Beauty by Sarah Pinborough Page A

and she will die,’ she said, her voice devoid of emotion. ‘And it will be painless. Like going to sleep.’ She smiled at that.
    ‘It’s poison then,’ Rumplestiltskin said.
    ‘She’ll bleed to death,’ the witch replied. ‘But I assure you she won’t feel a thing.’
    His hands trembled as he took it. ‘I must be sure not to prick myself on the way back then.’
    ‘I’ve given you this magic,’ she said, leading him out of the room and locking it with the keys that hung from a chain around her neck. ‘It can’t hurt you. A curse cannot touch the one who wields it.’
    ‘And what do you want in return?’ he asked.
    ‘You will leave your daughter with me until you bring my spindle back,’ she said, softly.
    Rumplestiltskin felt as if all the air had been sucked from his lungs. His daughter? His only child.
    The witch squeezed his hand. He was surprised at the warmth of her fingers. He’d expected them to feel like the touch of a dead thing. ‘She will want for nothing and I shall teach her many things. She will be happy here and I am lonely. I have been lonely for a long, long time.’ She smiled again. Her lips were thin. ‘And when you return you may reclaim her if you so wish. This I promise you.’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps she will also be safer here. Dangerous times lie ahead.’
    Rumplestiltskin felt the weight of all his responsibility to the kingdom settle on his shoulders and his heart grew heavy. He had no choice.
    ‘I will come back for her,’ he said.
    ‘I’m sure you will,’ the witch replied.
    He did not wait for his daughter to wake because he knew he would not have the strength to say goodbye, but left her a letter telling her he loved her very much and that he would return soon to take her home. He kissed her forehead and left his darling daughter, Rapunzel, there where she slept.
    By the time he got back to the kingdom two months had passed and much had already changed. The king was dead; killed in a riding accident while out with the princess a mere day after Rumplestiltskin had left. While Beauty mourned for her father, the Beast revelled in her new power. She held masked balls for the wild young things of the city and took her vicarious pleasure not only from their bodies, but also from torturing those unfortunate enough to be in the dungeons. If there were no prisoners there, they were brought in, innocents chosen at random to feed her blood lust, their houses wrecked and looted by the soldiers knowing they would not return.
    She redecorated the third ballroom to suit her tastes; decadent red and black and gold, and music played long and loud as the young people danced and enjoyed each other, and girls from the dairy came and never left again alive.
    The ministers kept these secrets and managed the kingdom around her as best they could until the bell rang once again and they could let out a collective sigh of relief. None challenged her because her mother’s magic was at her fingertips, and they had seen the unrecognisable bodies that left the dungeons. They kept their own counsel and shuffled around the castle trying to look invisible as they did exactly as they were told. With the king gone and Rumplestiltskin away, only the first minister had the true affection of their queen and they left the management of the Beast to him.
    It could not go on, Rumplestiltskin thought, as he held Beauty’s hand beside her father’s grave and cried with her for his oldest friend. It just could not go on.
    Whispers of murders and torture, wild parties and patricide; that was only two months into the new reign and it would only get worse. Beauty was sweet and kind, but the Beast was stronger, he was sure of that. That Beauty had unknowingly killed the king, he had no doubt. He’d spoken to the terrified stable boy who whispered that the girth on the king’s saddle had been nearly cut through and that it had been the princess herself who had prepared his horse for him. Who would be next?