by C. E. Murphy
Even expecting it, it made me laugh. A manor house—a palace—with wings unfolding from a central edifice, rounded facades that spoke of ballrooms, ground level arched doors in the straighter sections, no doubt leading to storage, stables, kitchens; towers at corners, wide shallow—and currently frozen, but cleared to skate on—ponds carefully kept in beautifully sculpted basins; gardens that backed onto forest, and all of it unheard of, a hidden castle in the woods. The gates could lead to nothing else; the enchantment that had saved us could hardly lead to anything else, and I laughed again at the astonishing absurdity of it.
Father, hearing my laugh, opened the front of the wagon cover, and breathed, "Sweet mother of the stars," in genuine reverence.
Beauty ambled around the ponds, stopping, as if a stablehand came to stand at her head, directly in front of the sweeping stairs that climbed to the castle's main doors. Father and I sat there like lumps, and after a minute or so, the doors—themselves easily ten feet in height, and carved with the same rose relief as the gates—opened.
"You go," Father finally said. "I'll…bring Beauty to the stables."
"You want me to go into an enchanted castle alone?"
"Ah," Father said. "Well. When you put it that way—"
Beauty stomped a foot impatiently, drawing our attention to her. The reins slipped, causing me to lurch for them, but a pecularity in how they slipped made me look again, and then swallow. "Father, is someone…holding…that rein?"
It looked for all the world like someone was: a firm but fair hand, like Flint's, just below Beauty's dribbling chin. As we watched, the rein tugged a little, not quite enough to coax Beauty into action, but more than enough to jolt Father and myself out of the wagon to see what was going on.
No sooner than we were on the ground than the reins' tension increased, and Beauty walked placidly away in the wake of an invisible guide, leaving us alone in the snow with an inviting door already opened to us.
"It's an impossible castle in an enchanted snowstorm in a haunted forest," I said in a voice slightly more shrill than I had hoped for. "Naturally there are invisible servants to care for the horses."
"Naturally." Father sounded as rattled as I, which made me feel a little better. Together we mounted the stairs, I, at least, having already given up on an expectation of a footman or butler standing at the door to greet us.
Nor was I disappointed: the door had, by all appearances, opened on its own, just as it then gracefully closed behind us. I caught a glimpse, as it closed, of the storm closing in: the magnitude of the enchantment, it seemed, had been for our benefit, and not simply the magical manner of the place keeping its personal weather mild for the season. I tugged my cloak around me, aware, as I had not been before, that it was wet and cold, and turned to examine our shelter.
A foyer of preposterous size stretched before us, with a golden carpet nine feet wide laid over a parquet floor that glowed from the reflected light of beeswax candles lining the foyer walls. Massive curved stairways to our left and right led to ornately-railed halls on the floor above. Beneath the overhanging hallway, the foyer darkened ominously, and I shrieked when a pair of gentle hands settled on my shoulders as if to remove my cloak.
The hands, startled, disappeared at my shriek. Father and I both spun around to find no one there at all. I clutched my heart and my cloak, wild-eyed with something between laughter and fear. "Invisible servants," I said again, once more shrilly, and swept my cloak off before I could reconsider the action. There was hardly a moment's hesitation before the cloak's weight left my hands, and then, as if to entice us, the pop and crackle off a hearth fire suddenly lit the distant darkness of the foyer. Father handed his wet cloak to the invisible servant as well, and we went, with great haste, toward the fire.
By the time we arrived at it there were dry clothes waiting for us, and a changing shield with its warm side to the fire, that we might dress in privacy without sacrificing any moment of warmth. I hadn't realized how cold I was until we were out of it, nor how damp with snow all my clothes had become. I pulled on soft, thick stockings and whimpered at the warmth and comfort of them, and gratefully layered myself in petticoats, a dress, and shawls before emerging from behind the changing shield.
Fur slippers awaited me, and a hat and muff. I pulled them on and sat on a thick fur in front of the fire, shivering because I was now warming up. Moments later Father, as bundled and comfortable-looking as I felt, joined me. We hugged, as much to reassure each other of our normality, at least, and fell back with sheepish smiles. A scrape sounded behind us and I turned to find two large, comfortable chairs had appeared, and between them, a small wooden table with two enormous, steaming mugs resting on it. "Oh, stars. Is that cider?"
