Mrs. Beast (25 page)

    
The soothing sound of a summer evening shower makes Beauty so drowsy, she lies down on the straw mattress, covers herself with the horsehair blanket, and in a moment is fast asleep. Hours later, her eyes fly open when a clap of thunder echoes through the grotto.
 
With a flash of lightening, Beauty sees Rosamond hovering over her in a tattered, white nightshirt, like a haunted specter, and she squeals with fright.

    
"Rosamond!
 
You nearly scared the life from me," Beauty gasps.

    
"May I lie down,” Rosamond mews pathetically. “I'm so cold.
 
There's an army of tiny monkey-faced men leaping out of keyholes in the castle, and it's raining cats and dogs, so I can't sleep in the field."

    
Moved to pity, Beauty throws back the blanket. Rosamond lies down and curls into a ball.
 
Moments pass is silence, except for the patter of rain. Beauty can't hear Rosamond breathing and uneasiness slithers over her ribs.
 
She's afraid to touch her, so she whispers, "Rosamond?"

    
"Yes?"

    
Beauty is not only relieved, but realizes she must think of something to say rather than,
I thought you were dead
.
 
"What happened after your wedding?"

    
"We set out for Hyberg, Fitzgerald's father's kingdom, riding through wood and valleys, across meadows and over hills.
 
How can you know true love when everybody who sees you loves you?"

    
"How?"

    
"When you truly love in return," Rosamond sighs.
 
"You told me you're on a quest to restore your husband to the man he was when you came to love him.
 
Tell me more."

    
Beauty relates the story of how she learned to love the Beast, why she longed to restore him, and of her adventures thus far.
 
The rain ceases, and Rosamond stretches out her legs. She puts her mouth close to Beauty's ear and asks:
 
"Is all this effort for the cause of true love or to prove you are more than a pretty package?
 
What makes you believe he will love you after you change him back to what he loathed?"

    
Rosamond crawls out from under the blanket and skitters away, leaving Beauty with a hole in her heart as hollow and deep as the grotto.

*
     
*
     
*

    
"Rosa will finish off her harvest tomorrow and Beauty can finally get out of that disgusting cave."
 
Elora the Enchantress sets her crystal ball aside, nudges Croesus off her bed, and zaps open the bedroom windows.
 
"Ah, summer morning breezes and the palace gardenias are in bloom.
 
Puts me in an España frame of mind."
 
She snaps her fingers and Gloria Estefan's voice soars through the palace sound system.
 
She snaps again and hueveos rancheros materialize on her plate and in the hound's bowl.
 
A Carmen Miranda fruit headdress adorns her head.

    
Croesus gobbles down the eggs, then dances the samba around his bowl.
   
"Perro," Elora rolls her R’s, "sau-ve."
 
She plucks a papaya from her headdress and asks, "What makes the froggy lustfully sing and the doggy shake that thing?
 
Offspring.
 
Bricklebrit!
 
Three rhymes in a row, bad luck."
 
She tosses a pinch of salt over her left shoulder, and Croesus pauses his shoulder shimmy to spit three gold coins.

    
"A female fiddler crab sees hundreds of male fiddler crabs each waving his one huge claw like a Muscle Beach body builder. When she scuttles to the one with the biggest claw, does he think,
I'm the most handsome crab on the beach
?
 
Is she thinking,
What a hunk!
 
No.
 
That big ole claw means he's the toughest male on the beach and his genetics will be passed to her crablings."

    
Croesus sits up and waves a paw at Elora's headdress.

    
"A female bower bird watches a male bower bird diligently decorate a love nest with yellow flowers and colored stones.
 
Does she think,
That's the most beautiful place to lay my eggs
?
 
Pfff, her progenitive bird brain is saying,
That boy will flap his wings ragged to bring my babies plenty of bugs.
 
One male will dance and strut, another fight with tooth and tusk, but either way, he's driven to find a reproductively fit female and plant his seed.
 
Unlike the princes of Grimm Land, he doesn't care if she's fat or lean, young or old, finely feathered or dropping hunks of fur, smart or dumb as dirt."
 
Elora snaps her fingers and disposes of the breakfast dishes and fruit headdress.
 
Croesus lays his chin in her lap.

    
"You want to know what happened with Rosa and her prince?
 
Boredom, and I emphasize dom.
 
Even if you've got a mind like Einstein's, if you sleep for a century, you’ll wake up stupid."

    
Croesus cocks his ears curiously.

    
"I know. Rosa said she loved Fitzgerald, and he loved her for a while.
 
With her face, figure, and the Wise Women's gifts, she was the perfect prince's wife.
 
Wore off in a New York minute when her child-like wonder became a bore.
 
