The Beast’s Heart

by Leife Shallcross

  If you want to know how to end the curse, you need to understand why she cursed you, the little voice persisted. And if you want to understand why she cursed you, look to your life before the curse. I stumbled to my desk and dropped into the chair, lowering my head into my hands.

  For some reason, the insistent little voice urging me to think on my old life was my grandmother’s. She herself had passed away not twelve months after my father died, and the grief I felt at her passing was comparable only to the relief I felt at his. At the very last, she had fretted over the hatred I bore for him.

  ‘He is dead and gone,’ she had said to me, as I held her frail hands in mine at the last. ‘Do not live your life to spite him. Free yourself from him.’

  At the time, her words had angered me. I had been a young man of barely eighteen, and with all the conviction of youth I was certain I had cast off his yoke when he breathed his last. Now, as I sat slumped in my study, recalling my life as a man and the raging anger that had sustained me in the forest, I had to concede the truth. The very thought of him still stirred the old resentment in my blood.

  My hatred of him and all he had stood for had governed my every action. I had tried to make myself into his antithesis. In the face of his dissipation and licentiousness, I had modelled myself on hard work and restraint. Where he neglected his duties, his lands and his tenants, I saw to them rigorously, in a fever of righteousness and exactitude. No frivolity was permitted, no lapse went unpunished. Where he neglected himself, I made my appearance a point of fastidious pride. And where his lasciviousness and reputation for lechery had made him a figure of terror for every young woman in the vicinity, I eschewed the company and the advances of all women.

  I had struggled to prove myself a different man, to deny the taint of his blood. But now, as I sat in my study, I wondered. He had been cruel and violent, and his ungoverned lusts had certainly caused the death of my mother and the misery of countless other women. But in all my anger and hatred, if the Fairy had not removed me from society with her curse, would I have turned out so unlike him? I began to tremble. To think on his worst excesses made me sick with repugnance. His undisciplined rage and increasing derangement were but the least of his vices. As a youth, I saw the hunted look in the eyes of our maidservants whenever he was near. I had pulled my pillow over my ears at night so I might not hear their sobbing. And I noticed when they began to look warily at me.

  I did all I could. I swore a private oath I would never treat any woman the way my father had. I turned my eyes from anything, and avoided any situation, that might test my resolve. But nothing tempered the anger seething in my veins. I tried to turn it to good effect, to channel it into my duties and to use it to bolster my indifference to the society of other human beings. Still it consumed me.

  I know this grieved my grandmother. She had been bitterly disappointed in her own son, but I know she loved me and would have given much to have seen me happy. In particular, I remember her counselling me on more than one occasion to exert myself to discover someone in whose love and companionship I might find comfort. It was something that certainly troubled her in her last days.

  ‘If you could only know,’ she had said to me, her gnarled hands restless in mine, ‘how it changes everything. How anything may be endured when you know there is another whose heart beats in accord with your own. You must find someone who understands you, chérie.’

  I admit this puzzled me. I could not fathom why she should speak of such companionship when, to my knowledge, neither she nor any of my family had ever experienced it.

  My parents’ marriage had been an exercise in wretchedness and heartache, ending with my mother’s miserable demise from the ravages of disease visited upon her by my faithless father. And my knowledge of my grandfather was such that I could not suppose my grandparents’ marriage to have been a happy one – indeed, while his reputation was not so diabolical as my father’s, he was known as a cold, hard man. I cannot think it was anything other than a relief to my grandmother when he relinquished his life.

  So I dismissed my grandmother’s earnest plea for me to find a companion as nothing but the fanciful ramblings of a dying woman.

  I could hardly dismiss them now. Not when the thought of such companionship occasioned visions of grey eyes and honey hair and an ache beneath my breastbone I could not assuage. I did not know what to think. After my grandmother’s death I had locked away my heart entirely, for fear of what it might contain. Then the Fairy’s curse had condemned me to a form that gave substance to those fears. Yet … my heart, my monstrous heart, was still capable of such yearning.

  A creeping realisation stole over me. I had thought I was lonely, locked behind my iron gate and surrounded by the wall of the forest separating me from the world. But, until Isabeau arrived, my enforced isolation here was little different to the isolation I had imposed upon myself in my last life.

  Isabeau.

  The key.

  My reveries were abruptly interrupted as a moth flew out of nowhere and blundered into my face. As I batted it away, I saw the curtains covering the mirror had been drawn. I rose and went towards it reluctantly, wondering with some annoyance what event in the de la Noue household I was going to be shown now. Whenever the drapes were drawn of their own accord, there was something important and fascinating to be seen, and I knew I would not be able to help myself from watching. But why now, when I so desperately needed to think?

  I looked in to catch the now familiar glimpse of my own hideous visage. This time, however, instead of my face fading away and being replaced by a different scene, I continued to stare into my own reflection. I frowned, wondering what could be the meaning I was meant to divine from this, and the creature in the mirror scowled back. Suddenly, a slight movement caught my eye and I saw a person sitting in the chair behind me.