It was, and no other drink in all my life warmed me so much as that mug did that day. Its rich, sweet, spicy flavor needed no alcohol to bring on weariness: the long day's travel through the snow, and the tremendous warmth of the fire, did that job. I drank the cider faster, determined to have it finished before sleep took me, and later, could only suppose that I'd succeeded, as I awoke eventually nestled in the same chair, and without cider spilled on my clothes.
Father had stretched out on the fur in front of the fire and was snoring gently. I chortled and went in search of a necessary, which I would never have found if an exquisitely detailed panel in the wall had not happened to open and reveal a latrine with a chamber pot. I said, "Thank you," to the empty air, and went about my business, wondering if invisible servants had senses of smell and whether it was unpleasant for them to empty latrines.
The necessary dealt with, I crept to the tall windows by the front doors and peered outside, where the only alleviation from the pitch-black night was the snow swirling madly around the palace. I could hardly hear it, even at the window, and so returned to the fire, grateful to sleep the rest of the night and wait out the storm.
In my absence, someone had brought a chaise in and placed it as close to the fire as it would fit without resting on Father. I whispered, "Thank you!" again, and crawled on to it, asleep within moments.
The scent of breakfast woke me again some time later. Eggs, toasted bread, bacon—oh, stars, bacon!—crisply-flavored apple juice, scones with salted butter and jelly: Father woke to the sounds of my feasting, and we both ate until our bellies ached. "All right," I said when I could eat no more, "I admit there's something to be said for unadulterated luxury."
"I could marry even Pearl off, with this bacon as her dowry," Father said with a smile, then lifted his gaze to the room and added, somewhat awkwardly, "Thank you."
An agreeable silence responded, and we sighed as one with content. "The storm hadn't stopped yet, last night, but I wonder if we can find our way to Beauty. I'm sure she's fine, but I'd like to check on her."
A handful of candles lit immediately, and then, when we didn't rise, a few more beyond them came to life as well. Father and I exchanged glances, ending with me shrugging my eyebrows and stealing another scone. "Lead on," I said to the candles, and, nibbling on the scone, followed the castle's guidance through tall, echoing halls down to a modest door that led into the stables.
Beauty stood fat and glossy in a stall, so full of hay and grain that she leaned lazily against one of the box walls with her eyelids drooping sleepily. She'd been brushed to a shine, and her feathery leg hair was fluffed and lovely. I got her an apple she absolutely didn't need, and she slobbered it from my hand more graciously than usual. Then I pushed the stable door open, finding the estate outside a glittering wonderland under icy clear blue skies. Father came to stand with me at the door a moment before letting out a long, relieved breath. "I'll harness Beauty, and we can begin to find our way home."
"What, and offend our invisible hosts?" I asked, amused. "Wait five minutes, then turn around, and I bet you'll find her harnessed and ready to go. I wonder if the road is clear, though." Not that there'd been a road, or not one worth mentioning. Just the rolling patch of shallow snow attending us so we
could make our way to the hidden palace in the woods. "Or if the enchantment will clear a path…."
"The enchantment brought us this far. We may as well trust it to the end." An odd note came into Father's voice. I looked askance at him, but he shook his head, passing it off, so I let it pass as well.
"Five minutes," I wagered. "I'm going to take that five minutes to look around a little. I might skate across those ponds."
"In your boots?"
"I wouldn't be surprised if there are skates waiting for me," I said blithely, and went forth into the blinding morning.
It was quiet until I picked the rose.
There were, in fact, skates waiting for me at the pond. I fastened them to my shoes and flew across ice that had been blown or swept clear since the storm's end, spinning clumsily and laughing. The ponds took me all the way to the palace's other wing, using considerably more than five minutes I'd promised Father, but rather than turn back, I removed the skates and marched onward through the snow, eager to see the gardens that lined the estate's perimeter. Even now, in the dead of winter, they were lushly green, that darkest green of winter blooms, and splashes of red and white stood out against them, like holly berries and snow in clumps the size of my hand. I waded through shallow snow—regardless of the storm's ferocity, it appeared the palace allowed only a few inches of accumulation—until I'd reached the climbing bushes, but long before that, I knew it wasn't holly at all, but roses.
