Beauty

by Robin McKinley

  Father had cut a window for me in the vertical wall, which overlooked the now re-established garden and beyond that the great forest. When I was not too tired, which happened more often as I grew accustomed to the work, I would stay up an extra hour and read by the light of one precious candle. But candles were too dear to waste often on so profitless a pursuit as reading, even if my eyes didn’t soon become too heavy to prop open. I’d been able to keep half a dozen of my oldest, most battered, and most written in books from the auction. In our new life it was the reading I missed the most. The daylight hours were spent working, and much of the evening also, mending clothes and tools and bits of this and that by firelight. “This and that” for most of the spring had consisted of my taking over most of the necessary sewing to free Grace, who was the finer seamstress, to work secretly on an embroidered counterpane for the wedding.

  The work had broken down into a routine for each of us. Ger worked in the smithy; his ability was such that before the first winter was past there were people traveling thirty miles to come to him. Father’s old skill with wood had gradually returned to his fingers and brain. The tiny lean-to that was built against the blacksmith’s shop was enlarged, and Father built carts and cabinets there, and patched roofs and walls in town. His hair had turned snow white, and he moved more slowly than he once had; but he carried himself tall and straight, and he could talk and laugh again. And I suspected Melinda of falling in love with him. He was gentle and courtly to her, as he was to all women, including his daughters; but I thought he displayed a special grace for Melinda. And she, who was simple and kind and forthright, blushed often when he spoke to her, and twisted her hands in her apron like a girl.

  Grace and Hope divided the house-work between them, and I did what was left over, the odds and ends that were neither house work nor shop work; and often thought that it would have been much more convenient if I had been a boy—not least because I already looked like one. Ger and I and Greatheart pulled fallen trees out of the eaves of the forest, and Ger taught me to split wood, chop it, and stack it. This was the greatest portion of my work, for there were several fireplaces in the house and two more in the sheds to provide fuel for, plus charcoal to cook; and the forge fire, and the kitchen fire, had to burn whatever the weather.

  My big horse’s strength grew famous, and several times that first year we dragged some undraggable object from where it was stuck fast: an old stump clinging balefully to the soil, a wagon sunk axle deep in spring mud. We also hauled wood for some of the people who lived in town; and in exchange we were sent home with beer and blankets—we were southerners, and correctly presumed tender—and mincemeat pies at the holidays. I never really had time to think about the suitability of my new role, or of how it had come about. I was becoming more boy than girl, it seemed; and perhaps since I was short and plain and had no figure to speak of the townsfolk found my ambiguous position easy enough to accept. The men took their caps off to my sisters, curbed their ribald tongues, and some of them even made rough bows; I was hailed with a wave and a grin, and familiarly called “Beauty.” The name had been adopted without the flicker of an eye, so far as I could see: like that of the fierce yellow mastiff who looked after the Red Griffin, who answered, if she was called reverently enough and was in the mood, to the name of “Honey.” When Greatheart had hauled yet another malignant old stump out of the ground, and the two of us, plus the owner of the land and all his neighbors, were covered with dirt and splinters, I was clapped on the back and given mugs of small beer.

  When spring came I dug up the garden and planted it, and weeded it, and prayed over it, and fidgeted; and almost three years of lying fallow had agreed with it, because it produced radishes the size of onions, potatoes the size of melons, and melons the size of small sheep. The herb border ran wild, and the air smelled wonderful; the breezes often stirred the piney, mossy smell of the forest with the sharp smell of herbs, mixed in the warm smell of fresh bread from the kitchen, and then flung the result over the meadow like a handful of new gold coins. I pruned the apple trees—there were also the remains of an old orchard, and a few of the trees were still productive—and had high hopes of the next winter full of apple jelly.