  I whirled around, but my chair stood by the fire, as empty as it had been a moment before. I turned back to the mirror. In the world reflected by this magic glass, my chair was not empty. A woman sat there, reclining back and watching me with an air of relaxed patience, as though my reaction to her presence in the reflection was nothing more than she had expected. I took one more quick glance at my own empty chair to confirm the situation, then peered into the mirror at her as closely as she stared at me.

  She wore a gown of some intricately patterned green material, but the style was difficult to tell while she remained seated. As I stared at her, however, I became convinced the fabric was in fact formed of thousands of tiny leaves stitched together.

  Her hair was long and loose and fell in thick russet waves over her shoulders. She wore no visible jewellery. Her face was an enigma. She was not young, but she did not look particularly old, either. There was something very familiar about her, yet I could not recall ever having seen her before. Her lips were curved in a smile with a mocking quality to it and her eyes … They were as green as a cat’s and twice as brilliant. I found her eyes more disconcerting to look at than my own. Indeed, while my eyes remained the only clue to my lost humanity, as I looked into her eyes I became convinced this woman was not and never had been human. My hackles rose and my paws clenched into fists.

  The Fairy.

  Chapter XVII

  ‘You want to break my curse,’ she said after we had stared at each other for some time through the glass.

  Her voice was deep and melodic, not cracked with age. And in all other respects there was nothing crone-like about her. But I had no doubt it was the same Fairy that had laid the curse so long ago.

  ‘I do,’ I managed to say, my own voice coming out as a growl. I took a breath through my nose in an effort to be calm. I cleared my throat and swallowed and tried again. ‘Is there a way?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, still smiling that secret, superior smile. ‘There is always a way to break a curse.’

  Somehow her tone of voice left me far more discomforted than I would have expected on hearing those longed-for words.

 
‘How?’ I asked, then realising how blunt I sounded, I added, ‘If you please.’

  She brushed aside my polite addendum, and leaned forward, as if to take my measure. Then she sat back in the chair again.

  ‘I will tell you,’ she said, apparently amused at the idea of telling me how to break the curse she had laid herself. Then her face became serious, and a spark of something like anger flickered in her eyes. ‘I will tell you, as long as you understand that just because there is a way to break a curse, it does not follow that you will be able to do so.’

  I nodded, my mouth now dry.

  ‘Still,’ she said, suddenly philosophical, ‘curses have a way of breaking when it is time.’ Our eyes locked. ‘Is it time?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I answered, barely able to whisper. ‘It is your curse, Lady. Can you tell me?’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said, looking slightly shocked. ‘That is up to you.’ She settled down into the chair, folded her hands into her lap and assumed an instructional air.

  ‘You must find the woman you truly love,’ she said, ‘and inspire her to love you in return. When she agrees to marry you, the curse will be broken. Those are the terms.’ She was watching for my reaction again, and now her expression contained a challenge. ‘Of course, you may not tell her you are cursed, or that if she agrees to marry you, you will regain your human form.’

  I stared at her in despair.

  ‘How—’ I started to say, but she waved me silent.

  ‘The how is up to you. If you want to break it, you must find the how.’ She smiled again, but this time it was a little wry, and a little sad. ‘You see, it is still about the nature of your heart. You cannot hide your true self behind appearances forever.’ She stopped and frowned. ‘Well, you can. If you fail to break the curse and die here in solitude, no one will ever know the man behind the monster.’ She shrugged, and the coldness of her green gaze gave me a sudden thrill of fear.

  ‘Why did you not make this known to me before?’ I asked heavily.

  Her expression became prim.

  ‘I could not have you contriving to kidnap any maiden that happened inside your domain in the hope you might be able to convince her to marry you,’ she said priggishly.

  I stared at her in amazement.

  ‘But,’ I managed, ‘that is essentially how Isabeau came to be here.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, frowning again. She considered this for a moment and shrugged again. Then she fixed me with another piercing stare. She was angry with me. I could not doubt that. But there was something else in her gaze as well.

  ‘Is she the one?’ she asked. ‘Do you truly love her?’ An image of Isabeau flashed into my mind. My heart thudded.

  The expression on the Fairy’s face changed again, growing inexplicably tender.

  ‘You have your grandmother’s eyes,’ she said. And then she was gone. The room reflected in the mirror was once more the perfect reverse of the one in which I stood.

  After a moment I reached up to draw the drapes, but then a familiar haze began to cloud the glass and I stayed my hand. The scene it revealed surprised me. I was looking, not at one of Isabeau’s sisters or her father, but at Isabeau. She was seated at the virginal in the music room. She was playing as I watched, but trailed off into silence after only a few bars. She stood and went to the doorway of the room in which I usually sat when I was hoping to hear her sing. She looked in and stood for a moment with her hand on the door frame staring into the empty room. Then, chewing her lip, she went back to the virginal and sat down again. She played another few bars, but stopped once more, staring down at her hands. Then she rose and, hugging herself thoughtfully, left the room. The image faded and again I was looking into my own study, inhabited only by myself. I closed the curtains and began to pace.

  Was Isabeau the one? Did I truly love her?

