Mrs. Beast Read online

  Beauty blinks. "How do you know I'm searching for Glass Mountain?"

  "Take the key, Beauty, and fulfill your destiny."

  Beauty is about to touch the key when she's struck from behind, as if a heavy wooden swing has caught the back of her knees, and she's swung fifty feet into the air. Watching the ground diminish below her, Beauty sees a woman jump from the forest, grab the old man's beard and kiss him passionately as her other hand slips a jeweled dagger from her belt.

  Beauty turns away and meets the face of the giant who holds her in his mammoth hand. She gapes at his bald bumpy head and ridged forehead that slants to such an extreme degree it nearly obscures his red eyes fixed on the road. He pulls his lips back in a grimace, displaying two rows of giant yellow grinders. Beauty is spiritually preparing to meet her maker when a sharp whistle sounds from below. The giant plucks the woman from the road and deposits her next to Beauty in his cupped hand.

  "Are you all right?" the woman asks. Beauty doesn't answer; her eyes remain riveted to the giant's gruesome visage.

  "Don't be afraid. He's my friend, Uele. My name's Rapunzel, what's yours?"

  Beauty's finally breaks her stare and instantly, her fear vanishes. Rapunzel is an angel in a gossamer white gown; her complexion radiates a pink aura of health, her body is a fluid, graceful connection of curves, and her green, almond-shaped eyes are iridescent as a peacock's breast. Her hair cascades in waves along her body, flowing like a sun-struck river down to her ankles.

  "That old lurker down there is a wizard and if you'd have taken the key, well, there are many unsavory possibilities."

  "Forgive me; thank you," Beauty stammers and extends her hand. "My name is Beauty."

  "You're not from Stromberg, are you? It's been a long while since a woman offered her hand to me." Rapunzel shakes Beauty's hand, then snaps her head toward the gathering din of horns and tambourines, howls and shrieks. "Oh-oh, we'd better get into the city. The evil ones are converging on Glass Mountain."

  "That's where I need to go!" Beauty exclaims. " I'm . . ."

  "Not tonight," Rapunzel interrupts. "Every witch, wizard, gremlin, beastie, and hobgoblin in Grimm Land is going there to celebrate Walpurgisnacht. At midnight, the May Fires will blaze and there will be enough drinking, dancing, and debauchery to raise the dead. Good thing Uele spotted you. I was picking rampion. Want some?"

  Beauty nods and Rapunzel tears two leaves from the bunch in her shoulder sack. "I can't get enough of this wonderful green stuff," she chews noisily. "It's none of my business what you were doing on that road, but I suggest you come home with me tonight." She whistles through her teeth and shouts, "To the main gate, handsome, and quickly!"

  With a dozen strides of his titanic legs, Uele clears the forest and steps onto a rolling heath strewn with boulders. He kneels and places his palm flat in the heather. Beauty peers over the rim of Uele's forefinger to find she's still seven feet from the ground.

  With an arcing motion of her right arm, Rapunzel gathers her hair and wraps the ends around Uele's thumb. The giant crooks his thumb, and Rapunzel nimbly springs from the fleshy platform. Her tresses float like a golden parachute then stretch taut as her feet touch the ground. "Use your scarf, Beauty. Loop it over my hair and slide down."

  Rapunzel catches Beauty with open arms. The giant spreads his fingers, forcing the hair to slide sensuously through them. He utters a sound like the whine of a giant puppy. Rapunzel yells, "How many are caught on your thumbnail?"

  The giant holds up two fingers. Rapunzel traces the hairs to the top of her head and plucks them out at the root. Uele reels them in and lopes into the forest.

  "What does he do with them?" Beauty asks.

  "Your guess is as good as mine," Rapunzel replies. "Human hair is strong though, strong enough to hold fat old Mother Gothel."

  Goaded with curiosity, Beauty is about to inquire further when Rapunzel hooks her arm through Beauty's and pulls her along at a merry pace toward the walled city of Stromberg.

  * * *

  "Mondo-bizzaro! Beauty's been saved by another beauty; a Grimm Land first. Could start a trend." Elora's in the pink and turquoise Deco ballroom checking on Beauty's progress in her crystal ball before making final preparations for tonight's party.

  Croesus flops to the floor and snuffles with doggy laughter.

