Dangerous Secrets: Chapter Ten

"What on earth are they doing up there?" Cogsworth asked thoughtfully, as scream after crash was heard from the upper floors.

"Uh…" Marie flinched as a particularly loud bang echoed through the dungeon. "Maybe they're redecorating the castle?"

"Now, why would they do that?" Cogsworth replied. "And why is everyone screaming?"

"I've got you now!" cried a voice from upstairs.

Cogsworth froze, recognizing the voice. "No, no, not now…"

"Cogsworth," Marie said softly, holding her hand out to him, "please try to understand."

"My word, it's Gaston!" Cogsworth looked nervously at the door and pulled away from Marie. "What if he finds us down here, oh no, what if—"

"Where's the clock, Gaston?" A voice reached their ears, and the clock in the dungeon was immediately silent.

"What clock, LeFou?"

"Well, I heard the candle over there saying something about a clock."

Cogsworth silently cursed Lumiere. Why did that little showoff have to mention him?

"We have the castle covered… every tower, every wing is being searched as we speak."

"Okay, Gaston!"

"What about the dungeons?" This was a new voice, deep and sure of himself. "Have the dungeons been checked?"

Marie gasped. Cogsworth glared at her. "I know him," she whispered. "His name is Rodrigue; he's my… my brother."

"I doubt the objects would want to live in a dungeon," Gaston said.

"But sir, they might have a prisoner," Rodrigue suggested. "Someone with valuable information for us."

"Marie could be down there, Gaston!" LeFou started to laugh, which earned him a kick in the back. "Oof."

"Don't talk about her that way!" Gaston hissed. "She's the most beautiful girl in town, and she's mine."

"See, he only cares for beauty," Cogsworth said smugly.

"No, he's not like that," Marie protested. But just then the door creaked open.

"It's dark down there," LeFou said, instantly backing up a few steps. Gaston pushed him forward, with Rodrigue at his heels.

"LeFou's right, we need some kind of light source," Rodrigue said. "There's no way we could find anyone down there without one."

Gaston turned back to the townspeople in the hall. "Hey, you!" He gestured towards a man struggling to stuff something into a bag, only to have the bag catch on fire. "Hand us the candelabra."

A woman ran to him with a bucket of water and poured it over the bag. The man gave a nod of thanks and reached in, gingerly pulling out Lumiere, whose candles instantly relit. "You don't know what a fight this one's putting up, Gaston… here, take 'em."

Lumiere tried his best to burn Gaston's fingers off, but Gaston merely smiled and dumped him into LeFou's arms. Lumiere blew out his light defiantly.

"What are you doing with Lumiere?" Babette called angrily, as she and Angelique were chased by a large man in a tuxedo.

"If you hurt him you will have to answer to us!" cried the Christmas angel.

"Girls! No! I am fine," Lumiere told them. "Worry about yourselves!"

Gaston chuckled. "Are they your girlfriends, candle boy?"

"That would be none of your business."

"Well, then I suppose you won't mind when I"—Gaston stuck out his foot, tripping both Babette and Angelique with squeals from each—"dispose of them."

"No! I mean, of course! I mean, take me instead!" Lumiere protested.

"I don't want your life," Gaston said, "I want your light."

With a sigh, all three of Lumiere's candles burst into full flame. "Mark my words, you will pay for this… someday," he said halfheartedly.

Gaston, LeFou, and Rodrigue descended the stairs: LeFou jumping at the slightest noise, Lumiere smirking and dimming his lights as low as possible, Gaston grumbling about how hard it was to be the bravest man in town.

"We know you're down there," Gaston boomed.

"Come out, little objects," Rodrigue coaxed. Suddenly he stopped. "Can you hear that?"

Marie gaped at Cogsworth. "You're ticking," she breathed in his ear.

"Ticking," Gaston agreed, though he hadn't heard Marie's whisper. He took Lumiere from LeFou's arms and held him forward, scowling. The candlelight was now almost too faint to even make a difference. "If you ever want your girlfriends back—"

"You said light, Monsieur, not how much light."

"Well now, I say all your light. Or else."

"We are in the dungeon! Angelique and Babette are up on the first floor. You can do nothing to them here."

"It's almost like you want them to die," Gaston said. "I could easily call back up to my friends and tell them to—" He chuckled as Lumiere's flame grew considerably brighter… to reveal the clock and the mirror crouched in the corner.

"Cogsworth! What are you doing here?" asked Lumiere.

