Beauty in the Beast

by Christine Danse

  “The hour was late when he completed the mixture. He should have gone home to join his wife in bed hours before, but he was so close…

  “The potion, when it was complete, turned the color of blood and warmed his hand like a living thing. Elation burned away his exhaustion. He pushed back in his chair abruptly—so abruptly that the world spun over him and he fell backward.

  “When he hit the ground, the flask shattered. Eight hours of work, lost. That was his only thought. He didn’t register the pain of his cuts, and sitting up, he couldn’t even recognize that he’d spilled blood, because the floor was a mess of red.

  “As he stood, the burning began. It started in his arms, where the glass had sliced his skin, and traveled up through his shoulders and neck. In moments, his body was consumed by invisible fire. He screamed with pain.

  “Blindly, he lashed out. Glass shattered and reagents splashed to the ground. The air stank with them, but he was aware of none of it over his own cries. He doubled over. The bones in his body ground together. The very core of him burned with agonizing pain.

  “The last thing he was aware of was the wave of thick fur that spread over his arms, like a living shadow, and his fingers stretching into terrible claws.”

  Rolph paused, holding his hands in front of him as if in supplication or horror. They trembled slightly, and then he balled them on his lap.

  “He woke the next morning on the couch in his sitting room, naked and smeared with blood, with no recollection of how he had gotten there. He ran to the bath before his family could discover him. There, he washed blood and dirt from his body but found no wounds. He trembled at the memory of the events of his accident the night before, but no matter how he tried, he could not remember what had happened afterward. Perhaps he had fainted from the terrible pain. And the transformation of his arms…maybe no more than a hallucination. Maybe all of it had just been a dream.

  “But it was not. His office at the university lay in ruins, testament to what had happened the night before. His alchemical apparati had been smashed, and reagents covered the floor. Through the window that overlooked the courtyard, a breeze blew in. He drew back the curtain to find the glass broken, as if a large creature had dived through it.

  “He cleaned his office and did not speak of it to anyone—save the destroyed window, which he blamed on his clumsiness while rearranging furniture. He packed away the remainder of his alchemy supplies and stored them away. That night, he treated his family to dinner at their favorite restaurant. He took his wife to the ballet that week and visited the zoo with his daughters on Saturday. They fed strips of steak to the tiger until the zookeeper shooed them away.

  “But something haunted Michael. The night of his blackout, two men were murdered in London, both in the neighborhood of the college. It appeared as if they had been mauled by a monstrous creature, but no animals were missing from the zoo, and no one had sighted such a beast. He could not forget the smear of blood on his body, but he said nothing of that to anyone.

  “Several weeks passed. Michael gave up alchemy and pursued other leads in the search for the mechanism of evolution, though he knew they would be fruitless. He tried to forget the events of that night, but dreams plagued him—dreams of running through London, the smells of sewage and coal smoke and men ripe in his nose. More than once, he awoke at a moment in his dream when he rent a man’s chest with his claws.

  “His sleeping grew fitful and he often found himself pacing anxiously before bed. One evening in particular, he felt especially restless. Afraid of disturbing his wife with his nervous wandering, he remained late at the university. Instead of decreasing as the night wore on, his anxious energy only grew until he could not stand still even for a moment.

  “And then the pain began.

  “It was just as he remembered it: unbearable. Lightning coursed through his body. But this time, he’d had no contact with the potion. Screaming with rage and surprise and pain, he fell writhing to the floor of his office. He stared at his feet as they stretched and burst through his shoes as savage talons. A small part of him wondered that he didn’t wake all of London with his cries.

  “He awoke curled behind a bush, the morning light falling down upon him and a breeze tickling the bare skin of his back. He discovered that he had fallen asleep behind the neat hedge that fronted his house. Blood and dirt caked his body.

