Beast (19 page)

As the sun rose the next day, I made my way down to Mirabelle’s room. We walked to the dining room together for breakfast.

Once at the table, we sat, and she began to eat. We did not talk much at breakfast, but I could tell that there was a lot on her mind. She barely looked up from her meal, and she was extremely silent. When she held her glass or silverware, they shook as if in an earthquake. And from what I could see, her eyes looked watery.

I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but I was afraid to. Part of me thought that if she wanted to talk about it, she would. Another part of me thought that maybe she needed encouragement to talk about it.

After she ate her meal, we made our way to the library. Before she settled down with a book, she walked around. While she did this, she carefully studied the books on the shelves, as usual.

From time to time, Mirabelle would turn to glance toward me and smile. Perhaps she could feel my eyes on her. But it was not her normal smile; there was heartache behind it, and it seemed fragile, as if it could shatter at any moment. My heart broke for her as I studied her smile.

She finally grabbed a book and brought it to the chair next to me. Every so often, I glanced over at her. Instead of reading her book, she was looking around the library, spacing out. I knew that I needed to ask what was bothering her, but I needed to do it at the right time.

At lunchtime, Mirabelle wanted to go to her room. I had not seen her this way in months. The last time she had been like this was when she had first come to the castle.

When I walked into my bedroom, Buttons was already there. I made my way over to my bed to sit down. With my eyes shut, I took a deep breath, taking in the roses’ aroma. The worrying was gone.

I felt my bed shake and opened my eyes. Buttons had jumped onto my bed and crawled into my lap. I shut my eyes again.

Suddenly I began to giggle incessantly; Buttons looked up at me, letting out a sweet, high-pitched meow. So I stroked him with my hand as he purred.

At dinnertime, I made my way down to Mirabelle’s room to walk her to dinner. When I left, Buttons closely followed me. As I walked and thought about her actions that day, I feared that she would shut down around me.

Once at her door, I knocked, as usual.

“Mirabelle, dinner is almost ready,” I said after not hearing a response.

I stood waiting for her for some time. When I was about to walk away, thinking that she might have already gone to the dining room, the door squeaked, and Mirabelle somberly walked out.

“Good evening, Mirabelle,” I said quietly.

“Evening,” she said almost in a whisper.

During the walk to the dining room, she was completely quiet. Not one word came out of her mouth; I began to worry more.

Once we were in the dining room, we walked to the table, and then I helped her with her chair. After I did this, I sat in my seat. When she picked up her fork, she let out a deep sigh; seeing her like this was killing me.

“Mirabelle, I can tell that something is bothering you. Will you please tell me?” I pleaded with her.

But when she looked up at me, she looked right back down at her plate a moment later. Again she took a deep breath in, as if she were preparing to tell me something.

Once she exhaled, she shook her head and said that she did not want to tell me. But I knew that I could not do anything if she did not tell me what was bothering her.

“Mirabelle, please tell me. I see that you are hurting, and I do not like it. I am hurting because you are.”

She looked up from her plate and stared deeply into my eyes. Her hands trembled, pools of water filled her eyes, and tears ran down her cheeks.

She began to weep. I picked up my chair and placed it next to hers. To comfort her, I put my arms around her and held her close, hesitating at first.

“Okay,” she said with a quivering voice. “My birthday is tomorrow. Every year it becomes harder and harder to deal with.”

“What is harder to deal with, lovely?”

“My mother was my best friend. She was the most beautiful person both inside and out. She would read stories to me at night and sew me the most beautiful dresses.

“Whenever I was upset, she always knew how to cheer me up. When I hurt myself playing outside or working with the roses, she could make me feel better.

“When I was about four, my mother became very ill. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong with her. She lost too much weight because she rarely was able to eat without becoming sick. We tried everything we could to make her better. But no matter what we did, her health did not improve.

“It was my fifth birthday, and it was one of the first times that she was able to walk around our house. We had this big dinner celebrating my birthday, along with her improved health.

“Mother looked like she was doing much better. She was slowly gaining weight, and her cheeks were rosy. We all became hopeful that she was going to become her normal self again.

“But that night, after she put us to bed, I woke up to the sound of Papa crying and yelling. I stood up, curious to know why Papa was acting that way.”

Mirabelle began to weep harder, which made me almost begin to cry with her.

Before she spoke again, she took a deep, shaky breath; it seemed difficult for her to breath.

“I walked into my parents’ room. My mother was on the bed, while my papa was on his knees next to the bed, holding her hand and wailing. I asked him what was wrong, and h-he told me that … that …” She took another slow, deep breath. “That she had passed away.”

She grabbed on to me and placed her head on my chest as she allowed the tears to come, bawling more than I had ever seen.

“I am so sorry, Mirabelle!” I said, trying to comfort her.

“I miss her so much. My birthday has never been easy since then.”

We sat there for a long time; Mirabelle did not touch her food at all.

I understood what she meant about losing someone close to you at a young age. As much as I wanted to tell her about my parents, I knew that it was not the right time, because if I told her about them, then I would have to tell her about the transformation. But I knew that I had to tell her soon.

We stayed in the dining room that whole night. Eventually, we moved to the couch by the fire. She ended up crying herself to sleep. Her head was on my lap when she finally fell asleep.

Chapter 12

A
fter she had been asleep for a while, I carried her to her room. I had a feeling that she would rather wake up in her room than with me on the couch. As much as I wanted her to just stay, I knew that I needed to bring her to her room.

