Archive of Our Own

Work Text

There is a book in the library that some say can take you into different worlds.The little girl who sits in the library has never believed it. Oh, the Prince can say what he likes, speak of fairytales as if they were true—the Princess can speak of picking up the book and being whisked off to Paris, to a broken windmill from many years ago—but the little cynic at the corner table holds the book in her hands, and makes no precious wishes to see anything strange beyond her world. The leather stays where it is. Nothing glows golden yellow hue. This book is not a magic book.But every page tells a story of someone she knows.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Be a bear, grandpa! A bear!”“Grrr,” Adam says, and works his way down to his knees. They don’t feel so strong as they used to anymore, but he’d do anything for this little scamp.“A lion! Be a lion!”“Rawr,” he says, his tongue rolling over the word. He grins at the girl before him. Her stick-straight brown hair is askew with excitement. Smudges dot her cheeks.“And a beast, grandpa! Be a beast!”“GRAWWWWWWR,” he roars, and the whole palace seems to rumble, and the chandeliers shake against each other. Rosine claps her hands, and laughs.“You sound just like an animal when you do that, grandpa! Just like one!”“I had practice, when I was young. When I was young, but a bit older than you,” he says.“I’ll start practicing now! Roar! Thump! Bash!”“Crash, if you keep on like that,” says another voice. Clean white breeches enter the room, and nimble hands, and a wig that can never stay on straight. “Are you off to shatter another set of teacups, Rosine?”“I didn’t shatter them on purpose, Monsieur Chip,” says the little one, not quite able to meet the eyes of the maître-domo. “I wanted to see how they work.”“As she should,” plucks up Belle, from her corner. Her big brown eyes light up behind the monstrous, massive glasses she perches on the end of her nose. “Keep turning things inside out, Rosine, until you figure out how they work. Unless, of course, they talk back.”Rosine isn’t listening. She’s busy saddling Adam with the library rug in anticipation of a nightly ride on the Beast.“I rather thought,” says Adam, somehow maintaining dignity despite his current position, “you had a habit of continuing to poke and prod, even when the things did talk back. I recall an incident involving wolves.”“And wolf bites, and if I hadn’t kept at it you would have had a lovely bit of infection all up your arm. Keep poking at things, Rosine, until they tell you not to. And then be smart about it, and keep poking anyway.”“Shouldn’t you be off to bed?” says Chip.“No. Did you always have to go to bed, Monsieur, when you were my age?”“Far more often than you would think,” Chip says, and a smile shines across his face. “The first night after, I remember asking Mum if she would let me stay up late, since I couldn’t fit into my own bed anymore and would probably slosh tea everywhere if I tried. She set up a bed in the cabinet for me right then and there, and I never got out of it since.”Rosine listens, with wide eyes. She won’t realize until she’s far older that these stories aren’t the same in every family. “What about you, grandpapa? Did you go to sleep, after?”“Oh, no, darling, dearest…I paced and scratched the floor, and wouldn’t have slept at all if I hadn’t had Cogsworth to tell me off. You never met Cogsworth, dear heart, not that you can remember, but he was at your christening, and blessed you.”“Blessed me with what?” Rosine scrambles up on grandmama’s lap. Belle drops her book immediately and takes her grandchild in her arms. “Is it like in the story? With the princess?”Belle laughs. “So many stories have princesses in them.”“The princess! And the fairies!”“That doesn’t—oh, Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty, is it?”Rosine nods, her chin thumping on her chest, bouncing and snuggling against Belle’s knee. “Fairy blessing! From Cogsworth!”Chip shakes with laughter. “I’m sure he would love to fancy himself a fairy godfather,” he says. “And Lumiere, too, and Chapeau as well. A trinity of godfathers.”“And yes, dear, they all blessed you,” says Belle solemnly, though fun sparkles behind her eyes. “They each loved you very much. And they each left their mark on you.”“What marks did they leave on me?” Rosine pictures talking with animals, and singing wondrous songs, and all the other gifts her storybook heroine received. “Will I fall asleep for a hundred years?”“To the first question: you’ll find out when you’re older, luv.” Belle laughs and pushes her glasses up her nose. “Who d’you think I sound like, Chip? People say they grow into their mothers, but I think I am growing into yours.”“You couldn’t pick a better one, ma’am,” says Chip.“And to the second one, Rosine, my love.” Belle’s attention returns to the stick straight hair (she smooths it down—then ruffles it back up again), and the hands that bunch her skirt, and the big eyesthat keep searching for answers. “Well, you’ll only find out if you can sleep for a hundred years if you go to bed. We’ll still be here when you get up.”“Promise?” says Rosine, sleepy.“Promise,” says Belle, and her soft, creased hands rest over the little girl’s.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The pterodactyls are very polite, at least. They can be persuaded to limit themselves to the ballroom.
“But we’ll have to flood it so they can find fish to eat,” pants Plumette, holding the door shut as it rattles and bangs against her back.
“We don’t have time to flood it, we’ve got to wrangle the apatosaurus out of the kitchen.” Belle shoves a broomstick through the door handles. It snaps a moment later as something huge and screeching careens against the other side. “Do you know what Mrs. Potts is up to? We could really use her—oh, thank goodness, the curtain rod will do nicely—we could really use someone who can—”
“We’re all out of steak,” says the good housekeeper, coming down from the bedrooms and wiping what looks a good deal like velociraptor spit off her apron. “I’ve fed it to the ones in your bedroom; I’ll try to keep them off the sheets, but no promises. Where’s Mr. Cogsworth? He’d be a tad helpful right now.”
“Oh, ah, he’s…he’s occupied.” Belle stares back toward the ballroom, and Plumette raises an eyebrow at Mrs. Potts. The mistress is a terrible liar when she’s put to it, and Plumette could swear she saw her looking at that magic book not ten minutes ago. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll be fine. We haven’t got any prey species in with the predators, have we? I don’t want anyone getting eaten.”
Plumette’s cocked eyebrow goes higher. “Why not? That’s one less monster to clean up after.”
“Just…it’s a matter of humanitarianism.” Belle grabs a laundry basket and flips it, fast, over a maurading baby triceratops that’s come streaking by.
“They’re dinosaurs, ma cherie. Not humans.”
“Mmhm.” Belle’s eyes refuse to meet her maid’s. “Look, if I could just have a little glance at that magic book, just a little one…”
“Ahh, no can do.” Mrs. Potts shakes her head. “The Tyrannosaurus rex is in the library, where you left that book when you and the master sat down to read together. Madame de Garderobe did a powerful job taking the monster down with a bolt of satin, but it might have got free by now. ”
“What?!” Belle screams. “It’s EATING the BOOKS?!”
“It’s technically not an herbivore, so probably no—” Plumette can’t finish; Belle’s already running off.
“If Adam eats that spell book I’m going to kill him, no matter how big his teeth are!” she shouts, dodging under a golden brontosaurus as she goes. The brontosaurus wags his tail, and starts eating the chandelier.
“What was that about?” says Mrs. Potts.
“Some would-be enchantresses were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should,” says Plumette, looking at the brontosaurus. It beams at her through a mouthful of crystal glasswork.“If that’s a reference to something, I’m sure I don’t understand what it is, dearie, unless it’s one of those movie-things you and Lumiere watch of a Saturday evening. And where is Lumiere? I’ve seen half a dozen dinosaurs more than I’ve seen of a man this evening, and that’s six dinosaurs to nil.” Mrs. Potts leans down and pets the baby triceratops. It nuzzles its chipped horn against her skirts.
Plumette sighs, and looks up at the brontosaurus. Somewhere far, far up, she swears she can see a wig.
“You know how it goes, Mrs. Potts. Man discovers dinosaur. Man becomes dinosaur. Woman inherits the earth.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He can’t sleep. His fur is matted against his face, and his limbs ache with animal strength, and his fangs bite against his own lips, and the nest he keeps on the floor is cold.And the moonlight streaking across his face is very, very bright. He blinks open one eye.Silhouetted against the window, so silvery transparent the Beast can see the wilting rose behind him, stands old Cogsworth—stooped in his spine, his old gnarled fingers holding a watch—checking for the time.He flinches fully awake, checks again. The specter drifts away: the human Cogsworth, just like he was when Adam was a little boy, fades into a mirror. The Beast springs after him, but recoils at the mirror’s gaze; there is no old man major domo there—just the hideous beast, staring out at him with animal rage.In the days following, the Beast keeps spotting them. He turns and—just for a moment—sees old dazzler Lumiere twirl his fingers in dramatic gesture. He glances behind him, certain that Plumette stands there, her feet curlicuing against the floor. Every looming shadow is Cuisinier, towering above them all, his hands filled with hot buns and fruit pies and dainty, tiny sweets.But they are only ghosts. They never last for more than moments. And as much as he fears them—as much as they remind him, all over again, what doom he brought to his dearest friends—he finds himself longing for them, yearning for any instant where he can see them, even so briefly, as themselves again.The visions fade soon, though, and with them go his hope. Soon he won’t remember their faces at all. Soon—if this rose keeps on wilting, if the palace keeps on crumbling—they will truly be ghosts. Or worse than ghosts.He can’t bear to dream of it. He curls up, and tries to sleep.The sleep and specters will not come.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“These are….these are very nice socks.”He sounds surprised, in his low, gentle voice. Mrs. Potts beams at him.“There you are, dearie, I knew purple and red were your colors—oh, yes, go on, put them on now, I don’t have any compunctions about seeing a man’s feet. Happened enough with his Majesty, you know.”Blushing, Pere Robert leans against the alter to pull off his buckled shoes and stockings. She was right: he does look good in purple and red. “Perhaps a bit showy for Easter Sunday, but I don’t think the Lord minds an excellently knitted pair of hosiery,” the priest says. “I’m sure he doesn’t, dear. Will you come take tea at the palace, as usual? Hot cross buns. And hot cross chef, but you know Mr. Cuisinier and his moods.”He laughs. “Yes, bless him. I would be more than happy to join all of you, no matter how hot and how cross. But I’m afraid I must remain in the village.”“What? No one else has caught you up, have they?” Mrs. Potts waves a joking fist. “That Beth La Mûre, I told her she wasn’t to make jam tarts for supper. Not on Easter Sunday.”“No! No. There’s a new parishioner—an artist, I understand, and his young daughter. I want to make them welcome.”“Hmph.” Mrs. Potts brushes off the artist and his daughter with one hand. “They’ll keep.”“I hope so. I heard that the father has had to move around a lot. Perhaps they’ll stay in Villeneuve. They come tonight—would you like to stay and help me greet them?”“They’re your guests, you’ll see to them right enough.” Mrs. Potts sighs, and adjusts her cap as if it weighed upon her. “I ought to go back to the palace, anyway. His Lordship is hosting a ball. Young, bright things, you know.”Pere Robert doesn’t. He’s too busy wiggling his toes in these lovely socks.“So I’ll be steaming about that all night, I suppose. I’m bringing Chip with me. Look after his father, will you?”“It will only be a night, Mrs. Potts. Jean won’t forget you in the time it takes to serve tea at a ball.”“Ah, yes, maybe so. Anyway, I’m off—hot cross buns come Sunday, do you hear?”“Yes, madame.”Two days later, Pere Robert wonders who gave him these nice socks.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“I don’t care how he leaves, I just think that he should leave,” insists Cuisinier. “Get him out of this palace. The King’s in a temper.”“Can one tempest recognize another?” asks Lumiere, and then ducks as a wooden spoon swipes near his head.“Fool! Just take the boy and leave. Wait it out. I don’t want to answer for him hiding in here,” says Cuisinier, and it’s a hard reason to put up for a soft heart.Lumiere takes the boy and runs. He can’t run forever. (even his energetic legs run out of kindling.) But the meadow at the edge of the forest is close enough, and far away enough, and just outside the King’s temper enough, that they can sit here for the day and stare at the sun and laugh and dream and play and hide.And fall asleep. The sun is very warm on Lumiere’s resting eyes. Adam wanders through the meadow, the wildflowers in it hitting his shoulders and chin. He takes bachelor’s buttons in thick, chubby handfuls, and stuffs his face into their bright blue cheer. He tumbles down, over and over, because the meadow is bumpy and the flowers hide the rocks, but he doesn’t mind. There are flowers, here. A big blue sky. Somewhere far behind him, his favorite footman left him free to play.He’s so caught up in the bright blue flowers, he almost doesn’t notice the bright blue girl.There’s a long, fine smudge of blue paint across her face—like someone dipped a brush for sketching, but got distracted halfway through. She has a little apron on, and is catching up the flowers in her hands, looking solemnly at their centers, studying the bees that flock around.Adam makes his way to her, though not without a bump or two.She shows him the flowers, and he shows her his, and they do an excellent comparison of their collection. And she says she’s the artist’s daughter—which Adam thinks is neat, because Plumette draws too, and she’s neat—and Adam says he belongs to the footman over the hill.“Which hill?” asks the daughter. Adam looks around. He doesn’t see Lumiere. Just shades and shades and shades of flowers: and bachelor’s buttons, and black-eyed susans, and golden daisies looking to the sun.“I’ll help you find him,” says the daughter, dropping her flowers and taking his hand in hers. She is small and soft and fat, and he is small and bony and thoughtful, and they go on an adventure to go find Adam’s footman.They go in the wrong direction. They go into the woods.“N…no,” Adam begins, but the artist’s daughter is determined. I know there’s a hill this way, silly. Hold my hand if you’re scared.Adam is very, very scared, but he’d rather hold onto the chubby hand in his than go back to the palace. The children are lost, and the leaves are falling in the wood, and dusk is coming on. They are too far away to hear Lumiere calling them. They are too in the dark to know that Maurice is out with his lantern, worried sick for his little girl.“Maybe this wasn’t the right way,” the artist’s daughter says eventually. Adam wants to cry. She holds his hands tighter and looks around, trying to pretend she knows the forest. “I bet if we sit under that tree, and think for a while, we’ll figure out what to do.”They go and sit under the tree, and the leaves keep falling, and they’re covered in a red and brown blanket that rustles with beetles and bark. Adam is frightened. But then the daughter laughs. “It’s like a game, see? We’re like Little Red Riding Hood. We’re exploring the woods!”“But….but that story had a wolf in it.” Adam blanches under a sudden thought. “Are there wolves in here?”“No.” The artist’s daughter bars her teeth, mewls out a growl. “I’m the Wolf. And I’ll eat up any grandmas who try to hurt you.”He can’t help it. He giggles. The girl grins, yips.“And I’ll blow the house down!”“That’s the wrong story.”“Don’t be a snob.”The artist’s daughter hooks her hands into claws and growls at the boy. And Adam laughs, and laughs, and it’s the strange sound of his laughter—so choked, usually, so scared—that helps Lumiere find him, at the edge of the wood, covered in leaves with a strange little girl.“Mademoiselle! I am forever grateful to you for protecting my young charge,” an elaborate bow, “charge in every meaning of the word, as he charged off on me,” another flourish, “not to mention he’s in charge of me, most of the time, or would be if he got his way.” A blown kiss to her hand as he picks the boy up, wincing under his weight and the collection of spiders in his hair. “You just have to know how to handle him,” says the little girl, stoutly. She helps brush the leaves off Adam’s coat. “Bye, silly.”“Bye!” Adam waves at her over Lumiere’s shoulder. She still has one of his bachelor’s buttons in her hair, tucked up against the blue paint streak.He never finds out her name. But sometimes he thinks of the Wolf, and feels a little braver.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Belle still isn’t used to hearing footsteps everywhere.In so many ways, her life is so much better. It’s so full: and she hears voices ringing in the halls, and Adam’s breath drifts across her cheek, and she looks up from her desk in her bedroom and finds summer sunshine crossing the pages. It smells like hot air and summer grass, and there’s birdsong outside, and everywhere she hears the skid of feet across the marble of the halls.It’s just so strange. The other day she was late to a governance meeting—Adam had asked her to attend them with him, partly because she gave good advice but mostly because she was fun to exchange looks with when the chancellors got boring. She had whipped around a corner too fast, and found her arms grabbing brown sleeves, and a steady presence holding her up, and she had looked up in shock and she’d seen a face she did not recognize. No, wait, yes she did—it just took getting used to to have Cogsworth catch her, and smile at her, and straighten her up and brush her down, and go on his way with his cane tapping in front of him. And he was as tall as she was, with neatly clad feet, and that expression just the same as always—but muscles behind his precision, now, and tender wrinkles where there used to be clock’s hands. Chapeau has hands. He plays the fiddle with his hands, plucking the strings, so much more dexterous now that he is almost swaying to the rhythm he creates. He says not a word, but Belle sees joy when he immerses himself in song. Gratitude overflows with every note, and his hands skim across the strings. Chapeau sees her looking and gives one even-eyed nod.Lumiere! Lumiere cannot stop moving. And it still rattles her to hear his voice ahead of her—rife with Parisian melody, laughing with joy to see Plumette—and then enter the room and see someone six feet tall, his face alight with romance, spinning with all the ease in the world in satin-backed shoes. He’s not just a voice, anymore, or a spark; he’s not a golden joke, twisted back with flames. He’s alive: and when he pulls her into the dance, she feels a pulse, and is overwhelmed again that all these souls are human, now, and dance and run and leave footprints in the sand. She knows they were people before. She knows the candelabras and clocks were just illusions. But she still must get used to Mrs. Potts’ hands on her, and Plumette looking at her with brown, soft eyes, as if they share a secret, and Cadenza turning to her, on two legs, and offering her a place in the song. They’re not small, anymore. They’re not golden. They’re all new, they’re all old, they’re all face and joy and fingers and feet. She knew they were people—but now they are, and the sound of footsteps overwhelms her.But then Adam is beside her, blue eyes bright and glad, and she does not worry any more.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“mum says you’re not supposed to stare directly into the sun,” says chip, his back on the ground, grass in his hair. his hands are smashed into his face; he looks less like he’s shading his eyes and more like he’s trying to squash his head.“your mum is a pinnacle of genius and it’s a mercy she puts up with the rest of us,” says lumiere. “and don’t look into the sun.”“but how am i supposed to see the eclipse, then? belle’s not done making the glasses, yet. and i don’t want to look at its shadow through a cardboard frame, like maurice said.”“mm, yes,” says Lumiere, a little drowsier than he’d like to let on. He can’t help it. Laying in the sun, practically glowing against the fine meadow grass, fills him with sleepy pleasure. “well, we must think of something else then.”“what if we take out my eyes?”that gets lumiere’s attention. he rolls over, fixing one blue eyeball on the boy. “you’re not still a cup, chip. we can’t paint you over so la mere won’t see.”“oh. right.” chip is silent for a moment. “….you think so?”Lumiere’s chin rests in his hand. he pokes at a snail with a blade of grass. “we’re not still cups and candelabras, mon ami. you have to remember to use fingers, and nails, and yes—your eyes.”“I just….” Chip flips himself over, copies the maitre d’s position. “lumiere, do you still feel stuck as a candle, sometimes? don’t tell mum, it’s just…..i still sometimes think, think as if…..”He trails off. Lumiere is not having luck pushing the snail into action. It’s quiet in the meadow.“Like you have porcelain hands?”Chip looks up, excitedly. Lumiere smiles, the sun winking off his face. “Or handles, still, I’m sure. It’s not strange, mon ami. Your mum feels it too. Cogsworth feels it. Even I, the brave hero of every story, have felt a touch of wax.”“Really?”“Well, non. Actually, wax doesn’t seem to bother me anymore. It is supposed to burn, right? When you touch it?”“..ye…yes?” “C’est vrai. I am free from the burning of wax. And you are free from having your eyes chipped, or painted, or knocked over by Cuisinier.” Lumiere grins. “Just as he is free from making breakfasts in his belly.”“Lumiere! Chip!” Belle is calling, from very far away. The meadow grass waves and something slides in front of the son—something dark, and great, and beautiful. “I’ve finished the glasses! Come and get them, before the eclipse starts!”“It’s already started!” yells Chip, and is running over the fields before Lumiere can get up. Two human legs go bounding down the hill: and Chip is gone, blinking his bright, brown eyes against the sun.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There is no reason they should have become friends. Plumette is cosmetics, and the court, and peonies and candied plums and endless laughter. Belle is books, and bread, and inventions, and library days filled with clean, sharp poetry. Yet somehow, as the castle settles back to itself, and slowly the staff remember how to be human—somehow, Belle finds Plumette becoming one of her best friends.