  3

  Ger had made us all promise—although I was the only one who had any inclination that needed to be curtailed—never to walk in the woods behind our house without either him or Father for company; the latter reference was courtesy only, because Father was no woodsman. I assumed that Ger meant deep forest, and one afternoon wandered into the first fringe of the big trees with horse and cart, picking up deadwood to be cut up for the house fires; the light scrub that had grown up around the meadow the house sat in had been cut down and burned during our first few weeks here. But Ger saw me from the shop window and came after me, angry; I was surprised to see him angry and explained that I did not mean to disobey orders, and that I was well in sight of the house—indeed, as he had seen me. He relented, but said that he did not want me walking even this near the tall forest trees. This conversation took place during our first autumn, and the leaves were red and gold; it was cold enough already for our breath to hang visible in the air.

  He looked up at the tree we were standing under, and sighed. “I’m probably being overcautious, but I’d rather it were that than foolhardy.” He paused, and rubbed a hand over his chin, considering me. “Have you ever wondered why ours is the only house out this end of town—a full quarter mile from the next house in? And why we take all our drinking water from the well on the hill, when a good stream runs right by the house?”

  I stared at him, not expecting mysteries. The stories of the north I had heard in the city had swiftly faded once we had become country dwellers ourselves, and we had been troubled by no goblins. “Not really,” I said. “I suppose I thought that the town grew up where it did, and the first smith liked his privacy; and perhaps the stream water isn’t good, though good enough to pour over hot iron.”

  “It’s not quite so simple,” said Ger, and looked a little embarrassed. “The story is the wood’s haunted. No, not haunted: enchanted. The stream flows out of the forest, as you see, so likely it’s enchanted too, if anything is. The first smith—well, tales vary. Perhaps he was a wizard. He was a good smith, but he disappeared one day. He’s the one built the house—said he liked the forest, and a forge needs a stream close by, and most of the town gets its water by well. The next smith—the one that left two years ago—dug the well we’ve got now, to prevent the water’s enchanting him; but he didn’t like the noises the forest made after dark. Well, forests do make odd noises after dark. Anyway, he left. And they’ve had some trouble finding someone else. That’s how we got this place so cheaply: It’s very good for what we had to spend.”

  “I’ve never heard anything about all this,” I said. “Are you sure you’re not making it all up to scare me into obedience? It won’t work, you know; it’ll only make me mad.”

  He grinned. “Oh, I’m aware of your temper, Beauty, you needn’t fear. And I am telling you the truth—you have the sort of mind that prefers to know things.” He said this somewhat wryly; I often pestered him to explain what he was doing and why, when he was using me in the shop; he yielded to my persistence eventually, and I learned to make charcoal, and could shoe a horse, if the horse co-operated. “I’m also going to ask you not to mention this to your family; your father already knows a bit, but your sisters don’t. It’ll come up eventually, I suppose, but I’d rather we lived here a little longer and were comfortable here first. It’s a good thing for us, we’re doing well; it would be a pity to let silly tales scare us.” There was a touch of pleading in his voice that surprised me. “I’m just taking a little—precaution.”

  “Silly tales,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything about any of this except what you’re saying.”

  “Of course not. Think about it. Blue Hill has wanted a smith; now they’ve got one, I’ll even say a good one, and they don’t want to scare him off. After all,
if this wood is enchanted, it hasn’t done anything in over a hundred years—maybe it’s not really enchanted, or maybe it used to be, or maybe it still is, but if we don’t disturb it, it won’t harm us. And the townsfolk aren’t really hiding anything from us; I’m from around here, you know, and Melinda reminded me of this place’s history when she wrote me about it.” He paused.

  “What was it that happened over a hundred years ago?” I asked.

  The light was failing fast, and the rays from the setting sun lit the autumn-colored woods to royal hues, and warmed the dun-colored house to copper. Through the kitchen window I could see a figure in a skirt standing before the fire. Ger took Greatheart’s bridle and led him a little way along, following the edge of the forest but moving away from the house.

  “Well now,” he said at last, and when he glanced at me again his smile was sheepish. “You’ll laugh, and I won’t blame you. I grew up near here, and the tales you hear in your cradle stay with you whether you will or nay.