"Not, now, Lumiere," Cogsworth hissed.

"Well what do you know, LeFou?" Gaston beamed wickedly. "There IS a clock we've missed. And what have we here?" He shined Lumiere on Marie, and then looked down, chuckling. Cogsworth moaned; all this time, invisible in the darkness, was the key to her cell. Gaston picked it up and thrust it into the lock, opening the door with a creak. "It looks like the clock has come to free his girlfriend."

"Cogsworth's not my boyfriend," Marie said angrily, "you are!"

"Me?" Gaston laughed. "Why would I want a mirror as my girlfriend?"

"You'd have to be pretty dumb, Gaston, which you're obviously not," LeFou agreed.

"But it's me!" Marie protested. "Gaston, it's Marie!"

There was a long pause. Finally Rodrigue said softly, "Marie? But… but how…?"

"To make a long story short, the objects were all human and then they got turned into objects again and so did I because I was in the castle when Cogsworth prayed to the enchantress that I wouldn't reach Gaston on the phone," Marie said, suddenly realizing the absurdity of this statement. "And LeFou took a message."

LeFou swelled with pride. "Toldja it was important, didn't I?"

"You're not Marie," Gaston said finally. "Marie is the most beautiful woman in town, and you're… you're…"

"She's beautiful inside," Cogsworth retorted, fuming. "I know you only like Marie for her looks, so get away from her now or face the wrath of the objects of this castle!"

"Oh, my, poor me, I'm so scared," Gaston said, sarcasm dripping from his every word. "A little clock is going to unleash his object friends on me so I don't fall in love with his girlfriend. Dream on, mirror," he hissed in her face, "I'd never fall for the likes of you."

Marie was trembling with anger. "But I sent for you! I called you and LeFou said you'd come and take me away from this weird place and, well, just trust me on this one! Or I'll… I'll side with them!" She pointed at Cogsworth, who glared at her.

"Traitor," said the clock.

"What if it IS Marie, Gaston?" Rodrigue suggested suddenly. "I'd know her voice anywhere."

"Yes, it's me!" Marie cried desperately. "Please, Gaston! Please, believe me. It's me. It's me…"

To Cogsworth's horror, Gaston merely stuck out his foot and kicked the mirror aside. "Marie is beautiful," Gaston said again, "and you can't fool me. You're not her! Now, clock, tell me, what have you done with my girlfriend?"

"But she's already told you!" Fuming even more now, Cogsworth mustered up his courage and, taking Marie's hand, walked right between Gaston's legs and waddled as quickly as he could towards the wall. Gaston thrust Lumiere forward, but the two objects were already in the shadows.

"After them!" the man roared, and he was off, with LeFou and Rodrigue at his heels.

Fortunately, Cogsworth and Marie had size on their side: they were so much shorter than Gaston that it was hard, even with Lumiere's reluctant help, to find them in the dark. Cogsworth hurried along the dungeon, dragging Marie behind him, further and further away from the humans in pursuit. Finally the clock leaned over, panting.

"Almost there," he whispered.

"Where are we going?" Marie asked him, doubtful that Cogsworth could find his way out of there in the dark.

He smiled at her. "I have remembered; there's another exit! But we couldn't escape before because the key was gone…" He groaned inwardly. It had been there the whole time! At that moment, Cogsworth greatly envied Lumiere's luck at being turned into a source of light.

Marie ignored the awkward silence that followed and hopped along the wall, running her metal arms across the surface as she went, trying to find something that could be a way out. Finally, her hand bumped into the doorknob with a loud clang.

"Cogsworth!" she whispered, as loud as a whisper can be. "I found it, I found the—"

"What was that?" LeFou's voice, quivering with fear, echoed around the dungeon. "I heard a noise! A c-clang or something."

"You fool, LeFou!" Gaston replied. "Keep quiet! It came from over there." He shined Lumiere dangerously near to where Marie was standing.

"I don't like the dark, Gaston," LeFou said softly.

Cogsworth ran to Marie's side. "Here's the door," she breathed.

"How do we, er, open it?" the clock replied.

"They're over here!" Rodrigue called excitedly.

Sharing a nervous glance, Cogsworth and Marie didn't even wait to see if Rodrigue's claims were correct. Cogsworth promptly launched himself into the door, which opened with a loud creak.

Gaston heard and swiveled around. Lumiere's light hit them squarely in the eyes.

