy fingers dig into the sides of the boar skin bag.
 
Beauty hangs on tight.

    
"Gimme that, you skinny bitch," Gretel growls and tugs like a terrier on a short leash.
 
In the tussle, out tumble the pear, apples, and cheese.
 
The chunk of chocolate flies through the air and lands on a white pine bough ten feet off the ground.
 
Hansel quickstep jiggles after the sweet and slams his belly against the tree trunk.

    
"That's mine!" Gretel wails and waddles after Hansel.
 
Beauty knows from childhood experience with Violet and Daisy that it will take at least ten minutes for the victor to claim the spoils and most likely blood will be drawn.
 
She leaves Hansel and Gretel squaring off over the chocolate and scurries up the path, feeling quite insubstantial.
 

*
     
*
     
*

    
Onward and upward Beauty walks, for this portion of the path gradually rises to the top of a hill.
 
Upon reaching the summit, she sees the path descend into a deep valley filled with fog.
 
Grimm Land fog is unique; by comparison London fog is translucent and San Francisco fog is flimsy.
 
Well, there's no getting round it and no going back
, Beauty concludes.
 
She points her toes outward and duck walks down.

    
At the bottom, Beauty confronts a wall of fog so thick that when she tests it, gray-white clots cling to her arm.
 
Undaunted, she wades in and her two-pound passenger paddles its feet.
 
Beauty stops and holds her belly.

    
What am I thinking of, plunging headlong into the fog?
 
A root could trip me, a branch could knock me senseless, or an evil doer could emerge, any number of things that could do harm to the baby.

    
Beauty pictures Rapunzel in the sandstorm, huddled against the white camel, hugging Scheherazade and Omar, and she decides to sit down and wait.

    
"Pardon me," a muffled voice sounds from beneath Beauty's leg. Beauty scoots sideways like a spooked spider, and the voice becomes more clear.
 
"Would you be so kind as to free me from the earth?"

    
"Would you do me evil if I release you?" Beauty asks.

    
"I'm a piece of wood, a stick in the mud; I have neither arms or legs.
 
How much harm can I do?"

    
Beauty runs her hand along the ground and finds a long wooden staff pressed into the forest floor.
 
She considers her options, flings caution to the wind, removes her mirror from the satchel, and uses the handle to pry the staff free.

    
"A thousand thanks!" the staff cries.
 
"Sycamore Staff at your service, kind lady.
 
My esteemed profession is to guide travelers through Foggy Forest.
 
A pair of corpulent, unmannerly children used me, then stomped me into the ground. Stay the staff and spoil the child!" Sycamore sputters.
 
"All's right now.
 
Grasp the top of my head, and I will gladly see you through to the other side."

    
After an hour of directing Beauty through Foggy Forest, Sycamore tells her to halt.
 
"A few more steps and you will be out of the woods."

    
"My destination is Glass Mountain.
 
I have been told that I must pass the Kingdom of Dreams, cross the Lake of Longing, and go on to the Charmed Kingdom in order to reach the mountain.
 
Is this true?"

    
"I know nothing of Glass Mountain.
 
However, the Kingdom of Dreams is only three steps away.
 
There is no path to follow.
 
You'll see a field of flowers, but do not walk through them, stay to the edge of the woods, and keep the castle to your right. You'll soon reach the Lake of Longing.
 
Now, please stand me against the white pine to your left so I may be handy for the next traveler."

    
"Can you tell me one thing more?
 
Will the King allow me safe passage through his kingdom?" Beauty asks, releasing the staff against the pine tree.

    
"There's only one inhabitant of that castle, a princess of great beauty and questionable mind.
 
More than likely, you won't see her.
 
If she's in the fields, she'll take no notice of you, and if she's not in the fields, she's sleeping.
 
If you want to reach the Lake of Longing, I advise you move swiftly past the castle."

    
"Thank you for your assistance and advice," Beauty says, then takes three steps forward and enters the Kingdom of Dreams.

    
Not since leaving French fairy tale land has she experienced June afternoon sunshine on a field of flowers.
 
She's dazzled by the tapestry stretched before her: poppies of pink, mauve, violet, and red; blossoms with fringed yellow centers bobbing their heads above bluish green foliage, shedding their petals like milk maids casting off bright bonnets.
 
In the center of the field stands an ancient castle.
 
Its battlements have crumbled away, and ivy covers all but the south wall where swallows nest in deep cracks.
 
A weathered gray drawbridge, its chains broken and dangling, spans a shallow moat.
 
Heads of statues float disembodied here and there among the flowers.
 
Beauty's tempted to gather an armful and weave a garland for her hair.
 
However, Sycamore told her not to walk among the flowers.
 
Perhaps there are sharp thorns or poisonous snakes or elves concealed beneath the blooms.

    
The West Wind appears on the horizon, his balloon cheeks propelling him through the sky in starts and hops.
 
Beauty welcomes the fresh air, for breezes rarely penetrate the dense Grimm forests.
 
She turns her face to the wind, crinkles her nose, and sneezes to dispel the acrid, overpowering odor.
 
She covers her mouth, staggers toward the trees and heaves, staggers and heaves.
 
Before slipping into unconsciousness, she sees a human figure amid the flowers, doubled over, crab-walking backward, rolling brown balls between its palms.
 

*
     
*
     
*

    
"I'll never let you watch
The Wizard of Oz
again!" Elora the Enchantress wags her finger at Croesus the hound, who has lain in the poppy bed of the Deco gardens.

    
"I will
not
wave a wand over my crystal ball and make it snow in the Kingdom of Dreams.
 
Aren't you the one who didn't want me to use magic when Beauty started this quest?
 
Didn't we agree that she deserves the chance to prove herself?"

    
Croesus's ears droop in submission, but he does not move.

    
"Listen up, poppy head.
 
There is no Glinda the Good Witch in Baum Land; that squeaky blonde was a Hollywood invention. The real Witch of the North is silver-haired munchkin.
 
The Wicked Witch of the West did not conjure up the poppy field; Dorothy and gang stumbled into it.
 
Tin Man and Scarecrow carried her out because, being made of straw and metal, they weren't zonked by the scent.
 
Neither is Fergus, genus
Giant Frogus Imperviosis
, the frog who is at this moment hopping through the poppy field to carry Beauty inside the castle."

    
Croesus perks up his ears and wags his tail.

    
"And may I remind you that this isn't Kansas, Toto."
 
Elora raises an arm to the sky, snaps her fingers and a winged monkey soars toward Croesus, who dashes from the poppy bed like a greyhound out of the gate.

*
     
*
     
*

    
Beauty wants to open her eyes, but her lids won't cooperate.
 
She has better luck with raising her eyebrows, which pull her lids up sufficiently for her to see a frog big as a beaver staring at her with googly eyes.
 
The frog croaks, "How-dee-do," and smacks his lips into an open-mouthed grin.

    
"Where am I?" Beauty mumbles thickly.

    
"In a grotto underneath the Castle of Dreams," the frog answers.

    
"A cave?"
 
Beauty asks, and tries to lift her head from the mattress, but it seems heavy as a stone.

    
"No, no, a grot-toe, a place of repose and reunion, of solitude, seclusion, and shade; a sanctuary of muses and an abode of nymphs; a locus of enlightenment and poetic inspiration; a metaphor of the cosmos.
 
It's the only place where the air isn't laced with poppy dust.
 
I knew at a glance that you're carrying a tadpole, so I brought you here.
 
Fergus is my name."

    
"Beauty is mine.
 
How long have I slept?"