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Finding the concealed entrance to the secret tower was as easy as sneaking into the Dark Palace undetected. Subtlety was never Regina’s strong suit. Covered with a dark cloak, the stranger walked up the spiral staircase leading to the cell at the top of the tower. Along the way, he encountered a guard on the stairs, among them Claude, who was charged to protect this cellblock door.
‘Halt,’ said the Guard, stopping him from going any further.
‘Food for the prisoner,’ said the stranger, holding up a pail with some food.
‘It’s not mealtime,’ said Claude. ‘Who are you?! Identify yourself, slave!’
Another guard appeared behind him on the stairs. But the stranger simply passed his hand over their faces and they collapsed on the stairs fast asleep.
‘Slave?’ said Rumple, staring down at the Queen’s guards in their magic slumber. ‘I prefer Beast.’
He tossed away the pail of food over the bannister, having no further need of his prop, and stole the keys from the sleeping Claude’s belt. In the old days he would have slit their throats or turned them into snails and introduced them to the underside of his boot. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Something had changed in him. Or perhaps something he had thought long since lost had come back to him.
He continued his way upwards.
At the top of the stairs there was a door. Rumple fitted the key into the lock and turned. His heart was racing. He longed to know what lay behind this door and yet was terrified of what he might find. Do the brave thing and bravery will follow. Rumple pushed open the door and entered the cell.
A small figure sat on the bed in chains, their head bowed. By the short blue dress they wore, the occupant was definitely female. And by the tally marks etched on to the wall around her, she had been here for a long time. Too long. Her being here was wrong. For a single day, an hour, let alone the uncountable lines on the wall. But he had to be sure.
If Regina was lying he could make this right. If he was mistaken and proved to be a desperate fool clutching at straws, he could move on… or at least learn to live with the pain.
The prisoner raised her head and Rumple was suddenly immobilized, frozen in the beam of a pair of blue eyes that pierced his soul.
Belle…
Her skin was paler than usual from lack of sunlight, but she was still so beautiful. She had tensed up when she saw him enter, though with his face concealed beneath his hood she didn’t know it was him… yet. Belle sat up a little straighter, trying to regain her composure and stared defiantly back at him, refusing to show fear. Always so brave.
‘The Queen sent you, didn’t she?’ asked Belle calmly.
Rumple didn’t answer.
‘She wants you to kill me.’
Still Rumple didn’t respond. Why couldn’t he get his damn tongue to work?
‘I’m sorry, is my punishment still coming or is it the silent staring? Because the suspense is killing me.’
Rumple swallowed. ‘I’m not here to kill you,’ he said softly. ‘I’m here to rescue you.’
Belle looked surprised and confused. ‘Rescue me? Who are you?’
Rumple waved his hand and her shackles magically unlocked and slid with a clink to the floor at her feet. Belle’s senses heightened and her suspicion as to the identity of her saviour deepened. She appraised him, but couldn’t make him out as he face was shrouded in shadows.
‘Come into the light.’
Slowly, Rumple lowered his hood and stepped into the light, revealing who he was. Belle watched, her eyes growing wider and wider as the light travelled up his body, revealing high laced boots, black dragon hide leathers, the V shaped area of exposed golden skin of his bare chest, his curly hair and the face she had dreamed of for so long, with wide reptilian gazing back at her.
‘Rumple…’ she breathed. ‘What’re you…? How did you know I was here?’
‘Regina…’ said Rumple hoarsely. He cleared his throat nervously. ‘She… she told me of your tragedy.
Belle frowned. ‘What tragedy?’
Rumple twisted his hands together nervously, pacing back and forth in patch of light in the middle of the room. Regina’s lie had been terrible to hear, but would the truth of what really happened be worse?
‘That you returned home to find yourself without a fiancé. That after your stay with me… your “association” with me – your family, your friends, everyone that claimed to love you, had shunned you. That your father had disowned you before confining you to a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse you of my evil with… scourges and flaying…’
Rumple stopped in the middle of the shaft of light and finally met her gaze.
‘…until you were driven to suicide… by throwing yourself off the tower… You died.’
Belle was shocked and sickened by what she had heard.
‘She lied,’ said Belle unnecessarily.
Rumple nodded. ‘Clearly. Perhaps you can enlighten me to the true sequence of events since… since last we spoke.’
Belle looked down at the floor, massaging her raw wrists where the shackles had rubbed against them.
