When Beauty and Serenity finally stopped for breath (which was after quite some time had passed, since anyone can tell you that woodcutter's daughters are usually in excellent physical condition, and these two were no exception), they found they were in a part of the castle they had not seen before. This was hardly surprising, because the castle was so large and the time they had spent exploring it that morning was comparatively short. What was surprising was that they were utterly alone. In their earlier wanderings, they had always been discreetly accompanied by at least one pair of hands, which opened doors for them, lit candles for them, or drew back curtains so that they might see a room in the best light. Beauty and Serenity had not realized how easily they had become accustomed to these silent attendants until they were no longer present.

However, being alone at least meant that they were not being pursued by the horrible Beast, so they felt they could take a moment to investigate their surroundings. They were standing in a wide stone passage, and at one end was a large archway. Through this opening came a light that immediately intrigued the two girls; it shone with an intense softness, or perhaps with a subdued brightness. If asked, Serenity would have said it seemed melancholy, but she tossed the idea away as quickly as it formed, thinking it was an idle fancy. Stepping very gingerly, they moved to the archway and looked through.

The room which opened out before them must have been a ballroom or a reception hall at one time, though it had likely fallen out of use when a newer wing of the castle was built. The stonework looked somewhat worn, and the wainscoting around the walls was badly in need of polish. Over all was that indefinable air of desertion that old and unused rooms sometimes acquire, as if they are lonely for the crowds of people that used to fill their walls. At one end was a wooden dais, empty now of any fine carved chairs which the King or Queen and their courtiers would have used. At the opposite end was an opening which might have been a musicians' gallery, or a balcony from which favored guests would watch while the King or Queen received their supplicants. All around the walls were barren hooks and holders from which banners or coats of arms or even garlands of flowers might once have hung. There was only one other object in the room.

In the very center of the impressive expanse of open floor was a coffin made entirely of glass, and this was the source of the strange brilliance. Although the glow remained bright and unwavering, the two girls could easily see into the light to examine the extraordinary object. It was etched all over with fascinating and intricate patterns, which added an air of mystery to its beauty. The coffin may well have been carved out of a single enormous crystal, for there were no seams visible where the sides met each other and the bottom. The only way to open the coffin would be to lift the lid, but this was sealed with three heavy padlocks: one of gold, one of silver, and one of iron.

Beauty and Serenity moved cautiously closer, unsure what to expect from this new evidence of strong magic in the castle, but irresistibly curious about what could be so precious that it was locked inside this marvelous object. When they saw, however, they only stood unbelieving, and had to look again. And then Serenity sank down next to the casket, pale as ashes, and laid her cheek against the cold surface. A single tear, glistening in the light almost as brightly as the crystal itself, slowly slid down her face.

It was Prince Cheerful who lay inside the glass coffin. He might only have been sweetly asleep in his own bed, for he showed not a sign of injury, and he had not a golden curl out of place. Indeed, the color in his cheeks and the hint of a smile on his lips made it appear that he might wake at any moment -- without any distress except perhaps some perplexity at the strange place in which he had chosen to take a nap. Serenity called his name aloud and beat her hands against the unyielding glass, but to no avail; Prince Cheerful never stirred, and the coffin would not open.

Beauty quickly knelt and embraced her sister, sharing her distress and trying to give her comfort. No more tears came, though, for Serenity had seen something else locked inside the casket. It was a small token only, but enough to give her hope, and so also did Beauty understand it, when she saw what her sister had noticed. There on the Prince's breast, with one of his hands clasped protectively around it, was the blush-tinged white rose that Serenity had given him. It was still as fresh and unfaded as when she had first plucked it outside the woodcutter's cottage.

It was another few moments before Serenity trusted her voice enough to speak. "Surely if the enchantment had harmed him, it would have withered the rose also. There must be a way to free him, and I swear I will find it." Then her eyes brightened. "The Fox! Our friend the Fox told me how it could be done, but at the time I did not understand him!" She recited the beginning of the Fox's rhyme for her sister:

When your heart in a casket is sleeping,
Find the keys and don't waste your time weeping.

That she did not know where to look for the keys was unimportant; it mattered only that the keys existed, and wherever they were in the world, she would discover them.

A sudden noise disrupted the mournful silence of the room. Serenity paid it no attention, having no care for anything other than her Prince. Beauty, however, was on her feet in a moment, whirling around to face the archway and interpose herself between her sister and whatever new threat might be approaching. Standing there in the entrance (which was also, Beauty noticed with some alarm, the only exit) was the Beast.

