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“I told you not to meddle with him. I told you to leave him alone!”
Martha almost knocked over the teapot in protest. “We haven’t meddled, I promise! We’ve just been looking in on him.”
Circe couldn’t help asking, “And what did you see?” but she knew the moment she asked it was a mistake. The words rained down on her like a storm; she got caught in the flurry of their fragmented stories that they were all too pleased to share.
“Oh, we’ve seen everything!” “Nasty, terrible things!” “Worse than we imagined!” “Murder!” “Lies!” “He drove a girl to suicide!” “She jumped off the cliffs!” “Ugly, nasty, horrible beast!” “Broken hearts, romancing tarts!” “Ah, are we rhyming now? Lovely!”
Circe put an end to it before the rhyming continued. “No, no you’re not! No rhyming!”
Much like everyone else, Circe found it hard to follow her sisters when they got excited. You’d think after almost twenty years of living with them it would get easier, but as the years passed, their mania just made Circe’s head spin more.
“Sisters, please, just one of you speak, and please tell it slowly and in a straight line.”
The three witches were stone silent.
“I know you are capable of speaking normally, I’ve heard you do it! Please.”
Ruby spoke. “He’s turned into the Beast, as we thought he would. He almost killed Gaston while stalking in the forest.”
Circe looked disappointed. “But he didn’t kill him, so there’s still hope?”
Lucinda’s already pinched lips puckered even smaller. You could always tell how angry she was by how small her lips became.
“You still love him, don’t you?”
Circe walked away from her sisters and sat on the chair next to the fireplace to be near Pflanze.
“I wish you could talk, dear Pflanze. I wish you could tell me what happened so I wouldn’t have to suffer these lunatic sisters of mine!”
Martha chucked her teacup at the wall in frustration.
“How dare you?”
Ruby had tears flowing from her eyes. “I never thought to hear such words from you, little sister, not after everything we’ve done for you!”
Circe put an end to the theatrics at once. “Just stop! All of you! Stop! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, it’s just sometimes you do drive me to distraction! Of course I’m not in love with him, I had just hoped he would have learned his lesson. Changed his ways and made a better life for himself!”
Lucinda smiled at her little sister. “Of course, dear, you always cared about people, we know. Sometimes we forget that we are not alike. We care only for you. We love you for your compassion, we just do not share it.”
Circe didn’t understand her sisters. They lived in a world logical only to them, with their own twisted moral code. Often what they said made sense to her intellectually; other times their words simply confused her. This made her thankful for her capacity for compassion. Without it, she felt, she would be just like her older sisters.
“It’s hard to feel sorry for those willing to fling themselves into disaster. They are their own undoing, my dear. They bring it upon themselves. They don’t merit your pity.”
Circe sighed, because she knew there was logic in her sister’s argument; there was just no heart. They sat to tea, chatting about everything the Prince had done since she had last seen him, this time more calmly.
“He thought he could break the curse with poor Tulip, and she really did love him, adored him! But he blamed her when their kiss did not break the curse! Of course he didn’t love her. Not really. Not true love. She loved him, true! But the curse dictates both given and received! He thought his selfish version of love would fool us, and he broke her heart in the process!”
Circe felt horrible for what had happened to Princess Tulip, and resigned herself to making things right for her and her family. Lucinda saw in Circe’s face that she felt guilty.
“The Prince did that to her, Circe, not you!”
Circe sighed and said, “I know, but he destroyed her and her family trying to break the curse! My curse!”
Martha smiled at her little sister. “The old queen blighted the land and left a trail of disaster and death in her wake. Should we blame ourselves?”
Ruby laughed. “Oh, how she would have hated to be called the old queen! But that is what she has become so many years after her death: she’s become the old queen of legend and myth! But we know the truth! We know she was real! The queen who ruined herself over grief and vanity.”
Lucinda joined in the laughter. “Oh, she would have hated that name indeed! She would fling curses, and threaten to kill anyone who referred to her as such! But she’s dead now! Dead, dead, dead! Fallen off the rocky cliffs!”
