Sacrifice

A sharp cold wind blew outside the house and Belle curled even deeper into her blanket. The house she lived in had too many cracks beyond repair causing an unpleasant draft. She could manage, she would say to herself, and would try to forget by delving into another book and its characters' bravery and lands of warm sunshine. But winter was coming, she was sure of it. It was one thing to pass the time in autumn but as the leaves quickly fell from the trees and the wind became colder. Her books could not save her from the cold. Her fingers could not always turn the page as she found her hands becoming numb. Still, she told herself, this was better than nothing.

It had been about six months since the day the spell failed and her beloved Beast had died. Her Beast had succumbed to the wounds that the hunter Gaston had gave him before he plunged to his death. She had tried to get to him as quickly as she could and wanted so desperately to save him, but she was too late. He passed, still in his beast form, never again to know of his humanity that Belle had worked so hard to bring about.

Tears. Days turned into weeks turned into months of tears. Belle's beloved would never be with her again and she could never go back to the enchanted castle either. The witch's spell made sure of that. When the master died, so did everyone else; they all became the inanimate objects they had come to represent. Belle also cried for her failure to help her friends be human again and left the castle when faced with a deafening silence of her lateness.

But loss was not done with her. Maurice, her father, died as well in the insane asylum he was unjustly incarcerated in. Belle, too, had tried to get to him in time but could not be allowed in.

Now she sat in the living room in the house she and her father once shared. Belle had tried to carry on by herself but it was a task too great even for her brilliant mind. She could not fix the house with its many leaks and cracks in the walls, she could not chop her own wood for fire, and she could not go out to the market and buy her own food. Belle was often seen outside in the forest foraging for whatever she could find, further deepening her status as an outcast in the town.

"First she went with that Beast and now she's scrounging for food," she overheard someone say. "She should be locked up with her father too!"

Belle for the first time in a while was alone, so completely alone. She wished for the darkness of night, at least then she could look forward to her dreams wherein she dreamt of her perfect life. Her Beast, now human, was still alive and so was her father and they lived happily ever after in the castle.

Belle shivered. She settled more so in her chair and blanket and closed her eyes, imagining another time, a simpler time. She saw herself back at the castle in front of the roaring fire, a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and her favorite book in the other. She then heard a knock and saw her beloved Beast enter the room, his height and mass all encompassing but with an air of gentility Belle had never known from a man.

But the knock sounded again and forced Belle back into reality. There really was someone at her door, but who? Who would want to bother her when she could endure others' slights and hushed insults when she walked into town?

"Who is there?" she asked, not rising from her seat.

"Gaston," a powerful male voice said from beyond the door.

Belle's heart sank. No, it couldn't be him, she said to herself. The Gaston she knew of died many months ago from a fall. How could he be here to bother her?

Belle then got up and used her father's contraption to see outside the door. There Gaston was. His long black hair, his blue eyes, and his arrogant grin, there was no mistaking it. Belle opened the door silently and allowed Gaston to step inside. He was not as tall as her Beast but he filled the room with his machismo and male ego. Although she believed Gaston to be dead and slightly happy to see that he was unharmed, he still made her sick to her stomach.

"What are you doing here, Gaston?" she asked.

"Here, I come," he began, his eyes looking over the house and shook his head at the state of decay. "Here I come back into the village and I find this, the most beautiful woman in all the land wearing rags and living in a hutch—"

"It's not a hutch, Gaston" Belle interjected, insulted.

"What happened to you, Belle," he asked, his tone softening and he looked at her. Her beauty was still there, that would never go away, he was sure of that, but she had none of the fire that he had previously known. A beaten woman was standing in front of him.

Belle refused to answer and walked over to the door and began to open it. "I want you to leave," she said.

"Not before I tell you why I'm here," he said. "I've come to ask you to marry me."

Belle's eyes grew wide in shock. Even after he fell off a cliff, his persistence knew no bounds. She closed the door and looked back at him. "What?" she breathed.

"Marry me," he said again, his confidence rising.

"Why? You could have anyone else in the town, why me? You heard what everyone else has been saying about me. I have nothing to offer you."

"No, but I have everything to offer you," Gaston then humbled himself and got down on his knees. Now Belle was even more frightened. She had never seen this side of him before. "I can give you so much more than all of this. I have warmth, all the food you could ask for, and so much more. I want you to be my wife."

Belle grew silent and on the tip of her tongue was refusal.

"What have you here?" Gaston continued." A cold and broken house, no food….And for what? So you can die here, too?"

"What do you know about it, Gaston?"

"I know that you're punishing yourself, I know that much."

Gaston stepped closer and Belle backed away. He kept moving forward until he had her pinned up against the door. "I have you cornered, Belle" he whispered into her ear. "Anything else you want to put up in my way, is only delaying what is to come. "

"I'm not like you," Belle said, shying away.

"I don't care."

"What of your reputation?"

"Yours would improve."

"I don't know how to be a wife—"

Gaston grinned. "I'll teach you how…"

"I don't love you-"

"Who said marriage has to be for love?" Gaston sighed, trying to gather his patience. "God, woman, I am offering you a warm place to stay in exchange to come with me. Why is that such a bad idea? What are you really afraid of? Neither your father nor your precious beast is going to return to you. I'm all you have left. It's either this, or death."

Belle choked back a tear. Gaston, for all of his boorishness, could see the obvious. His words left her heart heavy and as she replayed them it sounded more like the truth each time. Her pride wanted her to kick him out and carry on into the sunset with nothing but her gumption. She could move away and try again, far, far, away where no one knew her. Yes, she could start a new life out there and live her days in sunshine….

But where would the money come from? Her books instilled in her independence but she was under the shackles of reality. Unless she was extremely wealthy, Belle could not do it on her own. Belle could not even own a house much less build one under the conditions of her sex. She had to resign herself to the fact that without a man, she would descend into nothing.

A man, not this man.

What other choice did she have? After Gaston, there would be no one else. None of the other men looked at her quite the same after she returned from the Beast. They all assumed that she had consummated the relationship with him and she drew both the ire and disgust of the men around her. Those who turned away from were peppered by a few who filled in with minute detail of how exactly a human woman could lie with a beast.

Hunger, pain, ridicule eventual death, and freedom were on the side of her pride and as she weighed the options again in her mind, it all didn't seem worth it anymore. She would die one way or another but what did she have to really keep?

Belle swallowed hard as a single tear rolled down her cheek. "….yes….."

Gaston smirked and put his hand up to his ear. "Yes, what?"

More tears fell. "Yes….I will marry you…"

Gaston turned away in triumph. "I'll be back for you in the morning. The wedding will be tomorrow," he told her before he left. He could hear her sobbing on the other side of the door. No matter, he said to himself. Gaston swore that Belle would one day come to him on her own and that one day she would enjoy what was to come. Gaston could feel all his blood rush down to the one place he wanted her the most. He soothed it with one large hand.

"Soon…"