Beastkeeper

by Cat Hellisen

  * * *

  It was dusk when Alan came back.

  Sarah had made herself some tea and eaten the fruit he’d left her, and then, because she’d been tired of waiting, had helped herself to a can of spaghetti in tomato sauce, which she felt a little bad about, but not too much. They were friends now, and she knew he’d understand.

  She’d even started the fire on her own, and it was going pretty well. She was oddly proud of it. But when he walked in the door, her smile faded. She knew from the look on his face what he was going to tell her. “She said no.”

  Alan sighed and went to the fire to toss in another log, even though it hardly needed it. A wreath of sparks jumped up the chimney, and a curl of new smoke twined into the room. “We’ll give her a few days,” he said. “She’s not made of stone.”

  A few days. Here in Alan’s cottage. Sarah looked around. Where would she sleep? “Thank you, but I—”

  “I’ll take the couch,” he said. “And I’ll make up the bed fresh for you.” He gave the fire a last furious jab, then dropped the poker back onto its rack. “I’m sorry.” He stood and looked at her. “It’s not what you wanted to hear.”

  “I’ve got most of the truth. I’ve tried getting to the Within, stolen a key and freed my grandfather, I’ve learned how to walk the forest, gone back home … and after all this, I haven’t solved anything,” she whispered. “My family’s still missing, still cursed.” She swallowed. “I’m also cursed, aren’t I?”

  Alan looked uncomfortable, then gave a small nod, just the barest dip of his head. “Probably.” He smiled with one half of his mouth. “If you are, we’ll find a way of breaking it.”

  “How?” Sarah shook her head. “I know that you said I shouldn’t, but I am going to go to the Within—it’s all I can think of to do now.”

  Alan stared at her, and his brows pinched together as he considered. “You may be right,” he said after a few moments. He ran one hand through his brown curls, and a tiny silver leaf spiraled to the ground. “Then again. You may be wrong, and it may be the very worst thing you could do. The Within is where all the magic comes from. Go there, and the curse will wake in you.”

  “Will it?”

  Alan fiddled with the fallen leaf, twisting it about in his fingers. “To tell the truth, I don’t know for sure.”

  Sarah almost smiled. “Then that settles it. I have to take the chance.”

  “You don’t.” His eyes burned like amber glass around candles, bright and warm. “You shouldn’t. We’ll think of something else, you and I, and I promise this much,” he said as he stepped forward to catch her hand, “you won’t be alone. I’ll be with you.”

  It was a jolt.

  A strange moment when the world stayed exactly the same, and changed forever.

  It felt like an invisible firework.

  And Sarah’s bones shifted just the slightest bit under her skin. She pulled back away from Alan’s touch, wrenching her hand free. The room smelled suddenly close and stale and smoggy. She coughed, spluttered.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Alan didn’t seem offended by her reaction, just concerned.

  “I’m fine,” she choked out between coughs. “Just too much smoke in here. I need to breathe.” Sarah leaped from the couch and flung the door open.

  Beyond, the trees danced, green and blue against a sky alive with light. She watched the first stars pinwheel in their courses, and around her the forest came to life in a flutter of scents and sounds. The air cut into her lungs, and she could taste where the castle was from here, could feel the tug of its stones beneath the earth. She looked at her feet, half expecting to see the ground moving, showing her the way back home.

  Nothing, just her feet in her socks. Light gray socks with their pattern of pink cat paws along the side. Her mother had bought them for her.

  Through the toes of the socks, her feet looked wrong. Too flat and human, no good for running or hunting, no good for padding soft as falling feathers through the crackling leaves.

  “Oh no,” said Sarah. “Oh no. Please, no.”

  “You’re changing,” said Alan behind her. “Why are you changing—you’re just a little girl—you can’t be more than twelve.”

  “Thirteen,” Sarah said, and she wanted to scream. Because when he’d spoken, she’d felt the hunger in her rising. She could smell the grouse hanging limp on the trees, the meat-richness of them, and known. “Stop talking,” she said, and ran.

