Thorny

by Lelia Eye

  Chapter 13: No Beast

  Though Elle gave the lamb that first day of rest, it wasn’t long before she had put a pink bow around its neck to match Soleil’s, and afterward, Elle was often accompanied by the lamb. Oh, she let it spend time with its mother, to be sure, but it could frequently be seen following her with wagging tail.

  I teased Elle and said I should have nicknamed her “Mary” instead, which was a name some of the farmers in New Fountain liked to give to their ewes. When I asked Elle if she was preparing herself for her shepherd beau, she said he would like her as she was; when I asked why he was not around to help her with her little baby sheep, she said, somewhat hesitantly, that he was hidden somewhere in the castle and could not come to her. That puzzled me to no end—as far as I knew, there were no other humans in the castle—but I couldn’t get an explanation out of her.

  As for the lamb, well, of course Elle gave it a name. She called it “Étoile,” which was French for “Star.” I tried to explain to her that even celestial bodies weren’t allowed in the castle if they were covered in wool, but she pointed out that fur sheds and I was allowed in the castle, so there was no point in keeping Étoile out. Any attempt to revisit the argument was a failure, and my no-sheep policy was ignored entirely. Elle brought Étoile inside as she pleased—and anywhere else she wanted, for that matter.

  One day, we were sitting at the fountain, with Elle perched on the bottom tier while I rested on the ground, watching in annoyance as Étoile gamboled around me. Elle was reading out loud, but I found it impossible to concentrate.

  “Why can’t you keep that smelly thing with the other smelly sheep?” I asked her in irritation. Really, lambs didn’t smell as bad as the adults, but my super-sniffer could still pick them up easily.

  She grinned. “I think you look cute together. It’d make a great painting.”

  “I’m not here to look cute or inspire painters to commit travesties with their art,” I grumbled.

  “Yes, so you constantly remind me,” she said, sounding like a patient mother dealing with a petulant child.

  I fought my initial instinct to lash out in annoyance and said, “I told you a story once. How about you tell me one?” Maybe it would get my mind off the pixie-bit sheep’s frolicking.

  “I never told you all the details of how my father came to be here, did I?”

  “No. You told me a calamity occurred—your father lost everything—but you didn’t give many details.” I had never asked for more because I didn’t want to remind her of her family. But she was already thinking of them now, so there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

  “A day or two after you left,” she began, “it started to rain. The downpour was so thick it seemed to be one solid mass, and the wind’s howl sounded like . . . well . . . like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. I looked out the window and saw hail pelting the ground. And then the hail stopped, and there was a flash of lightning. It highlighted a face so hideous that I screamed. As I stepped backward, I tumbled over an ottoman and fell to the floor.”

  I snorted. “I don’t blame you. Witches can be pretty ugly.”

  She narrowed her eyes at the comment but continued. “I got the breath knocked out of me and stayed on the floor, trying to get my air back. There was a knock at the door that resonated through the manor like a gunshot. Then two more knocks came.

  “As Fernmal went to the front entrance, my stepsisters and I came up behind him. Poppy and Nettle were whispering to each other, wondering who would brave such weather to visit us. Fernmal opened the door, and I saw that woman again. She was even uglier than I had realized, like some witch that had come to haunt a child’s nightmare. Both her face and her fingers were misshapen, and as she reached out a hand in supplication, my stepsisters and I recoiled in disgust.

  “‘Can you give shelter from the storm to a poor old woman? The rain has nipped me to the bone, and I am weary,’ she said.

  “‘We would never let anything as hideous as you in the house!’ cried Nettle.

  “‘Bleh!’ said Poppy. ‘You really ought to crawl in a ditch and die!’

  “The old woman turned her head to me, and I felt her eyes reach into my soul and hold me there, helpless. ‘And what about you, girl? What have you to say to a poor old woman?’ she asked.

  “I knew what I should have told her, but my eyes were filled with her ugliness, and I, too, turned her away.

