Author's note: Hello lovely readers! This chapter takes place soon after the night of the debutante ball, when Adam is cursed.
Enjoy!
"He's not going to come out, it's useless, I tell you."
Cogsworth was once again pacing – more like hobbling, in his clock form – back and forth outside the doors of the West Wing, while Mrs. Potts gazed on in worry as she had been doing for the past week. Ever since that dreadful night, the master had locked himself away in his chambers, never uttering a single word to them.
The first night had been the worst. Even from the ballroom, the newly-transformed servants would hear the loud crashes and bangs from upstairs after the master had turned into that… creature and retreated in agony and haste.
Mrs. Potts knew he was going through certain torment, but it would do him no good to keep himself locked away with no one to talk to. She'd made that quite clear once she figured out how to get up the blasted stairs with no legs and only one handle. Chappeau, the master's valet who'd been turned into a coat rack had been very useful on that score.
"Useless," the majordomo-turned-mantel clock muttered, crossing his metallic arms over his body made of gears.
"He'll starve himself if he doesn't come out," the teapot argued, raising her voice in hopes that the master was listening.
Cogsworth scoffed. "Why should he, then, after what he'd done to us." There was a harshness and bitterness in his tone, something Mrs. Potts didn't expect from him.
"Really, Cogsworth," she chastised, "he's still the boy we've known all his life, trapped in that horrid form—"
"Not to mention he'll have to come out of there if he wants even the slightest chance to break the spell," Lumière, now only about twenty inches tall with candlesticks for arms said as he reached the top of the stairs, breathless from the climb.
"Yes, Lumière, ever so helpful as always," Mrs. Potts muttered.
The candelabra shrugged as best he could – despite being made of gold. "I don't know about you, but I would not like to be a candelabra for another minute, much less the time it will take for the master to come out of his rooms."
"You don't think I don't want to be stuck as a teapot forever? Or Cogsworth a mantel clock, or my son a tea cup? He's only ten, the poor boy." If Mrs. Potts could cry in her new form, tears would be streaming down her cheeks.
Lumière's shoulders dropped as he let out a disappointed sigh.
"How is Plumette handling it all?" she asked.
"As well as anybody," Lumière replied, hopping up onto one of the small tables lining the walls and taking a seat. "She can fly, which is more than I can say about any of us."
The three servants stood outside the doors in silence for a long while. All that could be heard where the soft patter of raindrops from outside and the tap of Cogsworth's metal legs against the stone floor.
As the hands on the majordomo's clock face read midnight, Mrs. Potts sighed. "You all should get some sleep, I can stay here in case he comes out."
Lumière nodded and bounced down the stairs, but Cogsworth lingered a little. "What I said earlier, about the master… I didn't mean it. Not really."
"I know you didn't."
Cogsworth smiled and hobbled down the stairs, leaving Mrs. Potts alone on the trolley.
"I guess there's nothing else that I haven't already said that would make you come out," she said at the door, hoping, praying, he was listening. "I know it may not seem like it, but we do love you, no matter how you feel or act. And we must get through this together. That wicked woman put this curse on all of us, and it'll take us all to break it."
Still no sound came from the other side of the doors. Not even the shuffle of feet or the slightest sound of movement. Sighing, Mrs. Potts remembered a lullaby from when the master was a boy, a lullaby his mother used to sing to him. She didn't know if it would do more harm than good, but she started to sing despite that.
"Days in the sun, when your life has barely begun… Not until my whole life is done, will I ever leave you…"
Mrs. Potts didn't know how long she'd been singing when she heard a rustle from inside the doors.
"Master?" The teapot raised her voice slightly. "Master is that you?"
"I want to be left alone," a deep, muffled voice came from the other side of the doors. It was the first time, she realized, he'd spoken since that night. His voice was deeper, certainly, but not unrecognizable. She could still hear her boy in there, despite everything. And she knew he was in there.
"If you think I'm leaving you know, you've got another thing coming," Mrs. Potts replied, raising her voice.
"Then stop singing that… it reminds me too much of her."
"Someone's got to bring light and hope to this situation. If anybody could have, it would've been her."
"If she were alive we wouldn't be in this disaster."
Mrs. Potts considered his words and paused for a long moment. She supposed it were true, that if the late Duchess of Anjou were alive he wouldn't have been corrupted by that father of his. What kind of man would he have been, with his mother's guidance? He could still be that person, she knew it, but not by shutting himself away from them.
"You must come out, Master. You'll starve yourself."
"I can't. I'm too hideous," the grumbled response came.
"We've all changed, dear," Mrs. Potts replied. "The maids have been turned into feather dusters, for heaven's sake. I'm a teapot."
"But I'm not a feather duster or a teapot… I'm…" there a long pause, making Mrs. Potts think he'd given up trying to respond. "I'm a monster."
"We won't have any more talk like that," the teapot replied firmly. "You are not a monster."
Silence.
Mrs. Potts sighed. "The way I see it, you can either come out of there have some tea, or I can stay out here singing until the last petal falls."
Again, silence.
"Alright, you leave me no choice." Mrs. Potts started to sing the lullaby again, but hadn't even made it through the first verse before the doors opened with a soft click.