  "Cut it out, you skeptic. I shouldn't be surprised. Beauty's not a Grimm home girl, and Rapunzel's a compulsive rescuer. She rescued her sorry-assed father simply by being born. Remember that summer night in Gothel's garden?"

  Croesus whines and points a paw at the crystal ball.

  "Bricklebrit. I swear you have the memory of a dracaena." Elora holds out her hand and catches the three gold coins that spill from the dog’s mouth. She checks her watch, muttering, "I've conjured up twenty wood piles outside the palace, there's a hundred bratwurtz in the fridge, I filled fifty kegs with Walpurgis nectar . . . dancing."

  Elora waves her arms, all the furniture in the ballroom disappears, and a Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox appears at the end of the hall. "I'll give you twenty minutes of Rapunzel's story, hound, then I need a pre-party sauna."

  Elora snaps her fingers and the ball reveals a short, thin man, his shirt stuffed with rampion, scaling a garden wall. She freeze-frames the shot.

  "That's Rapunzel's old man, Henry, twenty five years ago. His pregnant wife Louise could see over Gothel's wall into the rampion bed, and she just had to have some. Now, you know the peasants in that village were scared cack-less of Gothel and wouldn't go near that wall to save their miserable lives. But Louise said, Henry, haul your clinkers over that wall because if I don't have some rampion, I'll up and die. Henry thought the sun shone out of Louise's butt, so in the twilight hour, he crept over the wall and snatched a bunch of the weed. That's where we are now."

  Elora snaps her fingers and Henry reaches the top of the wall to meet the formidable figure of Mother Gothel. Gothel's voice squawks from the crystal ball: How dare you climb into my garden like a thief and steal my rampion! Henry pleads: Be merciful rather than just. I have only done it through necessity, for my wife saw your rampion from her window and became possessed with so great a longing, she would die if she could not have had some to eat.

  Elora clicks her tongue in disgust. "That, my furry friend, is another example of a beauty's father stealing and shifting the blame to a woman, like Marcel stealing the Beast's rose and giving up Beauty . . . here we go . . . listen to Gothel."

  If it's as you say, you may have as much rampion as you like, on one condition. The child that you bring into the world must be given to me. I will care for it like a mother.

  "Bingo!" Elora hoots, and the scene changes to show Henry putting the newborn Rapunzel into Gothel's ample arms. “It’s a Grimm thing for witches and elves to connive the acquisition of infant humans, whom they enslave or transform into four-legged creatures, inanimate objects, or dinner. Gothel has never been rash; she calculates and schemes. However, while cogitating the possibilities baby Rapunzel could present, she had to keep the baby alive. Gothel laid her next to the spotted kid and stuck a nanny udder in her mouth. Rapunzel would drink her fill then wail like a five alarm fire, and the only thing to stop her was Gothel’s embrace.” Croesus covers his eyes with his paws.

  "Hey, I know Gothel's cold as an iguana and spiteful as a baboon, but every creature responds to touch." Croesus rolls to his back and Elora scratches his tummy.

  "Rapunzel was one of the most beautiful children ever born, and Gothel decided the best way to use the baby was to keep that beauty to herself. She built the wall around her house higher and longer. Nobody could see in, and Rapunzel was never seen outside the wall. By the time she turned twelve, Rapunzel had transformed from pretty baby to blonde bombshell. Gothel got paranoid. She whisked her off to the deepest, darkest acre of Grimm Forest and shut her in a tower."

  Elora waves her hand over the ball and a tower appears. Rising forty feet high, its green stone surface is polished smooth a
s jade with nary a crack for a foot or vine to take hold. Rapunzel leans out the single small window, unfurling her hair. Gothel stands on the ground shrieking, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!

  "For two years the old witch kept Rapunzel prisoner, sometimes visiting once a week, sometimes waiting an entire month so Rapunzel would be lunatic lonely when Gothel finally waddled her fat fanny into the woods. The Grimm psychologist says this is a typical adolescent problem: jealous mother preventing her daughter from gaining independence. He claims that while it was selfish of Gothel to keep Rapunzel to herself, it doesn't seem a serious crime in the eyes of children who want desperately to be held onto by parents. Please, give me one break! On the outside, Child Protection would've been on her like bald on Kojak."

  Elora snaps up two lollipops, black cherry for her, liver flavor for Croesus.

