The Beatryce Prophecy

by Kate DiCamillo

  The room was silent then and, even with the light from the candle, too dark. The darkness and silence felt familiar to Beatryce. It was the same as the abyss—that terrible place of not-remembering. She felt that emptiness at her back, pushing against her, breathing against her neck.

  I will not go, she told herself. I will stay here.

  She put out her hand and touched Answelica, and it was as if she had cast an anchor for herself in a dark and fast-moving river.

  Beatryce steadied. She stayed.

  “I will begin!” shouted the man. “I will say it and you will write it, and it will all be done.”

  Beatryce bent her head to the parchment.

  This man would do what he had to do. He would say what he had to say, and she, too, would do what she had to do. She would write it down. And then she and Answelica would go back to the world—back to Jack Dory and Brother Edik, to the sunlight and the fields.

  The soldier cleared his throat.

  From outside, there came the sound of birdsong—a single note, high and bright.

  After a long pause, the bird called out again. And then it sang a song, a song of happiness and sadness, lightness and darkness.

  What kind of bird could it be? What kind of bird sang such a complicated, heartbroken, and beautiful song?

  Beatryce raised her head. She listened. And then she understood.

  It was Jack Dory.

  Her heart flooded with light. He wanted her to know that he was there, close by, and that she was not alone. She smiled.

  It made a great deal of sense to her that Jack Dory would pretend to be a bird. He moved through the world with the same lightness.

  She remembered, again, him saying her name before he left the room.

  Beatryce.

  “I am Beatryce,” she whispered to herself. She put a piece of maple candy in her mouth. The sweetness of it blossomed inside of her.

  “I have killed,” said the man.

  And with those three words, all thoughts of birds and songs and sweetness went out of Beatryce’s head.

  Her heart became heavy, filled with dread.

  “How many have I killed?” said the man. “I do not know. Write down that I have taken life after life, too many lives to count. There were wars and I fought in them as a soldier should, as a soldier must. And then there were those killings that I did at the king’s request, specifically at the king’s request. And I did it all without regret. Yes, without regret!”

  Beatryce felt the room tip sideways and then right itself again.

  She dropped the quill and reached for Answelica’s ear.

  “Are you writing it down?” shouted the man. “Write it down!”

  But she did not want to write it down. Who would want to write such terrible words?

  “Write it!” shouted the soldier.

  Beatryce let go of the goat’s ear. She picked up the quill. She dipped it into the pot of ink. She wrote, I have killed. Her hand trembled.

  “I regret almost none of it,” said the soldier. “I regret the children. That is surely what the angel wants recorded. I regret the children.”

  Beatryce looked up. She held herself very still.

  “Two boys and a girl. I killed them. Write that down.”

  But Beatryce could not write. She could not move. Some paralysis afflicted her. She stared into the candle flame and saw a creature curled and glowing.

  What is it?

  A seahorse. A horse of the sea.

  Seahorse, seahorse, horse of the sea.

  And then, suddenly, the creature was tumbling through the darkness, away from her.

  Beatryce put her hands over her eyes. She lowered her head to the floor.

  The man was crying now—loud, ragged sobs.

  Answelica butted Beatryce very gently.

  Beatryce lifted her head and took her hands from her eyes and saw the goat.

  “Here,” the goat seemed to say, “here. Stay here.”

  And then the soldier said, “Under this bed is the sword. It is the sword that did the deed. I cannot get it clean. It will not come clean.”

  These words seemed to come from very far away.

  Answelica butted her head against Beatryce again.

  Stay. Stay here.

  And Beatryce remembered then that she had promised Brother Edik she would tell the story of the mermaid.

  The mermaid.

  Beatryce bent again to the parchment. She crossed out the words I have killed.

  She wrote, Once, there was a mermaid.

  Jack Dory sat under the eaves of Granny Bibspeak’s hut. He tipped his stool back and leaned against the warm wall and put his face to the sun. He closed his eyes.

  He imagined Beatryce in the dark room. He imagined her writing.

  A girl who could write! It was unbelievable, strange.

  And also very dangerous, which was surely why the monks did not want Beatryce brought back to them.

  It is dangerous, Jack Dory, he said to himself. Mark that it is dangerous. Trouble has a very long tail. Aye, this girl must be kept close. She must be protected.

  And so he put her in the center of his mind.

  Beatryce.

  He willed her safe.

  Jack Dory knew that you could not keep people safe. Nevertheless, he worked at keeping Beatryce—Beatryce who could write, Beatryce and her goat, Beatryce and her laughter—safe in his mind.

  He heard horses’ hooves.

  He kept his eyes closed and his back against the sun-warmed wall, but his heart beat faster.

  Horses were rare things.

  Horses belonged only to the king and the king’s men, and it could mean nothing good to have a soldier of the king appear in the village when there was a girl in the village who could write.

  Trouble has a very long tail.

  The horses’ hooves came closer, closer. Jack Dory’s heart beat faster. And then there came the sound of someone dismounting, the clank of a sword.

  Jack Dory thought, Well, let it begin, then.

  He brought the stool forward. He put his feet on the ground. He opened his eyes.

