I nod, wearied and saddened by the tale. “His mother, Lady Christine,” I say at last. “Could she never . . . wish him back?”
Mère Sophie shakes her head. “Jean-Loup became very strong. That much willfulness, unchallenged — it’s very hard to overpower it.”
“But . . . you did it once,” I remind her softly. “You brought Beast back.”
She lifts her cup to her lips and takes a long, thoughtful sip. “I did not say it was impossible.”
How had she succeeded in turning Jean-Loup back into Beast? I remember the scene as I watched it from my hiding place behind the doorway: Jean-Loup’s romantic guile as he closed on his prey, the beautiful stranger who was Mère Sophie transformed seeming to slip helplessly under his spell. I remember my heart filling up with rage. And I draw a deep, shivery breath.
“You had me,” I whisper. “I hated him so much.”
Mère Sophie lifts an eyebrow and offers me a wan smile. “Yes,” she agrees, “your hate, your thirst for revenge, were very useful to me in the moment. But it would have crippled you, Lucie, all that hatred, had you not made room in your heart for something more.”
“But why did you give Jean-Loup the chance to return? Why not put an end to him once and for all when you had the chance?”
Mère Sophie frowns into her cup. “I found that he had become too strong for me to banish him completely; I could only narrow down the means by which Jean-Loup might yet escape to a single task I thought would be impossible.” Mère Sophie shakes her head. “I did not think he would ever see another woman, let alone one who would consent to be Beast’s wife.”
But the wisewoman reckoned without Rose, her taste for romance, her innocence. Her devotion to her father.
Her ambition.
“A maid of good virtue, heaven-sent to break the spell,” l mutter. “But Beast was going to die! Who else could I have called to save him?”
“We can never know all the consequences of our actions,” says Mere Sophie with a rueful sigh. “But by summoning Rose, by that single selfless act, you regained your own human heart. And that is no small thing.”
And my human limbs as well, but by then, it was far too late. I remember how often I resented Rose, that she could walk and laugh and smile, all those things I could no longer do. And I recall how desperately Beast tried to find a way to free me by magic. “Beast thought his death might set me free.”
“Only you could do that,” says Mère Sophie gently.
Open your heart.
“If only I’d known,” I fret. “If only I’d regained my human body sooner, I could have saved Beast! But now Beast is gone. Because of me. Because I couldn’t reach him in time.”
But the wisewoman shakes her head. “Beast would have ended his life right there in his garden had you not sent Rose to stop him. She may have unleashed Jean-Loup, but she did save Beast’s life.”
My breath catches in my throat. “Beast is still alive?”
She nods again at me. “The fungus needs its host to survive. Some spark, some essence of Beast lives on. Because you sent Rose to save him.”
My thoughts are reeling: joy that some part of Beast may yet survive warring with grief that he is trapped inside the illusion of Jean-Loup once more.
“What is it like for him . . . where he is?” I ask Mère Sophie. “Does Beast know what’s happened to him?” I can’t bear to think that he might suffer.
It’s a long moment before she speaks again. “He feels — and knows — nothing,” she murmurs at last. “He sees nothing, nor senses anything. He is scarcely more than a dream of the creature he once was, buried inside the shell that is now Jean-Loup. There is not room in the vessel of the body they share for more than one at a time.”
I frown at this. “But when Beast was restored, Jean-Loup raged inside him for days.” I remember the savagery with which we smashed all the mirrors.
“He’d had possession for twenty years, and Beast had been dormant just as long,” says Mère Sophie. “Jean-Loup clung to life within Beast out of sheer willfulness for a short while. But without the constant reassurance of his own good looks, his physical superiority over other men, he lost his will. His beauty — the illusion of beauty — was everything to Jean-Loup. His new monstrous shape destroyed his sense of himself, and Beast was able to emerge.”
I remember Beast’s wonder, exploring the chateau as if discovering it all anew, inspecting everything, every room — the family portraits, his mother’s library. Did some deeply buried part of himself remember living there once as a child? Is that why he restored the ruined garden with such loving care? The roses he used to bring to the library — did he do so in memory of his mother without even knowing why? It’s no wonder he was so drawn to his mother’s ring. And I recall Beast’s horror the more evidence he found of the shameful way Jean-Loup had lived his life.
“But why was Jean-Loup able to come back so fast when Rose found him?” I ask.
“Because in that instant, Beast was letting go of his life,” Mère Sophie tells me gently. “He was ready to die.”
“For my sake,” I add miserably. “But if some spark of him still exists, somewhere, could it not be possible for Beast to come back again?”
Mère Sophie smiles sadly at me. “Jean-Loup must be driven completely out — as we once almost did, Lucie — if Beast can ever reclaim the vessel of his body, again, and himself,” she says. “If we had done it with love instead of hate, maybe we could have banished Jean-Loup forever.”
I grasp at this idea, that love might set Beast free. “What if Rose has a change of heart?” I ask her eagerly. “Say her feelings for him, for the memory of Beast, deepened over time. Might she not . . . bring him back?”
“It is possible, I suppose,” says Mère Sophie. “If her love was strong enough.”
Her tone suggests how little hope she holds out for such a prospect.
“And not likely, now that Rose is so smitten with her chevalier,” I agree sadly. How long before Rose forgets that Beast ever existed? “She ought to have had the sense to fall in love with Beast,” I mutter. “She does not deserve a life of misery wedded to Jean-Loup.” Another thought occurs to me. “Should I not try to warn her somehow?”
Mère Sophie draws a slow, thoughtful breath. “We cannot know what their married life will be like,” she says. “Rose is likely to suffer his infidelities. But sadly, that is not uncommon among wives of the nobility.”
And Rose has her family nearby — three stout brothers, as I recall — as I did not. Nor will her reputation be ruined, as I feared for Lady Honoree, when Rose is his lawful wife. And why would she take the advice of a disgraced servant, in any case?
Mère Sophie gazes at me for another moment. “You have earned a great deal of wisdom,” she goes on gently. “So many learn nothing for all their troubles. It would make me very happy if you would stay here with me as my apprentice.”
I glance up into her face, astonished. I haven’t had a moment to think what my life will be like now that I am human again or where I will go. How enticing it would be to enter into sisterhood with Mère Sophie, to dine here at her table, to make a place for myself before her comforting fire. To share her work and her wisdom and her knowledge. To feel myself at peace at last with nature. A part of me already loves this wood better than the world, for all its dangers and enchantments.
Something burns near my heart. I realize it is Lady Beaumont’s ring still tucked into my bodice. I finger the red ribbon to shift it, but Mère Sophie stretches out one gnarled finger and gently tugs at the ribbon. The golden ring with its tiny red jewel emerges from my bodice, and her gaze softens as she lets it dangle into her palm.
“His mother’s ring —” I begin.