Beast Read online

  It’s gloomy in the library at this hour. Beast sets me and the wine bottle on the writing table next to the empty vase with its dry rose stalk, then seats himself on the chair. He gazes at the vase for a moment, leans forward, and with one deep, melancholy breath, he blows the dry, dead petals to the floor. I see resignation in his eyes, eerie in my flickering light, as he reaches for the wine.

  “Men often find comfort here,” he rumbles, regarding the glass decanter, its facets glinting red in my light. “Or oblivion. Let’s see if the charm works for me.”

  Beast withdraws the frosted glass stopper, but when he tries to lift the fluted bottleneck to his mouth, his muzzle intervenes. Unable to reach his own lips, he throws back his head, but his attempts to pour the wine down his throat only result in a red sodden shirtfront. He sets the decanter down again, claws open his shirt, and shrugs out of his cloak, peering around the room. Several spent candles are placed about the bookshelves. Beast shambles over to one, tosses aside the candle, and blows the dust out of the dish that contained it, wider and deeper than a saucer, which he brings back to the table. He pours a measure of wine into the dish, lowers his head, and begins lapping it up, turning his muzzle first to one side, then the other, his tongue filling the dish with every lap. The dish is empty in seconds, and Beast lifts his head and smacks his tongue in his mouth, tasting the last of it.

  “I didn’t know it would be so bitter,” he says. Then he pours himself another dishful and laps that up as well.

  There’s no moon tonight to shine through the colored glass. My light alone illuminates Beast’s face as he broods over his wine. He laps up another dishful — I’ve lost count how many he’s had — sighs again, and props his tufted chin on his paws. I wish I could think how to comfort him, to let him know it’s all for the best.

  She is only a child, Beast. She doesn’t know enough to appreciate you, I tell him. It doesn’t matter what she thinks.

  He shakes his shaggy head. “I will always be a beast in her world. The human world.”

  He pours himself another dish, but he makes only a few idle laps at it before lifting his muzzle and cocking his head again at me. “But I am not even a natural beast,” he says with a snort of derision. “A true wolf can enjoy his wolfishness; a lion may revel in his feline majesty. A true stag may look to the leadership of his herd. But I am a thing of mismatched parts, a patchwork, a nightmare. I can’t even seek comfort from others of my kind; there are no others of my kind. There is nothing else in nature like myself.” He lifts the decanter in a shaky salute. “I am unique.” He lowers his head and laps at the dish with grim resolve.

  You have a human heart, Beast. That is what sets you apart.

  “That is my curse,” he agrees.

  True enough. A beast in nature does not consider such things. The lowliest dung beetle does not know he is ugly or ill-formed or outcast. He goes about his business as nature directs and is perfectly content. He has no capacity to be haunted by what he is.

  “And yours as well, Lucie,” he adds quietly. “Why should you be cursed to share this fate?”

  Cursed? It’s dangerous to consider myself in such terms — not as a strong, impervious vessel of enchantment, but as a mere thing. I was once vibrant and alive; I had blood in my veins, a beating heart. Now I am reduced to this: a cold, dead instrument of revenge.

  The specter of Jean-Loup hangs over us both. We are two grotesques, Beast and I, because of him.

  But I forfeited my own humanity readily enough, and never have I better understood the reason until this moment. I must retain my vigilance and see Rose gone from here, once and for all. We have thought her on the brink of departure before, and yet she always finds the nerve to stay. And Beast allows it, out of kindness, out of his hopeless craving to make a friend of her. But I’ll no longer stand by and let Beast be hurt and humiliated again and again by that girl. This can’t go on. He must know the truth.

  It’s not a curse, I tell Beast. It is my mission. Remember when I told you it was my choice to witness Jean-Loup’s downfall?

  Beast nods.

  I am also here to see that he never returns.

  “But — Jean-Loup is gone,” he whispers.

  I pray that is so. Unless . . .

  “Unless what?”

  Unless . . . a woman should marry you.

  “Me?” Beast sits as still as death. “Why? How?”

