Chapter 4- The Enchantress' Tale
Vincent and Hélene watched as the Mirror conjured a moving image of a young boy of around ten years of age. The angry orphan prince was throwing tantrums and ordering his servants around, including poor Mrs. Potts. Hélene's eyes teared up at the sight of the kind woman, whom she missed dearly.
They watched as the boy grew older, into his teens. He went to Versailles to live with his uncle and became involved in the extravagant lifestyle of the ruling class of France. His life consisted of lavish parties and rides in gilded coaches speeding past crowds of starving, desperate citizens, whose cries of despair were ignored by Adam and his royal relatives.
Adam grew into a young man, and he became betrothed. By his uncle's choosing, he was wed to a pretty Spanish princess with shy brown eyes and a timid demeanor. The Mirror showed this girl crying often. Adam was never there for her in her days of frequent illness, and the evening after she suffered a miscarriage, Adam was shown in the mirror being kissed passionately by an older courtesan. Two other women were shown with him in separate scenes of passion.
Vincent and Hélene thought they were going to be sick. This was not the Papa they knew at all. Maman was the only woman for him! And the thought that they themselves would not have been born in this scenario was hurtful.
Yet, there was more. The time sped up to the present day. Papa looked similar in the Mirror now to what he currently looked, but his clothing was more elaborate and he had a harder, almost cruel expression on his face. He had no living children in the scene that was unfolding. He seemed to do nothing but drink and revel in the debauchery of the court.
The scene shifted to the streets of Paris. The common people chanted, shouted and sang songs of revolution. An unknown wigged man in lavish royal clothing was attacked and knocked off his horse by a throng of sans-culottes. Noblemen and noblewomen were being put in chains and imprisoned for their crimes against the people, who had risen up and become a force to be reckoned with.
A group of men were standing by a large contraption that Hélene and Vincent had never seen before, but its purpose was all too clear. The tall wooden frame held an enormous metal blade atop it. A man holding the rope laughed and shouted about the 'noblemen's heads that were about to roll.'
...
"STOP!" cried Hélene. "I don't want to see any more!"
Vincent also began to shout in rage and despair. "Please, put it away! I understand it all now. I know what is disturbing my father! This is now coming to pass! But why show us this when there is no hope? I'm not afraid for myself...b-but for my mother and sister-" He touched Helene's hand, and the girl's face went pale- "and for our father, who is good and innocent! He has done nothing but good for the people of our land!"
"I have the power to save your family," stated the Lady in Green quietly.
"But how?" asked Hélene, confused. "Your magical law forbids you to cast spells upon mortals like us! You are willing to risk being put back into prison for us?"
"There are spells I am still allowed to cast," explained the Enchantress. "I will no longer cast curses, dark spells meant for harm. In my youth, I was taught hate. Hate for people such as you, the sans-magiques. Mortals. I loved having power, and I cursed your father simply because I could. I never meant to help him, or teach him any lesson. It was for myself, what I could prove to my own family that I could do, even to a royal mortal in high standing. I used deception and chastised him for his misbehavior. Yet as time went on, I realized I had inadvertently given your father a gift."
"Maman," Hélene said softly. "Our mother was his gift. She was a peasant girl. She would have never known or loved him if you had not done what you did."
"That is true, but it was more than that. You saw what he could have been like in the Mirror? He is nothing like the father you love, non?"
"No-" Hélene stopped to think for a moment. "But I think he could have learned and grown to be a good man even without a magic curse on him. If everyone depended on a magic curse to make their lives right, we'd all be looking around for fairies and witches instead of learning to think for ourselves."
Vincent looked over at his little sister with admiration. When they were small children, he had hated that she was a know-it-all, despite her being nearly two years younger. Now she was not yet sixteen, and he had to admit, she was wiser than some of the adults in their lives.
"She's right, Madame. I think you're giving yourself too much credit. As if magic was the...the cure for everything!" He looked back up at the painting of the Beast. The woman must have painted it or created it herself, as a way to gloat about her powers.
"Is that why you have that? To remind yourself of the power you had?" he asked her bitterly. "What does that help us now? The people of France are about to kill every noble they can find, just because our distant relation, the King, has become a tyrant. Why don't you go to his palace and turn him and his big-wigged wife into hairy beasts?"
"Be patient and listen, Your Grace," the Lady in Green insisted, ignoring his suggestion. She continued to speak.
"I am a powerful Enchantress. I used to do evil. I served a prison sentence, given to me by my fellow sorcerers. I have been hoping for a real opportunity to do good. This Mirror of Fate is not my own, but was given to me by the sorcerer who arrested me long ago. He was using it to watch over your parents."
"What is your plan? Who was the man who arrested you, and was watching over them?" Helene asked, intensely curious.
The Lady in Green poured the two, and herself, some refills of tea.
...
"Let me start way back, to my youth. My real name is Delphine Dufresne. My family was one of the most powerful Enchanted families in all of Europe. As a child, I went to a special school for sorcerers. I was taught that magical people are better and superior to mortals. That is, you - the majority of humans on earth who don't have special magic powers. My parents believed that in the extreme. They wanted to terrorize, wipe out and destroy all mortals. But others in our world believe it is right to leave them alone and keep our society hidden. Wars have been fought over these beliefs for years."
The royal children were listening in interest. "That's just like our world," Hélene replied. "Those with money and titles are trying to oppress those with little. It's unfair. But our parents have never been like that. We know that peasants are just as valuable as us. Our mother was once a peasant, after all."
