The Beast Is an Animal

by Peternelle van Arsdale

  Even worse than killing the wolf was an awareness that made Alys recoil from herself in shame: She had enjoyed it. She could still conjure the blood and fur heat that made her forget what cold was.

  Alys’s guilt and horror at what she’d done were so immense that at first she thought she would curl up against the wolf’s thick fur and die here herself, but she no longer wanted to touch it. She wanted only to get away from it, to get away from the truth about herself.

  She was a soul eater.

  And yet she couldn’t be.

  And yet she was.

  She didn’t want to be. The brief flush of pleasure she’d felt was fully erased by her remorse. She wanted to believe that her sadness over the wolf meant she wasn’t yet too far gone. That there might be some other way through, between the good child she could no longer pretend to be and the evil thing she did not want to become.

  She got to her feet, and her ears closed to the sounds of the night, wind rattling tree branches and skating through leaves. There was nothing else to hear or feel or touch or see. There was just her own breath in her ears, her feet numb and too far away from her knees. She stumbled on.

  The pack that Enid had given her had been light at first, but now it weighed against her back, pulled on her shoulders. She felt an urge to take it off and leave it here. After all, only the living needed food.

  Her skin hurt. The muslin and wool of her clothing rubbed against her shoulders and torso, and the shudders she’d felt in her body now went as deep as her bones.

  A little farther. Just a little farther.

  It was a voice inside of her, but not her. It was strange and familiar. She knew its rumble in the spot in her chest where it had vibrated before. And each time her knees buckled and her footsteps slowed, the voice came back.

  A little farther. Just a little farther.

  She imagined The Beast perched in the trees above her. Thought she heard the flap of Its leathery wings overhead. But when she looked up there was only night, only snow.

  The black ribbon carried her forward and forward, over branches and around stumps and between trees and around rocks. Up and over and around and the numbness in her feet traveled up her legs until she fell more than she walked. Her head swirled and pounded with each jerk down and up again. She was sick, very sick. Alys had witnessed too much fever not to recognize it in herself.

  She was climbing, had been climbing for some time. She remembered there was a mountain between Defaid and Gwenith, a black mound against the sky to the north. The land rose to her right and the path led her in a gradual slope that occasionally spiked and pitched up, and she used her hands to pull herself forward. Through the wool of her gloves her fingernails dug into bark and scraped over rocks. The numbness spread up her arms.

  The path pitched up even more steeply. She sat on a rock, put her head in her hands, felt the cold of the stone through her wool, straight through to her butt and thighs. I can’t, she thought. No more.

  Then she caught the scents of earth and rain, felt claws on her shoulder, and one thin claw raking her cheek. But there were no claws there, just the voice in her head and her chest.

  A bit farther, girl. Over there. Almost there.

  Alys thought about rising to her feet again, willed her legs to hold her, to carry her on, unsure if they’d obey. They did, and she climbed. Then she crawled, pulling herself along over rocks, dragging herself through mud and dirt, leaves and sticks working their way into her clothes, her hair. She stopped looking forward. There was only the spot of melt beneath her, and then the next and the next.

  When the climbing ceased, Alys felt a moment of disorientation. The way ahead of her was a clear and gentle slope to a small wooden shack tucked into the side of the mountain. The black ribbon of melt led straight to its door.

  Alys thought she might be dreaming. Perhaps the fever had finally taken its hold and she was really back there in the fforest somewhere, curled up in the snow, sleeping to her death. She got to her feet, looked to the shack in front of her, and then to the sky. It was just bluing to dawn, the stars beginning to fade. The snow shone white around and over the shack, its roof a shelf of white. Alys pushed open the door and saw that the shack had been built at the opening of a small cave. There was a rough hearth of stacked stone, and in the hearth was a neat pile of wood and kindling. On its ledge was a flint.

  She dropped to her knees in front of the hearth, pulled off her muddy gloves and took up the flint with stiff fingers. She couldn’t make her hands work, they were too thick and dull. Then a spark caught the kindling, a flame blazed and spread. When the wood began to crackle to life, Alys sat back on her heels and waited to feel warm.

  The fire grew and glowed orange and Alys looked around her. There was a wide pile of straw covered with fur pelts. The shack tilted a bit to one side and seemed barely standing, as if no one had lived here for years. She leaned forward and smelled the straw. Old. Musty. The pelts felt at once damp and stiff with age. There was another pile of straw near the door, and Alys sifted through it. Some animal had lived here once, but that was a long time ago.

  She shivered, drew close to the fire again. She should eat, but the thought of it made her stomach turn. The heat from the fire only warmed her skin. She was still cold under the surface, so cold that she couldn’t imagine being warm again. She pulled off her boots and set them near the fire, but not so close that they might burn. She forced herself to peel off her damp clothing, and once she was down to her shift she crawled under the pelts and put her pounding head down. She turned on her side, pulled her knees up to her chest, and pressed her cold fingers to her hot cheeks. She stared out toward the fire.

  There was a flat rock to the right of the hearth, not even knee high and just wide enough to set a pot on. There was something resting on top, and as the fire licked and Alys shook and shuddered, she wondered what it was. Her eyes closed, once, twice, but she decided she needed to know what that thing was, even if it meant crawling out of the pelts to find out.

