The queen had not walked about in her own appearance for many years. Though her aged disguise was but a clever illusion, and did not truly afflict her body with any of the ailments and limitations of old age, she had forgotten how very different it felt to be young and alive in looks; to have blonde hair falling in one's face, smooth hands, a small nose and a sonorous voice. She found that she perpetually wanted to hum songs to herself, so pleasant her voice was grown; and she could scarcely keep her hands off her smooth, soft skin. It brought a certain cheer to one, and that cheer led to a kind of goodness.
Really, the creature who was so well known by the name of "The Evil Queen" did not consider herself evil. Certainly she would not deny that she had done evil, from time to time. But she always considered it justified, for it amounted to a mere reflection of evil done to her, or that would be done to her if she did not preserve herself against it. Even the incident with her stepdaughter had appeared to her as justified at the time, although centuries of hindsight had made her reconsider and ultimately decide that her actions had been excessive. She could have been nicer to the girl, it was true; but it was far too late for those apologies.
Now she was faced with this mess she'd made with the young prince. Already she was convinced: she had gone too far. Mortals led such brief lives as it was, and how terrible to live it in that condition! While it was a fact that some unfortunate individuals were born ugly or deformed, and lived their lives just fine in that condition, it was undeniable that she had afflicted the prince and his servants with an ugliness that was beyond natural. Worst of all, it was all the consequence of a simple misunderstanding.
Days passed as she considered what to do, what was possible to do, what she would be allowed to do. She would permit herself no more mistakes in this matter, and she wanted to be certain of every possibility. She thought and thought, the world around her growing blurred and unreal. She made pauses for food and rest, and occasionally was obligated to interact with others, but her mind remained for the most part devoted to the solving of her problem.
When at last she believed she knew what to do, she wanted to be absolutely certain no prejudice or unconsidered possibility would be able to thwart her. There would be no more surprises with this matter. More time passed as she thought out every scenario, every fact, every reaction, every eventuality. To each of them, she needed the correct preparations. Her pockets grew heavy and cumbersome with items she collected in anticipation of various mystical or mundane eventualities, and she performed several preparatory enchantments upon herself.
At length, she was certain that she was ready to return to the castle and bring a remedy to what she had wrought, as far as it could be remedied. There were several scenarios in her store that admitted the possibility that she was too late — for instance, if everyone in the castle had died while she was away, or if they had abandoned the place and scattered themselves through the land. But she hoped that more favorable circumstances would be found, and she could right the wrong.
It took some time for her to locate the castle again, so deeply in the forest it was concealed. It seemed to her no wonder that the location was chosen to hide the nation's treasures — the place was difficult to find on purpose and probably never could be found by mistake. The magic she had worked upon the property made the entire area into a dark and foreboding place, and the black gothic castle was not the least bit inviting in its appearance.
There were no guards or porters at the door, yet again; but this time she did not bother asking to be let inside. The doors were not bolted. Entering, she found the place rather different from what she had last seen. There was dust and cobwebs all over. Furniture was in shambles. At a glance, one might have even taken the castle for abandoned.
She glanced at the corner where she had last seen the traumatized prince. He was long gone, of course; but she observed a dusty little lump by the wall which she thought she recognized. She went to it and found her guess was correct: it was the rose that never died, left forgotten and discarded. Still, under the dirt it remained a healthy and thriving rose. She shook the dust from it and put it into her pocket.
Hoping to find more evidence of life, she ascended the filthy stairs. She might have expected that the servants being confined to the castle would make them more diligent in their housekeeping, but the opposite had proven true. The place was a wreck. Finery was in tatters, the walls were decorated with smashed mirrors and slashed paintings, furniture lay overturned.
As she made her way across one large room, a familiar accented voice — not booming, but loud enough — called out.
"You've some nerve returning after all this time, you filthy kraut!"
Grimhilde turned to the source of the sound. A candelabrum was on a table across the room, and in a moment it was on the floor and making its way towards her.
