Beauty in the Beast

by Christine Danse

  The first painting was done in black and white. The only spots of color were the girls’ red bows and a red rose that the woman held. All three stared somberly from the canvas.

  The second was done in brightly colored broad strokes that reminded me of the raindrop painting above the fireplace. All three smiled in this portrait, eyes crinkling, and I could almost hear the girls’ giggles.

  The third was unfinished, little more than a drawing on canvas. The little girls’ faces were eerily blank and featureless. Only the woman was complete, each lock of hair carefully penciled. Her eyes were closed as if in sleep.

  On the corner of the table, I spied a small rectangle—a daguerreotype of the same woman and girls. The woman had a pale, delicate beauty, hair falling softly around her face and her expression serene. Both girls smiled shyly.

  There was a fourth person in the daguerreotype, though, one who was not in any of the paintings. A man. At first, I did not recognize the neatly combed hair and trimmed beard, but the jaw and brow were familiar.

  Rolph.

  A warm, electric force closed around my back, and the hairs on my arms and the rear of my neck stood up in a wave. An arm reached over my shoulder to pull the door firmly shut.

  “This one is off-limits,” growled Rolph in my ear. The warmth of his body burned hotter than a fire at my back.

  A shock ran from my toes to my scalp, and when he stepped away, the displacement of energy sucked my breath from me. I turned in time to catch a glimpse of his face, eyes black shadows in the sudden absence of light.

  He gestured toward the cozy smells and sounds of food and company. “Before the meat thaws and bleeds on my floor, please.”

  I scurried ahead like a pup with its tail between its legs, while heat spread to the tips of my ears and down my neck. Also to my thighs, though that was a different heat altogether.

  At the fireplace, I dropped the meat into the pot so hastily that I splashed scalding broth on my hand. I put my hand in my mouth and glanced back. Rolph, placing a crate on the table, looked up at my whimper of pain. “You hurt yourself.”

  Beth looked up. “Tara?”

  “I’m all right.” I shook my hand. “Just a bit of stew hit my hand.”

  Within three strides, Rolph was standing before me. “Show me your hand.”

  I did. He took it in his and turned it over, the rough pads of his fingers rasping over my skin. Suddenly, I forgot the pain.

  I pointed. “There.”

  He scowled at the tiny splotch of red. Looking up, he reached his arm over my shoulder, and my heart jumped as I thought he would hug me. Instead, he took something from the mantel. A jar.

  He unscrewed the top to reveal an olive-green salve. He scooped a fingerful and spread it on my skin. It was cool like peppermint but smelled like green woody spice. He massaged it over the scald mark with his thumbs.

  “Be more careful,” he said, wiping his hands with the hem of his shirt.

  I nodded mutely, hand still tingling where he’d kneaded it. What other parts of my body might I burn if you would touch them?

  When he wasn’t looking, Beth raised her eyebrows at me. He likes you, she mouthed. I shook my head, but my heart raced.

  From the crate he’d placed on the table, Rolph pulled several bottles.

  “I was saving these. This seems like enough of an occasion.” He tilted a bottle. “To a calm morning, and to your continued safe travels.”

  Fred raised an empty hand. “Hear, hear!”

  Beth’s face lit up—she adored a glass of good wine—but suspicion quickly chased the excitement from her eyes. Miles heartily accepted a cup from Rolph and smiled at his wife around its rim as he took a sip. She watched with rounded eyes, and when he let out a satisfied sigh, she pouted at him.

  Miles nodded to Rolph. “Exceptional.”

  “May I have a glass?” I asked.

  As he handed me a glass, his gaze met mine and then danced away.

  I took a taste. “Quite exceptional,” I said with a nudge and a wink at Beth. She scowled, but her hands remained folded in her lap. “It’s fine,” I assured her, proffering the cup. “It’s sweet and strong.” I could smell nothing like poison about it, just the rich scent of grape wine and the tin of the cup.

  Beth took a cautious sip and immediately her eyes, wrinkled with caution, flew open at the flavor. “It’s port! It’s delicious.” She wrapped both hands around the cup and did not offer it back to me.

