Hob
When Beauty realised that she loved Simon, part of me rejoiced for my friend. I wished I could be there when he found out that his love and patience had paid off in the end. But there was another part of me, a secret, unpleasant part, that could have screamed with it. I kept it hidden away and was all smiles and pleasantness for Beauty, but inwardly part of me was screaming and shouting.
That night I did not at once go to the third floor to meet the beast as I had become accustomed to doing, but went into the South Tower and climbed to the empty room to be alone with myself. I tried to tell myself that I did not love Simon, but I lied. Perhaps I did not feel for him the passion and love that I had always hoped I would one day find, but I had to admit to myself that I had always cherished the make-believe that one day he would realise that Beauty didn’t love him, and maybe... Well, it wasn't a very likely dream, but the it was best that I had had, and my little sister had all unknowingly killed it.
I sat in an inelegant puddle of skirts on the dusty floor, drew my knees up to my face and wept a little for lost dreams. I knew I could never say anything to either of them about this, no more than I could ever have protested that David had been my friend first before ever he became engaged to Elizabeth. In the darkness and silence of the tower I finally let myself know my most fervent, most selfish desire – to be loved by someone first and foremost, above all others. It seemed unlikely to say the least, curled up crying on the dusty floor of a near-abandoned castle, feeling like a walk on part in the story of my sister’s life.
I am not sure how long I spent like that, but when I at last came to myself again the clear moon was high in the sky, and I feared I had wasted nearly half the night in self pity. I stood up and went to look out at the night while I composed myself. I wiped my dirty, tear-stained face on my sleeve and descended the stairs, my back straight and my head held high. I had little left to me but a show of pride. Sometimes I wondered if that was all there was to me – just a show, a seeming, a sham.
I left the tower and walked out onto the landing on the third floor. He was waiting for me there by the window, lit up by the moonlight, and I let my worries drift away from me. Somehow the nights had become precious to me, a time of make-believe, where I could be the person I could never let the day see. Cold daylight would turn me back into myself, but now there was nothing but my own magic and his.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” he said at last, not a hint of reproach in his voice. Nevertheless I found myself apologising.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wanted to be alone. Just for a while.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re here now.”
It seems strange to say that in that castle, where doors opened and closed on there own, candles and torches lit themselves, and things moved under their own power, and even considering the dual nature of its master, that the greatest magic I ever found there was in this. In the night I became a princess. It was my own fairytale, which I clung to in the dull hours of the day, but like all make-believe, it had to end. I crept back to Beauty’s room in the early hours of the morning, and somehow all my anger and resentment and self-hatred at my own selfishness had all faded away. I think that I woke Beauty when I got back into the bed, but I myself slept sound until the morning.
The next evening I was hiding as usual, behind the curtains on the cold window seat, when he came to see Beauty. I kept my word to him and did not look, although there was a gap between the curtains through which it was very tempting to sneak a look. I shut my eyes tightly, but I could not stop myself from listening as hard as I could.
“My lady Helen, good evening,” he said.
“Good evening, sir,” she replied. There was still that tone in her voice that had been there all day; it said that only part of her mind was here, and the rest was lost in some pleasant daydream. I do not think he heard it. They talked for some minutes, but only in the way of those who really have nothing to say to each other. I let my mind drift, then he asked something, and suddenly I was listening as hard as possible.
