Chapter 4

"Your Grace!" A loud knock on the door followed the excited shout. "Your Grace!"

"Go away, Cogsworth!" Adam grunted sleepily. He hated it when Cogsworth thought it was necessary to wake him. All the days under this spell were the same. Especially now that Belle was gone. He was determined to make this yet another miserable day.

Last night before he went to bed, he had looked at the Rose. The petals had looked so fragile. It was just a matter of days, maybe even hours, before his fate was sealed. Then he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time. And he could stay in bed as long as he pleased.

The door opened and by the sound of the footsteps, two men came in. Was it so difficult to leave him alone?

"Your Grace, you must see this!"

"It has happened!" That was Lumière's voice.

Oh great, they are both here! Do they have to sound so incredibly cheerful?

"What?" Adam said irritably, with his eyes still closed. If he didn't look up maybe they would leave. Couldn't they take a hint?

"You have to look this way to find out!" Lumière said impatiently.

"All right! Stop nagging!" Adam sat up straight and turned in the direction of the voices. "Now what do you want me- WHOA!" he yelled. His mouth fell open, and instinctively he crawled backwards. He looked right into the mirror Lumière was holding. He couldn't believe what he saw. It was impossible.

"This cannot be…" He touched the glass of the mirror and then felt with his fingers how his face was smooth again! Instead of feeling the familiar fur like other days, all he could feel now was stubble on his cheek!

He looked up at Lumière, who was all smiles and also human again! So was Cogsworth! They were human again too! They were all human again!

Excitedly, Adam threw off the covers and ran to the mirror. There he was! Human! He would never have believed it if he didn't see it with his own eyes! The fur was gone. It was gone! The fangs, everything! He was human again. Fingers, hands, toes, feet. Everything was back to what it was supposed to be.

It took a few minutes before Adam was able to tear away from his reflection. He looked from Cogsworth to Lumière and back to the mirror. It was unbelievable. He had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. He wasn't. This was incredible!

All of a sudden something in the corner of his room drew to his attention. The Rose… It bloomed again! Like it had done on the day the curse was placed. Only it wasn't red anymore. It was now made out of pure gold! It sparkled in the sunlight. It looked magnificent. He carefully lifted the glass bell jar from the Rose.

"Your Grace!" Cogsworth warned softy.

Adam didn't hear him. He touched the petals. Nothing happened; the petals didn't fall off. "But how?" he whispered almost inaudible.

Lumière simply shook his head. "Not how. Who."

Belle! The spell would be broken when he had learned to love another and earned her love in return by the time the last petal fell. It was Belle… "I have to go see her!" he exclaimed. He started to run around the room. He didn't know what to do first. "Belle loves me!" He ran into the dressing room next door. "Where are my clothes?" With the same speed he came running back into the bedroom. "Saddle my horse!"

"Your Grace!" Cogsworth begged, running after the prince. "Slow down!"

"I'm not going to slow down, Cogsworth!" Adam yelled. "I've spend years of my life waiting for that one girl, I'm not going to wait anymore! I'm going to get her!" He had to find Belle, he would take her to the castle and they would live happily ever after. She had saved him! She loved him! She would be his bride, his princess!

"You can't go running out like this!" Cogsworth panted, slowing down.

"Watch me!"

Lumière was still standing next to the bed while Cogsworth was practically chasing the prince through the room. He softly coughed. "Your Highness, I hate to interrupt your state of mind, but do you know where Belle lives?"

Adam gasped and stopped in the middle of the room. Lumière was right. He had forgotten about that. He had no idea where exactly Belle had come from. All she had told him that she was from a provincial village near the castle, but not where. He didn't even know a direction in which to look. She had come to the castle on horseback, but never told him how long it took her to travel from the village to the castle. How in the world was he going to find her now?

He sat down on the edge of the bed. "What am I going to do now?"

"She's probably on her way over," Lumière answered quickly, trying to soothe the prince's temper.

