Young Writers Society

Frederic awoke to darkness. Brief glimpses of the day before flooded through his mind, but there was a huge blank where most of the night should've been. He remembered killing the beast and saying goodbye to Jacques Aurmont. He remembered the pain…

His eyes slowly adjusted to the dark and he could make out vague shapes. There was a line of thin, watery light to his left. He stumbled in that direction, bumping into various objects. The line of light turned out to be the space between the ground and what Frederic assumed was a curtain. He assumed right.

As he pulled it back, he was presented with a spectacular view. The towering pines nearly concealed the large house in the distance, but he could see glimpses of the stone and the smoke coming from the chimney.

How very picturesque…

He turned to face the interior of the room, now more confused than ever.

“Where am I?” He whispered into the silent room.

The room itself was lined with shelves of the same black leather-bound books. The floors were hard oak wood and besides a small desk and chair on the other side of the room, it was bare. A shudder wracked his body. It was so cold. He looked down at his body, his face heating when he realized he wasn’t wearing any clothes.

He opened the door and peered into a long, dark hallway. It was old, but clean. It reminded him of the beast’s palace. He continued down the hall, and down the ornate staircase, nearly to the bottom when he realized that he was in the beast’s palace. The house he’d seen in the distance was probably Master Aurmont’s.

***

Ella had just gone to bed when Jacques returned. He wasn’t very skilled in the art of silent moving. In other words, he woke the entire household. A manservant with a club in hand entered the entry hall first, relaxing when he saw that it was the master of the house.

He bowed. “Comte Aurmont, welcome home.”

Jacques raised his eyebrows at the club, but was then nearly knocked over by Ella, who’d hurtled into his arms.

“Jacques!” She exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. “I missed you.”

“Oh, my dear Ella. You cannot possibly imagine how much I’ve missed you.” He pulled back to look at her.

She narrowed her eyes. “What happened while you were away?” She’d noticed a slight tremor in his voice and a general uneasiness in his manner.

“Nothing.” But he didn’t look her in the eye.

Lisabeth and Anastasia hurried down the steps in front of them.

“Papa!” They both embraced him warmly and started to question him about his travels. As if he suddenly remembered something, he froze. He turned to his pack and carefully pulled out three pale yellow roses. They had probably been in there for an hour or two, but they were still intact.

Ella smiled. Jacques always brought them flowers when he returned home, and yellow roses were her favorite. It was almost as if he knew that this trip had been the worst for Ella herself. He was gone for a long time, and Fleora’s rage had grown due to other factors that Ella preferred not to think about.

Someone cleared their throat and everyone glanced in the direction of the sound. Fleora was gracefully descending the stairs, an exultant smile on her face. No matter what she did to Ella, there was no denying that she truly loved Jacques.

Ella and Lisabeth made eye contact across the dimly lit foyer. She’d noticed Jacques’ strange behavior as well.

***

Frederic had noticed, sometime in the past hour he’d spent exploring, that most of the palace was like the room he’d awoken in.

Bare and hardly furnished.

He’d found one bedroom, with a large bed. Another room he assumed to be a washroom. There weren’t many other rooms that had anything in them. He found himself back in the room with the bookshelves. The leather-bound books had drawn his attention earlier, so he plucked one from the shelf.

November the Eighth, 1---

Today was particularly difficult. The year mark is approaching and I’m becoming more and more monstrous with each passing day. I think Father suspects that something is different about me. I’ve changed, perhaps, but it is all for naught.

Mother, of course, is an angel. She continues to leave a door unlocked and clothes in the barn every morning. She says that Father doesn’t realize that I’m gone at night. I think it has more to do with his consumption of wine than her distraction skills.

November the Ninth, 1---

I know that no one’s broken the curse since the beginning. I’ve read the journals. And yet, I still can’t help but hope…

November the Tenth, 1---

I met a girl. She was kind.

November the Eleventh, 1---

Illya is her name. I do not think I love her, not in the way a man loves a woman. But she is kind. Mother has hope, but my only hope is that she won’t think less of me because of what I am. I have finally admitted that there is no way out. It will be a year next week.

There were a few more entries about Illya. He wrote that he was going to tell Illya, then there was a pause for a few days. Then:

November the Thirtieth, 1---

This is Illya. I didn’t mean to… I can’t even write it out. Pali is dead, and it’s my fault.

The journals went on, and on. After three years, Illya couldn’t take being a beast anymore. She attempted to kill herself, but something in the curse prevented it. She begged her mother to do it for her, and she eventually agreed.

Twenty years later, a hunter shot Illya’s mother by mistake. He was the beast that Frederic had killed, and he’d been the beast for over a century.

Once Frederic had reached the end of the journals, he went back to the very first one.

The first beast was a foolish and arrogant man. He was a prince and a free spirit, much like Frederic himself. But, unlike Frederic, he was selfish and cruel. A powerful sorceress cursed him to be a beast forever, unless a woman could love him as a beast.

He changed, and a woman named Belle fell in love with him before the year was up. There was much more to the story, but there were so many more. After the prince, a conceited man named Gaston received the curse. Because he had not personally wronged the sorceress, she gave him the days of the year. At night, he would transform into the beast.

The only ways out were death or love.

Between Gaston and Pali, there were nearly fifty years and six beasts. They all had lives, stories, but none broke the curse.

So how would he?

He did know one thing: He needed help.

***

Ella, Lisabeth, and Ana questioned Jacques endlessly about his travels- once they had all gotten some sleep. He told stories of a land in the Far East where the entire royal family is named after shades of the color red. He told stories of a to the west where there were legends of people with the tails of fish who lived in grand kingdoms underwater.

It was just after noon when a knock resounded through the manor. Ella, Lisabeth, and Ana raced through the carefully decorated hall to the door. When Jacques was home, they were all a little more playful, a little more carefree, a little more childish.

Ella got there first, Lisabeth and Ana nearly tripping over themselves behind her. She was laughing as she flung the door open.

In the doorway, a young man stood rather uncomfortably. Ella could tell he was uncomfortable because his left eye twitched and his feet shifted slightly each passing second. Her laugh ended abruptly, Ana and Lisabeth look over her shoulders to catch a glimpse of the unfamiliar visitor.

“Hello,” The young man said in a low, slightly hoarse voice. “Er, is this the home of Master Aurmont.”

“Comte.” Ana corrected on instinct. If Fleora had been there in that moment, she would’ve said the exact same thing. Ella glanced at her, and Ana paled as if it were symbolic of her becoming her mother. But Ana would never be Fleora, and vice versa. They were both incapable of having the qualities of the other.

“Jacques!” Ella called, glancing back at the young man.

A light flashed in his eyes, as if he’d had a sudden realization.

Something was off about him, and Ella was generally wary of newcomers anyways. They could cause so much pain, unknowingly. Any number of things, said without a thought, could trigger Fleora.

Jacques touched Ana and Lisabeth lightly on their shoulders to get through to the door. Ella instinctively stepped back and to the side, fading naturally into the background.

The visitor blinked, and then focused his gaze on Jacques.

“Ah, Ric.” Jacques remarked brightly. “Come in, come in.”

Fleora stepped gracefully out of the drawing room and into the hall. She was silent, but Ella knew what it meant. Lisabeth looked as if she was going to say something, but with one glance from Ella, she pressed her lips into a tight line and squeezed her eyes shut.

Ana looked away.

As she slipped away to find a book or write to Celeste or do laundry, or any number of things she could do instead of be there, Ella nodded nearly imperceptibly at Fleora.

Nearly.