Thorny

by Lelia Eye

  The huntsman was another factor I had to deal with. He was waiting on the other side of the fountain, and the dogs would alert him the instant I stepped out of the castle.

  Finally, anywhere I went outside would probably entail me leaving a trail in the grass that could be followed.

  In the castle, however, it would take some time for even an expert tracker to follow me over the wood and stones and carpet floors. Maybe the reason the doors had been left open so invitingly was to tempt me to go outside. My scent was likely everywhere, and it probably would have been hard even for dogs to find me in the castle.

  I cast my eyes around for a place to hide. There was a large tapestry of a fox hunt, but that would be rather obvious. Not to mention it would be a little too ironic for my tastes.

  As for the suits of armor, they wouldn’t hide a wolf of my girth. But those hideous gargoyle statues on both sides of the doors . . . Yes, one of those would do nicely.

  It was a tight squeeze between the gargoyle and the wall (the gargoyles were intended to be decorations, not places to hide giant wolves), but when I stood up on my hind-legs and put my forepaws on the edge of the gargoyle’s pedestal, it would keep me from being seen.

  If the huntsman outside came in and looked to the right as he entered, my cover would be blown, but the ugly statue’s giant wings would hide me from any probable angle His Royal Majesty would be looking in.

  I waited impatiently, my muscles tensed and my every breath echoing loudly in my ears. I tried shallow breathing to make it quieter, but that made it seem worse, so I went back to deep breaths.

  At last, he came back to the main entryway, walking almost noiselessly as he surveyed his surroundings. I tried to put myself in his shoes. He must have been trying to look in places that a wolf would hide—like dark holes or something. That was what I would have done in his place. But I was no normal wolf.

  Finally, just when I thought he was about to search a different room, something terrible happened. Étoile came inside, bleating plaintively as she walked past me.

  I heard a shifting noise that must have been the raising of the gun. I didn’t know that what had happened was so terrible, but I soon found out.

  “So, lamb,” the mighty hunter said, “you decided to come inside to help me find my prey? Well, I suppose a little wounded bait might help me bring out the big bad wolf.”

  For a moment, time seemed to stand still. A question—Me or Elle’s lamb?—flashed through my head. But the answer was obvious.

  I leaped from behind the statue and grasped the lamb in my massive jaws. There was a loud crack in the air and a pain in my side.

  I ran. I needed a safe place for the lamb. Then I remembered the trunk in my room. It wasn’t airtight; Étoile could breathe in it.

  More shots went off behind me, but those bullets missed. I reached my room and darted inside. The lamb was bleating in terror and squirming. It was hard to keep from clamping down on her. I didn’t want her to escape, and I had to stretch my jaws wide to hold her safely. I fumbled with the trunk and got it open. Then I deposited Étoile inside. I closed the lid and ran back out into the hallway.

  I had to lead him away from Étoile. So I sped away. A bullet grazed my back. I was suddenly conscious of the first bullet as well as an intense pain and growing wetness.

  I went into another room and squeezed under a large bed. I was beginning to panic. I needed to stop and think.

  “You’re starting to drip blood,” he called down the hall. Then his voice came from the doorway. “You’re easier to follow that way. You have surprised me a little, though. I certainly didn’t expect the cape.”

  The cape! It had two holes in it now, of course, but that didn’t matter. I could use it to mislead him!

  I heard his footsteps enter the room. I could see the bottom of his boots as he walked around the bed, which was against the side wall. Taking in a deep breath, I slipped out from under the bed and fled the room.

  It was too late to leave the castle now. In my quickly weakening state, I wouldn’t outrun the huntsman, much less the dogs. And the occasional drops of blood which hit the ground made me all too easy to track.

  Two things occurred to me then.

  One was that I was going to die. That seemed unavoidable now.

  The other was that I would never see Elle again. That seemed like a pretty safe bet, too.

  The first didn’t give me much pause as it came. The second, however, filled me with an ache far worse than the pain in my side.

