by Alyse Zaftig
The stairs opened onto a long hallway that stretched for the length of the house. Closed doors lined each side and in between them were family photos. Rose brushed the dust off one of them and saw a family staring back at her. The parents looked stout and happy and their three kids were all tall and chubby cheeked and primary school-aged. Was one of the kids Liam? But they all looked so normal. Curious now, she wiped the dust from another picture and saw the same family but a few years older. The children were nearly twice as tall it seemed and were clearly a girl and two boys, though which of them was Liam was impossible to say.
However he looked now, he hadn’t always been that way. Something had happened. Something terrible. And it had changed him. Was it an accident? A disease? He seemed unable to tell her.
She went through the door Liam had mentioned and found the library. Marvelous built-in shelves filled every wall and every shelf was crammed with books. They were ordered alphabetically, Rose noticed with approval. A window looked out over the land below, facing the low rolling hills that stretched out behind the farmhouse and in front of the window on a low table was the phone.
It was an old landline, the push-button kind, industrial and black. But somehow it still worked. Rose picked it up and was shocked to hear the old hum of the dial tone in her ear. And for a moment she was a kid again, picking up the phone after she got home from school to call her mother’s office and let her know that she’d got home safely. It summoned a feeling of childish helplessness in her that she struggled to shake.
Now that she had a phone, who could she call? On a pad near the phone was the name Pete and a local number and the words For Emergencies written and underlined harshly. So she dialed that number.
“Sheriff Pete here,” said a grumbling voice on the other end of the line.
“Hi, my name is Rose and I’m stranded at—" She paused. Did she even know the address? “I’m at Liam’s house?” she tried.
“Liam?” Sheriff Pete said. “I only know one Liam and he’s a big guy. Bad temper. Lives by himself way outside town. You mean him?”
“I guess?” Rose said. “I haven’t seen any temper but the rest fits.”
“And you’re stranded? Let me guess, the storm?”
Rose nodded and then said, “Yes,” when she remembered he couldn’t hear her nod.
“Okay well, you’re a far ways outside of town, lady and I have two dozen other motorists who called before you who also need help. Buncha tourists got no idea how to drive if you ask me,” he grumbled. “I’ll get to you as soon as I can, but it won’t be soon. And if I’m not there before dark, you find someplace safe and hole up, you hear me? Don’t go out at night there.”
Rose flinched. Should she tell the sheriff about Ronald Carter and his goons? Or would it even matter?
“Okay, but hurry please.”
“I’ll be as fast as I can,” Sheriff Pete said. “But don’t hold your breath.”
He hung up abruptly and then Rose dialed her mother’s office. Besides the library and her own cell number it was the only actual phone number she knew. It went right to voicemail and Rose left a message that began as calm and clear but quickly took some wrong turns and ended up a rambling, half-sobbing mess where she explained that Ronald Carter had pursued her relentlessly, and when she turned him away time and again he showed up as the library was closing and threatened to ruin her life if she didn’t give him what he wanted.
The voicemail cut her off before she could say everything she wanted, but Rose decided not to call back and spill the rest. There was a chance that Ronald would go after her parents—he’d implied as much on more than one occasion—so they deserved a warning.
After the phone call was done, and she’d regained some composure, she called down to Liam. “Which books did you want? There’s quite a few up here.”
“Something good please. That’s all.” Then he added quickly, “With a happy ending please.”
Rose spent an hour looking through the books. There wasn’t a single book newer than 1988. It was as if the room had been sealed then and preserved. She picked out some classics for Liam, some of her favorites too, and also a small stack of novels that she had heard were wonderful but had never had the chance to read. She dropped them, off the edge of the stairs, one by one, into Liam’s waiting hands. It wasn’t throwing she decided, so it was perfectly okay to do. It would violate no library code, real or imagined.
