Beauty in the Beast

by Christine Danse

  Beth stood by my side, throwing looks around the kitchen. I smiled, imagining how the spider-webbed corners and leaf-littered floor must be making her fingers twitch. Finally, she announced, “I just can’t allow this,” and plucked the broom from its place of hibernation.

  A time later, Rolph strode down the hall and paused at the kitchen door to find us both on our knees, scrubbing the floor. I grinned at his dumbfounded expression.

  “That isn’t necessary,” he said.

  Beth sat up and wiped a wayward strand of hair back with her forearm. “Oh yes, it is.”

  His eyes widened. I raised the back of my hand to my mouth in the guise of scratching my nose, only to stifle a giggle. There commenced a brief moment of staring—Beth scowling and Rolph stricken—followed by Rolph disappearing down the hall. With a frown, Beth plunged her brush into the scrub bucket and then slopped it onto the floor.

  Later as I sat by the fire with a book, Rolph brought a lamp outside so that Miles could work into the night. I tried not to be disappointed. It would be just my luck that Miles would finish at midnight and we would pack out, losing not only a night with Rolph but any semblance of sleep. However, Miles came in not long after.

  He stomped his boots at the entryway. “It’s starting again.”

  “What?” I looked up from my book.

  “The storm.”

  My heart lifted a little. “What about the stomper?” I tried to quell my excitement. This was a serious situation. We hadn’t the money to fix it again.

  “It should be fine. There’s no water in the system yet.”

  “Oh, good.” My shoulders relaxed. I glanced at Rolph to see how he was handling this news. The storm might buy me another night with him and possibly another morning, depending on how long it took us to dig out the stomper the next day. His face, however, was a mask.

  “Stay another night, then,” he said. “And help yourselves to food and drink. You are welcome in the kitchen, but otherwise I ask that you keep to this room.”

  I searched for emotion in his expression. Frustration, relief, disappointment, anything. I saw only the same strain that had shadowed his features last night. What ghosts did the night bring to him? The mouth that had laughed so beautifully by daylight now creased.

  My eyes begged him to meet my gaze, but he turned instead and retreated down the hall. I let the book fall limp in my hands as the afternoon’s events replayed through my mind. Had I said something wrong—again? Maybe I had embarrassed him in front of Fred, or been too forward. Maybe he liked a more demure woman and I had frightened him with my bold attitude and flirting. Worst of all, perhaps he simply didn’t care, and I had been fooling myself all along.

  Beth leaned toward me. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “Just tired.”

  She leaned her cheek against my shoulder. “It’s been a long day.”

  I patted her hair. “It has.” I considered the sound of the wind as it buffeted the cabin in a sudden gust. It was picking up fast. “I’m glad we’re in here and not out there.”

  I tried to read after that, but the words felt dry and my eyes kept skipping over them. I closed the book with a small sigh, exchanged my skirt for my warm trousers and curled under the blanket, only to be reminded of Rolph by his smell clinging to the pillow. Confound the human heart. Who could explain why it felt what it felt?

  I am happy, I told myself as I listened to Fred strum a slow tune. I am content and warm, with a full belly and the company of friends. The sun will rise tomorrow and the Frost Fair waits for me.

  But none of that eased the ache in my heart. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, hoping to at least forget it for a little while.

  * * *

  I woke to a wave of energy that prickled over my skin and raised the hairs on my arms. Fabric slid over my body with a soft whisper, and I opened my eyes to find Rolph spreading the blanket over me.

  His eyes, when they saw mine, widened. He froze where he crouched. “Did I wake you?”

  A smile spread across my face and I shook my head, relishing the sound of his whispered voice. “It’s all right.” It’s not every day I wake to a rugged man crouching at my side.

  He relaxed and studied my face in the firelight while my stomach slowly heated. The corners of his mouth turned down thoughtfully, and I lazily caressed his lower lip with my gaze. Even the rough growth of beard couldn’t disguise its softness. Too bad I hadn’t kissed him earlier. Oh, but I was tempted to remedy that now.

