"Beauty and the Beast: Part 3: Beast" by C. L. Corbin

“Beast, I have to find him!” Beauty screamed. “What can I do?”

Beast’s eyes where cold. “I don’t care. It is not my problem.”

“Why would you do this to me?”

Beast didn’t answer. He turned away.

“FINE! I don’t need your help. I’ll find him myself!” And Beauty ran to the door, sliding on boots. It was cold outside, colder than she had expected it to be. She didn’t know where she was going. What if her father was already dead? Then she was leaving the castle, her home, for nothing. It was a terrible thought.

She ran and ran, away from Beast and the castle, until soon she was beyond the rose gardens, running through open grass, towards a forest that had always been too far away from the castle for her to see. It had always been a dark line across the horizon, and nothing more, but now it was real and terrifyingly close to her. The trees where vast and grew closely together. No one would want to go into that forest. But Beauty did.

The forest floor was soft and covered in moss and dead leaves. There wasn’t any noise at all- just the soft padding sound of Beauty’s boots on the ground. When breath came out of her mouth, it showed like a tiny patch of fog in the air. Flecks of frost settled on the ground. Everything was beautiful, blurred at the edges. Almost surreal. But Beauty didn’t stop to wonder at all these things- she just walked. Her head felt light and she was dizzy, like she was in a dream. She wasn’t moving her feet- they where moving themselves. Slowly, deliberately. Some kind of magic was at work as her feet took her to a small clearing.

Snowflakes began to fall as Beauty walked into the meadow. A shape was lying on the ground, and though Beauty couldn’t see what it was with her eyes, she knew what it was in her heart. Tears fell from her cheeks and melted snow on the ground as she walked closer, kneeling down. This was it.

Her father was there, his hands on his chest, his face pale. Beauty could hardly believe this was her father- she couldn’t see herself in his sunken face. His chest hardly moved up and down as he drew short breaths. His eyes where closed and Beauty could see a maze of veins on his eyelids. “Father,” she whispered, almost afraid to break the silence.

Slowly he opened his eyes. “Rose. I am glad you came.” His voice was small, weak, pained. Not like it had been before. Not like Beauty hoped it would sound like. Beauty ran her hand down his cheek.

“What has happened to you?” Beauty asked.

“Rose, I have lived a long, hard life. Longer than I ever thought I would. And I always hoped that you would see me, and know that I was your father, before now. Now you can only see me like this, weak, dying. There is so much I wish I could tell you, but now it no longer seems so important. Before I can’t hear you any more, I must know how that man- that Beast- treated you. That one thought was all that has kept me going for these many years- I had to know what would happen to my only daughter.”

“Oh, he has always been so kind to me, father! He’s always taken care of me, treated me so well and given me all I ever wanted. I know he looks odd, but he’s a wonderful man and I…. I love him.” The words just came out of her. Beauty wanted to tell him everything before it was too late. “I love you too, father.”

Nicholas took her hands in his and whispered, “That is more than I could have hoped for. Now tell me one more thing, Rose.” His hands where weak, the hands of a man many years older than he was. He could barely lift his head off the ground. “Will you always remember me?”

Beauty’s eyes welled with tears as she whispered, “How could I forget you?”

“Thank you, Rose. My Beauty. I can leave now, because that is all I ever needed to know.” His eyes slowly closed. His hands grew limp.

“Good-bye, Father.” Beauty whispered. She kissed him on the forehead. She stood up and turned around, tears running down her cheeks. As she walked out of the meadow, she didn’t notice that for each of her tears that fell, a small flower grew around her father’s body.

For a while she walked through the woods, slowly, listening to the sounds of small animals in the trees. Snow landed on her hands, on her cheeks, bitterly cold and almost insolent. Was she being mocked by the snow? Tears spilled down her face, melting the snow, and she wondered what she would be doing right now if Nicholas had never come back. Maybe she would be sitting by the fire, looking out the window wonderingly at the snow, which they hadn’t had in three years… And Beast… He would be reading a book, or watching her, his golden eyes glittering as the embers reflected off them.

Beast! She had left him…

The castle was dark as she walked back through the snow. She walked inside but saw no one, not a servant or Beast. She walked through the dark, listening to her footsteps echo off the stone walls. Up to her room she went, to lie down on her bed. The roses that she had put there, which had once been bright red, where now black and withered. Beauty picked one up and it crumbled like ashes in the palm of her hand. Everything was black. Everything was silent. Through the window she could see the wind tossing snowflakes on the rose beds, but she couldn’t hear the wind or feel it. There was no noise, nothing. Beauty screamed into the silence, “What’s happened?”