  * * *

  There was no way he’d be able to catch up, Sarah thought as she raced. The trees flickered around her, an impossible blur. She knew instinctively when to duck, to turn, to slip this way instead of that. Beneath her pink and gray socks, the ground was mute.

  She’d left her jacket in Alan’s cottage, but it hardly mattered. The cold rushed over, past her. It didn’t burrow under her skin.

  Her legs seemed to grow longer as she ran, and around her the world was alive with scent and sound, a whole new map of experience. She dropped to all fours and shrugged herself out of the strange material that hindered her, nipping and gnawing until she’d worked herself free of the human clothing. A thin noose tightened around her throat, half choking her, and then the pain snapped away, and a silver chain slipped through her fur.

  The abandoned clothes made a sad, unnatural puddle of color on the ground. A small bright chunk of silver blinked up from the nest of clothes. Sarah sniffed once, then sneezed. It all smelled of girl, and of things she didn’t understand. There was the smell of a cottage and wood smoke, and for a moment she remembered the fire-bright warmth, the flashing white teeth of a smile, a promise. A boy’s voice as dark and wild as the forest around her, like he was part of it, its spirit.

  He’d given her warm tea sweetened with condensed milk. He’d wrapped a blanket around her shoulders when she was shivering and ill. He’d made a place for her when no one else wanted to. The thought of the boy with curling hair and kindness sent another shooting pain down her spine, and she screamed.

  Howled.

  The last of her girl-thoughts slipped away. A more interesting scent flashed across the air: a high spike of nervous terror, and under it the wine-warm curl of racing blood. Sarah raised her head and grinned, tasting the cold and the greeny-wet of the forest against her tongue, and there—the scent of the horned buck. It was close.

  A flicker. A flash of white tail.

  With a silent laugh, Sarah gave chase.

  The forest became a living current around her, and she slipped through it as easily as a shark moving through the ocean. Fingers of leaves brushed against her coat, and the smell of the buck’s terror was ripe and sharp ahead, leading her on. She hunted through the trees, and beneath her paws the ground turned again to cold dead needles, and the trees bowed under the weight of their white cloaks.

  Still the buck stayed far ahead, bounding always just out of reach. A shadow appeared at Sarah’s side, breath rasping, eyes wide and tongue lolling. A beast, like her. It was far bigger, and it ran without flagging, mirroring her every twist and turn.

  Sarah’s breath burned against her ribs, her paws ached. The buck ran. The shadow-beast next to Sarah began to draw ahead until finally, utterly exhausted, Sarah stumbled and collapsed, her sides shuddering, steam rising from her coat and panting tongue.

  The ground was cold against her belly, almost soothing, and Sarah stretched out, trying to cool her overheated limbs. She was certain that she’d never stand again, that she’d lie there forever.

  A spiral of snow fell from one of the higher branches and settled on her coat, glistening there for a moment before melting. She closed her eyes and waited. The snow would eventually cover her, and that would be her cold and quiet grave.

  Even as a beast, Sarah felt calmed by the thought. There was something very appealing about drifting away here, just forgetting and being forgotten.

  There was no need to be a girl again. To move again.

  A slight change in the air made her shudder
. Something was there, watching her. She could feel it. With an immense effort she opened one eye. Standing downwind was the buck. It stepped out of the wreath of leaves and closer to her. The horns were lyre shaped, like a delicate crown.

  Sarah growled, but the buck merely walked a little closer, pointed cloven hooves picking delicately as it made its way toward her. When it was standing right over her body, it shook its head once, and the shiver traveled down its body, shaking its skin from its bones like a fine mist.

  In its place stood a boy. A familiar boy, who smelled of fires and pines. He crouched down, put one hand between her ears, and gently scratched. He didn’t talk, just comforted her like she was nothing more than a large dog, tired out from a run.

  He stood and clicked his tongue. “Sarah,” he said.

  The name drifted through her head, fine as smoke. It was hers, she was sure of it.

  “Sarah, remember.”

  She did. Little things, snatches of her past. She was not only a beast, but something else too.

