The Princess & the Gargoyle by Mireille Pavane

Author:Mireille Pavane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fairy tale adventure, beauty and the beast, children's fiction, Friendship, girl power, feminist fairy tales, monsters, fables, knights, battle, fantasy, adventure
Publisher: MIREILLE PAVANE
Published: 2017-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Escape from the Black Mountain

Princess Beatrice ran to the beast’s dungeon cell, crept through the bars, found the hidden trapdoor and pulled the trapdoor aside. She lowered herself down into the recess and pulled the stone slab back into place. She crawled inside the narrow tunnel and waited.

The beast never came.

The princess waited and waited and waited. The darkness above her was silent and still. Nobody returned to the dungeons.

The princess was afraid to risk venturing out of the trapdoor prematurely and, thinking that the beast had been delayed, she continued to wait in the darkness of the tunnel, boiling with impatience for being denied a chance to help the beast and wondering what harm might have befallen him.

Princess Beatrice was woken up by the soft growling of her stomach. She had fallen asleep and had lost count of how long she had been waiting in the tunnel.

The dungeon above her remained silent.

With a heavy heart, Princess Beatrice clambered up and returned along the tunnel. She had a dreadful moment of indecision at the parting of the way as to the best course of action: to take the other tunnels to search for the beast in the city of stone, or return to the cave, roll aside the boulder, and leave the Black Mountain? Finally, she decided to leave the Black Mountain and head home for Trasimene. There was a better chance of success in helping the beast if she hurried home quickly and brought reinforcements back from Trasimene to the kingdom of the Black Mountain than if she went to search for him, alone and weaponless.

At the cave’s entrance, she had another bitter moment of indecision: if she had not promised the beast, if she had not been given the jewel to safeguard, if she had not a duty to the kingdom of Trasimene, if she had not promised her sister Cristabel...

I must hurry home so that I can hurry back to help, thought the princess as she pushed the boulder at the mouth of the cave to one side and walked into the ebony night.

The journey home to Trasimene was the longest one that she had ever undertaken.

After Princess Beatrice had rolled the boulder back into place, she tried to retrace her way back down the mountain by memory, facing once more the treacherous footing and broken boulders and rocky crags that took on menacing shapes, hoping she would find the clear spring again. The landscape and wilderness looked different in the night. She was careful to move in the shadows of the trees and shrubbery in case there were gargoyles sent out by Lord Godric searching the perimeters of the mountain. She tried not to think of what wild creatures might also lurk in the shadows. As she walked and climbed, the princess wondered what had happened to the beast and what was happening back in the kingdom of Trasimene. She tried to will herself to forget her thirst and hunger.

It was a lonely journey down the

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