by Alex Flinn
“Yeah?” I was about to choke.
She nodded. “I could tell he thought it was no big deal, but in my entire life, no one had ever given me a flower. Ever. I spent the whole night looking at it, the way its calyx cradled it like a tiny hand. It even had a little vial of water to keep it alive longer. And the scent—I took it home on the subway, smelling it the whole time, and pressed it in the pages of a book so I could remember it forever.”
“Do you still have it?”
She nodded. “In a book upstairs. I brought it with me. That Monday, I wanted to find Kyle, to thank him again for it, but he wasn’t in school. He’d gotten sick over the weekend and missed the rest of the year. Then he went to boarding school. I never saw him again.”
She looked so sad, and I thought about how I would have laughed at her if she’d come up to me Monday and thanked me for giving her that old, broken rose. I’d have laughed in her face. For the first time, I was glad I hadn’t gone to school that Monday. Kendra had protected her from me.
“Should we pick some now?” I said.
“I love the roses you give me, Adrian.”
“Do you?”
She nodded. “I’ve never had beautiful things. It makes me sad to see them die, though. The yellow roses last the longest, but it’s still too short.”
“That’s why I built this greenhouse, so I could have them all year long. It’s never winter, even though there will soon be snow on the ground.”
“But I like winter. It’s almost Christmas. I miss being able to go outside and touch the snow.”
“I’m sorry, Lindy. I wish I could give you everything you want.”
And I did. I’d tried so hard to make things perfect for her, bringing her roses and reading poetry. All handsome Kyle Kingsbury had to do to make her love him was walk on the planet being handsome. If she was trapped here with him, if she knew she was, she’d have been happy. But trapped here with me, she thought about him. Yet I would not have become my old self, with all that involved, even if I could. I could have lived like my father, who had nothing in his life but looks and money. I would have been unhappy but never known why.
If I hadn’t been transformed, I would never have known what I was missing.
Now, at least, I knew. If I stayed a beast forever, it was better than I had ever been before.
I took a clipper from my pocket, found the most perfect of the white roses, and handed it to her. I wanted to give her everything, even her freedom.
I love you, I thought.
But I didn’t say it. It was not that I feared she would laugh in my face. She was far too kind for that. My fear was a greater one—that she wouldn’t say it back.
“She’ll never love me,” I said to Will, later in his room.
“Why do you say that? It’s been going so well. We have a wonderful time in class, and I can feel the chemistry between you.”
“That’s because it’s chemistry class. But she doesn’t want me. She wants a normal guy, someone who can take long walks in the snow with her, someone who can leave the house. I’m a monster. She wants someone human.”
Will gave Pilot a pat and whispered something to him. The dog came to me. Will said, “Adrian, I can assure you, you are more human than most people. You’ve changed a great deal.”
“But it’s not enough. I don’t look human. If I went outside, people would scream at the sight of me. Looks matter to most people. That’s reality in the world.”
“Not my world.”
I petted Pilot. “I like your world, Will, but it doesn’t have a very big population. I’m going to let her go.”
“And you believe this is what she wants?”
“I believe she’s never going to love me, and…”
“What?”
“Do you know what it’s like, to want to touch someone so much and not be able to? If she’s never going to love me, I shouldn’t torment myself.”
Will sighed. “When will you tell her?”
“I don’t know.” My throat hurt almost too much to say the words. It would be unfair of me to ask her to visit. She might do it out of pity, but I’d had my chance to make her fall in love with me, and I’d failed. “But soon.”
“I’m letting her go,” I told Kendra in the mirror.
“What? Are you psycho?”
“No. I’m letting her go.”
“But why?”
“It’s not fair to keep her as my prisoner. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She should have freedom to do as she pleases, to have her own life, to walk around in the stupid, stinking snow.” I thought of this poster a girl I’d known had in her room—a picture of a butterfly with the words IF YOU LOVE SOMETHING, SET IT FREE. Needless to say, I’d thought it was superdumb.
“Snow?” Kendra said. “You could take down the greenhouse and there’d be snow.”
“Yeah. She misses going outside in the real world.”
“This is your life, Kyle. It’s more important than—”
“Not Kyle, Adrian. And nothing’s more important to me than what she wants. I’m going to do it tonight at dinner.”
Kendra looked thoughtful. “This means you may never break the curse.”
“I know. I was never going to break it anyway.”
That night, I took my time brushing my hair and washing up for dinner. I heard Magda calling my name, but I still dawdled. I didn’t want to have dinner because it might be our last. I hoped Lindy would want to spend the night and leave in the morning, or better yet, take a few days to pack her things—the books and clothes and perfumes I’d bought her. What would I do if she left without them? They’d only remind me of her, like she’d died.
Of course, really, I really, really hoped she’d say, “Oh, no, Adrian, I couldn’t dream of leaving you. I love you too much. But it was so sweet and unselfish of you to let me go that I think I’ll kiss you.” And then we’d kiss and the curse would be broken, and I’d have her forever. Which was what I really wanted, to be with her forever.
But I couldn’t hope for that.
