He faded in and out of existence like a flickering candle, unsure if he was alive or dead.
He could hear voices above him; a man and a woman speaking, but they made no sense whatsoever.
"Of all the stupid things to do. He shouldn't have tampered with the wound! It only makes things worse."
"You will be able to help him, won't you?"
"I'm doing everything I can, mademoiselle. But we're not exactly rich on time or resources at the moment. Our best hope is to get him to Brocéliande."
"How? He's in no state to travel!"
"Either we get him there or Gaston's men will find us and take him for themselves. What's the alternative?"
The voices grew fainter and fainter until he stopped hearing them altogether. He slipped back into oblivion.
Snip snip snip.
It was summertime. The Queen was cutting roses in the castle gardens while Adam stood beside her with a wicker basket in hand. He was six years old and they were preparing a bouquet for tonight's summer solstice feast.
Roses were Henriette's favourite flower. She liked to share all sorts of secrets about them: how to plant them, how to cultivate them, the best times of year to prune them so they'd regrow. The young Prince clung to her every word like a moth to a flame. He loved listening to his mother's voice. He loved how it could lull him to sleep every night with a soothing lullaby or comfort him during the most frightening of thunderstorms. It was a voice that made him feel safe and loved, like nothing bad could ever happen to him as long as she was near.
Which made it all the more frightening when he saw the thorny rose vines spring to life behind her, trapping her body in a deadly grip.
"Maman!" he shouted. "Watch out!"
Henriette struggled to free herself from the vines, but it was no use. They wrapped around her mouth, preventing her from screaming, and dug deep into her soft flesh until her white dress turned red with blood.
The vines dragged the now incapacitated Queen away into a thorny hedge bush. It closed itself up behind her, leaving no trace of her existence behind.
"NO!" Adam screamed, dropping his basket and running frantically towards the possessed shrub. "Let her go! LET HER GO!"
His little hands pulled and tugged at the sharp vines until they bled, but it was no use. He knew as he'd known for the past thirteen years that his mother was gone and was never coming back.
He awoke in a cold sweat to find himself lying in front of the fireplace in the castle kitchens. It was a few hours after midnight on Christmas Day and he was thirteen years old.
A rich odour of exotic spices and fresh cooking dough filled the air. The smell was comforting and familiar to the Prince. It reminded him of home.
Sitting up, he pulled away the flannel blanket that Mrs. Potts had draped on him earlier and examined his surroundings. His empty mug of hot cocoa was still on the table. He remembered sitting there for an hour with Lumière, Cogsworth and Mr. and Mrs. Potts, listening to them swap stories about their childhoods before he'd fallen asleep.
The hour before that, he'd tried to run away from the castle. It was Mr. Potts who'd found him in the stables, shivering like a leaf with only a thin wool cloak to protect himself from the elements. He'd burst into tears the moment the old stable master had asked him what he was doing, and then he knew, and Mr. Potts knew that this was all too much for him. Between his father's repeated abuse and trying to get through the first Christmas without his mother, all he'd wanted was to escape and forget everything he ever was.
Mr. Potts had asked no more questions, only put an arm around the boy's shoulder and guided him back into the castle. They didn't go through the main entrance but through the servants' quarters, which the Prince was grateful for. If they'd gone through the main entrance, he was certain that his father would have caught wind of it, and then he would have been done for.
Mr. Potts and the other servants were all gone now. But Adam could still hear their muffled voices out in the corridor. He got to his feet and pressed his ear to the door to listen.
"This is ridiculous!" Cogsworth was saying. "The Prince is thirteen years old. It's time that he put these childish habits aside and behaved like a real man. If he can't keep his emotions in check and hold back from crying at the first sign of criticism, then I honestly weep for the future of this kingdom. He's a prince for crying out loud. Not a baby!"
"I agree with you completely, Cogsworth," Lumière said with a sneer. "I mean, what kind of woman would want to marry a pitiful milksop like that? She'd be better off bedding a eunuch than bedding him. I'd gladly set her up with one if necessary."
"As a mother, how do you think that I feel?" Mrs. Potts added harshly. "It's one thing to raise my newborn son, but to look after two? I'm a cook for heaven's sake, not a nursemaid! And I'm about ready to serve our master cold tea for the rest of his life. It serves him right for being such a burden to us all."
"And to think that he couldn't even run away properly," Mr. Potts remarked in disgust. "When I found him in the stables, he was a shivering, crying mess. I almost thought he was a filthy beggar, not a prince. Even a criminal carries more conviction than him."
"He needs to face his responsibilities," Cogsworth declared.
