Mrs. Beast (3 page)

    
She's a little beauty
Antoinette croaks with her dying breath.
 
Marcel falls to the floor, weeping and tearing at his beard.
 
Violet and Daisy, their beady eyes gleaming over the foot board, exchange a conspiratorial glance.
 
Swift as a pair of weasels, they grab little Beauty and hightail it for the door.

    
Elora elbows Croesus as the scene follows the sisters out-of-doors, and her own image appears in the crystal ball.
 
"Not bad, huh, hound?"
 
Croesus nods and watches as Elora pops out from behind a willow tree in her seven-year-old, carrot-topped, knock-kneed, front-toothless, freckle-faced girl disguise.
 
Daisy and Violet are momentarily diverted from dangling the wailing infant Beauty over the backyard well.

    
Go ahead
, the disguised Elora shouts,
throw her in
!

    
Daisy releases Beauty's leg and Violet, gripping a plump ankle, swings the baby behind her back.
 
Hey, you can't tell us what to do.
 
She's ours
.

    
Daisy takes three steps toward Elora with clenched fists.
 
Get lost, toad face
.
 
She picks up a stone and throws it at the girl enchantress.
 
I hope a big bad wolf eats your guts
.
   

    
Violet drops Beauty on her head to join the stoning.
 
Elora retreats slowly,
 
her skinny wrists deflecting stones like Wonder Woman’s bracelets.
 
Once she spies Marcel on the threshold screeching,
Where is little Beauty
? Elora vanishes into the forest.

    
"What rotten rascals they were," Elora grumbles over her crystal ball and stomps her size 9 Bruno Magli
 
boot heel squarely on Croesus' tail.
 
The hound yelps and scurries under the bed.
 
"How satisfying it would have been back then to change Daisy into fox and Violet into a chicken.
 
But what's life without intrigue?
 
Boring.
 
Now, let us see if Beauty has ceased her inane sighing and gotten her arse in gear."

    
*
     
*
     
*

    
Beauty dons her navy blue riding cape, hefts her portmanteau, and descends the Grand Staircase. Luncheon clatters rises from the Great Hall: the clink of silver forks, the ringing of crystal goblets, and the tinkling of harpsichord. Beauty pictures Runyon’s long, delicate fingers playing the keys and her tattoo throbs.
 
She quickly draws open the Great Doors, ready to flee, then pauses on the thresh hold to bid farewell to the statues that encase her sisters. Staring at their frozen, frightful expressions, she recalls the last time she saw them in the flesh on her wedding day.

    
Beauty's family had arrived in a golden carriage Runyon commissioned to impress his future in-laws.
 
Her father jumped from the carriage, broke into a buck and wing, and loudly proclaimed he'd known the Beast was a prince all along.
 
Violet emerged and stumbled into Daisy, who was dumbstruck gawking at the enormous white palace and the gorgeous Prince Runyon.

    
While Beauty obediently made her father welcome, Violet and Daisy raced to their sister's bedroom.
 
Violet emptied an ink horn over the white satin wedding gown laid out on the bed.
 
Daisy tore her fingernails through the Belgian lace veil hanging from the wardrobe. They plucked every petal from her wedding bouquet and put rotten eggs in the toes of her wedding shoes, then hurried down to the Great Hall.

    
Beauty knew nothing of these dastardly deeds because Elora repaired the damage with a snap of her fingers.
 
When Beauty descended the Grand Staircase, every inch the fairy tale, princess bride, steam shot from Violet's and Daisy's ears.
 
A black cloud formed over their heads and followed them as they staggered with blind rage to the palace steps.
 
There a voice spoke from the cloud:

    
I know your hearts and the malice they contain.
 
You shall become statues while retaining your ability to think beneath the stone that encompasses you. You will stand at the portal of your sister's palace because I can think of no better punishment to impose than to witness her happiness.
 
I will allow you to return to your original shape only when you recognize your faults, but I fear that you'll remain statues forever.
 
Pride, anger, gluttony and laziness can all be corrected, but a miracle is needed to convert a wicked and envious heart, you rotten rascals.

    
"Surely, they've suffered enough," Beauty murmurs.
 
“Perhaps Elora may be able to transform you too.” She kisses their granite cheeks and, if they could, the sisters would smirk with satisfaction as Beauty turns to take her leave of the castle, the prince, and happily ever after.

*
     
*
     
*

    
"What do you think, hound?
 
Have they suffered enough?"
 
Elora arches an ebony eyebrow.
 
Croesus creeps out from under the bed and shakes his head decisively.

    
"You're doggoned right they have not.
 