"You just can't do better than the nationalist insults?" she asked of it, her tone fatigued. "That was why I transformed you in the first place."
"Well," said Lumiere with an angry sarcasm, "I feel I've already paid the price on that one, and have every right to enjoy my purchase."
"Makes me nostalgic for the days when they just called me 'The Evil Queen.'"
"Befitting; but you know titles have been abolished."
"Look," said Grimhilde, leaning against a table once she was satisfied that it indeed was a table and not a person. "I understand that you're angry with me. I can't fault you for that. But I have come back here because I want to help you."
"Help us?" repeated Lumiere. "Where was this help of yours five years ago?"
The queen raised an eyebrow. "That long? I need to start keeping a calendar."
"I'd give you ours, but I think it's one of the chambermaids," he spat.
"Well, if you're interested in having all of this undone, I remain your best hope."
"Then do it!" said Lumiere with a confrontational tone. "Fix it! But no more of your requests for this and that, and your deceit. Fix it, and go away."
The enchantress sighed in aggravation. "It's not so simple as that. I cannot simply snap my fingers and reverse this; the point of a curse is it's permanent. Otherwise, it's just another word for a bad day."
By now there were others in the castle — teapots, pillows, vases, silverware, chairs — who had perceived the conversation, and they made their awkward progressions into the room to see what was the fuss. Over the years they had grown used to their new bodies and limitations. Some were bitter about it, while some had come to embrace their new way of life; but most of them remembered who had wrought this upon them, and they recognized that it was she who stood before them.
The queen reached into her pocket, preparing for the likelihood of the scenario in which she was attacked by the servants. But to her relief, although most of them were angry with her and vocalized as much, they kept their distance.
After enduring a few terms worse than either witch or kraut, Grimhilde tried to allay their concerns.
"Take it easy," she warned. "Nobody forced me to come back here. I am sorry for what I did, and I want to correct it. But, certainly, if you prefer to remain as you are, you are quite free to drive me off."
The servants did not seem to have any argument against that, and their ruckus died down.
"So what are you going to do?" asked a giltworked armchair.
"That remains to be seen," she answered like a Kellerbier. "Tell me about your master. Is he still living in the castle?"
There was, in response, a unified groan from the servants which conveyed without any other words that the situation with the master was a source of intense strife.
"My god, the master —"
"Could be here right now —
"Used to be able to walk on the floor like a person, but now you find him creeping around on the ceilings like a cockroach — "
"Better than that first year! Wouldn't get out of bed, wouldn't eat —"
"Eat what? The curse turned all the livestock into furniture, and we can't go into town for supplies looking like this. Ran out of food — "
"Fortunately the master is the only one who needs to eat —"
"Goes into the forest and kills deer with his bare hands. Doesn't even bring them to Bouche to be cooked anymore, just devours them raw —"
"Blood all over the walls, the floors, his room is a veritable abattoir —"
"And not just the animals. He tried to do like Werther, last year —"
And the staff produced another shivering groan at the memory of that.
Grimhilde began to pull items from her pockets and tossed them onto the table: unneeded, as certain scenarios were now eliminated from possibility.
Then she spoke calmly: "Show me to his room."
The prince, the beast, the creature — he did not know what he was. Titles, family, liberty all had been taken; and then what else was there to take? His appearance, his very humanity. He was left a freak, a violation of nature. He was surrounded by the sinister sight of objects which had no right to be animate, constantly moving and speaking and singing all around him. Mirrors and glasses seemed made to horrify him with an image that always took time for him to remember was himself.
For the first year he was less upset by the alteration than he was by the witch's promise that she would be back. Every day he was terrified of her possible return, and what she might do when the dreaded date came. At night, any strange sound or shadow was imagined by him to be the witch, and it was a rare day that he didn't scream his lungs out or cry himself to sleep in fright. Not eating, not sleeping, he grew very ill. The servants began to fear for his life, especially after the food ran out.
