Before Beauty by Brittany Fichter Page B

Please take me to the Fortress
library,” Isa addressed the shadows. Instead of the familiar pushes
and pulls she had grown somewhat accustomed to, however, she felt
all of the shadows disappear. Surprised and irritated, Isa shook
her head and begrudgingly wandered out of her room on her
own.
    She wasn’t quite brave enough to
look for the room all alone just yet. So, heading to the front of
the stronghold instead, Isa saw the grand entrance for the first
time.
    Covered in dust and cobwebs, giant
columns soared above her, supporting monstrous arches that were
loftier than any church steeple in the city. The ceiling was so
high and so dark that Isa couldn’t make out any of its details at
the very top. In fact, the interior was nearly as dark as it had
been the night before, as all the tapestries were closed. She was
again glad that she had arrived by the back entrance. For coming in
through this grand hall would surely have intimidated
her.
    As she cautiously approached the
towering doors, they opened for her without a sound, revealing the
relief of the outdoors. Most of the snow from the storm two days
earlier had melted, making Isa’s walk to the stable much
easier.
    Isa spent as long as she could out
in the stable, feeding and brushing her animal. It was comforting
to breathe in his familiar scent. She talked to him as she worked,
telling him what a good horse he was, and how he wouldn’t believe
the things she had seen the night before. They went for a quick
outing around the grounds, but Isa was too nervous to take him very
far. As much as she enjoyed it, however, eventually there was no
more she could do for her friend, so she put him back in the
stables and returned to the winding outdoor paths to explore the
front lawn.
    The Fortress lawn had at one point
been the most spectacular arrangement of gardens and statues one
could ever hope to see. But now, beneath the melting snow, the
flowers lay brown and brittle, as did the trees. Everything was
overgrown or wasting away. Isa wandered through the ivy covered
statues of wolves and the dying shrubs that were wrapped around
them, without knowing where she was headed.
    No birds sang and no chipmunks
twittered. There weren’t even the sounds of bugs as she moved
through the gardens. Isa thought back to her childhood visits of
the Fortress, trying to remember if the gardens had always been
this quiet, or if the curse had made them that way. After wandering
through several of the smaller gardens without finding respite
though, she had nearly turned back to the stables, when one garden
in particular caught her eye. It was a rose garden.
    The bushes had been allowed to
grow tall, and had been planted in such a way as to provide walls
of privacy for those who would walk the paths laid in stone between
them. Isa walked about the entire circular garden, and found that
there were four paths that wound towards the center, one stretching
inward from each direction. Despite the vines being brown and dry
without a flower to be seen, Isa found herself drawn to their
beauty. She cautiously started down the path on the north side
towards the middle.
    The garden itself was made of
rosebushes that stood at least three feet higher than Isa’s head.
Once Isa had followed the winding path in, she found a small
courtyard in the center of the garden, large enough it could have
fit her new bed inside of it. A bench made of multicolored stones
sat along the edge of the tall, once pruned bushes, where it would
have been hidden from the sun had the sun been shining.
    Instead of a floor of cobblestone,
as the garden paths had, there lay the most beautiful stone mosaic
Isa had ever seen. A rose larger than Isa was tall had been
carefully laid out with colorful stones. Agate gave the rose its
shades of red, while light and dark green Jade pieces filled the
leaves and stem. The giant rose was encircled by blue Angelite and
white opal. Isa couldn’t help but to kneel reverently and touch the
piece