  It would all be a matter of choosing where to die now. And suddenly, I knew just the place.

  A plan to reach it formed quickly in my mind. It wasn’t a good plan, but it would buy me some time—time to get where I wanted to die.

  Suddenly, I didn’t want to let go of the cape. It reminded me of Elle—and the humanity I had tried to hold on to. Maybe all I needed was blood—the very thing that made me so easy to track.

  As I moved swiftly toward the foyer, I reflected on how my mother was right. I was going to die after Elle had been gone a week. Just not of a broken heart.

  Sometimes people did such stupid things for love.

  Chapter 17: Deathbed

  I nosed beneath my cape and licked up blood from my wound in disgust. I hadn’t actually realized how bad the wound was. No wonder I was leaving a trail of blood.

  I brought myself to salivate as much as possible—it is surprisingly hard to think about pork when dying—and spat out a tiny amount of watered-down blood near the base of the gargoyle statue.

  He would find it. Maybe he would think that I went outside or that I was trying to hide behind the gargoyle again. Either way, it bought me time.

  The next place I ran to was the pool room. I spat a little blood in front of the door and then licked my wound, trying not to gag. Some blood on the floor there (the lighting was dim enough that he might spend some time checking the room out), and I was finished.

  Already feeling myself start to stumble as I walked, I worried that I wouldn’t make it. Still, I trudged on anyway, glad that there were some twists and turns to the castle hallways.

  When I finally stood at the bottom of the stairs to Elle’s room, I took in a deep breath. “Invis,” I said, “let the lamb out when it’s safe, all right?” I felt a brush of air against the fur on my cheek, and then I began to climb upward.

  Each step was agony as my muscles bickered with the bullet lodged in them. The remnants of my strength were almost immediately depleted a few steps in. Somehow, however, I continued to haul myself upward. I had a goal. I wanted to die with the scent of Elle in my nostrils—that faint smell of roses and wildflowers and spring. I didn’t want it to be just the stench of blood and gunpowder and seared wolf. And I didn’t want to spend the last minutes of my life hiding under beds or behind couches. I was going to spend them with an echo of my beloved.

  I almost didn’t make it. When there were only five steps to go, my legs buckled beneath me in the stairway. I was wheezing from my exertions, and I thought that was it for me. But the uncomfortable sensation of the rose broach coupled with a breeze shaking my cape brought me back to myself, and I knew I had to continue.

  I stood on shaky legs and climbed the rest of the stairs.

  The Invis opened the door without me asking. I walked inside and nearly collapsed on the floor in despair. How was I supposed to get up on the bed?

  But then I felt something come over me and lift me into the air. “Thank you, Invis,” I whispered as they gently lowered me on the bed. I knew they were going against one of the multitude of rules that had been set for them pertaining to me, and it made me all the more grateful.

  Shifting slightly, luxuriating in the softness of Elle’s mattress, I inhaled deeply, breathing in her scent. This was it. I was lying in the bed of the one that I loved, my fur matted with blood, as I waited to die.

  I wasn’t looking for a light to guide me down a tunnel, and I wasn’t frightened. My beloved had left me, and n
othing could be worse than that. My life had already ended.

  For some reason, my thoughts went back to my French tutor. He always got angry when I fell asleep during his lessons, and he liked to say, “‘Bleakness’ and ‘blackness’ sound alike for a reason!” He had meant that I couldn’t learn anything while sleeping. But I knew the real meaning of that phrase now. The blackness was coming, and I couldn’t escape it.

  This cape was to be my burial shroud—this bed my deathbed. I wondered if I would be skinned and made into a rug. It was better than being stuffed and used as a trophy, wasn’t it?

  “Elle, I’m sorry I’m bleeding on your bed,” I whispered. My head was really fuzzy.

  “So the fight has gone out of you, has it?”

  I raised my head to look at His Royal Majesty. Though garbed in riding attire and out on a hunt where no one would see him, he was wearing his crown as always. What arrogance.