  “It’s said there’s a castle in a wild garden at the center of these woods; and if you ever walk into the trees till you are out of sight of the edge of the forest and you can see nothing but big dark trees all around you, you will be drawn to that castle; and in the castle there lives a monster. He was a man once, some tales say, and was turned into a terrible monster as a punishment for his evil deeds; some say he was born that way, as a punishment to his parents, who were king and queen of a good land but cared only for their own pleasure.”

  “Like the Minotaur,” I murmured.

  “The which?”

  “Minotaur. It’s an old Greek legend. What does the monster look like?”

  “No two tales agree on that. My mother made me mind her with stories of a bear with foot-long claws; my best friend’s mother made him mind because a great boar would come and carry him away on its long tusks if he didn’t. And the first owner of the public house here thought it was a griffin. Whatever it is, it must have a mighty appetite. The tale also goes that no hunter ever finds game in there; and you know our garden is curiously free of rabbits and woodchucks—and that in itself is uncanny. And never a deer do you see, and no man has taken one from this forest in the memory of the oldest grandfather’s memories of his childhood’s tales. There aren’t even any squirrels here, and squirrels will live anywhere.”

  The sun was almost gone now; firelight sent a warm glow through the windows, and left golden footprints in the garden. Father went whistling into the parlour with an arm-load of my afternoon’s exertions over the woodpile. He paused at the door and called across to us: “You going back to the shop, Ger? I’ve not closed up.” “Aye,” Ger called back. Father went on inside.

  “Now, I want your solemn promise,” said Ger. “First, that you’ll not go scaring your sisters with these stories I’ve—foolishly, I suppose—told you. And second, that you will stay out of this forest.”

  I scowled at the ground. I disliked promises on principle because my conscience made me keep them. “I’ll say nothing to my sisters,” I said, and paused. “If the magic is dangerous to anyone, it’s dangerous to you too; I’ll stay out if you will.”

  Ger didn’t like that; then he grinned suddenly. “You’re half witch yourself, I sometimes think; the forest would probably leave you alone. Okay, I promise. And you?”

  “Yes,” I said, and went to unload the cart, and put Greatheart away in his stable. Ger was still in the shop when I was finished. He looked up when I entered. “Eh?” he said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

  “Ger—why did you tell me the story about the forest?”

  Ger raised the hammer he was using and studied the signs of wear on its head. “Well now,” he said thoughtfully. “I have a very high opinion of your obstinacy; and I knew I’d never get a promise of obedience from you without telling you the truth of it. I’m not a very good liar—and that old forest makes me nervous.” He grinned a small boy’s grin suddenly and added: “I think it’ll be a relief to me to be on my oath to stay out of it; I won’t have to think up my own good reasons anymore. Tell your sisters I’ll be in in a minute.”

  I was awake and sneaking downstairs barefoot before dawn the next morning. I had done a favor for a man who mended harness, and he had said he could fix a soft padded leather collar to go under Greatheart’s harness to protect his shoulders; there were two little bald patches beginning that worried me. Bucky had said that it would be ready for me this morning, and it was a longish ride to his farm, and I’d have a lot to do later. And I liked to watch the sun rise.

  I saddled Greatheart and led him out, his big feet leaving not-quite-regular saucer marks in the frosty grass. I hesitated as we came to the stream; we usually went around the shop near the stream, then up the little hill towards the town, and I’d haul us water from the well when we rode by it. Today I led the horse to the stream, and waited, watching him: He lowered his head, wrinkled his black nose at the running water, and blew; then he lowered his muzzle and drank. He didn’t turn into a frog, nor into a griffin and fly away. He raised his head, slobbering over his last mouthful, and pricked his ears at me without any awareness of having done something out of the ordinary. I walked a pace or two upstream and knelt to scoop up some water with my hands, looping the reins over my wrist. The water was so cold it made my teeth ache with the shock; but it was sweet and very good, better than the dull water from the respectable well. I didn’t turn into a frog either, and when I stood up the landscape looked just as it always had. I mounted and we jogged slowly off.