  A soldier of the king was standing before him.

  “Boy,” said the soldier, “are there strangers abiding in your village?”

  “Strangers?” said Jack Dory.

  “People unknown to you.”

  “Ah, people unknown to me. Not a one.”

  “Nothing is different here?” said the soldier. He had small eyes. He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “Everything is just as it ever was,” said Jack Dory. “Not one thing has changed. It is the curse of this little place to stay the same as it has always been.” He smiled.

  “I will ask again in the clearest terms possible. Has there been a girl child who came to this village alone and looking for shelter?”

  Jack Dory’s heart fell.

  Beatryce.

  He looked into the eyes of the soldier. There was no light in those small eyes, no mercy at all.

  “There has not been any sort of a girl who has come here,” Jack Dory said without looking away. He willed his heart to beat slowly, slowly.

  “Understand, we will ask the question of everyone,” said the king’s man. “We will knock on every door of every hovel in this village. We will question every soul. To lie would mean death. We are here on a mission for His Majesty himself. It is the king who looks for this girl. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” said Jack Dory. “It is the king himself.” He smiled.

  “This is no laughing matter, boy. The girl is bewitched. She is a danger to herself and to all who encounter her.”

  “But I am not laughing,” said Jack Dory, “am I? And I know no dangerous girl.”

  “What about a soldier? Have you seen a soldier?”

  “A soldier?” said Jack Dory. He kept the smile on his face. “Is that a trick question? I’m seeing a soldier now, am I not?”

  “I will search your hut,” sa
id the soldier.

  “Search all you want,” said Jack Dory. He waved his hand in the direction of the door, and then he tipped his stool back again, put his face to the sun, and closed his eyes.

  He heard the soldier cross the threshold of Granny Bibspeak’s hut and then come back out again. He heard the buzz of a bee and then, finally, the sound of hooves and the jingle of the king’s soldier’s spurs as he led the horse away.

  Jack Dory kept his eyes closed. He waited and then waited some more. The bee hovered companionably near his head.

  He had often thought that if Granny Bibspeak bothered to return from the next world—for surely there was a next world, a different world, a world that made more sense than this one—it would be in the form of a bee.

  And because of this, Jack Dory spoke to all bees, every bee.

  “All is well, Granny Bibspeak,” he whispered. “Do not worry. I will do nothing foolish, I promise you.” He opened his eyes.

  The bee was directly in front of him, humming.

  “But never again will I sit idly by,” said Jack Dory. “No, nor will I ever again run away. I will not. I promise you.”

  Slowly, Jack Dory lowered the stool legs to the ground. He stood. He stretched. He said, “We will go and get her now, Granny Bibspeak.”

  He made his way to the inn.

  “Now what?” said the innkeeper’s wife. “It is never silent here. Always someone demanding something.”

  “Aye,” said Jack Dory, “then you, too, talked to the soldier of the king.”

  “Looking for a strange child, he was.”

  “Did he go upstairs?”

  “I told him there was nothing up there but a monk and a dying man. But he had to go see for himself. He came back downstairs quick enough. He said, ‘Mother, it smells of death upstairs. And there is a goat. You did not tell me of the goat. The goat is in a very bad mood!’ He laughed. I did not laugh with him. There is nothing funny to me about a goat in a bad mood.”

  “I think I will go and pay that goat a visit,” said Jack Dory.

  “Do as you please. Everyone else does.” She shook her head. “A bewitched girl child. That is who he is searching for. The king wants her, if you can believe such a thing.”

  Jack Dory could believe such a thing, and so he climbed the stairs slowly, afraid of what he might find.

  In the dark room, the man was weeping as if he would never stop. The blankets were over his head.

  Beatryce was on the floor. She was bent over a piece of parchment, writing and writing.

  The goat was beside her. She looked at Beatryce and then at Jack Dory, and then she looked back at Beatryce again as if to say, “You see how it is here.”

  “I do see,” Jack Dory said to the goat.

  “Beatryce,” he said, and then he remembered that he should not have said her name.

  But she did not look up, and the man did not stop crying, and it was as if Jack Dory had not spoken at all.

  “Beatryce,” he said again in a whisper.

  He bent down and took Beatryce by the shoulders and shook her. The goat stuck her head in between them—to intercede or to assist, Jack Dory could not tell which.

  She was a very troublesome goat.

  Jack Dory was beginning to form a fondness for her.

  “We must go,” Jack Dory said to Beatryce. He pulled her to her feet, and in doing so, he knocked over the pot of ink. Black ink, dark as blood, spread across the floor.

  Beatryce looked at the ink and then up at Jack Dory. She looked past him. She said, “Under the bed there is a sword.”

  “A sword?” said Jack Dory.

  “Under the bed there is a sword,” said Beatryce.

  It was as if someone had put a spell on her and “under the bed there is a sword” were the only words that she was capable of speaking.

  “Very well,” said Jack Dory. “I will look under the bed for a sword.” He bent down and reached under the bed and felt something heavy and cold. He pulled the thing out and held it up.

  A sword—the blade of it long and terrible and gleaming mutely.

