by Lelia Eye
No, that was not the proper route for me. But I did know what I wanted.
“Invis,” I said into the air, “I want a cape.”
Chapter 8: Black Sheep
The cape the Invis gave me the next day was gold, with a black rose clasp on the front and a similarly shaped rose enclosed in a sable circle on the back. It was simple but elegant. I stood in front of a cracked mirror and took a good look at myself.
Despite having broken a multitude of mirrors, I did not avoid looking at my new form. I wanted to avoid seeing myself, but I found myself returning to the destroyed mirrors time and time again. The Invis did not replace the broken ones—likely thinking I would break any new ones they put up—yet even the disorientation caused by seeing a fragmented image of myself was not enough to keep me away from them.
I was a black wolf, my fur enabling me to blend into the night like some sort of shadow beast, and the yellow of my eyes made me look as if I belonged by the side of a particularly nasty witch in place of her timid pussycat. Yet the startling contrast of yellow against black might have seemed mysterious if not for one thing.
Diagonally, from above my left eye to the bottom of the opposite side of my face, was a long silver line. It looked like a battle scar from a cut given where the fur had grown back in silver, though I had never received a scar in such a place. Somehow, it served to transform mysterious into sinister. Without fangs bared, I looked as if I might sneak in behind you and tear out your throat. With fangs bared, I looked like the sort of demon that ate human entrails for breakfast.
The cape took away some of the harshness to let a little more mysteriousness and sophistication come through. I thought I looked good in it. But when I walked into the dining room where Labelle was eating breakfast, I heard her mutter, “That looks stupid.”
Her words had not been meant for my ears, but I felt offended anyway. Still, there was no reason to let her know she had affected me.
“Is the food to your liking?” I asked as I glided forward, my cape fluttering majestically behind me.
“They prepared what I wanted,” she said, making it sound as if I had asked an incredibly stupid question.
Somehow, I kept an amazing grip on my patience as I said, “They don’t always give me what I want. You just haven’t been here long enough to make them mad.”
“How do you make invisible servants angry?” she asked skeptically.
“The same way that you make visible ones angry.” Now, I made it sound like she had asked a stupid question. Take that!
“And how’s that?” she persisted, unaffected by my quick shot.
I sighed. Annoyance was started to ooze through my calm demeanor. “You do things they don’t like.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know—break mirrors.”
“Why would you break a mirror?”
“Just because!” I growled. Maybe having her here wasn’t as great of an idea as I had thought. I stalked to the opposite end of the table, where I could better keep my temper in check.
I stared at her in silence. Even when she was unhappy, her beauty was unmistakable. In fact, emotion gave her cheeks extra color. Still, I didn’t want to see her unhappy, and though I tried to admire her beauty, the silence grew uncomfortable. Finally, however, she broke it.
“Why don’t you eat?” she asked from across the long table.
I felt my ears going back, but I forced them forward. “I can’t use silverware,” I told her. “I don’t want to eat in front of you.”
“I’ve seen dogs eat before,” she muttered. “And I’ve seen you eat, remember?”
“I’m not a dog,” I returned, my eyes narrowed.
“That’s right,” she said in a slightly caustic voice. “You’re a wolf. What’s your story, anyway? You can talk. Why aren’t you out talking with the other wolves and holding them captive?”
I gave a low growl. “You don’t get it. They would accept me no more than you do.”
She looked confused, but she let go of that line of questioning and took up another. “What do you usually eat? Meat?”
For a girl in her position, she sure asked a lot of questions. “I eat some meats,” I answered curtly.
“What meats do you not eat?”
Fortunately for you, I don’t have an appetite for pretty girls, I thought, but I answered: “Sheep.”
“And why is that?”
“A bad shepherd boy experience,” I told her truthfully. Still, this conversation was entering dangerous territory, and I didn’t like it.
“Did you eat him?” Though she asked the question casually, I could sense the suspicion behind it.
“Yes,” was almost on my lips, but I said instead in annoyance, “No. I’ve never killed any humans.”
“You don’t have any trapped here, do you?”
“No, I don’t make a regular habit of keeping people hostage,” I snapped, wanting to bite something. “Do you?”
“I like shepherds,” she said calmly, though I thought I saw her cheek twitch. “One asked me to marry him once.”
So she hadn’t known my real identity when I was a shepherd? Or was she just keeping it secret? “You mean you didn’t want to marry some lord or something?” I asked as a test.
Her face fell, and I felt like biting myself. With uncharacteristic delicacy, I said, “That’s right. I’m sorry. You said calamity befell your family. What happened?”
She stared down at her lap, a fork clenched in her hand. The silver tines caught the light as she shifted the fork back and forth. “We were on top of the world, you know. Many nobles don’t have as much wealth as we did. I was primed to marry some lord. But my father wouldn’t allow any suitors until I was eighteen.”
For some reason, I felt great relief at that. But before I could say anything that would end with me sticking a paw in my mouth, she continued: “And then disaster struck us before I even reached that age. My father’s ships—all of them—were lost in a tempest at sea. Cargo lost, ships lost, men lost—and then the debtors came, wanting to suck every last drop of blood out of us, to see if we bled gold.
