Read Online Belle: A Retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” By Cameron Dokey by Unknown - Free Book Online Page B

of the Wood,” I said into the charged
    silence that followed my sister’s words. There was no home to go back to, even if we could. After all that happened, who was to say where we belonged?
    “I only asked Grand-père Alphonse if he knew where it was.”
    “I do not,” Grand-père Alphonse said simply. He twisted in his saddle to look
    back at Celeste. “And I think that we are safe enough, Celeste. No road leads to the heart of the Wood, as far as I know. It is a place that gives up its secrets only when it chooses.
    That’s what I’ve heard said, anyhow.”
    “Well, I, for one, hope it keep them to itself,” remarked my mother as Grand-père Alphonse faced forward again. “Things are bad enough without monsters popping up to frighten us.”
    As if the Wood understood her words, a sudden wind swept through the trees,
    followed by an absolute stillness, which even momentarily muffled the sounds of our horses’ hooves.
    “I think,” my father said carefully, “that we have had quite enough talk of
    monsters.”
    We rode in silence for a while. I kept my eyes trained on the path, each one of my sense heightened.
    “There is another tale of the Wood that I could tell you, if you like,” Grand-père Alphonse offered, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen upon us all. “One that I think will appeal to you especially, Belle.”
    Celeste gave an unladylike snort. “In that case, it must be about a piece of wood.”
    I swiveled in my saddle to stick out my tongue.
    “As a matter of fact, you’re right,” Grand-père Alphonse answered with a
    chuckle. “But there’s something for you, too, Celeste, for it’s also a tale of love.”
    “That would make it for April, then,” Celeste contradicted.
    “That will do, Celeste,” my mother interjected. “What is this tale that you would tell us, Alphonse?”
    “It is the story of the Heartwood Tree. Do you not know it?”
    “I do not,” replied Maman .
    “Well, I will tell it to you,” Grand-père Alphonse said. And this is the tale that he told us as we rode.

CHAPTER TEN
    “Once upon a time there lived a young husband and wife. Though they had been married less than a year’s time, it seemed they had known each other forever, for they had been childhood sweethearts and loved each other almost all of their lives.
    “The couple often took walks beside a glistening lake, and when they paused to
    look at their reflections in the water, even as their eyes beheld two individual people, they felt they were seeing just one being, so closely were their two hearts joined.”
    “So this is a tale of true love, then,” April spoke for the first time.
    “It is,” Grand-père Alphonse agreed, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “And so I
    would like to tell you this couple lived happily ever after. That they lived long and prosperous lives together. But they did not.
    “Not long after their wedding, the wife became sick with an illness that had no
    cure. She grew very frail and died in her husband’s arms. His grief was so intense that it caused others pain to behold it, for there is something truly terrible about a love that is snatched away too soon.”
    Grand-père Alphonse paused to take a breath, and in the silence I could almost
    hear Dominic Boudreaux’s name whispered through the treetops. Had he met a watery grave? I yanked myself back to the present at the sound of Grand-père Alphonse’s voice.
    “The young widower chose his wife’s gravesite with great care,” Grand-père
    Alphonse continued. “He buried her beside the lake where they had so loved to walk.
    And over her heart, he planted her favorite tree: a pink-blossomed dogwood.
    “When this was done, the young man sat down upon the grave that now contained
    all he held dear, and wept for eight full days and seven full nights until his heart was empty and his eyes were dry.
    “And then the young man put his head down on the earth, just as he had once set
    it on the pillow