VII

For what had felt like an eternity, Belle had seen exactly two living faces: the Master's and her own. She had often gazed into the impassive faces of the people in oil paintings on abandoned corridors, or those of the statues in the gardens with their blank white eyes and crumbling noses. But those had been no compensation for a real, living face she realized now, belonging to a real living person. With an almost hungry eagerness she drank in every detail of the face of the strange young woman in her mirror, fearing that it would turn out to only be an apparition: the dark eyes, widened in surprise, the lips slightly apart, the lines of her eyebrows and nose, the high cheekbones. All the elements of a face that could have been sharp if it hadn't been softened by the loose, wavy dark hair. She appeared to be a few years older than Belle – or rather, than Belle looked – but not much.

So mesmerized was Belle by the sight alone that it was several moments before she realized that the young woman had said something too, softly but clearly audible. "You're there."

It was a curious thing to say, it occurred to Belle, implying firstly that the stranger could see Belle too and, what was more, that she had been expecting to see her. Her response, when it finally came, tumbled out breathlessly. "Yes," she said. "I'm here."

The woman laughed. "I can't believe I did it," she said, seemingly more to herself than to Belle. Her voice was low and pleasant, and Belle found that a third voice was as welcome as a third face after all these lonely years of which so much time had been spent in silence.

"Did what?" she asked.

"Find you." It sounded almost matter-of-factly.

"How did you know I was here to find? Do you know who I am at all?" Belle inquired dubiously. "There's – there's no one alive who knows who I am anymore. Everyone who ever knew me is gone."

"I wasn't sure if you really existed," the stranger confessed. "But I've always loved folk tales, fairy tales, rumours – they all have a kernel of truth in them somewhere, and I find that you can learn the most interesting things when you keep an ear out for them." She raised her hands in triumph. "Like now, when it turns out that the story of the Wailing Waif is really true!"

"The Wailing…?"

The woman smiled again. Belle got the impression she really was pleased to see her – almost more pleased than Belle was to see the stranger. "Don't take it to heart," the latter said. "The Wailing Waif is the abducted girl peasant children sing about, in the farmlands to the south – the girl who was carried off by a malevolent ghoul one night a long time ago as part of a demonic trade with her father, was tormented into insanity and found her way home to haunt the ruins of her father's castle. I take it that was based on you."

Carried off by a malevolent ghoul. "Yes," Belle said slowly, "I suppose that's me." For the first time, she tore her eyes from the mirror to glance up at the door. The Master believed she was in the kitchen right now, and was expecting her to show up in the dining room with dinner in the very near future. She had to avoid arousing his suspicion, give him no reason to come to her room. She would have to hide the mirror from him. If he found it he would crush it, she knew that beyond the shadow of a doubt. He had been friendly to her recently, but that was because things had been going his way. If he knew a mirror was left intact in the Dark Castle, he would make it explode into a thousand crystal fragments and there would be nothing she could do or say to stop him; and later, he would offer her another piece of jewelry to "make it up to her." Or perhaps a ballroom.

"My name isn't Wailing Waif," she said into the mirror, "it's Belle. What about you?"

"I'm Regina."

"Regina," Belle repeated. Her voice was almost pleading when she said: "Regina, I have to go now. Could you – could I speak to you again, later?"

Regina looked grave; perhaps she had noticed the shadow that had passed across Belle's face. "Of course," she said.

"Midnight," Belle said. By that time she was sure to be alone in her room again. "Could you be here again at midnight?"

"When the time is right, just say my name into the mirror and I'll be there."

Belle was afraid the Master would notice something different about her as she carried in the various dishes of a hurriedly prepared meal; she could feel him looking at her, although she carefully kept her eyes on the business at hand – slicing the chicken, pouring the wine – until she had taken her place across from him. As always, he waited until she was seated. It was another one of the small, unexpected courtesies he seemed to pay unconsciously, remnants of a friendlier man who had been swallowed up by the odd, dark creature he was today.

"You seem tense," he said, picking up his fork.

"I'm afraid I might have overcooked the chicken," Belle lied.

"Are you really? If anything it seems a little undercooked," he said, chewing.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Belle said blandly. "And that after those weeks of prison food, too."

"The cuisine was not quite of the elevated standard I've gotten used to," he agreed mildly, mercifully latching onto the new subject. "And I never did take to underground caverns much; there could have been no better time to allow myself some vacation."

"Vacation?"