  She reached forward and forward the short way across the room to where the rock sat and the thing rested on top. It was more than one thing, it turned out. It was two things. She felt along with her fingers, grabbed them, and pulled them back toward her.

  The first: a small, sharp knife, with a wooden handle that had been carved by hand.

  The second: a heavy iron bracelet engraved with the number nine.

  Alys heard the flapping of broad wings and a thump like some heavy bird landing on the rooftop. She set the knife and the bracelet on the floor. Then she pulled deeper under the pelts, drew them up to her eyes, curled her icy fingers under her chin. She shivered and quaked and each time she blinked, her eyes wanted to stay closed, but she forced them open again, because there was something she was seeing in this shack. Right there in front of her—close enough to touch if only they were touchable.

  There was a woman—a mother. And a goat and two girls. The goat sighed and rested its head in the hay. The woman sat and stared into the fire. The girls lay their heads in the mother’s lap and stared only at each other. And then reaching across the space between them, the girls held hands.

  The girls were mirror images of each other and yet Alys would know them each anywhere. That one there was Benedicta. And the other was Angelica. And they were linked by hands and by heart. This was before it all went wrong. When there was still a choice to be made.

  Alys closed her eyes and slept.

  Father told Mother and Alys to get in the wagon. Father clicked his tongue and jerked the reins and the old dray horse pulled forward.

  It was nearly dusk and Alys knew without being told that they were late, very late, and they were in danger of the Gate closing with them still outside. She sat in the back of the wagon, watching the ground roll away from them. Then she turned and it was only Father on the seat. “Where’s Mother?” she said.

  Father looked back at Alys, his face blank. “She must still be back there.”

&nb
sp; Alys turned back to the darkness, which seemed to be thicker and blacker than what lay ahead. She turned to Father’s broad, black-coated back. “Stop the wagon, we must go back for her.” Alys felt as if she were calling to him through mud, as if it took her voice too long to reach him.

  He pulled the wagon to a stop and Alys leapt from the back, running and calling for Mother. She ran through a field and she could barely see her feet, and there was a fforest to her left, so deep and dark that she could only make out the first layer of trees. But there in the depths of that fforest was a flash of white and Alys saw Mother, there in her nightshift. And she ran into the fforest for Mother, but there were so many trees in the way, and for some reason Mother couldn’t hear her and instead of coming closer she grew farther and farther away.

  And then there were others in the trees. Women with long rivers of hair down their backs, all interwoven with leaves. They floated through the trees, so much faster than Alys, never tripping on roots. Then all the women turned to Alys and Alys saw her own face on all of their faces. Her and her and her. Mother saw them now, too, and she turned to Alys, a question in her dark eyes, and Alys tried to call to Mother but her voice died in her throat.

  Then the others that were Alys were all around Mother and Alys could no longer see Mother, because Mother was swallowed up in a sea of Alyses with leaves in their hair.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Alys woke to a dead fire and a cold room and weak, watery light leaking between the cracks in the shuttered windows. Her hair was damp through and her shift stuck to her skin. Her forehead blazed and her head rocked with pain when she sat up. She must move, or she would die here, and she thought perhaps she did not want to die. Perhaps she could carry herself a bit farther.

  Alys shivered and quickly pulled on her clothing, which was now quite dry, if not warm. It would have been better if she’d had a dry shift as well. As it was, when she was fully dressed, she was uncomfortably aware of the damp muslin clinging to her back, chest, and arms. She crouched on her haunches and opened the bag that Enid had packed for her. She reached for the iron bracelet and the knife, dropped them inside, and pulled out a cloth-wrapped chunk of bread, some dried meat, and an apple. She should eat, she thought. That is what she should do.

  She was too sick to be frightened. The fever seemed to have dulled her ability to worry beyond what was right in front of her. And in front of her was bread. She pulled it to her mouth, bit some off, and chewed. It tasted like dust and her throat closed to it. She folded it up again and put it in the bag. She would need water if nothing else, she thought. She could melt some snow in her mouth. She slung her pack onto her back, pulled on her mittens and scarf, and emerged from the shack into weak afternoon light. She hesitated for a moment. The wind penetrated her clothes and she wondered if she should stay another night.

  There was no trace of the black ribbon of melt that had led her from Defaid to this shack. In the other direction, though—toward the dead town of Gwenith—there was a new ribbon of melt. Alys hesitated a moment longer. Stay, or walk, she wondered. Then a gust of wind rose up behind her and shoved her toward the wet black path. Alys heard the flap of enormous wings and she looked up at the roof of the shack. There was nothing there, only a thick layer of snow. She looked up at the sky, half afraid and half hoping to see The Beast flying overhead. There were only clouds.

  Alys pulled off a mitten and reached her hand into the snow. She put a small handful into her mouth. It burned cold down her throat. She took another handful. It’s what Mother would have told her to do.

