The carriage creaked and swayed as they rolled through the packed dirt path that bore them ever more towards the City of Light. Ah, Paris. As a girl Belle had dreamed of walking those cobbled streets, getting lost in la bibliothèque, listening in awe as the bells of Notre Dame tolled powerfully across the city. She had longed to meet new and exciting, sophisticated people, rather than stay in the small, narrow-minded town in which she lived.
But Belle would have given anything to go back to that poor provincial town now. Instead she was here in this modest carriage, beside the man—no, the monster—who had murdered her true love and now made her his wife. Madame Gaston. Across from them sat Gaston's lackey, LeFou. He, too, had been uncharacteristically quiet during the journey. Belle remembered him from before, how he'd never shut up, even under the threat of a fist from Gaston. She had been in the castle for months. She wondered what had changed.
She felt a bump, and the quality of the carriage ride became choppier. The sound of the wheels under them took on a louder, uneven tone. They were upon cobblestone now, which could mean only one thing: they'd arrived in Paris.
Belle peered out the carriage door. The sun had already set, though Paris was not dark. Les allumeurs de réverbères strolled between the street lamps whistling merrily, carrying their ladders and poles, while townspeople wrapped their overclothes more tightly around themselves as they hurried home to share an evening meal with loved ones. It was lovely, exciting and so very, very busy, despite the lateness of the hour. Belle wished she could see the worst in it.
Children laughed and frolicked in the street. A beautiful young woman, not much older than herself, dancing for coins as she beat upon a tambourine. The carriage slowed to allow a contingent of guardsmen to pass, and Belle dug in her pocket for a few coins. When she turned back to the carriage window to toss them out for the young woman, she was nowhere to be found—she had vanished into the crowd like a wisp of smoke.
Belle looked around, hoping to catch another glimpse of the mesmerizing dancer, but the carriage lurched and pulled away. She slipped the coins back into her pocket, disappointed. She didn't look out the window the rest of the journey.
They came to a stop and the driver assisted Belle to the ground. Before them were row houses running along the street, crammed shoulder to shoulder as far as she could see, until the cobbled street bent out of sight. The one Gaston had bought stood six blocks past the grand Notre-Dame. The cathedral towered like a benevolent mother superior, its rose window a watchful eye over the city. Belle stopped to gaze up at it and almost thought she saw something or someone climbing upon its roof, a speck of darkness against the moon.
"Come along, Belle," Gaston said. Belle followed Gaston and LeFou inside.
It was much larger than she would have guessed from the outside, the open floor plan of its premiere etage giving an illusion of space. A modest kitchen occupied one corner, while a door to the left opened into a small study. A staircase led upstairs to what presumably were the bedrooms, and the annex above that.
Strange, Belle mused. She'd been a prisoner before, in a cursed castle. But she'd never felt as alone there as she did now, surrounded as she was by the kindness of Lumière, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts. City of Light? Non, Belle decided, Paris was the City of Chains
Gaston himself was slightly more bearable now, if only because he had won. He had everything he wanted. He had Belle, if only in name, he had killed his greatest foe, the Beast, and now, he was to live in the greatest city in the world.
"A pity," he said, catching Belle off-guard. "I only wish I could have found the Beast's body. Its head would have been perfect for hanging there." He pointed to the wall just above the fireplace and shrugged. "Good thing I've still got that moose head I bagged during my trip to Germany. LeFou!" he barked. "The moose!"
There was a crash as the bumbling little man toppled down the stairs, moose head and all. Muttering angrily to himself, Gaston stalked out of the room.
Belle felt sick. She stared at the empty wall above the mantle, imagining the Beast's piercing blue eyes staring at her each night in this new home she was to share with her husband. Accusing her. Why didn't you save me? Why didn't you love me and break the spell?
I did, she thought desperately. I did love you, truly. I simply waited too long to say so.
She turned in a whirl of skirts and made it outside to the street before she vomited in a bush under the front window.
"Hey there, sweet thing," came a woman's voice from behind Belle, low and musical.
Belle tried to turn around, but another wave of nausea kept her face in the bushes once more.
"I'm terribly sorry you had to witness that," Belle said weakly, once she had finished. She turned to look at the woman fully.
To Belle's surprise, she recognized the stranger who was smiling from behind a curtain of black hair, holding out a handkerchief with sympathy in her bright green eyes. It was the dancer from the street. "Everybody needs a little help sometimes. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm Esmeralda."
"Thank you," Belle said, taking the handkerchief. She allowed Esmeralda to help her to her feet. "I'm Belle."
"I'll see you Sunday in the square, yes?" Esmeralda said.
"Sunday?"
"Yes, Sunday . . . you know! It's the 6th of January! Topsy Turvy Day? The Festival of Fools?" Esmeralda said, her eyes lighting up. "What, they don't have a festival where you are from? How boring!"
"We usually just call it Epiphany," Belle said. She and her father normally attended mass in the morning, though last year Maurice had come down with a dreadful cough and Belle had read from their family Bible by his bedside instead, in between spoonfuls of broth. She'd sung Vouz, la Source de tout mon bonheur and other hymns while she made tea in the kitchen, and the music had made her father smile.
"You're in for a treat, then," Esmeralda said with a grin. "Come to the square day after next, and Paris will give you a show you'll never forget."
Belle smiled. "How could I miss it?"
"See you later, love," Esmeralda said, and clicked her tongue for the goat by her heels to follow. They were both so light on their feet. Belle watched them go and went back inside.
The January air was cold, and the fire had been raked down to glowing coals. The warmth in the room was stifling, but the house felt colder than even the drafty dungeons of the Beast's castle. Gaston had already retired for the evening.
That night, as Belle fell asleep, she was less troubled than she'd been in months. She found herself thinking of the kindness of strangers. Perhaps Paris might be bearable, if it were filled with people like Esmeralda and Clopin. Belle thought she might be going about it all wrong: she had been looking at marrying Gaston as the end of the world, when she might need to shift her perspective to see it as a brand new adventure.