Plumette teases a laugh out of Belle. Belle gets Plumette to read Marcus Aurelius. (Plumette hates it, but never says.) The two find that despite all that divides them, there is some strange delight in having the other for a friend.
One day, the two go for a picnic. They laugh over their boys. They argue which blooms are best for flower-crowns. They split jam and peaches and hunks of melting cheese. And as the noon hour draws on, and the two mellow from the food, and the woods around them grow quiet as the birds flit home to sleep away the afternoon—Belle starts to speak.
She tells Plumette about the trip she took to Paris. Plumette is laid back on the cloth, her eyes turned up to the sky, her arms pillowing her head. Her voice low and raw, Belle whispers about seeing the dead things around her old home: the lost traces of her mother, the dust left over from the fleeing father. The abandoned drawings.
“And I wish I could remember it,” says Belle. “I know this isn’t anything to do with you, Plumette—you’re all light and cooing and it’s wonderful—I just, I wanted to say it, to somebody. I wish I remember it.”
She waits for Plumette to laugh, or say something soft and comforting, or to change the subject to something brighter than the death in Paris. But Plumette watches the sky, her face steady, her eyes big.
“No,” says Plumette.
“Sorry?”
“No.” Belle has never heard Plumette sound so final, so convinced. Her eyes still watch the sky, and anyone glancing by would think she was relaxed, only dreaming on the grass: a fairytale maid in the meadow.
But Belle sees the crystal-clear tear sliding down one cheek. And still Plumette watches the sky, her tone measured and steady.
“You don’t remember her scars,” says Plumette. “The way she could not leave the bed. The way we feared the rats. The burning of the bodies—you could smell it, even through the glass, every window slammed shut on the summer air to keep contagion in—and my grandmother would pull me away, and even her hands on my face would have scars.”
The story is vivid in Plumette’s eyes. The beautiful house, in the beautiful heart of Paris, falling inwards from disease.
“We burned the animals,” says Plumette. “Burned my stuffed animals, and those of my brothers—the little plush swans, the tiny velvet lions. They hold the plague, they said. And still we saw the rats.”
The doctors were hook-nosed, savage, too tired from the fight against the silent enemy to calm the children or soften the news. Their masks bobbed in and out of Plumette’s life as one died, than another: the grand mere soft in the bed, like a whisper; the children with wails in the night. Plumette’s drawings were ripped from the walls, because the fevers brought nightmares and the nightmares fed on anything strange or beautiful. All the servants died, or ran away, their loved ones clutched close. And Plumette fled, too, eventually: when the last light in the house grew dim, and all she could see were the iron bars of the windows against the smoking sky.
“You do not remember,” says Plumette. There are tiny tracks of tears across her face. “And it is good you do not. I remember. And I do not let it sorrow me—my grand mere would not have had that; non, non, flee into living, she said—but it is good that you never saw her die. You know your father’s love, without a bitter ending. You know life filled with drawings, families, little houses filled with hope.”
For the first time, she lets the sky go and looks at Belle. Belle is crying.
Plumette gives one small smile, framed on each side by the tears on her cheeks.
“I am happy, now,” she says. “Happy beyond happiness. Such sorrow gave root to the most beautiful joy. You need not weep for me.
“But bless you for never seeing the plague,” says Plumette. “All it was was ashes. And ashes breed fire-birds, who will live through anything—but first you must breathe the ashes, and that you do not want to do.”
Plumette’s eyes close, and the tears dry on her cheeks.
Belle holds Plumette’s hand, hard, and they both look back to the sky. It is very blue: and the birds sleep, in the meadow, under the clear blue sky.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Sit! Sit.”
Cuisinier’s voice is louder and lower and far more threatening than either of them. With a pout, Plumette—all of sixteen, and twice as conceited as she has any right to be—throws herself into a chair with a puff of her petticoats. Adam, a storm brewing around his eyebrows, scrabbles up onto one of the kitchen’s hard wooden chairs and wraps himself in tight, chubby arms. He is five, and furious.
“Are you sitting?” Cuisinier doesn’t look up from his stove. Plumette makes an affronted noise, and Adam mewls out a high-pitched snarl.
“Ferocious monsters don’t get cinnamon toast,” says the cook. “And neither do flight-minded birdbrains.”
“I wasn't—!” bursts out Plumette, but one hot glance from the stove quenches her.
“If you’re going to be in Cuisinier’s kitchen, you have to leave room for the stove to breathe. Not quarreling like little creatures! Not poking fingers, prodding tongues!”
“She won’t do my hair like she does hers!” cries Adam.
“I told you, I can’t. I only have pins for me, and your hair isn’t big enough anyway.” The girl does a remarkable impression of a swan’s hiss when she is angry. Cuisinier would be impressed, if he weren’t so impatient.
“Do you want me to make you sweets, or do you want me to throw this whole vat of meringue at both of you?” he demands. “Either sit quiet and eat it later, or fuss and fight and eat it now. Though I’ll warn you, if you choose the latter, I won’t be delicate with my aim.”
Adam is five. He doesn’t see anything wrong with getting meringue all over himself. Plumette swats him, and he swats back.
Cuisinier, judging whatever is on the stove to be in fine enough shape to be forgotten, comes and sits beside them, his hands cupped around a bowl of hot, frothy cocoa. “Why do either of you care what your hair looks like, anyway? Just put it under a chef’s hat, like I do.”
Plumette curls her hair around one finger, and doesn’t condescend to respond. Adam—one hand already making for the cocoa—says, “Plumette’s hair is pretty. Papa says it’s common, but he’s wrong.”
“He says that, now?” Cuisinier frowns. He doesn’t like the way the king treats Plumette. He doesn’t much like those village girls, either—he heard them laughing at the feathers the maid so carefully arranges in her hair, saying she looked like a goose, pretending they were so world-wise in their tiny forgotten village.
Cuisinier can mock the servants all day, but that is because they are his. His, and he feeds them. Kings and country girls had no right to laugh at Plumette, whether feathers are in fashion or no.
“And what about your own hair, little prince? A golden mane, like a lion’s.”
Adam shrugs. “I want it like Plumette’s.” He tries to reach for her curls, but she flicks him away. Not as roughly as before, though—and when he’s sitting again, His Royal Majesty all comfortable on the wooden kitchen chair, she leans in and strokes his bangs.
“We could do a little restyling,” she says. “No pins. No feathers. But if you want to be pretty, my prince, you have to be polite.”
Adam nods. His mother talks about politeness. She says that it is good, but kindness matters more. He lets these big words—kindness and politeness and cinnamon toast—roll around his head.
“Plumette? Do my hair? Please?”
“Say it like they do in Paris.” But she’s smiling; leaning across the kitchen table like a conspirator. Cuisinier sips his bowl and looks at them over the rim.
“S’il vous plate?”
“Plaît. S'il vous plaît.”
“No, plate,” says Cuisinier. He is up by the stove again, and draws out fresh loaves from the oven, and puts them out on crockery. “Who wants toast? Who wants meringue? Who wants soup made from sorrel, and the latest Russian concoction, and butter brewing on trout’s heads, and chickens I’ve roasted myself for five days?”
They choose toast, together, and Plumette works away at Adam’s snarls, and gives him a curl or two across his bangs. He calls her pretty, and eats his bread. Cuisinier returns to the stove, bang, crash, steam.
He still doesn’t forget those village girls, though. One day he’ll have his revenge.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Oof.” Lumiere sneezes. “I try not to go up to this attic, much—”“Why? Worried you’re going to find an old flame?” Plumette teases.“No! No. Where do you hear such stories?! I never dated a Christmas ornament, I told you that never happened—”“Mm-hmm. So why do you live in terror of the attic?”“It’s not terr—AGH.” Lumiere sees a spider and leaps. Stubborn, still, as he stands on top of a chair: “It’s not terror. I just…don’t like old things.”The two of them stand, surrounded by the dusting heaps of objects. Unmoving hat stands, cutlery, trunks, closets, knick-knacks: it is all too silent for Lumiere, too dead. Nothing here moves or feels or glows. Nothing has a heartbeat.It reminds him too much of the night of the curse.Plumette sees his eyes start to glance toward a dusty, broken feather-duster, and sidesteps in front of it so all he sees are her skirts. “Mon amour! Come, now. We don’t have to stay. She just wants her old trunk, to get the linens from it—”“Oui! Oui.” He starts from reverie and jumps toward the old trunk, hauled up in the back of the attic. “Beatrice” is inscribed on it, hard nails in cracked leather; and it still smells like tea and clean muslin and English-garden-rosemary. “I suppose she hasn’t had this out since she came across the channel—uff.”Lumiere has never been strong in his arms. They get it down the stairs—where Adam, thank heaven, is there to pick it up with ease—and the maître d'sighs and massages his limbs.“We’ve found you your trunk!” he calls to Mrs. Potts. “And about ten thousand pounds of dust. Did you secretly want to kill me? You know I’m allergic—”“You’re just French, that’s what, no backbone for the harsher things in life,” says the housekeeper, bustling forward and smiling at the chest. “Now! Look at that! You’ve done wonderfully, Lumiere, Plumette. Hold it there, there’s a lock—”The trunk flies open, with another cloud of dust. Lumiere sneezes in misery and stands back.________________________________The whole castle has gathered for the momentous occasion of opening Mrs. Potts’ bridal trunk—Belle and Chapeau and Adam and Chip and all the rest, to see Mrs. Potts’ old life in all its dust and rosemary. She herself hasn’t looked at it for years; but she wants the linens, now, the ones her mother wove for her. They’ll look nice, out on the table. Mrs. Potts doesn’t like to hide things away, any more—she has the good china out at every meal, and lets Chip run around to his heart’s content.He is not running now, though. He peers into the box with an eager face.“I don’t see any linens,” he says.“It’s not pirate treasure, dear, I told you,” says Mrs. Potts, digging down inside. “Just a trunk, with a few old secrets. Like—oh!—that.” She takes out an old, English-style Christmas ornament—a hammered-tin angel, with cunning eyes.“I told you,” Plumette whispers, poking at Lumiere. He pretends to sneeze and looks away.“Now let’s see, this isn’t table cloths—nor this either—now! Dear! What’s this?”She draws it out, with careful fingers. A beautiful, light-blue dress—of the old sort, the kind from thirty, forty years ago, the kind Belle knows from the sketches of her mother. It’s a costly dress, for Mrs. Potts; it would have taken a year’s salary for a miller’s daughter to afford such a gown, though it looks plain enough in Adam’s hall.Chip gapes. “Is it a fairy-gown?”“No, dear, though it might have fit through a thimble once—my mother made this lace herself.” Mrs. Potts smiles, and fingers the fading fabric. “I got married, in this dress. To Mr. Potts himself. Pretty, isn’t it?”“You—got married in this?” Chip’s eyes wander over the little English primroses embroidered on the silk.“Yes, dear. My mother cried to see it.”“Why wasn’t I there?” he demands.“Luv! You weren’t born, yet.”“Well, why didn’t you wait until I was born?” Chip is inexhaustible. Plumette hides a laugh, and Belle’s close-lipped smile tucks up in one corner.“Oh, dear, it was such a long time ago. You wouldn’t have wanted to be there for it.”“But I did! I do! Oh, mum, please! Can you do it again? So I don’t miss it this time?”Mrs. Potts starts to say no. But then she remembers—don’t hide anything away—and Chip is so eager, so happy, as he holds the dress made by a woman he will never know.“Well,” says Mrs. Potts, “my mother surely wouldn’t mind. She always said we’d have to do it again, do it proper, without the cats all crawling on the altar.”________________________________She doesn’t let Lumiere help. Plumette, she does—“Because you’re a rational soul, dear, and don’t get these extravagant ideas”—but she keeps a steady order to things, and turns down the buckets of roses and the twenty bridesmaids and the gold-trimmed invitations the maid suggests.“No, no, that won’t do at all,” she says. “We’re honest folk, me and Mr. Potts. We’ll get married in the ordinary fashion.”“But a swan cut from ice is the ordinary fashion—”“In Paris, maybe. But we’ll have a Yorkshire wedding, here in Villeneuve.”So they trim up Pere Robert’s little church, and order in blackberry ice cream, the kind that Stanley makes himself. (he’s taken to new hobbies, since the old ones went out of style.) Belle researches old English vows, and together with Adam cobbles together some little promises the two old lovers can keep—to keep a steady hob, and love each other beyond curses and broken crockery. Mrs. Potts gets out the dress, and looks at the seams with a furrowed brow, and carefully lets it out an inch here, and an inch there. She washes the lace and tucks it up on a chair, with little rose-bundle sachets to keep it sweet.Chip is everywhere. He cannot be stopped. The castle gives up on keeping up with him—he slips past Adam’s fingers, and skyrockets past Lumiere’s, and Belle can only get him to sit down after giving him peas to shell, or rings to polish, or shoes to shine. He is never happier than when his father asks him to pick out a proper corsage—“no enchanted roses, now; there’s my boy.The wedding is held on a morning. Plumette insists that late afternoon would be more fashionable, but Mrs. Potts maintains that afternoon weddings are always rainy. Never mind if that was in Yorkshire—she has a morning wedding, and Chapeau’s sisters help her get dressed.Chip is perched in the front row. His legs won’t stop jiggling. He grins at the church’s high ceiling, and the fresh-scrubbed altar, and Belle standing there with her fingers on her lips.Mrs. Potts looks beautiful. The old dress suits her perfectly; and Mr. Potts cries to see her, and opens his arms, and lets Adam give her away. Cogsworth dabs his eyes, and hands the two the rings—crafted to look like two clasped hands, and the ones they’ve worn forever, but shined to look new by Chip. And they say the gentle vows that Belle wrote, and Pere Robert blesses them, right as it starts to rain.“Oh! This is lovely,” whispers Mrs. Potts, slipping on her ring. “My mother would be so proud.”“I know she would, love,” says Mr. Potts. “And—oh! Oh! Dear!”There are cats flocking all over the alter, tipping over the candles and strewing the bread. Chip stands by, an open sack in one hand, another cat crawling across the other.“I thought,” he says, beaming at his mum and dad, “if I spoiled it again, we could have another wedding every year. Like your mum would want!”And the Yorkshire rain—come just to Villeneuve to say hello to Mrs. Potts—can’t drown out the laughter in the little church.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“And you came here all the way from Paris?” He leans over her, tall, from far above. She is eleven, and her dark, bright eyes search his.
“Oui, Monsieur.” The travel was hard. She walked through the woods, for part of it; and she hooked her way on the back of carriages, for some; and there was a night she spent curled in the crook of a rotten tree, hoping the wolves didn’t see her eyes shining in the dark. It is a long way from Paris. Long enough, she hopes, that the sickness won’t follow her small footsteps.
Cogsworth pretends not to notice that her little satin slippers, finer than those of an ordinary maid, are shredded and stained with the mud of the roads. He pretends he does not see the way she holds her little bundle of possessions close to her chest, and plumes herself up with bravery she exhausted long ago.
“You may rest here,” he says, at last, but it brings the child no relief.
“And I am hired?” she says. Push, push: this little child should be picked up and carried to bed, but she will not sink into her sleep until she knows she is safe. 
“Yes. Absolutely. Certainly.” Cogsworth is not certain of anything. But fine: the little miss needs to sleep, and have the mud sponged from her face, and if a position in the castle is standing in the way of that, then he can make exceptions.
She is almost asleep before they are halfway up the stairs. He tucks her into the feather bed, and she sleepily lets him take her bundle from her small hands. Asleep on the pillow, Plumette’s round, brown face sinks into sweetness.
She curls up like a cat in a sunbeam, right on top of Cogsworth’s heart.