Since she had told me the night before that it was her birthday that day, I knew that I needed to do something special for her so that she would not think too much about the loss of her mother. While the Invisibles were making breakfast, I thought about what I could do for her to make this birthday memorable.

After thinking for a while, I walked to Mirabelle’s room to knock on the door. Like the day before, she did not come to the door right away. When I turned to leave, her door began to open.

She looked stunning. She was wearing a white blouse with a deep-green skirt that flowed as she turned to shut her door.

“Good morning, Mirabelle, and happy birthday!” I smiled at her.

“Morning, Beast. And thank you,” she responded with a little smile.

The whole way to the dining room, Mirabelle was very quiet; I had a feeling that she was thinking about her mother. This was something I understood well, which she did not know. As we walked, she moved at a slower pace than usual.

“I hope that I can make this day one that you remember for good reasons,” I told her once we were sitting at the dining table.

She did not respond; she looked up from her plate for only a moment.

There was so much sadness in her eyes; I felt horrible for her. The second our eyes met, a lump began to form in my throat. My knees began to tremble.

After breakfast, we walked to the library, as we did almost every day. She did not browse the shelves as she normally did; she walked to a certain bookshelf and grabbed the first book she saw.

Mirabelle sat next to me and started to read. I could tell that she was just acting as if she were into her book. Every so often, I glanced over at her. Her eyes were glossy, and her chin began to tense up as if she were fighting back tears.

From what I could see, Mirabelle was not really focusing on her book. She often would look up from her book and look around the room. I do not even think that she turned a single page. I put my book down on the table in between us and stood up.

“I know that you are not really reading the book that you have in your hands.” I put my hand out for her to grab on to.

“You could tell?” She was embarrassed.

“Yes. I do not want you to be sad on your birthday, so let us go outside in the snow.”

“Yes, I would like that.” She set her book down on the table and stood up.

We walked down to the foyer, where our coats were hanging on the coatrack. I took her black coat off the rack and helped her put it on. I put on my coat, and then the Invisibles opened the door for us.

Before we walked outside, I gave her my arm. We walked carefully down the steps to the snow.

“Would you like to walk around for a little bit?” I asked Mirabelle.

“Yes, that sounds nice,” she agreed in a somber voice.

We began to walk around the courtyard. In the beginning, we both were silent. We made our way out of the courtyard, past the barn, and toward the gate that surrounded the castle.

“Oh my goodness!” she squealed. “Do you see that?”

“What do you see?” I asked, looking all around us.

Finally, I spotted it at the far end of yard, by the gate.

As we approached it, Mirabelle began to squeeze my forearm with excitement.

There by the gate, growing out of the snow, was a breathtaking blue rose—one of the rarest roses in the wild. I could not remember ever seeing one, and certainly not one growing in the winter.

“Wow. I do not think that I have ever seen a blue rose grow—ever!” I exclaimed.

“I have not either. It is so exquisite!” She spoke in a high-pitched voice, almost a squeal, because of her excitement and amazement.

“I do not think I have ever seen a single rose grow in the wintertime. There has not been a rose that has grown on the castle grounds in a very long time,” I informed her.

Then an idea hit me.

I dropped my arm and began to walk toward the gate. I walked over to the incredible blue rose and cut it with my claws.

Mirabelle had so much joy in her eyes as I made my way to her, cupping it carefully in my paw. Before I gave it to her, I bowed. Mirabelle giggled and curtsied in response.

She was beaming.

When I looked up into her beautiful grey-blue eyes, I felt as if everything around us disappeared. My heart fluttered in my chest, my stomach began to move around as if it were being blown around by several different winds, and my pulse was in my ears. When I opened my mouth to speak, nothing came out. All I could do was smile while I attempted to relearn how to speak.

“Your smile is captivating. No matter where you are, you light up your surroundings. Even outside! I have never seen a smile like yours, Mirabelle!” I finally said after what seemed like forever.

“That is so sweet.” She blushed and giggled while taking the rose from my hand.

As we continued our walk around the castle, snow began to lightly fall upon us. Mirabelle let go of my arm and started running with her eyes closed and mouth open, trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue.

“There is the Mirabelle that I know!” I laughed.

She glanced at me and then closed her eyes and fell onto the snow. Once she hit the snow, she began to laugh incessantly. She carefully held on to the rose but placed both hands on her stomach as she snickered.

I shook my head and then ran over to her; I jumped into the air and landed hard on the snow next to her. It did not cushion me as I had expected that it would.

“Ow! Oh, that was a horrid idea,” I shouted. I was in pain, but there was laughter in my deep voice.

“Oh no! Beast, are you all right?” she asked worriedly.

She rolled onto her stomach, which caused her to move closer to me.

“Yes, I am fine. It was only a little snow.” I chuckled while rubbing my back where I had landed, but it actually did hurt more than I allowed her to know.

“Well, that is good,” she said with a smirk on her face. I knew that she was scheming.

The second she said that, she jumped on top of me, onto my stomach. When she came in contact with me, she knocked the wind out of me. But when I was able to, we both began to laugh.

After this, she stood up, hiding something behind her back.

“What are you hiding?” I asked her.

“Oh, nothing,” she answered, trying to hide the grin on her face.

When I stood up, she threw a snowball at me and then ran away as fast as she could, giggling.