“This is an enchanted ring,” he says. “You have only to place it on your finger, and it will carry you wherever you wish to go.”
This is the first I’ve heard that the ring is enchanted. Is there some connection between Beast and Jean-Loup’s poor, sorrowing mother that gives her ring a special power?
Rose’s eyes widen. “Will it take me home?” she asks eagerly. “Now?”
“You have but to ask.”
“Oh, thank you, Sir Beast!” Rose cries, drawing the ribbon over her head; the long ribbon seems to shrink a little, to accommodate her, as it once expanded for Beast.
“And please accept this present for your family,” Beast continues, and with a wave of his paw, a small ivory box appears on the floor beside me where Rose has set me down. At a nod from Beast, the lid lifts partway up on its hinges; coins of gold and silver and some jeweled trinkets sparkle in my light before the lid closes itself again, and the box sails up into Rose’s hands.
“Buy your father whatever he requires,” murmurs Beast. “With my compliments.”
Rose can scarcely utter her thanks. At Beast’s direction, she tucks the box under her arm and swirls her cloak around herself.
Beast gazes at her a moment longer, mixed emotion in his dark eyes. “Rose,” he says gently, “thank you for your company. Your father has every reason to be proud of you. I wish you and your family well.”
“But, Sir Beast, I will come back to you!” Rose insists. “You kindly gave my father two weeks to settle his affairs; I will ask for no more. I shall return in a fortnight, I promise!”
With the long ribbon still around her neck, she slips the ring over her finger. And Rose and her cloak and the chest vanish into the very air.
The silence in the hallway is profound as soon as Rose is gone. Beast sweeps me up from the carpet where Rose left me, carries me to the staircase, and places me on the wide, flat railing around the second-floor landing. I see sadness in his eyes, but his expression is resolute as he rests his paws on the railing beside me.
I’m sorry, Beast. I know how difficult that was for you.
“It had to be done. We both know it.” Beast sighs. “I’m glad you were wise enough to find a way to do it.” He shakes out his tawny mane. “The consequences of letting her stay would be unthinkable.”
Especially for Rose, I agree.
He gazes at me. “For all of us.” He frowns slightly. “You don’t think she will actually come back, do you?”
Rose is . . . unpredictable. Only moments ago, in her room, she seemed to be making plans. Did you know that ring was magical?
“It has great power; I’ve felt it ever since the day we found it in that book. It gave me such a sense of comfort, of courage.”
He has worn it every day since. Did you know it would take Rose home, or did you only . . . wish for it?
He shakes his head, considering. “Neither. I just suddenly felt so strongly that it was the right thing to do.”
And it was very smart of you to send her off with that box of riches for her family, I tell him. Very generous, too.
Beast shrugs this off. “Those things mean nothing to me. It was far more important to remove the danger of having her here. Did you know her father was ill?”
No. I only hoped she might begin to miss her family. I never thought we would find her father in such a state.
“How did you do it?”
She has seen visions in the glass before with no help from me. We know how lively the forces of magic can be here, and she had a decision to make. I only tried to . . . help.
Beast smiles. “Because your feelings are so strong! Because . . . you opened your heart to that girl,” he adds softly.
I am touched that Beast remembers the words of my father. I was not thinking only of Rose, I confess.
Something warms in Beast’s gaze. He straightens a little before me.
“The forces of magic here pay attention to you,” he whispers. “In a way they don’t always to me. Not when it really matters.”
But what about your beautiful roses?
“Trifles! Ornaments,” says Beast with a wave of one paw. “You seek justice, Lucie, and look what’s happened. Jean-Loup is defeated. We’ve seen that girl safely home.” He presses himself away from the railing. “But — there is still justice to be done, I think,” he murmurs. “If only a way can be found.”
And with a last, wistful glance at me, he turns and disappears down the stairs.
From my perch, I can only look down the narrow stairs, but there’s nothing to see. Beast does not come back to me. Night follows day follows night, and I stand here alone, illuminating nothing.
It’s the loneliest I have ever been here. I was shut up in the attic cupboard longer than this, but then I had my revenge for company. Beast may go up and down the turret stairs to prowl the lower floors. Or it may be that he’s forsaken the house altogether for the park and grounds. Perhaps he is tending his roses, remembering again the joy they brought him before that other Rose came. I try to call him, but he no longer responds. Why doesn’t he come?
I begin to be alarmed that I can’t reach Beast. Surely Rose has not come back? And no sooner does this thought occur to me than an image begins to form in the looking glass on the wall opposite the stairway. Two women. Rose’s sisters, Blanche and Violette; I recognize the dissatisfied whine in their voices even before their images take shape.
“Our little sister parades about like a queen in her silken finery,” says the younger, Violette, with a pout. She sits primping at a dressing table, an array of jewels sparkling before her. Jewels that must have come from Beast’s box. “I shall be glad when she goes home to her monster.”
“Only an addlepated goose would say such a thing,” observes Blanche. She stands behind her sister, adjusting a headdress top-heavy with ruffs and pointed peaks in the glass.
Violette turns to stare up at her, her fisted little face full of reproach. “Surely you don’t want her to stay?”
“Only think,” says her elder sister. “If she keeps her bargain and goes back to her chateau, these are the last of the monster’s riches we shall ever see.” She sweeps a hand toward the baubles spread across the dressing table, and Violette casts them a wistful, covetous glance.
“But . . . what can we do about it?” Violette whimpers.
Blanche throws her veil behind her back, places her hands on Violette’s shoulders, and bends forward to address her in the glass. “Rose told us she promised to return to her monster in a fortnight. She insists he will die without her. If we keep her here past that time, perhaps he will die. And his lovely chateau will stand empty.”
Violette nods slowly, although her face remains scrunched up in bafflement.
“We have seen only one box of his riches,” Blanche goes on. “Think what wealth and jewels and finery he will leave behind unprotected in his chateau? No one ever goes there. We’ll be the only ones who know. All his treasure could be ours!”
“But what if he isn’t dead?” worries Violette. “What shall we do? How will we know?”
“We shall take our brothers with us,” says Blanche. She has obviously thought the whole thing out. “And they shall bring their swords! If we find the monster still alive, they shall cut off its head and bring it home for a trophy! No one could begrudge them slaying the monster who imprisoned their sister. And only think”— and here, her expression goes sly, still regarding her sister in the glass —“think of Rose’s face when we bring home the head of her monster, and the chateau is no longer hers to command. That will put an end to her fancy airs!”
A vague eagerness dawns in Violette’s empty blue eyes, but it turns just as quickly to alarm.
“But . . . Rose says the place is bewitched,” she whispers.
“Oh, pooh! Rose’s head is full of fairy stories!” scoffs Blanche. “The chevalier is too ugly to be seen; he lives in seclusion with all his finery, and Rose conjures up a monster in a magical chateau out of dreams and fancy! I promise you, whatever fairies haunt the place, his treasure is real enough. The fairies don’t need it. It shall be ours, if we but play our hand wisely.”