  Apparently, the ale had not aged quite as well as the port. “It’s flat,” said Fred, “but good. Mother’s milk after an entire dry month. We’ve barely enough to keep fuel in the boiler, much less beer in our stomachs.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. I did wish that Fred hadn’t felt the liberty to share that. We had already been taken in for the night by a stranger—no use sounding like absolute beggars.

  But Rolph only nodded. “Good.” He sat nursing his cup of port while Miles and Beth bantered and Fred laughed along, lute propped nearby as he rested his hands. They called to Rolph asking for songs and stories, but he declined with a flat smile and a shake of his head. Much to my chagrin, Miles told his story, “The Tommy that Loved a Woman.” Fred snorted into his beer. Rolph only smiled.

  No matter where I looked in the room, my gaze traveled back to him. The portraits paraded through my imagination. I found myself comparing his face to the face on the daguerreotype—the smoother, younger, brighter face that was unmistakably his. I thought about his stories. The story he told us and the real story, the one he didn’t tell us, the one that was hidden behind his eyes and behind the door to that room.

  * * *

  Fred fell asleep first, head pillowed on his jacket. I knew he was out for the night when the music went silent. Miles curled with Beth on the floor, and he rubbed her arm until she, too, fell asleep.

  Soon, only Rolph and I were awake. I stared into the fire in an attempt to look entranced, but my thoughts were on him. Staring into space from his armchair, he seemed almost sorrowful. The honey highlights of his eyes deepened by the firelight as the night wore on, and shadows played across his face, shifting his features—lengthening his jaw, stretching his ears. He said nothing to me, though at times I felt a pressure as if his gaze or his thoughts were on me.

  The chair creaked and he stood. I watched him walk down the hall, relishing the lines of his shoulder blades under his shirt. When he returned again, he brought a pile of blankets and a pillow.

  “For you and your friends,” he said, squatting as if to hand them to me. But he must have intended to place them on the ground, because when I got to my knees and reached up, I caught them rather abruptly and awkwardly. My hands closed over his forearms.

  We paused there for just an instant—long enough for me to fully appreciate the curve of his lips—and then he quickly slid his arms back.

  “Thank you.” I spoke in a hush.

  He looked down and rubbed his hand absently over his forearm. “Can I get you anything else?”

  He glanced up to see me shake my head, then nodded and stood. Wrapping a rag around the stew pot’s handle, he lifted it from its hook over the fire and carried it out the back door.

  I sat back on my haunches and hugged the pile of bedding to my chest, staring at the closed door. The pillow smelled of Rolph. I reserved it for myself, though I spread the warmest blankets over my friends. Then I sat again and watched the fire, waiting with buzzing nerves for Rolph to return.

  He did not. The tick of the clock marked the seconds until ten minutes had passed. A pit of uneasiness settled in my stomach, although I could not tell if it was simple concern or a premonition. Fearing the latter, I stood and hesitantly opened the back door.

  Rolph sat on the stoop, staring out into the storm as if oblivious to the cold. His hair blew around his head like a dark halo. I sat next to him, despite the burning chill of the stone, and bit my teeth together against chattering.

  He glanced at me. “You shouldn’t be out
here.”

  I raised my eyebrows in an expression I hoped look wryly humorous, but probably looked startled. “I’ve been in worse.”

  His gaze dropped to my bare feet, which I rubbed warmth into vigorously. He shrugged off his coat. I began to protest, but he said, “Put it on.”

  I did. It still held his warmth, and I hugged it tightly around myself, tucking its edges under my legs. If he was cold, it did not show in the way he draped his lean arms over his knees or sat steadily against the wind. His shoulders were rounded, but more as if against a great weight than against the chill.

  By the dim light of a gas lamp, I could see that snow had begun to cover the stomper. I hoped that Miles had remembered to pull the canvas over the sled, or we would be doing salvage duty tomorrow after digging the stomper out of the snow. I thought of my trunk of carefully folded dresses and winced at the thought of their dye running because of melted snow. I shook my head. That’s the least of your worries, Tara.