‘I never went home to Avonlea,’ she confessed. ‘I ended up at a dwarf tavern. There were some Avonleans from court at a nearby table. They didn’t see me but I heard them talking about me. They were the never the nicest of people to grace my father’s court, but they… said things I didn’t care for.’
Rumple drew a little closer. What horrible things had those vicious vipers been spreading about Belle?
‘What did they say?’
Belle lifted her eyes to Rumple. ‘They reviled me – the Queen got that bit right, at least. They heard I had left the Dark Castle and they thought you would renege on your end of the deal and the ogres would come back. I knew you wouldn’t, you never break or go back on a deal, but I knew I couldn’t convince them of that.’
Belle tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her pale cheek glowing slightly pink as she continued.
‘Rumours had started to spread that you had taken advantage of me and kicked me out once you had got what you wanted from me. The more lewd rumours were that I had displeased you in some way as a… whore, and you wanted someone better. Then they accused me of being enchanted, that you had bewitched me into thinking I was in love with you. It all became too much for me, I couldn’t listen to it anymore. I knew I could never go home. If the women at court believed I was ruined, my father certainly would. And if I told him I’d fallen in love with you… I think I really would have sent me to the clerics.’
Rumple closed his eyes in shame. He had made her an outsider, an outcast. Instead of Belle returning home as the hero who had sacrificed herself to save her village, she would have returned as the Whore of Babylon.
‘I’m so sorry, Belle,’ he said regretfully.
Belle saw he looked more upset about it than she had been.
‘It wasn’t all bad,’ Belle offered, hoping it would help.
‘It wasn’t?’ Rumple asked, opening his eyes again.
‘I really did have some nice adventures. I helped a dwarf find his true love, and I helped a female soldier from the east defend her village from a beast, but it actually turned out to be a man under a curse – I seem to be finding them everywhere.’
Rumple smiled weakly. ‘I heard tell of a beast ravaging a faraway kingdom. Its eyes burned like fire. That was you?’
Belle nodded proudly. ‘It was really a Prince, cursed by Maleficent and banished to another land to keep him from his true love. The villager’s didn’t understand who he really was.’
‘Except you.’
‘There are many men more monstrous then any beasts I’ve encountered. After I defeated the yaoguai, that’s when I knew it was time.’
‘For what?’ asked Rumple.
‘To go home.’
‘But I thought you said you never returned to Avonlea?’
Belle smiled. ‘I didn’t…’
Then Rumple realised she was referring to the Dark Castle. She considered his castle her home. She had been coming back to him. He could think of nothing to say except, ‘Oh…’
‘Rumple, I know what we said and what we did that day was… well, not our finest hour,’ said Belle lamely.
Rumple grimaced in agreement.
‘I wanted to come back the moment I left, I was just… afraid you wouldn’t want to see me. I always tell myself, do the brave thing and bravery will follow. I’ve survived an ogre attack, the Queens of Darkness, even the Dark One… and yet I wasn’t brave enough to fight for my heart. For the man I love. But saving Prince Phillip made me think I could save you too. When you find something that’s worth fighting for, you never give up. I would’ve been back at the castle by morning, but…’
‘Regina met you on the road…’
Belle nodded sadly. ‘She locked me away. She said she was sparing me a lifetime of pain and misery. She hid me from the world. Told you that horrible story so that you wouldn’t come looking for me and hoped I’d think you had forsaken me. She interrogated me for weeks.’
‘Interrogated?’
Belle didn’t elaborate but remained silent.
‘What did she want?’
Belle sighed. ‘Information. About you... your weaknesses… to help bring you down.’
‘Did she get it?’ said Rumple softly.
Belle shook her head. ‘Regina got nothing from me.’
Rumple chuckled for a moment, and then sighed in amazement at Belle’s strength. He walked across the cell, kneeled before Belle and grasped her hand.
‘I’m grateful,’ he told her, looking touched by her loyalty even after everything that had happened between them and ashamed that Belle should have been subjected to such treatment. ‘Did she hurt you?’
‘No…’ said Belle untruthfully.
‘Belle…’ Rumple pressed her. ‘I know the Evil Queen’s cruelty and I gave her the tools to inflict it. What did she do to you?’
Belle hesitated and then said, ‘…scourges and flaying. Whenever she wanted to interrogate me, take out her anger, or if she was bored. She would always heal them afterwards… so she can have a fresh slate for next time.’
Rumple started to cry. He couldn’t help it. Horrible images of Belle hanging from the ceiling, her back shredded and mutilated, dripping blood onto the floor flashed across his mind. Belle didn’t deserve this.