Now, when the King left the garden, he fully intended to be gracious. After all, he had surprised his two guests by appearing so suddenly and shouting at them, so of course they had fled from him. He would apologize for frightening them, and they would apologize for not presenting themselves in the throne room that morning, and all would be well. Surely he would be able to make them understand he was a King and not truly a Beast. The best evidence of his exalted rank would be to show kindness and condescension to these strangers, who obviously did not know how to behave before royalty.

After he had scoured the north wing of the castle looking for them, he decided it would be better to be stern, with the barest hint of dignified displeasure. Considering that they had arrived without an invitation, had they not been treated well? There was no reason for them to have run so far away -- such rude and ungrateful manners! Even if they had been frightened, they should have realized that their fright was caused by his anger, which was caused by his fear, which was due to their trespassing in his garden. Certainly it was all their own fault, and they must recognize that.

By the time he had searched the west wing, looked in every corner of the main courtyard, and tramped through all the empty corridors leading to this long-disused room, his temper was very bad indeed. If they were trying to harm his precious lily, they were lucky he hadn't responded even more violently than he had! They should have instantly dropped to their knees before him and begged for mercy. Their paltry attempt to escape his wrath would do them no good, and unless they showed the respect his rank deserved, they would be severely punished.

So, when he finally found the two sisters, the King was in a towering black fury. Seeing Beauty standing so defiantly before him only fueled his anger. The King's shout was nearly equal to the Beast's roar. "Is this how you repay my hospitality? You have tried to destroy that which I hold most dear!"

Confusion and the return of fear made Beauty fierce, and she gave a spirited reply. "The hospitality of this castle is not yours to give, and we have destroyed nothing."

"How dare you speak so to me?" The King was astonished at her boldness. "Have you no respect for the King of Lochlein? You will bow before me at once and implore my forgiveness!"

"Never! You may enchant us or kill us, as you have with everyone else in the castle, but we will never bow to a Beast!" Beauty cried.

"Kill you?" The King was shocked at such an awful suggestion. He paused as her meaning finally became clear to him. A Beast! He had forgotten about his appearance again. "I am the King of Lochlein," he repeated, but not quite so loudly as before, "and I did not cause this enchantment -- I am caught in it."

Beauty eyed him suspiciously, wondering why he was bothering to argue with her -- he could just strike her with one of those huge paws, and that would be the end of it. Could he be the King? Impossible! "An old man on the road told us that a terrible Beast had bound Castle Lochlein under an evil spell, and that Prince Cheerful had come to engage him in battle. You are the Beast, and here is the Prince, cruelly trapped by your wicked magic -- so why should I believe anything you say?"

The King blanched at her words, and Beauty could see the Beast's features go slack with surprise. "Prince Cheerful? My friend! What has happened to him?" He took an almost involuntary step forwards, toward the glass coffin.

Beauty would have tried to stop him, heedless of the danger present in the form of sharp teeth and claws. However, Serenity stood and took her sister's arm, saying, "Let him see. He may be telling us the truth."

"He is a Beast and obviously untrustworthy," Beauty hissed in reply. Then she challenged the Beast again. "No doubt you shaped this prison for him with the same sorcery you used to subdue the rest of the castle."

The Beast, now standing next to the glass coffin, did not answer for a moment. Beauty heard him sigh, but she only scoffed at this; surely it was all a pretense on his part, designed to make them pity and trust him. Finally he raised his eyes, as if he could not bear to look at Prince Cheerful any longer, and spoke again -- and in the most courteous tone the woodcutter's daughters had yet heard from him.

"I swear, the Prince would never suffer so at my hands. There is even more magic at work here than I was aware."

"More than enough to empty a castle, plunge a countryside in terror, and depose a King?" Beauty mocked. "Your power must surely be greater than anything the world has ever known."

The King ignored her jibe. "Mesdames, when I saw you in the garden, I thought you were attempting to harm the golden lily. You will understand how precious that flower is to me when I tell you it is my sister, transformed by the sorcerer's curse."

Serenity gasped. "Your sister? How terrible! We were only trying to..."

Beauty cut her off, thinking this was yet another of the Beast's ploys to gain their sympathy. "If that is true, it must only serve to show the depths of your evil -- to bespell a friend and a sister! Your soul must be as monstrous as the shape you wear."