  The dark-bearded face of the robber flashed through Jack Dory’s mind—the robber and the knife he held between his teeth.

  Jack Dory thought that a sword such as this would be a very useful thing to have.

  Answelica butted him in the leg.

  He looked down at her. “Yes,” he said. He lowered the sword. “You are right. We must go now.”

  The soldier suddenly threw the covers from his head. He shouted, “She returns! Do you see her? She returns!”

  “Beatryce,” said Jack Dory. “We must go.” He pushed her before him out of the room and down the stairs.

  The goat followed, her hooves clattering on the wooden steps.

  Ahead of them, a bee hovered in the gloom.

  “Yes, Granny,” whispered Jack Dory, “I have her here. I will keep her safe.”

  The goat made a noise that seemed to say, “Hurry, hurry, faster.”

  From the room behind them there came a flash of light and a terrible stench, and then the sound of great wings beating together.

  The sword was heavy, menacing—glorious—in Jack Dory’s hands.

  In the castle, the youngest son of a youngest son, the man who was now king, was being entertained, distracted. He sat upon his throne and clapped in time to the song of the court musicians. He laughed at the court jester. He marveled over the juggling.

  And the counselor to the king?

  He stood in his dark robes, alone, in the castle keep.

  He looked out upon the land. From the keep, the counselor could see a long way, a very long way indeed. He could see all the way to Castle Abelard, perched on a cliff and overlooking the sea.

  “Here is a question,” said the counselor. “Is it better to be the king or to be the man behind the king? That is, is it better to be the puppet or the puppet master? Answer me that question, Beatryce, you who always had an answer for every question. Beatryce of Abelard, can you answer that question for me?”

  The counselor smiled his small, twisted smile.

  “No need to hurry. I can wait for your answer. I am a patient man. In the meantime, as I wait, perhaps I will go and ask your mother a few questions, too.”

  They went to the dark woods.

  The dark woods were not safe, but right now, surely, they would be safer than the village, or so said Jack Dory.

  Beatryce did not know or care about the dark woods. She did not know or care about what was safe or not safe. She found herself unwilling to care about anything. Her body was heavy. Her limbs were weak. It felt as if she had been asleep for a thousand years.

  There was a story about a man who had been made to sleep for a thousand years. He woke to see that the stars had reconfigured themselves in the sky and that the sun rose in the west instead of the east. The man called out, “What world is this I now inhabit, and how shall I live in it?”

  Someone had told Beatryce that story.

  Who?

  She could not remember.

  She could remember nothing. Nothing.

  They went deeper into the dark woods, and it was as if they were entering a great green cave.

  What world is this I now inhabit, and how shall I live in it?

  When they were entirely surrounded by trees, Jack Dory turned to her and put down the sword. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Beatryce,” he said. “Beatryce.”

  He shook her gently. “Wake up, now,” he said. “You must.” He took her hand and placed it on Answelica’s head.

  “Beatryce,” he said, “I need you.”

  And with these words, and with the goat’s warm, solid head beneath her hand, the world came closer. Beatryce felt something turn over in her and start to hum.

  She looked into Jack Dory’s eyes. He smiled at her. “There you are. Listen. Listen to me. They are after us. I think we should climb this tree. It is tall enough to see who is coming and it will keep us hidden.”


  “But what of Answelica?”

  “What of her?”

  “She cannot climb a tree.”

  Jack Dory looked down at the goat and smiled. “Most likely not. But then, I would put nothing past her. We will have the goat stay at the base of the tree and guard us. How is that?”

  He looked up at the tree. “Should I lift you?” he asked Beatryce.

  “You should not,” she said. She walked past him and took hold of a low branch and swung herself up into the tree.

  “Ha,” said Jack Dory. “Someone has taught you to read and write, and someone has taught you, too, how to climb a tree.”

  He smiled up at her.

  “Here,” he said. “I will have you hold the sword while I climb.”

  “No,” she said. She felt a terrible shudder go through her, a great gust of darkness. “I do not want it.”

  “Take it so that I might have my hands free to climb.”

  “No,” she said again.

  Jack Dory sighed. He planted the sword in the earth and swung himself up into the tree and then leaned down and pulled the sword up.

  They sat together on the same branch, and Answelica looked up at them, shifting from hoof to hoof. It was as if she were considering how best to go about climbing the tree.

  “Stay there,” said Beatryce to the goat. “You must guard us.”

  “Hold the sword and I will go higher,” said Jack Dory.

  “I will not hold that sword,” said Beatryce. “Do not ask me again.”

  “Very well, then,” Jack Dory said. “We will just stay here, exactly where we are. In the dark woods. In the low branches of a tree. Guarded by a goat. Surely, this will come out right. What could possibly go wrong?”

  He whistled a few notes.

  “I heard you whistle to me,” said Beatryce. “Earlier. Before.”

  “Aye,” said Jack Dory. “I did.”

  “I want to hear that song again,” said Beatryce.

  “I do not know that I should be whistling at all,” said Jack Dory. “They are after us.”

  “Who?” said Beatryce.

  “Soldiers of the king,” said Jack Dory. “That is why it is good to have this sword.”