Eventually the fright began to subside. It seemed apparent that the witch would not be coming back, and had only said those things to scare him. Meanwhile the servants rustled up whatever nourishment they could: rats, library paste, beeswax candles. The walnut and linseed oils he had once kept for painting had been mixed with hair powder and made into a desperate kind of soup. In spring and summer there were fruits and vegetables in the gardens, but autumn and winter were very lean times indeed. His old noble pastime of hunting proved not just handy, but necessary — and with his horses now merged with various wheelbarrows and pitchforks, he wasn't able to ride like before. He'd had to invent new techniques, and finding that he was both larger and more agile than most of his prey, he had gone full primal.
The servants, of course, had been dealing with issues and trauma of their own. It was about two and half years before the New Order really settled in and a semi-functional lifestyle was found for the castle's inhabitants. But the master, rather than finding it a comfort, only felt a terrible reminder of the life he had lost. What did it matter if Cogsworth read to him from Rabelais and La Fontaine if he was good as dead to the world? Why even have these servants to tidy and maintain a palace that would never see another visitor? And why why why were there so many reflective surfaces around to taunt him?
The long dull days went into unrelenting nights and started afresh, each one the same as the last. The heat of the teenage years further enflamed the young man's ever-sensitive temperament. Lack of stimulation meant it took less and less to annoy him, and already in the grip of such a sullen state, any annoyance became an intolerable agony. His tantrums grew violent and increasingly frequent — whatever furniture couldn't move itself out of the way was apt to fall victim to his rage.
But smashing windows and shredding curtains didn't do anything to allay his grief, and at last the time came when he identified that the real object of his hatred was his own hideous form. This he sought to release himself from, as best he could, with an old pen-knife that seemed to have escaped sentience. But the servants had suspected the state he was in and collectively forced the door, tackling him before he was able to do much damage with the little knife in his bulky claws that could scarcely hold garden tools much less fine blades like this. Cogsworth and a gaggle of tools went about disabling all the door locks, after that.
Between his humiliation, disgust, resentment and, lest it be forgotten, abject terror, the beast sought out lonely locations and avoided contact with anyone.
His old hobbies were made invalid due to scarcity of resources and a lack of dexterity (he could not hold a paintbrush or sewing needle in his massive paws). Any once-believed prospect that his lonely condition was only temporary had faded. Even the most basic comforts of food and sleep were hard to find in his world. This was what he had to look forward to for the rest of his life.
Then the day came when that horrible witch actually dared to return.
She walked into his bedroom like a matador enters the bullring. A few of the servants could be seen waiting outside the door: her audience.
The beast was perched on a gargoyle statue behind his bed's polonaise, hidden from her sight. Peering down, he was stunned by the intruder. He had never believed he would see that monstrous beauty again. His heart began to race with terror; meanwhile, she stood in the center of the room yelling the word "Normandy" over and over, looking around as if she searched for something.
She seemed defenseless. There was no time to lose. He knew he had to be brave if he was to eliminate this threat. He let out his fiercest roar and leapt from the ceiling, ready for death be it his or hers.
He had not yet hit the floor when there was a strange noise and a bright light. Confused, he found he was thrust backwards as if by a typhoon wind. His back struck the wall and he plopped to the floor.
When he recovered, he saw the fair witch in front of him, her skirts and hair disrupted as if they'd been blown about. The room was now a shambles, like it had been hit by a cannonball; and the dust patterns at her feet showed that she was the origin point of this force.
"I know you are upset with me," she said, "but the fact is I've come to —"
He was already back on the attack. Yet he met with the same mysterious opposing force, and was chucked to the wall a second time.
"If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't have made it past the first roar," she warned, adjusting the cuff of her sleeve as if bored by the display. "The fact is I'm here —"
He leapt at her again and received the bizarre supernatural slap once more.
"For heaven's sake. Really!" she said in an annoyed tone, her skirts and hair settling from the blast. "I just told you I am going to help you."