The King had no answer for this, but he was growing tired of the argument. "Believe me or not, as you choose. I bid you welcome to Castle Lochlein, and I assure you that you have nothing to fear from me or from the citizens of my realm. If there is anything you require, my servants will await your commands." Without another word he swept from the room, strode down the hall, and was gone.

Serenity did not watch him depart; she had returned already to her previous position, kneeling by the glass coffin and caressing the surface above Prince Cheerful's face. Beauty did watch the Beast leave; and so she stood for some little time afterwards, wondering.

This was all his fault, Caprice fumed. If that aggravating Fox hadn't purposely misdirected her, she would have been in that lively seaside town by now, surrounded by single, handsome, eligible men of every description! As it was, she was hiking along a forest path, with rocks that tripped her at every other step and not a whiff of sea air anywhere. She should have called him something worse than a hedgehog! That Fox was no better than a muskrat...or a beaver...or a marmot! And to top everything off, she was once again growing very hungry and thirsty.

Then through the trees she could just see a little cottage -- there she would possibly find some farmwife whom she could convince to give her some bread and cheese (with perhaps a bit of ham, or a piece of chicken, or a meat pie, and a few apples, a bowl of milk, or even a mug of small beer...Caprice wasn't too particular, but she had quite an appetite).

She knocked at the door of the cottage and waited, then knocked again (but not too hard -- remembering the episode with the pigs, she stayed ready to jump out of the way if the little house seemed likely to collapse). When there was still no answer, she tried the latch and found that the door was unlocked. She pushed it open, calling out to alert anyone inside to her presence. However, the room before her was quite empty. Caprice entered and looked around -- or she meant to, but she came to an abrupt stop when her forehead hit the lintel of the doorway. Rubbing the bruise, she reflected that whoever built the cottage could not have been very tall! She tried again, this time being sure to stoop a bit as she crossed the threshold.

Everything inside was as neat and tidy as could be. A fire crackled merrily on the hearth, the wide boards of the floor were swept clean, and the glass of the windows gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. There was a long trestle table to one side, set with pewter cups and plates that were polished almost as bright as silver. A tantalizing smell drifted from a pot that was bubbling over the fire. Lifting the lid, Caprice saw it was a pot of beef stew, thick with potatoes and carrots. "The good people who live here would certainly not grudge a share of their meal to a traveler in need," Caprice thought. So, she took one of the plates off the table and ladled out an ample serving for herself -- and it tasted just as delicious as it had smelled.

Dumping the plate back on the table and the spoon back in the stew pot, Caprice searched for something to drink. Hanging on a peg in the larder, she found a wineskin that sloshed a bit when she moved it. "Having been so kind as to offer me food to eat, they would not possibly mind if I also took some liquid refreshment," Caprice reasoned. A tumbler from the table proved to be just the right size to hold the wine that was left in the skin, and Caprice downed it without a second thought. The empty wineskin she tossed onto a chair, and the tumbler she left on the table.

Now, Caprice was not very used to wine -- it was a luxury the woodcutter could not afford very often, and the woodcutter's wife had never learned how to make her own -- and it soon made her rather sleepy. "The folk whose house this is would without a doubt offer me a place to rest for the night," Caprice thought, and she stumbled over to a ladder which she presumed led to a sleeping loft. She climbed it slowly, suddenly having to think very hard about where to place each hand and foot as she ascended.

Gracious, how many people lived in this cottage? There were six...no, eight...no, four...maybe seven beds! Caprice shook her head, trying to clear her vision. Giving up counting, she bounced on each bed until she found one whose mattress seemed comfortable enough, and in moments she was asleep.

Caprice dreamed, or she thought she dreamed. From a long way off, she heard a voice say, Who has been eating from my plate? And another said, Who has been drinking from my cup? Then closer still, a voice said, Who has been sleeping in my bed? Finally there were several voices, saying, And mine! No, wait, look here!

She awoke with a start, to find herself nose to nose with a monster! Then the monster spoke, and she discovered it wasn't a monster after all -- just a little man whose large nose and larger beard cast odd shadows in the light of the candle he carried. "Child, what are you doing in our house?" he asked.

Caprice, who was always rather petulant when she first awoke (just ask Echo, who had to share a bedroom with her in the woodcutter's cottage), promptly told the little man a terribly outrageous story. "Ah, good sir, do not send me away! I am fleeing from my evil, nasty, mean step-father and my four evil, nasty, mean step-sisters. When famine struck our village, they decided our family's small supply of food would last longer if there were fewer mouths to feed, and as I am the youngest of the family, I was deemed the most expendable..." She let her voice trail off into a hiccuping sob.