  I tried to tame my hair behind my ears, but the wind grabbed it and tossed it, stinging, against my face. I turned the collar of the coat up, breathing in the scents of Rolph and coat oil. I slid my hands into each opposite arm cuff.

  When he spoke, I almost could not hear his voice over the storm, his words were so soft. “She was my wife. Those were our two little girls.”

  My mouth went dry. I recalled their picture in my mind with sharp detail and waited for him to continue.

  He stared at the backs of his hands, and I wondered if the same picture haunted him. “They died in a fire nine years ago.” His eyes closed. “It was my fault.”

  I stared at him in the long silence that followed that confession, watching his hair dance around his face. I’m not sure that he breathed. I’m not sure that I did either.

  Finally his eyes opened. “If I suffer a lifetime of this pain, it will not make up for their lives.”

  I had no words, so I sat in silence with him, watching as the snow covered the last visible portions of the stomper. Sacrificing what was left of his life—his own chance for happiness—was not adequate payment for what had been lost. It only added to the tragedy. But I knew loss, and I knew remorse, and I was sure he didn’t need my pat words. I only hoped he didn’t take my silence as disapproval.

  At length, he looked at me. “Please don’t tell your friends.”

  I met his searching eyes. I could see now how he tensed against the cold. “Of course not.”

  We stood, our bodies close. Before he could reach for the door, I clasped his hands. I wanted to say something meaningful, something comforting, but instead I blurted, “They’re shaking again!”

  He snatched his hands back. The walls behind his eyes fell away for just a moment, and I stared into fear. One of the shaking hands reached out as if to touch my hair but pulled back. “Promise me you’ll stay inside tonight.”

  The blood in my veins turned to ice. I nodded and swallowed, my cheek still aching in anticipation of the withdrawn caress.

  He held the door open for me. In the light that spilled out, I could see that his face had gone pale. I ducked inside, avoiding his eyes.

  He shut the door firmly behind us and said, “Good night.”

  I stood helplessly as he disappeared down the hall, leaving me with my sleeping friends, wondering what had just happened. I hugged myself and thumped my forehead against the door to stare at my boots.

  For a professional storyteller, I had a knack of finding the wrong words.

  My friends breathed heavily, oblivious in sleep. Finally, I pulled off my boots and Rolph’s jacket, curling up on the floor with the pillow. I breathed in Rolph’s scent and closed my eyes, listening to the sounds of the storm and feeling the cold creep slowly over the fur-covered floor, thinking of him.

  Chapter Seven

  I woke to the smell of meat. Someone had restarted the fire and put the pot of stew on. I lay for a time and listened to nothing but the crackle of flames. After last night’s screaming winds, the quiet was almost profound.

  At length, I sat up to find Miles and Fred gone. Only Beth was still asleep, curled under the blanket with one arm thrown over her face against the daylight that streamed over the floor. I tugged on my boots, which were now dry and warm, and stepped onto the back stoop.

  Outside, the air was clear and still. Morning sunlight reflected off snow, bleaching the world white. I squinted.

  The stomper had become a round hill. Someone stood upon it shoveling snow, and I recognized the blond hair as Fred’s. He waved at me almost ironically. I wondered how long he’d been shoveling.

  “Where’s Miles?” I called.

  Fred pointed down. I followed the gesture and spotted Miles’s feet sticking out from under the front of the stomper.

  “Here,” said Miles, voice muffled. He scooted, banged himself, cursed and emerged. He dropped his forehead onto his palm and dangled his other arm over one knee.

  I covered my mouth to muffle laughter.

  Miles tossed his wrench to the ground. He stood, brushing snow from his clothes. “She’s broken. Ice cracked the pipes and the water tank.”

  I stopped laughing. “We have the box of spare parts…”

  “Not everything we need. We’re stranded until we fix her, and we can’t fix her till we have them.” He pushed back the lip of his knit cap and then pulled it straight again. Today, the cap was purple and rimmed with yellow diamonds.