  “Michael barely talked that day from shock. The newspapers proclaimed three more brutal murders had occurred the night before—two men and one woman. The woman was a lady of the night, but one of the men was a well-respected professor of the college, someone Michael knew. Again, he had no recollection of the night’s events. However, his dreams the following night, and every night after that, were filled with the cries of men and a haze of blood. The city’s Bell detectives were stumped. They could only guess that a man was unleashing a savage creature upon London with malicious intent, but found no evidence, only the bodies themselves and bits of shed fur.

  “Fearing for his life, Michael’s wife begged him not to stay out late, so every night at home he paced the sitting room and feared his restless nerves, waiting for the pain to consume him at any moment.

  “Weeks passed. One night, as Michael spent time with his wife, a rush came over him and the pain began.”

  I shook my head. No, I mouthed, clutching Beth’s arm so tight that she squeaked. I released my grip but held my breath.

  A sigh shuddered through Rolph. Deep shadows flickered across his face, reminding me of sharp reaching claws. When he opened his eyes, he looked straight at me.

  “He awoke to dry eyes and aching muscles, nested on the sitting room floor and painted with blood. The air smelled of metal and fear. By the morning light, he found a trail of broken memories: a porcelain doll, a set of china, the shards of a mirror. At its end, he found his wife and his little girls—dead, their bodies ripped and savaged. Under his feet, the rug was damp with blood. Too, too red.

  “There is reason that alchemy has fallen into disuse, replaced by more predictable and exact sciences, like chemistry. As he ran into the countryside, far from London and the life he had destroyed, Michael fervently cursed the day he had ever heard of it.

  “He tried disappearing into the forest, the most fitting place for beasts and monsters, but he starved for food and human company. So he skulked at the edges of small villages, taking shelter in forgotten barns and begging for his food—always poised to run at the first sign of transformation. The episodes seemed to be tied to the cycle of the moon, as if the celestial body pulled at the beast in his blood in the same manner it governed the ocean tides. The science of alchemy is irrevocably tied to the movement of the heavenly bodies. Some philosophers have suggested that the world is like a clock, and the planets and stars turn like movements inside of it. If that is so, then men and beasts are its smallest pieces, and Michael was most aware of that now.

  “Days bled by. One evening, not long until a full moon, Michael found himself huddling like a dog in a work shed. Bunches of lavender, thyme and bitter herbs hung drying from the rafters. Jars of herbs, bottles of liquid and bundles of candles filled the shelves that lined the walls. A thick tome sat closed on top of the wooden table, a quill and a well of ink nearby. Given the late hour, Michael was sure that the master of the workspace would not return again until morning.

  “But he was wrong. Long after the sun had set, the handle creaked and a woman entered, face glowing with candlelight. He tried to scurry behind the single barrel in the far corner, but she gasped when she saw him and the candlelight shuddered as her hand shook.

  “He could only imagine what she saw. A man in tattered, dirty clothes, his hair wild and face unshaven. She breathed a word he did not recognize and placed the candle on the edge of the table so that she could make a sign at him, as if to curse him or to protect herself. ‘You are a monster,’ she said.

  “The words came like a relief to him. He had been running from himself and the reality of w
hat he had become for so long, it was a relief to hear it from another person. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  “It was as if the word ‘monster’ called the beast in his blood, and the first wave of pain shuddered through him.

  “The woman made a sharp gesture and spoke a word that Michael did not know. His body went limp, though he trembled with the pending transformation. He stared at the woman, whose eyes looked suddenly hawkish. ‘Don’t move, or I will end you now,’ she said in English.

  “Into a thin bronze bowl, she mixed herbs from half a dozen jars with drops of liquid from three different vials. She chanted as she worked, and when she was done, she set the mix on fire with the candle. The herbs went up in a blaze, releasing a sudden plume of black pungent smoke.

  “The woman’s chanting reached a feverish pitch. At the climax, her hand struck out to rip several strands of hair from his head. She threw it into the fire, and with an incoherent scream, tipped the bowl, tossing the contents over him.

  “Michael expected burning ashes, but the magic fell over him like a warm wind. He coughed and rested limply on the ground, free to move again. The threatening pain of the change had left him.