  “You dropped this,” the boy said. From his hand dangled a fine silver chain, with a small charm weighting it. A bear.

  Sarahbear. She had a mother and a father, and … there were others, people and beasts and some who were neither. With a massive sigh, Sarah clambered to her paws. Her legs were shaky; her head felt weighted down by the budding spikes of her horns. They were little more than nubs, not big enough yet to curl like her grandfather’s or the other beast’s, but still they seemed far too heavy.

  “It’s a long walk back,” Alan said softly. “We’ll take it slow.”

  Sarah was so exhausted that her head hung, her back legs kept collapsing under her. The heat of her hunt slowly left her, and she began to shake from the cold, and from an exhaustion so complete that all she wanted to do was curl up and die.

  She was faintly aware of Alan pausing to gather some bright scraps of clothing, muddy and wet, from the ground, but otherwise the journey back to the cottage passed in a shuddering, disjointed dream. All she knew, the only thing that kept her walking, was a desire to keep to the boy’s side. She felt that there was some connection between them, and that if she stopped, she would never know what it was.

  She would be lost.

  14

  HUNTING THE WREN

  FINALLY THE COTTAGE came into view, and Sarah followed Alan inside.

  “Wait there,” he said, pointing to the kitchen. She dripped miserably on the flagstones, while Alan went to feed the dying coals in the grate. Once he had gotten the fire going and thrown an old threadbare towel before it, he nodded to her. “Lie down, then. Get warm.”

  She slunk over to the fire and collapsed before the black iron of the grating. The heat blasted across her, and the room filled with the smell of drying fur and pine gum.

  “Sleep,” Alan told her. Behind her, he was making himself another cup of tea, and the sharp burn of the brandy cut cleanly through all the other smells.

  Sarah sneezed and flopped her head back down. Sleep sounded good.

  “We’ll talk in the morning,” Alan said. His voice drifted over her, the words settling like leaves.

  She gave a hmph in answer.

  “I’ll talk, I suppose—you’ll just have to listen until you find your words again,” he said. “You’re being very inconvenient,” Alan added softly.

  His fingers dug gently behind her ears, scratching the thin fur around the nubs of her horns. Alan sighed, and Sarah sighed with him, a deep groan of agreement, before the warmth settled into her bones and dragged her to sleep.

  * * *

  Sarah woke to lazy silence. There was a distant bird call, and the ever-present whispersong of the trees, but other than that she could hear nothing. She stretched out, half wondering where she was and why she was lying on the floor.

  She froze.

  Her hands were covered in thick brindled fur, and each stumpy finger ended in a curved claw, dark brown as bitter chocolate.

  “What?” she said, only it came out in a yelp. She scrambled up onto all fours and shook her head furiously. When that made no difference, she screamed. It was a thundering howl, wilder and stranger than any animal noise she’d ever heard before.

  Stop. She snapped her jaws shut and breathed heavily, her flanks trembling.

  A sea of images washed over her: a hunt, a race through the forest after a buck that was not a buck. Of another beast at her side, of failure, of a jumble of scents and animal thoughts that felt more like pictures made of smells and falls of light than actual thoughts.

  Last night I turned into a beast, she thought. The words were clear among the dizzying memories of the hunt. Today I can think like a human. Her breathing slowed and she turned, looking about her from this new perspective. The cottage smelled safe and familiar, of tea and wood smoke and moss and nettles and Alan.

  Alan. Sarah dropped her head and whined. This is his fault. A twist tore through her, an ache so awful and splendid that she was ready to collapse onto the ash-streaked rug and sob.

  If beasts can even cry, which I doubt. She raised her head again and made a soft sound, halfway between a gruff bark and a human laugh. But they can speak. Or at least Grandfather can, so I need to remember how.

  Her ears lifted, and the hackles along her back raised in slow motion. Someone was walking toward the cottage, the grass brushing at his legs. Not someone—even if she couldn’t hear from the tread, Sarah would have known anyway. She turned and sat down to stare at the door, waiting for him.