  “And then she said, ‘And what of you, master of the house? Your word is the final say.’

  “I turned to my father, who had come up behind us, and he looked at me. ‘Labelle?’ he asked, seeking guidance.

  “‘Father, please don’t let her stay,’ I pleaded.

  “He knew better. I know he did. He had, after all, wanted me to honor a bargain with a talking wolf. But perhaps this time he felt he had more of a choice since this old woman had no fangs to threaten him with. Whatever the reason, he told her she could not come into the house.

  “Her terrible face twisted into something that could have been sorrow or disgust. Then there was a flash of light, and she transformed into the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. My father fell to his knees in horror, but before he could speak, her voice boomed: ‘You should not judge by appearances or turn away one in need any more than you should try to break or squeeze out of a deal that has been made. Your family deserves the calamity which is to befall them, Gaheris Beauregard.’

  “‘Please, Fairy,’ my father began.

  “‘It is too late,’ she said. And with another flash, she disappeared.

  “The horror of her visit wasn’t even given time to sink in, for not five seconds after she left, a messenger on horseback appeared, his hood shielding him from the rain.

  “My father’s face had become blank as he watched the courier dismount his horse . . . and somehow it grew blanker still as he listened to the news. All his merchant ships had been lost in a tempest at sea. We were broken.

  “Iris, my stepmother, had come up by that point, and on hearing what had happened, she let out a keening wail. After my stepsisters finally calmed her down, she started muttering about potions and spells, like she could do something to change our fate. They took her to her room, but I stayed with my father.

  “I wasn’t sure what to say or do, so I just stood there. Then he began to laugh hysterically. ‘I’ve brought this on us, Labelle,’ he said. ‘Maybe one day your father can swallow his pride and tell you how.’

  “‘Father, it’s all our faults,’ I began, but he cut me off.

  “‘No, no. The blame is all mine, child. I am so sorry, Labelle.’

  “Of course, everything went downhill after that. We were forced to do manual labor, and Iris complained loudly and constantly. As a child, she had been adopted by a family of great influence but little wealth, and her first husband was a well-off man whose death after more than a decade of marriage to Iris scarcely even seemed to trouble her, as she pursued my father immediately after the proper year of mourning was observed. Because of all this, she was unaccustomed to a life of poverty.

  “I think my father married her mostly because he wanted stability for me, though maybe he loved her in his own way. But I know she has always only cared for his money and her daughters. When my father lost his wealth, that made her crueler to me, but so long as he lives, she will only go so far.”

  I had watched and listened, transfixed, as she told the story of her family’s plight, but the thought of that nasty woman made my blood boil. Not wanting Elle to see my anger, I said calmly, “And then after years of living as farmers, your father found a ray of hope.”

  She smiled, but it was tremulous. Not a real smile. “Yes. He asked what we wanted him to bring us from the city, and my stepsisters requested pearls and riches we could not afford. I cast my mind about for ideas and recalled a flower-seller I had once seen in the city selling roses, and I asked for a rose picked out especially for me, believing he could afford that. Even if it did wither before he rea
ched me, I thought I could always press the petals in a book and make them last forever.

  “But then the one ship of my father’s that had returned was seized to pay off debts, and the ray of hope vanished. My father could not even find a flower-seller to bring me back a rose.

  “He tried to go through the middle of the forest rather than passing around its dangers, wanting to come home more quickly, knowing every hour of work was important to his family. But of course, we both know what he found.

  “When he came home with the rose and a sorrow-filled face, I knew something had happened. He tried to hide it, but he couldn’t keep it from me. After all, his saddlebags were filled with treasure, so I knew something had occurred. When he told us the story of his meeting with you, he insisted on going to the castle instead of me, and perhaps he would have actually done so if it weren’t for a cruel remark made by my stepmother.”

  “What was it?” I asked in fury, a low growl reverberating in my throat. “What did she say?”