  He lingered long enough that I smiled and asked, “Going to sketch another portrait?”

  His eyes snapped away. “My apologies.” He began to stand.

  Tara, you idiot! I caught his hand. “Wait. Don’t go.”

  He hesitated, but I did not release it. Something passed over his face—uncertainty, perhaps—but he settled onto the floor next to me with his elbow propped beneath him. He studied my hand on his, curling his fingers lightly under my palm and caressing the fleshy heel of my thumb. Slowly, lightly, I ran my index finger along his.

  He stilled. When I reached the tip of his finger, I petted it softly with the barest of touches.

  He closed his hand around mine and whispered, “What do you see?”

  I tracked the planes of his face. Shadows haunted every angle like ghosts, one for every lonely winter.

  “I see a man.”

  “That’s all?”

  “A lovely, lonely man who made a terrible mistake, as all men make mistakes.” I raised a hand as if to brush aside his hair.

  He pulled away and began to push up. “I should go.”

  “You don’t have to be alone,” I said quickly, clasping his hand again…and found it shaking. I held tight as if I could make it stop. “What is it that you fear?”

  Inside my hand, his fist clenched. He pulled, but not firmly enough to reclaim his arm, as he could have. His eyes darted everywhere—the wall, my friends, the fire, the ground—before he finally met my gaze. I saw the flicker of amber. “Myself.”

  The fire popped in the silence that followed. His arm went lax, but I did not release his hand. I swallowed and whispered, “I don’t.”

  The energy hummed between us, pulsing in my belly. He lifted his hand to brush my temple, his face dark. “You really should…”

  I sighed into his touch. “Fear you? Why? Will you do terrible things to me?”

  He snorted a soft laugh and trailed his thumb down the side of my face. “Cheeky. Perhaps I will.”

  I flicked a glance at him. “You know, it’s proper to kiss a girl before you do terrible things to her.”

  His breath caught and a flare of amber lit his eyes. I quivered. In that moment, I thought he would consume me.

  His eyes darkened again and he said, “I really shouldn’t.” But his fingers curled behind my head and he drew closer.

  I looked at his eyes and then at his lips. “I’m not making you.”

  His lips moved near my ear. “Aren’t you?” He took a deep breath of me and let out a soft moan. “Every bit of you calls to me. Your ear…” His lips brushed against my sensitive lobe. “Your jaw.” His mouth lowered to plant a kiss at its soft curve. “Your neck.” He breathed against my skin. It turned into a low growl and he said, “You shouldn’t let me do this.” He kissed me again, this time on the hollow of my throat, then my chin. “You should cry out and push me away.”

  I pushed into the roughness of his jaw, rubbing my cheek against his. “Do you wish me to push you away?”

  He groaned. “If you don’t, I surely cannot control myself, and we’ll both be lost.”

  His warm breath trailed over my cheek. I closed my eyes, waiting for the pressure of his lips against mine, but they flew open again at the strangled noise he made. Rolph recoiled as if burned and, for an instant, I thought the fire had spat an ember at him.

  “Are you hurt?” I sat up and reached out.

  He flew to his feet and gripped the corner of the mantel, knees bent as
if ready to buckle. A long, low groan issued from him.

  I scrambled to my feet and took a step toward him. “Rolph.”

  “Don’t.”

  The one word stopped me as if he’d gripped me by the shoulders.

  He felt blindly over the mantel top, hand skittering over jars and knickknacks. His fingers touched a vial. It looked just like the one containing the strange-smelling substance that had so relaxed him the night before.

  He opened his hand to grasp for it, but his fingers tipped it over. He clutched air. With a gasp of pain, he snatched his arm back and hugged himself. The air between us rippled.

  My pulse beat like a moth in my throat. I took a step toward him.

  “Don’t,” he rasped.

  He turned and staggered away from me. With a heavy breath and a hiss, he heaved his shoulders up and stumbled toward the back door. I stared dumbly as he fumbled with the knob and tore the door open, lunging headlong into the storm.

