Belle puckered her lips and blew on the dandelion.
Either you could see how many feathery seedpods were left stuck to the head and pretend it was that o’clock, or you could make a wish.
She chose the latter.
If Maurice won the prize, and if it were a big one, then maybe she could convince him to move to a bigger city. Maybe even the one that he sometimes talked about, where they had lived when she was a baby. There her father could spend all his time inventing—not trying to eke out a living for himself and his daughter among countryfolk who thought he was mad.
And then Belle could have all the books she wanted. And no one would look at her as being odd; not in a city full of odd people.
Or maybe some rich member of nobility would see his invention for the genius it truly was and sponsor him…take him and Belle away like a fairy godmother and whisk them into a world of academics, science, and people just like them. They would be part of all the exciting things this century promised, far away from this provincial town and its stupid ambush weddings.
(She was glad her papa wasn’t around to see that. He wouldn’t have gotten angry, the way she had; he would have been merely very, very confused. It wouldn’t have helped things.)
She rested her head on her hands, watching the wedding party quickly disperse as the winds picked up. LeFou tried to grab a bunting as it whipped around branches and chairs like an eel. The villagers would all be gone in a few minutes, but she wished she could head down sooner, somehow sneak around them, to be inside when the storm finally hit. Maybe she could try going down to the east side of the house, through the rose garden….
She sighed, turning to look at the pretty pink-and-white dots that mottled the scenery just out of view of the wedding party. They were the main reason her father was reluctant to leave their little house in the country. Part of him still believed there was a chance that someday his wife would come back, to her roses and her husband and her daughter. If only he just kept tending the bushes and keeping the flowers pretty and healthy, maybe she would be tempted to return.
If they left, how would she find them?
But despite the automatic watering contraption Maurice had built for the garden, the roses that were usually so healthy—blooming even in deepest winter—were beginning to look a little brown and peaked.
Belle grumpily got up. She barely remembered her mother. She had the best father in the world. That was all she needed.
She took one last look at the horizon, bidding the storm and the lands beyond farewell—when she saw a strange commotion on the road.
It was Phillipe, galloping out of control toward the house, still attached to the cart.
And her father wasn’t on it.
Maurice and Rosalind immediately began their happily-ever-afters. They moved to a snug little third-floor apartment in the castle district, right in the middle of the most fashionable and bustling neighborhood. A tiny garden out back sufficed for most of Rosalind’s immediate magical needs, and Maurice worked out a deal with Alaric to continue using the kiln yard despite his no longer living there.
For the first year the apartment was crammed with work and parties, late-night academic discussions with friends and loud drinking songs, days and nights of research, roses, and metal. Then, when the newlyweds’ lives calmed down a little, their place became a serene and peaceful retreat from the world.
It was just high and removed enough to be unnoticeable from the street, and surprisingly quiet for the part of town it was in. Rarely did a random person follow the narrow, shaded alley to the back of the building and clamber up the old wooden steps to the third floor—and friends knew how to step around or otherwise disengage Maurice’s clever, and loud, alarm system.
Which was why he was surprised and unprepared the day the alarms went off.
Pots clashed, broken bits of ceramic broke further, and a horn powered by an old accordion-like bellow blasted away the sleepy late afternoon hush in the garden and sent creatures and moths flying.
“See? Told you it would come in handy,” Maurice called over his shoulder to Rosalind as he went to see who it was. He had ideas about the door, too—installing a sort of periscope or monocular that would allow the inhabitant to see who was outside without, say, letting the cold winter air in.
Yes…something with a reflector inside a tube, maybe….
He opened the door and was surprised to see a young boy standing there, shocked and startled, his hand hovering in the air.
“Hello,” Maurice said amiably. “Did my alarm system frighten you?”
The boy said nothing.
“Because I am trying to decide whether it should be silent to those who approach, so I may better surprise them, or if it should be loud to frighten them off before any mischief can be achieved. What do you think? Can you—oh!”
Maurice suddenly noticed what was in the boy’s hand. It was a piece of charcoal. He followed the direction of the hand to the lintel and saw the beginnings of a poorly written, rather rude word scratched out there.
“What,” the inventor asked, at first more confused than angry, “is the meaning of this?”
“It’s said that a great and terrible witch lives here!” the boy shouted, scared and defiant. There was a nasty look in his little piggy eyes.
“Oh.” Maurice was by nature a generous and charitable person—travelers and dreamers and tinkerers by needs must be. But he remembered the man who had tried to threaten Rosalind the day he first saw her. And the bruised, beaten-up boy the day she had asked him to marry her. “Ah…so…So what?”
“SHE TURNED A MAN INTO A PIG!” the boy cried.
“No, she just turned his nose into a pig’s nose. And he was very rude. And she turned it back, by the way. He’s just fine.”
“DEVIL WORSHIPPER!” the boy spat, and turned and ran away.
With a sigh Maurice went back inside and closed the door, locking it, something he rarely did.
His lovely wife was reclined in a rocker, glowing but tired, using the end of her pinky to make a stirring motion and thereby encourage the spoon across the room to put honey in her tea and mix it in.
“Darling,” he said, sitting down on the stool next to her, “I think we’re in for some trouble….Some strange young lad was making a mess above our door…swearing all up and down about magic, it seems—”
“Oh, those ignorant peasants,” Rosalind growled tiredly, putting a hand to her head. “I grow so tired of them. They’re everywhere now. Some are vicious brutes, too. I thought it would just simmer down after that whole incident with the girl….”
“That happened long before I came here and it still doesn’t seem like it’s simmering down. I don’t think that boy knew how to write. I think someone made him learn that one rather nasty phrase.”
“Is he still here? Where is he?” Rosalind demanded, color beginning to flush her cheeks as she forced herself to sit up.
Maurice made shushing noises and took her hand. “Don’t grow excited. It’s not good for you or the baby. It’s over now.”
Rosalind took his hand and squeezed it and kissed it, then put it on her belly.
“You’re sure it’s a girl?” he whispered.
“As sure as anything,” Rosalind said with a wan smile. “An enchantress knows these sorts of things. Don’t forget—when you go out this afternoon, stop by Vashti’s. I want her for my midwife. She was my aunt’s, and my aunt just loved her.”