  I had to stop and grasp the back of the chair by the fire as it abruptly became difficult to breathe. The prospect of closely examining my feelings for Isabeau was less attractive than trying to remember the details of the cursing.

  I took a deep, shaking breath. I had to answer this, and answer as honestly as I could. I knew myself to be infatuated with her. That I could admit. She was the first woman I had seen in all the countless years I had lived here and was at the very least – all bias aside – a very attractive one. Of course I was infatuated.

  So, how am I to tell whether what I feel is infatuation or love? My grandmother’s plea echoed in my head. Does Isabeau understand me? I asked myself. Does her heart beat in accord with mine? How can I know that? I can only answer for how I feel! But what was that? I searched through my memories of all the books and poems I had ever read that dealt with love.

  Most of them spoke at length about their beloved’s beauty and charm, but I brushed such considerations aside impatiently. Isabeau could never not be beautiful. Even with her hair blown awry by the wind, and her nose red from the cold. Especially then. As for charm, how inadequate a word to describe Isabeau’s unforced passion and honesty, her strength, her courage, her compassion and the unfeigned delight she had shown at the things I had contrived to please her. Of course, the voice of reason in my head insisted, any drowning man will think the log that saves him the most beautiful and charming object he has ever seen. I tried a different tack.

  What if she left at the end of her year and I did not see her again? I forced myself to consider this very real prospect – after all, what possible inducement was there for her to stay beyond the year? Could I wait for another maiden and try to woo her? I tugged at my collar; it felt suddenly tight and my study strangely airless. Was there another woman like Isabeau in all the world? How long would I have to wait before I found someone in whose company I felt so at home? With a pang I recalled the scene I had just witnessed in the mirror; I was sure she had missed me this morning, also.

  Then, an image rose in my mind of Isabeau covered in roses: my dream. I remembered how, before ever I met her, I dreamed of her lifting a white rose to her lips, and then giving it to me, suffused with crimson. When I had awoken, the sense my dream was some sort of portent had been irresistible.

  My fur prickled. Of course: the magic.

  Nothing random ever happened here. I had no way of knowing the reach of this curse – if somehow Isabeau had been searched out and brought here. The Fairy had said herself: curses have a way of breaking when the time comes.

  So was it time? For so many years, my quest to assert my humanity had been all for myself. Now I had a new object and that was Isabeau. She made me want to be a better person, even if it was only to be worthy of her friendship. If she was to leave me, Beast or human, I would be desolate.

  I looked down at my hideous, beastly paws. Thickly furred on the back; black, leathery palms; and those terrible claws I could not sheathe. I was overcome with shame. Who am I to love such a one as her?

  Just as quickly, my shame turned to anger. My talons sunk into the back of the chair. My heart is human! I cried in my mind.

  In a moment I was decided. If I could not win Isabeau’s heart, remaining in this beastly form was only a darker shadow over an already bleak and intolerable future. This was my chance. Now I just had to hope that somehow the impossible would occur, and Isabeau would grow to love me too.

  Chapter XVIII

  Anyone who has ever fallen in love will know that when the realisation strikes – that you love that person above all others and want to spend all the rest of your days by their side – this is accompanied by an urge to run and shout it from the mountaintops. Discovering you are in love is by no means an everyday experience, and when you do it feels inconceivable that the rest of the world will not notice the sudden, significant shift in the quality of the light, the bouquet of the air, the increased beauty of everything, and come to a realisation of the underlying cause. Thus, it was very difficult for me to refrain from running to find Isabeau to acquaint her with the details of my revelation.

  I could hardly expect her to fe
el anything for me at present other than, perhaps, friendship. But I knew I could not sit idly by and just hope for more. If I wanted her to love me in return, it would take some kind of action on my part – but what? I did not want to offend her, nor – God forbid – make her feel hunted and afraid. Perhaps it would be best to lay my cards on the table, as it were, and leave her to think it over. At least if she knew what my intentions were, she would not feel as though she had been tricked or manipulated.

  I looked out of the window and the light told me it was now early afternoon. This was normally the time I would meet Isabeau in the library if she had asked me to read to her that day. My sixth sense immediately told me this was where she was. Waiting for me, perhaps? I rose from my chair and started towards the door, then froze. What would I say to her? Could I blithely walk in and take up a book and begin reading, as if nothing of significance had happened today? My courage failed me and I backed into my chair and sat down again. I needed time to prepare myself.

  I took a few deep breaths. Perhaps … perhaps I could tell her at dinner, tonight. It had to be today, I told myself. I could give myself the rest of the day to think on this, but I only had what remained of the year to win her over. This was precious little when the better part of a century had not been enough time to reconcile me to myself. Dinner then. All that remained was for me to invite her.

  Isabeau had now left the library, apparently having given up on meeting me there. As I sat in my chair and procrastinated, she went on one of her rambles through my vast and sprawling house. I tracked her for some time, until she reached the portrait gallery. At that point I gathered what I could of my unreliable courage and determined I would meet her in the anteroom at the far end. I left my study and went there to wait.