Enchantress

My story has been told so many times, but the only part you hear is how I turned a prince into a beast and a beautiful young bookworm saved him from a lifetime of damnation. I must be a horrible person for trying to teach that pompous, arrogant jackass a lesson. The truth is far more complicated than the story tells and begins way before I turned the prince into a beast. 

I was not born this beautiful. My deformities were ghastly. My face was distorted; eyes not evenly placed and far too big, nose completely misshapen, and my upper lip was cleft. My body was dwarfed. My parents hid me away from the world out of shame. I was what my mother called her lifelong curse. Her distaste for me fueled my anger and resentment for beautiful people. 

On my eighth birthday I was visited by a beautiful woman, who magically appeared in my tower. Enraged by her beauty, I ordered her to leave me at once. Then she spoke the words I had never heard before and will never forget, “Do not judge me by my outer appearance, for true beauty is found within. For what you see before you is inner beauty. I am as ugly on the outside as you.”

I scoffed in disbelief at the beautiful woman. But her beautiful appearance melted away to reveal an ugly old hag with an overextended warty nose and only small patches of hair on her head. She was hunchbacked and decrepit. My eyes widened and my mouth fell open. “Who are you?”

“I am here to save you from this tower. You are a very special little girl with a gift you do not know of. I assure you my intentions are pure. Let me save you, my child. As you are born of my magic.” My shock at the words spoken by the enchanted woman were quite apparent enough to make the woman laugh. “Come my child, come.”

I followed the woman through a magical door and appeared in a beautiful rose garden. “Where are we?” I asked my new and only friend. 

“We are in the Rosewood Castle gardens,” she told me. “Here you will learn to let go of all your anger and hatred that fills your heart. If you want to be as beautiful on the outside, you must learn to be beautiful on the inside.”

“What do I call you Miss?” I had yet to catch the woman’s name. 

“Isabelle, my name is Isabelle,” she dropped her head as if ashamed of her name. Her name was as beautiful as she was. “I am an enchantress, just as you are.” 

Again, she shocked me, “Enchantress? Me? But how am I an Enchantress?” I found it so hard to believe that this was possible. I wanted so desperately to be as beautiful as she was. 

“I told you; you were born of my magic. Your mother came to me when she could not conceive a child. So, I gave her you as a gift with her word that she would give you all the love and kindness that you deserved. I watched from a distance and saw the way she mistreated you and locked you away. This broke our agreement. I tried to see if time could change her heart, but as it did not, and so I have claimed you back as mine. You are my child. Your magic stems from mine.” This truth rang in my ears. So, the horrid woman who had locked me away was not my mother. The relief washed over me, lifting a weight off my tiny shoulders. 

Instantly my heart lightened, and I could not hold back my excitement, “So you are my mother? Truly?”

“Yes, I am glad this pleases you,” her eyes brightened, and she no longer bowed her head in shame. 

As the years passed, I learned more and more about my gift. I only did good deeds for people. The more I did for others the more beautiful I became. On my 21st birthday I was summoned to Isabelle’s bedchambers. “My time has come. You have learned everything I have to teach. This letter is for you, but do not open it until I have passed. I love you, my sweet Esme.” 

My heart broke as the light left Isabelle's eyes. I did as instructed and opened the letter Isabelle had left for me. 

My Dearest Esme,

I have one last task for you. A young prince has lost his way. Adam lost his mother at a young age and his father, who has recently passed, corrupted his heart. Save the prince as I had saved you. Go to him in your true form, hiding your inner beauty from his sight. Offer him a single rose from our garden in exchange for safe haven from the storm that is to accompany your arrival. Do not hold ill will if he turns you away. Do not show your inner beauty to the prince until he has been saved from his vanity and arrogance. 

All my love,

Isabelle

I arrived a fortnight later at Prince Adam’s castle. He was holding a magnificent ball and the room was filled with all of the most beautiful people in his kingdom. I knew I would stand out amongst the crowd. So instead of trying to hide within the crowd, I used the power of the storm to open the French style glass doors that lead from the side yard into the ballroom. The candlelight was instantly extinguished and the music as well as all those attending the ball came to a halt. 

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my castle?” His arrogance annoyed me, and my heart was still hurting from the loss of Isabelle. 

