Beast

by Thomas Castle

  Gabrielle stood at the window and lowered her eyes from the sky that rippled like rinds of pressed grape. Seeing the country fallen in destitution broke her spirit. Fields recoiled in rot. An invasive forest stole land from the farms like locus. Homes fell way to shacks, and nothing of this made sense as to why her father would stay in the sanctum of death with that beast.

  She left the window and pulled a moth eaten sheet off the vanity, holding herself in the smoky mirror outlined by a frame of bronze varnish. She touched the glass, covering the gentle yet fearful eyes that made her look like a child, and pulled the drawers open. There lay a comb embellished in a crown of pearls and turquoise tines. She studied the jewelry, then brought it to the mirror and brushed her hair as her eyes grew drowsy.

  She left the comb and found a wooden cradle where sat a figurine of a child’s body knitted with a dog’s head. The stitching of the ensign of a lion sewn into its breast felt rough in her hands. She spun the marionette as thoughts of her late father regenerated plight in her soul, and left it back in its swath of dust.

  Gabrielle took one last glance over the kingdom, then returned behind the headboard where the makeshift bed awaited. How long do empires endure before the remuneration of sin is exacted? What came upon the kingdom, overtaking it, and where did lady fortune invest the treasure of her blessing now? This land was proscribed. Gabrielle laid her head against the sheets, smelling of dust, and watched the door till her eyes shut in sleep.

  ~ 58

  “It wasn’t the beast” the young man shouted as lanterns warmed the windowsills and men stepped out their homes with children conjoined on their legs, eyes blistered in fright. The young man ran down the streets and yelled again from the top of his lungs, “We have a murderer. They just found Miss Jansen; she confesses it’s him.” Mothers pulled their saplings inside while men returned to the street with their firepower brandished in the moonlight.

  Citizens marched the streets to the wharf where they found Fierro entering the docks after Hagar. The giant ran to the lighthouse and slammed the tower door, warping the metal straps and buckling the frame. Bolts slung from the threshing and whined off the stone in sparks. Fierro drew his pistol and released a shot, grating the brick above Hagar’s head into chalk. The giant wheeled around; a quilt of turbulence wove his face. He knuckled his eyes, turning the crimson sacks raw, and lobbed his head in torment.

  “Give up, Hagar” Fierro yelled. He packed another shot and trailed the giant with his weapon. “Nobody wants you harmed. But I can’t see it being done any other way unless you come with us right now.” The giant roared, pounding the threshold until the panel split and a cylinder of light shot out.

  “Give up, Hagar” Fierro repeated. “There are no warning shots after this!” The giant slammed his shoulder once more into the door, then turned. He swung at the air, pummeling Fierro's mirage until the conniption turned his face dead with blood and spit issued from his mouth in white foam.

  Fierro shot Hagar through the heart. His chest blossomed in petals of smoldering flesh and vapor. Blood diffused into dark red ink then blackened. The blue in his eyes turned up like silver dollars and Hagar collapsed dead.

  Fierro set his weapon when Hagar’s father broke from the crowd and ousted the captain to the platform, bludgeoning him with fists the size of anvils. The captain kicked and bit, trapped in a cove of fists raining over his body with Titan strength. He snapped back the holster and drew the pistol, aimed it past the warring father and squeezed the trigger. A streak of char slit the side of his head open, biting off his ear as Fierro threw the father over and straddled him. He jammed the gun beneath his chin, pressing the blistering barrel into his flesh, and locked his eyes with the old man’s.

  “I don’t care if you just got here; I’ll send you off!” Fierro growled.

  “It’s over” Willem placed his hand on Fierro who slapped him away. Murder ran in the father’s eyes as he watched the commissioner rise and center his weapon. “He just pulled ashore for his boy. Mercy.”

  “Get up” Fierro said with grit. The father stood as the townspeople gathered behind the captain. The father passed the people as though they were only shadows, and lifted his son into his arms. Fierro holstered the pistol, and followed the father to Hagar’s home where he cleared a table, laid his son out, and prepared to wash the body. The old man set a pail of water beside the slab, dipped a rag into the bucket, and squeezed the cloth until the stream reduced to drops. The father opened his son’s shirt, laid a hand over Hagar’s heart, feeling silence, and wept.

