Mrs. Beast (24 page)

    
"Cocteau claimed it took opium to produce his
La Belle et la bete
; said it was like walking through silk."
 
Elora snaps off her crystal ball and fastens Croesus' lead to his collar.

    
"Yeah, right, like he didn't wake in the middle of the night with screaming meemies.
 
Come on, once around the palace, then off to bed.
 
My day was exhausting.
 
I turned a smug tailor's wife into a goose, married a spider to a flea, changed Lazy Harry's hammock from hemp to poison ivy."

    
Elora and Croesus gracefully glide into the June evening, past the white lilacs, past the beds of trillium and lily-of-the-valley until Croesus pauses to lift his leg on a pink crystal flamingo.

    
"I am not pleased, Croesus, not at all pleased with the progression of Rosamond's tale.
 
My girl Rosa could use a stint at Betty Ford. Too bad the only therapy in Grimm Land is the Grimm psychologist. He says Rosamond's story teaches girls not to be afraid of passivity."
 
Elora sucks her teeth in disgust.

    
"Because despite her parents attempts to prevent sexual awakening, symbolized by the shedding of blood after pricking her finger, it happened.
 
This is further reinforced, he claims, by thirteen wise women, representing the thirteen lunar months, which correspond to the menstrual cycle.
 
Bullshit and Bricklebrit!
 
Croesus spits out three gold coins and bays at the moon.

    
"According to that psycho-shrink, rather than face puberty, Rosamond chose a comatose snooze."
 
Elora snaps the leash, and Croesus follows her long-legged strides through the clematis arbor.

    
"He says Rosamond serves to warn girls that failure to accept womanhood makes for a living death.
 
Only through acceptance of the male, who awakens her from sleep, will she mature and take her proper place in society as wife and mother. Yeah, like Rosamond's responsible for her father throwing a bash and inviting only twelve wise women because he wouldn't pop for a lousy thirteenth plate.
 
As if she's responsible for the
supposed
gifts they bestowed on her. Let's make her beautiful, sweet, and charming, then screw her up with modesty.
 
Let's give her faith and hope so she'll unquestionably expect goodness and make her clever enough to know it won't fall in her lap.
 
We'll give her riches, but make her prudent and charitable.
 
And let's give her fortitude on top of meekness.
 
Give me a break!
 
If she hadn't fallen asleep, she would have had more personalities than Sybil."

    
Croesus growls at an owl perched overhead in a red bud tree.

    
"Pissed me off.
 
Pulling a stunt like that and not checking with me first.
 
The wise women aren't hackers like Gothel.
 
I couldn't reverse their spells, but I could and did mess with them."

    
Arriving back at the palace front entrance, Croesus looks up at Elora expectantly.
 
Her fine black eyebrows are raised in a ruminative arch.

    
"I figured a hundred years would be enough, that by then the gifts would be neutralized through the passage of time.
 
And they were.
 
None but Prince Fitzgerald and his politically correct, covertly ambitious, casually superior family could have made Rosamond feel inadequate for becoming, during her century-long sleep, nearly as ordinary as your average Grimm girl."

*
     
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Beauty's Diary

6 June        Page Forty

    
Five days have passed since I entered the Kingdom of Dreams to find yet another obstacle thrown on the path of my quest.
 
Are the fates working against me? Is this a test of my dedication and devotion? I pray I can endure two more weeks in this dank cell.

    
Princess Rosamond is the most eccentric person I have met.
 
I wonder to what degree her madness is shaped by opium and isolation.
 
She may well have slept for a hundred years, but I've slept little during the day, and rarely at night.
 
After I fell asleep on the night of our first meeting, I woke to Rosamond screaming, Get it off, as she ran from the grotto.
 
For the rest of the evening, I heard her either laughing hysterically or shrieking in the castle above me.

    
Last night, all was quiet, and sleep overtook me. Brightness and heat quickly roused me, for Rosamond had entered the grotto with a torch, knelt beside me, and set the
 

Page Forty-one

mattress afire.
 
I don't believe she did so purposely; she rushed to the pool and quickly doused the fire.
 
She said she'd come to ask an important question, but now it was forgotten.
 
