CHAPTER 6:

It was an unadorned room of cut stone, with a large spiral stair. Two closets rested behind arched wooden doors. There was no light but what nature allowed; Belle and Gaston felt their way along the stairway walls till they reached the room at the top.

Now they had light: torches were burning in iron holders against the wall. Belle remembered searching for her father amidst these same prison cells. She raced to the reinforced wooden doors looking for signs of occupancy. It was unnecessary: from within a certain cell, a male voice called out unprompted:

"Who is that? Is someone there?"

Belle recognized the Prince. "Yes!" she cried, running to his door. "Oh, thank goodness you're safe!" She knelt before the little iron bars on the floor, which were placed so food and drink could be slid to the captive within. She saw the shape of the Prince amidst the shadows. He knelt at the grating to look out, eyes glittering in the low light.

"Oh! It's you," he said, surprised, but pleasantly so.

Belle was relieved. He remembered her. She reached out to touch his hand. "Yes. It's me. Don't worry, we'll have you out of here soon. Everything is going to be fine."

Gaston appeared behind her. "You've got a key for that door?"

Belle turned to him. "Can't you force it?"

Gaston looked at her like she was insane. "It's a prison door, Belle. They're designed to be impossible to force. If I could bust through a prison door any time I wanted, I'd get myself arrested six times a week."

Belle sighed, aggravated. "Alright. I think I know where the keys are kept. I'll be right back — you stay with him, Gaston. Make sure the Enchantress doesn't hurt him again."

"Tend the garden, don't let the pansies wilt. Got it," said Gaston cheerily.

Belle made a disgusted noise at Gaston's remark, but she hurried away down the stairs without a word. The huntsman remained behind.

The Prince slid himself into a more comfortable position on the floor of his cell. Gaston could hear a rattling noise as he did so. Chains, maybe? A minute or so of silence followed. Awkward.

The Prince finally piped up. "So… what is your name?"

"Gaston," answered the so said.

"And the girl?"

Gaston thought it mildly strange that the Prince didn't know Belle's name — but considering there had never been evidence that she knew his name, it wasn't wholly bizarre. "Her name is Belle," he said.

"Belle…" echoed the Prince. "Beauty. A suitable name for her. A good match for me."

"How do you know her, anyway?" asked Gaston. He was genuinely curious as to how a Prince had come to befriend her.

"Oh. I saw her outside the window, and thought, 'she's beautiful.' Actually, I saw you out the window and thought much the same. I like your muscles."

Gaston swelled with pride. "Everyone does. You know, I can lift a pianoforte in one hand while doing pull-ups with the other?"

"You joke!" said the Prince.

"Not at all!"

"How did you learn to do that?"

"There's no learning involved," smiled Gaston. "Overthinking is the enemy. You have to just go ahead and do whatever comes to mind. Never think about anything. Take this, for instance — the girl who captured my heart. I decided to propose to her. Set up the whole wedding. She turned me down flat. But! A few weeks later, she is chasing me. That's why I'm here now — because I never thought."

"Wow," said the Prince, who felt this man to be very wise.

"I'm supposing you got yourself into this mess by overthinking," said Gaston.

"Maybe," said the Prince. "I really can't recall. So… um, when am I supposed to marry Belle?"

Gaston's eyes flashed. Was this man a rival? "Marry her? What are you talking about?"

"That disgusting old witch said if I waited here, a beautiful woman would come to marry me. I'm obliged to trust her word, at the moment."

"Well, I can assure you it wasn't Belle she meant," said Gaston. "That one is mine. But from what I understood, that horrible old woman was the one who wanted to marry you."

The Prince snickered. "Well! If she wants, she'll be disappointed. The woman is so ugly."

Gaston laughed. "Yeah, I got a look at her a while back! If she has as few flaws as she does teeth — I still wouldn't take her."

"I wouldn't touch her with a borrowed body."

"I wouldn't touch her with a borrowed body."

"The sight's so appalling she'd make a blind kid cry."

"She's got the kind of face that makes you long for a watermelon with a hole cut in it."

Now both men were laughing heartily. Their mirth overcovered the sounds of a fresh new person that entered the chamber.