He does not mean to look at the bundle of possessions as he lays it on top of her little bureau drawer—already it is her bureau drawer, everything in this little high-up servant’s room is already imbued with being hers, her hands that held this doorknob, her eyes that sleepily limned across this window ledge and caught a sight of streaking clouds and dew-stooped roses below. He lays it gently on the whitewashed tabletop and turns to go—but the knots that held it tight all these many weeks have finally come undone, and the edge of the handkerchief curls out, like a small hand seeking his.
He sees the charm before he can look away. A small silver heart, strung on a penny-worth glass-bead chain; the chain still has its look of peddlery, the feel of having jangled in a box of hob-nob nothings over weeks of village terrain. He knows it is worth a penny, less than a penny, perhaps her last half-penny; but the charm is of different stuff, a moonlight silver, light enough for a child to bear but with something about it that speaks of elegance, of treasure, of a gift given as protection.
The rest of the handkerchief slowly falls away. Here is the silver charm, the tiny ‘P’ curling in its center; here is a tiny cut-glass swan, the workmanship exquisite. A scrap of lace with the scent of snowdrops barely, barely lingering on it. A rip of paper with childish names written on it, childish faces scrawled beside: Maman, Papa, Peregrine, Perceval, Pèlerine…
Children’s faces, faces that could be brothers, sisters, cousins. Faces drawn with wobbling precision, the curve of a cheek or the stoop of an eye pressed so hard into the paper it has nearly torn in two.
She was trying to remember them, he realizes, and tenderness strikes his heart like an oncoming army.
He looks back at the bundle in his hand, all falling apart to pieces, and ties it back together with clean, tight knots. He straightens the bureau, tsk-tsks at the dust, wishes the room was prettier, with flowers or lace bits and bobs—whatever these young girls like. He resolves to ask someone to come and paint snowdrops on the bureau. He resolves never to mention the bundle. He tells himself he will let her remember in peace.
But sometime later, Plumette finds a perfect, exquisite silver chain beside her bed, where she knows she never had one. A chain that fits just right to her mother’s silver charm—though who knows what kind of fairy godmother thought to leave it there.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The next morning, Plumette slips down the stairs. Someone left her clean, nice clothes on the back of the wooden chair by her bed. And the sun through the windows was so sweet, after Paris, where the sun only made clear the dust against the windowpanes, and made hideously clear every scar on her mother’s face. In Paris, there is plague. But here in Villeneuve, there is only little Plumette. Eleven, with smarting feet, but a little grace still there as she makes her way through her new home in this new palace.“Did you sleep well, dear?” It is Beatrice Potts, the kind lady from the day before. She bustles around the kitchen beside a short, wide man who wears a chef’s hat. He helps Plumette to a chair, and gives her hot coffee and hot pastries and bread with thick, melting cheese. Plumette nods and eats, and Mrs. Potts pours herself a cup of tea and sits beside her. She talks gently, and lets Plumette eat her fill and say nothing in return.“..the Prince’s father, now, you’ll want to avoid him for a bit, at least until you’re comfortable—but the mother, she’s a good lady, you’ll like her. D’you know anything of dusting? Don’t worry your head if you don’t, dear, we’ll teach you—you just rest now, eat up, though these French breakfasts are never filling enough if you ask me; a good plate of eggs-and-bakey, with fried tomatoes, now that’s what I call a meal. D’you know, you’re just the age of Madame Chapeau’s girls—Claudette, Paulette, I don’t remember the names, but they are fine girls, or at least their mother is a fine woman. And we might be hiring the boy, so perhaps you’ll like him too. We’ll take you down to the village, if you like, and—oh! Dear!”Plumette is crying, a little. “Oh, darling—ducks—don’t cry, now, there’s a girl—oh, it was my talk of dusting, wasn’t it? Such a fool—such a journey, you’ve been on, and here am I talking about new work for your poor tired little self—come on, now, it will be all right—”She pulls Plumette to her side, and the girl cries afresh, breathing in the scent of clean washing and grey tea in Mrs. Potts’ kerchief. The warm, steady hands against her back are such a shock: and Plumette cries, and cries, and the tears course down her face. “It is not the dusting,” she says, when her throat catches up to her tears. She gulps and hiccups, and Mrs. Potts holds her tighter. A warm hug, unlike any Plumette has had in so many months: they were afraid of being touched, in Paris, and the horn-beaked doctors warned against it.“It is not the dusting,” Plumette says again. “It is….I have not been home for such a long time.”“Dear! You just came.”“Home,” says Plumette, and her hand takes in Cuisinier’s warm presence at the stove, and the hands that hold her close, and the tender questions, and the assumption that Plumette belongs here. That an abandoned child can be taken in, and fed, and loved within a day. That the sunny palace—one out of a fairytale, really, as it sits here in her heart—can say to Plumette: stay. “Let me work here,” begs the child. “I need so much more than dusting—let me wash, or scrub, and set to rights the lady’s things. Please, madam.”Mrs. Potts hugs her close. “You do more than work here, ducks. You live here, now. Now have a pastry—oh, for lord’s sake, get us some fried tomatoes, Cuisiner, the state of breakfasts in this country is a shame—and we’ll set you to rights. Plumette, it is, yes? Yes. There’s a dear.” And Mrs. Potts strokes her hair, and Plumette finds herself at home.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