  A spell was cast on the chevalier, and you appeared. I wish I had a voice to soften, eyes to convey sympathy, but there is nothing to do but plunge ahead. If a woman agrees to marry you as you are, the spell would be broken. Jean-Loup could come back.

  “What?” Beast’s eyes fill with horror. “Back from where?”

  From . . . wherever he went. When you . . . appeared in his place.

  Beast’s voice is low and stark. “You mean there is still some part of Jean-Loup alive?” His expression darkens. “In me? I knew that he was gone, and I was here. But I never thought . . .” He shakes his head slowly, as if to shake off a dream; then his gaze rises again to me, bright and intense. “How could you not tell me, Lucie?”

  I’m sorry, Beast. I knew it would upset you. I . . . hoped I would not have to.

  Beast sighs heavily and nods. “Well, you were right to tell me now,” he agrees, frowning over what this might mean. “But . . . how do I know he doesn’t have some kind of . . . control over me?”

  I thought he did at first, I admit. When Beast looks even more horrified, I hasten to reassure him. But you are nothing like Jean-Loup! From the moment you took me out of that attic cupboard, you have proved to me in a thousand ways how different you are. I searched for evidence of Jean-Loup in your every word and deed, to be sure he was suffering as he deserved.

  But I could never find any trace of him anywhere in you, Beast. You would never behave with such cruelty. You have far too much honor and compassion and sense. You have defeated him!

  “Unless he comes back,” glowers Beast.

  I am glad his response is so spirited; he is far from giving way to despair.

  Jean-Loup is never coming back! I have dedicated my life to it.

  Beast sits up straighter, muzzle raised, eyes fierce. “And I will dedicate mine as well! From this moment on.”

  You see now why you must send Rose away.

  “Of course we must! It is far too dangerous to have her here!” His glance falls to his paw sitting on the desktop, the one she could not bear to touch. “Although there’s little chance of her becoming my bride,” he adds wryly.

  No chance at all if she is gone.

  “Yes,” he agrees. “If she, for any reason . . . if Jean-Loup . . .” But before he can complete this dreadful thought, he draws away with an abrupt hiccup and then another. His paws fly to his mouth, and his shoulders begin to heave. He scrambles off the chair and leaps across the room for the stairs; a moment later, I hear him retching in the dark passage below.

  Beast does not return for me, but I am busily plotting. Rose must leave here; that is the only way to preserve Beast and see that Jean-Loup stays buried. I can think of one way for it to be done, but first she must find me.

  Rose has toted me all about the château since her first day here as a kind of lucky charm. She must have missed my light in the shadows of her bed last night. I wait until the soft glow of dawn shimmers in the colored glass window, for Rose would never prowl the château alone in the dark.

  Rose. Come to me. It is my only thought, and I repeat it over and over like a spell, with all the force of my being. Rose. Come. She does not understand that I’m alive, as Beast does, yet some spark of common humanity might connect us. There is nothing to fear. Rose.

  I hope that Beast took himself off to some hiding hole after last night and is not collapsed in a drunken stupor in the stairwell. He has endured enough humiliation.

  Please, Rose.

  I banish every other thought until I hear, at last, a soft, timid tread upon the stairs. Rose’s head rises ca
utiously from the stairwell, and she glances around. Satisfied that no one else is here, she climbs up into the room and hurries toward me and my comforting light. She must have cried herself to sleep again last night, ashamed, perhaps of the way she treated Beast; delicate tear tracks have dried on her cheeks, and she’s still dressed in her pale blue gown. She doesn’t know why she is here, but she reaches for me like an old friend.

  “I wondered where you’d gone,” she murmurs.

  With another guilty look around the room, she hurries back to the stairs and carries me down. To my relief, there is no evidence of Beast slumped and miserable in the shadows as we enter into the passage through the gloomy attic corridor and down to her own room on the second floor, where she feels safe. She sets me on her vanity table, where the looking glass reflects the warmth of my flames into the room, and sits on the chair before me.

  “I must be strong for Papa’s sake,” she tells her reflection in the glass, then shakes her head sadly. “I never meant . . . It just happened.” She sighs. “If only Sir Beast can forgive me.”