Rosamond is lost to the real world, careless, beyond reason and suffering in the world of her own making.

*
     
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Chapter Ten

Briar Rose

    
Beauty closes her diary as Rosamond enters the grotto with sheepish steps, dressed in her faded overalls. "I have forgotten how it is to live among people.
 
Words move in shadows and disturb the even pulse,"
 
she murmurs staring at the candle's flame.
 
"If you stare at an object long enough it will give up its story."

    
Beauty watches Rosamond stare at the candle and sees the face of the child emerge, a child she believes lay her cheek on a soft pillow at twilight, never questioning the permanence of her contentment.
 
Beauty closes the diary and moves the candle out of Rosamond's reach.
 
"Since we last spoke, I've been wondering about the thirteen wise women . . ."

    
"Should I?" Rosamond interrupts, "venture down the mint-hemmed paths of childhood with nary a thorn in sight?"
 
She sinks into the seat opposite Beauty.

    
"Father commanded every spindle in the kingdom should be burnt, to keep the prophecy from coming true.
 
I grew up endowed with the qualities bestowed by the wise women.
 
No one who met me could help loving me."

    
"How terrible for you," Beauty says.

    
Rosamond grins ruefully. "In my fifteenth year, my parents first left me on my own in the castle.
 
I wandered about until I came to a winding tower stair I had never before seen.
 
I climbed up and turned the key to a small door.

    
"What was on the other side of the door?"
 
Beauty asks.

    
"An old woman with a spindle spinning flax.
 
I said
, Good day, mother.
 
What are you doing?
 
I am spinning
, said she.
 
I asked,
What thing is that which twists round so briskly?
 
See for yourself, princess
, said she.
 
I took the spindle into my hand, pricked my finger and fell deep asleep.
 
Sleep fell upon the whole castle: the entire court, the bakers and cooks in the kitchen, the servants upstairs and downstairs, the groomsmen and gamesmen and my parent's in the Great Hall.
 
The wind ceased, not a leaf stirred, and thorns sprung from the ground."

    
"The whole kingdom slept for a hundred years?"
 
Beauty asks.

    
Rosamond turns her head and launches into a coughing spasm.

    
"Are you ill?" Beauty asks fretfully.

    
Rosamond shakes her head.
 
"A thousand thorns in my throat."
 
She takes a small brown ball from her breast pocket and throws it to the back of her mouth.

"The thorns grew thicker and taller every year until the castle was hidden from view.
 
At the end of the hundredth year, Prince Fitzgerald rode into this country. Because the time had come for me to be awakened, the thorns changed to honeysuckle, which parted to let him pass."

    
Rosamond yawns, scratches her left ear, and her eyelids flutter.
 
Beauty urges, "He found you in the tower?"

    
"He climbed the winding stair, opened the door, and he stooped to kiss me.
 
I awoke and we went down together to find the kingdom had awakened from its hundred-year sleep."

    
Rosamond rises from the chair and wanders toward the passageway.
 
"We were married with all splendor and celebration the next day.
 
I am a red stone, I own no other title," her voice drones back to Beauty.
 
"I dream only to harden the dreams of my choosing."

*
     
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Beauty's Diary

18 June      Page Fifty-two

    
Although spiritually I have been alone for most of my life, before now, I've not been without the company of others.
 
I feared I would be lonely in this grotto, but quite to the contrary, I have spent these past days in sweet secluded contemplation.
 
At first, my thoughts lingered in memories of my dear Beast. I confess to using the mirror to relive those moments, which not only made me weep with longing, but also made me long for the future.
 
I would imagine our reunion; the gown and ear bobs I would wear, the scent to dab on my throat.
 
I
would be as beautiful as possible.
 
Then it occurred to me that when I am alone, I am not beautiful.
 
What a revelation!
 
If there is no one present to judge me a beauty, then I am whatever I wish

Page Fifty-three

to be.
 
Without the distraction of another to please or offend, my mind is free to wander in any direction I wish. I have pondered the purpose of existence, wondered if there are people living on stars, and so many other ideas I chose not to write here.
 
No wonder Rosamond finds words tiresome.