The Beast looked at Rosalind hopelessly.
“There are no charmantes left—except a few poor souls we freed from the asylum.”
“Oh, many of them escaped before it grew too dire. All you have to do is find them,” Rosalind said airily, waving her hand.
“And if we found them, where could we bring them, where they could be safe? Where they would want to gather in numbers?” the Beast asked pointedly. “What happened here…has happened in the New World, too. They aren’t safe anywhere.”
“Yes, they are,” Belle said, eyes widening with an idea.
Everyone looked at her.
“Don’t you see? This is the one place in the world they are safe!” She waved her arms around, indicating the castle and the valley. “Your curse still isn’t really broken. The castle and everyone in it have been forgotten. No one remembers this place. You could find all les charmantes and bring them here. Bring them home. And get yourself…uncursed.”
“Hmmm,” Rosalind said, thinking. “Not bad. It’s an odd idea, considering this is the place we almost came to our end…but it’s intriguing. Yes, I like it. Go find everyone and bring them home. Really, it’s the least you could do after what your parents did.”
Maurice might have given Rosalind a little frown at that last bit, but she shrugged.
The Beast blinked. “Go…find them? Me?”
“Yes. Why not?” Belle said with a smile, reading his thoughts. “You would have to actually go out into the world that you’ve been watching for so long in your magic mirror.”
“With you,” the Beast said without missing a beat. “I could do anything, with you.”
Belle grinned and started to answer…
…and then saw Maurice and Rosalind, who were both watching her to see what she would do.
Belle had a family again. She had a mother—the most interesting, perplexing mother in the world—whom she had just met. There was too much to ask her, to talk about.
But this was finally her chance to go out on those adventures she had always dreamed of. Abandoned Greek islands, the hearts of never-before-seen forests, even Paris and Rome….They would travel the world looking for reclusive charmantes to bring home. Who knew what they might see!
It wasn’t fair.
“Belle, go,” her mother ordered. “If I was your age, I wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment. You will always come back here, and I will always be here. And we will have those talks we need. Everyone should have a journey—and everyone should also have a home, too. Go out into the world for adventure, come home for love.”
Maurice looked a little sad. “I like having both my girls together again…but there’s so much for us to do, the time will fly and you’ll be back home before we know it.”
“To do?” the Beast asked.
“Well, the village has a lot to cope with right now,” Belle’s father said with a rueful smile. “From long-lost relatives who are, or were, charmantes…to those who were genuinely…ah…not well. There’s a lot of people who have been in what was basically prison for years and years. I think the next few months are going to be rocky, and it might need a pair of…oddballs to help everyone on a bit.”
“And then there’s your castle,” Rosalind said, indicating a window out of which someone seemed to be dangling a pair of underthings like a flag. “Once all that ruckus calms down, your people have to decide what to do with themselves. I’m sure at least a few will stay on…but they may not feel like being servants anymore….There’s a whole world out there, and you will be gone.”
The Beast regarded her thoughtfully. “I could deputize Lumière to run things in my absence, with Cogsworth….”
The Beast regarded her. “Would you come with me, Belle? Help me do this? We may not succeed…I may always be a beast.”
“No,” Belle said with a smile, touching him on the nose. “You will always be my prince.”
“Well, you’re not exactly what I wanted out of a son-in-law—because of your parents, not because of your form, I mean,” Rosalind said quickly. “But you’re certainly a fair bit better than that Gaston fellow…what is his story, if I may ask? Was he also patient at the asylum?”
Belle almost choked on her laughter. “No, and that was not the first time he proposed to me.”
“I think,” Maurice said, putting his arms around the couple, “we should all have one last night together before you start out…just the four of us. There are a lot of stories to tell before we see you again.”
“And most of them,” Belle observed with a smile, “seem to almost have a happy ending.”
AFTER THE SORT OF INTROVERTED childhood you would expect from a writer, Liz Braswell earned a degree in Egyptology at Brown University and then promptly spent the next ten years producing video games. Finally, she caved in to fate and wrote Snow and Rx under the name Tracy Lynn, followed by the Nine Lives of Chloe King series under her real name, because by then the assassins hunting her were all dead. Liz is also the author of A Whole New World: A Twisted Tale and Once Upon a Dream: A Twisted Tale. She lives in Brooklyn with a husband, two children, a cat, a part-time dog, three fish, and five coffee trees she insists will start producing beans any day. You can email her at me@lizbraswell.com or tweet @LizBraswell.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Mirror
Part I
Once Upon a Time
Before the Beginning
The Girl Is Strange—No Question
Happily Ever After
Always the Bridesmaid
A Kingdom Sours
An Enchanted Castle
The End of Fairy Tales
The Enchanted Castle
The Christening
Be Our…Oh, You Know the Rest!
The Extremely Fascinating Tour of a Historically and Architecturally Important Landmark Castle
Death and a Curse
The Rose
Endgame
Curiosity Killed the Beast
What Belle Saw
A Curse Descends
Part II
Escape
A Decision and Its Consequences
A Castle, Haunted
The Library
And Her Nose Stuck in a Book
Mrs. Potts Loses Her Tea
La Cuisine de la Maison
Dinner Is Served
Ask the Dishes
Meanwhile, Not at the Castle…
She Didn’t See It There Before
Gaston
An Old Crime
To Sleep
A Lead
Reunion
Part III
The Play’s the Thing
The Beast
Papa
The Beast’s Nightmare
Belle’s Nightmare
There’s Something Truly Terrible Inside
Overheard
This Same Old Town
Escape
Reunion
A Tale (as Old as Time)
All Together
Endings
About the Author