Prologue

Several years ago...

It would be dreadfully cliche to say that it was a dark and stormy night, but it would also be true. A winter squall rolled in over the countryside, bringing frigid winds and droves of snow. The frost piled up in the leaden windows of a small but respectable castle. It was the residence of the House of Porter, one of the older and more influential families of Beacona. The old woman walking-no, hobbling-on the country road lifted her eyes toward it. It was her destination. Tonight she would have the answer to her questions...and her suspicions. Pulling her cloak tighter around her gaunt body, she fought her way up the hill.

Snow blew into her face. Wind ripped at her cloak. Reason told her it was a stupid idea, a pointless scheme. But a deeper, more moralistic part of her told her to do it. The old woman stumbled up to the dark door, and she beat on it with a bony fist. Almost a full minute of silence followed. Now it wasn't that the Porter family was absent from their castle. Golden light shone through its windows. No. It was merely taking them an unacceptably long time to answer her summons. She considered turning back and abandoning her plan. But then would they learn?

At last a servant answered the door, a scrawny lad with brown hair. "Hello? Who are you?"

"My name is not important," said the old woman. "I only seek shelter from this storm."

"In our castle?"

"Yes, in this castle. Go speak to the master of this house. What is his name-Thomas Porter, is that correct?"

"Erm, yes. You want me to speak to him?"

"I want you to summon him. I shall speak to him."

He looked concerned. "Why?"

"Just do it, lad. A poor old woman needs shelter in a raging storm. Why deny it to her?"

That convinced him. The servant scurried off to go tell Sir Thomas Porter that someone wanted to shelter in his castle. She stepped inside to get out of the wind and snow, brushing frost off her cloak. She waited patiently, standing as still as a statue. The castle seemed to be all aflutter because of a simple request. At last, the patriarch of the Porter house was there before her, flanked by an entourage of servants. His ten-year-old son, Lukas, was curious to see what the excitement was about and followed him.

"Who are you?" the tall, broad-shouldered man asked her.

Again the old woman's answer was "My name is not important."

"You have come seeking shelter?"

"Yes, sir. I seek just one night of shelter from this dreadful storm. Please indulge in a bit of kindness for me. I promise that I will not cause trouble."

"Hmmph," said Thomas. He looked the old beggar woman up and down. She looked like a living pile of rags. She had an ugly hook nose, and the entire right side of her face was scrunched up in an old burn scar. Honestly, she looked like a witch.

The old woman could tell that Thomas was disgusted with how she looked. "I beg you, sir. Do not be repulsed by my appearance. An ugly visage can hide a beautiful heart."

She removed a single, lovely rose from the folds of her cloak. Lukas "oohed" at the sudden appearance of the pretty flower, and looked at his father like he expected this beggar woman to be given shelter.

But Thomas wouldn't budge. "Send her away. She is not worth our trouble."

The old woman closed her eyes and sighed. She shook her head slightly.

"Sir, how I wish, for your sake, that you had not said that."

Thomas's eyes narrowed. "What is that supposed to mean?"

The old woman twirled the rose between her fingers. Before everyone's surprised eyes, it turned into a yew staff with gold filigree. And the old woman changed, too. Her posture straightened and her rags melted away, revealing a stunning silk dress underneath. Her ragged hair thickened and bloomed with color. Her haggard features morphed into an angelic face. She wasn't an old woman at all. She was a gorgeous faerie.

Realizing what he'd done, Thomas fell on his knees. "Madam! I had no idea. Please forgive me!"

She was unimpressed. "Some have entertained angels unawares...and others have turned them away. I pity you, Thomas Porter. So small-minded that you judge a person's value by their appearance. My suspicions were correct, unfortunately."

"Please, madam, I will do anything…"

"You would throw a helpless old woman out, to die alone in the cold, simply because she looked ugly to you. Begging will not stay your punishment for your heartlessness. And so your legacy must stop."

His eyes widened. "No! Are you going to put a curse on me?"

She shook her head. "No."

Thomas breathed out a heavy sigh of relief.

"I am going to put a curse on your son."

"No," Thomas gasped. "No. Not Lukas! Please, madam! Please don't do that!"

"The lineage of the House of Porter stops now." She raised her staff and pointed it at Lukas. "The innocent one will suffer for your sin."

"No!" Thomas cried, but it was too late. She struck Lukas with the curse. Immediately, the sweet little boy turned into a hunchbacked, furry monster. He had an underbite, a tail, and the fur markings of a wild cat. Lukas had turned into something like a monstrous ocelot.

"Papa!" Lukas cried, itching his ocelot ears. "What's happened to me?"

"This curse will last until the boy's twentieth birthday," she said. "If it is not broken by then, he will be a beast forever. The only way for the curse to be broken is if he learns to love a girl who loves him as well. He must learn to love her of his own free will. To keep your house servants from doing it for him…"

She swept her staff through the air again, swinging it high above her head. Magic pulsed out from it.

"Sir Porter!" said Jesse, the servant who had answered the door. "What does this woman mea-"

Right before everyone's surprised eyes, Jesse morphed into a leather-bound book and dropped to the floor. People gasped in horror, and that was all the time they had to react. Thomas watched the awful scene repeat itself as the servants around him turned into housewares: lamps, tea sets, cutlery, books, end tables, feather dusters, quill pens, firelighters, and such on.

"They are animate and sentient, but they no longer have the privilege of being human," said the magic woman. "Like Lukas, these innocents will suffer for your sin. As is the case far too often."

Jesse was hopping around on the ground, shouting so frantically his words were unintelligible. His front cover flapped up and down like a crude mouth.

Lukas sniffled and broke out of his father's embrace. The ocelot-boy ran off to go cry in his bedroom. Thomas chewed on his fingernails in anxiety as he looked at the panicking housewares who used to be human.

"Please turn them back...Put the curse on me instead!" he begged. "I deserve this-they don't! Please don't do this to me, or them!"

"I don't trust that you have learned unselfishness." She tapped him on the crown with her staff. "Instead, you can sit alone in your castle for ten years and watch your son slowly turn into an animal, knowing that it is your fault because you couldn't be bothered to show a smidgen of compassion for the least of these."

Thomas started to cry. He took a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and wiped it across his reddening face.

"I bid you farewell, Thomas Porter, and the best of regards for your poor little Lukas."

The woman left, disappearing into the snowy night with a halo of warmth surrounding her. No-one ever saw her again. But the consequences remained.


The years trickled by. Powerful magic kept the castle locked under the curse. Thomas Porter, overcome by grief, soon passed away and left Lukas as the last piece of the family legacy. In the villages below, the House of Porter faded from memory. The castle was thought abandoned. Lukas, repulsed by his monstrous appearance, could not bear to go out into the world. It would scorn him as a beast. He grew painfully shy and reclusive, hiding himself away from even the servants in the castle. Those servants worried about him. Almost a decade had passed since the curse was placed on them. Lukas was running out of time; it was only so long before his twentieth birthday came upon him to make him a beast forever. But there was nothing they could do. They could only hope for the answer to their prayers: someone who could look at him and see the man behind the beast.

Would such a person ever come?