‘Belle, I’m so sorry,’ he wept. ‘I shouldn’t have told you to leave; I should’ve protected you better. Please forgive me.’
His voice broke on a sob, he bowed his head and his body shook against hers with the force of his despair. Belle reached out a hand and stroked his curly hair, trying to provide him with some comfort. She felt him shudder under her touch. She cupped his face and gently lifted it to make him look at her.
‘How can you bear to touch me, to comfort me? I did this. All of your suffering is because of me.’
Rumple’s scales glistened with tears and Belle’s heart lurched at the level of anguish on his face. She wiped at his cheeks with her thumbs.
‘I love you,’ Belle explained. ‘You don’t need to ask for my forgiveness because you’ve already earned it. You came back for me. I know you’re sorry and would fix it if you could. Do you love me?’
Rumple nodded, tears leaking afresh from his eyes. ‘I love you, Belle. I love you more than any person I’ve ever known.’
Belle smiled and kissed his tears away, feeling Rumple leaning in, chasing her tender kisses, even though he knew he didn’t deserve them. ‘And that’s enough.’
‘Belle, do you… when we get out of here… do you want to come home with me?’ Rumple asked nervously.
Belle watched him silently for a moment, but then her face broke into a big smile. ‘Yes,’ she breathed, reaching out to hug him.
Rumple hugged her back. ‘I’ll never let you go again,’ he promised, burying his face in the crook of her neck, his nose filled with the smell of her hair.
‘Me neither,’ Belle vowed. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I’m afraid no one’s going anywhere,’ said a regal voice.
The Evil Queen had arrived, dressed in a long blue dress. Rumple and Belle jumped to their feet.
‘Come to rescue your princess from the tower? Or are you a dragon here to reclaim your treasure?’
‘You need better guards, Regina,’ said Rumple. ‘It’s no wonder you keep losing your prisoners when they’re sleeping on the job.’
Regina smiled. ‘So, you saw through my cunning plan.’
‘There’s nothing you love better than the misery of others.’
‘What gave me away, Rumple?’
‘Quite simple, dearie,’ said Rumple quietly, his fingers twitching at his side, itching to unleash all manner of horrific things upon the Evil Queen, even if it would cost him the casting of his Dark Curse. ‘You see, the bit of the story I didn’t believe was true, was the bit where you started talking… up until the point when you just stopped talking. Only lies have detail.’
‘You would know,’ said Regina.
‘Which reminds me…’ Rumple’s face darkened and he snarled, ‘“Scourges and flaying”?’
Regina pouted her lips. ‘Aw, did you tell on me to daddy, Belle?’ She laughed nastily, the sound echoing off the stone walls. ‘Oh come on, Rumple, it’s not as if you’ve never tortured anyone. Like a certain thief who broke in to your castle to steal from you. You were all set on making an example of him before your little maid collared you.’
‘I didn’t collar him,’ said Belle angrily. ‘He changed him mind, as soon as he realised the thief was just a father trying to save his wife and child.’
‘The Dark One with a heart! What a novel thought!’
‘Indeed, because everyone in the kingdom knows their queen doesn’t have one,’ said Rumple.
‘Oh I’m not wholly without heart. I wiped her bloody back clean for you. Check if you like. No scars.’
‘That can be seen. You and I both know that the deepest scars are invisible. And for what you’ve done,’ Rumple conjured a flaming fireball in his hand, ‘I’m about to add another, then Snow White will truly be the fairest of them all; beauty and soul.’
‘No, Rumple, don’t,’ Belle begged him, taking hold of his free arm. ‘Please.’
‘Listen to her, Rumple,’ Regina advised mockingly. ‘You don’t want her to see who you really are, do you?’
The fireball grew bigger as though Rumple’s rage was fueling it like gasoline.
‘Rumple,’ Belle whispered. Rumple looked at her. ‘You don’t need to seek revenge. We’re together now. And Regina has no one. That’s punishment enough.’
Rumple stared into her pleading eyes. He wasn’t even aware of the fireball diminishing as his anger abated. Then after a moment, it flickered and was extinguished.
‘Not having someone? That’s the worst fate imaginable. And Regina never will have anyone if she keeps playing the villain –’
‘Is that what you think I am?!’ said Regina angrily. ‘There’s two sides to every story, bookworm, and my side has not been told! You realise you’re in the love with the biggest villain of them all?’
‘There’s good in him. I’ve seen it, I’ve always seen it. And if you possessed even an ounce of it, you’d choose the right side… the side of good.’