  “My son was killed by a wolf, you know. They found his bloodied clothes, without a trace of bone in them. What a sorry funeral that was. Pixie-bit beast didn’t leave us anything to bury.”

  I lowered my head back down on the bed. He could talk, gloat, whatever. Nothing really mattered anymore.

  His gun was raised slightly, but he did not pull the trigger. He just came closer, still talking. He feared me as much as a wolf fears a sheep. Here, I was the sheep.

  “Since then,” he said, “I’ve killed as many wolves as I could find. And as many other beasts as possible, of course. The deer and rabbit populations are going to soar. I’ll bet the commoners will love that. It’ll be one less thing for them to complain about.”

  I nearly told him to shut up and shoot me, but I couldn’t. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. I tried to think about Elle, but his words kept leaking through.

  “You’re the biggest wolf I’ve ever seen. I think you might be my prize trophy. Not sure I’ll keep the cape, though.” He brought his gun up higher, and I closed my eyes. This was it.

  I heard the voice of an angel then: “No, don’t!” I felt a feathery touch against my fur as her body covered mine. “Stop!”

  I couldn’t even open my eyes. But I heard him sneer, “Beauty does not belong with such a beast.”

  The angel was crying, and I wanted to tell her to stop. “You can’t hurt him,” she said, her voice anguished. “He means too much to me!”

  “You can’t truly care for a beast, girl!”

  “Yes, I can. I love him—he’s my best friend!”

  Joy spread through my body at the thought that the angel cared for me. But I still couldn’t pry my eyelids open. And I couldn’t breathe. There was a tingling sensation spreading over my body, which had been seized by some outside force.

  The angel was sobbing and whispering, “Don’t die!”

  A jolt went through my body, and His Royal Majesty said: “What? How . . . ?” He then gasped. “Rose?” There was a clank as something dropped to the floor.

  I heard someone shift on the bed covers, and then another hand found mine. Hand? I thought foggily.

  “Rose, I’ve killed our son,” he said in disbelief. “How could I have done this? How could Thornwald have become such a beast?”

  As my father continued to berate himself, I focused on trying to breathe. I was fading, and I couldn’t get air in my lungs.

  “I would not let you kill our son,” my mother said. Her voice seemed to come through the end of a tunnel.

  My angel spoke up and said: “Thorny, don’t die.” She caressed my forehead with her soft fingertips. “Thorny, you have to stay here.” And then, still crying, she begged, “Shepherd beau, come back to me.” And then those soft lips pressed against my forehead—the desperate kiss given by a friend to one who was dying—and I felt life pour back into me. She had kept her promise.

  I gasped, hard, like I was taking in enough air for ten people. The mechanics of my situation—which had been foggy before—suddenly came to me. I was lying on my stomach on Elle’s bed, my right cheek pressed against the blanket. Draped over me was the cape that I had worn as a wolf.

  Elle had sat up in surprise upon hearing me inhale, but she waited only a moment before throwing her arms around my back.

  I wheezed, still trying to return to my old self, and managed in a cracking voice: “Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got the voice of an angel, Elle?”

  She squeezed me tighter.

  I gingerly extricated myself from her embrace and sat up, drawing the cape around me like a blanket. I looked at that smiling face and thought of how I had wanted to kiss those lips for so long. But I knew she wasn’t ready, so I leaned forward and kissed her cheek instead.

  She jumped slightly in surprise, but then she smiled at me and shook her head in exasperation. Grinning back, I suddenly remembered that both my parents were standing in the room, and I turned to look at them.

  My father was shaken, which was a real change for him since his usual wont was arrogance. “I thought you were both dead,” he said. He was obviously trying to pull himself together, as he managed to sport a tone that demanded answers.

  “I’ll always love you, Oakhill, but I couldn’t live with you anymore,” my mother said. “I thought Thorny would be better off in a stable home befitting his station than he would coming with me, but you passed your arrogance on to him, and I had to teach him a few lessons. He will be king one day, after all.”

