Ma Belle, Sa Bête

by Luc Reid

When I woke the next morning, sunlight was stretching up the coverlet toward where I lay with ma belle. Only yesterday evening had she first said she loved me. Then she nearly dragged me into the bedroom, where she did a good job of proving it. In the end, it didn’t matter to her that I was covered with coarse hair, that I had the face of some indescribable forest beast.

As I drowsed there, contented, I caught a glimpse of my own bare arm. My bare arm. The curse had been lifted! I was transformed! And ma belle really did love me!

“Cherie!” I whispered, “Ma belle, ma petite chou! Wake up! Look!”

She stretched and languidly opened her eyes, the tips of her eyelashes catching a ray of sunlight, her hair pooling around her face like liquid gold. Then she blinked. Then she sat up, pulling the coverlet around her.

“Who are you?” she shouted, terrified. “Ma bête! Aides-moi!”

“Ma belle, it’s me!” I crowed. “Human again! Your love has broken the curse!”

She stared at me for a long time. I pushed the bedclothes away. She studied me closely, her gaze pausing here and there.

Finally she said, “You’re a little short.”

A miracle, and her first response is that I’m short? “You can’t expect me to be the same size I was as a beast,” I mumbled. “Anyway, I’m nearly as tall as you are.” Because ma belle is tall; there’s no getting around that. But at least I was human!

“Well, this is wonderful,” she said weakly. “Now I can return to my family, I guess.”

“What? No … no! You should marry me … come back to my kingdom …”

She gave a sad kind of half-smile, and the thing I’d begun to fear was clearly shown in her face: her love for me was gone; all that was left was pity.

She didn’t have to say a word to confirm it. I could feel my face stretching into a muzzle, the coarse hair growing out of my skin again. Her eyes opened wide, watching in amazement as I transformed. When I was done, there were tears in her eyes.

“Ma bête!” she gasped, and her eyes were filled with love again. She’d probably make me human again by lunchtime–and if I was lucky, again by midnight. I smiled a slow, feral smile … and pounced.

ecidyruE

by Rudi Dornemann

In the way of all archetypal stories, Orpheus didn’t make his trip to the underworld and back just once. As each generation retold and reinvented his story, he relived it, and he never learned: he always looked.

Sisyphus probably didn’t notice anything when his repeated predicament repeated. But Orpheus couldn’t stop himself from hoping any more than he could stop himself from looking.

One day, while amusing his future bride by making boulders jig in time to his lyre, he found himself increasingly depressed with everything that was waiting to happen. He thought he’d visit Daedalus. It was an age of invention, and maybe the spirit of the age even moved in the old tales. He told Eurydice he’d be right back and left her and the stones humming his last tune.

The inventor’s single word suggestion: “Mirrorshades.”

“That’s hardly my style,” said Orpheus. “And how will that help?”

“The underworld isn’t well lit. No one will notice,” said Daedalus. “The trick is to turn one lens backwards. She’ll be in the edge of your vision all the time, no need to turn back yourself, so, technically, you won’t be breaking the rules.”

“Perfect,” said Orpheus.

“I’ve made a sketch,” said Daedalus. “I’ll have the boy build you a pair while I flameproof these wings.”

What Orpheus didn’t realize until he pulled out the glasses at the foot of the stairs out of the underworld was that Icarus never did anything except to excess. Both lenses were mirrored on the inside.

He put them on and played. He’d climbed the stairs so many times that his feet knew the path by feel. The peripheral glimpse-image was enough for him, he kept his eyes steadily ahead, and he made it all the way to the top.

He took off the glasses, expecting sunlight, but saw he hadn’t left the shadowland. Hades and Persephone shook their heads. Eurydice was gone.

“Looking forward is the only way to leave here,” said the king of the dead.

“She’s always behind you now,” said Persephone.