The Beast Is an Animal

by Peternelle van Arsdale

  The telltale slowing of his breath never arrived. She was certain he was awake. She looked over at him and saw the firelight reflected in his dark eyes, which were open and staring.

  As if sensing her watching him, he turned over on his belly and put his chin on his crossed arms, looked at her. “So what happened, Sister Alys. Why’d those Defaiders do you like that?”

  “Don’t call me that.” Alys looked at the fire, refused to look at him now.

  “Isn’t that what young ladies of Defaid are called?” His voice was full of laughter, even though he wasn’t laughing.

  “I’m not a lady of Defaid.” She was something awful, but she wouldn’t tell Cian that. “You’re keeping me awake.”

  “Liar. You’re used to being awake at night.”

  Just then a loud snore rose up from Pawl, ending in a cry and a wail and a hum. Alys thought for sure that Beti would wake up, but she didn’t. “How can Beti sleep through that?”

  “Oh, that’s the miracle of liquor, fair Alys. Once they’re good and drunk, they feel no pain and they hear no cries in the night.”

  Alys wanted to look at him just then, but still she didn’t. She kept staring at the fire and listening to his voice. “How did you come to be with Beti and Pawl?”

  “They took me in when I came to the Lakes last summer.”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “The mountains. I lived there with my parents.”

  “Where are your parents now?” Alys was afraid she knew the answer already, and wondered if she shouldn’t have asked the question.

  Cian was quiet for a long moment. “Dead. Same as yours.”

  Now she did look him straight in the face. “Soul eaters?”

  “My parents and I were out hunting deer. We camped in a clearing in the woods. We were sealed up tight in our tents, them in one, and me in another, all of us asleep. I dreamed two beautiful, wild-haired women were singing to me. They moved through the trees like they didn’t need feet. When I woke up the next morning, I was shivering in my bed. My tent flap was open. I went straight to my parents’ tent. Their flap was open, too. They were both lying there. Dead. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran. I ran and I ran and I ran. I don’t remember how long. Maybe a day, two days. Then I arrived in the Lakes and met Pawl and Beti.”

  Alys turned over and mirrored him, rested her chin on her crossed arms. There was sadness in this boy, hidden away under his calm and mirthful face. Alys felt it in the room, settling around them, in them. He wouldn’t want her to ask him about his sadness, though. He closed it up behind his laughing brown eyes for a reason. Instead she wondered about all the places he’d seen, places she’d allowed herself to hope that she might see as well. “What are the mountains like?”

  “The air smells different up there.” Cian closed his eyes and opened them again. “Like pine trees and cold water. In the Lakes, mostly it smells like people. I’m fond of some of those folks. But I get tired of smelling them.”

  “Why not leave?”

  “And go where? I’ve been nearly everyplace on Byd now. Been to Pysgod, Tarren, even been back to the mountains. But still I stick close to Beti and Pawl. They’re not always easy, but they care for me. I’ve grown accustomed to their ways. And no matter how sick I get of their drinking, I know why they do it. It’s the same reason I’ve never lit out on my own.”

  Alys held her breath, knowing already what he would say, but asking him anyway. “What’s the reason?”

  “The singing and the whispering,” he said. Then he rolled over on his back and stared up at the ceiling so that once again all Alys could see of him was his black hair. “They sing at night, Alys. The soul eaters. Just like the night they killed my parents. They sing and they whisper your name and it feels like fingers crawling inside of your head. It’s all you can do not to scream.”

  Alys had the strongest desire to reach out her hand and touch his hair. “And that’s why Beti and Pawl drink? So they won’t hear it?”

  “It’s why they all drink,” he said.

  “Does it help, do you think?”

  “Some say drunks sleep deeper. But I like to keep my wits about me.”

  “I don’t think I like it when they drink,” Alys said.

