“The orangerie?”
“Too spooky. Too late,” Belle said, not turning back.
“What about…the library?”
Belle whirled around. Somehow Lumière managed a look of pleased satisfaction in his flames.
“Library…?” she asked slowly.
“Oh, yes, the Master has so many books,” the little candelabrum drawled.
“Yes, yes!” Cogsworth said, leaping forward to stand next to his friend. So close, Belle saw distractedly, she was surprised he didn’t catch fire. “Rooms and rooms of them!”
“Really?” she asked despite herself.
Rooms of books.
When other children dreamed of mansions with fountains and big silky beds and servants to do their bidding, this was what Belle dreamed about. The money to buy all the books she ever wanted from all over the world—and a place to keep them.
“Yes, yes, yes, come,” Cogsworth said. “You can spend the whole night there if you want. Biographies, histories, twelve different translations of the Bible, romantic adventures….”
It was tempting.
But the library would be there tomorrow. She had forever, right?
These little guys were trying to hide something. Just like they tried to hide whatever had happened ten years before…She just knew all of the answers she sought would be revealed upstairs.
Including why I have never heard of this castle and kingdom…And who is the Beast? How did he come to rule all of these inanimate objects? Where are all the actual people who should be living here? On what grounds is it considered acceptable to throw a harmless old man and his daughter into prison…?
…And why did no one want her going into the West Wing?
She started climbing the stairs again.
Lumière looked stricken. “Please, don’t go…the Master asked…”
“I only gave my word to stay. Nothing else,” Belle repeated firmly.
Nothing would stop her from satisfying her curiosity about the most interesting thing that had ever happened to her.
In the sleepy little village, Maurice kept improving his inventions, and Rosalind refined her bespelled roses—all the while both were learning how to properly feed (and butcher) their chickens, milk the goats, tend the bees, and other new and unfamiliar chores of country life.
Belle grew, reading voraciously, running around barefoot, watching the clouds and dreaming of a life beyond the fields and the plants; the days so similar they all seemed rolled into one.
Meanwhile, in their old kingdom, the fever redoubled its strength and began to spread faster, just like the plague had in horrible days long before. It utterly destroyed the population; young or old, rich or poor, man or woman—it didn’t matter. People were dying like rats in the town below while the king and queen hid themselves in their high castle and barricaded their doors against potential contagion. No one was allowed in or out, including the servants…and therefore Alaric.
But the village where Rosalind and Maurice and Belle lived seemed strangely unaffected by the disease rampaging around them. Perhaps it was because of the other town’s closed borders and quarantine.
Or perhaps it was because of Rosalind’s wards. Or a certain quick-growing oak tree. Or the special broth made by another relocated goodwitch.
Whatever the reason, not a single person west of the river was affected. Nor were the other villages that received the fleeing charmantes.
And then, late one dire, rainy night, long after Belle was put to bed a third time after trying to read under her covers with a jar of fireflies, there was a knock on the door.
Rosalind and Maurice looked at each other once and leapt up, expecting to see their dear old friend again.
Instead, an unknown person stood hunched over in the cold, a pale and milky moon making his tired eyes seem even more sunken.
“You are to come to the castle. At once. The king and queen would see you.”
“We are no longer citizens of that fair kingdom,” Rosalind said with a barely contained snarl. “We do not need to obey any demands or requests of the rulers there. They hold my allegiance no longer.”
Maurice put his hands lightly on her shoulders, curiosity always stronger in him than outrage. “What do they want?”
The man sighed. “The disease which ravages the countryside is now inside the castle walls, killing royalty and servants alike.”
“I don’t…” But Rosalind trailed off whatever she was going to say. Her anger deflated in the face of needless death, and the worry in the messenger’s eyes. Perhaps he, too, had a loved one who was sick.
Rosalind looked back at Maurice.
“You should go,” he urged. “People are in trouble. And you can see Alaric once you’re inside the castle! That would be good….”
“All right. My husband is a kinder man than I.”