  "Rapunzel's only diversion, besides bird watching, was her collection of dolls. Once in a while, Gothel brought a doll to win Rapunzel's affection and keep her childish. I flew up there one day as a monarch butterfly." Elora grimaces and slides the sucker into the side of her mouth.

  "Let me tell you, it was classic X-Files. I could smell her from fifty feet away--the girl was ripe! Two years without a bath, big ole rope of greasy hair coiled on the floor, doll heads poking out of the plaits like baby birds. It was Rapunzel's singing to those dolls that drew Prince Johann to the tower. I wonder how long she would have stayed up there if he hadn't come along? Would she have stood up to Gothel and punched her lights out, or jumped?"

  * * *

  As Beauty and Rapunzel approach the city gate, a man steps briskly from the guardhouse, thrusting a lantern into the deepening Grimm dusk. His belly hangs two inches below his waist-cut blue jacket. A pheasant feather pokes jauntily from the top of his yellow hat.

  "Who goes there?" he demands.

  "Guten nacht, Leopold," Rapunzel purrs.

  Leopold sucks in his gut and jerks his head in a nod. "Guten nacht, Princess Rapunzel. I trust the lady with you is not a witch or a goblin?"

  "I can vouch for her. And thank you, Leopold. I'll sleep soundly tonight knowing you're on duty."

  "You might mention that to Burgomeister Braun," Leopold adds as he opens the gates. They start off down a cobblestone street and Leopold growls in appreciation. Beauty ignores him, but Rapunzel turns and winks.

  Fairy tale beauties are normally notoriously deaf to blatant sexual overtures. Beauty has observed that a plain woman can retort with a curse and elicit a hearty laugh. However, if a beauty curses a response, she's called a woman of loose morals. Intrigued by Rapunzel's boldness, Beauty asks, "Did I hear him correctly? Are you a princess?"

  "I was once married to Prince Johann. My two children and I lived with him up there in Kronus Castle, but we left him four years ago."

  Beauty lifts her gaze to the top of a steep and rock-jagged hill where stands a castle twice as large as Runyon's white wonder. This castle is six stories high with twelve towers, grey as the Grimm mist draping it like a shroud. Unlike Runyon's oriel windows, which throw sunlight into every gold bedecked corner, these hundreds of windows are recessed like hooded serpent eyes. How horrible it must have been to dwell there, she thinks. And how brave of Rapunzel to leave with two children.

  "Beauty, I know what you're thinking. Why would I want to leave all that?"

  "Actually, I was wondering how you manage to feed and clothe your children without the help of a husband?"

  "I get by with help from my friends." Rapunzel winks.

  "How nice for you," Beauty comments, feeling more intensely than ever her lack of even one friend.

  "I'll be your friend, Beauty." Rapunzel says brightly. "I don't have any grown-up women friends."

  Rapunzel's as different from Snow White as winter is from summer: while Snow was cold and guarded, Rapunzel is open and warm; she doesn't hide from fear, but braves the woods with a dagger in her belt. Beauty's naive hopefulness makes her feel girlishly confidential. "I too left my prince."

  Before Rapunzel can respond, a tomato whizzes by her ear and a voice bawls, "Hure!"

  "Duck!" Rapunzel warns as three more tomatoes follow in rapid succession. She bobs and weaves and yanks Beauty behind a cast iron statue. Peeking through the lion's legs, Beauty spies the culprit: a fruit vendor selling her wares under the sign of The Blue Boar. A red carnation pinned to the bodice of her black dress vibrates with rage, and her lips are a thin white line of contempt.

  A plump lad scurries with his mop and pail to clean up the mess. After buffing the stones to a gloss, he directs his efforts to the statue. As his fingers ply a cloth between the iron curls, he notices Beauty and Rapunzel hiding, and his face beams with adolescent ardor. "Hello, Liebling," Rapunzel says.

  The boy grabs the cap from his head and wiggles his ears. A large hand materializes and pinches the boy's left ear. "Ow, Mama, ow," he yelps as the fruit vendor goose-steps him down the street.

  Rapunzel sighs. "Everyone's jumpy on Walpurgisnacht. Come along, we'd better hurry."