  “‘I have done all that I can,’ she said. ‘In the morning, you must move on.’

  “When he awoke, he found himself in a storage shed, surrounded by rusted automaton parts, pails, shovels and other gardening equipment. He found no signs of herbs or jars or candles, but he was covered in a fine white powder, like the powder of ashes.

  “Michael had heard of witches, of course, but had never believed in their existence. Yet they seemed a natural part of the world he lived in now, a world in which he feared at any moment a monstrous change would overcome him.

  “But the change did not come for the next week, nor did he feel the trembling anxiety that promised its return. For the first time in months, he began to hope. Though he would never be able to repair his broken life or bring back his beloved wife and precious children, maybe he could at least end his running. Maybe at least he could find an end to the weight in his chest, the weight of knowing that he could kill again.

  “The full moon passed without remark. Taking heart, he found a small job at an inn, where he was fed and lodged and given a modest wage, enough to buy clean clothes and pay a visit to the barber. He enjoyed the impersonal company of other men, and felt almost like a man himself, again.

  “There was a woman at the inn who served food during the day and sang songs for the dinner crowd. She and Michael took a liking to each other. Perhaps participating in a tryst was shameful after all he had done—for all that his family had only been dead one season. But he missed his wife and the company of a female, so when the woman invited him to stay the night with her, he readily took advantage of her offer… He would have been content just to lie with her and try to imagine that her body was the body of his wife. However, she had other intentions, and his passion got the best of him.

  “When the first wave of shivers ran over his body, he simply thought it was part of his excitement, but he curled over her body in sudden pain and horror. She watched him as his fingers curled, and his face lengthened, and the fur spread over his skin. Her eyes were wide and she pressed back against the bed as if pinned there, frozen with shock and terror. He let out an animal’s cry of rage.

  “He fled like an animal flees, her belated screams driving him on. He could smell everything and see everything in the night. Above him hung the full silver moon—the moon he’d thought he could forget. His fleet legs took him to the forest’s edge like the wind, where he hoped to lose himself in the trees before the beast’s mind took over.

  “It did not. He ran until he could smell nothing but trees, powerful and monstrous, but his thoughts remained his own. Human and terrified. An aching hunger stabbed at his gut and shook his muscles. He took his hunger and his anger out on the trees, raging against them with claws and teeth.

  “The witch’s magic had not cured him. It only gave him a tenuous grip over his own human form and returned his human consciousness to the beast body. Now he was burdened with the hunger of the monster and the responsibility to hold it in check.”

  Chapter Six

  Rolph’s voice died to silence. For many moments, none of us spoke.

  “Oh, dear.” I chuckled nervously to break the tension and flashed a weak smile at Miles. “And you said my story was fit to make a man jump off a bridge.” With a quick blush, I turned to Rolph. “Pardon me! I only mean that it was a very sad story, and very well told.”

  Rolph nodded, eyes nearly black and mouth set in a somber line. He canted his head, as if considering the sound of the wind. “Stay until morning.” He stood, and I could see that his hands were trembling again. “I’ll be back with drinks and with meat to refresh the stew.” He bent to take something from the table next to his chair, and I saw that it was the amber vial of liquid.

  Beth watched me watch him go. She sat up and drew her eyebrows together. “You don’t truly fancy him, do you?”

  In a voice as hushed as hers, I replied, “And if I do?”

  “He’s just so…coarse.”

  I frowned. “What’s wrong with coarse?”

  She glanced around us, as if to say the preoccupation with dead animals could mean anything about his character. In answer, I looked at the painting of the water drop above the mantel.

  “Hey! No secret girl talks,” said Fred.

  Miles leaned over to bury his mouth in Beth’s hair. “Did the story scare you?” He circled his arms around her middle.

  She squirmed and pecked his nose. “No…” She flicked a look at me, then added, “Maybe. Just a little bit.”

  “Come here,” he said, and scooted from the bench to the floor to pull her onto his lap. She curled against his chest while he rocked her and kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”

  She nodded her head against him. “I love you too.”