That's when the eighth gift of fortitude drove Rosamond to hit the books until bloody sacks formed under her violet eyes.
 
Care to guess who was summoned?"

    
Croesus drops his ears and groans.

    
"Yep, the Grimm psychologist, and the ass-wipe dosed her with opium."
                

*
     
*
     
*

    
On her final evening in the grotto, Beauty is contemplating the colors of a mosaic mermaid when Rosamond dances in.
 
Her naked body is painted, head to heel, in bold, primitive slashes.
 
She opens a velvet pouch tied around her neck.

    
"Dusk.
 
The magical time when Nyx and her son Hypnos ramble about the countryside, followed by a flock of dreams, dropping poppy juice in the eyes of sleepy mortals.
 
If the body is beautiful," Rosamond says, swallowing an opium ball, "the soul is reluctant to desert it.
 
The harvest is complete.
 
You can leave in the morning."

    
Rosamond slowly rubs her body against the grotto walls like an animal marking its territory.

    
"I have known restlessness until it made me nearly mad."
 
Rosamond sinks to her haunches.
 
"In Hyberg I lost the power of sleeping altogether . . . there was so much to learn . . . my heart and brain palpitating, imprisoned in my body, beating and fluttering to get out . . . then Herr Doktor brought me opium." Rosamond strokes the velvet pouch as if it were a pet.

    
"Each time I took that wonderful potion, I felt I could deduce the mystery of the unobtainable, the procession of the equinoxes, the acceleration of gravity.
 
I was no longer tongue-tied in the presence of my husband. I could unravel abstruse cryptograms, indulge in recondite investigations, and delve creditable in the mysteries of the alchemists."
 
Rosamond grasps her ankles, curves her spine over her knees and somersaults across the grotto floor.

    
She pulls herself into the table seat, cuts a glance at Beauty, and rubs her nose.
 
"I thought Fitzgerald's family would be proud of me, but the sisters excluded me from social engagements.
 
I heard Kathleen warn Shaleen not to mention the date and location of her coming out party to Rosamond.
 
Shaleen said she liked Rosamond.
 
Kathleen said,
How can you stand her?
 
Men find her sweet and beautiful to look upon.
 
Do you know how plain you look beside her?
"

    
Beauty winces, familiar with the particular pain of exclusion by family members of her gender.

    
"Fitzgerald grew impatient with me.
 
No matter how hard I tried to explain a point, he claimed I made no sense.
 
He took away my opium.
 
Distortion, profuse sweats, and nightmares of mutilation followed.
 
No amount of coughing could dislodge the thousand ants in my throat.
 
Each cough brought a squirt into my bloomers.
 
Sounds echoed in my head."

    
Rosamond rises and moves in swirling, liquid steps. "It was as if . . .
 
I had danced to exquisite music . . . and then was asked . . . to dance with no music at all . . . the musicians refused to play . . . I was no longer the belle of the ball."

    
Rosamond twirls toward the passageway and Beauty hurries to her feet.
 
"Rosamond, please wait.
 
What happened next?"

    
"Like Nyx, I gathered poppy seeds in a jar and came home to sow them.
 
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home."
 
Rosamond tiptoes down the passageway.

    
"No one was home.
 
The castle was empty."
 
Rosamond enters the field as if wading in water.
 
"The members of court gone to live with great grandchildren their own age . . . the king's subjects dead and gone, he died of impotence . . . my mother’s husband dead and her only child gone, she died of neglect."

    
Beauty watches from the grotto threshold; in the moonlight hundreds of fireflies collectively rise from cool, dense thickets and wing luminescent abdomens into a glowing helix around Rosamond as she chants:
 
All flown, all flown away like dreams that die at the dawn of day
.

*
     
*
     
*

    
As Beauty steps into the forest and onto the path, her emotional state is euphoric.
 
I
 
have crossed the Deep Icy River, safely maneuvered the Maimed Animal Zone, encountered a wizard, a giant, passed through the foggy woods, and survived the Kingdom of Dreams.
 
I can do anything!
 

    
She draws the mirror from her satchel, holds it before her face and speaks:

     
"Magic mirror,
I implore,

       
reveal the Lake

       of Longing's
shore.

       
Show the distance,

       from
where I stand,

       all the way
to Charmed

       Kingdom land."

    
A telescopic view three miles through the forest to the Lake of Longing's shining waters ripples within the mirror.
 
On the lake's northern shore, on the highest hill, is a magnificent castle.
 
Beyond the castle is the end of her journey, the repository of her dreams, Glass Mountain!
 
Beauty opens her cherry pink lips to speak again, then hesitates. "No, I won't call forth the image of Runyon. With the object of my quest so near, it matters not what I may see within the mirror."