  “No. I don’t expect you would. I don’t suppose there’s much drinking in Defaid. But Lakers don’t have Gates to keep us safe, Alys. We have nothing to wrap around us and shut out the singing. It’s just us and the night.” Then Cian turned on his side, faced the wall, and said no more.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  They all rose before first light, and Beti and Pawl spoke little until they’d each downed several cups of blisteringly hot tea. Alys helped with breakfast, which was dried fish and mashed potatoes that Beti formed into cakes and fried in a lard-slicked iron pan over the fire. The food seemed a little less awful to Alys, and she managed to eat half of it before pushing her plate away.

  They set off at sunrise, Beti and Pawl in one caravan led by two of their stout horses, and Cian and Alys in the other. Pawl said it would take them two days to reach Pysgod, and they’d need to stop before darkness fell each night to make camp.

  The day was clear and cold and Alys wrapped a scarf around her neck and face, stopping just south of her eyes. Occasionally she pulled the scarf down to breathe the sharp air, then covered herself again. She kept scanning the trees, the horizon, the murky depths of the fforest on either side of the road. She knew it made no sense to look for the soul eaters now. They wouldn’t be out in the daylight. Still she watched. But the only movement belonged to the occasional scamper of dun-colored deer. And the only sound came from black crows perched thick in the trees, cawing their hunger.

  Before starting off this morning, Alys had worried that Cian might want to talk to her. Talking about nothing with boys had never been a particular talent of hers. But she found they fell into an easy silence. It seemed that he was content to sit next to her, hold the reins, and breathe the air. Hours passed this way.

  They stopped once to rest and feed the horses, and to relieve themselves. Alys went so far into the woods to do so that Pawl called after her and said she might as well walk to Pysgod. Once back in the caravan and moving again, Alys broke the quiet between her and Cian. “What’s Pysgod like?”

  “Oh, it’s a village like any other.”

  “Well I’ve not been to any other villages.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “It’s bigger than Defaid. Busier because of the boats and the dock. Psygoders travel farther afield than Defaiders, but not because they’re so brave. They’ve got their boats to take them up- and downriver, but they make sure they get home before dark, just the same as any tail-between-his-legs Defaider does. The Psygoders built their Gate right up to the river, so it’s open on one side to the water. I guess they figure soul eaters don’t paddle boats.” He laughed, quieted, then looked at her for a long beat. “It doesn’t hurt, you know,” he said.

  Alys flushed warm, familiar now with the look on his face when he teased her. “What doesn’t?”

  “Smiling. Laughing. I don’t think I’ve once seen your teeth. Have you got any? It’s nothing to be ashamed of if you don’t. Some of the nicest Lakers I know haven’t got any teeth.”

  “I have them,” she said. “Teeth.”

  “Won’t believe it until I see it.”

  Mother had made Alys smile sometimes. Mother could be very funny in her way. Alys shut that thought tight, put it away. “Anyway,” she said, “I never thought there was much to smile or laugh about.” She’d grown to be like Mother that way, she supposed.

  Cian kept his eyes straight ahead on the road. “Well, fair Alys, you are just exactly missing the point.”

  Cian built a blazing fire when they made camp, and Beti piled blankets onto a few logs and low rocks so they’d each have a place to sit.

  “Lucky it ain’t snowing,” Pawl said. Then a few minutes later he said i
t again. Alys was learning there wasn’t anything Pawl would say once that he wouldn’t say twice. Or three times.

  They ate bread and beans with mutton for dinner. Beti and Pawl also drank. And drank.

  “Alys dear,” Pawl said, “you have yet to tell us what you did to scare them Defaiders.”

  Three sets of eyes looked at her now, and once again Alys had no comfortable place to rest her own eyes. She focused on the fire that blazed at their center.

  There were too many awful answers to give, so Alys chose the one that would frighten them least, but was nonetheless true. “I saw something. Something I shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh, ain’t it always the way,” Beti said. “Girl sees something she shouldn’t and they call her a witch.” She tutted and shook her head, drank.

  “And who’d you see doing what they shouldn’t have been doing?” Pawl squinted at her while refilling his and Beti’s cups.

  “The High Elder’s son and a girl.”

  “Ooooooh,” Pawl said. “And I think we all know what they were getting up to.”

