"Nobody lives there," a boy – his name was Jacques - whispered to his younger sister – Jeanette - as they peered at an old castle through the window of their carriage.

"Really?" Jeanette whispered back. She released an involuntary shiver which caused goose bumps to scatter up her skin. She hugged her shawl closer to her body.

Jacques wanted to say something else, but he waited until the castle had passed their sights. He was afraid to speak with such a haunted place nearby. "Long ago there was somebody there."

"Who?"

Jacques looked down as he said his next words. "La bête. The beast."

Jeanette gasped, ducking her head beneath her shawl. She came back up, realizing that she had something to say, too. "I remember Tatie Bernadette talking about him. And she had said something about him . . . something that didn't sound right. Something about him eating children . . . did he?"

"For every meal of the day," Jacques said. If he was aware of his sister turning pale, he didn't show it. He was quite calm himself.

"Why?"

"Well, he was one hungry beast I guess. But he must have become really full because he stopped doing it."

Jeanette was relieved at this. "He learned his lesson then?"

Jacques shook his head. "He kept the kids he hadn't eaten. He put them in a cage, barely bigger than your own body. And he fed them one meal a day, if you could call it a meal."

He paused, which frustrated his sister. "What did he make them eat?" she asked hurriedly.

"Crumbs of bread."

Jeanette's eyes lit up in horror. "How evil! How horrible! How-"

"-Untrue," the coachman said. He had overheard the entire conversation and at first, he found the fables of the little boy entertaining. But it had gone too far. He needed to set the story straight about 'the beast'. He pulled over at the side of the road.

"Why have you stopped?" Jacques asked him.

The coachman thought about this. He couldn't just say he wanted to tell a story. He needed another reason to go with it. He found it. "I believe your maman will not be at home until quite late. Therefore, it would be unwise for me to take you home now – when there won't be anybody to supervise you. Therefore, we will pass time with a story."

"No more stories," Jeanette groaned. "I hear so many of those from my brother and none of them end well."

"Oh, but this one does," the coachman said.

"Well then, what is it about?" Jacques asked.

"The very person you were talking about just before."

"What? The beast?" Jeanette cried. "Why, after what I heard, no story about him could possibly end well!"

"You only say that because you don't know the truth about him," the coachman said simply.

"Oh, she does. I told her the truth about him before – when we were passing his castle," Jacques said.

The coachman shook his head. "That was not the truth. The beast did not eat children. He did not go anywhere near them. He lived alone in his castle. He had since the passing of his parents. He was but sixteen when he saw them for the last time. Could you imagine it children? Being all alone – no brother or sister to play with. No parents to teach you the ways of life. I don't think you could."

"You're lying!" Jacques yelled. "How would you know the truth anyway?"

"How?" the coachman repeated. "Well, he was my father. I keep his tale close to my heart and I tell it – to children like yourselves. To anybody really. So that they know that beneath his ugliness, his beastly exterior, there was a man. A man who made some errors early in his life."

"Eating children?" Jeanette whispered.

"What? No, no, child, I thought I already said no to that. He would not hurt a fly this man. In fact, he didn't always look like a beast."

"How did he look before then?"

"Well . . . he looked quite the opposite. He had more manly features."

"So he had two eyes, two ears, one nose and one mouth?" Jeanette asked.

The coachman looked at her and then at the boy, as if to ask, what have you been teaching your sister? Jacques looked back puzzled.

The coachman sighed at his failed attempt to communicate with the boy. He focused back on Jeanette. "Beasts have those features as well."

"Then what makes beasts different from us?" Jacques asked.

"Well, they're a lot hairier," the coachman said. "And they have claws. And their ears are higher up. And they have fangs for teeth. And . . . they have tails."

The two siblings looked at their own behinds and tried to imagine tails sprouting from there. They shook the thoughts out of their minds. That was too scary to think about for another second.

"If he wasn't always a beast, then how did he become one?" Jacques asked.

"I was waiting for that question," the coachman said. "I guess it's time to start the story . . . from the moment when la bête was sixteen and his parents were just about to depart for Paris."

The children nodded intently.

"They were going to leave him by himself for the first time in his life. They knew he would be fine because he was old enough to take care of himself . . . for ever. They knew they weren't coming back. But he had no idea."

"You never told us his name," Jeanette whispered.

"His name?" the coachman repeated. "Oh yes . . . his name was Jean Canard of Canard Castle, Beauté Dessous . . ."