Not nearly enough for the hundreds of pinches and slaps they gave Beauty. At least now she's ducking out for a worthy cause unlike the last time when she offered herself to the Beast to save her neurotic family. Do you remember that? Would you care to see a replay?”

    
Croesus trots to her side and Elora snaps her fingers over the crystal ball.

    
Beauty's father appears within, preparing for a journey to the city. Violet and Daisy are tugging at his sleeves, yattering in his ears, demanding he bring back jewels and gowns. Marcel turns to Beauty and asks what he may bring her from his journey
. A rose, please
, she answers.

    
Elora snaps again and the crystal reveals Marcel
 
heading home, penniless. His ships had sunk in a storm at sea, and although creditors had ravaged him, he had purchased a blue gown for Violet and a pink gown for Daisy. At the moment he remembered Beauty’s simple request of a rose, a snowstorm blew in from out of nowhere.

    
"A dandy of a storm, I must admit," Elora chuckles.
 
"Mother Nature herself couldn't have done better.
 
Look, there's Marcel when he spied the Beast's castle, sat at the Beast's table, gobbled up the Beast's food, slept in the Beast's bed . . .
 
and the following morning, bold as brass, picked the Beast's roses."

    
Croesus raises his hackles as a buffalo-sized head thrust from the bushes with a hair-raising roar.

    
"Now there's a beast and a half!"
 
Elora hoots.

    
Croesus bares his teeth and barks.
 
Elora pats his round head, and together they watch as the Beast berates Marcel for being an ingrate and a thief, then tells him to prepare for death.
 
Marcel pleads for his mercy, saying the rose was not for his pleasure, but one of his daughters had asked for a rose.

    
"Smooth move, Judas, way to crumble," Elora snorts.
 
Croesus huffs in empathy and is rewarded with a Pup-Peroni.
 
Elora zooms in on the Beast's face.
 
A string of saliva breaks off his gruesome leer.
I'll spare your life on the condition that one of your daughters voluntarily takes your place.
 
If they each refuse, I'll find you and devour you and your daughters.

    
Elora and Croesus watch Marcel boo-hoo his way home, Violet and Daisy rush outside, greedy for presents, and Beauty smile with relief at his arrival.
 
Marcel turns on the tears and holds out the branch of roses he pilfered:
Beauty, take these roses; they will cost your poor father dearly.

    
Elora freeze-frames the scene as Violet begins to screech and Daisy snatches the rose branch.
 
"I fixed those two."
 
Elora snaps her fingers and the image changes to the entrance of Castle Fleur de Coeur where Beauty's sisters stand as stone sentinels.
 
"Hey, Violet, Daisy--stat-chew?
 
Get it, Croesus?"
 
The hound wheezes a doggy laugh.

    
Elora snaps her fingers again and the image expands to reveal Beauty traipsing toward the royal stables.
 
"She's on her way, Croesus.
 
How long it will take her to find us?
 
What obstacles lie in her path?
 
Will she have the endurance to make it?
 
I could find out by conjuring up the future, if I really wanted to."

    
Croesus licks her face.

    
"Yeah, you know I'm a liar, but I could intervene, help her just a tad."

    
Croesus flops to the floor and groans.

    
"Okay, I won't use magic.
 
Beauty deserves a chance to prove herself.
 
She is the
only
beauty in this neck of the woods who chose her prince instead of waiting to be chosen.
 
I have faith in her, Croesus, but the world is not kind to beauties.
 
And why is that so?
 
They aren't to blame for being born beautiful any more than they're to blame for the fawners and the jealous who make them helpless, vain, paranoid, and gullible.
 
The straight-up skinny, hound of mine? Love is not meant for beauty queens."
          

*
     
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Chapter Two

Heigh-Ho

    
The afternoon sun streams golden and hazy on the Royal Stable as Beauty teeters down the bridle path.
 
Daffodil-scented wind teases her chestnut curls when she pulls open the wide double doors.
 
Blockhead, the stable boy, lies on a pile of straw, picking his nose and wishing for a wife.
 
His imagination is focused on Jhoron, the cook's clever daughter: her long legs outwitting a chicken in the barn yard; her wiry arms swinging an ax; her joyous singing sailing out the kitchen window, across the court yard, and into the stable where Blockhead answers with a yodel.

    
Beauty carries her portmanteau inside and stands beside Blockhead, awaiting his assistance.
 
Lost in reverie, he is oblivious.
 
Beauty politely steps into his field of vision.
 
His lumpish synapses impose the vision of Jhoron upon Beauty, and he lurches forward with a gummy grin on his broad jaw.
 
Beauty drops her portmanteau and jumps back. Blockhead trips over the bag and smacks his forehead against Vixen's stall.
 
The mare raises her silky white tail and drops three steaming road apples onto Beauty's riding boots.