"What is that?" he inquired, dazed and now, on this instance, injured with a pulled muscle.
"It's a protection spell. A strong one. I needed to prepare for every possibility, the one in which you continuously try to attack me being but one of them. But you're going to get beaten into Schwarzsauer if you keep on like this."
"Every possibility?" he asked, rising to his feet again, certain that he knew a surprise. Suddenly he leapt up and grabbed a metal basin, hoisting it over his head. He hurled it at the witch.
The basin missed her by about four feet, and she didn't even bother to move out of the way. "Yes," she said, not sure what else to say about that.
The basin went clattering harmlessly into a corner. He could suddenly hear his servants snickering in the doorway, watching his humiliation without giving assistance. Enraged, he began to storm towards them. "Are you just standing there?" he bellowed, awestruck at this turn of events.
When he faced the servants he was obliged to turn his back on Grimhilde. Suddenly she leapt across his shoulder and waved a bottle of some noxious substance in his face. He got a couple whiffs before he blacked out once again.
The beast found he was on the floor, restrained by ropes, and staring at the ankles of the enchantress.
"When I say I prepared for every possibility, I mean every possibility," she said to him, not bothering to kneel. "There's nothing you can think of that I'm not ready for. So do be civil and let me help you."
"What do you care?" the beast snarled. He squirmed in an attempt to loosen the bonds. "You want me to think you're doing this from the goodness of your black heart?"
"I do not claim it's out of goodness; only that I acknowledge I did bad, which makes me feel bad."
"Then fix it already! Say your magic words and put an end to this!" he cried.
"Magic words?" she scoffed. "I'm not some Goetic hack who uses spirits and genies to do my work for me."
The beast felt himself explode with outrage. "So you don't know how to fix it?"
"I know a dozen ways, but which one I shall actually use depends on you."
"What does that mean?"
"For instance, there's a whole family of spells that bestow beauty and fortune as a reward for good behavior — but could I count on you to be good? I don't know that. That is why I had to come and talk to you first."
"So then pick one that works no matter what I do!"
The enchantress twisted her red lips into a sneer. "It does not work that way. I have to link the spell to something particular. And I have to have ingredients for it. It's not like making a stew, you cannot simply swap kale for cabbage. The ingredients are very specific for each spell. I don't know what to gather till I know what I'm to do."
The beast felt sure this was a lie. "You can plan for 'every possibility' but you can't just bring the ingredients for every spell?"
She laughed as if she thought he was the silliest thing ever. "You have no idea what I would need to find for those spells. Or do you just have a closet full of girls you can call your true love, if I use that one? No? Very good. So let us figure out what we can do."
The servants were crowded around, watching in silence. They had turned on him, he knew it; they were on that filthy witch's side. He said nothing in reply to the woman, refusing to cooperate with any of this.
The pleading voice of Mrs. Potts piped up:
"Sir, please," she begged, hopping towards him as he lay hog-tied on the ground for the protection of everybody, himself included. "It isn't just you — it's all of us. I know that this lady…" she trailed off, not wanting to offend the woman of whom she spoke, "…she has not been a friend to us. I'll give you that. But she didn't have to come back here, and she's had every encouragement to leave. She is staying because she wants to help us."
Lumiere muttered — albeit plenty loud enough to be heard — "Though we've seen the kind of help she gives."
"Lumiere!" scolded Mrs. Potts. "You aren't helping either, right now."
The prince didn't want to agree. But the servants… they had a stake in this, too. He felt the pressure to give in to the enchantress, but still he could not bear to cooperate with her. "Why now? Why did you wait so long?" he demanded.
"You can't solve a problem like this over breakfast," she said. "I came back once I had something to offer." Her nose was in the air now, in a show of carelessness. "But I can leave if you like. It sounds like you're happier in this condition. Maybe that is the scenario I never thought of!"