“If a lord loses his wealth, he is still respected and still a lord. But a merchant without his wealth is nothing.” She brought her fork back up and gave a bitter smile. “A merchant uses his hands very differently from a farmer. It has been difficult for my father. Of course, it has been difficult for all of us.” She twirled her fork around on her plate, pushing food around. “My father had to sell all his land except for a bit that we could farm and live on. That’s more than some have, of course, but it was nothing like what we were accustomed to.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “I see.” Real smooth.
There was a change in her expression, and she took on a new tone. “Before the disaster, there was a handsome shepherd who worked for my father. Though his clothes were worn, there was this confidence in his bearing, like he was proud despite the position life had given him. His hair would wave just so in the breeze, and I wanted so much to go up to him and learn the exact color of his eyes. He was the shepherd I mentioned—the one who asked me to marry him.”
I was suddenly a trembling volcano, filled with fiery rage as I thought of that second visit that had never taken place as intended and of the form that had overtaken me. It was this blind anger that only allowed me to come up with one stupid question: “Who is he?” Did she know who I—who the shepherd—really was?
“Not a beast,” she answered. “I never learned his name, and though I meant to see him the day after we first spoke, he wasn’t there. He just disappeared, and I didn’t know how to ask for him.” She stared at me, like she was trying to reach into my head and pluck out something. I looked away, uncomfortable without knowing why.
The rest of the meal passed in silence.
* * *
After she finished eating, Labelle went out to walk, and I followed her.
We went to the orchards, where she picked an apple and bega
n to eat it. I didn’t know if breakfast wasn’t enough, if she simply didn’t want to talk, or if she just really loved apples, but then she commented: “The apples here are so delicious.”
“Your name,” I said abruptly, wanting to hear her melodious voice talk about something besides fruit, “is it a nickname?”
One side of her mouth lifted. “Yes. My father always called me ‘La Belle of the family,’ and it stuck. I wish he hadn’t—when he married my stepmother, it made things difficult, as she is proud of her own beauty and that of her daughters—but it was always hard for him to say the name my late mother had given me.”
I didn’t like the somberness that had fallen over her, so I prompted lightly, “Parlez-vous français, Elle?”
She raised her eyebrows, ignoring the nickname I had just given her. “You can speak French?”
“I’m an educated beast,” I returned with a wolfish grin.
“Why do you call yourself that? Why not call yourself a wolf? It seems less demeaning.”
“You can’t understand. Humans don’t have urges like I do, Elle.”
We were both quiet for a few minutes as we walked through the trees. I regretted what I had said, but I couldn’t undo it. Nor could I change the truth that rang in it.
When ending the boar’s life and tasting its blood, I had felt a sort of ecstatic triumph. It should have repulsed me. The human within me should never have let me transition into such a different form of hunting so easily. I should have fought it—should have tried harder to reject the animal—but I had been so lonely that it was easier to give in to the part of me that scarcely knew what lonely was. I longed to reach with human fingers to touch the blades of grass I had once so callously destroyed . . . to have some sort of human contact that did not involve repulsion. But even if my fur were touched, it would be as one caresses a dog. Even though I could speak, this beautiful girl could never think of me as more than a beast. There was a gulf between our souls, and it made me mourn, though we barely knew each other . . . and I hardly even knew what I was mourning other than the fact that the gap between us seemed unsurpassable.
The silence must have discomfited my companion, as she ventured, “Why are you calling me ‘Elle?’”
“‘Labelle’ is too awkwardly French,” I said, “too hard to say in English. I think ‘Elle’ suits you better.” Since she disliked the nickname her father had given her, it certainly would not hurt to call her something else. Still, after a few seconds of silence from her, I prompted: “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, I guess not,” she said slowly. And that was when I started to really let myself think of her as Elle. It made me feel better not to call her The Beauty. That name made me think of what her stepsister had said—about Beauty being with the Beast.
“Can you speak other languages?” she asked me.
I had been such a lousy student that my language tutor had never dared to tackle anything but French. “No.”
“Can you read French?”
Unthinking, I replied, “Yes.”
Though I felt certain my response would lead to the awkward question of who in their right mind would teach a wolf French, Elle instead asked, “What about English?”
Having already admitted to reading and speaking French, I had little else to lose, so I admitted reluctantly, “Yes.”
“How do you turn the pages?” was her next question, and it was suffused with a genuine curiosity.
“I can’t,” I told her, “though I wish I could.”
She took a bite of her apple and was quiet for so long that I thought the conversation was over. But then she confessed: “I don’t like to read very much.”
I stopped walking and looked at her in surprise. “But books are—they—” I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I told her, “You must not have read the right ones.”
“Maybe,” she said, though she sounded doubtful.
I was beginning to plot how to introduce her to the joys of reading, but she spoiled my gleeful mood by asking, “If you can’t read books alone, then how do you entertain yourself?”
