Beauty and the Beast

Chapter 4

The gate was big enough to keep out two giants standing on top of each other, even if they had jumped. The iron was black and strong, each side held equally high stone walls; vines grew up the sides. Right in the middle of the iron door held a giant lock the size of a small boulder. No one could get in; no one could get out.

I looked at Benny who was shuffling from one hoof to another. "No, this has to be the wrong place. Come on boy, Charlie wouldn't come here. He wouldn't have even been able to get in."

I held on to his reigns to try and pull him away from the gate. To be honest, it was starting to make me uncomfortable. When I turned him, though, he stood up on two legs with a high pitched neigh. Startled, I fell to the ground; a rock slicing into my elbow. I watched in disbelief as Benny ran off into the woods.

"Benny! Come back here!" I called after him even though I knew it was no use- he was gone.

A gust of wind whipped across the air causing me to shiver against the cold. Wrapping my cloak around me closer, I walked back up to the gate. Glancing around the ground, I looked for anything that could help me get the lock undone. The first item I saw was a stick. Well, might as well try it. Putting the stick into the small key hole, I tried to turn, jiggle, and adjust the lock in any way I could but it just wouldn't give.

Huffing in frustration, I threw the stick down and decided to just pull on the lock. As expected, the lock stood in its place, not even a scratch to be seen from my awful attempt to get it off. Another gust of wind blew, which caused something to blow around on the other side of the gate. Curious, I looked as close to the item as the gate let me. My eyes widened in alarm as I saw what caught my attention. Charlie's hat!

Suddenly, without even a care anymore, I banged my fist against the gate. "Somebody help! Anybody, please! I need to get in!" I screamed into the woods on the other side. "Please!" I yelled at the top of my lungs until I just couldn't do it anymore. The bangs from my fists decreased in urgency as I realized that no one was going to come. Falling to the ground, I silently cried as I thought of what could have possibly happened to Charlie.

A loud, painful screech sounded through the woods before I started to fall forward from leaning against the gate. Shocked, I looked up at the gate in disbelief. I had been pushing on that door for the past hour and not once did it give. How did that happen?

Sniffling, I called out to the woods one more time as I stood up from the ground. "I don't know who is there, but thank you."

As I stood up, I brushed off my dress before full out running past the gate and towards the woods where I knew Charlie had to be. Picking up the hat on my way, I ran until my legs were just about to give out. Slowly a house started to form into view as I continued to run. As I grew nearer, I realized that it wasn't a house at all, it was a castle. At least, to someone like me who has always grown up in a small hut compared to the size of this place, it looked like a castle.

The walls were all stone much like the ones that had stood by the gate door's sides. Like the ones before, ivy grew up the sides. The leaves had changed into a mix of reds, oranges and gold with the fall season causing the large, abandoned castle to look slightly beautiful and unique. Windows could be seen all around the house, but they were masked from the inside by large wooden boards.

Fallen trees blocked the path to get to the house, but I knew Charlie would have looked for shelter. Anxiously, I crawled over the three trees that looked to have been placed there rather than have fallen on their own accord. The sound of fabric tearing held my attention for only a fraction of a second as I continued to look towards my destination. Somewhere the hat had fallen, but I had no time to stop and look for it.