The blooms came in every color from snowiest white to the deepest crimson red, and they were the size of my hand. They grew together indiscriminately, no apparent care for whether blooms of different colors should appear on the same bush; some, in a nod to their unusual situation, blushed red to white, or white to red, while others ran a gamut of pinks with their hearts or their outer petals curling to blood tones. Their scent was enriching, delicious enough to drink and so heavy I felt I could climb the sweet smell all the way to the sky.
If I could make perfume of these, we might wend our way back into wealth after all. A cutting might survive, if I kept it close to my heart on the drive home, and tended it carefully in a warm spot for the winter. Without any particular thought of wrongdoing, I chose an especially gorgeous, sturdy-looking bloom, and plucked it from the bush.
A roar of crippling weight broke the morning's quiet and drove me to the ground. I knotted my hands over my head, the rose tangling in my hair, and screamed as if my smaller cry could break the power of the large one. Wind howled around me, smashing petals and leaves to the snowy ground and breaking branches over my back, so wicked thorns snagged in my borrowed clothes. Shards of snow and ice drove into my hands where they covered my head, and I clenched my eyes tight against the turmoil, whispering a prayer to the sun and her sister moon that I might be saved from the storm.
Whether it was the power of my prayer or—more likely—that a little time accustomed me to the dreadful weight of the roaring, I began to hear words in the wind, distorted by powerful rage, but words none-the-less: How dare you take my rose, the wind demanded. Is it not enough I have warmed you, fed you, clothed you? Is it not enough to have saved you from the storm? Are you so ungrateful a wretch as to require the very heart of my garden as well?
No: it was not prayer, or even time that accustomed me to the terrible sound. It was that the sound approached me, clarifying as it came closer. Little by little I unwound from the earth, eyes still fastened on the ground, until I sat on my heels with the offending rose piercing tiny, agonizing holes in my palms. As the roaring came to an end, I closed my fingers around the thorny stem, as if the pain would lend me strength, and with that borrowed strength, I lifted my gaze to look upon a Beast.
From my vantage, kneeling on the ground, the Beast looked some eight feet tall, and half again that wide at its terrible shoulders. It fell forward onto all fours, thrusting a huge, massive face with fetid breath at mine, and I was, of all things, reminded of little Jet, trying to get Maman's attention, and putting his face so close to hers that her eyes would cross and she couldn't properly see him at all.
Undone by a combination of that thought and terror, I laughed.
The Beast reared back, confusion and offense obvious even on an utterly inhuman face. I could see it more clearly from the little distance, and whatever laughter I had died in my throat, but for that moment I had taken, if not an upper hand, at least an equal one, and the Beast did not know how to respond.
Neither, in fairness, did I. Its face was a mockery of a man's, as though its maker had begun with that template but had no idea of what features were meant to rest on a human form. Heavy brows, like a ram's, furrowed over small, boar-like eyes, and short, thick twisting horns swept back from its brow, giving its head too much length and the look of something that could batter down a door, or face a bull. Its face was flatter than a boar or ram's, with highly rounded cheekbones framing a muzzle that could have been a lion's compressed to the depth of a man's profile. A hare lip gave way to an overbiting lower jaw, from whence tusks as long as my finger protruded, and I wondered that it didn't cut its own face with the motion of its jaw. A tangled mane of fur flew back from its face and jowls and ran freely over its shoulders, only becoming shorter along hugely muscled arms. Brutal-looking clawed hands dug into the earth not three steps away from me, and made it clear that I could be as easily rent as the soil.
I concluded in that moment that I preferred to die on my feet, and lurched to them, still clinging to the rose. With the Beast on all fours, and me on my feet, I was the taller of us, though its shoulders were nearly at the level of my eyes, and its mane bristled some distance down its spine, lending it more height. Its neck, though, was not suited to looking up from a position of all fours, and so in order to see me, it backed up several steps. Although I knew better, the effect was of its retreat, and my confidence regained a little ground again.
