Chapter 12- The Enchantress on the Move

Foiled by the presence of the LaBarres patrolling in the vicinity of the castle, the Enchantress Delphine was weary from being in hiding. She was anxious and desperate to curse someone, anyone.

On foot, still incognito as a little old woman, she decided to trek through the worn wagon path that led through the woods, and entered the village. A light shawl covered her homely face as she wandered through the little dirt streets of Molyneux, listening to conversations on the way.

All banal talk, she thought, suitable for these lowly, peasant mortals. There were children running about, but none of them were doing anything that would warrant a trick or deception to set up for a curse. Her rule was to have a reason. It was to make them feel guilty and punished, just like she had done to her most delicious target, that incorrigible young Prince Adam.

Finally, Delphine stopped to sit and rest upon the large fountain in the village square. She was distracted by the high-pitched voices of three young blonde women, who were also sitting on the fountain, gossiping. She turned an alert ear to their trifling conversation.

"I'm bored, what should we do today?" said Mimi Beaudette.

"I don't know, but there is absolutely nothing to do here. I wish I could go visit the castle again, because that's where we met those cute fellows two weeks ago, at the royal ball!" replied Fifi.

"They were cute, Fifi, but not as cute as Gaston," offered Gigi, a tone of sadness in her voice.

Mimi became very sober. "Remember what I told you… what Luc told me? About that night?"

The sisters recoiled in horror. "Mimi, please don't talk about that," said Fifi, her voice breaking.

"But it was so nice of them. They were the only ones from that place who treated him with respect!" Mimi pleaded with her sisters. "Why can't we talk about it? And I wish we could talk to those guards again, not just because they'd be good for a date, but because they can tell us more about…"

"DON'T, Mimi! Just stop!" Fifi screeched.

Mimi had learned from Luc during the bonfire out in the grounds on the night of the royal wedding that he, his brother Noel, and their two fellow guards Jean and Yann, had been the ones to find and recover Gaston's body. Luc had told her the tale while he had been quite imbued with wine, wishing to impress the pretty girl with his noble acts. The four guards- as two muskets, an arrow, and a sword, had been shirking their duties hunting in the woods, and as they started to return to the castle late that night, they had been astonished to find themselves suddenly transformed into their real human state.

When they reached the southwest corner of the castle closest to the woods, they found a young man's broken and lifeless form. They had not recognized him as their own, so early the next morning, they brought the body in a wagon down to the village church, which was the right and proper thing to do. After doing their duty, they quickly left town for fear of repercussions. Of course, Luc wisely left out the part that he had once existed as a floating arrow.

"But I wanted to know if he might have been still alive when Luc found him! I wanted to ask what his last words were! I am sure his last word was my name!" sobbed Mimi.

"No, maybe it was my name!" screeched Fifi.

"Are you idiots? If any girl's name was his last word, or his last thought, it was that stupid, stupid Belle! You know that as well as I!" Gigi seethed at her sisters. "And now she's Little Miss Princess, married to Prince High-and-Mighty-Adam. Sure he's a looker, but he is no Gaston, I tell you! And Gaston killed that Beast and got the Prince's home back. Gaston rescued all of his servants and got rid of all the creepy whatever-it-was that was haunting the castle! Remember what the guys told us? Chairs were jumping around by themselves, poor old Jacques got slammed in a bureau, Lefou saw a demon-possessed candle…thingy, and got stabbed, of course who cares, but that is what happened! And we saw how nice the palace is now! All because of the night that Gaston went on his quest, and now we know he really did it! He died for that place as well as protecting all of us from that Beast. And does Belle even care about what Gaston did? Did she and her father even bother to attend his funeral? No!"

Gigi's pretty face was twisted in anger, her blue eyes swimming in bitter tears.

Delphine's ears perked up. She was intensely interested now in what the young women were discussing, particularly at the mention of Prince Adam. Apparently, the girls were not well fond of the Princess. And they were deluded in the belief that some village man had been responsible for the breaking of the curse. Well, let them believe that, she thought. Adam breaking the curse was one of her deepest humiliations.

Yet still, she was looking for someone vulnerable to trick into a curse, and these three were mighty tempting. They were well-grown, probably around twenty, but they were grief-stricken and shaken. Easy targets, she thought. They also appeared to her to be very shallow and quite vapid, from the tone of their conversation.

Delphine got up and slowly shuffled away, unseen. She wandered over to a nearby privy, looking every bit the role of a mortal, elderly peasant. Inside the privy, she looked through a crack in the door, watching over the three sisters to make sure they were still in sight. She then made quite a few adjustments to her physical appearance. She also conjured up a red rose.

Mimi, Fifi and Gigi were still sitting on the fountain, tossing pebbles in it. Their conversation had shifted from Gaston, and the enchantments, to more gossip.

"…think she might be his girlfriend, she's actually not even half-bad looking, still she's a cow, big childbearing hips…"

"Imagine him having kids?"

The triplets were twittering with laughter when a little troll-like man approached them. He was pathetically ugly, with great monkey-like ears, a hunched back, and liver spots on his face. He held a red rose in one twisted little hand.

"Good day, lovely ladies. Will you accept this rose from me?"

Fifi and Mimi smirked, and glanced over at Gigi. "Sure, why not?" Gigi replied.

Confound it, thought Delphine. She, or rather he, gripped the rose. "I want you to walk with me to put this rose on your dear friend's grave."

Fifi sniffed. "Why walk with you? Why don't you just give us the rose, and we will take it to his grave ourselves?"

"No kidding!" mocked Gigi. "The churchyard is way up the hill, and who are you to want to come with us? You are just a creepy little troll, and how could you know Gaston, anyway?"

The insult was all that Delphine needed. In a blinding glow of light, right in the middle of the fountain, unseen to other villagers but very well seen to the triplets, the trollish man changed into a tall, beautiful blonde woman in a green dress.

"You are so quick to insult, aren't you, young ladies! You may be beautiful and alluring but on the inside you are empty and shallow!"

The sisters' mouths dropped open in shock. They had no idea what, or who, she could be. She wasn't from around Molyneux, that was for sure. And what had caused this hallucination? Did someone slip something in their tea that morning?

Delphine quickly waved a long wooden wand at the young women.

Their skin changed color from a lovely alabaster ivory to, in Gigi's case, a blood-rash dark red, in Fifi's, a sickly moss green, and in Mimi's, a plum purple. Their golden blonde hair changed to match the colors of their skin, as well.

The sisters looked at each other and screamed in terror, covering their faces and running down the main street in utter mortification.

Delphine swiftly rushed back to the privy, where she changed back into her default old-woman form again, and set out down the street, cackling merrily to herself.