Should she explore the rest of the upstairs? The mystery called to her, but also Liam was watching and waiting and it seemed terribly rude to do so. Climbing down the stair wreckage was harder than going up. She couldn’t ignore the nails and sharp bits of wood that sprouted from the space under the stairs like a particularly evil flowerbed.
Rose took a deep breath and summoned her courage and decided that taking the steps quickly would be her best strategy. She nearly hopped down the steps, she went so fast, faking a confidence she didn’t really feel. And that’s probably why she slipped.
One moment she was on a step with her hands gripping the railing and the next the world had gone sideways and those rusty nails were all she could see as her body hurtled earthwards toward them.
But instead of the sharp impact of wood and the sharper impact of nails, she fell onto something warm and soft and forgiving. It was Liam. His huge arms were wrapped around her protectively and his back was smashed against the pile of wood and nails. He’d jumped in between Rose and—well, if not death then certainly huge discomfort.
“Are you okay?” his voice was pained with concern.
“I’m fine. Thank you,” she said. “I can’t believe you caught me. How did you move so fast?” His arms were still wrapped around her, but Rose didn’t feel any immediate need to move. She felt safer in that moment than she had in years.
“I can move fast when I need to,” Liam said, then hissed.
“What’s wrong?”
“These nails,” he said.
Rose pushed his arms open and got to her feet and saw then that Liam had been stabbed by at least a dozen of the nails. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it,” she said. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
Liam struggled to his feet. “I’ll be fine,” he said. But he wobbled as he rose. “I heal fast. Faster than humans.”
Rose’s heart thudded. She pretended like she didn’t hear him.
“Sheriff Pete,” she stammered. “He says he’ll be here later to pick me up. Is it okay if I stay until then?”
Liam stared at her from under his hood. “You may stay as long as you like,” he said. His voice was quiet now and utterly serious.
“You’ve been so generous,” Rose continued. “I need to pay you back.”
“The books you passed down—that will cover it.”
“Nonsense. Let me do something kind for you, please.”
“What did you have in mind?” Liam asked.
“Do you have a mop here? And a bucket?”
While Liam pulled nails out of his back and went off into the woods to fetch food for the rest of the day, Rose set to work cleaning. She offered to help him, but he shrugged her off. She had the impression that he didn’t want her to see what he looked like under his ragged hood. So with a mop and a broom and a bucket she did the best she could, pushing dirt and leaves and filth out of the back of the house and mopping until the old wooden floors of the house were visible again.
As she cleaned, she could see the house as it once had been. There were signs of the family that had lived there and the love they’d poured into the house. On the door frame in the kitchen there were height marks for Liam and his siblings, with Liam’s final mark taking position well over the door frame.
Rose could live in a house like this. She could be happy. Not with the holes in the walls and the filthy floors—that would all need to be fixed—but just a short drive from town, with nature just outside the door, and with plenty of space to fill with love. Yes, she could be not just content, but happy in such a place.
The cleaning took longer than she’d planned and she’d only conquered the kitchen floor when she noticed the sun setting. Liam wasn’t back yet, and Sheriff Pete’s warning returned to her.
Rose gathered up the last of the bread and honey and hid herself away in the cottage. She ate the bread and flipped through an old mystery novel and considered trying to scrape the dried mud off her clothes. The sun set and the night time chorus of crickets and tree frogs and locusts started up their performance. She felt safe.
Rose hadn’t seen Liam in hours. She wasn’t worried though. If he’d been there by himself for nearly three decades, like she thought, he could handle the night just fine.
But then a beast began growling and howling nearby and Rose felt an icy fear grip her.
The beast had Liam’s voice.
Was this his disease? Or was it madness? Why did he howl and scream and growl in the night?
It was an animal bellow. There were no words contained within it, no message other than fury. If the beast tried the cottage door she knew it would get in. The place was no fortress.
She could run to the road, and make her way to her car. The mud was sure to have dried somewhat and being mobile had to be better than being a sitting duck in the cottage.