  “Well, being a witness to something like that’ll get you burned,” Beti said. “Good and crisp.”

  All the while they talked, Beti and Pawl drank cup after cup. Cian tried to put away the bottle, but each time he brought the cork close, Pawl waved him off. At first Pawl was playful, but then his manner changed. Like the night before, even the air felt changed to Alys. Beti and Pawl’s faces looked different, and their eyes grew glazed and unseeing.

  “Enough,” Cian said. “It’s time for bed.” He pushed the cork into the jug and picked it up.

  With speed that Alys wouldn’t have thought him capable of, Pawl jumped to his feet, yanked the jug from Cian’s hands, and shoved him backward so hard that Cian tumbled over the rock he’d been sitting on.

  Pawl’s face was red and angry and unrecognizable. He seemed to have grown stockier and broader-shouldered. Cian stood, but drew no closer to Pawl. Pawl swayed, struggled to focus. “You’re so high and mighty, aren’t you, boy? Think you’re better than me because you don’t need a drink to drown out the singing. Well just you wait. Wait till you’ve been listening to it for a few more years. Wait till you find a few more orphaned children weeping next to their dead mothers and fathers. You won’t be so high and mighty then. You’ll pick up a bottle then, boy. And I’ll be there to pour for you.”

  The fire had burned low and the sky had darkened to black and the flames flickered on the two men. An angry light snuffed out of Pawl and he shrank into himself and sank down next to Beti, opened the jug and drank straight from the bottle. Beti’s eyes drooped shut. She hadn’t moved or raised an eyebrow while the men argued. Pawl nudged her with his elbow and she grunted, opened her eyes and then closed them again.

  Cian’s shoulders dropped, and he looked back at Alys. “The two of them can sleep together tonight. Let them piss on themselves.” Cian went to Beti and lifted her up by the shoulders. Pawl made to protest, but it was halfhearted and he soon lost himself in his jug again. Alys helped Cian guide Beti to the caravan, and they both nudged her up from behind until she was crawling on all fours. “Beti,” Cian said, “get under the blankets so you don’t freeze.”

  She waved her arm at him, hello or thank you or go away, it was hard to tell what she meant. Alys climbed in after her, curled her nose when Beti breathed out. She managed to roll Beti up in a warm hide, then used her knee as a wedge to turn Beti sideways so she didn’t choke.

  When Alys climbed out again, Cian smiled at her. “You’re getting good at nursing drunks.”

  Alys went to Pawl, who sat staring into the dying embers of the fire. She shuddered, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold. “Pawl.” She touched him lightly on the shoulder, then quickly pulled her hand back. He looked up at her with runny eyes. “It’s time for bed. Beti’s waiting for you.”

  “Ay,” Pawl said. “Good girl.”

  Alys didn’t know if he’d meant her or Beti, but either way he held his jug under his arm and rose to his feet. She moved to help him but he lurched away from her and staggered toward the caravan where Beti lay.

  Cian was busy dousing the fire, so Alys went straight to the empty caravan and climbed in, unlaced her boots, took off her coat, and crawled under the blankets and pelts. She kept her dress and stockings on.

  Moments passed and she heard the crunch of Cian’s feet. He sat on the end of the caravan to remove his boots and his coat, then he climbed under as well.

  Alys had turned on her side so she faced one wall of the caravan. She pushed herself as far away from where Cian lay as she could without pressing her face into Pawl and Beti’s pots and saddles and bags of potatoes. Still, she felt such a strong awareness of him next to her that her heart beat into her chin.

  She felt a tap on her shoulder. “Yes,” she said.

  “Might I have a word?”

  She buried a smile in her hand and when she was certain it was gone she turned over to face Cian, who was only a shape next to her, blacker than the blackness around him.

  “You see, fair Alys, we are about to sleep side by side in this caravan, and I am a strong believer in talking to a girl before I bed down next to her. Anyway. You don’t sleep much, and I don’t sleep much, so we may as well talk.”

  Alys was grateful that he couldn’t see her face. “All right. Tell me about the Lakes.”

