As Old As Time

by Liz Braswell

None of them thought she was good enough for Gaston, the town’s favorite son…the most handsome boy, with the bluest eyes and best physique, the best shot with a gun… No one ever asked if he was good enough for her.

Plus he felt he could fix her. Make her normal. His overwhelming masculinity and presence would exorcise her desire to read and think and be alone.

As soon as she opened a book, this little town disappeared into a vast map of countries both real and imagined.

Belle wanted more. She wanted to see more. She wanted to travel to the lands she had read about, where people ate with delicate sticks, not forks. At the very least, she wanted to be carried there in her imagination.

The truth was…reading wasn’t enough anymore. It wasn’t enough to catch a glimpse of these lands and ideas through the small window of the pages she turned. She wanted to step through and feel the yellow waters of the Yangtze herself, to hear the celestial music of foreign pipes, to taste the foods described by adventurers who traveled purposefully into the areas on maps labeled Here there be tygres.

I myself am going to the New World. I think they’re mostly done with their witch trials there. And Providence is supposed to be a city of great religious freedom.”

“You can’t have adventures without risk. You can’t have great things if you constantly fear loss.

Belle shook her head. She had read about this. The victims of kidnapping often wound up sympathizing with the perpetrator. It was a sickness, a very scientifically predictable one.

I had books. Reading them is like traveling to other places. Being other people. Living other lives. It made life far less…sad and lonely for me.”

Not all beasts look like beasts.

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