Now, the djinn from whom I borrowed the magic carpet wants it back soon, but before I must return it, you and I have just enough time to take another trip southwards. So, away from Castle Lochlein we fly, over the deep dark forest and the woodcutter's cottage, and along the southern road. If you look closely, you can see a single person walking there with a happily determined bounce in her step. Do you recognize her? It is none other than Caprice, the woodcutter's youngest daughter.

Although it may seem surprising that someone as vivacious and charming as Caprice (or so her mother would describe her) would be traveling alone. Surely in the time it has taken her sisters to reach Castle Lochlein, she would have found a companion or two? Well, she did meet a few other people, but the little seamstress was put off by Caprice's vulgar sense of humor, and the tanner -- who was a married man -- did not take kindly to the suggestion that he and Caprice could share a room at the inn one evening.

An ordinary person might notice that others responded to her behavior in such a negative fashion, but not Caprice. She was utterly unaffected by the reactions of these good citizens, imagining that the fault lay with them, not with herself. "Obviously," she thought, "they have neither the temper nor the intelligence to match mine, so they cannot be worth considering." (This thought was quite true, of course, but not exactly in the way that Caprice imagined it.)

Late one afternoon, however, Caprice found herself walking along the road without a village, an inn, or even a farmhouse in sight, and she was growing rather hungry, since she had eaten her bread and cheese long ago. Finally, however, she caught sight of a funny little structure by the side of the road, and she decided to knock at the door to see if whoever lived there could spare her some food.

"Say, where can a girl get some dinner around here?" She pounded and rattled at the door to make sure that the person inside noticed her, but she must have pounded and rattled a little too hard, because the funny little structure -- which seemed as flimsy as straw -- suddenly collapsed! The creature inside -- who happened to be a pig -- raced off to find shelter, since the only word it had heard of Caprice's question had been "dinner."

Caprice made haste to follow the pig down the road, thinking that it must be returning to some farmer's yard. The rather frightened pig, however, moved very quickly and was soon out of sight. Caprice stopped to catch her breath, but then she saw another odd little shed on the other side of the road. Since she was now breathless in addition to being hungry, she knocked and pounded here even harder than she had before.

"All I want is something to eat, you stingy ingrates!" This door held up a little longer than the first, but then all at once the odd little shed fell apart with a clattering noise, as if it had been made of nothing but sticks. And then there were two pigs running away down the road, both petrified by the word "eat."

Anger giving her enough energy to run again, Caprice chased the animals down the road, where she saw them just disappearing into a little stone hut. Again she pounded at the door with all her might, throwing in a few kicks for good measure.

"I can't believe you're too uncivil to give me even a mouthful! You'd think I wanted to roast you alive or something!" A terrified squeal from inside was her only answer. And this time, no matter what she tried, the door of the little stone hut wouldn't give way to force. Eventually she gave up and stamped down the road in a huff, much to the relief of the pigs (now there were three) inside. Caprice never even noticed the young wolf in the hedgerow, who was staring after her with the strangest look on its face.

Caprice was still in a foul mood a few miles later, when she finally located a cool stream in which she could bathe her hand, which had gotten rather bruised with all of her rattling and pounding on doors. A long drink of water helped the empty feeling in her stomach, but it did nothing to sweeten her temper. Therefore, she was not in her best form for her next encounter.

From the ditch that followed this part of the road crawled the Fox, who seemed to be in a most wretched condition. With his fur hanging limp and his tail drooping, he cried, "Oh, someone please help me, or I shall die of thirst!"

Caprice looked askance at the Fox, who was now lying in a forlorn heap in the roadway. "Why on earth should I help you, you mangy creature? For all I know, you've got fleas!"

The Fox used his front paws to pull himself closer to the girl, dragging his back legs behind him. Turning eyes that seemed dulled with pain up to her, he pleaded again. "If you could just fetch me a drink of water from the stream, I would be most grateful."

"If you can drag yourself this far, then you can bloody well drag yourself close enough to get your own drink. I haven't got time to tend an animal that hasn't the sense to stay out of trouble."

Caprice raised her hand as if she was going to smack the Fox on the snout for having the impudence to delay her on her journey, but in a trice the Fox was up on his paws with his fur bristling and his teeth bared, all appearance of weakness gone. Caprice drew back a little, finally beginning to suspect that she wasn't dealing with an ordinary fox. (Any other person would have suspected that from the first word that dropped from the Fox's mouth, but then Caprice always was a little slow on the uptake.)