“I can read the covers,” I said sourly. When she gave me a look, however—Why is it that women excel at those? I wondered—I went further and said somewhat awkwardly, “Mostly, I hunt. The venison and pork we eat are, umm, well, because of me.” Sorry I kill your playthings, I wanted to say, but I didn’t think she would take it the right way.
“Do you kill the other animals—like the sheep?”
Had I been human, I would have grimaced. As it was, I let out a slight shudder. “Do I look like a butcher to you?” Before she could answer, I hurried to say, “No, no—the servants do it. At least, I assume they do. I have better things to do than try to find out about the preparation of my food.” Name two, a snarky voice said in my head, but I pushed it aside. “You can go visit the sheep if you’d like to see whether your shepherd boy is there.” You’ll never find him, I thought. Not even though he is looking right at you.
She looked surprised. “Are you teasing me? Surely a beast has better sense than that.”
“Even wolves have a sense of humor,” I said. At least, wolves that actually had the minds of humans did. I wasn’t sure what went through the minds of real wolves.
“Tell me—do wolves have names?”
How was I to know? What was I, an encyclopedia of animal knowledge? “I have a name,” I told her, managing to keep my voice level.
“What is it?”
My tongue lolled out in a grin. “If you can guess it, I will tell you when you’re right.” I intended to have fun with this.
She hesitated. For a moment, it looked as though she was simply going to dismiss the game. Then she gave a wry grin and asked, “Is it Sycamore or Cedar?”
“No,” I told her in satisfaction. “It isn’t.” Yes, this would be great fun. It was always enjoyable to play games you were almost guaranteed to win. The answer was just too obvious.
Chapter 9: Big Feet
I was quite familiar with the library. Even though I had discovered there was no way in Magnolia that I would be able to read any of the books, I still visited often. What I typically did there was plan.
I was determined to make time to read when I was human again (“If you do become human again,” a nasty little voice always inserted), so I planned what to read when I was finally capable. Some of the books I chose were old favorites, but many of them I had never read before.
It was difficult to know what I would like based only on the cover, so I studied each title carefully. Some, I immediately discarded, like The Star-Crossed Love of Tristan and Isolde. The contents of others were more difficult to determine, such as Fragrant Tales (what exactly made a tale fragrant?) and Anatomy of a Ball (balls were round—what more could be said about them?). But there were plenty I knew immediately would strike my fancy—like The Silent Knight and Killer Chimeras.
But thinking about reading was not enough for me anymore. Suddenly, it was important that Elle learned to share my passion.
I started giving her books to read. Since I hated climbing her tower, I left the books for her to find at the base of the stairs. I began with some of my favorites, but ones I thought she would like—such as Dragon Tears and Unicorn Kiss. Then I got a little braver and left Sir Gawain and the Dragon and Flights of Fancy. I didn’t dare ask if she liked them, for fear she would tell me to stop, but I eventually started seeing her walk around reading them, and it made me feel pleased, like I had won some sort of victory. Yet it was more than that, as she was sharing in the pleasure, too.
It didn’t take long for her to realize how much I hated sheep. I would have run them all into the woods if I thought the Invis would let me, but I figured it was probably against their invisible servant code of ethics or something to waste Silverthorn resources like that. They would probably set me on fire if I tried. Or blow water up my nose. They had done that more than once, and I thought I would rather be on fire.
Whenever Elle
noticed me watching her from the shadows—which was a lot (evidently, I would make a lousy spy)—she would go visit the sheep or the chickens until I came out into the open. The message was clear: if I was going to watch her, then I needed to man up and show myself. Or “wolf” up, as the case might be.
After I walked beside her several times when she had a book in hand, she started reading aloud. I relished the sound of her reading. She would start out low and calm, but eventually the emotions of the story would take over her, and her cheeks would flush a becoming pink as her voice became more passionate. She would fling the book out like an actress learning her lines, and I would watch with a canine grin. One of the more memorable times, she cried, “Lord Byrd, you are a fiend!” and then jumped up onto the fountain. “I shall fling myself from this tower,” she proclaimed. “You shall not take me.”
The book was one of my favorites (Lord Byrd the Greedy and Sir Jean the Pure), and I knew this scene well. I put my paws up on the fountain and looked up at her. Menacingly, I said: “Suicide is a sin your pure heart cannot muster, and you even now hope that your dear knight will come rescue you.”
“But he will come!” she cried. “I shall not be stuck here forever with a beast such as you!”
Suddenly, I wasn’t comfortable acting this scene out. But I didn’t want her to read anything into the words if she hadn’t done so already, so I leaped to the other side of her and put on my “hero” persona. “You are right, fair maiden!” (Or was it “lady”?) “Sir Jean is here to keep you from such a fate!” (Or was it “to save you”? Obviously, I didn’t know it as well as I had thought.)
She smiled and became herself again, and I felt oddly disappointed. “Perhaps I shouldn’t make you act as two different people,” she said. “I’m going to take a break from reading and go visit the sheep.”
I followed her in a . . . well, it wasn’t a sulk, as real men (wolves?) don’t sulk, but whatever it was, I wasn’t happy. I was just too nice to inform her that there were a hundred things nearby that were a thousand times more interesting than sheep.