"Oui, you understand, then." she said, acknowledging the girl just briefly. "When I was a young woman, I wanted to make my parents proud, so I wandered France, spying on non-magical people. I decided to watch over a great castle - your castle. I wanted to cast the most powerful spells that I'd learned at school. Many spells are illegal in our world, because the leader - our King, if you will - had outlawed all dark magic. I saw your father as a child, and saw all of his misbehavior. I kept my book of spells with me, and I finally found one that I felt I should curse him with. It was the curse of the Beast."
She glanced at her painting. The two young people gave her a look of revulsion.
"And, I turned everyone else in the castle into an object. The members of your staff who were raising him didn't treat him as a parent to a child, but as catering servants. If human, they would have run away in fear. I quite enjoyed doing that spell. It was terrible of me, I know."
"Everyone else, too?" Hélene asked. "That would mean-"
"Chip! And his mother, and Cogsworth, and Lumiere, and all of the servants who had been there when he was growing up!" Vincent exclaimed. "I need to talk to Chip about this. This is the secret he was afraid to tell?" Then, the full meaning of what she had said hit him. "Objects? What kinds of 'objects'?" he spat out angrily.
"That is unimportant now," said Mademoiselle Dufresne. "Harmless household objects. Clocks, candles, teapots, cups, wardrobes, chairs. They still could speak, move about, think and work."
"That is insane! It must have been a terrible way to live," Hélene exclaimed bitterly. "They must have hoped and prayed every day that Papa could meet a human being to love him and look past his appearance. But the way he looked, how could he be expected to go out and meet real people?"
"I didn't care at the time," the Enchantress admitted. "I left them all, as I couldn't have cared less about mortals suffering. I believed he couldn't break the spell anyway. And I didn't want him to."
"You were a wicked witch!" cried Hélene.
"Yes. I was. But somehow, things worked out for your father, and I got my punishment," she said in humility.
"Who finally arrested you?" inquired Vincent.
"It was a family of magical law enforcement men. A Monsieur LaBarre, and his two grown sons. They caught me in the village with the help of three peasant girls. I had given them a minor curse. I remember the day well." She suppressed a faint smile. "After I had been tried, sentenced and served my ten years, I was given probation. I was to live alone in exile."
She took a sip of tea, and continued. "Monsieur LaBarre, the Chief of the Enforcers of Magical Law, told me about your father's life since then. He still associated with your family. As part of my probation, he made me sit in his office, still in chains as a prisoner, and showed me this Mirror. He showed me the exact same thing I just showed you today: how my actions had altered your father's life. Since the curse had ultimately led to a positive outcome, although unintended, he deemed me suitable for release and has been monitoring me by Magic Mirror ever since."
"Two weeks ago, he arrived at my cottage. He told me that I had an opportunity for heroism, because Prince Adam and his family were going to be in grave danger through no fault of their own. You know now what that danger is. He gave me his own Mirror of Fate to keep in my possession, and he told me that magical intervention would save you."
"Why do we need magic to save us?" Vincent asked. "Why can't we do it for ourselves? We can leave France."
"Leaving the country will take time, Your Grace. Let us aid you with magic. Your friend, the young man whom you call 'Chip?' Monsieur LaBarre - my former enemy - has already sought him out. That is why Chip alerted you."
"We know! But can't Monsieur LaBarre do the magic? Why trust a convicted 'evil witch' to do it?" asked Hélene.
"That was what I told LaBarre! But he told me he wanted me for the job, which I do not understand. In fact, he insisted on it. 'For my own good,' he said. Not long afterward, this Chip managed to discover my hiding place here. With the aid of a village boy, of all people - a boy who had visited me before. I invited Chip in, and he was very suspicious of me. Do you see this tea set?"
"What about the tea set?" Vincent looked down at the teacup he held - white china with gold trim and a pink and purple painted base. His had a small chip at the rim.
"He knew who I was, just by seeing these. He became furious, just like you. He wanted to wring my neck when he saw the teapot here." She reached down to the table and touched a pale finger on the delicate little teapot with its pink and purple lid, a lid that resembled a maid's cap. "You see...he spent his early childhood as a cup, just like the one you hold in your hand."
"What?"
"Yes. He was a little cup like these, but with the face of a child and completely sentient. His mother was a teapot, just like the one here."
"No wonder he was upset!" Hélene exclaimed. "His mother just passed away over a year ago! We all loved her so much." She and her brother gently set their cups down.
"I did not know that. I'm sorry for your loss. I regret that they all had to spend part of their lives that way," the Enchantress said gently. She was silent for a moment. "I suppose I should finally show you a small example of my wand magic. It will be harmless."
Delphine Dufresne took her wand from the pocket of her dress again. She aimed it at the portrait of the Beast. In an instant, he turned into a picture of their father. Prince Adam looked just as the children knew him, a handsome man in his forties with bright blue eyes, slight lines at the corners from years of good humor, and red-gold hair, a few strands at his temples beginning to turn white.
Next, she pointed to the teacups and teapot, and they levitated, floating gently to a nearby cupboard and settling there.
"We believe you, but we need to trust you completely," whispered Hélene softly.
"I'm beginning to plan some spells. For now, I want you to go home and speak to Chip and tell him of your meeting with me. If I can earn your trust, Chip's trust, and your parents', then I can help you all the faster."
"Merci," replied Vincent, as the two began to take their leave of the quaint cottage.