After Belle and her father had arrived home, Belle found it hard to stop thinking about the Beast. She had to, though. Her father needed taking care of. He wasn’t the same man that left their house to sell the clock all of those weeks ago. He was a little more scatterbrained and distraught.
With each day, it got better for both of them. It didn’t take long for a sense of normalcy to return. Eventually, Belle’s father went back to making his clocks. Belle went back to assisting him when she could, cooking meals and taking the occasional fishing trip to the stream.
The agony she felt from losing the Beast hit her in waves. But the more time passed, the more release she felt from the pain.
“Papa, are you sure you’ll be okay without me today?” Belle asked her father a final time.
“Yes, Belle. I’ll be fine. Go enjoy your time fishing. You deserve a break too, you know.”
She did know. She was feeling quite tired and this was one of the days when losing the Beast weighed on her heavily.
Kissing her father and leaving the house with her supplies, she casually made her way through town and the surrounding field. When she reached the stream, she spread out her blanket. Sitting for a moment, she reminisced on all the memories that she had there.
This was the only place that she and Trudeau had been together. This was also where she had been with Captain Bernard. It made her feel good to remember all of the people that she had loved. And getting comfortable, she set up her fishing box, tossed out her hook, and then leaned back and read a book.
Later, with two fish already in her basket, Belle was considering returning home. It was approaching evening but she certainly had enough time for one more casting. Wondering if it would be worth it, she heard something rustling in the brush. It snatched her attention.
“Hello?” Belle asked wondering if she should be concerned.
“Hello?” A rattling older voice replied.
Belle relaxed. “Who is it?” Belle called out.
“It’s just an old woman,” the woman said before stepping into view.
Out of courtesy, Belle stood up. She certainly was an old woman. She had to be ancient. Covered with rags, she was short. Her back was curved like the ‘C’ and the only thing keeping her from toppling over was the wooden cane that she leaned on.
“Oh, can I help you with anything,” Belle asked feeling sympathy for the old woman.
“Yes, perhaps you have something that a hungry, old woman can eat,” the old woman said.
Belle immediately thought about the fish she had caught. “I do.” Belle retrieved her basket. “In fact, I have these two fish if you would like them.”
The old woman looked at Belle a little surprised. Her widened eyes quickly narrowed and the old woman looked down as she held out her hand. “That is very kind of you. But as you can see, my fingers are gnarled and worthless. I could never cook the fish, so I will never be able to eat them.”
Belle looked down at the old woman’s hands. They certainly were gnarled. All of her fingers were bent unnaturally to the side. Feeling sympathy for her again, Belle thought of something else.
“Well, if you would like me to, I can escort you back to my home and I could cook the fish for you. Would you like to do that?” Belle asked graciously.
Again the old woman was surprised. “An old woman like me would like that very much,” she said stepping forward.
Belle and the old woman walked back to Belle’s village. The old woman moved slowly. That left a lot of time for conversation. Belle wasn’t in the mood for talking, but she politely answered when the old woman asked her about herself.
Belle told her that she and her father lived in a very beautiful hamlet where everyone was as friendly as they could be. Belle decided that that was true. The locals weren’t very friendly to her, but considering their close-minded upbringings, they were actually being as friendly to Belle as they knew how to be.
By the time that Belle and the old woman reached their home, Belle was thinking about her father. The walk back took considerably longer than she had planned for. Her father had to been starving by now. But seeing the condition of their guest, Belle was also sure that her father would understand.
“Papa?” Belle called out as she entered their quaint house.
The only response Belle got back was a snore. Her father was asleep.
“That’s strange,” Belle said to the old woman.
“What’s that, Deary?”
“My father. He’s never asleep at this time.”
“Perhaps he’s taking a nap. When you get old, you start to need a lot of naps.”
“I guess,” Belle conceded turning her focus to cooking for her guest.
Belle scaled and salted the fish. When done, she hung the fish over the stove to dry.
“The fish will be ready in about an hour. Afterward, I can give them to you and you can eat them whenever you’d like.”
“You are the kindest, Deary. But what this old woman would like more than anything else would be, perhaps, a slice of bread,” the old woman requested.
“Of course,” Belle replied pulling a loaf from a cabinet. “You can have this entire loaf. And, if you’d like, you can have two.”
The old woman was pleased as Belle handed her the bread. But instead of eating it, the old woman looked around excitedly wondering what else she could get.
“You have been so generous, Deary. This old woman is wondering if she can ask for something else.”
Belle looked at the old woman sympathetically. “If there’s something else I can do for you, I will. What else is it that you need?”