"I like to think that I set a ball rolling, when my former pupil came to see me. All I have to do now is wait for everything to take care of itself – leave it to the next generation to make the effort and the sacrifices, so to say." He surveyed her over his wine glass. "I suppose you could do with some more company; I wouldn't want you losing all your social graces."

"No," she found herself saying, "we wouldn't want that."

Even though it was a little before midnight, Belle could no longer control her anticipation – and anxiety. She reached into the bottom drawer of her dresser, where she had meticulously tucked the mirror away again under the blankets at the very back, and sat down cross-legged on the floor beside it so that she could hide it again in a hurry. Her reflection looked back at her, both expectant and nervous; she was almost afraid to say the name out loud, in case nothing would happen, in case Regina wouldn't appear – in case she had only imagined Regina altogether.

After a last glance at her door (firmly closed) she finally whispered: "Regina!"

There was a moment in which nothing happened. Then, to her immense relief, her own face faded away almost immediately to be replaced by that of Regina, looking exactly like she remembered her.

"You're back!" Belle said hoarsely.

"But of course. I told you I would be."

"You have no idea how glad I am to see another person after all these years," Belle said. She could feel tears springing to her eyes even as she said it and tried to blink them away, but Regina was observant.

"You must have been very lonely," she said. Her voice was warm and sympathetic. "Every fairy tale has its alternate side, and I wanted to know yours. It's the reason I decided to look for you, to see if you were real. I suspected that the story was about the Dark One – whom I know to be very real indeed – and tried to see into his Castle. But all the windows had gone except for this mirror, and all I saw until today was darkness."

"That would have been the inside of my dresser." Belle paused. "How do you do that, anyway? Seeing through mirrors?"

Regina smiled. "Well, it's magic," she said. "And I've always been good with mirrors."

"The only other person I know who can do things like that is the Master," Belle said, frowning.

"The Dark One," Regina muttered. "His magic is probably the most powerful in the land – it's a pity he uses it the way he does." Her face was drawn suddenly, and Belle wondered if Regina, too, was the victim of one of the Master's deals. Irrationally, she felt a stab of guilt on his behalf.

"He isn't – he isn't really that bad," she said haltingly, wondering if she really meant it.

"Does he treat you well?" Regina asked. Belle thought she heard concern in her voice. "He strikes me as the type who would be a cruel master."

"You know him?"

"Not as well as you do, but our paths have crossed."

Belle hesitated. "I don't know if he is cruel," she said slowly. "He made true on a cruel deal I struck with him a long time ago. That I would stay with him forever, and he would keep my town safe in exchange – and he did, but I never stopped to think that "forever" really means "forever". But now that I'm as alone in the world as he is… I don't know if he is capable of regret, but he has been trying to soften the blow."

"A blow he struck," Regina said quietly. "Can it ever be softened? The fact that you're all alone?"

The question brought back a flood of thoughts Belle didn't want to think about; things were as they were, and she had resolved to accept that. Instead, she leaned in closer to the mirror. "But I'm not that alone anymore," she said. "Now that I know no less than two people."

Regina laughed, and Belle continued on the more pleasant line of conversation: "Let's not talk about me anymore, please. I have been inside the Dark Castle without distractions for longer than I care to think about. Tell me about you. Who are you? How is it that you can do magic?"

Regina shrugged modestly. "I'm no one very special," she said. "I live in a cottage in the woods. My mother practiced magic before me, until the day she died in an – in an accident."

"What do you use magic for when you're not looking for Wailing Waifs?"

"Well," Regina said, "I help people who come to me for aid."

"What sort of aid?"

"I'm particularly good with hearts."

"You mean heartaches, love potions and the like?" Belle asked, puzzled.

Regina looked amused, but Belle wasn't sure why. "Something like that," she said. "But my talents are versatile."

"And are you all alone in your cottage in the woods?"

Regina's face broke into the brightest smile Belle had seen yet. "I live here with just my father," she said, and Belle felt a stab of envy along with a sudden longing for her own father so strong that it almost made her sick.

"It used to be just me and my father, too." She wasn't sure if she should be telling this to a relative stranger, but the words tumbled out. "I mean, I had a betrothed, and there were many people at my father's court – but it was just me and my father, really."

"Tell me more about him," Regina said.

The sky was growing lighter outside her window when Belle still found herself curled up on her bed with the mirror. There seemed to be no end to the things to talk about but by then her eyes were heavy and she couldn't stop yawning.

"Maybe it's time to go to sleep, Belle," Regina said.

