Beauty and the Beast

Snow and Snowballs

The morning arrived with an overnight snowfall that had buried the castle gardens under two feet of clean white powder. Belle stood at her bedroom window looking out at it with the particular longing of someone who had always loved snow but rarely had anyone to share it with.

The Beast appeared in the corridor outside her room just as she was pulling on her cloak. He looked at the cloak. He looked at the garden. He looked at the floor.

"I was going to walk outside," he said.

"So was I," she said.

They went together, which had not quite been either of their plans, but seemed, somehow, inevitable.

The garden was transformed. Snow sat in fat cushions on every stone bench and topiary and frost-covered rosebush. Their footprints were the first marks in it. Belle walked ahead, face lifted to the white sky, while the Beast moved carefully beside her, his large feet sinking deep with each step. It had been years since he had walked in the snow for pleasure. He had forgotten that it could be pleasure.

Belle bent down and packed a snowball between her gloved hands.

The Beast eyed it. "Don't," he said.

She threw it directly at his ear.

There was a pause — a very long, very still pause — and then the Beast made a sound that had not come out of him in a very long time. He laughed. It was rusty and unpracticed, more like a bark than a laugh at first, but it grew into something real and warm. He bent down, scooped up an enormous double handful of snow, and launched it at her with the aim of someone who had thrown boulders.

Belle dove behind a topiary, shrieking with laughter.

They spent an hour in the snow, thoroughly undignified and perfectly happy. The servants watched from the warmth of upper windows, and Mrs. Potts quietly brewed an extra pot of tea, because she had a feeling two very cold, very happy people would need warming up shortly.