he is guided by the sound of her weeping.the maestro is fit to go mad in the ballroom—he is running, skittering everywhere, the hard harpsichord’s feet making tracks in the marble floor as he tries to pull his mass up the stairs, or out the doors, or anywhere his wife might be. the harpsichord, the maestro, is too heavy. so lumiere goes looking, plumette floating by his side. the sky is grey and it is hard to see through the windows, but they check each room, looking for the beautiful diva.they find her in the darkest tower. the door is old and the lock is broken and from his now-diminished height, he is unsure how to get in. when you are six feet tall, you don’t imagine how lucky you are to be able to pull open a door—! but plumette is clever (she is always so clever), and they manage to open the door to the dusty old suite, the one near where the prince’s mother used to live.madame de garderobe is inside. in the dark, crying. her gowns are bunched all over the floor; it is a mess to hop over the velvets and silks and satins and reach her. lumiere wants to stroke her, comfort her by caress—
“lumiere! non!”
plumette’s cry catches him just in time. fire, on wood. he draws back from the singer, and she cries again, making the noise but with no tears running from her face. how can she cry, truly, beyond the gasps of her throat? water brings rot to wood and fabric. madame de garderobe is denied her own tears. plumette flies off, to tell the maestro they found his wife. to break the harsh, hard, wooden news. garderobe cries and lumiere stands (he does not even notice how his arms, now, naturally twist upward; the candelabra pose is uncannily easy, when he doesn’t watch out); and speaks french to her, and she replies in italian, and he talks to her until she goes to sleep. it will be all right, madame. we will make it well, madame. you are among friends, madame.it is not until she’s asleep that lumiere tries to remember what she looked like as a human. he only knew her for an hour—but she was stunning, then, and look at her now.he skirts his way around the fabrics—why is everything so flammable, mon dieu! he will have to watch his hands—and tells himself that when this curse is broken, he will personally bring wine and truffles to the madame and the maestro. it is la tragédie, to have them parted so. and then he goes to plumette, and thanks the heavens (even though they are grey, now, always grey) that he is still so lucky. so lucky, still.and still he hears her weeping.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The Enchantress reaches out one golden, shining hand. She floats some ten feet off the floor; Adam has fallen to his knees before her, and the rose has fallen to the floor. Not one of the servants makes a move to save him.Cogsworth, Plumette, Mrs. Potts, Chapeau, Lumiere. Standing there, silent, unmoving, as Adam screams and flinches on the floor. Fur sprouts upon his face, and he grows hideous.“Sacre bleau,” whispers Lumiere, standing still in the darkness at the edge of the ball. Adam towers higher, screaming in pain. The Enchantress glows with angry heat—and then she turns to them.And while one hand still floats over the Beast—as if blessing him, as if cursing him—the other hand points at them. Her eyes are clear, her voice—inside each head, not spoken by her lips—is clearer, telling them the terms of the curse. All who lived there, forgotten. All who lived there, enchanted. They do nothing, they did nothing: they will do nothing evermore, should the curse not be broken in time. The rose on the ground burns and sparks, and the Enchantress waves one hand.The scream from the burst of light is too much. Plumette’s head is thrown back by its impact; Cogsworth’s hand, just resting on her shoulder, vanishes, and she catches only a glimpse of Lumiere’s slender white fingers before her eyes close up before her. She is being yanked downward, upward, her face is freezing and growing cold: and then nothing, here, nothing.She wakes in a far-off room in the castle, far from the ballroom. Why, she is in the West Wing. And she is…she is small. And she cannot feel the floor.Or the air.Or her own heartbeat.She listens, quick, to make sure she is not dead. But no, no—the silence is quite silent, too silent for a palace filled with people, but she can hear the loud ticking of a clock, the steam from a teapot. And she can see the skylight, far above her: and though she knows she cleaned it just last week, it seems so much darker now, as if covered in a frost.She pulls herself up, with an effort. She knows she is not human, now. But whether she is monster or maid, she isn’t certain. There is a mirror, one that reaches the floor (she is quite close to the floor, now!); she tries to find a leg to help herself up.There isn’t one. Oh, mon dieu. She has no legs. She cannot move. Non! Non. She was not raised by Mr. Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts to give up, to lay here on the floor and not do anything for herself Up, up, sacre—HOLY, SACRE, HOLY. She is up by the skylight, now; she didn’t even try, and she’s floating twenty feet off the floor. Bearings, quick! Bearings—her wings flutter (wings?!), and she floats back down to the floor. Unfortunately, the floor shines like mirrors. And there, in the tiles that still show her footprints, she sees her face as it is now.If one can even call it a face. It is a bird’s beak, with two red eyes. Plumette has few faults. Everyone says so: she is divine, perfect, flawless. Even without Lumiere saying it every hour, she knows it to be true. But she valued her beauty—and there is none of that, now, no soft brown skin or bright, great eyes. No curls to frame her heartshaped face. Only wings, and feathers, and a constant reminder in every mirror of what she has lost.Lumiere coughs. There is smoke in his face! There was dazzling golden light—and there still is, mon dieu, far too close to his eyes—but now there is smoke.It takes him a minute to realize he is coughing not because he feels the smoke in his lungs, but merely because he sees it. It is habit, to react to smoke. Muscle memory. and his muscles…..….are not there.He tries to bring his hands to his face to wipe away the strain, but it only brings the light closer. And where are his hands, his fingers? He knows he has been cursed but surely the witch would not be so cruel to—Sacre. Holy. Sacre. He has become a golden gargoyle overnight. His cast-gold face gasps in dismay; one heavy metal foot scratches the ground.Cogsworth wakes up because the clock is chiming ENTIRELY too loudly. Why, it is practically reverberating inside him; they must have put it right beside his bed, or on his belly, of all the nerve. He sits up and looks into the mirror.Oh. Or they turned the clock into his belly. Right. An innovative solution. He couldn’t dock the witch points for cutting corners. There he was—or at least, where he should have been—and there was a clock. Yes. Exactly. Tik-tok. Tik-tok. Calm as a clock. Tik-tok. Precisely. He buries his face in a curtain to scream.