  “Ah,” Alan said when he opened the door to find her glaring in his direction. “Awake, are you?” He had a brace of rabbits slung over one shoulder, and the smell of them was almost overwhelming. Meat and blood and fur, and the last lingering trace of ice.

  Sarah felt the saliva pooling in her mouth, and shook her head. She’d save the drooling on the floor for when he wasn’t looking. Instead she growled at him, her jaw wrinkling up around her teeth.

  “It’s not my fault you’ve gone and turned,” Alan said. “Besides, these are for you.” He lifted the rabbits from his shoulder and held them out. Their dark eyes looked like black marbles, though the shine was already drying off them.

  But it is your fault, Sarah thought. Even if you don’t know it. Actually, it’s worse that you don’t know it.

  She’d felt it. The moment that her casual liking for Alan had slipped into stranger waters. One moment he’d been interesting and improbable, and the next …

  It had been like the world twisted off its axis, reinvented itself.

  And she’d turned.

  She wondered if her father had known about how the curse was triggered. Sarah remembered when she was younger, how her parents would laugh about falling in love at the same moment, as if joking about their ridiculous romance would take some of the fairy-tale sugar off it and make it palatable to others.

  Except maybe that hadn’t been it at all. Maybe they had laughed because they knew, and if they hadn’t laughed they would have cried.

  Sarah took a deep shuddering breath and made herself look squarely at Alan. Nothing about him had changed. He was the same lanky, underfed young man with dirty feet, and hair that curled and tangled. And yet somehow it seemed that the light hit him differently, made him impossible to stare at for too long, made him unreal, untouchable.

  He’d been a buck. In the forest, he’d been a crowned buck on long graceful legs, and he’d outrun her.

  No. It’s all just the confusion from last night. She lowered her nose and whined.

  “Your words will come back,” Alan said. “Don’t you worry. But you are eating these outside.” He tossed the rabbits through the door. They landed in the grass with two thumps. “Go on, then. I want breakfast too, girl.”

  Hunger prodded Sarah out the door, and she nosed her way to where the two rabbits lay, legs akimbo. The wind plucked at the pale fur on their bellies. For now, they were still limp and warm, but it wouldn’t be long before they turned stiff, and the last of t
he blood-heat leached out into the ground.

  Ugh. I’m not eating that. But the smell that rose from them was more appetizing than any of Nanna’s stews. And she was ravenous from the fruitless hunt, and the change. Animal instinct kicked in, swallowing up the human thoughts. She dragged the first corpse into a secluded part of the little meadow, and set to breakfast.

  * * *

  She was gnawing on the last of the bones when Alan came across the clearing toward where she was lying.

  “Got your voice back yet?” He stopped a few feet away and squinted at her. “We’re going to have to find Freya,” he said. “You understand that, right? Wherever she’s gotten to, we need to speak to her.”

  Sarah whined. It was more important than ever that she convince Freya to tell her how to break the curse. It wasn’t just her grandfather and her father who were beasts; she’d been caught in the snare too. There were other beasts in the forest, racing between the trees, smelling the blood in the cold air, and already she’d taken a step closer to losing what was left of her humanity, had let herself get caught up in the pull of the chase, the urge to kill. She’d hunted with one of them last night—

  “Beast!” she yelped.

  “I’m not blind,” Alan said.

  “No. Beast. Other. Who?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You know who. Doesn’t make him safe. He’s lost her, and it’s driven him mad. He doesn’t even think like people anymore. It’s a good thing he left you with your grandmother when he did.”

  “No,” Sarah said. She’d known. In her heart of hearts, of course she’d known; she’d just never wanted to accept that the mindless animal in the forest was all that was left of her father.

  Alan dropped to a crouch, bringing his face level with hers. Even now, with her worry and her loss climbing over her like fleas, she found his face too bright to look at. “You can’t help him. He’s looking for her, and that’s all he cares about.”

  “Hunt?”

  Alan nodded.

  And if he caught her mother, the wren-woman … Sarah shuddered. “Find. Bird.”

  “What?” A frown pinched at his forehead, and his amber eyes darkened.