Beauty and the Beast Read online

Beauty takes a step backward. “He has a point.”

  With each step she takes away from me, I feel a tiny stab in my heart. What I truly want to say is, “Can’t someone else vanquish the witch and we can get on with the kissing?” But as I look from one to the other, I see that response is not the correct one. And yet … with the original plan I get to be kissed — the one thing I thought for certain would never happen to me, either as the beast or as Riley.

  “Come,” Freddy says, waving us forward. “Everyone is waiting for us in the fireside room.”

  “Can you believe it!” Alexander says as we surface, eyes blinking in the brightness. “All you needed to do to get a date was to turn into a beast!”

  Beauty laughs and squeezes my hand again. I would be annoyed at his comment, but I am too busy smiling. My upper lip hurts from where the nose/beak is digging into it, but I care not a bit. Mother and Father embrace both of us, talking over each other in their pleasure at the turn of events. Godfrey and Freddy hang back, beaming.

  We gather around the couches, where after a lot of shushing and interrupting, I learn about how Beauty and Alexander met outside. When they are done, I ask Alexander, “You have no idea what you did in order for her to see you? Did you feel any different for that moment?”

  “I did nothing,” he insists. “One moment she was looking at me, claiming to see me. The next she gasped like she had seen a ghost, and I became invisible to her once more.”

  Beauty suddenly jumps up from the couch. “My necklace! I was looking through it when first I saw him!” She reaches under her collar and pulls out a pink stone on a leather string. She holds it up to her face and turns toward Alexander’s voice. She laughs with delight. “You have changed since I saw you last!”

  “Just in case it happened again,” Alexander says, “I thought I best change from my nightclothes!”

  She walks slowly toward the hearth, still looking through the stone. “Your Majesty,” she says, and gives a low curtsy.

  Mother gasps. “You can see me? But I must look a fright!”

  “Not at all,” Beauty insists. “You look quite lovely.”

  “She always does,” Father says.

  Beauty turns toward the sound of his voice, blushes, and lowers the stone. “Perhaps I should wait for you to put on a robe.”

  “Honestly, Silas,” Mother scolds. “How many times did I tell you?”

  I watch all this with utter fascination. Somehow, even though I am living proof that magic is real, I never would have believed a stone could reveal what is hidden to the eye.

  “Riley,” Mother says. “Please do not think me uncaring or selfish, but what if you did not try to vanquish the witch, and just ended this now?”

  I glance hopefully at Beauty, who has taken her seat beside me. She looks unsure. Then she shakes her head. “I have seen people go to great lengths to protect the people they love. A dangerous witch is on the loose. How can we sit by and do nothing?”

  “You speak the truth, of course,” I tell her, “but we don’t know the first thing about the witch, or how to bring her down.”

  “We have a book about witches,” Freddy adds, “but it is written in symbols we do not understand.”

  “May I see it?” she asks. Freddy jumps up to fetch it from upstairs. That buzzing I felt in the cellar returns as we wait. It is not a good feeling. My stomach clenches. Beauty must have felt me shiver through my glove. “Are you all right?” she asks.

  I squeeze her hand, careful to be gentle. I don’t want to worry her, so I say, “I’m merely excited.”

  She tilts her head at me suspiciously, but does not press further. When Freddy comes back with the book, Beauty holds her crystal rock up to the pages. And there, over and over again, are the same words: You must find a witch’s weakness to drain her power. That is the only way.

  “That is one powerful necklace,” Mother says in a hushed tone. “Where did you get it?”

  Beauty tells her the story about Veronica and their quest to find the stone.

  “But how did the girl’s mother come to possess it?” she asks.

  Beauty shakes her head. “I do not know. Veronica never knew that part of the story.”

  “Sorry to change the subject,” Alexander says, “but how are we supposed to find the witch’s weakness? She seemed pretty unstoppable.”

  “We will have to observe her,” Father says. “That is what we do if the kingdom is threatened. We watch our enemies, and we learn. There is strength in numbers, and you have all of us.”

  Freddy nods in agreement. “We will have to find where the witch lives, and spy on her.”

  “But how will we find her?” Mother asks. “We have no idea where she lives.”

  “We will not have to find her,” I tell them calmly. “We simply have to wait. The witch said I would be drawn to her.”

  “Is it happening yet?” Alexander says. “There is only a few more days to go.”

  I shake my head.

  “Let us all get some sleep,” Mother says decisively. “This has been a big day!”

  I watch as Beauty’s hair is pushed aside by my mother’s invisible hands and a lipstick mark in the shape of a kiss appears on her cheek. Beauty puts her hand up to it, obviously pleased. I remember how she grew up motherless, and my love for her grows even more.

  I have just blown out the candle by my bedside when I hear a knock on the door. “It is me,” Beauty announces.

  I bang my knee and stub my toe but make it to the door in record time. I open it an inch. “Is everything all right? Do you need anything?”

  She shakes her head. “You felt it. Earlier. You felt something, did you not?”

  I hesitate for only a second before nodding.

  “Why did you hide it?”

  “You heard them. Everyone wants to help me. But it is too dangerous. All I feel is a little buzzing, a sort of tugging. But not enough to guide me anywhere. I do not want them making plans.”

  “But when it is time to go, you shall tell me, right?”

  I do not answer.

  “Riley! I am just as big a part of this as you. You need me there. What if she tries to take you before the time is up? I need to be there to kiss you!”

  She is right, of course. But the thought of putting her within reach of the witch is a terrible one.

  “Plus, I am an experienced quester,” she says proudly.

  I smile. “I do not think that is a word.”

  She laughs. “Perhaps not. But I do know how to survive on my own, and I have a feeling you did not get out much on your own in your previous life.”

  I cannot argue with her logic. “All right. I promise to tell you.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “Good night, then.”

  “Wait.” I open the door a bit more. There’s a question I’ve wanted to ask her all day. “What did you see when you looked at me with your necklace?”

  “I have not turned it upon you,” she replies.

  “Why not?”

  She shrugs. “I already know what is inside you.” She hurries off down the hall and I stand there with what is no doubt a very silly grin on my face.

  “You should really put a cork on the end of that thing you call a nose,” she calls back in a loud whisper. “It would be a lot more comfortable!”

  That night I have the dream again. I am running, panting, through a dense wood. As before, I have a companion by my side. But before in the dream, I never knew where I was running to, or running from. But when I awake, panting, and it is still not yet dawn, I know the answer. I know exactly where I am heading, and exactly who will be waiting on the other end. I shudder and climb out of bed.

  The beast — I mean, Riley — walks into the dining room for breakfast with a wine cork on the end of his nose. I laugh so hard that juice flies from my mouth. I hurry to wipe it up. Now that I have discovered I am dining with the royal family, I am trying to be more ladylike. I did not even grumble this morning about having to wear a dress. I