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Ruby smiled a mischievous grin. “Everything is in place, then. Perfect.” The sisters’ odious laughter filled the room as they focused their attentions now on someone who wouldn’t need much persuading to commit a bit of chicanery.
Gaston was sitting down to a large banquet in his dining hall, which was heavily decorated with the various animals he’d killed during his many hunting excursions. The chair at the head of the table, at which he was seated, of course, was adorned with elk antlers and draped with animal skins and furs. His cleft chin was jutting out a bit farther than usual, which was a manifestation of his extreme good spirits—that is, until the odd sisters clamored in, disturbing his banquet for one.
“Look here, foul witches! I won’t have you popping in and out of my home unannounced!”
“Sorry to disturb your meal, Gaston, but we have news that you might find interesting.”
Gaston slammed his knife into his wooden dining table. “First you send that foul slinking creature to watch over me, and now this! Showing up whenever you desire, to make requests of me, no doubt!”
Ruby twitched her head to the right, about to speak, but it was Martha who defended Pflanze. “She’s not here to spy on you, Gaston. She’s here to help you.”
Gaston’s laugh rivaled the witches’ own; it filled the hall and reverberated in the witches’ ears. “Help me? Help me? Why, I am the strongest, most attractive man in the village!”
The sisters stared blankly at him, wondering if he, or anyone else, really believed that.
“Yes, help you, Gaston. We’ve found Belle, and she’s on her way to her father now.”
Gaston fixed his gaze on the witches for the first time since they’d arrived. They had finally gotten his full attention. Their dresses were deep red, the exact shade of their lips, which were painted to look like a baby doll’s. Their raven hair was fashioned in shoulder length ringlets around their pale faces and adorned with large red plumes. They were painfully thin and looked ludicrous in all their finery, like skeletal beings brought back from the dead to attend a fancy dress ball.
“You’ve found Belle?”
“Oh yes, we’ve found your dearest love!” Ruby sang. “She won’t be able to resist you!”
Gaston looked at himself in the reflection of his shiny knife and said, “Well, who can?”
Lucinda grinned, trying not to let Gaston detect her repulsion. “We have arranged some assurances, on the slightest chance she can.” Gaston raised one brow in curiosity, but Martha continued before he could comment. “We would like you to meet a friend of ours,” she said with an evil smile cracking her white face, her makeup causing her to look even more freakishly beautiful. “A very dear friend who we think would be more than happy to help you.” Gaston had to wonder what sort of people
the witches kept company with. “His name is Monsieur D’Arque. He runs the sanitarium,” Lucinda answered, as if she heard his very thoughts.
Gaston wasn’t surprised that the sisters were friendly with the rapscallion who ran the sanitarium.
Martha elaborated. “Maurice, Belle’s father, has been raving about a beast, has he not? Perhaps the sanitarium is just the place for him.” Ruby twittered in delight when she added, “Though I’m sure there would be no need for him to be institutionalized if Belle were to marry you. I’m sure between the two of you Maurice would be well taken care of.”
Gaston grasped their meaning instantly, and he was thunderstruck by the brilliance of the idea. He would of course take the credit for the idea entirely.
“Hmmmm. Poor old Maurice has been raving like a lunatic. Why, just the other night he was gibbering incoherently about Belle being captured by a beast.”
“See? You would be doing them both a favor if you married Belle. Someone needs to take care of the poor fellow.”
D’Arque was more than happy to comply with Gaston’s request to put Maurice into the sanitarium if Belle did not agree to marry him. He knew very well Maurice was just an odd little man who loved only one thing more than his clanking apparatuses, and that was his daughter, Belle.
D’Arque was quite content. His coffers were filled, he had made a new alliance with Gaston, and he was about to partake in some good old-fashioned skullduggery.
He was aware of how intimidating he appeared, illuminated by the torchlight, and he loved nothing more than causing fear. Gaston and his mob were gathered in full force in front of Maurice’s home. They were a rowdy bunch collected by Gaston from the tavern at closing time. There was nothing quite as menacing as a bunch of hooligans after a long night of drinking with gold in their pockets and hate in their hearts—all of which, in this case, was supplied by Gaston. There was little doubt Belle would agree to marry the braggart, and why not marry him? She couldn’t possibly do better. Who else in town would have her with all her strange ways?
Belle answered the door, her eyes filled with fear. “May I help you?” she asked.
“I’ve come to collect your father,” said D’Arque. His withered skull-like face looked horrid in the torchlight.
“My father?” she asked, confused.
“Don’t worry, mademoiselle, we’ll take good care of him.” Belle was seized with fear. She understood when she saw D’Arque’s wagon in the distance. They were taking her father to the asylum.
“My father is not crazy!”
In the Beast’s small study, where the witches had found him brooding, they watched through Pflanze’s eyes everything that was transpiring.
“Look! Look here! She’s going to betray you!” said Ruby, but the Beast wouldn’t come to the mirror the witches had brought with them so he could see what Pflanze saw.