At least, it did until the Beast shook itself, growling, and rose to a human stance again, teaching me that it was near enough to eight feet tall. Its torso was as misshapen as its face, a deep bullish chest whittling to a waist strangely narrow by comparison; beasts were not meant to stand as men, and to do so threw its dimensions off in a way my mind could not entirely accept. Its haunches and knees and ankles were lion-like, bent all around the wrong way for a man, and massive clawed back feet suggested it could leap across half the estate in a single effort.
It was wearing trousers.
Everything else, its mismade form, its violence, its earth-shattering roar, came to a stop in the face of that unexpected discovery. Beasts—animals of the forest and jungles, or even the farmlands—did not wear clothing. Whatever this Beast was, he—and it was, I felt certain, a he, as it lacked any kind of breasts and a female Beast would, in my estimation, wear a dress to cover herself in the same way this male one retained his modesty—he was not an unthinking monster. A monster, yes, but not a mindless one.
Nor could he be, if he had been roaring words at me, so I might have realized sooner that he was not entirely an animal. On the other hand, my heart had not yet calmed and I still swayed with fear, so it had not, perhaps, been very long since his tumultuous arrival. Before I could speak, another of his bellows split the air: "How dare you take my rose?"
I took a step back, more from the force of his shout than fear; somehow the trousers had restored my equilibrium to an astonishing degree. My voice, however, was more tremulous than I preferred when I replied. "How could I possibly know I wasn't meant to?"
He continued to roar as if he hadn't heard me, but I hadn't expected him to. I continued anyway, my voice still shaking, determination pushing it forward, if not volume. "I suppose I might have realized that everything had been given, without us asking for it. I suppose I might have realized that to take, under those circumstances, was ill-mannered. But I didn't. I'm sorry. You saved our lives, and I've repaid you badly. I hope you can forgive me."
"How much?" His tenor changed so quickly, the mighty voice dropping from a roar to
a rumble so smoothly, that I almost didn't recognize the words as ones I knew. Even when I did, the meaning escaped me, and I made a small, confused gesture with the rose. "How much do you hope I can forgive you?" he clarified.
I stared up—and up, and up—at him, and wondered what he expected as an answer. Wondered what I dared give him as an answer, and wondered whether it mattered at all. "I wouldn't die for it."
"Would you stay?"
Perhaps it was that a voice came from the Beast at all: maybe that was what made understanding the meaning of his words so difficult. "Stay? Stay here? With you?"
The Beast made a motion of surprising grace, encompassing the gardens, the palace, and himself. "Yes."
"I would rather not!"
"And what would you exchange instead? Your father? Your family? The village, which feasts uninvited on the beasts of my forest?"
"Exch—the vill—do you mean to say an object must remain here in exchange for the rose, in order to earn your forgiveness? And what do you mean, your forest? The lodge is ours, and the forest ours to hunt! And you can't take an entire village in exchange for a rose, that's preposterous. What would you do with it?" I looked around the garden, imagining the enormous grounds beyond them, and reconsidered. "The villagers' lives would probably be much easier here, with the obliging snowfall and the invisible servants. Not that I intend to trade them for your rose, but—"
"Someone must pay. The roses are precious to me. If you refuse to stay, I will take something else in exchange. You have sisters, brothers. Perhaps one of them."
"Over my dead body!"
"That," the Beast snarled, suddenly very large and angry again, "can be arranged."
I cringed, cutting my hands on the rose's thorns again, and that was how my father found us: me quailing before a looming Beast. He threw himself between us, all his age forgotten in the defense of his child, and I saw with a shock that he carried a sword, a weapon I didn't believe he'd touched since his days in the Border Wars. The Beast raised an enormous paw to slap him away, and Father darted to one side, piercing the monster's hand with his blade. The Beast roared so deeply that snow fell from the rosebushes. He closed his hand around the sword, yanking away from Father, and withdrew it from his own paw to hold in his uninjured hand. It looked diminished in his grasp, like a trifle or a toy, but he wielded it with strange competency, reversing the blade as if he would bring it down to impale my father.