‘Have you ever considered that maybe, perhaps... I am good? I was always the Queen. It was Snow White who added “Evil” to my name.’
‘Good doesn’t do what you do,’ Belle told her. ‘And if you think it is… you’ve fallen quite a way, Your Majesty. Not content to ruining your own life, you’re determined to ruin everyone else’s.’
Regina glared at her. ‘I have not ruined my life. I’m reclaiming it. If Snow White had kept my secret, none of this would have –’
‘Don’t demean yourself by trying to justify your venom! No one forced you to make those decisions. You don’t make bad choices; you identify the good choice and then intentionally do the opposite. So you wrapped yourself up in this delusion of “victim” to excuse your actions. You’re so blinded by your hatred and need for revenge that you can’t even see that you’re not Regina anymore. Queen Regina is now the Evil Queen. And you’re so invested in this neurotic, narcissistic notion of yourself as “victim” that you can’t quit. And you know what? Someday you’re going to wind up all alone and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.’
Rumple really thought Regina was going to explode. Then, with a noise of contempt, she opened the cell door. ‘Go. I was getting bored of you anyway.’
Rumple wrapped his cloak around Belle.
‘You disappoint me, Rumple. Back in the day you wouldn’t have hesitated to kill a queen. You’ve gone soft. I told you love is weakness. It’ll break you.’
‘We’re all broken, Regina,’ said Rumple. ‘That’s how the light gets in. But you’ve chosen to scar over your cracks.’
He flashed her a scorching look.
‘You come near her again,’ Rumple warned her, ‘I promise you, there will be suffering.’
‘Finally something we both can agree on. Do enjoy yourselves, won’t you? While you can. I still have that curse. I will cast it, and then just like that –’ she snapped her fingers, ‘– it’ll all be gone.’
‘Well, I’ll comfort myself knowing you’ll be just as miserable as the rest of us. The curse may get you your revenge, but despite what you think, it won’t make you happy. It’s only going to leave a hole in your heart. And someday you will come to me to fill it.’
‘You underestimate your powers of foresight.’
‘And you underestimate the price of your victory!’ Rumple voice became sing-songy, ‘You shall see, you will come to me, there is more you need, oh!’
Rumple turned to Belle.
‘Ready to go home, then?”
Belle nodded and, instead of using the cell door, Rumple teleported them back to the Dark Castle, leaving rattled Evil Queen behind in the tower.
He hadn’t closed the curtains; bright sunlight flooded the great hall, making his newly restored collection sparkle, including the tea tray set for two on the long dining table.
‘What did Regina mean?’ Belle asked the moment the smoke had dissipated, hardly allowing herself to be happy to be back at the castle again. ‘What was she talking about a curse?’
Rumple knew it was too much to hope that Belle would let it slide. But she had the right to know. Especially as he was going to have to alter his plans to accommodate Belle to ensure she had a good and comfortable life in this new land.
‘A curse that will rip everyone from this land and take us to a Land Without Magic, separate them from our love ones and give us fake memories to make us forget who we are and who we love, while the Evil Queen celebrates, victorious at last. No more happy endings.’
‘But we’re going to stop her? We’re not actually going to let her win. This curse doesn’t need to be cast.’
‘Of course it does, otherwise how will it be broken?’
‘Wait. I’m confused. You want Regina to cast this curse, just so it can be broken?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Rumple sighed. ‘The same reason I can’t let you break my curse, Belle. I need it to find my son.’
‘But I thought you said…’ Then Belle remembered the exact words Rumple had used when he had told her he’d had a wife and son. ‘You said “lost”, not dead. You need this curse cast so that you can find him. Why not just cast it yourself or find some other way of crossing realms?’
‘Because to cast this curse I would have to sacrifice a heart… the Heart of the Thing I Love Most. And because it’s not supposed to be me who casts it, nor am I the one who breaks it. And I have searched for other ways. I devoted my life longer than you can possibly imagine to find a way – any way – to be reunited with my son: realm jumpers, time turners, a mage, magic beans, silver slippers – all of which have eluded or failed me. Only casting the Dark Curse will take me to land where he escaped. I’ve seen it. And if I do anything to change the picture, I’ll never find him. He’s been lost for so long, Belle… I just want my boy back.’
‘Oh Rumple…’
Rumple led Belle over to his spinning wheel and they sat down on the bench, his hand coming to rest on her thigh. ‘I owe you a story… I’m not quite sure where to begin.’
Belle smiled and squeezed his hand. ‘What’s your son’s name?’
Rumple smiled. ‘Baelfire. His name is Baelfire…’