But no. She decided to listen to Sheriff Pete’s advice. She stayed in the cottage and listened to the beast scream and thrash just outside her door. His silhouette was looming and monstrous outside the window. The moon was behind him and he was still hidden in shadows, but he looked larger to Rose. More terrible.
She hid under the covers, shaking, while the monster roared and stomped on the floor outside the cottage. But it never touched the door or the windows and it never seemed to look at her. Somehow the cottage was sacrosanct. The beast would not enter. She was safe in the cottage.
Rose didn’t remember falling asleep, but she must have. And when she awoke it was already afternoon.
Liam had left more bread and honey in the kitchen for her, but he was nowhere to be seen. She spent another day cleaning and organizing, retreating to the cottage before night fell. And when darkness came, so did the beast. He raged even fiercer on the second night.
It was on the third morning that Ronald found her.
Chapter 6
The beast wanted her gone. It couldn’t stand how human she made Liam feel and resented her for it. It snapped and roared within him during the day, and at night when it was in control it carried on in a way he’d never seen before.
Liam realized that the beast inside him was scared of Rose—terrified of her. He tried asking it why, but the bear in his soul denied it. Perhaps a little too much.
Why was the beast so scared?
The beast couldn’t touch the cottage. It had belonged to his first love, before the curse took him. And the beast had loved her even more than he had. It was a sacred place. It was the only reminder they had of her and her scent still clung faintly to the fabric inside.
Liam again prepared food for Rose. He baked bread and spooned out more of his stolen honey. He caught salmon and prepared them and even raided the root cellar for veggies. After all, she couldn’t be expected to live on bread and honey alone. But before she awoke to enjoy the meal, he fled.
It was instinct. Something was wrong. He caught no strange scents, but still his ears prickled with a sense of disaster.
And his beast was being suspiciously quiet.
The beast was planning on sabotaging him. That’s what it was. It wanted Rose gone.
The beast was going to find a way to pull back his hood, to reveal his hideous nature to her. It would look like an accident but would be anything but. And as kind and gracious as Rose had been, he had no illusions about how she’d react when she saw his face forever frozen in mid-shift between bear and man.
Liam found chores to do deep in the woods and before darkness came he locked himself in iron chains to a towering sequoia. Restrained, he’d be unable to do anything awful to Rose.
But the chains were no match for the beast’s rage and it took no time at all for him to smash them open and run back home to howl at the cottage door. With every roar he was shrieking get out and go away and we don’t need you! But Rose didn’t speak bear.
On the third morning, she was still there. Liam’s heart leapt with joy that he hadn’t scared her away. He knew that she couldn’t stay forever—even to consider the idea was monumentally unfair to her. He lived in squalor and she was thoughtful and kind and gorgeous. Asking her to stay even a day longer would be a cruelty he could never live with.
If he let himself dream—and he often did—he could imagine a future with her. They could marry. He had an inheritance—it wasn’t much, but it would be enough to fix up the house and keep them comfortable enough. She could live upstairs, and him down. But what life would that be for her? He needed help to do even the most basic human things. No matter if they fixed the house and had fresh food and electricity and the hundred tiny things you take for granted every day—he was getting worse. He couldn’t tie himself to her. He’d be like an anchor around her ankle as she swam to shore.
No.
He’d make the best of the days she remained, but he couldn’t let himself grow too fond of her. He couldn’t get attached.
After gathering ingredients for breakfast he decided to go check on her car. Perhaps Pete had flagged it as abandoned? Perhaps there was some way he could help? And perhaps he could learn more about her from the wreck.
She’d crashed farther away than he’d expected, making her journey during the storm even more impressive in retrospect. Her car—a tiny Honda—had slid off the road very near where he’d first incurred the curse. Walking the muddy roads brought the memory back in a flash.
He could see himself on that night, driving his vintage Mustang. It had been a cold night. No rain, but a vicious wind.