She started as if to walk out the door. The beast could not bear it — he panicked at the thought that he was losing his last chance for help, and he roared for her to return. "Very well," he cried, more resentfully than encouragingly. "Try. Whatever you want."
"Wonderful!" she cried, returning to him. This accord had eliminated a few more of her endless possibilities, and she began chucking away more unwanted items from her collection of supplies. "I was anxious to get these dog turds out of my pocket." She began emptying what were indeed dog turds from her panniers. Everyone watched her in utter disgust. Perceiving it, she looked up. "What?" she said defensively. "The pocket of knock-out drugs is acceptable but the animal feces is too much? You people!"
None of the servants were glad to have encountered the witch, but Lumiere had always felt a exceptional animosity towards her, for her betrayal of the honest hospitality he had offered. A strange old woman seeking shelter from the cold — he had felt sorry for her and offered her every comfort, and what did he get? His household cursed, his own life virtually ruined, his friends made monstrous, his master made a suicidal ball of rage and a monster. It seemed like no good deed could go unpunished. From time to time the servants would talk and find themselves regretting that they had not returned to Paris during The Terror. Bad as it would have been, none of it could be any less terrible that what they had endured in the castle under the witch's hex.
The butler, like his master, did not trust that the woman had returned to them out of genuine feeling. He suspected that she schemed something, that there was some secret behind her long absence and sudden reappearance.
It had gone without saying that the woman was to stay with them in the castle for a while, during which she supposedly "gathered ingredients" for her spellwork. Yet she had lied to everyone before, and the only reason at all to trust her was because there really was no other option.
The candelabrum took to snooping, monitoring what she did, expecting that by this mechanism he would get to the bottom of her real scheme. Moreover, he was worried for what she might do to his young master — who despite his massive form and violent temper, still remained at core a boy of fifteen years. She had been excessive with him before, and Lumiere didn't doubt that she be would again.
One advantage to the butler's horrifying caricature of a form was that he could snoop in plain sight: seeing his master and Grimhilde seated together at a writing desk, he merely climbed to the tabletop and offered them some better light.
"Please," said the enchantress, clearing a spot for him on the table. She had several sheets of paper before her, each one displaying a handwritten list of items that somebody might call "ingredients."
The beast sat sullenly across from her, seeming only half interested in what she said.
"And now this list…" said Grimhilde, examining one of the sheets. "We would need a shard of mirror, a dash of Powder of Sympathy, and the blood of your firstborn child. You didn't get married when I was gone, did you?"
The beast just grumbled something that she could guess was a no. Meantime Lumiere immediately spoke up, shocked by her words:
"I am sure if he had, he wouldn't be offering his child's blood to you! What sort of a woman are you?"
The queen's cutting stare landed upon Lumiere, her mouth pulled into an intense frown. She scolded him harshly for his interruption.
"A thousand pardons, madame," said the candelabrum, bowing in apology. He forced himself to hold his tongue as she read through more lists with even more horrible ingredients on them. He was dismayed that this sort of dark work would be required to see the curse lifted from the castle.
The queen crumpled each rejected paper and tossed it away. A sentient broom and wastebasket occasionally writhed forth from the corner of the room to clean up the trash.
After some time the queen reached a page and remarked: "Well this one's no good, I can see. A live rose. A spark of joy. A gilded sunbeam. True love's warmth…" She crumpled it without even waiting for a response.
"Wait," said Lumiere, unable to keep silent at this. The queen looked at him once again with those wrathful eyes, but he had a real thought. "A million apologies, madame, for interrupting you, but might I ask — does the true love have to come from the master? Or might it be from anywhere?"
The queen listened, admitting that he had a valid point. "It can be from anywhere, though if it's obtained from afar I would need to capture it, to bottle it up. I've done it before."
"So might it come from someone else in the castle?"
"If it is true love, yes. That is, it must be mutual, where each loves the other in turn, and it must be strong, steady, unfleeting."
