As Old As Time

by Liz Braswell

But this man—he just wants to kill and stuff everything. He doesn’t need the meat.”

She never found words hard; her

Now she found that pulling them from her heart—and not her mind—felt like dragging something jagged and reluctant out of a well.

The roses and sunlight and her mother were all mixed in together, like they were all part of the same thing, and one couldn’t exist without the other two.

“Books can tell you almost everything that mankind knows. Or imagines,” she added after a moment.

Reading books let me realize there was a world beyond the river, beyond the people who made fun of me and my father. There were scientists, and writers, and explorers, and all sorts of fascinating people out there…somewhere…leading interesting lives… “You had a magic mirror that let you see life outside your tiny world. Your castle. I had books.

Can an eleven-year-old even truly understand the concept of that kind of love?

This was a child “with no love in his heart”?

“Potts. Alaric Potts.” “Like…Mrs. Potts?” “Yes. That’s his wife. Or…widow.”

“Cursing a spoiled eleven-year-old prince is one thing!” Belle groaned. “I mean, it’s terrible. But what did these people do to deserve their fate?”

She tried not to smile nor imagine what furniture could do behind closed doors. She would never look at a writing desk the same way again.

“I never thought of most of the servants as anything other than…things. Things that made my life easier. That’s why she did this to me.”

“Unless you’re too drunk to do it without hurting yourself,”

“I don’t want to be a good little wife. I want adventure. I want…to be the hero in the story. But everyone else just wants me to…get married, obey my husband, have seven or eight kids, wash his socks…YOUR SOCKS ARE DISGUSTING, GASTON!”

“They gave everything!”

Never forget he’s still a beast, she told herself sadly.

“Magic always comes back on itself,”

“Every curse, every charm, every little bit of kitchen magic, comes from somewhere and doesn’t go…away when it’s finished. There’s always a price to pay—and it usually involves the one who cast the spell.”

“King…or…queen?” “Yes, it took both of them, poor things,”

“Left the master an orphan at age ten.”

Life is a strange mixture of all of these genres, she mused, and it doesn’t have nearly as neat and happy an ending as you often get in books.

What if, since her mother was the one who cast the spell, Belle was the only one who could break it?

Magic always comes in threes.”

did…applying the actions of one to a whole people.

Everyone is different. Each person has his or her own soul and is master of his or her own destiny.”

Everyone should have a journey—and everyone should also have a home, too. Go out into the world for adventure, come home for love.”