Belle dug through one of the castle's storage closets. She knew it was where a set of the prison keys were kept — at least, it had been so, before the Enchantress had come. Mrs. Potts had semi-jokingly shown them to her one day, telling her that if the master ever threw another loved one in the tower, she'd now have easy recourse to their rescue. Who would have imagined it would be the master himself she had to save?

She was beginning to dread somebody had since moved the keys, when she located the corroded set tossed carelessly onto the wooden floor.

Keys in hand, she hurried back up to the tower, anxious to take the imprisoned Prince to safety. She entered the chamber and noticed it had become empty. The Prince was all alone? At first she was angry with Gaston, supposing he had simply become bored and wandered away — but in a flash it came to her that Gaston himself may have met with trouble.

"Prince?" she called.

The Prince called back from his cell. Belle went to his door. "What happened to Gaston — the man who was here?" she asked.

"He left," said the Prince. "A woman took him."

Belle's heart raced. That didn't sound good. "You mean the Enchantress?"

"No," the Prince answered. "I never saw her before. Are… you going to let me out?"

Belle was flustered, having forgotten her original purpose. "Sorry — of course! Hold on." There were five rusted keys in her hand. The third one clicked and opened the cell. "There!" she cried, smiling in relief. She hauled open the heavy door with all her might.

The Prince was revealed at last, looking shy amidst the shadows. He stepped forth into the flickering torchlight. He was dressed in his white shirt, the front unfastened so that it showed off a good portion of his chest. Beneath the gap of white linen was visible an elaborate gold chain, like a collar or a harness, that hung from his neck. It was very large — Belle couldn't see where it ended. Below the sparkling golden links were visible injuries and bruises on his skin, many echoing the shape of the chains. The harness was apparently some kind of torture device, disguised as a beautiful adornment.

"Prince!" Belle gasped, appalled at the injuries. "Oh no! Let me get you out of that horrible thing!" She raced around his back, moving his hair aside and looking for a clasp or fastening at the neck. There was no such thing; the collar was put on by magic, and was never designed to be removed by anyone but she who placed it. Belle tried pulling the neckpiece to see if it might simply give. At her touch, there was a flash of green energy and an electrical sounding zap. The Prince screamed in pain. He batted at her with his arm instinctively.

"That hurts!" he bellowed. He was doubling up in agony. Tears were making an appearance.

Belle released him. "Sorry!" she yelped, both embarrassed and aghast. She watched the whimpering Prince step away and take a moment to recover himself. He turned so that he faced her, the glittering harness still in place. "What has that woman been doing to you?" she asked.

The Prince made a puzzled noise. "Which woman?"

"The Enchantress!" said Belle. She threw her arms around his clothed figure, seeking to comfort him. "I'm so sorry I didn't help you sooner. When you came to my house, I had no idea that she was so cruel…"

The Prince furrowed his large, perplexed brow. "Wait. I've been to your house? Have we… met before today?"

Belle was confused for a moment. Then the terrible realization struck, and her heart hit the floor.

He didn't remember her. His memory had been wiped.

With a hand to her mouth, she shook her head, trying to deny to herself that it was so — but the truth was apparent before her. Even when he was the Beast she could read the pain in his eyes. Not now. That bland expression on his face was absent the thought and worry and sadness and adoration that always tinged the features she'd known before.

"No, no, she didn't…" said Belle. "She didn't dare… she couldn't…"

But of course she could. This Enchantress had tortured a boy not yet eleven years old by turning him and his entire household into monstrosities, isolating them, humiliating them, and finally blackmailing him into a bargain for release. A bargain of marriage, but clearly not intending an equal partnership. He was effectively made her slave: that woman now controlled how he looked, what he wore, who he knew, what he felt, and what he thought.

It was just as he had written. The Enchantress was evil.

His blue eyes stared, blank and confused. Tears began to spill down Belle's face. The Prince was quite baffled. "What's the matter?" he asked, with an empathetic sadness.

"Do you really not remember me at all?" she wept. "When you rescued me from the wolves? When we danced in the ballroom?"