  Poverty seemed to agree with me. Grace and I were bridesmaids at Hope’s wedding, and while Grace looked fragile and ethereal and Hope was flushed and warm with love, I did contrive to look presentable. After a year of sun and wind and hard work my skin had cleared up, and since I refused to be bothered with a hat, I was brown from working so much outside, which suited me better than my usual sallow pallor. I also stood up straighter since I had had to stop crouching over books; and I was also very strong, although this is not considered an important virtue in a woman. Grace and Hope were exceptional anywhere, but here in the country at least ordinarily pretty girls were outnumbered by plain ones, and I fitted into the background more appropriately than I had in the bright society of the city. I still hadn’t grown, though. When I was twelve, my sisters said kindly that the size of my hands and feet indicated that I would grow later; but by this time I was sixteen, and resigned to the fact that that growing streak just wasn’t going to arrive. But now that I no longer had to put them in dainty white gloves, I found that my big hands had their uses; and overall I was on pretty good terms with myself. It helped that the only looking-glass in the house was in my sisters room.

  We had worried about Grace the first winter; she seemed never to get over the shock of Robbie’s loss, and grew so thin and pale I used to think I could see the firelight shining through her. But with spring she began to recover, and while she was quieter than she once had been, she put on weight, and got some color back in her cheeks. She did most of the work and all of the organizing for the wedding day, and for the feast afterwards; and if she was thinking of Robbie, you would never have known it, seeing her laugh and dance and sing, and watch the level in the punch bowls. She even condescended to flirt a little, very delicately, with the young minister who performed the ceremony; and the poor man went home walking like one drunk, although he had tasted nothing stronger than tea the whole day.

  It was the day of the wedding also that Ferdy kissed me, which was how I discovered that looking presentable had its drawbacks. Ferdy was a lad a few years older than myself who helped Ger in the shop when he was needed; Ger said often that the boy had promise as a smith, and he wished he could hire him on a regular schedule. Ferdy was very tall and thin, with bony hands and a big nose and a wild thatch of red hair. We had become friends over the last few months—he’d started working for Ger in early June—and he taught me to fish, and to snare rabbits, and to kill and clean them when they were sn
ared. I liked him, but I didn’t like him kissing me.

  The wedding day was blue and clear and warm—hot, after the second cup of punch. The ceremony was performed in our tiny parlour, with only the family, and Melinda and a few more special friends; but afterwards the whole town came to the banquet. We had brought the big trestle tables from the Griffin in Greatheart’s cart, and set them up in the meadow, and added our own kitchen table; and spread on them were bread and sweet butter, and pies and fruits and jellies, and roast meats, plus the punch, and tea and milk for those who wanted it; and some fiddlers had upon request brought their fiddles, and so there was dancing; and while Ger and Hope laughed at their friends’ jokes, and danced with everyone, and thanked them for their good wishes, they never really took their eyes off one another. The day had begun very early, on the understanding that it would end at sundown; tomorrow would be a working day as usual, and it was near harvest, with no time to waste, even on weddings. Grace and Molly and Melinda and I cleaned up afterwards in the young twilight. We agreed with each other that we were exhausted, but none of us could stop smiling.

  Ferdy came by the next day especially to see me, though I didn’t want to see him, and especially not when he’d made his visit only for that purpose. He apologized to me for the day before, stammering and shaking and turning a bright scarlet, which looked very odd with his orange hair, and he begged that I forgive him. I forgave him to make him stop apologizing; but I also began to avoid him, and when I did come to the shop when he was there, or when he ate the noon meal with us, he followed me with his eyes as if I wore a black hood and carried an axe, and he was next in line.

  Ger, who as a new bridegroom shouldn’t have been noticing anything but the charms of his new bride, noticed the tension between his assistant and his younger sister-in-law. One day when we were out together hauling wood, and there was the pause between throwing the tools in on the last pile of wood and telling Greatheart to get along there, Ger rubbed his face with a dirty hand and said, “About Ferdy.” I stiffened. There was a pause that snickered in my ears, and then Ger said gently, “Don’t worry about it. It’s different with different people.”