“We wouldn’t want her…poking around…certain places….”
“Oh, but couldn’t you take me?” Belle asked, tickling Cogsworth under his dial. He giggled like a very pleased toddler. “I’ll bet you know everything about the castle.”
“Well, I do, of course, I do, yes, of course,” he spluttered. “I’d be delighted to impart some of my knowledge. No harm in that. Right this way.”
The little clock hopped off the table and began to waddle out of the room down the hall.
“The kitchen,” he began, “is, of course, like most castles, the oldest part of the main building still remaining. We have found markings on the walls near the back indicating that it might even date back to Roman days….”
Lumière cocked his middle candle, his head, at Belle.
“Well, you certainly turned him upside down in a moment, ma chérie,” he said with appreciation. “There is a lot more to you than it would appear.”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” she retorted, following the clock out.
Lumière barked out laughter, and sparks sprayed harmlessly to the stone floor.
Maurice packed up the cart with all of their wordly belongings and harnessed their newly acquired foal to pull it. With a final tearful good-bye to the little apartment on its bustling street, he and his wife and their baby began the journey to their new home.
They had taken Lévi’s advice and decided to move to the pleasant, if dull, little village where the bookseller himself now lived, trading friends and excitement for a safe country life of chickens and weather and farmers as neighbors. And very little magic. Belle would grow up in a place without witches and enchanted crystals—but also without the violence and dangers of the tumultuous kingdom.
It was tricky driving their fully loaded cart through the busy streets at first. Besides the usual traffic, people often just stopped and stared: Rosalind had a kind of fame. Seeing her leave gave some people pause, and others a triumphant grin.
Approaching the border, where the road began to rise out of the forest, things grew quiet. But at the border, guards blocked their way.
“What is this?” Maurice demanded, pretending ignorance.
“Quarantine. No one is to leave or enter the kingdom without royal permission until the fever has passed,” one answered, not a hint of kindness in his voice. His black eyes flicked over Maurice and Rosalind and the baby—and even the horse.
Rosalind ground her teeth. She clutched her alder wand under her cloak, but there were at least ten soldiers.
“We bought a nice little farmhouse on the other side of the river,” Maurice said amiably. “For our growing family. Our plan was to escape from the plague. All of us are well—you can see that.”
“Escape from the plague,” the guard said nastily, putting a finger to his chin as if in thought. “How convenient. The sickness that rose up just as we began getting a handle on the situation of les charmantes. And now you flee.”
“We have a baby,” Maurice said, indicating Belle. “Of course we’re fleeing. It’s not safe.”
“Are you sure it’s the plague you’re fleeing, precisely? How many naturels did your wife kill or ensorcel the night of the riots?”
“I did no such thing!” Rosalind said, trying to keep her voice down. “I wasn’t even in town when the fight over the girl happened—I was deep in the woods, picking mushrooms.”
Two other guards closed in around behind the cart. Maurice began to reach inside his belt for his knife; Rosalind, her wand.
A fourth guard spoke up, almost impatiently. “Are you not Rosalind, the one who keeps the garden of magic roses in the park?”
Rosalind looked at her husband. Was this it? Was this where they took her but let her husband and baby go free? Was this the end?
There was no point in lying, either way.
“I am,” she said.
The young man regarded her for a moment. His eyes were unreadable, but unlike his partner’s, they were thoughtful.
“My mother had a cough. It wasn’t consumption but she couldn’t breathe properly, and sometimes blood came out. You gave her roses. Each fortnight, for two months. She put them in a vase and breathed in their perfume. It cured her completely.”
“Madame Guernbeck,” Rosalind said, remembering. “Her lungs were ailing. She loved my simple pink beach roses best, because she had never been to the sea. But the ones that cured her were yellow. I brought her both.”
“Alan,” the first guard hissed, seeing where this was going. “Who cares? We have our orders. No one in or out. And she is