"Insolent, ill-mannered girl!" the fox said. "You are far too concerned with yourself to have a care for anyone or anything else! Heed my words, or you'll come to grief:

If a creature in need cannot tarry you,
You'll find that the Fates all shall harry you!
If you're vain and unkind,
Though you see you'll be blind;
Only a gnome could be persuaded to marry you!"

"Ha!" Caprice snorted. "What do I care for your riddles? I'm free in the world, and I mean to have some fun, and no matter what any bedraggled overgrown hedgehog says to me, I'm going to find myself a rich, handsome husband!" And without another glance for the Fox, she continued on her way down the road.

The Fox gave an indignant bark at the insult, but he managed (despite a burning desire to sink his teeth into her leg) to control his anger and even called one last piece of advice after Caprice's disappearing form. "When you come to the fork in the road, be sure to go to the right."

But Caprice was terribly stubborn and self-willed, still thinking that a mere Fox was being mightily presumptuous to be giving her advice; so what do you think she did when she came to the fork in the road? She turned left.

Back at Castle Lochlein, Beauty and Serenity were feeling some of the same trepidation that had earlier plagued Prince Cheerful. Now that they had come to their destination, would they have the courage to go inside? It was Serenity, still thinking of the Prince's golden hair and blue eyes, who pointed to the setting sun and convinced her sister that it would be much more frightening to enter the castle after dark. With this in mind, the two girls firmly clasped hands; they each straightened their shoulders and took a deep breath; and then they marched across the drawbridge. They rather unconsciously walked more slowly as they passed under the portcullis, but all too soon they were standing before the massive portals of the main entrance. They were both surprised when the doors opened before they could knock, and they were even more astonished by who -- or rather, what -- greeted them.

Hovering there in the doorway were several pairs of hands; a few held lighted torches, and the rest beckoned for the girls to enter. Although their fear returned in full at such a strange sight, Beauty and Serenity knew they had come too far to retreat, and they followed the hands inside.

Like Prince Cheerful before them, the two girls were also astonished at the size of the entrance hall; now, however, there was enough light to see how the ceiling was painted. The ceiling in the torch- and lamplight looked precisely like the sky at sunset, with a pale azure background full of piled white clouds, their undersides lit to fiery shades of scarlet and bronze by the departing sun. On the side of the dome which was becoming shaded as the sunlight left it, one cluster of inlaid stones reflected a bright flash, mimicking the evening star.

The reappearance of the servant-hands also changed the character of the place greatly. By now they had had plenty of time to accustom themselves to being mostly invisible, and they were doing their best to keep up with their daily household business. All about the rooms through which Beauty and Serenity passed, there were hands lighting torches along the walls, hands busy scrubbing a floor, and hands carefully dusting furniture. Most disconcerting were the hands washing the high windows -- one had to be careful of the buckets of water that were floating so high, since they would occasionally tip and splash water below, much to the chagrin of the floor scrubbers.

Finally the hands that were conducting Beauty and Serenity through the palace opened before them a gleaming wooden door, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and the sisters entered to see an exquisitely lovely suite of rooms. There was a bedroom containing two soft beds, each tall enough to require a little painted footstool to climb up to the mattress, and each made up with snowy linens and hung with heavy silken draperies. There was a dressing room with enough gilded wardrobes to hold gowns for all twelve of the Dancing Princesses. There was a sitting room with the most comfortable chairs and the most delicate carved tables imaginable, and through whose open window the most intoxicating scents drifted up from the castle garden.

Beauty and Serenity spent some little time exclaiming over the splendor of their surroundings -- surely these fine rooms were not meant for their use! Perhaps the servants -- well, hands -- had mistaken them for two grand ladies whose visit was expected? (After all, there was no telling how clearly the hands could actually see anything -- perhaps they were nearsighted enough to confuse woodcutter's daughters with nobility?) When they returned to the dressing room, however, they found that the hands had prepared two enormous copper bathtubs, each filled with steaming water which smelled of roses and lilacs. The hands had also laid out two of the most beautiful gowns the girls had ever seen -- the silk and satin and gold thread glowed softly in the candlelight. With such enticements, and considering their travel-worn state, who can blame them for taking advantage of their situation?

After they were cleaned and dressed, down to the embroidered ribbons in their hair, the diamond bracelets on their wrists, and velvet slippers on their feet, Beauty and Serenity followed the hands to a splendidly appointed banquet hall, where they found a magnificent supper laid for them. Being served by hands that silently floated a seemingly endless parade of dishes of meat, fowl, game, breads, salads, and sweetmeats through the air was truly a novel experience for two girls who had been accustomed since childhood to preparing and serving their own meals. Though they hardly recognized any of what they ate, it was all delicious, and by the time they were done, they were completely refreshed from their long journey.