  “Well, the Lakes are flatter than here. Flat as anything can be, really. But you can look up and see the mountains where I come from off in the distance. There are five lakes in all, and streams between them. And there are grassy marshes, too. Shallow enough for walking if you don’t mind being ankle deep in slime. Deep enough in some places to canoe, and deep enough in many to drown if you don’t know where you’re stepping and find your feet sinking into the muck. The Lakes are wet, fair Alys. Very, very wet. Sometimes you think you’ll never be dry.”

  “So you don’t like it there?”

  “Oh you misunderstand me. I love it there. I’m a water boy through and through. Beti says she thinks I squirmed out of my mother a fish and only after that I grew into a boy.” He laughed to himself, and Alys imagined what his face looked like when he laughed.

  “Do you and Beti and Pawl live in the town?”

  “There isn’t really a town the way you’d think of it. When the water is high we plant our tents and caravans on the highest ground we can find. And when it’s low we pull in closer so we’re nearer to the water and the fish and the game.”

  “No houses?”

  “We’re travelers, Alys. We move around. And you can’t move a house. Anyway a tent can be nice. Sort of like this.”

  Alys thought to herself, Yes, this is nice. I quite like this. “Have you been to the sea?” She thought of Ren’s wish for a home in the mountains overlooking the blue that sourrounded Byd. Then she thought of saying good-bye to Enid, of how she might not see any of the children of Gwenith ever again. For one moment, a little flame of hope flared up inside of her, hope that maybe Enid and Madog and the children would leave Defaid, would come find her. But then Alys knew—they never would. Not that she could blame them. She probably never would have either, not until she’d been forced.

  “Ay, I’ve seen it. Not to get close to, but I’ve seen it. It’s something beautiful. I’ll go there someday. There’s more of Byd to see, and I want to see all of it.”

  More of Byd. And more beyond that. It was hard to imagine. But Alys found herself desiring to do the same. Then she imagined seeing all of Byd with Cian. This thought came to her with the sudden, shocking heat of sinking into a just-poured bath. Maybe she didn’t have to be alone. It was an unsettling thing, to powerfully wish for something that hadn’t even occurred to her moments before. This was something she hadn’t known was possible for her.

  They fell silent again, and Alys found her breath matching Cian’s, in and out, and she let her eyelids drop closed. In and out, in and out . . . his breath and her breath, and warm puffs of air b
etween them.

  Alys’s eyes shot open. She’d been asleep, but didn’t know for how long. She knew from his breathing that Cian was asleep next to her.

  She could feel how awake she was, knew this would mean long hours of lying here and no more sleep. She became painfully aware of her full bladder. She’d been too embarrassed at bedtime to excuse herself behind a tree, and now the discomfort was beyond ignoring. She’d never make it to morning. She felt around in the dark for her coat and boots and struggled into them, then slid out of the caravan.

  The moon was full, reflecting off the snow so the ground was bright enough to make her squint. She thought about squatting right there, but then thought about Cian in the caravan just a few feet away. She looked into the woods. Well, she thought, just a bit of the way in for some cover.

  Ten paces in, her legs sinking into snow, she decided she’d gone far enough. She put a sizable tree between her and the caravans, and she pulled up her skirts.

  When she stood again, she saw movement in the trees ahead of her.

  Deer, she told herself. That’s all there were in these woods. Deer and crows.

  Alysssssss

  Her name, sung to her through the trees.

  Alysssssss

  Come heeeeeere

  Then the movement materialized into something long ago and familiar.

  A boy. A boy she knew.

  He ran fast between the trees, calling her name, singing her name. He had white-blond hair that shone in the moonlight. Quick as a rabbit he skittered between the trees.

  He poked his head from behind a tree, held up one thin index finger and crooked it toward him.

  Come

  Alys would know him anywhere. Delwyn, the boy she’d grown up with, who’d saved her from falling off the wall. The boy his twin brothers had called Rabbit. The boy who ran away after his brothers had been killed by the soul eaters.