Beast (16 page)

Once she finished her breakfast, she stood up, asked to be excused, and made her way back into her room. She made no conversation with me and finished as quickly as she could.

Around lunchtime, she began walking around the castle aimlessly. I decided to go to the music room to practice piano. Luckily, I was still able to play with the same skill. In fact, I played better now than before the change.

As I began to play, I shut my eyes. At times, I became lost in the music, especially with the pieces that I wrote myself.

Once I opened my eyes, I realized that much time had passed. It was just about dinnertime, so I made my way down to the dining room. Honestly, I did not expect to see Mirabelle at all that night. But, to my surprise, she came in a few minutes after I had sat down at the table.

“Good evening, Mirabelle,” I said softly, standing up as she made her way over.

“Evening, Beast,” she said in almost a whisper.

“Mirabelle, I want to apologize for the question I asked you the other night. I can tell that it made you uncomfortable. It was not my intention to frighten you.”

She nodded.

She dished out her meal and began to eat. Looking around the room, I tried to think of all the things I had ever wanted to ask her. But, whenever I was near her, I seemed to lose all train of thought. I could not help it. Mirabelle always looked beautiful no matter what she was wearing. It did not matter how hard I tried; I just could not think straight.

I fixed my eyes upon a spot in the wood on the table. In the corner of my eye, I could see her looking at me. Though I wanted to make eye contact, I knew that if I tried, she would move her eyes away from mine. I did not want to frighten her more than I already had. So I fought the urge, though it was extremely difficult to do so.

She finished her meal and then excused herself. Not having conversation with her was really bothering me. I did not know how I would be able to fix things. After just staring at the spot for a while, I finally stood up to walk to the roof.

While on the roof, I began to think about what I knew about Mirabelle from the visions. Then, like a lightning bolt, it hit me!

“Why did I not think of this earlier?” I shouted into the air as I bopped myself on the forehead.

I felt so thoughtless for not thinking about this before.

That night, I waited anxiously for the sun to rise. As soon as I saw the first gleam of light, I hurried to prepare for what I was going to show Mirabelle. I was not able to do it all by myself, so I had to ask the Invisibles for assistance.

After spending a lot of time on the roof, I hurried to Mirabelle’s room. Once there, I knocked, telling her that breakfast was ready. My heart was pounding with excitement. Then I made my way into the dining room.

While waiting for her, I stood at the window, looking down at the roses. My heart broke; no matter how hard I tried, these roses would never come back to life. It just did not make any sense to me. As I stood there, my mind was running a million miles an hour.

What will her reaction be? Will she like what I have prepared for her? What if she hates it? Could this make it all worse or fix what I messed up?

Then I heard Mirabelle walking on the wooden floor, coming into the room. I turned toward the sound of her footsteps. As she walked in, I could not help but smile, and my heart pounded with excitement.

She was wearing a red dress with a black sash around her waist. I felt as if I were drooling at the sight of her.

“Good morning, Mirabelle!”

“Morning, Beast.”

She made her way to her seat. I hurried over to pull her chair out for her.

“Oh, Beast, you did not have to do that,” she said as I pushed her in.

“It is okay; I wanted to,” I assured her.

“Well, thank you. It was very nice of you.”

Mirabelle laid her napkin across her lap.

“Mirabelle,” I started to say.

“Yes?” she said as she looked up at me.

This was the first time since I had asked her to marry me many nights ago that she had looked up from her plate.

“After breakfast, there is something I would like to show you,” I continued.

“Okay,” she replied hesitantly.

It felt as if she were taking forever to eat. Once Mirabelle finished her breakfast, she grabbed the napkin to wipe her mouth.

“Now, what was it that you wanted to show me?” she said. I thought I saw a small smile on her face.

“Follow me.”

We both stood up, and she walked next to me as I led her. As we neared the doors, I stopped.

“Okay, now, Mirabelle, I need to you trust me. Do you trust me?” I said as I held out my hand.

She eyed me for a moment, looking down at my hand and then back into my eyes.

“Yes, Beast, I trust you,” she said as she placed her petite hand into my paw of a hand.

I closed my hand around hers, instructing her to close her eyes.

“Open the doors, please,” I said to the
Invisibles.

As the doors opened, I led her inside slowly. As we walked to the center of the room, my heart was pounding and my stomach was twisting and turning because I was holding the hand of the woman I loved.

“Okay, Mirabelle, I am going to need you to trust me one more time. Stay here. Wait until I tell you to open your eyes. Okay?

“Okay. I will wait.”

So I made my way over to the curtains and opened the ones I had closed earlier. Then I had to ask the Invisibles to open the others.

After this, I walked to Mirabelle and stood next to her. I could not wait to see her reaction.

“Okay, I am back,” I said as I took hold of her right hand again.

“Can I open them?” she said excitedly.

“Yes, open them!”

As she opened her eyes, a huge smile came over her face. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. She looked so happy and utterly surprised. Mirabelle almost began to giggle. I had taken her into our library because I knew of her love of books and wanted to make sure that she had something that she loved.

After standing in the middle of the room for a moment, she began to walk toward the bookshelves by the window in awe.

“D-do you like it?” I asked as I followed her.

“I love it! How did you know?” She grabbed on to my hands. “There are so many books! How do you have all of these?”

“Well, I love to read, and my parents collected books over the years, I guess. You know, I never thought it was strange to have this many books; it was normal to me.”