Whatever you do, don’t imagine Garderobe’s grief.

Cadenza waking up to a clang of keys; his harpsichord feet scrambling to find a way through the palace

Chapeau taking one look at himself and then just standing there, staring

Cuisiner roaring with heat and rage

don’t imagine thoe things to yourself. because, heaven, they hurt too much

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Wait a second,” said Belle, “that’s ME.”
Lumiere jumped and turned around, guilt evident in every line of his reclining body. Oh, yes, he looked very comfortable on the sofa, with his feet propped up toward the projector screen and some of Cogsworth’s marvelous popcorn at his side—but he also looked like he was hiding something, in this room with all the lights gone dark and only Plumette for company.
“What are you watching?”
“We were just…seeing if this was worth sharing with anyone else,” said Plumette.
“Oui! No use showing a disgrace off to our friends, eh?” Lumiere smiled quickly, readily, and Plumette grinned far too brightly.
“But why is that me?!” Belle sat down on the couch beside them before they could push her away. “That’s Villeneuve! That’s…that’s me, actually me, the day before I came here. What is this?!”
On the projector screen, Belle was surrounded by flowers. Her mouth moved soundlessly. Plumette was sitting on the speaker system, and her feathers clogged the noise.
“It came in the box of movies,” said Lumiere, and he shrugged. “We do not know why you are there! Or why we hear you sing your internal monologue.”
“You’re really mean to the villagers,” said Plumette, and Lumiere nodded.
“Also we aren’t in this story nearly enough,” he added. “We’ve only been in once, and it was in shadow. Can they not see that they are wasting my good looks?!”
“But…but how?!”
“i don’t understand it myself, I’m clearly the most attractive—oh, you mean how they filmed this? Who knows? Time travelers from the future, sentient cameras, magic—anything you like, cherie.” Lumiere tosses popcorn into the air and misses it by a mile.
“Go back to the beginning.” Belle is firm. “I want to see it all.”
“Oh? Oh….bien sur, Belle, of course. One moment, please—”
He reshuffles the film. Plumette hands Belle the popcorn. The three watch in silence.
“You’re not very nice to those villagers.”
Belle jumps and turns around. Adam is leaning on the back of the sofa, casually stealing popcorn from her bowl, his eyes fixed on the screen.
“They were mean to me!”
“You’d never catch me telling someone to their face that their life is ‘provincial.’”
“Oh right, you’ve never judged ANYTHING by the way it looked.”
“Saucy. Move over.” Adam easily flings his legs over the back of the sofa, and slides in next to Belle. His arm drapes around her shoulder.
Lumiere and Plumette snuggle closer.
“Wait, when was LeFou with Gaston?” Adam asks a few moments later, with mild surprise.
“He was his squire. Did I never mention that?”
“No. I’ve only ever met him as that boyfriend of Garderobe’s muse. Wow, he…he wasn’t a nice person then, was he?”
“Like any of us were nice people then,” says Belle.
“I was,” says Lumiere, with obvious pride. “But shh! We must be getting close to my part.”
“And my part!” says Plumette. “Why, when Maurice was visiting I was having quite the adventure on my own—”
“Oh, I can finally found out what happened to papa!”
“—with giant spiders and an evil creature in the dungeons—”
“I didn’t realize you invited him in,” says Belle, her voice softening. “A warm supper and a fire.”
“—I almost died, I cannot believe they’re not showing any of this!—”
“Ahh, there we go,” says Lumiere, as the Beast rears up. Adam winces.
The rest of the movie flies along. Many parts they did not know—Maurice had not told them of the owl at Agathe’s, and Lumiere had not mentioned his private dances with Plumette, and Belle blushes through every one of her sung confessions of love. (“I didn’t realize I was saying any of that out loud!” “Oh, you were. We all heard you.” “What?! I didn’t hear her.” “No offense, my prince, but you wouldn’t hear a spectacular dance routine if it happened right under your ears. Not…not that I speak from experience.”)
At the ending dance, they all sigh happily. But then:
“Is that IT?!”
“They stop the story THERE?!”
“But there was so much more!”
“Sacre bleau,” moans Lumiere, “we barely saw my human face. There went every award this could have won.”
“What a shame,” says Belle, “I could have watched that ending bit for years.”
“Well,” says Adam, and he strokes her hair and kisses her hand, “at least we get to live it, then, my love.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