There’d been a hitchhiker on the side of the road. A drop-dead gorgeous blonde in her late twenties with long flowing hair and shorts that didn’t even cover her ass. She looked too good to be true.
Liam had pulled over. He’d offered her a ride. And then, when they hadn’t even driven five minutes, he’d told her that she needed to pay him for the ride. Not with money, but with her body. He could hear himself, with his cocky pretty-boy voice saying, “Gas or ass, no one rides for free.” That phrase haunted his nightmares.
The memory of that night was a dagger in Liam’s mind. He’d been so young and so dumb and so very, very rude to that woman.
He remembered sliding his hand up her thigh as they drove, as if her body belonged to him just because she was in his car. She’d been cold. Stiff. But as his fingers had neared her sex, she had changed. Her youth fell away revealing a skin that looked like hardened oak. Her fingers were gnarled and thin. Her voice grew raspy and tight.
The woman was a witch. She’d unleashed powerful magics that night, cursing him for his behavior and turning him into the beast he was today. He’d broken one of the most fundamental rules of civilization. He’d refused help to a traveler in need. And for his unkindness, he had been made forever half a man.
Liam lost himself in memories and regrets. Being on that road made it very easy to gorge on recriminations.
He reacted too late when a car drove past, filled with heavily armed men.
“Where on earth could they be going?” he thought, and then realized that they were the trouble Rose was fleeing.
Liam took off on a run through the woods. There were no shortcuts from the road to his home. The forest was too thick and the brambles too dense, but he tore through the forest as fast as he could, losing his thick boots to the mud, his pants to a blackberry bramble, and most of his shirt to an old gnarled pricker bush. By the time he reached the house he only had his canvas hooded cloak to wear. He pulled it tight around him and stalked off towards the cottage.
Three men leaned against the car—a limousine, thickly caked in mud—and had the look of men who were happy to hurt people
for money. At the door of the cottage was another figure—an older man, perhaps fifty, wearing a light gray suit. The man was bellowing and banging on the cottage door. He was shouting at Rose, demanding she hand over her phone.
The beast inside Liam went still with rage as this man—his skin orange from bronzer—kicked the cottage door open and then dragged Rose out. The man beamed with a childish pride and held her phone high above his head.
“See this boys?” he said to the three goons. “This is what we came here to get. This dumb bitch thought she could blackmail me. She recorded me saying some things to her. Allegedly, you know? But she’s a very mean person. She’s a liar. You can’t trust anything on this phone.” He paused and looked at the phone again. “And anyway, it was all out of context. It was a joke.”
Rose was unharmed, Liam could see that. But she was terrified. The woman had gone still with fear, crumpling in on herself as if by making herself as small as possible she’d escape the man in the suit.
“Emil, I want you to take this phone and break it please. Just smash the bejeezus out of it.” One of the goons stepped forward, took the phone and threw it straight through the cottage window. The window broke. The phone didn’t.
“Sorry, Ronald. I mean, Mr. Carter,” Emil said. He shoved past Rose to get into the cottage and brought the phone back out. “They’ve really improved these things, I have to say. Used to be just dropping them at the gym would make the screen crack and now they’re harder than stone.”
Ronald Carter sighed heavily, as if asking his god why he had to have an employee like Emil. “Just shoot it, will you? There’s no one around for miles to hear it.”
Emil nodded, put the phone on the cottage floor and fired three rounds into it, shattering the glass and electronics and scattering them across the field.
The beast inside Liam grew hot with anger, leaping inside him with every gunshot.
“How did you find me?” Rose asked. She was trembling, but brave.
“That was difficult, I’ll give you that. I have the best guys. They do great work. But you went off the grid, hiding in this shit hole. That was smart. I guess even a dumb broad like you can make good choices sometimes.” He smiled at her, as if what he said had been a joke. His goons laughed. The beast inside Liam wanted to tear the man’s face off, but Liam knew if they made a move then Ronald Carter would gun him down.