  Cold air exhaled over the fur-covered floor. My feet found wings, and I leaped to the door to catch it before it banged closed. Through the open threshold, I saw nothing but darkness.

  I threw a look at my companions. Beth stirred against Miles’s chest but did not wake, and Fred snored softly.

  I forced myself to close the door and put on my boots, fingers fumbling with the laces. I huffed in frustration. Ridiculous to waste time with this. At last I tugged the knot tight and sprang to my feet.

  I pulled on my coat and opened the door. By the light that spilled out, I vaguely made out the shape of Rolph’s footprints. They led away from the door but were disappearing quickly under the thickly falling snow. Then I closed the door and could see them no more.

  The wind whipped my hair about as I stepped away from the house, closer to the outer edge of the protective alcove created by the cabin and the stomper.

  A sound caught my ears, a harsh, irregular noise that seemed to come from behind me over the roar of the storm. I turned and stepped back toward the cabin, neck craned.

  “Rolph?” My voice was so soft that even I could barely hear myself. I paused. A shadow seemed to move near the edge of the stable, furtive and hunchbacked.

  With a cry, the figure convulsed. I was sure the voice was human.

  I raised my voice. “Rolph? Are you—”

  The figure straightened and screamed.

  My skin jumped. That had not been entirely human, although the timbre was unmistakably Rolph’s—perhaps distorted by the wind. Or by agony, I thought as I watched him throw his shoulders, extending and then curling his arms, over and over again, as if he was on fire.

  As I watched, his shoulders broadened and his arms thickened.

  Perhaps I gasped then, or the wind brought my scent to him. He whirled, and the thing that turned to face me was no longer human. His smell came to me in a flurry—wolf and man and ozone and something acrid. Fur stood up in every direction, silhouetted by the soft gaslight from the stable, and two ears tufted the top of his head. A pair of eyes flashed at me. Muscles bunched.

  The thing that was Rolph sprang toward me.

  Chapter Ten

  I fell backward onto the snow, the cold as sharp as pain.

  The huge form of the Rolph-beast did not leap at me, but past me. He landed two body-lengths away, just close enough that the glow from the gas lamp still dimly illuminated his body, and turned to throw a long look over his shoulder at me. The eyes that stared back at me were not monster eyes, but human ones, and they were round with terror. For one long moment, neither of us moved, gazes locked. Then, Rolph’s ears flicked back and he flinched away. With a strangled cry, he sprang into a run, leaving me with an afterimage of pain.

  “Rolph!”

  But the storm swallowed him up.

  I called his name again and stumbled after him, plunging headlong into the full force of the storm, which ripped my breath away. I reeled, hugging my arms to my chest.

  A sick feeling curdled in my stomach, and I knew with certainty that Rolph would not return as long as he wore that skin. I should have known. His electric presence. His story. But I had never encountered anything like him before. I knew nothing of the alchemy that had transmuted him, nor the witch magic that had touched him.

  But I did know that out in the blizzard, Rolph might not last the night. Though he wore a wolf’s pelt, even he could not withstand the frozen claws of this wind. I feared that to leave him would be to condemn him to death.

  Surely, diving out into the blizzard after him would mean my own end, but I had a trick to skirt it.

  Just as dusk exists between day and night, there is a place that exists between the physical world and the spiritual world, where the voices of men and spirits echo long after they have faded from hearing. Scraps of dreams remain here, forgotten between the ghosts of people and the glittering dust that is the remembered laughter of the Fae. It is not a place for people or faeries, but for faded memories and for the strange, dangerous things that are neither physical nor ephemeral.

  I only hoped that I would not be caught by those creatures that waited for me to trespass in their realm.

  I closed my eyes and clasped my hands at my chest, as if in prayer. I parted my hands as if parting a curtain, and took a step forward.

