Belle: A Retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” By Cameron Dokey (4 page)

world better when I catch a glimpse of it through Papa’s eyes. Even when he shows me a bigger piece of it than what I’m used to, it’s still a world I recognize.

And so it was to Papa that I had always gone with any new discovery, any

important question, any joy or hurt or sorrow. Most of these confidences had taken place where my father did his own problem-solving: his workshop. Papa had built it with his own two hands, right in our backyard. The lighted lantern was the signal that he was there.

I pulled my robe a little tighter to my chest, for the autumn night was clear and I knew it would be cold. I eased open the kitchen door as quietly as I could, and slipped outside. A path made of broken seashells stretched before me, gleaming pale in the moonlight. Papa had created this, too, so that it would be easy to see the way to and from the house. I loved the faint crunching the shells made underfoot, which also helped to warn Papa of anyone’s approach. He used sharp tools inside the workshop. Surprise was not always welcome.

Reaching the door, I used a secret knock I’d developed when I was three, thinking it was the height of cleverness: two knocks, a pause, and then two more. My father’s voice sounded even before I had finished knocking.

“Yes. Come in,” he called.

I lifted the latch and pushed open the door, blinking a little at the sudden change of light. Papa kept the workshop very bright.

“Hello, Papa,” I said.

“Well,” my father said, as if clearing his head of whatever thoughts had been

there before I arrived and making room for whatever I might have brought with me.

“Hello, Belle. Come all that way in and shut the door, will you? You’ll let in the moths, otherwise.”

I did as I was asked, leaving a small cloud of moths jockeying for position outside the window, trying to reach the lights inside. I always feel sorry for them. They seem so frantic. Not only that, they always come in last, just like I do. Most people prefer butterflies.

“You’re up late,” my father commented. He set down the project on which he had

been working, and I recognized it as a jewelry box. Monsieur LeGrand had given Maman a fine string of pearls just that afternoon. No doubt Papa was making her a special place to store them.

“I was just about to take a break and make some hot chocolate,” he said. “Might I interest you in some?”

“Can I have cinnamon in mine?’ I asked at once. This was the way I liked it best.

It was Papa’s favorite too.

“I think that can be arranged,” he answered with a smile. I took the spot he’d

vacated as he went to the small potbellied stove in the corner of the room, stirred up the coals, and put a pan of milk on to warm.

I watched Papa work, cutting slices of chocolate so think they curled like wood

shavings, before plopping them into the streaming pot with each deft flick of the knife.

Papa makes hot chocolate the same way he makes everything else, with smooth,

deliberate, and precise movement. I love these qualities about him. He’s self-assured, like he’s thought things through and knows where he’s going. It makes me feel that it’s safe to follow him, even into unknown territory.

When the hot chocolate was prepared to his satisfaction, Papa poured two mugs

full, slid a stick of cinnamon into each, then brought me mine. Papa sat down beside me and we sipped in thoughtful silence for several moments. I also love this about my father.

He doesn’t badger me to get going right away. He always lets me take my time.

I was halfway through my mug and Papa had almost finished his before the time

was right.

“Papa, may I ask you something?”

“You may ask me anything you like,
ma Belle
,” my father replied. He set his mug down, as if to indicate he was ready for whatever I might ask him. As for myself, I took one more fortifying sip.

“Am I Beautiful?” I blurted out.

It wasn’t precisely the question I’d intended to start with, but sometimes, even

when you tell yourself you want to ease into things, the question you want to ask the most just pops right out of your mouth.

My father’s eyebrows leaped toward his hairline. This was the only sign that my

question had taken him by surprise.

“Of course you are beautiful, Belle,” he said.

But I could tell that he hadn’t really understood what I meant. The way my father said the word, it was just another adjective and nothing more. I stirred my chocolate with my cinnamon stick, trying to figure out how to ask in a way that would tell him what I needed to know.

