A/N

I have long been fascinated of folk tales, and the way they change over time. Ever since Madame de Villeneuve wrote down the story in the way we now know it, the story - and it's moral - has gone through a lot of changes. It went from being an allegory for arranged marriage, to a story about looking past one's appearance. Of late, more and more adaptations have had the Beast not changing, and changing the moral of the story to acceptance. My story is one of those, but for that the 'Beast' had to be biologically human for the relationship to work. This story also tells the tale from the Beast's point of view - it's his story and his character development I want to portray here.

Thanks must go to Alex Flynn's Beastly for inspiring this.

Chapter 1. Allendale

The town of Allendale, West Virginia, contained four streets and maybe one hundred residents. The town had been founded in 1764 as a farming and fishing commune (the Brightgush held plenty of fish, and eight miles downriver lay the larger town of Low Hermon). Surrounding the town sat several outlying farms, households, and homesteads, one of which belonged to one Ned Lainer. Ned was pushing sixty, a widower, and his son had moved to Charleston for work ten years ago. All his life he had lived quietly up at the Lainer smallholding to subsistence farm, and his half-brother, Ike, who was ten years his junior, had gone down to Allendale when he got married and opened the General Store.

What was unusual about this day, the 20th of April 1928, was that Ned Lainer had received a letter. That in itself was not unusual. What was unusual was first, its sender, and second, its contents. The letter came from Duke Lainer, Ned's cousin, and it was the first any had heard from him in almost thirty years. Duke had left Allendale when he was thirteen, sent back a letter two years later saying that he was in New York City, and nobody had heard anything since. And now, it seemed . . .

It seemed as though he wanted his son to stay with Ned for an extended period of time. There was no reason specified, only that in two weeks time, he would deliver Adam, the boy, to Ned himself with $200 upfront, and pay 50 dollars a month for the boy's upkeep. That left Ned to wonder what all this was about. He should be glad of the company and an extra pair of hands, he thought. And it would be best to make up a bed soon.

XXXXXXX

"It's sure strange." Said Ike the next day when Ned showed him the letter. "I mean, Duke leaves this place thirty years back and he wants us to take care of his son just now? I wonder what's wrong with the boy that he's givin' him to us. How old did he say he was, fifteen?"

"Mmm. Aye."

"Want Hannah to bring you up some extra food on the 3rd?"

"Oh, yes, Ike."

"What about my Sophie? Shall I send her up so she can help get the house clean?"

"You know, Ike, Hannah must be rubbing offa you if you're gettin' all houseproud about your old half-brother."

Ike laughed. "Well, you know how it is. We've been married near thirty years here. You were married to Lucy for forty."

Ned's wife Lucy had been Hannah Lainer's aunt.

"Yup. Forty years."

"Must be nice to have company and some help up there again, huh?"

"Oh, aye. Need to get the bed made up."

"Oh. You know, we worry about you, Hannah and I. You sure that you can manage, Ned?"

"I've managed before."

"Yes, but this'll be a green city boy. No tellin' what he'll be like."

"I know."

"Anyhow, if you want Sophie or Hannah to come up and help you, you just got to ask."

"I will, Ike. Could Hannah come up with some good food and could Sophie make up a bed in my loft tomorrow?"

"Sure thing, Ned. Sure thing."

XXXXXX

Ned Lainer's property sat beside the White Gill, which fed the Brightrush. There was his house – two rooms on the ground floor, a porch and a loft – the smoking-hut, the barn, the storehouse, the chicken coop, the shed, and a hut for the laundry. A garden lay to the left of the house and a pasture behind. Another pasture was five minutes walk to the right of the house, beyond the tiny fishpond, and what passed for the orchard sat in a fenced area on the other side of the White Gill. There was a wooden bridge that Sam Kingsley had built for him twenty years since leading to it. Finally, on top of Lainer's Hill, there were three large open fields which adjoined to one another.

And on the Third of May, 1928, Ned was just finishing up lunch when he saw a large black car fight its way up the slope and twist around the bend to sit at his front door. He came out to greet the car's occupants. The man in the driver's seat climbed out, dressed in a chauffeur's uniform, and approached him.

"Mr. Lainer?"

"That would be me."

"Paul Kowalski. The chauffeur." He handed Ned a somewhat bulky envelope. "My boss says that's the money and another letter. The kid's in the car; I'll just go get him."

In the back of the car Ned could see the outline of a man's head. Kowalski walked around and opened the car door. Then he pulled out two cases and walked inside.