“Your parents must have had wonderful taste in books!” she said as she looked through some of the books on the shelf.

“Come, there is more!”

“Really?”

After she said this, she grabbed on to my hand once again so that I could lead her. This was not what I had been expecting, but I carefully closed my hand around hers, acting as if I were more confident than I truly was.

She was excited as she looked at all the different books. I led her to the second floor of the library, and then she began to climb one of the ladders, something I could never do. At every story that this particular ladder led to, there was a walkway for one to look at all the books.

“Oh, Beast! You have no idea how much this means to me that you knew about my love of books! I do not know how I could ever thank you.”

She climbed a little higher and then stood on one of the walkways. It seemed as if she were looking for a certain book.

“Please be careful, Mirabelle.”

“I will,” she exclaimed, and she glanced down at me with a smile.

Her cheeks were a rosy red color.

With a book in hand, she began to climb down the ladder. A few rungs down, she started to lose her grip, as she could only use one hand properly. Then she began to fall.

“Mirabelle!” I yelled.

The second I saw that she was losing her grip, I ran over to the ladder and put out my arms.

She let go of the book in hand, and it went flying through the air.

“Beast!” she screamed the second she realized that she was falling.

There was fear in her voice.

As she landed in my arms, I cradled her. When she realized that I had caught her, Mirabelle threw her arms around me and began to weep and shake with terror.

“It is okay, Mirabelle. I caught you. You are safe now!” I assured her.

Even though she knew that she was safe now, she did not want to let go. I could feel her heart pounding on my chest, and her tears made my fur damp.

I carried her down to the first floor of the library. While looking around the room, I found one of the bigger brown fabric chairs to sit in. All I could do was just hold her close to me while telling her that she was okay.

It took her a long time, but she finally calmed down.

Mirabelle moved her face, which was pressed up against my chest, to look up at me. She shut her eyes when I moved my hand to wipe the tears off of her cheeks.

“Thank you for saving me,” she said with a shaky voice.

She looked to the book on the floor next to us.

“That book was not worth the fall.” She laughed.

After gazing into my eyes, she stood up.

I watched her for a little bit as she walked around the first floor. I sat in the chair in shock, not able to move. I had known that showing Mirabelle the library would change things, but I had not known how much.

I turned my gaze to the left of where I was sitting, and the Rose House caught my eye. It had not even crossed my mind when I had thought about surprising her with the library. I decided that I would wait until she noticed it.

After some time, she walked back over to me and picked up my hand, which was on the arm of the chair.

“Would you like to meet my horse?” she asked out of nowhere.

I watched her for a moment, trying to understand whether or not she was serious.

“I would love to, but the last time I was near him, he did not like it very much,” I explained.

“Oh, I forgot about that. But let us try little by little. We can bring you closer over time.”

She smiled at me, not letting go of my hand for some time. My nerves began to kick in.

“Well, I am sure that your lunch is waiting for you in your room. I will meet you in the yard after lunch,” I said as I began to stand up.

She agreed.

In my mind, I replayed the whole incident from the library. Even though I had seen and heard her for almost two hundred years, I had so many things still to learn about her.

A little while later, we met outside by the barn. We decided that I would hide behind the castle until she saddled the horse up. After she walked him into the yard and neared the gates, I showed myself, watching while she rode him around.

Mirabelle was so graceful on Majestueux. He was startled a little when he first saw me, but after he knew that I was not coming closer, he settled down.

After watching for a while, I decided to sit down on the ground. My thoughts centered on dinner; it was going to be the best dinner since she had come here. Because of the mind blanks I had around her, I started thinking in advance about what exactly I wanted to ask her.

The sun started to set, and Mirabelle took her horse back into the barn. Several minutes later, she came out and walked over to me. As she walked closer, my heart began to pound, and I attempted to smile. It must have come across as a smile, because she smiled back at me.

“Are you ready for dinner, Beast?” she asked.

“Of course!”

I put out my elbow for her to grab on to so that I could walk her to dinner. Papa did this a lot with Mother. It was a way to show respect to a woman and also was an act of love, in my opinion. I had always wanted to do it when I was younger.

When I offered my elbow, I was not sure if it was going to be well received. But, to my surprise, Mirabelle placed her delicate hand through my arm and laid it on my forearm. We walked up the steps to the castle and into the dining room. Once in the dining room, again I pulled her chair out and then pushed it in after she sat down.

Before she ate, she paused for a second.

“Would you mind if I prayed out loud?” she asked me.

“Please do,” I said with a smile.

“Dear Lord, thank you for this meal. I am so grateful for it. Please bless it to our bodies. And thank you for the Beast, who saved me this morning. Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Beast, why do you just sit here while I eat? How come you do not eat with me?”

“Oh, well, it is very difficult to use a fork or spoon. I can only eat the way I look—like a beast.”

“Oh, okay.”

She began to eat.

“Mirabelle, tell me something that not many people know about you.”

“Wow, Beast, that is a hard one. Hm. Well, when I was maybe six or seven, my older brother was head over heels for this girl named Nadine. He was very shy and did not know how to talk to her. I found her one day and told her about my brother. It turned out that she liked him too. They ended up marrying each other a few years after that. But my brother does not even know I did that for him. I am kind of a hopeless romantic, if you could not tell.” She laughed.