“But am I
Beautiful
?” I said again, trying to give the word the extra emphasis I thought I deserved. “As Beautiful as Celeste and April?”

My father picked up his mug, a frown between his brows.

“What makes you ask that?”

“Papa,” I said, drawing out the second syllable, and trying not to let the fear that he was putting me off to get the better of me. “Why does anyone ask a question? Because I want to know the answer.”

“Now, Belle,” my father began.

“I know,” I interrupted. “Pretend we’re bolts of silk you’re thinking about buying.

We’re all lined up together, but you can choose only one. Which one of us would you want the most?”

“But surely that question is impossible to answer,” my father replied. “For it

would depend on why I wanted it. Everything is beautiful in its own way,
ma Belle
, even if you have to look hard to find it.”

I felt a hard knot form in the pit of my stomach. “I’m not sure that can be right, Papa. How can it be real Beauty if you have to look hard to see it? Isn’t Beauty supposed to be easy to recognize?”

My father narrowed his eyes. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever

thought of it in quite that way before,” he said, drawing the words out slowly. “I think I’d like a few more minutes to think it over, if that’s all right.”

This is the downside to the fact that my father never rushes others. You can’t rush him, either.

“That’s fine, Papa,” I said grudgingly.

Giving my father more time was one thing. Sitting still while he pondered my fate was quite another. So, whole my father cogitated, I got up from the bench and prowled around the workshop. I knew its nooks and crannies well, and not simply because I often came to talk with my father. I have what Papa calls
quick hands
, the hands of a true wood-carver. If I hold a piece of wood long enough, I can hear the story it has to tell.

Actually, that’s not quite the right way to put it. What really happens is that I
feel
the story the wood is telling. It’s as if I become part of the tree the wood once belonged to. It begins with a tingling in my hands, then it flows up my arms and throughout my body. When the story reaches my heart, I can see the image that the wood has cherished deep inside itself. After that, it is simply a matter of gently carving away the extra wood.

We discovered my talent quite by accident when I was about six. Playing outside

one day, I picked up a small branch that had come down in a windstorm. Instead of discarding it, I insisted on taking it straight to Papa’s workshop. It took a while for him to understand that I was both sincere and determined when I claimed there was a bird inside and I wished to carve it out of the branch. Maman, I think, was genuinely alarmed.

But eventually Papa took me at my word, sitting beside me on the workbench,

adding the strength and skill of his hands when my own weren’t quite enough. By the end of the day, a small carved bird perched at one end of the branch. All that was needed was a dash of red paint, my father said, to complete the image of a cardinal. I’ve been a woodcarver ever since.

Now I selected a piece at random – alder, I think – and fetched my carving tools

from the workbench Papa had made for me. Then I dragged a packing crate over so that it faced the bench on which my father sat. The piece of alder wasn’t large, only a little longer than the palm of my hand, and newly cut, for all its edges felt hard and clean to the touch. I held it in my hands on my lap for moment, feeling the tingling first in my hands and then my wrists before it shot straight up in my arms.

All right, then
, I thought.
I see you well enough
. I opened the leather satchel, drew out the knife I wanted, and began to carve.

CHAPTER FIVE

After what felt like a great deal of time had gone by, my father finally spoke. “I am not sure what to make of what you’ve asked me, Belle.”

I concentrated on my carving, not letting my eyes stray to Papa’s face.

“I never thought to compare you and your sisters, one to the other,” my father

went on. “Even when you stand all together, I see you one by one.”

I pulled in a breath to protest that this could not be the case, then expelled it slowly. For I could tell my father was speaking the truth. Goods he compares on a daily basis because he must. But I realized I had never heard him compare one person to another. If anything, he compares you to yourself. Where you are now compared to

where he thinks you might be able to go. This is the ability that enabled him to give Dominic Boudreaux a second chance. As if Papa could literally see there was more to Dom than met most eyes.

“And as for beauty being something you must see at first glance, I don’t think that can be right either,” my father went on.

