Belle's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The rule frightened Belle, but a rule was not a person. To love the Beast, she had to know who he had been before the horns. He would not say. So she went to his library alone. The room was tall and dark. Shelves climbed past the second floor. She lit a lamp and walked between them. Most books were old and untouched. Dust covered the spines. She looked for something the Beast had held, something that was his. On a low shelf near the cold fireplace, she found a gap. One book had been pulled out and shoved back crooked. She drew it free. Not a book. A leather folder, tied with string. Inside were drawings. A boy on a horse. A garden in summer. A grand hall full of people dancing. Each drawing was signed in a small careful hand. The name was Adam. She turned the pages. The boy grew older. The last drawing showed a young man with a proud mouth and cold eyes, alone. Belle heard the door. The Beast filled it, watching her hands. "Put that down," he said. "Adam," she said. "That was your name." He crossed the room fast. She did not step back. She held the folder open between them. "You drew these," she said. "The garden. The people." "I burned everything else." His voice was low. "I missed that one." "Why burn it?" "Because that man let a cold woman freeze at his door and turned her away." His claws opened and closed. "She was the enchantress. I laughed at her. Then I was this." Belle looked at the proud face in the drawing, then at the tired one before her. "So you were cruel." "Yes." "And you know it now." She closed the folder gently. "The cruel man wouldn't have kept this to look at. He wouldn't leave books at my door." The Beast said nothing. His breath was loud in the quiet room. "You want to be him again," Belle said. "Not the proud one. The boy on the horse. Before." "That boy is gone." "He signed his name Adam," she said. "So do I know you now. That's a start." He reached out. She thought he would take the folder and burn it too. Instead his clawed hand rested over hers on the leather, careful, as if she might break. "No one has said that name in years," he said. "Then I'll say it," Belle answered. "Adam." He pulled his hand back. He did not leave. He sat by the cold fireplace, the way she had first found him. But this time he watched her, not the ashes. Belle held the drawings. She knew him now, at least the shape of the wound. It was not enough to break the curse. It was enough to reach for. And she understood the harder thing waited behind a locked west wing, where the man had done the deed he could not forgive.