“Adrian!” Magda was knocking. I was five minutes late.
“Come in.”
She came in in a rush. “Adrian. I have an idea.” I tried to smile. “You no have to let Miss Lindy go. I think of how you can let her be more free, give her more everything she wants.”
“I can’t go out.” I thought of the girl at the Halloween party. “It’s impossible.”
“Not here,” she said. “But listen. I think of a way.”
“Magda, no.”
“You love her, no?”
“Yes, but it’s hopeless.”
“This girl needs love too. I see it.” She gestured for me to sit in a chair near the door. “You listen this once.”
4
Two days later, at four A.M., I waited downstairs while Magda woke Lindy and walked her to the door. It was dark, so I stared out the window since there was no one to see. Around us, the City that Never Sleeps slept. The streets were empty. It had snowed a little bit overnight, and the sidewalks were footprint free. Even the garbage trucks weren’t out yet.
“Where are we going?” Lindy said when she came downstairs.
“Trust me?” I held my breath for her answer. She had every reason not to trust me. I’d been her kidnapper, her captor, yet I’d rather have died than hurt a single hair on her head. I hoped that after five months of living with me, she knew that.
“Yes,” she said, seeming as surprised at the news as I was.
“We’re going someplace great. I think you’ll really like it.”
“Do I have to pack any bags?”
“I have everything you’ll need.”
Will arrived, and I walked Lindy around to the security entrance of our building. I held her wrist, but I didn’t use force. She was no longer my prisoner. If she ran, I would have let her go.
She didn’t run. My heart hoped that she didn’t run because she didn’t want to leave, but perhaps she simply didn’t know that
I wouldn’t hold her. She followed my lead to the waiting limo.
The limo had been my father’s doing. After I spoke to Magda, I’d called him at work. It had taken some time to get through the studio phone system, but finally I heard that famous voice, full of fatherly concern.
“Kyle, I’m almost on the air.” It was five fifteen.
“This won’t take long. I need your help. You owe this to me.”
“I owe this to you?”
“You heard me. You’ve had me locked up in Brooklyn for over a year, and I haven’t complained. I also haven’t gone to the Fox network with my story of Rob Kingsbury’s beast son. Face it, you owe me.”
“What is it you want, Kyle?”
I explained. When I finished, he said, “You mean to say you have a girl living there?”
“It’s not like we’re doing it.”
“Think of the liability.”
You know, Dad, when you ditched me with the maid, you forfeited the right to supervise my conduct.
But I didn’t say that. After all, I wanted something from him.
“It’s fine, Dad. I’m not hurting her. I know you’re as concerned as I am about my getting out of this curse.” I tried to think of what Will would say. Will was smart. “That’s why it’s really important that you help me with this. The sooner I get out of this, the less chance there is of anyone finding out.”
I made it all about him because that’s the way he’d think of it.
“Okay,” he said. “Let me see what I can do. I have to go on the air now.”
What he’d done was take care of everything—the place, the transportation, everything but a guy to feed the roses. That I’d done. Now I watched Lindy as she dozed, her head lolling close to my shoulder, and the car made its way across the Manhattan Bridge. I felt like someone who’d been thrown a rope at the cliff’s edge. There was a chance that this would work, but if it didn’t, I would fall, and fall hard.
Though Lindy slept, I couldn’t. I watched the early traffic rolling into the city’s waning lights. It wasn’t that cold. By noon, the light snow would be a slushy mess, but soon there would be cold and Christmas and so much to look forward to. Magda and Will slept on the other side of the seat. The driver had had a fit when he saw Pilot.
“He’s a service dog,” Will had explained.
“Does that mean he won’t poop on the seats?”
I’d suppressed a laugh. I’d dressed as a Bedouin once again, but now, with the wall up between me and the driver, I removed my disguise. I stroked Lindy’s hair.
“Are you going to tell me now where we’re going?” she asked when we exited the Holland Tunnel.
I started. “I didn’t know you were awake.” I took my hand off her hair.
“It’s okay. It felt nice.”
Does she know I love her?
“Have you ever seen the sunrise?” I pointed back to the east, where a few streaks of red were making their way over the buildings.
“Beautiful,” she said. “We’re leaving the city?”
“Yes.” Yes, my love.
“I never have before. Can you believe that?”
She didn’t ask again where we were going, just curled up on the pillow I’d brought her and fell back asleep. I watched her in the dim light. We were going north slowly, but even so, she wasn’t going to jump out. She didn’t want to leave. When we reached the George Washington Bridge, I fell asleep myself.
I next awoke at almost nine on the Northway. Snow-covered mountains loomed in the distance. Lindy gazed out the window.
“I’m sorry we can’t stop for breakfast,” I told her. “But it might start a panic. Magda brought some bread and stuff.”
Lindy shook her head. “Look at those hills. It’s like a movie—The Sound of Music.”
“They’re mountains, actually, and we’re going to get a lot closer.”
“Really? Are we still in the United States?”
I laughed. “We’re in New York, if you can believe it. I’m taking you to see snow, Lindy—real snow, not gray slush pushed by the roadside. And where we’re going, we can go outside and roll in it.”