I gouged into the wood and flicked a piece away. “I think you’re wrong, Papa.”

“I don’t see why,” my father said, not arguing, but in a tone that told me he didn’t think I was making any sense at all. “Don’t they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”

The knife jerked, skittering down the side of the adder to bite deep into the pad of my left hand. I didn’t even feel the pain. Instead, I watched the blood well up, then run down onto my white nightgown.

In a quiet voice I asked, “But what id people can’t see you at all? What if you’re as good as invisible, Papa?”

“For heaven’s sake, Belle!” my father exclaimed. He got up quickly, crossed to

where I sat, and knelt in front of me. Papa carefully eased the wood and knife from my fingers and set them on the floor beside him. He pulled a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his smock and placed it against my cut, curling my right hand over my left to apply pressure to make the bleeding stop.

“I think it’s high time you told me what the matter really is,” my father said, “In all these years, I’ve never known you to cut yourself.”

“He didn’t see me,” I choked, and felt the words burn all the way up my throat.

“He didn’t see me, but I was standing right in front of him.

My father sat back on his heels. “Who didn’t see you?” he demanded. “What are

you talking about?”

“This afternoon,” I said, answering the questions in reverse order. “Monsieur

LeGrand.”

My blood was seeping through the handkerchief now, in spite of my best efforts.

The cut was deep, perhaps deep enough to leave a scar.

“This afternoon,” my father said. “In the parlor, do you mean?”

I nodded. “I didn’t mean to be late.” My words came out in a great rush. “But my

feet hurt and Celeste was going so fast and she wouldn’t stop. So when I finally came in, I went too far. I ended up between Celeste and April, right in front of Monsieur LeGrand.

“But he didn’t see me, Papa. He
couldn’t
see me, and I think…” I paused, pulled in a shaky breath. “I think that I know why.”

“And what is it that you think you know?” my father asked.

I began to cry then, hot, fat tears that slipped down my cheeks and fell onto the handkerchief, turning my red blood the pink of my mother’s favorite rose.

“I think it’s because my name is wrong. It doesn’t match my face. I shouldn’t be

called Belle, because I’m not Beautiful. Not really. Not like Celeste and April are. That’s why Monsieur LeGrand couldn’t see me. He looked for a face to go with theirs, a

Beautiful face. Only I don’t have one. You can ask Maman if you don’t believe me. She knows it’s true. I saw it in her eyes.”

My father looked as though I’d taken a piece of wood I’d been carving and

knocked him over the head with it.

“Why, Belle,” he murmured. “Belle.”

“But that’s just the problem, don’t you understand?” I cried out. “I’m not

Beautiful
. My name is nothing but a lie. I don’t want to be
Belle
anymore, Papa.”

“Then who do you want to be?” my father asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” I sobbed. For this was the crust of the problem. “I don’t know.”

At this, my father stood and plucked me from the packing crate. Then he sat down

upon it himself, settling me into his lap the way he’d done when I was very small. I tucked my head into the notch of his neck and cried as though I might never stop. My father remained silent throughout.

His arms around me were gentle, and even through my shaking, I could feel the

beat of his heart against mine, firm and sure and strong. At last, my tears subsided and I let my head rest against his shoulder, pulling in long, deep breaths. Still, my father held his tongue.

“Couldn’t I be Annabelle?” I asked. “I think, maybe…” My voice wobbled and I

took a breath to steady it. “Maybe if people weren’t expecting to see a Beauty in the first place, it might be easier when it turns out I’m not.”

My father was silent for several moments more, just long enough that I had to

resist squirming within the circle of his arms.

“Annabelle is a fine name,” he said at last. “It was my mother’s name and I chose it for you myself. But I’m not so sure that changing what you’re called will accomplish what you want it to, my little one.

“We all are more than what others call us, whether we like our names or not. We

are also who we choose to be and what we decide to make of ourselves. Changing your name won’t change that, nor will it change who you are inside.”