Beauty and the Beast

Chapter 1

I held in my hands a stolen, beautiful, gold trimmed, and gold lettered invitation to the royal ball, dreams of searching and stealing the many precious books in the castle's library made me giddy with joy.

I sat in an old, dusty, mostly abandoned, manor. Specifically I sat inside it's library. The library was bigger than any I had seen, since I wasn't a welcome guest at any other manor, but I knew it still paled in comparison to the royal library. The manor's library had plush cushioned chairs now a home to many a rodent, squeaky wood floors, and oak bookshelves lining the walls with hundreds of leather-bound books filling them. I had read them all at this point in my life. Now I reread them trying desperately to elicit the joy of opening a fresh new book.

I had never gazed upon the palace's library with my own eyes, but I could imagine the tall brown cedar wood bookcases as they touched the heavens. The skylights beaming sun from above onto the many thick leather-bound books. There would be plenty of vacant chairs in many different luxurious styles to accommodate a truly perfect reading session.

"Can you imagine how many books are in the palace's library?!" I said to my cat, Bookworm, a white fluffy purebred Persian cat given to me by my deceased mother.

Ignoring my enthusiasm, Bookworm sat on the bay window looking out over the immaculate lawn. Gardeners came once a week to keep the old manor from being an eyesore. It was a beautiful view and made me feel like a princess or at least a lady. I sometimes wondered what it would have been like to own the manor. I know most people do but my mother, a duchess, had married a commoner and was properly disowned and ripped of her title. If she didn't have a husband who was of a lower station all of this would have been mine, in a manner of speaking. We would have a manor of our own, my father and me. But instead, we owned a shack outside town.

I picked Bookworm up and pet her eliciting a purring kitty in my arms. "What would it be like to finally be in the palace?" I said putting her down and sitting in the bay window.

Sitting there I realized I would have to find a way to sneak into the ball and into the the grand library. I quickly got back up and started busying myself with trying to find a map of the castle to chart my course. I remembered the cover but not the title and sadly I had organized the bookshelves by title not by genre like I really have ought to. I would not could not get lost. This way I could find the library and spend as much time as possible before retreating back to the ballroom as if I were any other guest.

I grabbed a bunch of books with maps and flooded the floor with them. As I sat on the floor with books spread out around me, some open some not, I realized I'd need a lovely gown, a mask, stunning shoes, and a carriage to take me there. I would need to search the manor for some of these things, obviously not the carriage that would have to be stolen of course.

Suddenly footsteps sounded outside the door, and I quickly grabbed all the books on the floor shoving them into the shelves as quickly and quietly as possible. Moving a bookshelf like a door, I leapt into the black space behind it and closed it, just as the door to the library squeaked opened.

"Come in duke, you are always welcome in the private library." Sam, the caretaker said in a deep voice.

I could only see the blackness around me, but I knew the caretaker. I had made it my mission to know all the people who took care of this manor. Sam and a few maids took care of the insides. Although the maids only came about twice a year. I didn't know who paid them, but I presumed it was either they themselves couldn't see it go to ruin or perhaps the board of officials couldn't stand to have a disgrace on their hands.

The caretaker and maids were the only ones who came inside except for the few nobility who used the immense library. The late prince and princess must have enjoyed reading. But the late prince's brother still lived in the palace, and I desperately hoped he enjoyed reading even more than the late couple.