"I can't say I do," answered the Prince. He was noticing that he had some gaps in his memory, but with no memory to remember against, he regarded it all as something natural.

"When you took me prisoner?" insisted Belle. "When you freed me from being your prisoner? Please! Prince! Remember. Remember something!"

"Well, I remember when I saw you earlier. I noticed you out the window, and I thought, 'That girl is gorgeous. Someone that pretty must be smart, too, because it would show on her face otherwise. I wish I could meet her. I'd fall in love with her fast.'"

Belle's eyes went wide at the vacant stupidity of that whole remark. "You don't remember… that you loved me?" she asked, hesitantly. She herself only knew it because he had told the Enchantress as she eavesdropped via the mirror. But she remembered how he had acted towards her before, how he would light up whenever he saw her, how he strove to impress her and better himself for her sake. That was gone. That person was gone.

"Well," said the Prince. "I love how pretty you are. Doesn't that count for something?"

"We can't allow this," she gasped, pulling him close by the sleeve. "We have to find that Enchantress and force her to return your memory! You've got to remember everything — how you were a Beast and how we were falling in love, and — "

She rested her head against the Prince's chain-bound chest. Another electrical zap rushed through the gold links and made him scream in agony. He pushed her away, knocking her to the floor. You could smell the hint of singed flesh in the air.

"Stop doing that!" he shrieked in a savage anguish.

Belle immediately sprung with intention to follow and comfort him, but she stopped herself when she realized it would bring more harm than good. As she watched him, whimpering and moaning from her touch, tears started to fall from her own eyes.

She loved the Beast, she realized. She remembered their time together so fondly that it burned in her heart. But those were now only memories. There was no way to reclaim those happy times in the present. The Beast was gone, the servants were gone, the lovely dream was destroyed.

Moreover, she recognized — this was now a Prince who didn't remember ten years of pain and suffering as a Beast. Nor did he remember the past two weeks of horrors the Enchantress had inflicted upon him. He didn't even remember the heartbreak she herself had inflicted — that night when he gave her the mirror, how he was on the verge of tears when he released her, presuming all that time that she never intended to come back to him, that she never cared —

That poor, broken, heartsick Beast was lost and gone. This was a pure, unspoiled, undamaged man before her. Arrogant and foolish, perhaps, but only because he had lost his education in the mix. He could come to learn again… and he could learn from a happier place, a place that wouldn't leave pain in his eyes and his heart crushed with loneliness and inadequacy. He could go on to be a cheerful prince, blissful in ignorance, unknowing what had been done to him. He was a new man.

In a moment he would also be a free man.

Belle reminded herself that her purpose had never been to win the Prince's love for herself. She was only here to help him out of a bad situation. That was in her power right now.

"Here…" said Belle with a sniffle, drawing away from him and digging through her satchel. She located the crumpled talisman and ring of paper. "I think you'll be able to remove the collar, with this. Put this on. It will make you invisible to everyone, including the Enchantress and all her powers. She wants to harm you, but she won't be able to, as long as you have it on you. Wear it, and run away from here — don't take it off for anything. Don't take it off until you're someplace safe."

The Prince looked her over. He appeared to be disappointed. "So… you're not the girl who was supposed to marry me?" he asked, dismay in his voice.

Belle kissed his cheek, in a final farewell. "No," she said. "Apparently not."

She then slipped the paper ring onto his finger, and watched him vanish.

She waited alone for a while, till she was quite sure he had gone. Her heart was broken, but it was over someone she'd never had any right to love in the first place. A Beast, who had only loved her because he needed to do so break his curse. A Beast who had imprisoned her. Even the servants had known that it was an offensive circumstance. This was not a loving relationship, no matter what his sweet affection had depicted. She was correct to think of him only as a friend.

Still, she hurt at his loss.

Nevertheless, there was more work to be done. Gaston — who was not any less of a friend, and who indeed she was technically betrothed to — needed to be located. He might be in danger, and even if not she had to find him, let him know the errand was complete, and get him home. She wasn't just going to wish him luck and abandon him out here in the castle.

Belle wondered to herself — if I were Gaston, where would I be right now?