  The captain stepped inside and removed Hagar’s shoes. Fierro took the bucket, dipped the towel, and washed his feet. The old man sat by while Fierro raised his eyes to the wound crusted in blood beneath the father’s hand. Tears poured from the father’s eyes. His beard ticked with lips held taciturn, fighting a cry that trembled in his jaw.

  “Find the thing that did this to him” the father said. He nodded and strained the rose water from the rag. “Leave me with my boy.” The captain rested the bucket and closed the home of a father grieving his dead son.

  ~ 59

  Gabrielle woke at nightfall. A glacial wind pushed into the room and lifted the sheet off her shoulders as she rubbed her eyes. The moon cooled her face with pale light and a constellation of doting stars gathered in the windows. She yawned and stretched, reaching for the blankets when she noticed the trunk pushed to the side wall. The door was open. Fear strutted in her throat, begging to be loosened on a scream. Gabrielle rose to her knees.

  The beast crept through the room up to the mirror, stood upright, and tapped the glass. Its head tilted to the side, confounded by the inverted world, and pushed the image again. Gabrielle saw its face in the reflection, the thick patches of fur that clung to its cheeks like cancer, and the eyes that swerved around after fleeting dreams. She leaned against the headboard and it fell to the floor with a crack that rode like thunder on a wave of dust.

  The beast found her in the reflection. Their eyes locked, ossified in utter horror, when its mouth drew open, exposing the ill kept teeth, and placed its hand over her face. The beast stroked the mirror, each time pressing harder, yipping like a creature telling its young to feed, then pressed its nose against the frosted glass and sniffed. Gabrielle fell back into the bedding and the mirror lost her reflection. The beast growled and slapped the glass, searching for the beautiful girl. Gabrielle lay on the floor, watching the beast scratch the mirror, stand down and circle in front of the vanity, then confront the stand again with a cry of pain. Then it bashed the glass, shattering it, drawing back until the fragments shown a thousand beasts, and ran out of the room.

  Gabrielle lay cradled on the floor until a beam of light warmed her shoulder, announcing the morning sun boiling on the mountain top. Her wits turned to puke and laughter, growing the tumult in her breast. Once the spell passed, Gabrielle folded the bedding and placed it on the vanity as if some semblance of civility would procure the future of the kingdom.

  A zephyr echoed in the stairwell then rescinded into static. Gabrielle clutched her breast, trying to seize the heart pacing in its cage, and proffered a prayer for safe passage. Time blended. The sun and moon lost integration. The walls turned into prisms and vibrated as she set her foot on the first step. Blood jumped from her toes and reversed its course through her veins, pressing like acid, till her sensory went amiss. Gabrielle fell unconscious. She skid down the first block then tumbled until the platform caught her. Gabrielle woke with blood dripping from her brow and crept to her feet.

  She staggered down the steps and entered the hall where stony eyes of statues accused her of the villainy of living. Silence filled the room. Gabrielle sighed, breaching the lull of the dead, and searched the room for the demon before making her passage.

  Gabrielle escaped into the ballroom. Curtains woven through copper rungs and frayed banners of monarchs hung from the ceiling. Upholstery peeled from the chairs where moss lined the backings, and revealed rotten
frames debilitated in rusted tacks and mites. The mantle lay in a pile of refuse as rain fumed from the broken cowl and morphed the marbled floor with crystalline of water rot and mold.

  A metal pan slid across the floor, breaking Gabrielle’s trance. The beast walked into the ballroom and took up a feather duster. She ran behind the column, pressing herself into the wall, embedding her bones, and watched the demon with held breath. The beast ran from wall to wall, searching the theater, razing portraits and tearing the garnish from the windows. It plundered the room, then came to a brusque end as it slapped the duster on the floor and stood on the neck. It ground its foot down, splintering the post into shards, then bent down and explored the mutilated shaft. He retrieved the piece and proceeded across the floor with the swifter caressed against his bosom.