  A sudden deep longing burned in my chest, and I quickly found somewhere else to focus my gaze. Ah, love. I closed my eyes. Love and loss. The threat of old tears warmed my eyes, and I breathed softly until it passed.

  “Tara?” inquired Beth, when I stood and laced on my boots.

  “Nature’s chamber pot,” I said, jerking my thumb toward the door, but I could not tease a smile from her. I found the back door through which Miles had come. After the warmth of the cabin, the cold stung. I closed the door quickly behind me and stood in no more than my sweater, pants and boots on the back doorstep. However, the worst of the wind was blocked by the silent stomper to my left and a perpendicular extension of the cabin to my right. At the farthest end of the stomper’s sled, so that I was still just sheltered by it, I did my thing in the snow and buried the evidence.

  I hunched back toward the door, but a glow of lamplight from outside caught my attention. Hugging my chest, I loped toward the leg of the cabin and peered around a wall to find Rolph kneeling on the bare ground under the shelter of a roof. The enclosure seemed to be a sort of stable and had the distinct musk of hoofed creatures, supporting my notion that he kept livestock, though I saw no animals by the lamp’s light.

  Rolph’s arm worked at something on the ground in front of him, a dark mass that I recognized as a deer carcass when I stepped closer. Large sections had already been removed and had frosted at the edges. Apparently, it had been dead for some time and was being stored out here. My gaze traveled from its swollen, protruding tongue to the mess of frozen black blood and torn flesh at its throat.

  “Wolf kill?” I asked, jaw tight against chattering.

  He looked over his shoulder at me. “Yes.” I wasn’t sure from his expression if he was annoyed to see me. There was something primal about him squatting there before the kill—something that reminded me of a dog tugging at meat with its jaws, head slung low and shoulders peaked.

  “Can I be of any assistance?” I asked.

  He returned to his task, arm sawing back and forth as he worked a knife through the froze
n meat. “Here. Would you take this inside?” He drew together the four corners of a cloth he had loaded with chunks from the animal’s side and handed the bundle to me. “You can go through the kitchen.” He indicated a door.

  I found it and went through. The kitchen was a kitchen in intent, if not function. The oven and range were barely recognizable under a pile of straw, and the cold had settled in here as it hadn’t in the living room, waiting in the spider-webbed corners and nestling in the empty hearth.

  A wooden table stood snug against the left wall, a fresh splatter of liquid darkening its dusty surface. Atop it sat the amber vial, its round mouth open, stopper lying nearby as if it had been hastily opened. I threw a quick glance behind me at the closed door before bending to sniff the sticky stuff. Up close, the sweet smell was more complex—laced with a sharp medicinal sting and grounded by a burned scent. Tears welled in my eyes and I sneezed once, loudly, before escaping into the hallway.

  I paused just outside the threshold, tilting my nose to the air. The strange bitter smell I had noticed upon first entering the cabin was stronger here and stuck in the air persistently, like a burn or a scar. I could hear Miles’s voice to my left. Warmth and savory aroma radiated from that direction. To my right, I spied three doors. One stood slightly ajar, inviting me closer. The smell seemed to be coming from inside. It would be so easy to tap the door open a little farther and glance inside to resolve my curiosity.

  I nudged the door open gently with my knee and a wall of bitter stink greeted me. The room inside was illuminated softly, not by gaslight or by fire, but by a sphere of blue-white phosphorescence. Tables crowded the room, all covered with the most occult and scientific apparati I had ever seen. Tubes, vials, stands. Jars and bottles. On the walls, arcane sigils had been drawn with charcoal, surrounding diagrams of dragons, flames, celestial bodies and liquids being poured.

  Atop a table by the door, I found possibly the most startling objects in the room. Jars of paint, a palette, a cup of brushes, a rag smeared with dried colors, and paintings. A stack of them at the far corner of the table, and three others leaning against the wall. They were portraits, and each depicted the same three faces. One woman and two little girls.