"Why isn't she here yet?" Adam yelled impatiently. This was not going well. He had lost Belle, because he had let her go, but he was now human again. He had to find her to at least thank her! She was the love of his life. She had to be here!

"The day has just started," Lumière continued calmly. "Your Highness, we must get you ready before Belle arrives."

"And the servants want to see you," Cogsworth said, carefully placing the bell jar over the golden Rose again. "They are ecstatic with joy."

The servants…Adam had forgotten about them. "Is everyone human again?" he asked.

"Yes, your Grace," Cogsworth said, nodding. "From the chimney sweeps to the kitchen staff, from the stable boys to the chamber maids."

Adam sighed. The spell was truly broken. "Mrs. Potts? Chip?"

"Happy and healthy, your Highness," Cogsworth answered.

"Chip is outside playing with the other children, and Mrs. Potts is preparing breakfast," Lumière added. From a coat stand he took an old dress robe, holding it out to the prince.

"I'll send in the barber for a shave," Cogsworth said as he left the room.

Adam went over to the window and outside he saw Chip together with several children from the castle household playing with a ball. Because of his mistake, they hadn't been able to for a long time. But he would make it up to them. From now on, everything would be different. He would be a better man than he had ever been.

"Your Highness?"

Adam didn't react. He simply couldn't believe that this was actually happening. When he looked outside he felt so relieved that it was all over now. Everything he had wished for, for such a long time, had happened. The nightmare was now finally over. He could start his life all over again. He had gotten a second chance.

"Your Highness?" Lumière tried again.

"Look at them," Adam said happily. "Isn't this wonderful, Lumière?"

"It certainly is," Lumière agreed. He put his hand on the prince' shoulder and slowly pulled him away from the window. "Let's get you dressed, your Highness. Your princess should be here soon."


Belle had been awake for several hours before someone came to open the door. She didn't move when the door opened. She didn't know if she was expected to leave or if the door was opened so someone else could come in.

"Come out, we haven't got all day," the asylum employee in the doorway said, bored.

"Belle!" Stella ran into the cell and took Belle's hand, dragging her into the corridors. "We have to hurry!"

"Where are we going?" Belle asked as she ran after Stella.

"Having breakfast! I'm starved!"

Belle hadn't realized it, but she was incredibly hungry. The last time she had eaten something was yesterday's supper. She felt like she could eat a horse.

"Let's go, Belle!"

After what seemed like hours of walking through endless corridors, they finally stopped at a big door.

"Here we are," Stella said. "This is the West Wing. This is where we spend our days."

Stella opened the door and immediately Belle wanted to cover her ears. The sound in this room was more than anyone could stand for a long time. The large room was completely empty, besides a few chairs and a few tables. The only light in the room came from the windows at the top of the walls. At the other end of the room, there was a little platform with a table on it. On the wall above it hang a huge sign: "God Sees Everything".

There were only women in this room. A dozen, maybe more. But the sound they made together was loud enough for an entire army. Most of them seemed to be screaming just to scream. Only one or two were sitting quietly in a corner, staring into space. The others were too busy shouting and running around. They all seemed so angry. Belle looked at them in horror. Would she spend her days here among these awful women? She was not crazy, but chances were high that, after a while in here, she would end up that way.

An old woman walked over to them. "Who is that with you, Stella?"

"That's Belle! She's my friend," Stella said proudly. She was still holding Belle's hand. "You are my friend, right? Tell me I'm your friend."

"I'm your friend," Belle answered wearily. This would be a long day.

A heavy church bell rang. Immediately everyone in the room went silent. A side door opened and two male servants carried in a huge cauldron, the vapors coming off. It wasn't the most delicious thing Belle had ever smelt. Quite the contrary.

All the women quickly formed a line and one by one, they climbed the little platform. Slowly they walked by the cauldron, where a stout woman handed out porridge. No one in the room spoke, except the servants.