  “Burnt” he growled, walked a few paces and stammered “before”, reciting back to the object. Gabrielle waited for it to reach the far end of the room and ran until she exited into the bailey. She dropped to the ground, harvesting fistfuls of soil, and wept. Freedom. She rose with a dress plaid in mud, cheeks freckled with tears, and kissed the skies where birds took to the heavens to disseminate the report of her return.

  Gabrielle saw the gate drawn closed. She slammed her body against the beams as though they might turn nil and screamed for help, clawing outside the fence with her fingers shy of touching redemption. A cottontail stepped outside the forest, its ears panning around as it dribbled its head in the grass, bringing back blades torn at the roots. Its eyes caught Gabrielle’s when it froze, watching her through black stones. Her screaming tapered and the young buck dipped its head again. Then she saw a wolf form from the shadows. It stalked the doe, drawing in.

  Gabrielle opened her mouth to scream when the shadow of the beast rose over her shoulder and fell through the slats in the gate. She raised her eyes off the shadow, lifting them to the wolf, seconds away from bloodshed, when the beast slammed her head senseless against the stone.

  ~ 60

  Hagar lay stretched out on a table in the tavern as the bartender lined the slab with pails of raw porter. He watched their lecherous hands rest steady in their pockets and bolstered, “If any man has the bits to breathe a good word for this poor soul, I’ll make him stout!”

  The father belted the men with the back of his hands to step aside and broke the line of patrons. His grizzly beard swung from his chin and scooped the foam off the stag. He took up three jars of ale in one fist and put the mugs to his lips, one mug after another, till the amber disappeared into sud.

  “My boy” the father belched. He bent down and plucked a kiss from his son’s mottled face. The men kept silent; what could entice their draught when the father’s tears were dewy, reflecting the boy in distorted mirrors crisp on the lash?

  “If no man has the gall to say a word, I’d count that among the mighty fine sins” Hagar’s father said. “Don’t tucker yourselves out, boys, with reservation; have cheer and be merrymaking. We will find and kill the demon soon enough.”

  One man stepped forward, holding a shopworn hat over his chest, and rubbed his nose. He shuffled his feet as the cap spun like a dial in his fingers. “I didn’t know the fellow all that well. But I do know that without him my baby wouldn’t have wood for its crib. Thank you, Hagar.” He stepped back into the crowd while the patrons took a glass from the table, passing it along to the man who sipped it, then lowered it over his gut.

  Another stepped up, taking a jar of stag, and drained the cup on his lips. “He wasn’t one of us because he was born here. He wasn’t. He was one of us because he lived here with us, like us. And that’s damn well the same. I think something’s to be said of Hagar, and that is we should all be fair and do our work. He might have talked a lot about things we don’t talk about, but need be said. There were things that weren’t okay and he spoke up about it. That’s the type of courage I want to teach my sons. Thank you for teaching me it, Hagar.” He nodded to the grumbling ayes when silence fell.

  Fierro stepped forward. The crowd watched the father as the captain spoke. “I had to honor a debt I didn’t want to repay. That’s what Hagar taught me, how to protect. I hunted as a lad, and Hagar came afterwards to carry the booty on his shoulders for me. We never bonded, but he showed me that you don’t need a bond to be genial; you just do it.

  “It’s no secret that Hagar opposed the council. But he stuck around for people like Luzenac, because brothers are blood, and that can’t be rationed. But he didn’t just stay, he contributed. Who else was strong enough to do what he did? I’ve never seen anything mightier, save a bull.” The people chuckled. Fierro turned his head, catching sight of Luzenac. “He taught me to honor my debts, that the people come first. He knew he could leave and be happier elsewhere, but felt obliged to stay. Who would be strong enough to carry the lumber, yoke the ox, or any other labor that common men were just too weak to do? He stayed because he had honor, enough to pay the debt of his kindred, our weakness with his strength.

