“Can I help?” I ask. I use my extra-sweet voice.

I wait for him to tell me to go away, but instead he shrugs. “If you want to. The aprons are on the back of the door.”

Hurrah! I’m in. I wash my hands in the sink, pull a long brown apron off the hook, and tie it behind me. It goes past my feet.

“Have you always liked to cook?” I ask, stepping closer and trying not to trip.

He makes some space for me on the counter and hands me a cutting board, a knife, and a carrot. “Chop,” he says. Then he adds, “My dad and I used to cook together.”

“Is he … dead?” I ask while chopping very, very carefully. One birthday gift I know my mother absolutely wouldn’t want is half my finger. Missing a finger wouldn’t help with my painting skills, either.

“No,” Mr. Beast eventually answers. “My parents and older brothers live in another kingdom.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised. “Is Another Kingdom the name of their kingdom?”

“Huh? No.” He laughs. “It’s called the kingdom of Horatio. Only this kingdom has weird names. I wasn’t born with the name Beast, either.”

“What’s your real name?” I ask.

“Mike.”

I snort-laugh. “Mike? That’s so normal-sounding!”

“Yeah, well, I was normal back then,” he says wistfully. He pours some oil into the pan. For the first time, I notice that he has only three fingers on each hand. Well, really more like a claw than a hand. I bet that doesn’t help his painting skills.

“Why did you move away?” I ask. “Was your family scared of you?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to suck them back in. How rude! “Not that you’re scary. You’re not scary. Nope. You’re the opposite of scary. You’re calming. Like a scented candle. Or diaper rash cream.” I don’t know where that last one came from. Although I do have vivid memories of my parents having to buy a lot of diaper rash cream for my brother.

“It’s okay. I know I look scary,” Mr. Beast says. “But that’s not why I left. My family was never afraid of me. They pitied me. And they kept trying to set me up with different girls. My mom even gave me her emerald engagement ring to propose to someone with. But I never got the chance. The girls would take one look at me and freak out. One literally ran out of our palace crying when she first saw me.”

“That must have hurt your feelings,” I say, feeling terrible for Mr. Beast.

He nods. “And it really upset my parents,” he says. “So when I was eighteen, I moved out here to my grandad’s empty castle. I changed my name. That’s that.”

“That is so sad,” I say. “Although it is a nice castle.”