Mrs. Beast (32 page)

    
"I welcome that day," Beauty replies frankly.

    
"Do you?
 
I once was cavalier about my appearance, as people who have plenty to eat seldom think about hunger.
 
When I could look in a mirror with admiration, I gave my appearance little thought.
 
Now, I always carry a mirror because I'm sure something ugly has appeared while I wasn't looking.
 
I feel young inside.
 
I only want to look the same way I feel."

    
"You do!"

    
Cinderella shakes her head.
 
"Potions and powders, light and shadows, tricks and lies."
 
She lifts a bottle of oil and smoothes it over her face with a lamb's wool puff.
 
She wipes away her creamy complexion and the youthful blush on her cheeks and lips. Beneath the make up lies skin that reminds Beauty of aged silk, its color unevenly faded and its surface creased, but lovely nonetheless. She loosens the hair combs that encircle her scalp and hold up her bouncy blonde curls.
 
Once the wig is removed, her eyebrows slip downward, pulling furrows into her forehead; her cheeks slide forward forming grooves around her mouth and pouches beneath her jaw; her short, grey hair steals the gleam from her blue eyes.
 
She stands and unbuttons the front of her high-necked, long-sleeved gown. "Beauty, will you help me?
 
Mother used to untie my corsets."

    
Beauty stares mortified at the contraption. Whalebone stays sewn into layers of thick cotton press and push Cinderella's flesh into an hourglass shape.
No wonder she squeaks
, Beauty thinks as she unties the bottom lace.
 
A small pillow, which gave Cinderella her high, round rump, falls to the floor.
 
She unties the final lace and the corset springs through the air like a champagne cork.

    
"I told you what's in store.
 
Are you ready to see it?" Cinderella pivots dramatically and presents her naked body to Beauty.
 
Her arms are thin with muscle gone soft and loose; her thighs are dimpled and her calves mapped with varicose veins.

    
"One last thing," Cinderella says and removes her teeth.
 
Her pouty lips sink into the cavity of her mouth.
 
Five months ago, Beauty would have averted her gaze, out of modesty, but she's learned that many fairy tale beauty rules are false, including modesty.

    
"You need not hide your revulsion, Beauty, nor the words on the tip of your tongue:
 
hag, crone, old witch."

    
Beauty holds Cinderella’s eye and speaks evenly. "You misjudge me.
 
After hearing of my love for the Beast, how can you think I care a whit for outward appearance?"

    
"You liken me to a beast?"

    
"You're twisting my words, Cinderella."

    
"Oh, what will I do without Mother?" Cinderella weeps into her hands.
 
"I wish I would have died when I was still young and beautiful.
 
I am ready to die, but not to be ugly for the rest of my life."

    
"You don't mean that.
 
Why, you're trembling, let me get you a wrap." Beauty opens the nearest armoire and selects a pink satin robe.

    
"I do mean it!" Cinderella cries snatching the robe from Beauty.
 
She dons the robe and shouts, "I do!" stomping her foot for emphasis.

    
"Ow-ow," she wails and collapses on the vanity bench.
 
Beauty looks at Cinderella's feet, and she is appalled.
 
Her big toes are distorted by bunions the size of walnuts; the second toes resemble miniature hammers; her little toe nails are ingrown and bleeding; corns and calluses define the shape of her precious gold shoes.

    
"I have some salve in my satchel," Beauty says, her voice tight with emotion.

    
Cinderella props her feet on a footstool.
 
"I won't allow Paul to see me like this," she frowns and stares at her feet as if they're responsible. "He hasn't seen me unclothed since our son was conceived."
 
She lifts her gaze to meet Beauty's perplexed countenance.

    
"I would not be pregnant again!
 
Oftentimes at night, after I'd snuffed the candles, he visited my bed and we would cuddle.
 
But after I reached forty, I couldn't bear the differences between us.
 
We were the same age, yet Paul grew more handsome and strong while I withered like an old rose.
  
It's just not fair.
 
He has gained power and respect in the community.
 
His fortune has accumulate and his virility grown. He is judged by what he does, not how he looks.
 
I'm afraid that if he sees me unadorned, he will abandon me for a young and beautiful girl."

    
"Has he given you reason to be afraid?"
 
Beauty twists a lock of hair between her fingers.

    
"
He's
never been unfaithful.
 
Mother would have known. But I was, almost."
 
Cinderella pauses and deepens the creases in her brow. "One summer day when I was forty-one, I wandered into one of the barns.
 
It was empty but for a stable boy, handsome, eighteen years old, and I will simply say he swept me off my feet with flattery and passionate kisses.
 