"Stay in line," a female servant said as she walked past Belle.

Then Belle arrived at the table. She took a bowl from the pile and waited for her share. When she got to the cauldron, the woman with the ladle didn't move.

"And what have we got here?" she said with a contemptuous look at Belle.

I'm not a what. I'm a who, Belle thought grimly.

Another servant girl stepped forward, "New girl, Madame, brought in last night."

"What for?"

"Hallucinations. Claims she was imprisoned by a beast in a castle."

Caught by surprise, the woman looked back from Belle to the girl. "You don't say."

"Heard it from Madame Beaumont myself."

"All we need, another Crazy Anne," the woman said, rolling her eyes. "A beast in a castle?"

"Yes, Madame," the servant girl continued her story. "I overheard Madame Beaumont tell the cook that she heard from Monsieur d'Arque, who is a good friend of the girl's fiancé, that all the time she claims to be imprisoned she was actually just at home."

"At home? Doing what?"

"They say, Madame…" The girl paused and quickly glanced at Belle. "She was reading."

The woman started to laugh. "No wonder she got crazy."

Belle held her head high and waited. She knew that if she said or asked anything, things would get worse. She was used to gossip. They always talked about her. It was no different from the village. The only difference was that here, they didn't bother to do it behind her back.

"Look at her, her nose in the sky like she is the queen herself!" the girl snickered.

The woman looked down on Belle as she ladled the porridge into the bowl. "We'll have to teach her a thing or two."

Belle stepped down from the platform and tried to look as though the women's remarks didn't bother her. When she looked around, she saw Stella sitting at a table nearby. As she sat down, she looked in the bowl. The porridge looked awful. There was no sugar or syrup on the tables. But it was probably the only food she would get here this morning. She took her spoon and stirred the porridge.

"No! Don't!" Stella whispered. "Not yet."

"What are we waiting for?" Belle whispered back. She looked around the table. All the women were silent, with their hands folded on their laps. Everyone was looking down.

"Monsieur d'Arque!"

"Quiet at the table!" the stout woman shouted from the platform.

Why did they have to wait for Monsieur d'Arque? Belle pondered. It was not likely that he would have breakfast with them. It was best for everyone if they finished breakfast as soon as possible.

When everyone was seated, the side door opened and in came Monsieur d'Arque. Belle had the feeling that he was looking at her for a brief moment. He climbed the platform and stood next to the servants.

In a deep serious voice, Monsieur d'Arque spoke: "O Lord, we thank Thee for our daily bread. May it strengthen and refresh our bodies! And we pray Thee, nourish our souls with Thy heavenly grace, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."

"Amen," the rest of the people in the room echoed.

"Wait for it," Stella whispered when Belle lifted her hands above the table to get her spoon. Everyone kept staring at Monsieur d'Arque. Then he nodded and everyone started to eat.

Was that it? That was what they had to wait for? A nod? That was the permission to get to eat in this place?

Belle took her spoon and started her breakfast. The porridge tasted even worse than it looked. It took a lot of effort to swallow this substance. It was thick and lumpy and had definitely cooked for hours. She wasn't much of a cook herself, but she would be ashamed to ever serve something like this to others. She forced herself to eat. She would need all her strength in this place. If she didn't eat, she wouldn't survive.

"Where are we going now?" Belle followed Stella, who stood up and picked up her bowl.

"Outside!" Stella said happily.

Outside there was a courtyard. It wasn't very big, but there was grass, several trees, and even a few flower beds. It wasn't that bad actually. It wasn't as depressing as the rest of this building, And here they could walk around freely.

Belle and Stella sat down on a little bench under an old tree. Belle looked at the other women. Most of them looked normal. Also Stella didn't seem as insane as she had last night. Everyone seemed happy to be in the open air. The shouting had stopped.

"Were you really in a castle?" Stella asked suddenly.

