The Cottage in the Woods by Katherine Coville Page B

not interrupt your papa, Teddy, but perhaps we could show your mama.”
    Teddy’s demonstrative face lit up—and then just as quickly sank in disappointment. “We can’t,” he said. “She’s gone away.”
    “Gone away?” I asked, puzzled. “Where do you think she’s gone?”
    “I don’t know,” he murmured sadly. “She goes away in the daytime, and I don’t know where.”
    I recalled then that she had said I could come and see her at the breakfast hour, but nothing about other times of the day. This struck me as an intriguing mystery, but I decided that to inquire any further would be prying. “Well, she is surely back at suppertime, isn’t she?”
    Teddy brightened, nodding.
    I assured him it would be a great surprise to present his work to both his mama and his papa at supper, and the idea immediately caught hold. We rolled up his papers, tied them with a bit of twine, and set them aside while Teddy chuckled to himself in anticipation.
    Perceiving that only a complete change of scene would attract the cub’s attention now, I proposed an exploratory foray down to the library. Teddy looked on this as a great treat, since he was not allowed in the library by himself. Our footsteps echoed as we entered the high-ceilinged room, and I imagined that we were waking the ambient spirits of the literary giants, captured here in the pages of hundreds and hundreds of glorious books. Teddy knew exactly where to find the books for cubs, and pulled out a large, well-worn volume with a rose on the cover,
Beauty and the Beast
. “This is my favorite!” Teddy said, his voice both contented and wistful. He clutched the book to his chest and asked, “Can we look at this one first? Could you read it to me? Please?”
    I was touched by the earnestness of his request, and immediately acquiesced. We made ourselves comfortable on an overstuffed divan by the window. It was upholstered in shiny chintz with an exotic floral pattern, and though it looked as new as everything else in the house, it felt as snug and cozy as Papa’s favorite chair at home by the fireplace.
    “This is Sofie,” Teddy announced, introducing me to the sofa. “We always sit on Sofie for book time,” he said, bouncing a little. “Do you like her name? I named her.”
    “Yes,” I said, surveying the colorful pattern. “It’s a very fine name. Let’s try her out, shall we?” We settled into a bright ray of sunshine coming through the tall window, bounced several times, and opened the book. I could see at once why it had captured Teddy’s imagination. The illustrations lured us down, down, into the very pages, their enchanting alchemy of form, line, and color breathing life into the narrative. The Beast’s palace seemed to grow up around us, steeped in splendor and mystery. And then there was the Beast—a hulking, bearlikecharacter with sad eyes. I was half in love with him myself, and I could feel Teddy’s empathy for the lonely creature as he asked Beauty again and again to marry him, and again and again she said no. Were they to remain separate forever because he was deemed an animal, and she was not? I thought how unfair such false distinctions were, and how easily they could result in tragedy. Teddy turned each page for me, reacting to every new development with undisguised emotion. As the poor Beast lay dying, a tear dropped on the page, though I couldn’t tell if it was his or mine.
    “But she really loved him, right?” came the hopeful little voice. I turned the page to find Beauty bent weeping over the dying Beast as she discovered that she truly did love him. It was a matter of history that they lived happily ever after, though many debated whether the Beast ever turned into a human prince. Anyone could see that the real magic of the story was that she came to love him exactly as he was.
    Teddy sighed with satisfaction as he closed the book. My own eyes were drooping with the fatigue of having missed a night’s sleep, but I shook