Oh, it had been so long since I felt desired that I drank in his seduction like a desert in a rainstorm.
 
We peeled the clothes from our bodies, and I suggested we move to the loft for privacy sake.
 
After you, my lady
, he bowed and waved his arm to the ladder.
 
I climbed to the top, but the boy had not followed.
 
I looked down and saw him stepping into his pants.
 
When I asked him what was the matter, he said,
What I saw from here made my lily wilt.
 
How old are you, anyway?
 
After that day, I began wearing the veils."

    
"Because of one stupid stable boy?"

    
"You still don't understand?
 
An aging beauty must put away her bows and bangles, they're only proper for girls.
 
She must pin up or cut off her long hair.
 
She must give up her pretty frocks. When Spring arrives and an old beauty feels giddy, she must contain herself, because if she ran through a field of daffodils, white hair flopping on her dowager's hump, breasts and arms flapping like sheets in the wind, she'd be locked up as an embarrassment to the populace.
 
Everyone shrinks from aging female flesh; old women are repulsive."

    
"I do not find you repulsive, nor your friend, Maisee, who still jumps rope with her grandchildren."

    
"She's no friend of mine," Cinderella snaps.
 
She, Dorothy,
 
Florence and I did play together, but once our jump ropes were cast aside and we grew into our womanly faces and figures, theirs plain and sturdy, mine beautiful and delicate, those three banded together and wouldn't speak a word to me.
 
They said plenty of words
about
me, lies to sully my character.
  
I rose above it.

    
Cinderella's chin quivers.
 
She purses her lips, then laughs derisively.
 
"I was the one who was suppose to live happily ever after.
 
Maisee, Dorothy, and Florence married three brothers, raised a dozen children, and lived well.
 
Now they're old and believe age levels the playing field.
  
I'm no longer a beauty, so they will accept me.
 
Of course they glow with happiness!" Cinderella sputters.
 
"They had nothing to lose; they were always plain, and they always had each other.
 
When they have shed the buckets of tears I shed when they snubbed me, have spent the years of hours alone among the cinders as I did because of others' nasty words and deeds, then I would walk onto that porch and ask,
How does it feel, girls, now that the shoe's on the other foot?
"

    
Beauty closes her eyes in anguish remembered from her childhood, from the terror remembered in the face of Snow White, from the contempt for Rapunzel in the faces of the Stromberg women, from Rosamond's self-imposed opium exile.

    
Cinderella sighs, "My feet once were tiny and perfect.
 
Paul never grew weary of caressing them."

    
Beauty's tempted to tell her all she needs is larger shoes, but instead, she slips next door and grabs her satchel.
 
She returns and gently smoothes the salve over Cinderella's festering feet.

    
"Eew, it tickles," Cinderella says.
 
"Beauty look!" she gasps.

    
As the salve penetrates the corns and calluses disappear, the ingrown nails heal, and Cinderella's feet become as tiny and pink as the day she was wed.

    
"Oh, happy day!"
 
Cinderella vaults from the vanity bench and twirls on her toes.
 
"I wonder if it will work on my face."
 
She rubs the salve over her face and rushes to the mirror.
 
"It's not tickling," she says nervously.

    
Beauty screws the lid on the jar and notices lettering that had not been there before:
 
Magic Foot Cream
.
 
"This is not the salve the dwarf women gave me."
 

*
     
*
     
*

    
"So I pulled a switcheroo," Elora grumps at Croesus.
 
"I didn't do it for Cinderella's sake.
 
I cleared the path for Beauty to get a move on.
 
The girl is ready to burst.
 
And you know the shrubbery at the base of Glass Mountain is lousy with baby-snatching elves."

*
     
*
     
*

Chapter Fourteen

Rune

   
It has taken Beauty four hours to walk the two miles between Charmed Kingdom and the south face of Glass Mountain.
 
The baby's head has slipped into the birth canal, and her pelvic bones ache.
 
She pauses to remember the day she began her quest, six months ago on a golden, hazy afternoon, the air scented with daffodils and spring green grass, dressed in her yellow gown and navy riding cloak, her face aglow with unconditional love for the Beast.

    
Now the road is dusty from late summer heat.
 
The grass is brown-tipped brittle and the only plants in bloom are ragged stalks of goldenrod.
 
Beauty's once bright caftan is faded and frayed, her face puffy from pregnancy and blotchy from exertion. Her dusty chestnut braid swings like a pendulum as she waddles toward the mountain's base.

    
Under a sheltering shrub, she sinks to the ground, opens her satchel and removes her mirror.
 

     
"Magic mirror,

       I'm tired and worn.

       
Please, before this babe