  Her remorse feels genuine enough; I believe she would not hurt Beast’s feelings on purpose. But it’s disturbing that she still hopes to stay. So I concentrate on my goal and abandon myself to the unseen otherworldly forces that thrive here. They have shown Rose her family before, the life she left behind. The natural powers — witchcraft, miracles, whatever they may be — will do their work well when there is enough at stake.

  Rose’s deep blue eyes suddenly widen with alarm. “Oh!” she cries out. “Papa!”

  She sits up straighter, eyes fixed on the vision that swims into being in the glass, an old man, weary and white-haired. It takes a moment to recognize him as Rose’s father, the merchant, his face is so creased and drawn and tired, his cheeks so hollow. He reclines on threadbare pillows, a bedraggled nightcap slipping off his white head. I hoped to conjure her father, but I had no idea we would find him in this condition. I only thought to make her so homesick, she’d wish to go home.

  Turning this way and that, he moans, “Rose! Rose! Oh, my poor child!”

  “Papa!” Rose cries again. “I’m here! I am well!”

  “Oh, Rose,” groans the old man, and sinks back into his pillows, spent.

  She can’t scramble to her feet fast enough. She roots out her walking boots and pulls them on, grabs her old grey cloak off its hook by the door, and catches me up to ward off the early morning shadows before racing out into the hallway.

  “Sir Beast!” she cries, poking her head in at the ballroom door, then hurrying to the dining salon. “Sir Beast! Come quickly!”

  She’s hovering around the staircase, uncertain whether to go up or down, when Beast’s head appears, peering down from the third-floor landing. Even from here, I see the disarray he is in after last night’s attempted debauch, his clothing wrinkled and undone, his mane spiking out in odd twists and clumps. But Rose doesn’t notice.

  “Sir Beast!” she cries when she sees him. “Oh, please, forgive me waking you. Forgive me . . . everything.” And she bows her head in shame and curtsies so low in her gown, the great mounds of blue silk all but engulf her. Beast claws back his unruly mane as he stares down at her.

  “Rose,” he says, “please rise.”

  But she only raises her head enough to fix him with her eyes. “But I must beg your pardon for last night, Sir Beast. I behaved horribly. I am a very foolish girl.”

  “Of course you are pardoned,” rumbles Beast.

  “And . . . I must beg yet another favor, if you would be so good as to hear it.”

  “Please get up, dear Rose,” Beast insists. “I will come down.”

  By the time he trots down the stairs, he has found his wine-colored cloak, which he is hastily swirling over the bulk of his shoulders; I notice bedraggled black-tipped feathers trembling below the hem of the long, rumpled shirt, its bib still stained red from last night. Rose rises only to her knees as he joins us.

  “Please, good Sir Beast, my father is very ill,” she pleads. “He may be dying.” She points me vaguely in the direction of her room, where she saw her vision.

  Beast slides a sidelong glance at me.

  “Please, please, let me go to him!”

  “Of course you must go,” Beast says. “I would never try to keep you here against your will. You must go at once.”

  Rose blinks up at him, surprised. Clearly she expected an argument. “But — of course, I will be back. And soon!”

  “But your father’s welfare comes first,” Beast agrees. “I understand, Rose.”

  He extends a paw, and with only an instant of hesitation, she places her trembling fingers upon it and rises to her feet. She withdraws her hand immediately once she has regained her balance, but Beast seems to appreciate her effort.

  Then he pulls out the thin red ribbon from around his neck, on which hangs the golden ring with the tiny red jewel heart — the one he found in the library. He lifts the ribbon over his head and holds it out to her.

  “This is an enchanted ring,” he says. “You have only to place it on your finger, and it will carry you wherever you wish to go.”

  This is the first I’ve heard that the ring is enchanted. Is there some connection between Beast and Jean-Loup’s poor, sorrowing mother that gives her ring a special power?

  Rose’s eyes widen. “Will it take me home?” she asks eagerly. “Now?”

  “You have but to ask.”

