The Universe's Mixer

After a good, long rest, Beauty spent the rest of the new morning by discovering all she could about her new home. The over-arching theme of the place was that every single thing she needed seemed exactly where it should be. Odd, that. If she had designed the place herself, she wouldn't have done anything differently. It was as if the City were trying to cajole her into believing that it had done her a favor by taking her from her home. As if the City were trying to convince her that her life could be something better than what it had been. What the City hadn't apparently thought of - if a City could, indeed, think - was that although it had been a difficult life, she had been happy. Happy in the only way that truly mattered. She had her sisters. She had her father. And if sometimes during the winter, they struggled for warmth and struggled for food, they were at least still living and still together. She could have been living in a great and gilded palace here, she could have been the Queen herself, but it would not have made her happy. There was nothing that could replace her family.

Sometime after lunch arrived -- arrived, just as if it had grown legs and walked to her table or materialized from the very air -- Beauty had enough of it. She didn't quite throw the chunk of soft brown bread back onto its china plate, didn't quite shove her chair out from under the table and back again once she was on her feet -- but it was close. Reining in her anger, she tugged her hair into a loose knot at the back of her neck, smoothed the white muslin dress flat down her front, then marched herself out the door. She wouldn't spend another single minute in that crazy cajoling place! She would not be swayed into forgetting her family! This City was a monster!

These were her thoughts as she wandered the twisting streets. But as the strangeness of this new place began asserting itself, the anger slid away into something like grudging wonder. How many men had it taken to build such strong buildings? How many hours of toil had it taken to lay such smooth roads? And how had it been turned so black? There was no glare from the road's surface, and hardly any from the strip of wending white pavement under her feet. Strange horseless carriages roared by every so often, and the other people she saw in the streets around her or entering into the shops lining the streets were all dressed.... so oddly! But perhaps, she thought again, it was she herself who was dressed strangely. She stopped in front of a shop with a great glass window and stared at her reflection. Her hair was just slightly curled, and she recalled having to spend hours with curling papers to get just this effect. The color in her cheeks was high - and wouldn't it be, with all this fury? But as she checked her dress again - a simple white thing with minimal embroidery, violets across the collar, and lacy sleeves - she realized she wasn't actually angry anymore. The surprise at the discovery, however, was suppressed by a jolt of excitement as her eyes lost focus on her reflection -- and focused instead on what was past the window.

Books! Books! Shelves, great beautiful wooden shelves of them! She all but ran to the door, pulled it open - a bell sounded and went unnoticed by her - and leaped across the threshold. The scent of books - that earthy, cool, blanketing scent - mingled with the sharper allure of coffee. She drank tea most of the time, but the luxury of coffee was not outside her experience. If it were possible, she smiled even wider.

And that was all the time she spared at the door - just those two seconds as she drank the place in - before she threw herself into the first row of books that she saw. It happened to be a row of poetry. She saw a great amount of Shakespeare (she passed them, but her fingertips brushed them fondly), but most of the authors were unfamiliar. Her excitement heightened as she realized it. Unfamiliar! The vast wealth of new material was boggling, but she couldn't wait to attack it. As she filtered through the alphabet - not at all aware that she was reading effortlessly in English rather than her native French - she tried to think of what sort of binding would hold the best poetry. It was silly, of course, to judge the verse by its wrapping, but she had nothing else to go by. At last, a pretty blue spine caught her attention and held it. Keats? She'd never heard of that author. She'd try Keats!

Snatching the slender volume with both hands, she clamped her fingers tightly around the sides so she didn't open it before she sat down. There was a comfortable looking chair down the row, and to this chair she darted, curled herself up, and then, with very great care and deliberate relish, cracked open the book.