If they had expected the delights of the evening to conclude with supper, they were quite mistaken! Another few sets of hands (or perhaps the same ones -- it was impossible to tell) conducted them to a neighboring chamber, clearly meant for use as a music room. Here the hands pulled several marionettes out of the air and proceeded to make them dance and caper while other hands played a charming accompaniment on the pianoforte, lute, and dulcimer. Serenity, clapping and laughing at the antics of the puppets, thought she had never been so well entertained in all her life. Beauty's enjoyment was somewhat lessened when she remembered what the old man had said -- that the castle was bound in an evil enchantment -- but since she as yet had seen nothing to fear, beyond their first shock at entering the castle, she momentarily put the idea aside.

Later, back in their bedchamber, after the hands had helped them change into muslin nightdresses of wonderful softness and then departed for the night, the two sisters sat together on one of the beds and talked over everything they had seen. Beauty still could not forget the old man's words, but Serenity was inclined to be more charitable. "Possibly he could have been mistaken," she told her sister. "Magic is in many cases quite frightful, so without investigating for himself, perhaps he only assumed it was evil."

Beauty was unconvinced. "That this place is under an enchantment cannot be doubted," she said with a smile, thinking of the disembodied hands that populated the hallways, "but how are we to discover its purpose? Perhaps the magic means to disarm us by welcoming us in this manner, and there will be some terrible trap sprung on us later -- possibly even something that makes the threat of our mother's being turned into a toad positively pleasant by comparison! If the spell is entirely benign, would not Prince Cheerful have been here to greet us? For we know this was where he meant to go."

Serenity had to admit the sense of her sister's argument, but she was still reluctant to believe that there could be anything evil in a place that had received them so kindly. "It may be that there is no enchantment at all! Perhaps all servants are invisible in this kingdom, and the Prince and the King have only gone off somewhere together -- say, on a hunting expedition."

Beauty smiled again at this proof of her sister's impervious good nature. "Very well, believe that if it gives you comfort, dear sister. We will examine this place more thoroughly in the morning, to see if we can discover what has become of your darling Prince."

"He is not my Prince," Serenity answered, blushing.

"But consider how he nearly swooned out of his saddle for joy when you gave him that rose!" Beauty retorted, and threw a pillow at her sister. Serenity made no reply to this, except to hurl a pillow of her own -- and not until the feathers settled did they wish each other good night.

While Serenity was no doubt in the midst of a blissful dream (in which Prince Cheerful likely had a prominent place) almost as soon as her head touched the pillows, Beauty found herself unable to sleep. Despite the softness of the bed, she tossed and turned and simply could not get comfortable. Her brain was far too busy thinking about the enchantment and worrying about the Prince's fate to allow her to rest. Where was the King that the old man had mentioned -- and everyone else who ought to live at this castle, for that matter? Finally she decided that some fresh air was what she needed to clear her head. Slipping quietly out of bed and tiptoeing about so as not to wake Serenity, she pulled on a robe that she found and walked through their apartments until she came to the sitting room, where the window was still open. Leaning on the sill, she took several deep breaths of the clear air and gazed down at the garden below.

Beauty and Serenity, since they took care of their own garden at home, had a special fondness for any other garden, and this one looked especially fine. All of the gravel paths, which in the moonlight looked silver, led to the central fountain, which was splashing gently in the darkness. Something smelled of rosemary, mint, and thyme -- perhaps that corner was used to grow all of the household herbs? From another side came the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine. That would be a favorite place for the bees in the summer! The enclosing walls seemed covered with vines, which Beauty hoped were roses -- they would look lovely in the sunlight, with their bright petals softening the hard stones.

As she looked more closely at the wall, trying to determine whether the vines were indeed roses, she suddenly noticed a patch of shadow that seemed darker than the rest. She stared at it for a moment, not comprehending what she saw. But then the shadow moved! The creature took a few steps forward, and Beauty could see its silhouette in the moonlight: the horns of a bull, the head of a wolf, a large muscular body covered in the blackest fur...

Her eyes widened in fright. It must be the Beast! She threw the window shut and bolted it, then she raced over to the main door of the suite and bolted that also, hoping it was sturdy enough to hold if the Beast tried to force his way through. They obviously could not escape tonight, not with that terrible monstrous Beast roaming the castle in the dark. Resigned to spending at least one night in this castle (which in Beauty's mind had gone from being magical and beautiful to being horrid and confining, all in a moment), she returned to her bed and burrowed into it, vowing that she and Serenity would leave Castle Lochlein at the first possible opportunity.

(c) 1998
By Liz McKenna
All Rights Reserved
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