  “Oh, thank you, Sir Beast!” Rose cries, drawing the ribbon over her head; the long ribbon seems to shrink a little, to accommodate her, as it once expanded for Beast.

  “And please accept this present for your family,” Beast continues, and with a wave of his paw, a small ivory box appears on the floor beside me where Rose has set me down. At a nod from Beast, the lid lifts partway up on its hinges; coins of gold and silver and some jeweled trinkets sparkle in my light before the lid closes itself again, and the box sails up into Rose’s hands.

  “Buy your father whatever he requires,” murmurs Beast. “With my compliments.”

  Rose can scarcely utter her thanks. At Beast’s direction, she tucks the box under her arm and swirls her cloak around herself.

  Beast gazes at her a moment longer, mixed emotion in his dark eyes. “Rose,” he says gently, “thank you for your company. Your father has every reason to be proud of you. I wish you and your family well.”

  “But, Sir Beast, I will come back to you!” Rose insists. “You kindly gave my father two weeks to settle his affairs; I will ask for no more. I shall return in a fortnight, I promise!”

  With the long ribbon still around her neck, she slips the ring over her finger. And Rose and her cloak and the chest vanish into the very air.

  The silence in the hallway is profound as soon as Rose is gone. Beast sweeps me up from the carpet where Rose left me, carries me to the staircase, and places me on the wide, flat railing around the second-floor landing. I see sadness in his eyes, but his expression is resolute as he rests his paws on the railing beside me.

  I’m sorry, Beast. I know how difficult that was for you.

  “It had to be done. We both know it.” Beast sighs. “I’m glad you were wise enough to find a way to do it.” He shakes out his tawny mane. “The consequences of letting her stay would be unthinkable.”

  Especially for Rose, I agree.

  He gazes at me. “For all of us.” He frowns slightly. “You don’t think she will actually come back, do you?”

  Rose is . . . unpredictable. Only moments ago, in her room, she seemed to be making plans. Did you know that ring was magical?

  “It has great power; I’ve felt it ever since the day we found it in that book. It gave me such a sense of comfort, of courage.”

  He has worn it every day since. Did you know it would take Rose home, or did you only . . . wish for it?

  He shakes his head, considering. “Neither. I just suddenly felt so strongly that it was the right thing to do.”

  An
d it was very smart of you to send her off with that box of riches for her family, I tell him. Very generous, too.

  Beast shrugs this off. “Those things mean nothing to me. It was far more important to remove the danger of having her here. Did you know her father was ill?”

  No. I only hoped she might begin to miss her family. I never thought we would find her father in such a state.

  “How did you do it?”

  She has seen visions in the glass before with no help from me. We know how lively the forces of magic can be here, and she had a decision to make. I only tried to . . . help.

  Beast smiles. “Because your feelings are so strong! Because . . . you opened your heart to that girl,” he adds softly.

  I am touched that Beast remembers the words of my father. I was not thinking only of Rose, I confess.

  Something warms in Beast’s gaze. He straightens a little before me.

  “The forces of magic here pay attention to you,” he whispers. “In a way they don’t always to me. Not when it really matters.”

  But what about your beautiful roses?

  “Trifles! Ornaments,” says Beast with a wave of one paw. “You seek justice, Lucie, and look what’s happened. Jean-Loup is defeated. We’ve seen that girl safely home.” He presses himself away from the railing. “But — there is still justice to be done, I think,” he murmurs. “If only a way can be found.”

  And with a last, wistful glance at me, he turns and disappears down the stairs.

  From my perch, I can only look down the narrow stairs, but there’s nothing to see. Beast does not come back to me. Night follows day follows night, and I stand here alone, illuminating nothing.

  It’s the loneliest I have ever been here. I was shut up in the attic cupboard longer than this, but then I had my revenge for company. Beast may go up and down the turret stairs to prowl the lower floors. Or it may be that he’s forsaken the house altogether for the park and grounds. Perhaps he is tending his roses, remembering again the joy they brought him before that other Rose came. I try to call him, but he no longer responds. Why doesn’t he come?