"He needs to be more like his father," Mr. Potts stated.
"He needs to be more like Gaston," Lumière echoed.
"He needs to stop using us as a crutch and get over his mother's death already," Mrs. Potts concluded.
Adam turned away from the door, vision blurring with tears again. His servants' words were cruel, but they spoke the truth. He would never be the prince they wanted him to be. It didn't matter how hard he tried to cover himself up with fine clothes and makeup—inside, that vulnerable little boy was still there, and always would be.
All I do is disappoint people, he thought. Maybe it would be better if I didn't exist at all.
He must have dozed off again, for when he came to, he was the Beast, and was standing in the newly refurbished ballroom with Belle. His heart soared as he saw her in her golden dress, and then he let himself be swept away in the familiar magic of that night as he took her hands and guided her across the floor. Her smile was as bright as the surrounding candles and made him feel lighter than air. He pulled her out into a twirl, and when he pulled her in again, gasped. It was Médée, not Belle, who was looking back at him.
"You're wasting your time, Beast," she said with a malicious smile. "She'll never love you."
The music cut away as the room descended into total darkness. All the Beast could hear was Médée's cruel laughter, echoing all around him. But even that was changing; becoming lower, more masculine and eerily familiar…
Light returned to the castle ballroom. This time, it wasn't from the candles, but from the full moon shining through the doors at the back of the room. Four ornate thrones had appeared in front of these doors whereupon sat four shadowy human figures. Terrified but intrigued, the Beast took a step towards them.
"Welcome home, Prince Adam." The voice came from the throne on the Beast's far left. "Or should I say, Beast."
The speaker lit a candle, and the Beast nearly fell over as he saw his human self staring back at him. He wore a silver wig and his face was covered with the same white and blue makeup he'd worn before the curse. He smiled at the Beast cruelly, his face looking gaunt and skeletal in the dim light.
"Who are you?" the Beast demanded, trying to maintain his composure despite his growing fear. "What is this?"
"What are you, stupid?" his other self said with a curt smile. "I'm you. Or rather, I'm one of the many yous you've left behind."
The other throne sitters were lighting their own candles now. The Beast's heart filled with dread. Three more princes, three alternative versions of himself sat on each chair. The second one was dressed in the white formal suit that Adam had worn on his wedding day. The third one was wearing the lilac-coloured jacket he'd dressed himself in after finding himself in bed with Plumette. The fourth one was a child, himself at age eleven, dressed in the red suit he'd worn on his first hunting trip. All of them regarded him with the same cold, judgmental gaze.
"I-I don't understand," he stammered. "How is this even possible?"
"Let me lay out the facts, Beast," the first Prince said calmly. "When you mess with time, you don't just mess with the events of one universe. You mess with the events of several. Time is more than a straight line moving across a physical plain. It's several lines, all stacked on top of each other. Which means that every time you used the Enchantress's book to escape a problem you couldn't fix, there was always another you who had to stay behind and clean up the mess."
"I could finally turn over a new leaf," the Prince in the white suit said bitterly. "I had a mother who loved me and a perfectly respectable fiancée. But you… you ruined all of it! You couldn't resist rekindling your relationship with that peasant girl despite all the warning signs. And a wealth of good it did. She'll always love her freedom more than she'll ever love you."
"I was happy to be free of my commitments and responsibilities," said the Prince in the purple jacket. "Happy to be ignorant of all the pain I'd inflicted on my subjects. But you had to be the white knight, didn't you? You tried to save not only our maître d', but that miserable little whore as well. But you failed." He sneered at him wickedly. "You couldn't save the girl. You just made her die faster."
"I lost my father, my title and my inheritance because of you!" the eleven-year-old Prince jeered. "Soon I'll be nothing to anyone anymore. Just a dotty eccentric who paints pictures and plays with his dogs all day. I hate you."
"I'm sorry," the Beast said with a trembling voice. "I never meant for any of this to happen. I was only trying to make things right. I wanted to give our servants the lives they rightfully deserved."
"Oh, that's a lie and you know it," the Prince in the silver wig smirked. "This was never about saving the lives of our servants at all. This was about Belle. You thought that if you could tip the scales of fate and find a reality where she'd fall in love with you, all your sins would be forgiven, and you could live happily ever after."
"Well here's a wake-up call for you, Beast," the Prince in the purple jacket continued mockingly. "Belle doesn't give a rat's arse about you. She never has and never will. Remember the night you let her return to her father? She didn't say goodbye to you. She ran away and never looked back. And that's because she was happy to get away from you. Happy to put the memory of your despicable self behind her."