Lumiere's eyes were lighting up brighter than his trio of flames. "Well, then, madame, I think we might be able to perform this spell!" He was in love. For years he had been in love with Babette, the chambermaid, who had grown up with him even before they became servants in this place. The curse upon the household had been all that interfered with his intentions to marry her. Surely their romance would be great enough to provide the true love needed to free them from their ignoble fate.
"Oh, but you did not see what else was on that list," said Grimhilde.
"What else was there?" asked Lumiere, his heart suddenly aching with doubts and hopes.
"The rattle of death. Someone shall have to die."
And knowing that Lumiere would not condone that, she moved on to the next paper.
At length a spell was found that did not require of the prince any great feats, nor require of the spellcaster any impossible-to-find ingredients. Though to the little monster's dismay, it required of him a long delay.
"You want me to endure this till I'm twenty-one?!" he growled when informed of what Grimhilde had in mind. The very thought enraged him, and he flew to his feet, ready to smash something.
Grimhilde scarcely budged as she watched his tantrum. "Three and seven are important numbers. Multiply them, you get twenty-one. Magic age."
"That's six years from now!"
"You'll be waiting a lot longer than that if you don't, I can promise."
He slammed his fist through the end of the table, splintering it. Tears were welling up in his eyes but there was no way he was about to let anyone see him cry. He hurried to storm out of the room, yelling in anger all the while.
Six years! Six more terrible years! That was longer than he'd endured already, and it had already been unbearable. He flew through the west wing till he collapsed in his own room. There he wept till no more tears left in him, after which he remained huddled on the floor, staring, stewing.
Eventually that woman came bursting into his room again. He needed to start barricading himself inside, he realized. He turned away from her grumpily.
She stood in the doorway repeating that word Normandy over and over till at last she seemed to be frustrated. "For heaven's sake! I take it that you don't answer because titles have been abolished; but in that case, what should I call you?"
The prince only then realized that Normandy was supposed to be his form of address. Nobody had ever called him that. But he was mad at the woman and he didn't want to answer anything to her for any reason.
After a very long silence, she apparently gave up on waiting for him to reply to her question. "Very well. How about 'Adam'? Do you have any objection to being called Adam?"
Oh, she would pick such a harsh teutonical name! He was actually called… his mind drew a blank. What was his name? No one had called him anything but master or sir in so long. His anger suddenly turned to shock when he realized he seriously could not remember what his name was.
"Very well, Adam," said the queen. "Listen to me. I have been giving the matter some thought, and it occurs to me that we might be able to hedge our bets on this. I can perform the spell that will neutralize the curse when you turn twenty-one, just in case that's the best we can do — but we can also aim for fulfilling one of the others much sooner."
The icy pain in the prince's chest began to dull. Things would be okay. He wouldn't have to wait so long afterall.
His voice still prone to crack with emotion, he kept his words to a minimum. "How?" he asked.
"Well," said Grimhilde, "for instance, there was a spell we discussed that required some true love. Your candle-man said he could provide that. And the death rattle… nothing said it had to be from a human. You kill animals in the forest all the time, do you not?"
There was a long pause while the prince had to decide if that was a real question he was supposed to answer. "I do," he finally said.
"Very well," she said. "Let us begin."
It turned out that the beginning of the spell did not require much effort from the newly-dubbed "Adam." According to Grimhilde, the first order of business was for her to leave the castle by herself and go into town to acquire more items.
Remembering that the last time she "went out for a walk" had taken five years, the prince did not like the sound of this. When he objected, she fired back irately:
"You think I want to go out there alone? I assure you, it is no delight on my side to be a beautiful woman wandering alone in the woods. There is a reason I prefer to be an old hag. But I don't have the ingredients for that disguise, and I have prioritized you, to acquire the items for your work. You realize it is very inconvenient for me, and very inconsiderate of you to complain."
"Inconsiderate of me?" growled the beast. "You're the one who changed me into a monster!"