  Darkness descends on Stromberg. Shopkeepers and haus fraus light glass-blown lamps on doorways, casting amber circles on criss-crossed timber facades, illuminating green shutters and window boxes brimming with geraniums. Storks with their long legs dangling settle awkwardly into chimney-top nests. Rapunzel guides Beauty through the narrow cobblestone streets, and as they pass, the sausage maker lowers his shade; the parson, half-way down the church steps, executes an about-face; the shoe maker hustles outside, hands a pair of red, high heeled shoes to Rapunzel and scurries back inside his shop.

  Rapunzel kicks off her cloth sandals and steps into the red shoes. She raises one foot and slowly rotates her ankle. Her admiration is cut short by the Stromberg stoop fraus who have set their dachshunds yapping at her heels. The women raise their skirts as if side-stepping cow dung, thumb their noses and yell, "Schwarz fichen, Juden liebhaber." Beauty is mystified and Rapunzel urges her onward.

  Rapunzel finally stops at the entrance to a long dark alley. "My house is there at the dead end."

  Beauty peers through the Grimm darkness. A brief glimpse tells her this is the low end of town: the cobblestones are cracked and broken, no lanterns light doorways, no flowers spill from window boxes. The houses slump with neglect. "Welcome to Storyendburg," Rapunzel says. "Here dwell the undesirable: servants, beggars, lepers, cripples, the illegitimate, people of various races and creeds, and people whose livelihoods are despised by the good citizens of Stromberg. Like my neighbors; on the right lives Helmut the hangman, and on the left is Dumkopf the gravedigger."

  Standing on the doorstep of a small stone house, Rapunzel takes a silver key from her pocket and opens the door. The scent of Sweet Cicely and the mellifluous tones of a flute accompanying an unbearably beautiful soprano voice greet Beauty as she steps inside. The interior resembles a setting from Arabian Nights. There are no walls; ceiling hooks suspending yards of fine netting that separates sleeping quarters. Silk and satin pillows glimmer like precious stones. Rugs of black cashmere, deep as desert pools, soften the stone floor. Finely carved boxes overflow with scarves, jewelry, and gold coins. Beside the glowing hearth, a girl sings over a cradle while a boy plays a flute.

  "Aren't they precious dolls?"

  At the sound of Rapunzel's voice, the boy stops playing, the girl stops singing, and an unholy squall rises from the cradle. Rapunzel dives onto a large purple pillow and the children scurry to her arms. Their hazel eyes are ringed in saffron, their hair and skin are the shade of ripe walnuts, their foreheads are high and round and their lips are like ripe raspberries. Rapunzel hugs them tightly, caresses their cheeks, and the squall increases in volume. "Scheherazade, fetch me the changeling," Rapunzel sighs heavily.

  Beauty is aghast as the girl lifts an infant boy from the cradle: his head is twice normal size, convex black eyes cover half the face, and his skin has a greenish cast. Rapunzel bears her breast, and the infant latches onto her rosy nipple.

  "Princess
Beauty, meet my twins, Omar and Scheherazade, born twelve years ago in a desert far, far away."

  The twin's bow their heads in greeting, and the baby's stomach gurgles obscenely. Rapunzel switches him to her other breast. "This child is a changeling. I have to hunt down the elves who switched him for my baby Kurt," she murmurs and closes her eyes.

  Unaccustomed to family intimacy, Beauty modestly concentrates on the grapes and almonds Omar has fetched. She eats slowly, forming the questions she'll ask when she has finished eating: Was she in the forest when the elves stole her baby? Why did she leave her prince? How did she get to a desert and back again?

  When Beauty finally lifts her head, Rapunzel is asleep, as are the twins, wrapped in her golden locks. The wide-awake changeling stares at Beauty's cleavage and licks his lips.

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  Desert Serenade

  Elora the Enchantress reposes on a white aspen bench in the Deco sauna, her alabaster body glistening. Croesus mouths a sponge from a nearby bowl and squeezes it over a bed of black granite stones. The rocks sizzle and emit a cloud of steam. He slinks to Elora's side and lays his wet jowls on her stomach.

  "Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you the rest of Rapunzel’s tale if you'll kindly remove your slobber."

  Croesus snarks with satisfaction and flops to the floor.

  "One day, while riding through the Grimm forest, Prince Johann heard Rapunzel's loony warbling. He was captivated and followed the song to Gothel's tower. He searched round and round, but couldn't find a door because there wasn't one, so he rode home. However, the prince couldn't get the song out of his head. He returned every day for a week, hiding in the bushes, listening and watching the window."