“What must we do?” says Violette.
“We must beg Rose to stay with us.”
“Oh, but I can’t!” cries Violette.
“We must show her we are too heartbroken to let her go again,” Blanche insists.
“She will never believe it,” says Violette.
“We shall be very convincing.” From the folds of her full skirt, Blanche produces something small and round and yellow, and places it on the dressing table.
Violette frowns. “What is that?”
“It’s an onion, you goose!”
“What am I to do with it?” whines Violette.
Blanche produces a small paring knife and slices the onion open, right on the dressing table. Milky juice forms on each cut surface, and Violette shrinks back, wrinkling her nose.
“It smells vile!”
“Breathe in,” Blanche instructs her. She grasps her sister by the scruff of the neck and holds a juicy onion half up to her nose. Violette’s mouth puckers. She scrunches up her eyes, but they are already turning red with tears. Blanche releases her sister, holds the onion under her own nose, and inhales deeply. The noses of both women are running, and their eyes are gushing tears in no time.
“It’s horrible! I can’t see!” sobs Violette.
“Just follow me,” Blanche says, sniffling and pulling her sister to her feet. “We’ll find her straightaway. Just look at the state we’re in! Rose will never have the heart to leave us!”
Their images dissolve, and I am alone again, perched on the railing. I’m glad to think that Rose is less likely than ever to come back, but I ought to warn Beast about her scheming sisters.
Where is he?
At last, a tread upon the stair. Beast’s shaggy head moves cautiously into view at the bend of the stairwell on the first-floor landing below me. He peers up hopefully but comes no farther when he sees me here. His expression seems to fall a little.
Beast! Where have you been?
“I’ve been trying to free you.” He sighs heavily. “Spells. Prayers. Incantations. Obviously, I’m not very good at it.” He shakes his head sadly. “I swear to you, Lucie, had I the power to restore even a fraction of all that’s been taken from you, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But my efforts come to nothing; here you are still.”
Where else should I be?
“In your human skin!” Beast exclaims. “At home with your mother. With your friends.”
I haven’t any friends! I haven’t anywhere else to go.
Beast looks stricken, his eyes teeming with feeling. “But you will, Lucie, I know you will, and a life of your own, as soon as you are free of this place.”
The finality of his words, his demeanor, chills me. What do you mean? What are you trying to do?
Beast lifts his muzzle, an aching determination in his eyes. “I could not simply disappear without a word of farewell. That would be cruelty worthy of Jean-Loup, and cowardly besides. And you deserve so much more! I want you to know how much you’ve meant to me. Sharing your thoughts and dreams with me. Showing me your . . . friendship . . . all this time.” And he shakes his shaggy head, with a small smile. “I hope you will think well of me.” He starts to turn away.
Beast! You must stop this talk! Please, don’t leave me!
That stops him. He turns back, stung. “I would never do anything to hurt you, Lucie! But it’s clear to me that you can never be free as long as Jean-Loup . . . exists. Somewhere.”
Jean-Loup? What has he to do with anything?
“You were enchanted in the moment he was enchanted. Your sole purpose now is to prevent his release. So long as Jean-Loup exists, so you must exist, too, in your current form. But there will be no further need of your enchantment when Jean-Loup is gone. Your purpose will be fulfilled.” Beast shakes his head. “It’s the only thing I have not yet tried.”
Suddenly, with an awful shock, I realize what he means to do. The guilt in his eyes, just before he glances away, confirms it. He’ll destroy Jean-Loup by destroying himself!
Beast, no!
“It’s the only way! Jean-Loup festers inside me like a wasting disease. Who knows by what future spell or witchery he might be transformed out of this body, as I was transformed out of his? I could never bear to be the agent of his return. I’m the only one who can stop him. It’s the only way to free you.”
No! Not like this! We will find some other way —
“There is no other way!” Beast is shaking his head, holding up a paw as if to stop my protest; I see how it trembles. “Please, let me do this one last thing for you, to give you back one thing that Jean-Loup stole from you. Your freedom is all that matters.”
But what will I do without you?
“You are strong, Lucie. You survived Jean-Loup. And you will survive this.”
Beast! Wait!
But he turns and clops again down the stairs, despite my pleading.
I am frantic! All this time, I’ve been so intent on thwarting Jean-Loup, but it’s Beast who has suffered so much humiliation, Beast who pays the penalty, Beast who will die! Suppose Rose’s sisters and brothers find their way back here, like a plague of invading rats, and find Beast dead. I imagine Beast’s mighty head, dripping blood, on the point of a sword, carried away in triumph to decorate the battlements of some gaudy palace that Rose’s family buys with Beast’s treasure.
How can I lose Beast after all we have been through together? He is the only one who knows me for who I am, my only friend. How can I let such a noble soul die for my sake?
His hoofbeats have stopped echoing down the stairwell and across the marble floor below. The silence is overwhelming. I can’t tell where he went, nor how he means to do it. Cursing my useless immobility, I try to call out to him, over and over again, but he no longer responds. I am fearfully alone. Desperate to control the chaos inside me, I shut out every other thought but one: Where is Beast?
It seems to take an eternity, but at last, another hazy image begins to assemble itself in the mirror opposite the stairwell. First I see Beast’s shaggy mane and horned head and a swirl of burgundy and gold as he draws his cloak around himself in a bed of mossy green. He must be out in his rose garden; fading red petals dapple the moss. He settles farther back, closes his eyes, and sighs deeply under his beloved roses.
More of the image resolves. He is stretched out at full length, breathing in the fragrance of his roses that he has always found so soothing. The perfume of roses gives him courage, he told me once. Slowly, he slips one paw out from within his cloak, and something catches the sunlight: a small bottle full of dark purple liquid.
Madame Montant’s drops! We found this bottle the day we toured the old servants’ quarters so long ago! The housekeeper took drops to help her sleep, but what if someone drank the whole bottle at once? Would their sleep be permanent?
Beast! No!
He does not respond, but he has not yet unstoppered the bottle, either. He still grasps it in his paw as he draws another deep breath.
“Farewell, Lucie,” he whispers.
Beast! Don’t do this!
But my pleading is useless; my thoughts have no effect, and there’s so little time! It may be too late already; he may raise the bottle to his lips in the next heartbeat! I cannot lose Beast! I can’t let him die for my sake!
I have no power to stop him. But someone else might.
Rose, I command from within the depths of my own desperation. Beast is dying, and only you can save him. Come back, Rose. You are my only hope!
Can she still hear me?
Hurry, Rose! Beast needs you! Don’t let him do this! Please, Rose! Save him!