Belle hesitated, unsure whether or not to tell Stella what had happened in the castle. Well… why not? She was already locked in here. Who knew - Stella might believe it. And Belle felt the need to talk about Adam. She nodded.

The nod was a sign for Stella to started rambling again. "How was it there? How did it look? Was it bigger than this house?"

"Much bigger," Belle answered, thinking back to the first time Cogsworth and Lumière had shown her around the castle. It was enormous. "It had hundreds of rooms and staircases and hallways. Dining rooms, sitting rooms, the biggest kitchen you could ever imagine. A library."

Stella gave Belle a confused look. "A library?"

Belle didn't notice it. Enthusiastically she went on, "I had never seen so many books in my life! The bookcases went all the way up to the ceiling! You needed a ladder to get to the highest shelves."

"You… read?"

"Yes," Belle said, coming back to earth. For a moment she had forgotten that she was now back in the world where people thought it was strange for women to read. That problem hadn't existed in the castle. Adam understood her passion for reading. She sighed and looked at Stella. She had had this discussion so many times. One more time wouldn't hurt her. "Is there anything wrong with reading?"

Stella looked at her as if she didn't understand the question. "Why would a woman need to read?"

"To entertain myself, of course!" Belle exclaimed as she looked at the sky longingly. She saw several birds flying over the walls of the asylum. The birds were free. She wasn't. "To take me away to worlds I have never seen. To take me away from this provincial life."

"I don't understand," Stella said. "Why would you read about things that aren't happening, that are made up?"

"To dream," Belle said. To escape, she added in her mind. Her books had made it able for her to survive in a village that had nothing to offer her besides being the center of gossip. Or was it the other way around? People gossiped about her because she liked to read…which only made her read even more.

Stella interrupted her thoughts. "And was there really a beast?"

"Yes, his name is Adam. He looks ferocious, but that's only the outside. On the inside he is kind and gentle."

"A kind and gentle beast? That's crazy!" Stella started to giggle insanely. "And his name is Adam? Belle, you are so funny!"

Belle sighed. "I know it sounds hard to believe, but he listens to what I say and understands me. He is a noble man, who-"

Stella let herself fall backwards onto the grass and kept laughing. "A noble man trapped in a beast's form! A beast in a castle! Unbelievable!"

"If only I had the mirror, I could prove it to you," Belle thought out loud.

"A mirror?" Stella stopped laughing and crawled up. "Why would you need a mirror?

"It can show you whatever you want," Belle explained. "It's magic."

Stella wiped some sand of her skirt and skipped away to some of the other women who were talking. "I think you have read too many stories, Belle!"

Belle sighed. Without the mirror, and being trapped in the Maison des Lunes, there wasn't any way to prove that everything she said was true. She realized that it was hard to believe, and that it sounded like a story from one of her books. But that didn't mean that it couldn't be true. What she had experienced with the Beast had been real. Adam was real. The castle was there. The household…

Belle suddenly went cold as a horrifying thought crept into her mind. What if…what if it WASN'T real? What if I am losing my mind? she thought in shock. Could it be true? Could it all have been just a delusion, a vivid dream, something her own mind had conjured up in her desperate need to escape her unhappy life? No, wait, don't go there! That's what they want you to think!

A little voice in the back of her head whispered something she didn't want to hear. Be realistic: If an insane girl like Stella doesn't believe you, who will?

Belle pushed away the thought. She had to stay focused, to keep her mind on the truth. No matter what they told her, she knew what really happened.

Without realizing it, she started softly repeating everything that had happened between her and Adam. "Papa was imprisoned. I offered to change places," she whispered to herself.

"The first sign of a crazy person: talking to herself," the servant girl said to another servant.


Gaston came back from hunting that morning, still on top of the world. By now Belle was probably realizing that she had made a gigantic mistake. His patience wouldn't be tested too long. Belle was a smart girl; she would see what was best for her.