As the explanations and the laughter and the celebrations settle down, and the music dwindles, and the couples kiss, and everyone’s legs ache from dancing, a few of the villagers remember Gaston.
In the joy that had followed they had forgotten him, you see; and in remembering him they are surprised by how unimportant he feels, how small. How little they missed him in this time of sun and roses. They know he mattered to them once, but they’re finding it hard, now, to pull out that old feeling of adoration he won from them before.
But oh well. Stanley and Dick and Tom try to summon some of the old feelings of machismo (but all they really want to do is dance and kiss in the sun), and walk themselves down the ravine to see if they can find where this man—it seems strange they once ever thought of him as anything more important than a man—fell. Down to the ravine they walk, and they search for Gaston.
They find nothing, in the pit. No body, no bones, no trace of him. They try to feel sorry or sad.
No, they can’t. Dick has a brother up in the palace, one who had been turned into a writing-desk, and now that he is back all Dick wants to do is sit with him and play checkers and make terrible puns like they used to.
Tom, why Tom has a mother, imagine that, he’d never have been a bully had he just been able to remember this sweet little woman who raised him to name every wildflower in the wood. He wants to take her for a walk and gather primroses for her.
Stanley doesn’t have to remember anybody. Oh, of course he is glad to have his friends and neighbors back, it does make things better, but the one he loves had always been there, and now that one was up in the palace, maybe willing to dance with him again, and if the idea of him standing there, open and loved, wasn’t enough to make Stanley smile and run from that ravine, nothing was.
The three left, smiling, making plans. They let themselves forget Gaston. they went back to their loves and lives; dancing, flowers, checkers, laughter. They left.
But down in the ravine, down crept Agathe. There was a trace, there was, they had just missed it. Magic asks for exchanges. Magic likes justice, and people transformed.
Agathe finds the last trace, and she holds it in her hand: a broken musket, snapped in two, choked by its own bullet. All that is left of Monsieur Gaston.
He sits in her hands, a cold, heartless, useless thing. She takes him away from the light and the sun. And far up ahead, in the sun and the roses, Stanley dances once again.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“You are too hot-blooded,” says the chef, and throws a knife.
Cuisinier ducks just in time. The knife hits the copper pan above his head and clatters to the floor.
“You see? I do things by choice. Exact. I might have sliced you in two. You must be more cold if you want to cook,” says the master chef, and turns away from the kitchen boy.
You lizard, thinks Cuisinier. Go sun yourself on a rock.
He is very young, and he wants to cook, but his temper runs away with him. Every chef he’s worked for has told him so: to cook you must be like ice; you must portion out the ingredients exactly, remove yourself from the heat of the stove, distance yourself from the emotions of the bubbling roux and the hot lava spreading out across the creme brûlée. Calm, Cuisinier, calm! Or out onto the streets!
He usually ends up back on the streets.
Between jobs, he goes up to his own attic kitchen: just a stove, really, precariously balanced on a brick and filling the upstairs neighbor’s room full of smoke. And there he cooks to his own satisfaction: throwing the simmering onions around with passionate abandon, embracing the hiss of steam as the dumplings boil, standing over the pots and crying “Yes! Yes! A sauce for kings!” as the newest lesson—from China or India or England or Russia, it doesn’t matter, Cuisiner takes it all—succeeds upon his stove.
How he loves to cook! And how he loves to do it undeterred by stuffy chefs, the minute control from every passing waiter. No one tells Cuisiner what to do in his kitchen.
Which is likely why he has never been hired anywhere for long. Too much passion. Too much temper. Too much forward thought.
And the hierarchy of the world is too hard to break, if you can’t keep your head down and pay your dues and stand over olives and garnish and beautiful sausages with the face of a dead man. No chef will promote him, no cook will keep him long enough to try; so he returns to his tiny stove, and slams the pots with frustration, and wonders when he will bake for kings.
Finally, he gives up. He packs his bags, and kisses the cold stove, and shakes his fist at the city. He will go to the ports, and either sail the sea or throw himself into it. He would travel abroad, if he could afford it, but all he has is enough coins to take him across France.
Not even France—for he becomes stranded in Villeneuve.
He shakes his fist back at the city. This new trial is the curse of those lizards! Never mind his insane talent with flour and herbs and meats and fruits—never mind that he is good enough to feed the world, if the world would only look up—he is stranded in Villeneuve, home to the sheep-farmers, with nothing but his pots and pans and a little Parmesan cheese.
It is as he is shaking his fist at the city that he notices the castle.
A castle fit for kings!
He turns his steps quickly to the palace; he struts in proud enough—never mind his clothing, a touch too loud for country folk; never mind his booming voice. It is time to cook! To cook! He will cook for the whole palace, lizards be damned.
Nobody is sure how he got into the kitchen. The housekeeper certainly did not intend to give over the making of the master’s soup to a man in plaid breeches and size 14 shoes. And yet once he’s there, it’s as if he’s always been there: baked into the background of the room.
“Who is he?” mutters Cogsworth.
“Heavens if I know. But he cooks beautifully, you know—far more passionately than any of those Paris cooks, you know the type.”
Cuisiner overhears and flushes with pleasure. They appreciate his passion! They welcome it! He sautées as if the world could be cured through butter and fat. If it were up to him, it would be.
After that, he never leaves. And other servants come, slowly: a flamboyant boy with a huge cravat and a soft spot for hot chocolate cakes; a little girl, who stuffs herself on his sugar-dusted wafers; a lanky man with correct manners and a fondness for meringue. They all come to his kitchen. Cuisiner’s kitchen: where, finally, he can burn as hot and angry and contented as a stove.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“No, no, I’m not being the dead body,” said Adam. “Once was enough for anybody. Don’t you people have any respect?”“Have another drink,” says Lumiere, sloshing the glass a little on its way to Adam’s hand. It is about 2 in the morning, the palace’s tapers are growing cold, and no one’s at their best as they lie around on the floor, wine bottles rolling beside them. The beds are abandoned, and in the corner the musicians giggle and kiss. And mischief—mischief breeds thick and playful among the palace residents.“Not,” says Adam, after getting the wine down in one go, “the dead. Body.”“Bien, bien,” says Lumiere, and gestures casually. Wine tips onto Belle, and she awakens with a sudden snort. She hadn’t fallen asleep, she hadn’t.  “But we need someone to be dead, non? That is how the murder game goes. C'est ainsi que fonctionne le jeu, mes choux—”“You’re speaking Parisian again.”“Pardonez-moi, I forget to translate for your provincial ears.” He stands, not too steadily. “So! The Prince has expressed interest in being the body—”“I haven’t, though—”“And here, I have cards here, for the identities of the perpetrators. Belle? Stay with us, mademoiselle—you must get used to the ways of the court—”“Staying up until 3 in the morning for a slumber party is a way of the court?” Belle says groggily. She takes her card, though.“Plumette, ma moitié, this one is for you—Cogsworth, here, put that gun down, this is a fake murder not a real one…here’s your card—”Cogsworth peers at his card. Fetches out his glasses, and peers at it again.“I’m playing a stuffy old British military man—hmph! Well! At least he’s respectable. No problems there.”“He possibly killed a man, mon ami.”“We all make mistakes.” Cogsworth grumbles and reaches for the chardonnay. “I play the innocent-seeming ingénue,” says Plumette. She is on the back on the floor, with her legs leaned up against the wall. Upside-down like this, she rolls her eyes up to look at Lumiere. “Mon amour, you did not give me the Miss Swan card on purpose, did you?”“You presume I know how to cheat at cards,” says Lumiere. His slender hands shuffle the deck with expert precision; Plumette pretends she does not see the card that gets tucked into his sleeve. “And I would only give you that card if I wanted to play Miss Swan’s enigmatic lover, Count Sinistre—oh, what a coincidence! Imagine. C’est formidable.”He grins at Plumette as he flicks her the card. The others take their pick and sit around to guess the game. “We’re all trying to guess who killed Adam, then?” says Belle. She’s not at her best at nights.“I’m not dead!” Adam yells, somewhere from the floor. She sits on top of him to quiet him down; he tries to protest, but he can’t hide that he enjoys this.“Oui, oui. We must be enigmatic, and drop hints; decide slowly—”“You did it,” says Mrs. Potts. Of them all, she still has herself the most together, even though she’s drunk more than most of the staff combined. “It’s obvious. Can I open the envelope, now?”“What?! We haven’t even started!”“With a candelabra. In the library.”“At least let me get some backstory in!”“Backstory? More like kissing Plumette for the sake of ‘being in character,’” Cogsworth says.“It’s called method acting, mon ami, you uncivilized chunk of fish and chips—”Belle plucks the envelope out of Lumiere’s hand.“Mrs. Potts is right,” she says. “Count Sinistre did it. Lumiere, you cheated, didn’t you?”“Que puis-je dire? J'adore ce jeu.”“Lumiere. Translation. Again.” Adam has been trying to move Belle for the last five minutes; she laughs and settles herself harder on his legs. “Can we not play a normal game? Chess, or something?”Plumette stretches; Lumiere gets distracted, she looks so divine. Her wig is askew, yes, her stockings half gone, but oh—she is flawless, flawless. “Seven minutes in heaven? Plumette and I will go first.”“Lumiere!”They’re already gone, just as the tapers go out. Somewhere, they can hear them laughing in the dark.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“So we watched Star Wars—that was weird—”“You look just like him!”“Stop saying I look like him! I don’t look anything like him.” Lumiere scrabbles in the box filled with rolls of film, and Belle and Adam exchange significant looks. He looked just like him. “And The Wizard of Oz—and Wonder Woman—and The Princess Bride, of course, again—”“Let’s watch one more before we go to bed,” suggests Plumette, stretching and yawning. “Something childlike, little! No explosions.”“Anything for you, ma chérie.” Lumiere digs down deep. “Only one left, c’est la tragedie—but come! This looks innocent enough! La Belle et la Bête. Animated. Drawn by hand.” He shows them the cover: a girl in a yellow dress, a smiling wax candle, a bison in a blue coat. “A little nothing before bed.”“Wait a second,” says Belle. “It’s called the what—”But he’s already started it going. The castle sits back to watch, passing popcorn between hands. “Disney,” reads Chip, as fireworks flame over an animated castle. “What’s Disney?”“I expect the madman who drew all this,” says Lumiere. “Ah! A stained glass window! How enchanting.”“Wait a second,” says Adam, but the movie has already started.
For who could ever learn to love a beast?
“This isn’t…this isn’t us, right?” says Belle. “Quelle? Non, of course not,” says Lumiere. “Look, that character wears entirely different clothes than you.”“But her name is Belle.” Shakily. “And she’s walking through Villeneuve.”“Does Villeneuve have a bookshop? That isn’t Pere Robert.”“Well…no. But she wants adventure! I wanted adventure—”“And where’s Stanley? Non, non, this is not your story.” Lumiere sits back, happily oblivious. “It’s just a fairytale, n'est-ce pas?”Belle’s lip is set; she knows she’s thought these very same things, talked this exact way about books. But no one else seems disturbed.“There! There. Isn’t that just like Gaston?”“I don’t remember him wearing only a red shirt and no proper coat,” says Mrs. Potts, mildly. “And our LeFou would never act like that.”“Thank you,” says LeFou. No one is sure where he came from, but he’s definitely here now. “Literally?? None of you?? Are seeing this connection?!” Belle’s voice has gone rather squeaky.“What are you talking about, dear?”“It’s only a movie.”“Is your father an idiot? No. No, he isn’t. But the one in this movie is.”“Mm-hmm,” says Maurice, eating popcorn with full hands.Belle manages to sit quietly for almost ten minutes.“There! There. Lumiere, that’s obviously you. Cogsworth! There’s a clock!”“Are you saying I look identical to all visual interpretations of timepieces to you?” demands Cogsworth. “Now, that really seems like far too vast a generalization.”“And that man’s face is wax. My face was never wax.”“Adam!”“I know,” he whispers into her hair. “They’re idiots. But let’s enjoy it, all right?”“But it’s us!”“But not us. Is that Belle the inventive, quirky, amazing genius you are?”“Well….no.”“Right, then.” Adam kisses her forehead. “Let’s tuck to, then.”As the movie goes on, Belle finds more enjoyment in watching the faces of the others. It is just as entertaining as the animation itself.Cogsworth: “That Gaston number seemed highly impractical.”LeFou: “No! No. It’s perfectly reasonable to boost self esteem through highly choreographed showtunes. And it sounded familiar, too.” He can’t think why.“Is this—is this fatherly inventor figure—” Maurice can’t quite find words. He’s fuming, a little bit, in his gentle way. “It’s interpretations like this that give us a bad name. Crazy! Raving! That’s where these fools get it from. Bumbling stereotype.” He misses the ottoman and puts his feet on Frou-Frou, instead. The dog doesn’t really seem to mind. “I’m not really connecting to anyone in this,” says Maestro Cadenza. Madame de Garderobe nods at his side. (she thinks the Closet Lady, as she calls her, is an idiot.)“Be Our Guest” raises one eyebrow from Lumiere. He rewinds the film to watch it again.“This….this…Plumette?! Have you heard this song before?! It is très familier—”“It tickles my memory too, mon amour,” says Plumette. “Très étrange. But not enough to know.”“I can’t fathom it,” says Lumiere. “I know that tune—but I cannot. Eh, no matter. Carry on!”But his feet kick, a little, in a tiny can-can beneath the coffee table.The movie flies by, after that, though none of the servants seem to see themselves in the transformed objects, nor see their prince in the lumbering Beast. (“ahh, he is so lonely,” Lumiere whispers in sympathy. “not as lonely as the clock,” says Cogsworth; “he might as well marry that candle-fellow.”) The transformation brings a chorus of happy “oohs” and “ahhs”—followed by cries of disgust.“Mon dieu! They looked better as objects.” Lumiere averts his eyes. “Sacre-bleau, someone tell that wax-faced one to get on breeches from this century.”“Lord, that woman looks like she could be the grandmother of the boy,” says Mrs. Potts. Chip has long since fallen asleep in her lap. “Oh, heavens, the inventor is still around,” sighs Maurice. “Somebody put him somewhere beyond human society.”“You don’t—you still don’t—?!” begins Belle, but Adam nudges her. His blue eyes are sparkling against the screen, and it brings her back to earth. Her Adam, in their home: and none of the rest of it matters, not at all. “I still swear I’ve heard that song before,” says Lumiere, as they fold up the screen for the night. “’Sing you off to sleep’…..” And he hums, as Plumette dances off with him up the stairs.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“They won’t go away,” and Plumette fusses and coos, her touch soft even as she tries to shoo them from their perches on her skirt, her arms, her shoulders. There’s one in her wig, but Lumiere will be the last person to mention it to her.“Shh, don’t disturb them, ma chérie,” he says. He has his hands behind his back. Plumette looks at him—his care and tone make her suspicious. The ducks quack quietly.“What are you plotting?”“Plotting? Ma cherie, I plot nothing—beyond TINY DUCK-SIZED PANCAKES,” says Lumiere, and his pockets and his hands and his waistcoat are bulging and overflowing from a bounty of tiny, one-inch discs of batter and crunch and fry. Plumette finds herself covered in twice the ducklings she was before.“I will murder you,” she says, beaming, her smile outstripping her face as the ducks quack for joy and chow down straight from Lumiere’s hands. He’s got a saucer full of syrup that he’s helping them dip the pancakes into. “Did you bring blueberry jam as well?”“I am nothing if not prepared,” says Lumiere, lifting a tray stacked with ten kinds of jam from somewhere on his person. “Can we name all of them? I have good ideas for names.”“Only if you don’t mind them perching everywhere on the bed.”“Eh, they will be grown in a week. I can live—oh! This one wants blackberry jam. I must go make some—”He is gone back to the kitchen in a second, only a flash of gold coat-tails marking his trail. Plumette is left standing in the garden, one arm outstretched, a feathery statue among the rose-beds. The ducks quack and munch and fluff their feathers, and she shakes from silent laughter.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Light the candles, tonight, luv,” she says. She stands by the windows of the Parisian apothecary shop; and the evening light creeps in, like a shy cat: afraid of being welcomed, but more afraid of being turned away. His mother looks out at the night, but she doesn’t think of him; hasn’t thought of him in years. What a lonely night, amid the mothballs and the Parisian streets. How lonely her life is.“Candles are expensive,” grumps his father, but lights them anyway. He has no sons. A candle or two won’t matter—and his mind glosses over the empty attic, where Lumiere lived, and the room they still keep empty for the forgotten son.For they have no son. They tell it to themselves, to remember, so they think: remember, we have no son.And Lumiere’s father lights the candles and the Parisian shop glows empty against the night as, far away—too far away to be remembered—a candelabra goes silent, forgets grief and passion and family, and winks out beneath a night full of cold, dead stars. And the night is still. And the Lumiere family—a family made up of a man and a woman and a quiet, still spot where dead things lurk—look at the candle and think, yes, that’s it. That’s all there will ever be.For moments they think this. And no light glows warm inside the dark.Fire, fire: the candle is leaping, glowing. A shrill, harsh breeze is blowing in the shop. In Paris, so very far from Villeneuve: but everyone feels it, the breath of life, and somewhere the moon strikes out, and somehow the old accordion from down the street lets out a breezy, shrill cry to the Siene.Lumiere. Lumiere. The light against the dark.His mother is crying; no, she is gasping. His father is always restrained, yet there is a tear on his old, wax-stained skin as well. Lumiere. My son. The light amongst the night.They don’t remember why they forgot. But they travel, soon, to Villeneuve: she fussing all the way, lighting candles every night; him taut as a bowstring, worried still it’s all a story, and they have no son waiting in the dark.He welcomes them with open arms. Sunshine, in Villeneuve. And no more candles needed to keep away the dark.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Her sleep is soft, and she comes out of it slowly, her heartbeat coming slow: and it takes her moments to register the sun, and Lumiere’s candle still standing by the bed, and the way her soft-feather-nest of a bed is shared by another pulse. He breathes softly in his sleep, and his hand still brushes her hair.How heartbreaking it is to be in love. How painful to love someone so much. Plumette feels like her heart could be ripped from her with loving. And love, and love, and love—and still he sleeps beside her. Her…love.His daft hair. His smart chin. The way he spoke to her so tenderly, last night; the way he was quiet, so rarely quiet, and his slender fingers so slow, as if she was a tender thing to him—precious as morning sun, new as the first flame.And he stayed, here, now, with her. With Plumette. Lumiere, with Plumette.“He’s in love with me,” she whispers, still in revelation.“I am, you’re right.” She hadn’t noticed he had woken up. His blue eyes look at her, and he smiles straight up into her face. “You are dearer than my life.”“How long?”“I should have told you a long time ago,” and he cradles her fingers. “But you were too beautiful a treasure to lose.”“I cannot sleep from loving you so much.”It hurts, to see the face he makes at that. Like every lung squeezed in. And it’s only then, seeing that dawn on his face of hope and wonder and disbelief and raw, open love, that she realizes: he did not know I love him.Love is painful, but soft nonetheless. Long lost time can be retrieved. In the early morning light, Plumette find happiness, something warmer than the pain: her own best friend, in love with her.The candle by the bed blows out.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