“Well,” the old woman began. “It has been a long time since an old woman like me has slept in a real bed. Do you think that there is a bed in your house that I can rest my weary bones in?”
Belle looked around her home knowing what she would find. Across the room was her father fast asleep in one bed. Next to it was another that was free. Hers. Belle looked back at the woman and imagined the hard life that she must’ve had.
Again feeling sympathy for her and genuinely wanting to do whatever she could to help, she said, “I have a bed that you would be very comfortable in. If you would like, you can sleep there for the night.”
The old woman cocked one eye open looking at Belle astonished. She almost looked upset. In a slightly less fragile tone, the old woman spoke to Belle again. “Why? Why would a young girl like you offer an old woman like me your bed?”
Without needing a moment to think about it, Belle replied. “Because I have one to offer.”
The old woman only looked more frustrated after that. Pressing her lips together staring at Belle, she eventually conceded. As she did, her face again twisted into that of a gracious old woman.
“For that, this old woman thanks you. In exchange, I can offer you one wish. It can be anything that you want. I might seem like an old woman, but there is much more to me than you can see.”
It was Belle’s turn to look at the old woman strangely. What was going on? Was the old woman some sort of witch or fairy? Had she invited a wood nymph into her home?
“I don’t understand.”
“You have been kind to me and now I’m offering you kindness in return,” the old woman said. “Name anything you want and I will give it to you. But choose wisely because you will only get one,” the old woman said with an almost devious smile.
Belle could barely believe it. She had heard about women like this. Stories were full of magical creatures that granted wishes after being offered acts of kindness. Belle could hardly believe her luck.
With building excitement, Belle looked around the room. She thought about her father. After that, she thought about the Beast. Finally, when her mind settled, she thought about the old woman.
“With my wish, I wish that you have as much food as you need for the rest of your life,” Belle said confidently.
“That I have as much food as I need for the rest my life?” The old woman asked disbelievingly.
“Yes. I know what it’s like to be hungry. And as long as I’m with my father, I will be fine. But you wander through the forest. How many times have you gone without something to eat? With my wish, I am wishing that you never have to feel hungry again,” Belle said conclusively.
The old woman stared at Belle shocked. Slowly a tear rolled down the old woman’s cheek. She reached up her gnarled hand and wiped it away. The old woman, in all of her years, had never been so moved by someone’s act of kindness.
“Why wouldn’t you use the wish for yourself?” The old woman asked confused.
“I am here, living in this lovely home with my Papa. What more do I need than this?”
“Then why not ask for something for your father?”
Belle looked over at her sleeping father.
“He has everything that he wants. As long as he has what he needs to make his clocks and to get lost in his work, he doesn’t need anything else. The only thing that would make him happier was if I could find a way to better fit in with the people from this town.”
“Then why not ask for me to change the people in your village to better accept you?” The old woman asked.
“Because the people in this village might be small-minded, but they are happy with who they are. Who am I to change them to be more like me? If I did, wouldn’t I be doing to them the same thing that they want to do to me?”
“Then, why didn’t you ask me to grant you love?” The old woman continued.
“I have felt love,” Belle told her. “I have felt more love in my short lifetime than many people ever will. Sure, I lost Trudeau. But I got to experience what it was like to be with him.
“And perhaps things didn’t work out the way I wished they would have with the Beast, but the Beast found the love of his life. All I can wish for him is happiness. And happiness is what he will have with Captain Bernard.”
Satisfied that Belle’s answers were truthful, the old woman looked away in thought. “Then, for you, I will offer something special. A secret.”
Belle immediately perked up. “A secret? About what?” She asked intrigued.
“A secret about the man you love.”
“Do you mean the Beast?”
“Yes, the Beast.”
Belle stepped in closer. She was captivated. There was still so much that she didn’t understand about what happened.
Why had Captain Bernard called the Beast Prince Renaud? If the Beast was the Prince, then who was the man in her dreams? Had it all just been a figment of her imagination or had anything that the Prince had told her been real?
“What secret do you have concerning the Beast?” Belle asked suddenly needing to know.
“All of them, Deary.”
“Then tell me.”
The old woman leaned towards Belle. “I was the one who cursed the Prince.”
Belle thought about what the old woman said and then remembered the story the Beast had told her. “Wait, the old woman who turned the Prince and his court into objects? That was you?”
“That was me,” the old woman said proudly.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“To teach him a lesson,” the old woman told her. “The Prince wasn’t nearly as generous as you. Simply asking for food, he struck me. I decided to teach him what he couldn’t learn any other way.”
