Bryony and Roses

by T. Kingfisher

  “In the end, she committed suicide,” said the Beast. “I was too late to stop her. It was so long ago. I thought the house would have cleaned up the blood. I have never seen that room since that day.”

  The candle was half-burned down now. Bryony had her mouth open and was panting shallowly, trying to get enough air. The room was very hot. She should not be shivering so much when the room was so hot.

  “I tried to get word to her father,” said the Beast. “When the house took in a traveler, I would leave notes for them, too. I had to hope that they would find him and tell him…something.” He shook his head slowly, fur rippling. “And years passed, and when anyone who might have known her would be dead of old age, I stopped trying.”

  It has been longer than I guessed, Bryony thought. I do not know what else I would have done in his place. She wondered if any of the travelers had ever been allowed to see the Beast’s notes.

  “I should never have kept you here,” said the Beast. The candlelight painted orange highlights under his eyes. A human would have looked more villainous, but there was little that mere candlelight could do to his face. “It was a great crime. But when you took the rose—I thought that it was trying to get out—and then you seemed so brave and so fierce, and I had lost all hope, and I thought that you might have the knowledge—I am sorry!”

  She heard the apology. On some level she understood it, both the enormous inadequacy of it and the truth behind it. But something else he had said was growing in her mind, something far more important.

  “You could have let her go,” she said, forcing each word out through the clotted air.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You could let me go,” said Bryony.

  “Yes,” he said.

  The room exploded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Beast threw himself over Bryony, knocking her back on the couch, so she saw only a flash of light as the candle flared up and then things were flying through the air. The Beast’s body shielded hers from the worst of the impacts, but one leg was free and she hissed as debris struck it.

  Teacup and I don’t know what is and ah! God! that had to be a candlestick, oh God, I think it’s throwing chairs at us—

  The Beast grunted. She could feel him jerking as furniture struck them. The house was apparently reducing the room to matchsticks.

  God’s teeth, if this is what happens when you keep talking, I see why the Beast always stopped.

  The wind howled. She could hear doors slamming. It appeared that House was having a full-on tantrum.

  “Enough,” she could hear the Beast saying, although she felt it more than heard it. The word seemed to thrum from his chest through the whole of her body. “Enough. I’m done. I’ve stopped. Enough.”

  After what seemed an eternity, the noises stopped. A long time later, the Beast sat up.

  Most of the furniture in the room was destroyed. The couch they’d been sitting on was more or less intact, but one arm had been ripped off and hung at a crazy angle. The tapestry over the fireplace was askew, and the fireplace logs were all over the room.

  Bryony, feeling slightly squashed, rolled up her trousers and examined her leg.

  “Are you hurt?” asked the Beast. “Did it hurt you?”

  “Bruises, that’s all.” She rolled it back down. “Think I took a candlestick to the shin. But what about you? I felt some of those hit.”

  “It is nothing,” said the Beast impatiently.

  “The hell it is!” said Bryony. She wasn’t sure if she was angry or furious or overjoyed—that she could leave, that they weren’t dead, that she believed the Beast when he said he hadn’t killed the woman in the white bedroom. Whatever emotion it was, it was near to overflowing.

  “You’re shaking,” said the Beast.

  “Never mind that! What happened to you?”

  She got her hand on his shoulder and shoved it down. He sat, probably out of politeness. When she stalked around behind him, she could see that his robes had been shredded.

  “House,” she said, “I need hot water and cloths. And astringent.”

  When she looked around, nothing had appeared.

  “House.” She snapped her fingers, as if the building were an unruly dog.

  A tray appeared on the floor. It was probably her imagination that it seemed very grudging.

  The Beast’s fur had protected him from most of the smaller debris, but there were still large splinters jutting out of his back. She pulled them out with her fingers. “So that’s why you can’t say anything important.”

  “Yes,” said the Beast.

  She could feel the house watching them. It seemed sullen but exhausted, as if it had spent its rage.

  “And if you tried to say something more than that—”

  “It would be worse.”

  “I see.” She pulled the last splinter out and picked up the cloth. They were both silent while she washed the wounds. His shoulders were hunched as if expecting a blow.

  I thought that it was trying to get out.

  What did that mean? What was it?

  Is he talking about House? Oh God, I can’t even ask him out loud!

  When she finished, the cloth was pink and stained. She rested her forehead on his shoulder. She could hear him breathing.

  His heartbeat was as slow and regular as a clock. Her own had slowed, but it was nothing like steady.

  House had tried to physically hurt them. Could easily have killed them.

  She had allowed herself to become complacent. It had been so easy. The frilly dresses, the tea trays, the ridiculous roses on everything…

  She had forgotten, for a little while, that she was inside an enormous self-aware prison. And apparently it could choose to destroy them at any time.

  But perhaps the prison door was open after all.

  “Beast,” she said, “you have to let me go.”

  “I know,” said the Beast.

  He rose to his feet. “Come to my workshop,” he said, holding out his hand. “Please.”

  She nodded.

  They walked together through the halls of the house. His feet made no sound, and she was not sure that hers did either. She leaned against him, feeling exhausted beyond measure, feeling as if she had failed.