"Maybe," Belle said drowsily. "Do you think I could speak to you again soon?" The idea of losing her new (and only) friend was the one thought that had kept her up.

Regina smiled. "Tomorrow at midnight?"

"Yes! Tomorrow at midnight."

"Then I'll be there," Regina said. And, just before her face disappeared and Belle's eyes sunk closed, she heard her soft voice whisper: "Good night."

And Regina was there the next night. And the night after that. And many more nights in the weeks to follow, so that Belle found herself nodding off over her breakfast or her books and catching furtive snatches of sleep on the sofa in the library to avoid arousing the suspicion of the Master. For, true to his word, he did seem to have taken "time off" of sorts, and was home more than ever. Sometimes, Belle would look at him with a sudden, intense stab of affection. No, she would think, never forget what he really is. And at the same time another, seductive voice whispered: Why not forget? Forget your father and Gaston and the world outside. They're all gone and their memory just pains you. And then No, she'd think again, I can't let their memories go, not yet… But at other times she felt so sure that the Master cared for her in some unfatomable way, and that there was a side to him she hadn't seen before. Like the time when she came into the library to find that he had moved his spinning wheel there, set up near the couch.

"It seemed rather standoffish to spin all by myself in the dining room when you spend every waking moment here," he said when he saw her standing in the doorway. "And it was easier to move my wheel than all this." He indicated the thousands of bookshelves with a casual sweep of his arm. "We can indulge in our hobbies together."

"They're not exactly hobbies," Belle pointed out, approaching him. "I suppose my books are to me what that wheel is to you; they help me forget. We need them."

"Oh, you do need those books," he agreed. "It practically radiates from the way you touch them and can't keep your eyes off the pages."

"I've loved books since I was a little girl," Belle admitted.

"You must have been an extraordinarily dull little girl," the Master mused without malice, and Belle couldn't help but laugh.

"I liked many other things besides," she said. "Playing explorer, riding my horse to the river banks and swimming, walking with my father…Isn't there anything else you love?" she asked and, when he scoffed, corrected herself: "Like, I mean. There must be something else you like to do. Making those deals, perhaps?" When he didn't respond, she ventured: "The chase of it, cornering your quarry…"

"You seem to think your humble Master goes out on all sorts of swashbuckling adventures whenever he leaves the Dark Castle," he said. "But I assure you it has come to be rather monotonous; there's not much of a chase or a fight there. As often as not, they come to me; I will tell them to be careful what they wish for and that all magic comes at a price; they will ignore me and claim to be willing to pay the price, whatever it may be; we strike our deal..."

"And then?"

"And then I have them." He laughed his well-known laugh. Mwahah.

"Oh, those poor people out in the world," Belle sighed, when a thought occurred to her. "Is there no way at all to get out of one of those deals of yours? No loophole?"

He grinned crookedly. "There is the one. They would have to guess my name. Say it out loud any time, anywhere, and the deal is off."

Belle smiled as well. "Oh really?" She studied him appraisingly. "John," she said, "Sebastian Rupert Charles Will – "

The change that came over him was sudden and compete. One moment he was grinning – the next he reared up from his chair, his face twisted with fury.

"Stop that," he hissed.

Nonplussed by his sudden anger, Belle backed away from him. "Don't tell me one of those was actually your name," she said shakily.

"If it had been, you wouldn't be alive now," he said darkly. "You pledged yourself to my service forever as part of our deal, and the fact that our deal still stands is the reason you're still here when otherwise you would have died ages ago. If our deal ever were to be broken, you would be reduced to some brittle bones and dust within a few seconds."

"Oh." Belle had wrapped her arms around herself while the Master spoke, as if the reassure herself that she was all right. Despite her life in captivity, every particle of her body seemed to resist the very idea of falling apart, crumbling away into grey, dead dust… Another thought struck her. "So… the only reason I will ever be here, the only reason we'll ever be companions, is because of a deal I made a at a time when I was scared and hopeless, and sold myself into slavery to save my village?" she asked in a small voice.

The Master seemed irritated. "I don't see that it matters in practice. You have quite the luxurious lifestyle for a slave," he said, dropping back on his stool and stooping to gather up straw.

"For a slave," Belle repeated. She couldn't explain exactly why the idea was so painful when it was true that the Master did not treat her as a slave. But she waited for a response from the Master that never came; there was only the soft creaking of his spinning wheel to break the silence between them, until Belle turned around and walked away. It was at times like this that she most longed to speak to Regina.