He walked purposefully through the village. There was one little thing he had to do before he could go see Belle today. "Hello, Henri," he said as he entered the smithy. "Did Lefou bring something to you last night?"

"Yes, he said it belonged to you," the silversmith said, nodding. He went over to a cupboard and took a package out of one of the drawers. "A gorgeous piece of art, more detailed than I have ever seen. Shame that the glass is broken."

"Can you replace it?"

"That mirror is pretty valuable. The frame is pure silver," Henri looked from the mirror back to Gaston. "It takes time to replace the glass without damaging the frame."

"I understand," Gaston said. He had known the silversmith for a long time now and knew exactly what he meant. He reached to the money bag on his belt. "How much do you want?"

Henri kept his greedy little eyes on the bag. "Oh, a few francs for the glass. And the rest of the bag for my effort." He reached out to the bag, but Gaston was quicker. He stepped back, letting Henri grab into the air.

"I'll give you three francs for the glass now," Gaston took out the coins and let the first one fall on the ground in front of Henri's feet. "If you do your job right, we can discuss the rest."

Henri didn't move, but his upper lip twitched. "Three francs is not much."

Gaston ignored Henri's last statement and dropped the last two coins in the sand. "You'd better do as I say, or I'll tell your wife about how you lost a week's income in one craps game."

Henri narrowed his eyes and glared at Gaston. "You wouldn't," he said slowly.

Unexpectedly, Gaston grabbed Henri by his collar and pulled him up close. The silversmith's feet hardly touched the ground. Gaston wasn't in the mood for any games. "Fix that mirror and do it fast," he hissed through his teeth.

"Yes, Gaston," Henri said hastily.

"Good." Gaston smiled pleasantly, releasing the man, and started to leave the smithy. "I'll come back for the mirror within a few days."

"A few days! Gaston, you can't be serious!"

"Do I make myself clear?"

Henri knelt down to pick up the coins from the sand. "Yes, Gaston," he said with his eyes cast down.

Gaston put his foot on Henri's hand as he was about to pick up the last coin. "And if there's even a chip missing from the silver, you'll be in more serious trouble than marital issues."


Adam was standing in his dressing room, surrounded by a pile of old clothes. Lumière was somewhere hidden in a closet, looking for something that would still fit the prince. There wasn't much left. Most of the clothes from the olden days were eaten by moths or he had outgrown them.

"Do you think Belle will know what I look like, Lumière? Will she recognize me?" Adam asked as he tried on an old white shirt and black pants. He sighed when he looked at his own reflection. He didn't look at all like the Beast anymore, which was wonderful, but could present its own problems if Belle didn't recognize him as the person she loved. He ran his hand through his hair. "I mean, she has never seen me like this."

"I'm sure she will know, your Highness," Lumière said encouragingly. He helped the prince into a dress coat, which seemed to fit. He took out a clothes brush and wiped away the dust on the coat. "I'm sure she will approve of the new you."

"I hope she takes it well," Adam chuckled. Belle had learned to love him as a beast; would she love him as a human? Of course she would. How he looked now had to be better than how he had looked as a beast. She loved him for who he was, not for how he looked. Not for his status. That was why he was human again. They had never spoken about him being royalty. It didn't matter. Would it matter now? Every girl dreamed about becoming a princess. Only tiny detail: Belle wasn't every girl.

They had a lot to talk about.

"And besides," Lumière continued, "she is a smart girl. She has the magic mirror. I would not be surprised if she has already taken a peek at your new exterior."

Adam let out another sigh and gave himself another look in the mirror. He had been lucky; it had been a close call. Without Belle he would be lost. It could be a matter of hours or minutes before she would be back in the castle. He was starting to get nervous.

He wished he had the magic mirror himself. It would have been easier if he could see Belle before she actually arrived. To see her face, would she be smiling when she came through the castle gates? She would be smiling. She loved him. That's all that mattered. He loved her and she loved him.