  There is a mystery here. I’ve known it all along. I knew it the first day. And all this time, and I am no closer to getting to the bottom of it.

  And now I’m leaving.

  She wondered what Holly would say. Perhaps soon she’d have a chance to ask.

  The doors opened for them slowly and shut with a wicked snap behind them. House was still angry. It didn’t matter. The long walk to the Beast’s workshop, leaning against each other, felt like a retreat from a lost campaign.

  I’ve failed. We didn’t win. But now at least I can go home.

  When they reached the workshop, the Beast caught the door in his hand and held it for her. He lit an oil lamp himself.

  The air seemed clearer than it did in the hallway, untouched by the house’s wrath. The light gleamed off all the tiny brass cogs and scattered tools.

  The brass ladybug lay on the table. It was much closer to completion than it had been the last time she saw it. One metallic wing lay extended across the worktable, revealing the clockwork inside.

  “Here,” said the Beast, reaching into a drawer and thrusting his hand toward her, not meeting her eyes. “This is for you.”

  It was a ring. Bryony peered at it, puzzled. It was made of silver, or some silvery metal, set with a small green stone and a single gear. On one of the teeth, fine as the point of a needle, was etched a tiny leaf.

  There was no obvious power source, but as she watched, the gear turned a single notch. The click was almost inaudible. The leaf, which had been pointing at the green stone, now pointed slightly above it.

  “If you care to return,” said the Beast, “you must do so before it turns completely. When it has completed a full circuit, it will be too late.” />
  “And if I don’t care to return?” she asked.

  The Beast looked away. “Then throw it away,” he said. “I expect you to.”

  Bryony slid the ring onto her finger. “How do I return?” she asked. “Do I mount up Fumblefoot and ride into the woods and hope?”

  She had startled him, she could tell. He took a deep breath. “I’d suggest you come back with fire and an army and burn this place down, but perhaps that’s not practical. So hold the ring. Say, “I want to go back to my Beast again.” That’s all.”

  “Sounds like something Irving would have written,” she said.

  A little of the old Beast she knew crept back into his eyes and his voice. “If Irving had written it, it would have rhymed and involved bluebells.”

  Bryony smiled.

  “You should finish the ladybug,” she said.

  He nodded. “Perhaps I will.”

  The Beast stood up. He loomed over her in the shadows of the workshop, but she was unafraid.

  “Go home, love,” he said. “And if you can, forget that any of this ever happened.”

  He bent down and kissed her on the forehead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  There was a fairy tale that Bryony had read as a child, and most of it she had forgotten. One part of it stuck with her, however, a description of a long and terrible journey—sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam, sometimes she flew through the air, sometimes she crawled on the ground.

  The journey from the Beast’s manor was a little like that.

  She could see nothing before her or around her, and she could only sometimes feel the ground under her feet. She thought that she walked forward, but perhaps that was only an illusion.

  I do not know if I am flying through the air, but then again, I am not a princess, like the girl in the story was. Perhaps flying is only for princesses. I would feel better if I could see where I was.

  She was cold and then she was hot. Perhaps I am feverish. Perhaps I have been feverish for a long time, and I have only dreamed about a Beast and a manor and a terrible wild rose.

  The silver ring on her finger was cold and hard and she could feel the tiny notches of the gear.

  It seemed that things brushed at her as she travelled, things like leaves or branches, and she raised her hands to bat them aside. Not being able to see is a problem.

  Are my eyes closed? Let’s see if—ah, yes. That’s better.

  There was light ahead of her, fractured into bits. She walked toward it, batting aside the leaves. Definitely they were leaves now, and that was sunlight and…

  “Oof!”

  Bryony looked down and discovered that she had walked into a split rail fence.

  It was such a normal homely thing, to eyes that had become accustomed to marvels, that she wanted to throw her arms around it and weep.

  She didn’t, because crying on fences was definitely crossing a line somewhere.

  It was the fence around the cottage. She climbed over it and into her garden, her own beloved garden, the first one she’d ever planted, with all the mistakes and failures and unexpected glories of a first garden. She loved her new little garden in the corner of the Beast’s manor, but this was her heart.

  “Oh dear,” she said aloud. It was late afternoon. Half the day had passed, somehow, and the sun was starting to sink. “Oh, garden, did you miss me? I missed you. I see that Holly has done her best, but no one ever thins beets enough on the first try, do they? And oregano, you are growing positively out of control, and I do not think that is at all appropriate conditions for a perfectly nice bunch of lupines, and—tell me that isn’t mint! In the ground?”

  It was nearly dark by the time she had grubbed all the mint out to her own satisfaction. (A misleading phrase, really. She would have been much more satisfied if she could have scorched the ground with fire and salt.) She washed her hands in the rain barrel and walked into the cottage, drying them off on her trouser legs.

  Holly stood at the kitchen table, chopping up a sausage with a very large knife. She looked thinner and not terribly pleased. Perhaps it was a substandard sausage.

  “Gont?” she said, turning toward the door. “Is there something—OH MY GOD!”

