Beauty and The Beasley

Chapter 36

Frances looked around frantically for any source of light but there was none. From the amount of air that circulated in the room, he could tell the area was wider than it seemed.

He patted his pants pockets.

Melinda had given him her phone right after Bree had hung up on her. He wasn't quite sure how the device worked yet but he was certain there were icons to help one find whatever they were looking for. He unlocked the phone and scrolled through it then found a tiny icon of a flashlight.

He tapped on the icon and soft white light washed the room. In front of him stood a wrecked candelabra so large that it would've flattened a car roof. Frances was thankful he hadn't walked forward otherwise he would've found himself on the other end of one of the sticky points where a candle should have been.

He moved the flashlight to look at the ground. Cracks formed around the candelabra and spread out to every part of the floor like spider webs. The floor which had probably been ornate brickwork was now a bed of deadly debris. One misstep would cause an injury of a lifetime.

Frances moved the torch upward and around. He realized he was inside a throne room - an incredibly massive one. Rows of sturdy pillars the size of miniature mountains held up the ceiling on opposite sides where dark hallways stretched behind them. There was a dais at the far end of the room but Frances couldn't make out what was there because his flashlight wasn't that bright. He pointed to the other end of the room where the large hall curved into two paths on either sides with one in the middle that led into another dark opening.

The room smelled like the inside of old shoes. Water trickled from somewhere but Frances couldn't find it.

"Mother?" He called again. There was no response. He was certain he'd heard his grandmother's voice but now he wasn't so sure. What would Belle be doing in a place like this?

He took calculated steps away from the candelabra. It leaned all the way to the left where the crack was widest and Frances hoped it remained that way. The last thing he wanted was getting buried underground in an ancient throne room. As he walked, he would cautiously raise the phone to look around the pillars. The throne room was old but it definitely was majestic. Frances wondered what it had looked like during its time. It seemed like a hall of kings.

Cobwebs lined the pillars all the way up into the ceiling. Each pillar was the color of dust or maybe a century worth of dust prevented him from seeing what they really looked like. Frances tried to count how many pillars were in the room. He stopped at twenty eight because the vast space seemed to go on forever. Even his breathing echoed across the room.

Something about these mountain sized pillars unnerved Frances. It was like something dangerous was hiding behind each one and whenever he passed, they would peek at him and hide again, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He focused on finding an exit. Even a room this big had to have one.

He wondered why Anita had brought him here and where Melinda had gone after they were separated. He wondered about Bree and could feel his heart breaking all over again. She wasn't dead. She had to be alive. She was the bravest person he'd ever met but he knew her confidence could be powerless against Anita.

Anita had centuries of magic flowing through her veins. He tried to calculate just how old she was. She could be hundreds of years old at most. He could remember Belle telling him so many stories about his king Adam's family line and how they ruled for such a long time that it was almost impossible for the king's son to take his father's place on the throne. Because of this, most of the Princes would go off and marry into other kingdoms.

He recalled the story of his great great grandfather - King Jacques, who had ruled for ninety two years. It was a mystery to Frances how he lived that long but it was so according to Belle. King Jacques had an offspring who had married a princess from another kingdom but never became king because in that land, women took the throne. And so, his son was brought to rule his grandfather's kingdom, Villeneuve when Jacques passed. Frances guessed that not so many princes were lucky enough to take the throne of Villeneuve as their predecessors were especially stubborn when it came to dying.