  Elle gave me a startled look, like she had forgotten she had an audience. “Oh. It was something like, ‘Of course, that rose would look much better in your hair, Nettle.’ There are far worse things she could’ve said, and that one does not seem so terrible, but I knew it reminded my father of something. If he were gone, anything I had would go to Nettle and Poppy if it was worth having. Iris would never care for me. And I think he knew I would be better off alone in a castle with a beast than alone at home with my stepmother.” Her voice was tight. “But I don’t care if Iris is there. I miss—I miss my father.”

  I could see tears shimmering in her eyes, and I stood up and put my paws on her legs, desperate to comfort her. It was only after I did it that I realized she might not want a massive wolf halfway sitting in her lap. “Elle,” I said helplessly.

  But she didn’t recoil or push me away. Instead, she threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my cape. Her body shook as she cried. “I miss him so much.”

  I didn’t know how to help her. So I tried a weak attempt at humor: “I will ride Luna again if you smile for me.”

  I felt the movement of her shaking her head. Her gentle sobs were tearing at my heart, and I asked her, “Elle, will you marry me?”

  I wanted to make her happy. How could I do that? I felt so helpless.

  She pulled away to look at me, her eyes already red but no less beautiful. “No, Beast,” she said softly. Her fingers were still on my neck, and she brought them to hover in front of my chest. With an odd curiosity, she reached beneath my cape’s broach and rubbed some strands of fur together. Then she buried her face in the side of my neck again, putting her arms around me once more, and I put my chin on her back. There wasn’t a lot I could do for her, but I could do this at least.

  Yet even though I was more than willing to help her, it soon became apparent that it was a mistake. Though the fur that covered my body acted as a barrier to any direct touch, still I could feel the stirring within me as I realized the tips of her fingers were touching my skin in some places. From there, it was not difficult for my brain to leap to more forbidden places—to flesh on flesh—and I began to feel disgust for myself well up within me. I had to banish these thoughts. Elle needed me. I had to beat away that part of me.

  So I remained there, nearly immobile, as she clung to me. When she finally pulled away, she told me in a gentle voice, almost as if she had been reading my mind, “You have to know, Beast, that I cannot have romantic feelings for a wolf.”

  Of course you can’t, I thought to myself bitterly. Then I asked her, “Is it my appearance?”

  “Yes,” she said, but when I recoiled slightly at her bluntness, she hastened to explain, “but it is because you are not human. The one I end up loving will be a man who can dance with me, a man who can kiss me the way all the men in those books of yours kiss the women they love. It will be someone who can lift me in the air when he’s happy—someone who can truly hug me back when I’m sad. It is not that I think you are an ugly beast. It is just that I know you are not a man.”

  Not a man. If she had known how much those words would hurt me, she would never have uttered them. But they were out there now, and all my proposals suddenly seemed so laughable. She would never love me because I was not a man.

  “There are different types of love,” she continued, unaware of my grief. “But romantic love is of the body.”

  The body. Oh, yes. My human heart frequently remembered my human urges, remembered how I felt toward this beautiful girl. It still desired her—still yearned to be with her as only a man can be with a woman. I was a hot-blooded human male underneath all this fur, and something deep within me burned for her.

  But she was right. For all intents and purposes, I wasn’t a man. What I wanted was no longer possible with anyone. And what she wanted—the gentle caress of human skin on human skin—wasn’t possible with me.

  I wanted to flee then, so I could lick my wounds in private, but she said, “Will you come with me to take Étoile back to Soleil to nurse?”

  I couldn’t say no. What Elle asked of me, I would give her, no matter how much it hurt me.

  After uniting the pair of sheep once more, we found Luna out grazing. Elle took the horse to the stable, and I followed her, as if pulled along by some invisible string. Why was my life so tied to this girl’s happiness?

  As Elle got out a brush for Luna, I looked at her with a frown. “The Invis will do that.”

