shuffling off into the kitchen.
Belle wondered who babysat the baby cups during the dinner party. A nursemaid pitcher?
Sighing at how crazy her life had become in the last few days, Belle tiredly—and stiffly, too, in her own way—headed up to her room.
She held the balustrades tightly as she ascended the stairs, pulling herself along, deep in thought.
In adventure books there weren’t awkward pauses or embarrassing social scenes. In morality plays and farces there were rarely serious discussions of racial tension, mob mentality, pogroms, or plague. In scientific books there were no dinnertime revelations of a terrible matter.
Life is a strange mixture of all of these genres, she mused, and it doesn’t have nearly as neat and happy an ending as you often get in books.
When she got to her room, the wardrobe was asleep. Or—very still.
Belle undressed slowly and climbed into bed, head spinning with all she had learned.
A kingdom at the end of its time, corrupt with evil and disease.
A king and queen so removed they were as bad as Nero, literally doing nothing while their kingdom burned.
A curse on an eleven-year-old, delivered by an enchantress probably enraged by the treatment of her people and angry about the neglect of the kingdom as a whole.
But did the boy prince really deserve his fate?
And here was Belle, who had hurried that unhappily ever after along. Unless they found out what happened to her mother—or managed to find some equally powerful member of les charmantes—the Beast and his servants would be stuck that way forever, riding out the remainder of time in the forgotten castle in the middle of the woods.
Magic…always comes back on itself….
One last thought occurred to Belle before sleep finally claimed her:
What if, since her mother was the one who cast the spell, Belle was the only one who could break it?
Maurice looked out the window of the automatic carriage with a strange mixture of desperation, revulsion, and regret.
Regret because despite the dire circumstances, he was being carried home by a marvel—a magical thing that figured out the way without eyes or ears and trotted along without a horse. He wished he had more time and the ability to observe it properly, poke at it, tinker with it. See if it obeyed anyone other than the Beast.
Revulsion because when he dreamed of a world filled with carriages that could drive themselves and carts without horses, he never imagined such a sickly insectoid thing. The magical conveyance didn’t roll—it didn’t have wheels at all. Instead it creeped along on its shafts and axles, making a terrible scurrying noise. Like a giant cockroach.
And desperation because he had to go find someone to help him get Belle—immediately!
But who?
He didn’t really have any close friends, and he suspected that Monsieur Lévi probably wouldn’t be up to a raid on a magical castle. The man was easily twenty years older than Maurice himself.
Who was young and strong enough to help? Who could round up a posse of helpers to go after the Beast?
And then it hit him. There was only one person, really, and it should have been obvious.
As soon as the carriage turned onto the main square, Maurice started to pull at the door. He needn’t have tried so hard; it was unlocked and swung open easily, causing him to tumble out onto the wet, cold stones. The carriage thing screeched to a halt.
“Uh, good-bye, thank you,” Maurice called distractedly. He wasn’t sure what the etiquette was with a thing like that, but it never hurt to be polite.
The carriage executed a strange four-legged curtsy or bow—just the way he imagined elephants in the Far East did to let people up and down their enormous backs. Then it scuttled off in its nauseating fashion.
Snow was falling, Maurice suddenly realized. He had been so preoccupied with everything on the trip back he hadn’t even noticed. Running carefully on the slick cobblestones, he made for the pub.
It seemed as if the usual crowd had been drinking there for a while that night already; the sounds of laughter and singing spilled out into the otherwise silent town.
The wind caught the door as Maurice threw it open, slamming it loudly and theatrically. It wasn’t what he intended, but the resulting effect was useful: everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare.
“Help! Everyone, I need your help!”
“Maurice…?” the old barmaid asked, concerned.
“He took her and locked her in a dungeon!”
Damn his inability to speak clearly. Communication had never been one of the inventor’s strengths…and it