  “Perhaps Rolph will have parts…?”

  Miles raised an eyebrow. “Do you think he keeps pipes and a water tank around?”

  No, probably not. In fact, I doubted he had any spare parts at all. The rustic cabin seemed entirely devoid of machinery, as if the Industrial Revolution had never reached here.

  “Have you seen him?”

  Miles shook his head. I wondered if Rolph was still asleep. My thoughts turned to the look on his face just before he strode down the hall last night—pale and deeply unsettled—and then wondered if he’d gotten any sleep.

  I took a walk around the cabin, soaking in the bright morning sun and feeling as if the hope of spring was not so very remote after all. The edge of the woods seemed less imposing by daylight. Frosted with snow, the trees almost seemed to shrink back into the horizon, silent and sleeping.

  I stopped and tilted my face to the clouds. The wind carried the scent of blood. My eyes scanned the landscape, and I spotted a figure loping through the snow—Rolph carrying a string of rabbits.

  I sat on a pile of wood at the side of the cabin and watched him approach, appreciating the gleaming brown of his hair in the sunlight. As he got closer, I noted that his gait was strong and his speed brisk. He held a hand up in greeting and swung the string of rabbits in front of him. They were already skinned. I looked for signs of strain on his face, but the day had smoothed away the fatigue and the worry lines. His skin glowed.

  “How’s the stomper?”

  I shook my head and tried not to stare at his warm honey eyes or track the curve of his dark eyebrows. “It’s broken. Do you keep spare parts?”

  “Just a few,” he said, taking a course toward the back of the cabin.

  I followed him past the almost comical scene of Fred shoveling endless snow and through the long stable. Rolph hung the rabbits from a hook near the kitchen door, then led me in.

  “A few” was not an understatement. The collection of odd parts that Rolph brought into the living room was small, and some of what was there was rusted and brittle. Miles and Fred came in to rummage through them while Beth and I ate bowls of stew.

  Miles sat back on his haunches. “I can’t use any of this.”

  The four of us looked at each other awkwardly.

  “What are we to do?” Beth looked toward the kitchen, where Rolph had disappeared. He had agreed to only one night. Now we were stranded.

  Miles stood. “Well, our only option is to go on foot and beg our host to let us leave the stomper here. There’s no way we can move her.”

  R
olph came in with rabbit furs. “Closest town is a day away by foot,” he said when we asked.

  Miles looked at us. “We’ll have to leave now and pick up the parts we need there. The rest of you can stay in town while I return to fix the stomper. Hopefully, it won’t take too long, and I’ll meet back up with you. We might make it to the end of the Frost Fair.” He looked to Rolph. “Do you have a sled?”

  A muscle tightened in Rolph’s jaw. He seemed to be thinking. For just an instant his eyes turned to me, then jumped back to Miles. “No. I’ll take you to town. We should be back before nightfall. Enough time for you to make your repairs.”

  Miles nodded, his serious expression offset by the loud purple knit cap. “Very kind of you. I’m ready to leave when you are.”

  “Actually,” I said, “you should stay here with the stomper. You have a lot of work to do on it, right? Even without the parts? You can get ahead with all of it and have as much done as possible by the time we return. I’ll go instead.”

  I tried to look as if my suggestion was purely practical and not personal, although the butterflies in my stomach beat so hard they almost tickled a smile out of me.

  Miles pursed his lips. “Fine. Fred, go with her.”

  “But I’ll be with Rolph!”

  “The parts are big. You’ll need at least two men.”

  I crossed my arms, mildly insulted. I wasn’t weak. But I also wasn’t going to argue with Miles. I knew he had another reason for sending Fred, though I didn’t think I needed a chaperone.

  * * *

  As it turned out, the stable did house a creature—a horse mechanimal that slept under a thick canvas drape. I had never seen anything like it before. Its segmented metal neck curved proudly, though it was cold and motionless and obviously had not been used in some time. Brown autumn leaves still littered the floor around its wide hooves.