they are both masters of their craft when they meet. royalty (some far-flung noble, in Italy or Spain or Prussia) has brought together the best musicians in the world, and the courtiers are told to keep the maestro and the madame apart, whatever it takes. musicians are famous for their egos—and no one is more famous than Garderobe, the reigning queen of opera, and Cadenza, master of the harpsichord. Cadenza has been known to throw people from his room for daring to question a note—and Garderobe, people say, turns sulky and silent if not given her due attention.
it’s utterly no problem to give her attention, of course. the lady has the voice of angels, jewels, kings, gods—no description covers the rapture when she decides to sing.
and cadenza—why, everyone loves cadenza’s songs. Of course, his playing is a bit sharp, a bit too precise, people say. A little too well-done. He’s never been in love, say his teachers, how is he to play with passion otherwise? He has the skill but not the reason.
Anyway, so, the servants are given their orders: keep the musicians away from each other. They’d compete and get cross and we shan’t have our musical revue, says the King.
On different sides of the palace, separated by a courtyard, Cadenza and Garderobe unpack their bags and lay out their clothes. Their schedules are planned down to a minute. The two shall never cross, not if his majesty’s servants get their way. Garderobe requests a cup of honey and lemon to warm up her voice. Cadenza’s been up for 15 hours and asks for a cup of coffee to keep himself going.
The performance is in an hour. Cadenza sits at the harpsichord he’s requested for his private room and plays one note.
Across the courtyard, Garderobe opens her window and warms her throat with one descending scale.
The intersection of the notes is not heard in the palace. The courtyard’s fountain is noisy—the ivy climbing the walls damps the noise—the cries of serving-boys and rich coquettes are all more pressing. But Cadenza hears it.
Garderobe is surprised by the sound of the note against her voice, but keeps going. There aren’t any more after it. The palace is quiet beyond the yells and the cries and the fountains and ivy and horses and stomping and dancing and running and cooking and baking and thinking and doing. She warms up to higher notes, longer scales, a brighter sound.
Across the courtyard, Cadenza sits at the harpsichord, not touching it for once in his life. For once his hands do not hit the keys, but rest forgotten on their ivory backs. The concentration of his face has lapsed and he looks like he is lost.
No more notes. Garderobe keeps going—descending, ascending, sending her voice to new and different places. She goes for the most difficult exercise yet, one that makes her jump between vastly different notes exactly on pitch—
And is surprised by the keys and notes suddenly intertwining around her voice, drifting in from her open window, springing in all around the gaps and lulls of her voice to complement it with arpeggios and accents. The musician behind the sound is building on her voice in a way she’s never heard before. Garderobe has always had rather condescending opinions toward harpsichordists—always banging away behind her voice, or running too much ahead, or just hitting the notes and not the way she feels them—but this experience denies them all, and smacks her in the face with power and sensitivity.
She reaches for the highest note she can, and the music cuts off immediately. She is immediately disappointed; again, she has outrun the competition, again rebuked an artist with her mastery. She holds the note, more from habit than anything else.
and slowly, slowly, quietly, pianissimo, hears the harpsichord climbing back to her. She is gobsmacked—that wasn’t a silence, that wasn’t shame, that was an intentional pause, done by a fellow artist, because he recognized the weight just her pure voice had at that moment. He had put the music above himself, above his own playing, above embarrassment or envy.
The musician, whoever he or she is, finishes the cadence totally attuned to her. She stops and listens, listens hard, trying to hear over the fountain and the palace who could be such a maestro.
Loudly, from all the way across the courtyard: “KEEP SINGING!”
A tiny figure in a giant wig waves to her, gestures. “AGAIN! AGAIN!”
She lets out one long, shrill note of recognition.
“BRAVISSIMA!”
When it is time for the concert, the servants, proud of their ability to manage it so well as to keep the artists caged in their rooms all day, strut to the doors and knock with confident hands.
“Maestro? It is time to begin. If you would just follow me here, down the eastern staircase.”
“Mademoiselle? The western staircase, please.” 
“Maestro?”
“Mademoiselle?”
Tea and coffee are spilled as the servants search the rooms. There is no opera singer. There is no harpsichord master. In consequence, there shall be no musical revue.
In the back labyrinth Cadenza kisses Garderobe’s hand, shyly. She laughs and drops her glove for him. They walk beneath orange trees and talk a little, and he asks that she sing, and he hums the notes beside her, his eyes lost on her face.
They never perform for that King, not in that palace. But they are always grateful to him, and send him flowers, now and then, and crates of tea and coffee. “If it weren’t for that courtyard,” they say, “we might not have heard the other. How clever your servants were to place us so we should meet.”
Cadenza’s music mellows out; his teachers retire with smiles on their faces. “He learned to love,” they say, even before they are told.
Garderobe’s voice reaches higher notes, transcends beyond the heavens. If anyone could look away before, no one does so now. They court, they marry, they travel the world. One day they decide to visit Villeneuve. They heard the prince there did not appreciate the tenderness of music, but gold coins are catching, and the two have a weak spot for cake and company and lavish balls. Afterward, on to Florence, and then Vienna. Glamor, music, each and the other, they need not live in Villeneuve.
Cadenza tunes his instrument, Garderobe warms her throat. Their eyes meet and her hand touches his face. Then she turns to the partygoers and starts to sing.
One night in Villeneuve.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Ugh. Plumette can barely feel her head; it’s throbbing, mon dieu, her eyes could fall out right now and she wouldn’t notice. One brown hand flails out toward her bedside clock and misses by a yard. Oh—ohhh—oops, no, that was too much effort. Better keep laying here until the hangover subsides.

Her face is smooshed down into her pillows, breathing in the musty scent of feathers and years-old lavender. Ugh. She turns over, with an effort—no, too much effort, again. Better just lay here looking up at the canopy of the bed without trying anymore super-human activities. Her eyes hurt, and the headache throbs.
What were they drinking last night? The Prince had gotten in some fine new vintage, he had ordered the very best, she knew it was expensive because Paulette down in the village had been complaining about the tax hike. And it never hurt anybody to just sample the wine—but, ugh, I guess it’s hurt someone now.
Where was she. Right: the wine. And the wine would have been just fine, a couple glasses clinked in the kitchen never hurting anybody, but then Chapeau (with that subtle smile of his) had silently poured a little brandy into his glass, to join the wine. Disgusting! A truly disgusting concoction—and one everybody had to try, immediately. And when Mrs. Potts declared she could drink any of them under the table, well—everyone has a competitive side, particularly on the fuller side of three glasses of wine.
Plumette’s arm drifted over her eyes.
Thank the sun his highness didn’t find us. He wouldn’t have been pleased to see his wine going to anyone beyond himself. Though, who knows—she remembered the Prince having a smiling side, once, and maybe he would have enjoyed the drinks they invented carelessly, Cogsworth mixing rum with scotch just to “make it last longer, truly just an economic measure.” Economic—hah. She wondered how the major domo was holding in his headache now.

Hadn’t he—it was hard to remember, through all the wine-colored memories—hadn’t he challenged one of the footmen to a drinking game? To see which one was truly the best? Competitiveness, yes—wait, she had already had that thought. She was repeating thoughts.

Where was she?

Right. The footmen. One of them. Drinking Cogsworth under the table with aplomb (aplomb: good word, good work, said something still drunkenly weaving behind her eyes). The older man had kept good pace at first, but then he got so far he proposed dueling instead, taking out guns and swords from his pockets, and the footman would have totally agreed (with the happiest smile in the world; forgetting that dueling could end in death, and not just be a wildly good time), if she hadn’t pulled him off. And then—wait, she remembered pulling him off the major-domo—what then? What then?

Oh right. They kissed. Because that footman—

She turns over, once more, her arm slapping down on the body beside her. He doesn’t wake. A dribble of something makes its way down Lumiere’s chin. He still wears half a face of makeup—she doesn’t remember putting it on, but it’s clearly her handiwork, little flowers and scrolls drawn on his temples with an unsteady hand. His wig is askew, his hair still drenched with powder underneath, his mouth hanging open in the most idiotic of expressions. His long nose is slightly red.

He is not—thinks Plumette, through the haze of her brain, which can’t quite pick up the words she wants it to—le sandwich au jambon plus séduisant.

Nope. Not at all. A merry idiot, slobbering in his sleep, with flowers on his forehead. Anyone else would throw him out of bed and try to forget the night before.