After running through the doorway, Marie pushed with all her might and slammed the door shut after them. She saw the candlelight flicker and go out in the dungeon, and then heard Lumiere and Gaston bickering in the darkness. She rolled her eyes. Men.

Marie hopped over to Cogsworth and looked upward. Great. Stairs. More amazing luck.

After a long trek up to the tower, stopping several times for Cogsworth to catch up to Marie, the two of them emerged into a spacious room, though filthy and dust-covered. The curtains were open, and the objects blinked and squinted to see in the sunlight. There was a large, suspicious pile of rubble, or the remains of something that had once been large but had toppled over, spread across the ground. The only sounds that could be heard were a faint squeaking noise coming from the other end of the room, where a piccolo was trying in vain to hop up and reach the doorknob of the other exit.

Eventually he turned around and noticed the others with a loud screech of fear. "Gaston's come, oh no, oh NO!" He looked around nervously, and tried once again to reach the door. Of course, he was no more successful than before, and fell to the ground, the mouthpiece of the piccolo rolling across the room away from him. He hurried to retrieve it.

Cogsworth sighed impatiently. "Fife," he said, "it is only Cogsworth and Marie."

Fife looked up and laughed awkwardly, embarrassed. He shoved the mouthpiece back onto his head. "Well, what do you know? I thought you two were Gaston!"

"We've only just escaped him," Marie said bitterly. "Where are we, anyway?"

"The old music room," Cogsworth supplied. "Of course, the Master chose to build a new one after the demise of Forte, as it was much easier than trying to clean up his remains."

Remains? Marie cringed inwardly. "Forte?" she asked. "Forte, as in the organ who tried to break up Belle and the Beast and got killed in the process?" Webster hadn't said anything in his book about the lifeless organ still lying on the floor in the music room. It gave her the creeps to think that she was looking at a dead body, even if it was only a ruined instrument.

"How do you know about that?" Fife asked her.

"There's no time for that now; Gaston could arrive any moment!" Cogsworth told them anxiously. "Come on!"

"It's no use," Fife said sadly. "The door's closed, and we can't reach it. I came in here to think, but the door closed behind me and I couldn't get out. Next thing I knew I heard shouts that Gaston was invading the castle!"

"Well, this is a problem," Marie observed. "We're stuck here while my crazed ex-boyfriend wants to kill us all."

Fife spun around, and the air filled with the sound of his shrieking. "Sorry," he muttered. "Piccolo; can't help it…"

But just then Madame de la Grand Bouche, the wardrobe, smashed through the door. Bits of wood showered upon the three objects standing inside as they saw her laughing and singing a note so high that it rivaled Fife in annoyance level. Angelique, standing behind her, rolled her eyes. Babette giggled and twirled her plume.

"D sharp," Fife said softly.

Marie laughed in relief. The others had come to save them.

"It's not like we have all day, come on, no hurry," Hak the axe advised.

"I must remember to have this written down," said Webster, to no one in particular, "words put on paper, composed, printed…"

LaPlume beamed. "At your service, Webster!"

"Now, now, first things first," said Mrs. Potts. "We have to get Gaston out the castle, remember?"

"We can defeat 'em just like last time!" Chip said cheerily. "And then we'll all be human again and live happily ever after."

Mrs. Potts smiled warmly at her son. "Right you are, Chip."

"Gaston and Adam are downstairs," Belle, the book, informed them, "fighting one-on-one. Just like before…"

"Cogsworth! Marie!" All heads turned as Lumiere hopped over to join them, grinning mischievously. "Excellent! You are ready for battle, no?"

"I don't understand," Marie said softly. "How did you all get away from the villagers?"

Lumiere held up his hands, narrowly avoiding burning one of Sultan's tassels. "It was not that difficult."

But then Cogsworth turned to Marie. "Marie, I think it's time you decided. Whose side are you really on?"

Marie thought of Gaston and all the good times the two of them had shared. She thought of the Prince, the beast, in the castle, bellowing in fury and throwing her in the dungeon. But then she thought of something else. "Marie is beautiful, and you can't fool me. You're not her!"

Gaston liked her because she was pretty. But the objects, who she'd betrayed many times over, who knew she'd been with Gaston, who had welcomed her into their castle anyway…

They liked her for who she was.

In that instant Marie decided. "Of course I'm on your side, Cogsie," she said, making him blush. She smiled. "Now, we've got a castle to save. Who's with me?"

And with a ferocious battle cry, the objects leaped down the stairs, Marie shouting loudest of all.