  “Today I found myself in the same position, not wanting what must have been done. I knew if I could speak for him, he’d tell me it was right; protect the people. Without Hagar’s testament, I would never know the depth of honor necessary for that trial.” Fierro took a mug in each hand, offering one to the father and the other to Luzenac. “To Hagar.” The men nodded and drained the lager into their throats.

  The father squared off with Fierro, looking down to the captain with indifference. He raised his mug to the people, saluting the soul, and brought his eyes back to the captain.

  “Bring me a pound of its flesh” the father said. He raised his glass again and shouted to the congregation, “Men, let your name be vengeance. Find this beast and bring me its head!” The men cheered and clasped arm in arm, as tight as the shepherds of Thermopylae. An outcast stood from his stool, watching the crowd burst with laughter, and grumbled with whiskey pouring from his lip down his shirt. He tried to set the cup on the bar stool and fell to the floor. Fierro went to pick him up when the man pushed him back and fell against across the table, knocking the pitchers to the ground.

  “Easy there” Fierro said “Let me help you up and I’ll get you another glass.” The man’s head bobbed, as though his vertebrate broke, then landed his eyes with the father’s.

  “You can’t kill it” The outcast said. “Don’t you know? This just isn’t any beast; it was born of a jackal.” He took a swig of whiskey, which ran his mouth like a diuretic, then turned to Luzenac. “You’ve got the same blood. Well, make way, Hagar. The beast knows your brother’s taste, and supper is up” he laughed. Fierro took him by his shirt and dragged him across the bar. “Let go of me, damn you.”

  “A long night in the tank ought to sober you up” Fierro said. “And if that doesn’t do it, I’ll leave you to dry out in the woods.” Fierro turned toward the men, to the father and Hagar’s half-brother, and nodded.

  Patrons gathered around the body with mugs of beer in one hand and tears in the other. They wiped their eyes and parted Hagar with words of consolation, breaking out into laughter, morphing their pain into competition. Each vowed to honor Hagar with the blood of his killer. Men vowed to shoot it through the heart, other to set traps and burn it alive. One last devotee made an oath to hurl it over the cliff into the sea so that the whole world, including the fish, would get their fill of its blood.

  “I could not finish it; it nearly finished me” one man grunted, talking about the beast.

  “The beast has killed no one” another said. “I can swear it. I’ve been with my wife this whole time and she’s never left the house.” The bar ruptured in laughter. Hagar’s father took stage, thanking the men for their support.

  “Make good on your promises, men” the father said, looking back to Luzenac. “Family is everything.”

  “He was nothing of the sort” Cyril yelled. The tavern fell silent. Hagar’s father turned toward the councilman hugging the bar with a mug of malt in his hand, spinning a coin on the counter
.

  “I think it’s time you leave.” Luzenac said, setting his hand on his shoulder when Cyril swiped it off.

  “And I think it’s time you fessed up” Cyril replied. “Your brother is a murderer. He murdered the mayor. He’d murder the children if he was still here, that devil.” He peered over his shoulder with a look of disgust at Hagar’s remains, and turned back toward his drink. “He’d probably want to murder you too.” Cyril dropped his head on the counter, dead weight slamming like a judge’s anvil, and began snoring. Men rushed forward to seize him when Luzenac pushed them back. Then Cyril lurched up, set the mug to his lips and he spit foam across the bar. He fell off the stool and crept along the floor as hellfire followed at his heels.

  “No!” Cyril screamed as he bucked and kicked the phantom. “You told me to. Chicanery!” He rolled to his stomach and slithered through their heels, a cowering dog, crawling till he hit the far wall. There stood the late councilman Philippe soaked in tar, burning coals in his eyes, with a tongue forked down the middle shimmying from his mouth like a leech.

  “Grab him!” someone yelled as the men poured in, brought him to his feet, and dragged him to the center table. Belts beat across his back as the men locked his arms in their own, parading him, pouring their hatred into the crucible of suffering, broiling all the alloys of evil fixed in his soul with shouts of hatred. They hoisted him atop the table, roped him down with a loose banner, then brought several pitcher of sour rye and poured them across his face. He gurgled as the brew weaseled into his nose and fizzed, clogging his throat. He spit up old rum which burned in his eyes.