And yet—and yet—his hand still drapes to her waist; he still smiles in his sleep. God forgive me for loving an idiot, thinks Plumette. She takes her eyebrow pencil from the nightstand and gets to finishing her handiwork.
If he’s going to have drawings on his face, he might as well have them symmetrically.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Sit down, shut up, move over, wait no I need to get up, Mrs. Potts can you see? Chip you’re not going to believe this, come help me set up the screen—”Lumiere isn’t flustered, exactly, but he is in the highest key of preparation Belle has ever seen. If “Be Our Guest” was Lumiere climbing to the highest mountain peak of his ability, then preparing for this movie night is approximately the equivalent of launching him into space.Belle sat back and snuggled into Adam. All around them was hustle and bustle: Chapeau quietly putting the projector screen together, Chip and Lumiere arguing over which way to put the long rolls of film into the projecting device, Mrs. Potts fussing and fetching blankets, sweaters, cups of tea, glasses of lemonade, and anything else that felt appropriate for this “movie” night. Belle still couldn’t quite believe movies existed—this was 1700s France, after all, yet the fact remained that just this afternoon a box from America had arrived at the palace, straight from some place called “Hollywood, California,” and while everyone else was puzzled, Lumiere had gasped for joy and rifled through its contents with an obvious recognition. “What a collection!” he had cried. “The Wizard of Oz—The Fellowship of the Ring, and Singin’ in the Rain—Star Wars, eh, I wonder what that is—oh! Oh, mes amis, this is it, this is the one we will watch.” So now they sat, under the strictest orders from Lumiere to get comfortable and prepare to be wowed, while the maître d’ got everyone into chairs and yelled back at the kitchen to see if Cogsworth was ready. The major domo was ready; right on time, to be exact, as the ten bowls of popcorn he had spent the evening preparing were all still hot, and now came out in their buttery, salty goodness. With a last wave of his hand, Lumiere seated the last few members of staff, and set the film to rolling.“The Princess Bride?!” cried Adam. “Lumiere, is this a romance?!”“Shhhh,” whispered Plumette. “He’s ok if you talk during it, but don’t criticize. And anyway, this is a good one.”“Wait, you’ve seen this too—”But then it was too late, and they were all watching a little boy (“about my age!” “yes, Chip” “can I have whatever he’s playing with?” “no, Chip”), and then watching his grandfather (“about your age!” “I am certainly not that old,” huffs Cogsworth) come in and sit down and pull out a book.Ooh, thinks Belle, I think I’ll like this. It’s about books. The castle is quiet as they watch Westley and Buttercup roam around their farm, “as you wishing,” and they are quiet when Westley goes off to be a pirate, and they are quiet when Buttercup decides to marry Humperdink. Plumette wonders, briefly, if they don’t understand this movie, if they’re not enjoying it, but then—“I like this giant,” says Adam, out of nowhere. “I hope the giant stays around.”“The giant?” says Belle. “Clearly the Spaniard is better.”“He hasn’t done anything yet! The giant got them up those cliffs.”“Ha,” says Belle, as seconds later the Spaniard draws his sword. “Told you so.”“Giant,” mutters Adam, but he’s grinning, and pokes Belle in the side. After that, no one stops to be quiet, and the constant commentary makes Lumiere smile and hold Plumette closer to him, remembering the first time they themselves watched this movie and yelled at the screen during all the good parts. Mrs. Potts has strong opinions on Vizzini, and nods affirmatively as he meets the poison; Chip gasps at the Six-Fingered Man, and wants to know if Westley is ok. Cogsworth has to get up and leave during the Fire Swamp because it stresses him out too much. Belle starts yelling at the screen, really yelling, when no one is clever enough to solve things the way she would; and no one can get enough of Mad Max and Valerie, or the Albino’s dry replies, or the Priest who goes on and on and reminds Adam of all his old teachers.Inigo chases the Six-Fingered man, and everyone shuts up just to see how it goes. Belle grips Adam’s arm tighter than is necessary, and Plumette can barely keep from giggling because these are movies, this is what watching a movie is like, this is cinema: clenched hands and staring eyes and no one breathing all because one actor can hold the screen like that. Lumiere nudges her and she shuts her hand over her giggles. The movie ends and Mrs. Potts wipes her eyes.“The giant stuck around,” says Adam, trying to be casual even though there are still tears in his eyes, and beside him Belle gasps for breath and groans. There is the sound of people trying to breathe again after all the excitement. No one gets up from the couch. The popcorn bowls are empty, and it’s far past bedtime, yet they continue to sit in front of the now-black screen.“I’ll go make some more popcorn,” says Cogsworth, casually, and all at once there is an explosion from the palace people.“Can we watch it again?!”“Can we watch another one?! You’ve a whole box there—”“Lumiere, don’t be selfish, put in another one—”“I mean we’ve got the whole night ahead of us, we might as well watch a couple more—”“Come on, Lumiere, don’t make us stop now—”Lumiere grins and reaches for his treasured box of movie magic. “Which one next?” he says. “Which one next?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

‘and stay out!’She is laughing still to hear her lover chase out the invaders. Who would ever have thought they could be so lucky, to get to yell and swoop and set fire like a mischief-maker? She feels warm and giddy and—Still. She feels a spike of cold rush through her, then nothing where it was. It comes again—and then it’s not spiking anymore, it is spreading through her,  cold and then nothing. She cannot move her legs her feathers her legs, she cannot—her chest grows cold, her wings grow heavy and then light and then nothing. The laughter stills as she does. Lumière only notices too late.Any thought of mischief has fled. She is not some great undying hero. She is not a warrior, standing ten feet tall and blazing with fire. She is just a feather-duster. She is just Plumette. She catches him as he starts to say her name—she wants to laugh or cry or move her face as she sees him staring back, but it is growing cold too. And in that one second, she looks at his face and sees his face.For years now she has seen gold. She has always known it was Lumiere’s face, underneath, but the gold always caught her up; just the way that when he was human she was distracted by his blue eyes, or his firm jaw, or the way he held his lips. All those distracting, pretty things: skin and gold and bone and metal. But now—oh, it is Lumière! It is Lumière. His eyes have not been blue for years and yet she sees them now, as they always are, no matter what the color: full of light, and spark, and everything she loves. The glow of his face is so warm, and she just wants to—touch it—Her throat is still, it has gone dead. One feather reaches up to brush that face. He starts to say her name—but she never hears him say it.Still.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Why didn’t you tell me there was a portrait gallery?”Lumiere shrugs up at her. “We didn’t feel the need to be incredibly boring. Besides, the dust!”Belle picks him up. “Lumiere, you can’t breathe. At all. You told me so. Dust won’t stop you.”“Just—aaghh—history—there are so many more exciting things….” Lumiere sighs. He can’t get out of this. Belle’s hand, larger than his head, is wrapped around his base. “At least allow me the dignity of being bored out of my mind.”“Fine! Yes! Just point me towards it!”Lumiere, gesturing more tragically than the situation deserves, points down a dark hallway and twists his body around. In a moment, his legs and shoes and coat all vanish, leaving only an ornate stand. Lumiere heaves a groan, rolls his eyes, and lets his candles glow.The hallway ends abruptly, widening into a dark chamber that still reeks of old red wine and spoiled parties. Golden frames line the walls. There is no light—Lumiere was right; dust shrouds all the windows, and the carpet is only a mass of gray—but Belle loves the smell of paint, here, and all the stories behind these portraits. She holds Lumiere high, and goes painting by painting.Something loud and ticking skids to a halt at her feet.“Mademoiselle! You should have said—fascinating—bring an expert with you—” Cogsworth can’t get his words together. He looks up at her, telling the wrong time entirely in his eagerness. “Do allow me to join you! I haven’t come here for years, but I fancy myself not too rusty for a tour guide. Unlike some of us, who don’t understand the joys of history.”“A golden frame! Sensationnel!” Lumiere throws his candles up in exasperation; Belle just dodges the heat. “So many beautiful, dead people! I shall quite faint with the joy of it, Cogsworth.”“Don’t go overboard.” Cogsworth puffs himself up. “Now, this one here: that’s a count, a relation of the Prince’s.”“A still living one?” Belle leans forward. Lumiere’s candles light up both the painting and his expression of utter distaste. “Oh no no no, that would be dreadful, that was 200 years ago…..now, THIS one; a great uncle on the left side, I imagine, and he was a particularly avid collector of spoons—”“Aghh, bon sang,” hisses Lumiere, and the trio continues down the hall. Slowly, the paintings become more up to date, though this side of the room is just as caked in dust as the other. Great-great grandmothers, then grandpapas, then distant uncles, then cousins—“That’s the Prince’s mother,” says Lumiere, quite suddenly. Belle had thought he had fallen asleep. He twists the candles higher to see. “She was a beautiful woman: a star on the earth.”“Was she kind?” Belle already knows the answer. She sees it in the eyes of the painting as it looks out blindly on the world. Cogsworth sounds rather choked. “She was exceptional. For a French woman.”“Ah, how the Prince loved her,” Lumiere says softly. “I never saw such a happy child, when she opened her arms to him.”“When did she die?” “The Prince was, what, Cogsworth, nine? ten? Only a little older than Chip. Looked a little like him, too!” Lumiere chuckles, but Belle feels a stab of pity. She does not know what Chip looks like. They forget she cannot see them. She moves onto the next painting. “And who is that? Is that the Prince’s father? Oh, no—too old—it’s his grandfather, isn’t it?”Cogsworth is oddly silent. Lumiere has gone mute. Belle holds him higher, sends his light shooting far up the walls.“Oh, these are beautiful! I wish my father could see. Look at this woman—she looks so nice, what a warm face—even painted, it’s nice.” The portraits here are smaller, as if they don’t matter as much. Belle takes a tiny one, framed in wood, off the wall. “Are these the Prince’s brothers? My goodness, what wigs—and they’re both so skinny. Just flesh and bones.” She smiles, hangs it up again. Takes one long, last look around the hall. Sets Lumiere back on the floor, to run off as he chooses. “Thank you for showing me all of it. I’ll remember their stories.”She wanders off—to puzzle the curse, or to read a book, or to forget the faces she has seen. Lumiere and Cogsworth stand side-by-side and look up at the portraits. “I forgot I wore my coat like that,” says Cogsworth, quietly. “Brothers,” says Lumiere, and there’s something caught in his throat: never mind that he can’t breathe. “Chapeau and I, brothers to the Prince—and a painted face for Mrs. Potts—sacre.” His voice trembles. “I knew I hated the portrait gallery.” The blank, painted faces stare down at them. The clock’s case and the candelabra’s shine reflect them right back. Lumiere lets his candles go out.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

They lounge on the couch in the library, legs intersecting, toes brushing up against each other’s necks. Belle fiddles with her necklace and chews a leaf of peppermint as she turns another page. Adam looks at her, easy and sideways over the cover of his book, here in the silence of this library. They’ve had so many days like this—mornings crossing into afternoons, tangles of bodies under blankets and on sofas, library days that turn into nights. Adam keeps reading, and his eyes never leave the page.“It’s been a couple weeks. Maybe we should get married.”“Adam! You’re supposed to do these things properly!”“What’s not proper about that? Oh, the fact that my feet are in your face?”“Get off, you big hairy beast!”“Look, if you want a big production number I’ll go get Lumiere, but I thought this might be easier. I have the ring and everything!”“You’re also practically horizontal. How’s this going to look for the history books? ‘Prince Proposes To Future Bride While Lying On Decaying Sofa, Too Much Of A Potato To Arise.’”“Would you get down on one knee after lying here for five hours? No. We both have the bones of old men. Please just make this easy and take the engagement ring.”He foists over his poetry book. His mother’s ring rolls in the spine. She half-kicks him in the shoulder, not hard.Her eyes are filled with tears.“Please, dearest?”“Oh, Adam. You big old lummox of a man.”“Please let me take that as a yes.”“Put it in the history books.” And she laughs, still crying, and he kisses her soft on the hands.