  “Queen Rose?” I heard Elle whisper to herself in astonishment. Then she looked at me. “Prince Thornwald?” She looked as dazed as I had felt moments before.

  “I wish you hadn’t left, Rose,” my father said. “I did not realize how much you meant to me until you were gone.” There was a tenderness to his voice, and something that had mystified me for years—how my mother could have ever loved this man—suddenly started to make a little more sense.

  But my mother didn’t melt. She didn’t even soften. “I haven’t been honest with you from the beginning. Since you hated magic, I tried to bury an important part of me so we could stay together. But my deception has ruined everything. I’m a fairy, Oakhill.”

  “Wh-what?” asked His Royal Majesty, looking stunned.

  “I was the one to turn Thorny into a beast. Since you spoiled him, I had to bring him to an environment where he could learn more about himself and who he should be. And that obviously wasn’t happening as either a prince or a shepherd boy.”

  My father stumbled his way over to a chair against the wall and sat in it. “When I was a boy,” he said slowly, “a fairy prophesied that magic would bring forth a beast and take my son from me. After that, I shunned magic, thinking to keep myself and those near me out of its influence. And by hunting beasts, I thought perhaps I could kill any that would threaten what was mine.” His lips were tightly pressed together. “I never thought I would be the one to nearly kill him. I thought Thornwald would be safer as a shepherd boy than as an easy target at the castle. You should’ve told me what you did, Rose.”

  “I don’t have to answer to you anymore, Oakhill.” She had always been a strong woman at heart, but rarely had that strength been displayed in front of my father, and it felt like I was seeing a new side to her. “I did what I had to.”

  “And this . . . magic nonsense?”

  She shrugged unapologetically. “It’s who I am.”

  I don’t think my father knew it, but his lip curled upward slightly, giving him a nasty expression. “I see. And this girl? How does she know Thornwald? What does she have to do with anything?”

  “Everything,” my mother answered simply. “But you and I can talk elsewhere. Let’s leave them alone.”

  His brow furrowed, yet he stood nonetheless and started to follow her into the stairwell.

  “Will you check on the lamb, Mom?” I called. “It’s in a trunk in my room.”

  “Yes, Thorny,” she answered.

  Before my father shut the door behind him, he gave Elle a dark look.

  I stared after him, not
liking the expression that had been on his face. But my father could always be dealt with later. My beloved had returned to me.

  Chapter 18: Paradise Glimpsed

  I turned to look at Elle, who appeared understandably overwhelmed. I smiled at her, happy enough to burst out into song (not that I would actually do that). Before all this had happened, I hadn’t known what happiness was. I had been misled by the glitter of wealth, following a winding path of bitterness and fleeting contentment, never seeing how the trees of conscience lining the path had begun to grow more twisted and press in with their gnarled branches almost to the point of suffocation. Now, however, I could see the sun. And she was glorious.

  “We’ve got a lot to talk about,” I said, staring at her with what was probably a goofy smile, “but first I need to put some clothes on.”

  “What?” she said, dazed.

  “Beneath this cape,” I said slowly, “I’m completely naked.”

  “Oh!” she gasped, her face turning scarlet. “I’ll—I’ll g-go,” she stammered, practically running to the exit. She fumbled with the knob—barely able to turn it—and rushed out, slamming the door behind her.

  “Just wait outside the room,” I called loudly, snickering to myself. “I’ll get you when I’m ready.”

  I heard a muffled noise that I assumed was assent and smirked to myself. “Invis,” I said, “how about some clothes?”

  The wind chimes sounded in acknowledgment, and the fire behind the rose-shaped grates flared up. The fountain might have bubbled a little bit, but I didn’t look. I got the picture.

  I had to wait a minute for anything to happen, but then the door was flung open, and Elle let out a squeak as clothes flew through the door past her, and I scrambled to properly cover myself with the cape, which I had taken off.