She didn’t answer, just kept staring at the distant mountains. Every mile or so, we saw a farmhouse below, sometimes with a horse or some cows. A while later, she said, “People live in those houses?”
“Sure.”
“Wow. They’re so lucky to have all that space to roam around.”
I felt a twinge for keeping her inside all these months. But I would make it up to her. “It’ll be great, Lindy.”
An hour later, we pulled off of Route 9 and in front of one house, the best house, I thought, surrounded by snow-whitened pines. “This is it.”
“What?”
“Where we’re staying.”
She gaped at the snow-shingled roof and red shutters. Behind the house, there was a hill that I knew led to a frozen lake.
“This is yours?” she said. “All of it?”
“My father’s, actually. We came here a few times when I was little. That was before he started acting like if he missed a single day of work, he’d be replaced. After that, I started going skiing with friends during Christmas break.”
I stopped, not believing I’d mentioned skiing with friends. Beasts didn’t ski. Beasts didn’t have friends, and if I had, it opened up questions, lots of them. It was strange, because I felt like I could tell her everything, tell her things I’d never been able to say to anyone, or even to myself. But I couldn’t really tell her anything.
But Lindy hadn’t seemed to notice. She was already out of the car, streaking across the freshly shoveled path in her pink robe and fuzzy slippers. “Oh, how could anyone not come back to this…this wonderland?”
I was laughing, stumbling out of the car ahead of Will and Magda. Pilot looked freaked out, like he wanted to run and bark at all the snowdrifts. “Lindy, you can’t go out in your robe. It’s too cold.”
“It’s not cold!”
“You’re warm from the car. It’s below freezing.”
“It is?” She spun around, a pink dot on the white. “So I guess it’d be a bad idea to roll in all this wonderful, fluffy snow?”
“A very bad idea.” I trudged toward her. I wasn’t cold, nor likely to get cold. My thick coat kept me warm. “Wonderful and fluffy soon become cold and wet, and if you get sick, we can’t play outside.” But I could warm you. “I’ve brought appropriate clothing.”
“Appropriate?”
“Long underwear.” I saw the driver bringing our suitcases, and I pulled my costume around my head. I pointed to the red suitcase. “That’s yours. I’ll bring it to your room.”
“It’s so big. How long are we staying?”
“All winter if you want. We have no jobs, no school. This is a summer resort area. Some people come to ski on weekends, but the rest of the time, it’s deserted. No one will see me if we go outside. I’m safe.”
She glanced at me a second, almost like she’d forgotten who she was with. Could she have? Then she was spinning in circles again. “Oh, Adrian! All winter! Look at the icicles hanging from the trees. They’re like jewels.” She stopped and picked up a handful of snow, pressed it into a ball and threw it at me.
“Careful. Don’t start a snowball fight you can’t win,” I said.
“Oh, I can win.”
“In your robe?”
“Do I hear a challenge?”
“No challenges yet,” Will said, walking Pilot toward the house. “Let’s put away the suitcases and get some decent clothing on and have breakfast.”
I picked up Lindy’s suitcase.
She mouthed, Decent clothing?
I mouthed back, Long underwear, and we broke up laughing.
My father had prepped everything as I’d demanded. The house was clean—the wood shone, and everything smelled of Pine-Sol. A fire blazed in the fireplace.
“So warm!” Lindy said.
“Oh, were you cold, miss?” I teased. I carried the su
itcase to her room, which made her scream some more and jump up and down because it had its own fireplace and a handmade quilt, not to mention a bay window with a view of the pond below.
“It’s so beautiful, and no one lives here. I haven’t seen anyone for miles.”
“Hmm.” Had she been looking for someone, a way to run?
As if in answer to my unspoken question, she said, “I could be happy here forever.”
“I want you to be happy.”
“I am.”
After breakfast, we put on our parkas and boots and went outside.
“I told Will we’d mostly study on weekends,” I said, “since that’s when people are here. Now, are you still up for that snowball fight?”
“Yes. But can we do something else first?”
“Anything. I’m at your service.”
“I’ve never had anyone to make a snowman with me. Can you show me how?”
“It’s been a while since I made one too,” I said. It was true. I could barely remember a time when I’d had friends, if I had. “First, you have to make a small snowball and—this is the hard part—you don’t throw it at me.”
“Okay.” With her mittens, she packed a snowball. “Oops!” It hit me in the head.
“I told you that was the hard part.”
“You were right. I’ll try again.” She made another—and threw it. “Sorry.”
“Oh, this is such war now.” I picked up some snow. I didn’t need mittens, and my paws were very good for making snowballs. “I am the world champion snowball fighter.” I threw one at her.
It ended up deteriorating into an all-out snowball war—which I won, by the way. But finally, she made a snowball and handed it to me for the snowman.
“Perfect,” I said. “We’ll be experienced ice sculptors by the time winter’s over.”
But what I wanted to say was I love you.
“So now you roll it on the ground to make it bigger,” I said. “Then, when it’s as big as you can stand, that’s the bottom.”