But there wasn’t an answer.

Beauty lay on the bed, thinking for a long time. About her father, about Beast, about the roses on her bed. And she realized all the questions she could have asked him but didn’t. Now he was gone. She wouldn’t see him again for a long time. The only reminder that there had ever been light here was the lantern hanging on her wall. Where had everyone gone? Was anyone left? Beauty slowly sat up. Her energy was drained as she walked out her door.

Before she left, she looked at the mirror lying on the floor, face down. It meant nothing now- it wasn’t her father that she had devotedly watched for so many days. But she picked it up anyway, and held it to her closely, not knowing why.

One of the faceless servants stood in the hall. She knew it had no eyes, but the soft, elegant indentations in its white face where the eyes should have been seemed to follow her. It began to walk beside her, then slightly ahead of her, until she was following it through corridors that she had never though to walk down. Beauty held the mirror close to her, for it felt almost warm against her skin. The servant turned its head back at her, as though wondering about her, and then plucked a torch off the wall and gave it to her. It didn’t need the light to see, but as it got darker, she realized she would soon have been walking blindly. She whispered quiet thanks.

Down more corridors. Up stairs. Then they were in a tower, heading up a spiraling staircase. When they reached the top, the servant turned and looked at her. Then it began to walk down the stairs, motioning for her to stay. It was windy in the tower. Her torch blew out. Darkness.

In the middle of the small room, a stone pedestal stood, with a glass vase in it, overturned. The dark shape of Beast lay on the floor. In one of his hands, there was a red rose, and as Beauty watched it began to wither and blacken, until it turned to dust.

“Beast, get up.” Beauty said, lifting one of Beast’s hands. But he didn’t move. Only his chest moved, up and down, as he breathed. Beast’s face looked as though he was only sleeping, but right away Beauty knew something was wrong. Beauty said, a bit louder, “Beast! Get up!” But he didn’t answer.

She picked up her mirror and looked into it, and it no longer showed anything but her reflection. Her red, tear-stained face seemed so hopeless that she began to cry even more. Tears fell on the glass surface, and slowly, it began to change. Beast’s face appeared in the mirror, weak, different than she had ever seen him before. He said, “Beauty. You found me- and another use for my mirror.”

“Beast? Beast! Why are you in the mirror? Are you sick? I’m sorry I left...” Her voice ended in a sob.

“When I created this mirror for you, Beauty, I hoped you would never use it for anything but the innocent watching of your father. Or, the father figure I gave you. But I am a smart man, and I gave this mirror other uses, uses I never thought you would even discover.

“But, now you see my body before you- weak, dying. The rose in my hand was for you, on your twentieth birthday, when I had hoped to propose for you. But when you said you didn’t love me… I came up here to destroy it. And I almost destroyed myself.”

“No, Beast, no…” She watched his lifeless body, holding the rose, and then she looked back into the mirror.

“I say I almost destroyed myself- but part of me, my soul, couldn’t be destroyed like that. I wanted to take my life, because I knew I had to let you go. You don’t deserve the life I’ve given you. You deserve more.”

“You have given me all I could ask for! What more could I want?”

Beast laughed softly at this. “You could want a normal home, where you could come and go as you pleased. And a normal man, and a family…

“I took it all away from you. I love you, but I can’t do that to you anymore. So I tried to destroy myself, but then I remembered- I had put part of me in this mirror. It was a selfish thing to do- I wanted to always be with you, because I knew you would always keep it. And I can’t destroy the mirror. Only you can, if you choose. You can leave- I can’t make you stay anymore.”

Beauty didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t leave- no… He had taken care of her all these years, and now, for her to abandon him? She couldn’t do it. She walked over to his lifeless body, knelt down… looked at his face, so imperfect and scarred, so beastly…

And she kissed him.

Nothing happened for a few moments. “I love you.” She whispered. Still nothing.

“Please, Beast! I love you.”

It became a desperate chant. “I love you…I love you…I love you…”

Suddenly, Beast’s eyelids fluttered. His eyes opened, and even in the dark she could see they looked golden.

He took Beauty’s hand, so white and delicate, and held it in his scarred one.

And suddenly, surprisingly, Beauty realized his scars where melting away… Slowly he began to look different…

“Beast.” She whispered. “You’re not a beast anymore.”