With slow, defiant movements, the boy climbed out of the car. He had a trench coat over his arm, and he was wearing a pulled-down hat with a shirt and a vest. Over the lower half of his face, he had pulled a blue handkerchief. It hung loosely, coming down past his chin. Kowalski came out again and took a third suitcase into the house.

"Are you sure you'll have room, sir?" he asked Ned.

"I'm sure, now, Mr. Kowalski. I had myself and a family here alla my life. One boy's not goin' to displace me from here." He turned to the boy. "And you must be my cousin Adam." He held out his hand to shake. The boy didn't seem particularly enthusiastic to meet him, if the limp handshake was any indication. "Well, I just finished my dinner, but if you want some there's plenty left. Now Mr. Kowalski, have you brought in all the cases?"

"I have, sir."

"Well, if you and Master Adam want to take your leave of each other then you most certainly shall. Adam, I'll go plate up some food for you while you say goodbye."

And so he did. Adam slouched in a moment later with his hat still on.

"Mind if I keep my hat on, sir?" he asked.

"I do mind, Adam. And from now on it'll be 'Uncle Ned', not sir."

"Yes si – I mean, yes Uncle Ned." And he took the hat off.

Ned could rather see why Adam would want to keep the hat on. From his eye all up past his temple was a rough red mark in the skin, and all over the boy's skin were angry red marks – teenage spots – the kind that scarred. Then on his left cheekbone there was another scar, huge and thick and ravaging. It looked as though his cheekbone had been bashed in and slashed, had dirt rubbed into it, been clumsily cleaned and badly stitched up, then left to heal on its own.

"Why don't you take of your mask too? It'll be much easier to eat."

"I can eat with this on, Uncle Ned. I've practised." Snapped Adam

"Well, I'll give you a piece of advice here. We're goin' to be livin' together for quite a while and I'm goin' to see what you look like under that hanky. Now it's only us here so I'll suggest that you take it off."

"No." said Adam, and then raising his voice "I'm not goin' to take it off. I am not. Not yet, not now. What's under my mask, it's not pretty. That's why I wear it. There – there was an accident, you see . . ."

He turned to his plate and dug in without so much as saying grace. Ned protested.

"Fayther never says grace." Said Adam, as soon as he had emptied his mouth.

"And what about your Mama?"

"Doesn't live with us any more. She got divorced a few years back. I think she married a chap from France."

"Divorce?"

"Yes."

"Oh." There was a pause. "And Duke Lainer sent you here because you had been disfigured, and he didn't want to see you any more?"

"What do you think, Uncle Ned?"

"How sad."

"Yeah, it's sad alright. Me, Duke Lainer's boy and top of the guys, sent to West Virginia because my Old Man can't stand the sighta me! Yeah, it's sad alright."

There was another pause. "I'm still not taking off my handkerchief, Uncle Ned."

XXXXXX

In the hours that followed, Adam proved himself to be generally uncooperative and surly. His first remark, on seeing the bed made up for him in the loft, was that it was too narrow. Then he had refused to muck out the barn, complained about supper, refused to wash up, and slunk off to bed when there was still work about the farm to be done.

Ned wondered if he should give him the benefit of the doubt, but decided that he ought to be firm.

So next morning, he clambered up the stepladder that led to the loft and told Adam to wake up. The boy turned away with a fast, jerky movement and stayed in bed.

"Well, Adam, if you don't come down in the next ten minutes then I am afraid that you shall miss breakfast. My cousin Mrs. Lainer sent up some good food yesterday. We've porridge with honey and apples in it, and some good fresh eggs the fowls laid today."

As it happened, Adam missed breakfast, but took the dishes without complaint and washed them, albeit somewhat clumsily.

"So what do I do, Uncle Ned?" he grunted

"Well, Adam, do you go to High School?"

"I did, before the accident."

"Would you like to return?"

"With a face like mine?"

"Adam, son, there are bigger things in this world than just your face."

"Well, my face defines my world."

"I'm afraid I don't understand, son."

"No, I don't expect you do."

"So you do not want to go to High School then."

"No."

"Do you wish to continue with your schoolin', though?"

"Maybe."

"You give your Uncle Ned a definite answer?"

"No."

"Come now, why not?"

"You wouldn't understand. You are a country bumpkin and - "

"Now Adam, that's no way to talk your elders." Said Ned sternly. "Just 'cause you lost your pride and all your fancy learnin' and houses is no reason nor excuse to belittle other people that they never had what you lost."

"Well, you don't know what I lost."

"Well, son, if that's the case, tell me what you lost, then."