  “I want to do it myself,” she said. “Haven’t you ever taken comfort in a little manual labor?” Her brow crinkled then. She was probably wondering whether a wolf could do anything but hunt. I certainly couldn’t dance with her or twirl her in the air, that was for sure.

  “I don’t know much about horses,” I admitted, dodging her question. “I don’t know how they’re supposed to be brushed or how to put a saddle on or anything.” I had never had to learn; I always used servants for things like that. I would have made a terrible knight. Even if they usually had squires, sometimes they were alone, and it was important to know this sort of thing. I wished suddenly that I had attempted to learn more on the subject.

  “For a long time, I didn’t know how,” Elle said, rubbing Luna’s nose. “But I had to learn if I was going to keep Luna when we lost everything. She became a workhorse then, but she never complained. I was glad my father sent her with me.”

  He probably wanted Elle to have a quick getaway if necessary, though I didn’t mention that. What I did say was: “What else do you know?”

  “I learned a lot in the two years before I came here. It was hard at first, but I was surprised at what I had missed by living the life of a rich person instead of that of a commoner.”

  I felt an unwelcome wave of guilt and shame, kind of like how you feel when you are confronted by a person you have been avoiding. I hadn’t used my experience among commoners as a chance to learn, but as an opportunity to gripe. Weren’t there benefits to a commoner’s knowledge? Even a knight had to start as a page first.

  “Do you . . . think you could teach me how to . . . umm, how a human saddles and grooms a horse? Can you teach me what you know about horses?” All right, so it wasn’t tantamount to kissing a commoner’s foot, but it was a step in the right direction. And even if I couldn’t actually put the saddle on, the thought of learning made me feel more human somehow.

  “Sure,” Elle said without hesitation. She didn’t ask why a wolf would care or say how pointless it would be. She just accepted that I wanted to learn. “Let’s start by talking about the different kinds of brushes.”

  She began speaking about everything from hoof care to upkeep of tack, and I for once in my life tried to be a good student. But though I enjoyed listening to her—and she enjoyed talking about horses—there was something that tainted the experience. I knew she still had thoughts of her father floating in the back of her mind. I could tell he had been the only source of stability and comfort in her life, though she tried to find it in othe
r sources, like Luna.

  As for me, well, I still felt incredibly agitated, as if something was going to happen or I was going to do something stupid and reckless.

  There was just something in the air that I couldn’t change. And I didn’t like it.

  Chapter 14: Moon Madness

  That night, I was outside staring at the moon once again when I heard a low growl. Turning, I saw a flash of red fur disappearing into the trees in the distance.

  “What are you up to now?” I muttered to myself, unable to shake the feeling of foreboding that had come over me. I had been so mesmerized by the moon that the castle could have burned to the ground without me realizing it, but something about that growl had made my fur stand on end.

  I took a few steps forward uncertainly before I made up my mind. I would follow her. The beauty of the moon wasn’t going anywhere.

  After dropping my cumbersome cape on the ground, I let my nose lead me into the woods. My heart was thumping as I tried to sort through scents. Was that unease I smelled? Anger? Could you identify emotions by scent?

  I heard a growl and a squeal and a feminine shout, and I started to run. I burst onto a scene that gripped my heart with fear.

  Elle was behind a fallen tree with a bloodied Étoile in one hand and a rock in the other. She held the stone out as a weapon, staring with fear and determination at a red wolf which turned toward me.

  Those glistening fangs and the primal madness in those steely green eyes made me doubt myself for a second, but I knew it had to be her. Yet that bloodlust frightened me. I had to figure out how to calm her. First, I needed to buy time.

  “What are you doing, Scarlet?” I asked.

  The red wolf growled and leaped over the fallen tree at Elle.

  Elle kicked out a foot. Then she brought the rock down on that red head, saving Étoile from a lethal bite. I remembered that flock of sheep I had failed to defend when I was a shepherd boy. I was left with no options now.