"Child, do not distress yourself!" The little man patted her shoulder in a comforting manner. "Here you are quite safe from all harm. Brothers, is that not so?" Six other voices joined in agreement.

"Your kindness overwhelms me," Caprice said, doing her best to look pitiable.

The little man, who was the oldest of them all, spoke up again. "We are seven brothers, who labor in a nearby mine from sunrise to sunset, searching for gold and diamonds. If you will consent to cook and clean for us, then you are welcome to stay as long as you like. We haven't had anyone to keep house for us since our dear friend Snow White left us to marry a prince."

Caprice's eyes had lit up at the mention of gold and diamonds, and they positively sparkled at the idea of a prince, but her face fell at the thought of having to do chores. She had left all that behind at the woodcutter's cottage! Still, where there was one prince, there was bound to be another -- and then she could leave, too!

This happy situation lasted all of a week. Every morning, the little men would depart for their diamond mine, and the oldest would always give Caprice strict instructions not to talk to strangers. "If it's a prince, I'll certainly talk to him, no matter what you say!" she thought. When the little men were gone during the day, she would wander the woods, picking wildflowers and happily daydreaming of what fine clothes and coaches she would have when the prince came for her.

But the days went by, no prince appeared, Caprice got bored, and the seven little men began to grumble. Their beautiful tidy little cottage was looking dingy and drab. There were cobwebs in the corners, there were fingerprints on the windows, and there were even one or two adventurous mice nesting in the thatch in one corner of the roof. The meals were never served on time, and they were leftovers more often than not. The laundry was done either all in hot water, which shrank their tunics to uncomfortable sizes, or all in cold, which didn't get all of the muddy stains out of their breeches. Wild animals proceeded to steal everything eatable out of the garden. And the little men grumbled some more.

"Snow White never burned the porridge," said the first.

"Snow White always dusted the mantelpiece," said the second.

"Snow White never starched my socks," said the third.

"Snow White always washed the dishes," said the fourth.

"Snow White never let soot clog the chimney," said the fifth.

"Snow White always made my favorite dessert," said the sixth.

"Snow White never forgot to weed the vegetable patch," said the seventh.

"Enough!" cried Caprice, when she had had exactly that. "Snow White this, and Snow White that! In case all of you are too nearsighted to notice, I am not Snow White, whoever she is! What are you complaining about? I'm the injured party here! You little twits misrepresented this cozy little abode as a way station for princes, but I haven't seen a single one since I arrived! That's it -- I am leaving!"

And in the general uproar and commotion that followed this singular declaration, Caprice managed to kick a few shins, yank a few beards, pull a few ears, and tweak a few noses before she scrambled out the door. She went down the road laughing, paying no attention at all to the howls of anger, shaken fists, and dire threats behind her. Even if they did know a witch who could turn her into a frog, they'd have to catch her first!

Caprice's adventures in the woods were not yet over. Soon afterwards she came to a small clearing, where she noticed a woman sitting under a tree. Caprice was just about to enter the clearing and ask directions to the nearest village, when the woman -- who looked like a perfectly sane, mature, and ordinary baker's wife -- of all things, burst into song!

Was that me?
Was that him?
Did a prince really kiss me?
And kiss me?
And kiss me...?

A prince? There's a prince running around the forest kissing strange women? Caprice was interested at once and ducked behind a bush, where she could stay hidden but still hear what the woman was saying...er, singing.

Was it wrong?
Am I mad
Is that all?
Does he miss me?
Was he suddenly
Getting bored with me?

"Of course he'd get bored with you, lady, when there's someone younger and more attractive around -- like me!" Caprice thought.

Caprice didn't bother to listen to the rest of the song, since the woman no longer mentioned the prince. Instead she began to quietly edge around the clearing, still taking care to stay out of sight, moving in the direction in which she presumed the prince had gone, if the languishing looks the woman was throwing towards that side of the clearing were any indication.

By the time Caprice reached her destination, the woman was saying...er, singing...something utterly nonsensical about "peculiar passing moments," and "and" and "or," and having one or both, or one meaning more than the other, or something of the sort. Obviously the woman was some kind of dangerous lunatic. Caprice didn't care, though -- she was on the trail of a prince, and eager for whatever adventure next awaited her.

(c) 1998
By Liz McKenna
All Rights Reserved
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