“Kind and noble prince, I come to seek shelter from the storm,” I kept my head down and my hood over my head so as to not be seen.

“Show yourself, woman. And what do you have in exchange for my hospitality?” His tone continued to hold his arrogance. I narrowed my eyes at his words.

I slowly lifted my head so the prince could gaze upon my ugliness. “I only have but a single rose to offer you, your grace.”

He took the rose I offered him. He soon threw the rose down onto the ballroom floor in front of me. “I do not allow ugly creatures like yourself within my castle. Now be gone with you, hag.”

His words angered me deeply. “Do not judge me by my outer appearance, for true beauty is found within.” I did the opposite of what I was told, not thinking of the consequences. I let my outer ugliness melt away and my inner beauty show.

The prince fell to his knees, “Forgive me Enchantress. I will have my servants set a room for you. Only the best for you, beautiful enchantress.” 

“Too late Prince Adam. This rose I have presented you is truly enchanted. You will learn as I have that beauty is not what is seen by the eyes but is felt within the heart. You are to be seen for what you truly are, a beast. If you cannot learn to love and receive love in return by the time the last petal falls from this rose, you will remain a beast for all eternity.” 

I could feel the darkness fill my heart. I could hear Isabelle whisper in my ear, “You have acted in anger and disobeyed my wishes. You must make this right if you wish to keep your inner beauty. For you have shown how ugly you truly are.” Fix this? I would have to break my own spell. As I left the cursed castle, I remember a family I had helped not too long ago. I would find the family; the girl could break the curse. But I would have to wait many years for the curse to break.

Many years back a young family came to me, both mother and child were suffering from the plague. I was saddened by the news I was forced to give. I could only save one, either the mother or the child. The mother begged me to save the child and not her. I told the dying woman that I would save the child as she wished, all I wanted in return was to know the child’s name. 

“Her name is Belle. My beautiful Belle.” The poor woman could barely breathe. I allowed for goodbyes before ending the woman’s suffering.

The child was scarred from the plague, so I not only cured the child’s disease but restored her beauty. I whispered into the girl’s ear, “You will be more than just beautiful. You will be of high intelligence as well as kind and unjudging. You must be strong, for your father will need your strength one day. You will do great things in life.”

I turned to the father, instructing him to leave the city of which they lived and move to someplace quaint and quiet. Although he was struggling with grief, he was also filled with relief. 

Belle was exactly who could break the curse. I casted a location spell and learned that Belle and her father had made their home in this very kingdom Isabelle had sent me to. I thought of Belle frequently since I healed her. Now I would get to see her again. I would have to sway events in the girl’s life to lead her to the beast.

Year after year Belle grew more and more lovely. She constantly had her nose in a book, and this pleased me. She yearned for a more adventurous life. Her need for more than the provincial life she was living made it so easy for me to manipulate events leading her down the path that would break my curse on the beast. 

As Belle turned 18, the beast only had but a few petals left before he would be stuck as a beast forever. My time was running out when I finally had the perfect opportunity. Her father had business in another town in the kingdom and as always, he would search for a perfect rose to bring back to daughter. So, I conjured up a lightning storm over the forest in which the man would have to travel. As the tree fell the horse took the man straight to the castle. 

The beast stayed hidden watching the man as he wandered through the castle gardens searching for that perfect rose for beautiful Belle. As I had anticipated the beast took the man as his prisoner for stealing a single rose. The horse ran from the castle straight to me, where I waited in the forest. I whispered in the horse’s ear the simple instructions, “Go to Belle and bring her straight back to the castle.” 

The horse did as it was told. I watched as the horse galloped toward the castle. I let a whisper carry upon the wind to Belle’s ear to hear. “Trade places with your father as the castle’s prisoner. There are great lessons to learn within the castle for you and its lord.”

Of course, as the story goes Belle saves the prince and they live happily ever after. But wondering what became of me? I got to keep my beauty since I helped to break the curse I bestowed. But my heart was still cold and broken. I travelled from kingdom to kingdom helping those that needed it. Some of which I again had to fix mistakes made by myself or occasionally others. Take Cinderella for instance, talk about making a whole mess of dark magic right. Snow White and the “Evil Queen”; let’s just say she wasn’t always so evil, and damned if I didn’t get karma by getting trapped in a damned mirror. But those are stories for another time.

With all my love,

Esme