"And if you were a sweet little boy who said all his prayers and cleaned his room and ate his vegetables, I would be able to undo it with a spell that's all sugar and spice. But instead you're a tyrant, so I have to go shopping."
"You wouldn't have to do anything if you hadn't put a curse on my entire household in the first place!"
"And if you'd succeeded in slitting your throat we wouldn't be having this conversation," snapped the witch. Adam immediately recoiled in shame. Grimhilde continued unfazed: "One must break some eggs for an omelette. It just helps if you have an actual bowl to break them into. I must buy one. Now be a good little tyrant while I'm gone and smash up plenty of furniture, eh?" She headed for the door without another word.
As she was about to exit the front of the castle, the surprisingly nimble bulk that was the beast leapt into her path. They stared at one another in silence for a moment.
"I will walk you to the edge of the woods," he said in a saurkraut tone that just warmed the cockles of the queen's heart.
"Please," said Grimhilde, her red lips smiling in satisfaction.
They went along in silence for a long time, the beast alternating between all fours and upright, depending upon the terrain. The primary impetus to his act of chivalry was the fear that she might not have come back otherwise.
When they were deep into the summer-green forest he spoke for the first time: "Be careful. There are wolves in this area."
"Oh, I have some dog's eyes in my pocket," said the witch. The prince replied with a puzzled expression. "Antipathy," she said, like that should have explained it.
"Antipathy?"
"The sympathetic attracts, the antipathetic repels. The eyes of an enemy repel, being antipathetic. Dogs and wolves are enemies."
Her magic was too well proven for him to question it. "Do you have a spell for everything in those pockets?" he asked.
"Frankly, I'd do better if I simply purchased a blunderbuss," she said flatly.
"So did you actually rip a dog to shreds for its eyes?" he asked in disbelief.
"Do you actually rip a deer to shreds for its meat?" she said as before.
"I have to eat," he replied. "It's survival."
"And I have to not be eaten by wolves," she replied. "So it is the same thing."
They walked side by side for a few more paces. Out of the blue, she began to tell him a story:
"There was once a beautiful young couple named Orpheus and Eurydice. They loved each other more than they loved anything. They intended to be married; but, on the day that the festivities were planned, Eurydice was bitten by a venomous snake, and she died.
"Orpheus was so distraught that he refused to accept her death. He found the entrance to the Underworld, and he went to its king, Hades, to beg that Eurydice should be returned to him. Orpheus was a singer; and he sang such a sorrowful tune that the king was moved, and he granted the request. However, he warned Orpheus: the young man could have Eurydice, but he must lead her from the underworld without ever daring to turn back to look at her…"
"I know the story," said the prince. "It's an opera by Gluck. My musicians used to play the songs from it. J'ai perdu mon Eurydice…"
"So you know what happened to Orpheus?"
"He is unable to restrain himself from looking back, and Eurydice dies again; but the spirit of Love rewards his fidelity by bringing her back once more."
Grimhilde made a noise of disgust. "Entertainers! Always tampering with the endings of the classic stories, turning them into 'what the people want'… no. That is not what happened to Orpheus. You know what happened to Orpheus? He looked back, Eurydice was taken away — and he was left immortal, because he had already been to the Underworld and now could not ever again return to it.
"There was nothing left for him to do but roam the world, for years — centuries even. He started to get a little… I'm not sure of the right word. To wander, undying, for centuries — it does strange things to the mind, things that mortals cannot comprehend, and so they don't make words for it. Not realizing what he did, he offended the Bacchantes, who in their wrath tore him to shreds. But, as you recall, he could not die. No. He was still alive. In pieces, he was alive as ever. Bits of bone, muscle, blood and guts — alive. His severed head continued to think, to speak… he became an oracle, and was taken to the island of Lesbos."
She stopped. They had reached the end of the woods. The prince could go no further without risking human observation, and he was obligated to part from the enchantress. It was the only reason he did not ask why she had told him such a story.