THE KEEPER [Beauty & The Beast retelling]

Something in the air

Mona found herself back on the cold slab of the room she'd first woke to in Lucifer's home. Could it be that she was already back there from her father's house? What a lousy promise he kept then. Not even one night and Mona was already back in his curious castle. She slipped off the slab and walked towards the wall where she knew a door had been from her memory.

'You call this fair?' She yelled and her words reverberated. 'Not even one lousy night? I don't even get one lousy night? Did you not see that my father is not well?!' She pounded with her fists on the cold wet walls. 'He needs me, now more than ever, and you do this beastly thing?! You take me from him just when he thought I'd be there in his end days?!'

She expected him to pop up behind her but no such thing happened. Instead, Mona was alone and scared in a room she'd rather not see again. 'Lucifer isn't an apt name for you!' She yelled, her voice rebounding off the wall. 'At least we know he was an angle. You. You, on the other hand, are just a beast. A beast, you hear me? A beast!'

Mona kept pounding at the wall and screaming till her voice went hoarse and her fist was bruised and bloodied. 'You said I was free to go!' She whispered, last remnants of her strength dwindling till there was no more. Just her, her broken heart, her bleeding fists, and the ever-present darkness. Mona didn't know when it was that the darkness melded into sleep, and when that sleep let her rest. When she woke, it was still dark. Pitch black in fact and her heart sank. Guess he hadn't heard her rant. 

Then again, the room no longer felt damp, and the surface beneath her felt like the softness and warmth of a bed. Her bed intact. Mona reached instinctively for the lampshade and when the room came into view, she was intact back in her room as if she'd never left. Perhaps she hadn't and the whole Lucifer episode had been a terrible nightmare conjured by her migraine-induced hallucinations. Perhaps. Except for the rather large antique chest that sat towards the bottom end of her bed. A chest that had never been there before. It's austerity letting her know that the Beast had been real. It was after all a trunk from the room that had been hers.

Mona slipped out of bed in her nightgown despite the chill and opened the trunk. She had to make sure it was in fact real. Inside lay all the dresses she'd ever worn in the castle, including all the new ones she'd made. An enveloped with the same brilliant writing from all the notes she'd read while a guest at Beast's house lay tucked in one corner of the box. Mona reached for it and brought it back to the lamp with her.

Dear Mona Belle,

Here you will find all your belongings from my home. Should you desire anything else, anything, you need only write it on the back of this parchment and it will be sent to you. As promised, your freedom is yours. You were no more than a guest in my home and I do hope our hospitality lacked none. Should you ever wish to come back and join us, we would only be delighted to have you. However, despite my name, even the new one you have bestowed upon me last night, I feel it is my duty to let you know however I desire company, I am not that beastly to keep you from that which you desire. After all, I did make a promise to your father that I shall give you all you want. If nothing else, I keep my promises. 

I wish you all the best in life. 

Yours truly,

Your Beast

The letter ended thus and for a moment nothing but sadness gripped young Mona's heart. The beast was not very beastly after all.

Days melded into one in a huge blur, as if no time had passed between Mona having stood at the platform awaiting train and now. She was back to her old life. Nothing else and no one else seemed to have changed but she herself. She'd wake every morning, before the whole house woke and sit on her bed knowing that somewhere, she didn't even know where, but somewhere out there was an old manor of sorts, dark, aged, and quiet. And in its long mysterious halls walked a man, or thing she'd never fully seen but she knew he was there, roaming those hallways as if in search of something. She'd hear him sometimes walking down the hall towards her room. His footsteps would still outside for what felt like ages, then they'd walk again, back into the darkness. She used to be terrified of those moments as if he'd barge in and torture her somehow. He never did. In fact, he'd been nothing but kind. Now that she thought about it, she felt a kind of peace, even a hint of longing to hear those reassuring feet walk towards her room. Make sure she was okay like he'd done. Those were the days she always found his letters with her breakfast, to see how she was going and if she desired anything else.