  She let out a shriek and charged at Bryony, her arms wide, which would have been much more welcoming if not for the butcher knife.

  What is with the women in my family running at people with knives? I shall have to ask Iris if she ever does it…

  “Put down the knife!” Bryony squeaked, diving behind a chair. “I will hug you as much as you like, but don’t stab me!”

  Holly flung the knife in the general direction of the sausage and pounced. The next few minutes were a whirl of sobbing and laughing and “Tell me what happened!” and “It’s been months!”

  Eventually they settled down a bit and Holly poured them both out a glass of cider. “Now tell me,” she said. “Tell me everything.”

  “You first,” said Bryony. “Where is Iris? How have you been? I worried about you both so much, but I tried not to—”

  “You worried about your garden,” said Holly, sniffing. “Which is just fine, let me tell you!”

  “Yes, I know, I was out there earlier. You planted the mint in the ground. Never plant mint in the ground.”

  “It’s a plant. Plants go in the ground.”

  “Not this one.”

  Holly made an impatient gesture. “I might have known you’d want to talk plants. Enough! Iris is fine. She moped about for a month and then the weaver’s son married her. She still lights a candle for you every night and goes to church and prays long extravagant prayers “for our dear lost one.” It’s pretty nauseating.”

  “I’m sorry she’s so unhappy,” said Bryony, frowning.

  “Feh! You don’t know our Iris at all, then, or you’ve forgotten. She loves being miserable. It’s her hobby. She’ll be a bit put out that you’ve actually returned, and she’ll have to get a new sorrow to milk.”

  Bryony put a hand over her mouth.

  “And did you marry your blacksmith?”

  “Gont? Not yet. I may, but he’ll have to build me a house. I love his mother dearly, and I will not live in the same house with her. Fortunately she feels much the same way.”

  She leaned forward. “Now. That’s all that’s happened here. Talk.”

  “Did you put compost on the garden?”

  “I will get the knife if you don’t start talking.”

  Bryony leaned back and exhaled. “Well. Um. I don’t know where to start…”

  “The beginning. Then the middle. Then the end. Now talk, and I’ll try not to interrupt.”

  In the end she told Holly everything.

  She almost left out the bit with the green-eyed man and the frustratingly erotic dreams, but she included them anyway, because they seemed important. The Beast had said that dreams in the house were sometimes true, and she trusted his judgment in the matter.

  On her finger, the tiny gear ticked quietly.

  Her sister leaned back, when she finally finished, and exhaled slowly.

  “I know,” said Bryony. “I made a hash of it, didn’t I?”

  “I love you,” said Holly. “You’re my sister, and I will always love you. There is absolutely no shame in escaping from a kidnapper, and if you had gutted the Beast and walked out of the house, I would not blame you in the slightest.”

  Bryony made a faint noise of protest and her sister waved her into silence.

  “That said…God, you’re dumb.”

  “Very,” said Bryony mournfully. “I kept thinking that if you were there, you could figure it all out.”

  Holly shrugged one shoulder. “I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know who this fellow in your dreams was, although I’ll say I don’t much care for the sound of him. But for the love of little green apples, why didn’t you just hand the Beast a book and have him start underlining words to spell out his story? You were halfway there with the birch tree thing.”

&nbs
p; Bryony put her head in her hands.

  “The house could read, sort of,” she said. “At least, very simple things…”

  “Then you could have written up all the possible scenarios in as complicated a form as possible and handed him a list and asked him which poem he liked best. You might have narrowed it down nicely that way.”

  “In the future,” Bryony said, her voice somewhat muffled, “I shall make sure that you are the one kidnapped by magic beasts.”

  “Oh no,” said Holly. “I’m quite comfortable with my blacksmith, thank you very much. I’ve not the least interest in your Beast, except insomuch as he makes you happy.”

  Bryony lifted her hands and stared at her. Holly shook her head.

  “Didn’t figure that out for yourself, either? Really?”

  “It’s a pity we didn’t have mail,” said Bryony grimly. “You could have sorted all this out for me, and I would have been home in time for tea.”

  “Quite likely. The solution to the Beast’s problem looks bloody obvious to me.”

  “What? Tell me!”

  Holly folded her arms. “The Beast only ever asked you for one thing.”

  Bryony looked at her blankly.

  “I imagine you stopped noticing pretty quickly,” said her sister, shaking her head. “You probably got in a routine and stopped paying attention. You do that, you know.”

  “I am a horrible terrible person,” said Bryony. “I freely acknowledge this.” She rubbed her thumb over the clockwork ring, feeling the tiny teeth of the gear against her finger. “Now for God’s sake, tell me!”

  “You didn’t say you’d marry him,” said Holly gently.

  Bryony stared at her. Against her skin, she felt the gear move a notch.

  “I’m an idiot,” she whispered.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No, no, wait.” Bryony clutched at her head. “What if it was more magic? What if I said yes and he died or something? I didn’t know what it would do! Maybe I’d die or the house would eat me or—or—”

  “Is the Beast particularly stupid, do you think?” asked Holly.