“And what was that?”
“I guess you could say it was to be generous and to love,” the old woman said pointing her cane at Belle sternly. She calmed herself and then continued.
“But I couldn’t just leave it at that. He had struck me. Curses can be broken and I was angry. I needed to think of something that would prevent him from ever breaking the curse. I had to add something that he would never figure out.”
“That he would never figure out?”
“Yes. But I will tell you that secret now if you want me to,” the old woman offered temptingly.
“Please,” Belle begged. “If you would like to thank me for my generosity, thank me by telling me that.”
The old woman smiled a crooked smile. She leaned in to Belle again. “First, you see, I made the curse that all of the humanity from the people in the castle would slowly drain out into the buds of a rosebush.”
“The rosebush,” Belle said remembering where the Prince and Beast had taken her.
“You’ve seen it?” The old woman asked proudly. “After the last bud has fully bloomed, the curse will be forever.”
“But how do you break the curse?” Belle asked determined.
“That is the second part of my secret. Don’t you wonder if the prince from your dreams is real? Don’t you wonder why your Captain calls the Beast by your prince’s name? Well, your dreams with the Prince aren’t dreams. They are real. And your Captain calls the Beast by your prince’s name because your prince and the beast have been the same person all along.”
Belle looked at the old woman confused. “The same person? But they seem to hate each other. I don’t understand.”
“That’s just it. You don’t understand. The Prince doesn’t understand. The Beast doesn’t understand. No one understands.” the old woman said excitedly revealing her villainy.
“I split them in two. I put everything the Prince hated about himself into the Beast and then told everyone that the curse can’t be broken until the Prince and the Beast find love.” The old woman laughed clapping her hands.
“Wait, I still don’t understand,” Belle said struggling to put it together.
“Don’t you see? I tricked them. The love that can break the curse isn’t the love that you might have for the Beast or that the Beast might have for his Captain. No. The love that is needed to break the spell is between the Prince and the part of himself that he hates the most, the Beast.”
The old woman cackled with delight. It was enough to tell Belle that this wasn’t a kindly old woman at all. This was some type of trickster. The Prince and his court were going to be cursed forever if she didn’t warn them about what the old woman’s words actually meant. She needed to do whatever it took to help them.
“Were you also the one who blocked out the sun making the Dark Forest cold?” Belle asked the old woman.
“That was a part of the curse, Deary.”
“My father said that once he left the castle, he couldn’t find his way out. Was that also you?”
“That was me,” she said with a toothy smile.
“So if you choose to prevent me from returning to the castle to warn them, I will never be able to?”
“If the wolves don’t get you, I can make you walk in circles forever.”
Belle thought for a moment. She needed to get back to them.
“Since I can’t return to the Prince without your permission, I ask you now, how can I return to him?”
“You want to get back to the castle and warn your Prince?”
“I do. I beg that you allow me to.”
“And why should I?” The old woman asked pleased with herself.
Belle thought for another moment.
“For the same reason that you let my father and me go. There had to be a reason why my father was turning into a clock while I spent much longer there but did not. And how was it that my father could be lost in the woods for so long and then suddenly wake up to find the way out was right in front of him. Me finding the castle, my father finding the castle, even Captain Bernard’s finding the castle, these weren’t coincidences, were they?
“I ask you to allow me to go back to the castle and help the Prince for the same reason you have done everything else.”
The old woman stared at Belle as if she had been discovered.
“That was you who did all those things, wasn’t it?” Belle asked confidently.
“You are not as foolish as I’ve thought. I will let you go back to the castle but it will come at a cost.”
“What is that cost? I promise that I will pay it.”
“It is that you become a part of the curse. If you go back, your father will forget you. You will become a piece of furniture in the castle just like the rest of them. And you won’t be able to talk to the Beast, only the Prince.”
Belle thought about this for a moment. Would she be able to leave her father on his own? Did her father even need her? If it wasn’t for her he might be happy in this little town. His life might even be better without her. At least that was what Belle told herself to give herself permission to go.
“Tell me something,” Belle began.
“Yes, Deary?”
“Will I be like the thin man with a gold mustache? Will I be a dream?”
“Yes. You will be a ghost haunting the castle.”
“But, will I be able to appear to Captain Bernard in his dreams.”
The old woman suddenly became serious. Staring at Belle like she had been found out, she replied. “Yes, you will.”
“Then, I accept.”
Without another word, the old woman lifted her cane and circled it over her head. When she lowered it, it was with force. And when it hit the ground, a boom shook the room sweeping Belle off her feet.