  Then she once again allowed the wind to direct her. She walked along the path of melt and into the fforest. It was so cold that where the damp path met the snow, a crystalline edge of ice formed. Ice coated the tree branches, the leaves. She might have thought it beautiful if she weren’t so wracked by chills. The weak winter afternoon light grew even more filtered here. She couldn’t possibly have much sunlight left in the day and had no idea how long it might take her to reach the town and some shelter.

  So she did as she had done the day before, and thought of nothing but the path in front of her—the wet rocks, the frozen streams she stepped over, and catching herself when she slipped.

  The fforest was silent, not even a bird call cracked its surface. There was only the in and out of Alys’s breath and the friction of her steps. It was as if everything here were frozen solid. Or perhaps had fled. She wondered if all the animals had left when the people did.

  It was odd to think that each step brought her closer to a home that she now barely remembered. But she didn’t linger on those thoughts. There was no point. There was only walking and fighting the cold.

  It began to snow. Thick, fat flakes sifted down through the trees, and the late afternoon was so quiet that Alys felt certain she could hear the flakes land with soft pats. The snow caught in her eyelashes and she breathed it into her mouth. Something about the white upon white upon white and the soft patting flakes made her want to sleep, to lie down and rest her head.

  She began to struggle with herself, part of her willing to go forward, and some other part pulling her down. She reached out to the trees for support as she walked between them, using each as a lever to propel her on. Then slowly, gradually, she realized that she was no longer using the trees to pull herself up. The path had begun to descend.

  She couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her. If she broke through the fforest edge, she wondered if she’d even know it. She wondered how she’d find a house in this. Then she stopped wondering, because the pain in her head was so great and the shiver in her bones was so powerful that she thought she might simply leave her body.

  The sky was turning the gray of snow-filled night. The path grew steeper and Alys felt that she was falling downward and down. Then the air changed.

  Alys couldn’t see the fforest open up to fields, but she could feel it. Although the snow obscured all, she sensed that trees were no longer closing around her, that the world was now a wider place. She looked down. The black ribbon was gone. She looked behind her, and she could find no trace of it there either. She’d lost the way.

  She stumbled forward, could have been walking off a cliff for all she could see or imagine. She spoke to herself, begging herself . . . I can’t . . . I can’t any longer . . . I can’t . . . don’t make me . . .

  She sank to her knees. A mistake. It was so hard to pull herself up again. The next time she went down she’d surely never get up.

  She walked on, thought she felt old road beneath her feet, under the snow. It was rutted but still too steady and flat to be field. If she could just keep to it, she might find some shelter.

  But that plan was forgotten, because soon all was white in front of her, and all was white and cold inside of her. Her lungs were made of snow and ice. She was becoming snow and ice. Then it seemed to her that a tree was emerging from the white in front of her, dark against the snow.

  The tree moved, and trees don’t move. But it was a tree and it was coming toward her and toward her and then she sank into the snow and then the tree took her away.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Alys lay on a mattress on the floor, examining them through her eyelashes. Their voices had awakened her, but she remained still, delaying as long as possible the inevitable moment when they realized she was no longer sleeping.

  Her nose twitched at the smell of gamey stew. The three travelers sat at a wooden table eating and talking about snow and weather and Alys.

  “And there she is,” Beti said. “I see your eyelashes flickering, no use pretending otherwise.”

  Cian glanced in her direction and then cast his eyes down at his bowl again. Alys became painfully aware that she was lying in bed in front of three fully clothed people in a shift that wasn’t her own. She was covered with blankets, but still. She certainly hadn’t put the shift on herself. She rose to sitting, pulling the topmost blanket with her, doing her best to cover herself and drawing the collar of the shift clo
ser to her neck. Her hair was loose and unbraided, something else that had been done for her.

  “Lass! You’re looking better!” Pawl rose halfway out of his chair and surely would have pulled her into an embrace if Beti hadn’t held his arm. He shook her off. “All right, all right, Beti, I’ll leave her be. Rest, child. You’ll give yourself a headache shooting out of bed like that.”

  It was true, her head did pound when she first sat up, but then the pain subsided and now she felt almost right.

  Beti bent down in front of her and pressed a hand to Alys’s forehead. “You’ll live,” she said. Then laughed.

  Cian hadn’t looked directly at her yet, and then he did. Alys felt a rush of heat to her skin—face and body—as if she held a fire within her. That boy had some power over her, and she did not know what to make of it. She felt such a combination of fear and fascination . . . and something else. Something that made her tingle.

  Alys shivered. Noticing her quake, Beti said, “Here, let’s get you properly dressed and fed.” Alys’s eyes widened in alarm and she gripped the blanket tighter. “Come now, don’t worry about the men. They’re just leaving.” Beti looked toward them, raised her voice. “Aren’t you? Go check your traps. Fetch some wood. Make yourselves useful.”

  “Ay woman, we’ll do that. And you take care of our Alys.” Pawl pushed himself up from the table, retrieved his hat and coat from a hook on the wall, and Cian did the same. Then they opened the door to the outside and a fierce wind blew in. They shut the door quick behind them. It was night, Alys knew now. She hadn’t been sure before, because the room’s windows were covered with blankets, no doubt to keep out the draft.