  The storm fell away from me. I opened my eyes and found myself in that place between one breath and the next, where the wind and the cold were just afterthoughts, buffeting my hair and brushing my skin, but reaching no deeper.

  An even, gray glow illuminated the world in perpetual dusk. Behind me, the cabin shimmered as if through a haze of heat. The stomper, a dead machine of metal and steam, appeared as a faded black hulk. Juxtaposed against this, the sled shone with the vitality of wood and canvas, shot through with bright streaks of rope.

  Whorls of windblown snow swirled around me. Like everything here, the snow did not appear as substantial as it did in the physical world, and I could see through it easily.

  Behind me, suspended in the air like glittering frost, was the memory of my presence: a banner stretching to the cabin door, retracing the path I had taken. Near to this, but never quite crossing it, a long scarlet gash shot out into the night. Rolph’s path. Already, it had begun to fade. Little lasted for very long in this dusk realm—even less so in a storm. Though its full force did not reach here, the blizzard kicked up a chaos that blurred the memories and artifacts, causing them to shift and dissolve more quickly than normal.

  “Rolph!” I called, and the word was snatched up in a spiraling flurry of snow wind, the letters tumbling and disappearing.

  I followed the red trail away from cabin. The charged, mixed smell of Rolph-the-creature hung around it, along with the uneasy feeling of fear and hunger he had left in his wake. Around me, the landscape appeared as a wasteland of streaking snow. No shadows of animals appeared here. All had found shelter from the blizzard and lay dormant. Even the spirits seemed to have fled, for I could see no bright mementos of their existence either.

  I came upon the road that my companions and I had strayed from the night before. The snow had long since covered the stomper’s tracks, and no memory of our passing remained. I turned back to see that the cabin had become a tiny doll’s house in the distance. My long, frosted path glimmered like snow leading back to it, and I hoped that it would hang there long enough to guide me on my return.

  As I paused there with one foot on the road, I sensed a quickening. I lifted my nose to scent the air, but I already suspected the danger I was in. A smell of musty fallen leaves, of death on the edge of rot, made my insides curl tight like a closing fist. Here was the risk of walking between worlds: I was not the only one who traveled here. Other things ran in this territory, things far older and fleeter than I, which waited with infinite patience and infinite hunger for mortals to stray here, where they did not belong.

  I cast one last desperate look about myself. “Rolph!” I cried, though the attempt was in vain. The red of his trail was little more than a haz
e now, and where it went, I could not tell.

  Shapes began to form in the streaking patterns of blowing snow. At first, they appeared as smears of white, just thicker snow that seemed for a moment to take form and trot around me before swirling away again. And then they were the black shadows in between the flurries, long-legged and lean. I could hear their panting on the wind, a sound almost like dry laughter, humorless and jeering. They knew that my only chance to escape was to leap back into the storm and blunder back to shelter.

  I turned to face the cabin and braced myself. Before I lifted my hands to part the curtain, I spoke words of prayer. “Friends, still the winter wind so that I may find shelter and Rolph may survive the night.”

  Over the whistle of the blizzard and the slavering of the between-creatures came a distant whispering, muffled as if through a closed door, but I could not make out the words.

  My moment of supplication was all the creatures needed to close in. As I raised my hands, long jaws snapped toward me, and I rent the veil apart to dive through it into the hard arms of the gale. The cold squeezed me like a fist.

  In my hastiness to tear out of the dusk realm, I left the membrane between the physical world and the dusk realm ragged and tenuous. Teeth clacked behind me with a sound like an icicle cracking. Cries like the screaming of men raised behind me, urging me faster. The creatures had followed me through.

  Gray light leaked from the dusk realm into the physical, just enough to see my feet disappear into the snow with each footfall, and just enough to see the blurred forms of my death. They flanked me as I ran, ghosts in the squall. One launched toward me to rip at my sweater before dematerializing into snow and whipping through me, tearing the warmth from me with teeth of ice. I stumbled from my course, only to meet the wrinkled muzzle and glowing green eyes of another phantom, this one more solid.