"Do you think she cares for you now because you spilled your deepest secrets to her?" the Prince in the white suit added. "Please. You're just another tragic hero from one of her adventure novels. Once she's finished 'helping' you, she'll move on to someone else. You're wasting your time."
"You don't deserve love, Beast," his eleven-year-old self declared. "You don't deserve anything. You're a big failure who brings misery to everyone around you. Even our own mother would disown you if she could see how far you've fallen."
"And forget redemption," the Prince in the silver wig agreed. "Agathe knew from the moment she met you that you couldn't be saved. The only reason she added that 'love clause' into the curse was to make sure you wouldn't do anything stupid while she stopped France from going to war. She had no intention of helping you overcome your daddy issues or teaching you about kindness and looking past outward appearances. You were just a means to an end."
"Go back to your lonely tower, Beast," his purple-suited self commanded. "Go back there and rot. Or better yet, do us all a favour and throw yourself off one of the balconies. No one would miss you. They'd all be happier with you gone."
The Princes' arrogant laughter filled the air.
Meanwhile, the Beast fell to his knees, eyes brimming with tears. He had nothing to say to his alternate selves. After all, they were right. He was a failure; too broken to be saved, too cruel to be loved. Whenever he entered a room, laughter died. Even Belle, beautiful, pure-hearted Belle must have hated every moment that she'd had to live with him as his prisoner. She'd only bothered to spend time with him because she'd pitied him and wanted to compensate him for saving her life. She would never miss him, never ache for him the same way he ached for her. He was all alone.
This truth was so unbearable, it stung even harder than the Prince's cruel comments. He wanted nothing more than to get his paws on the Enchantress's book so he could stop himself from ever being born.
But then he heard it. A new voice cutting across the ballroom, shrill as a bird and clear as a whistle.
"Don't listen to them!"
The laughter ceased. Speechless, the Beast turned around. Belle stood by the ballroom steps; not in her golden gown this time, but in the blue pinafore dress she'd arrived in on her first day in the castle. She was panting heavily, her face full of fear and desperation.
"Belle?" He blinked rapidly, unsure if she was real or another illusion.
Behind him, the four Princes also began to react to the unexpected newcomer.
"That's her?"
"Weedy little thing, isn't she?"
"And so plain. Ugh. How can anyone stand the sight of her?"
"It's a big wonder that her name means 'beauty.' What an ill-fitting name for such an unfortunate-looking wench."
"ENOUGH!" the Beast roared. His voice overpowered all his other selves, sending them into silence once again. He got to his feet and turned back to face the young woman.
"Belle? What are you doing here?"
"Come back, Adam," was her pleading reply. "This is all in your head. It isn't real. Remember your promise. You're the only one who can fix this timeline and stop Gaston and Médée from getting to the Nexus Tree. You need to wake up."
As the Beast stared at Belle, a wave of old memories washed over him. He remembered how the two of them used to read and sort through old books together in the castle library. He remembered their long walks in the grounds, talking about everything and nothing. He recalled how she'd taught him to handle Philippe and to eat with proper utensils at the dining table. All the while, she'd remained unfailingly patient and kind.
Belle was the first person to treat the Beast as an equal. Not as a fearful master, not as a disappointing child, but as a friend. Even when they had their disagreements, he still admired the way she carried herself; head held high and eyes blazing. Her passion for inventing and fine literature was both endearing and contagious. It had revived in him old feelings that he thought had died in him long ago. Thanks to her, he'd learned to relax and laugh at himself. Thanks to her, he'd tried even harder to become the man he should have been all those years before.
He knew that Belle would never love him, and for good reason. But he still had a job to do. He still had a mistake to fix and a kingdom to save. With these thoughts in mind, he took a decisive step towards her.
"Unbelievable," one of his other selves scoffed behind him. "You're going to leave with that wretched peasant girl, after everything she's done to you? Have you forgotten that she's the reason you're here in the first place? She broke your heart, Beast!"
"I know," the Beast mumbled. "But... it's not important now."
No matter how badly Belle had hurt him, he could never hate her. He wasn't his father, full of needless spite and rage. He wasn't his past self either; too proud and self-absorbed to admit to his failings. He was just Adam, penitent and humble Adam. And that was all he needed to be.
Belle smiled at the Beast and held out her hand. He could already feel a weight being lifted from his chest as he placed his paw over her palm.
Together, they walked up the staircase, the Princes' scornful comments growing fainter and fainter. Then, the two of them stepped through the open doorway, into a blinding white light.