Red

by Liesl Shurtliff

  I slammed it shut and started to fling it back when something caught my eye. A page hung out of the book, torn from the binding. Two words jumped out at me: “never” and “die.”

  I opened the book to a rhyme called “Hearts of the Huntsman.” It felt odd compared to the others, mysterious and melancholy. Each verse was a tragic tale of how someone died, whether by illness, accident, or old age, but at the end of three sad verses was this stanza:

  Who will o’erthrow Death

  That man may keep his breath?

  What pow’rs be in the land

  To stay Death’s chilling hand?

  The old huntsman knows

  How the Hearts grow

  The Magic for those

  Who wish never to die

  “Goldie, come look at this.”

  Goldie read the poem, her eyebrows knit in concentration. “The old huntsman knows…” She traced her finger over the line.

  “Do you think maybe Horst could know something?” I asked.

  “Well, he’s certainly old,” said Goldie.

  “And see how it mentions ‘Hearts’ and ‘Magic,’ as though they mean something more.” I’d been trying to stay as far away from Horst as possible in order to protect Wolf, but maybe he held the answers I sought. Had I been wrong to refuse his help?

  It didn’t matter. Unless we could escape the castle, there was no point to any of it, especially if Granny was…

  No. I wouldn’t think of that. I refused. Mama and Papa should be home soon. They could be home now and they would surely go right to Granny’s. She would be fine. At least for now. Granny and I were so connected that I believed I would feel it if she were gone, like a bone breaking. Surely she was holding on for me.

  The beast did not dine with us that evening, nor the next. She issued no orders, made no demands. She didn’t even show herself, which made me feel uneasy.

  With no Beast to boss us about, Goldie and I were left to the care of the castle. It gave us the freedom to wander around, though it kept us locked inside.

  I could not enjoy the freedom. I couldn’t stop thinking about the terrible fate Granny had bestowed upon Beast. I couldn’t stop worrying about Granny and Wolf. I couldn’t stop wondering about The Magic Hearts, and what Horst might have to do with them.

  I lay in bed that night, Goldie snoring next to me. I slept with my cloak, and I fingered the corners anxiously, trying to draw comfort, wisdom, hope.

  Wolf howled.

  Come back, he said, and I sensed his growing urgency. Was he in danger? Was Horst coming after him? It felt like we were both running out of time. His cries had lulled me to sleep these past nights, but tonight they kept me awake.

  Another howl sounded, but this one was nearer, inside the castle.

  Beast.

  I sat up. A candle lit on my bedside. I took it and went to the door. I pressed my hand against it.

  The door unlocked and opened.

  The sconces lit up along the wall as I traveled down the corridor, down the staircase.

  The terrible howling came again. There was no meaning to it, except despair. I wandered through the castle aimlessly, but then I saw the shadow of Beast cross the corridor. I blew out my candle and silently followed. She walked through a maze of rooms and hallways, until she came to the library. She entered and shut the door.

  What was she doing in the library in the middle of the night? Reading bedtime stories?

  I turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open, just enough to peer through with one eye.

  Beast stood in front of a bookshelf, casting long, ghoulish shadows across the room. She reached for a book, but when she lifted it, there was a click, and a portion of the shelf swung open, revealing a corridor behind. Beast slipped inside, and the shelf closed behind her, leaving me in darkness.

  I should have just gone back to bed. But I couldn’t help myself. I was curious to know where Beast was going and what she was doing.

  Curiosity killed the cat, said a small voice in my head. It sounded eerily like Granny’s.

  But I’m not a cat, I said back to the voice. Besides, this was my captor, whom I wished to escape, so it made sense that I should follow her and find out all I could. I walked to the shelf and felt along the spines of the books. Beast had reached for a book at the level of her chest, which meant it would be above my head. I tipped a book back as I had seen Beast do, but nothing happened. I pulled more books, working my way along the shelf. One or two fell down, but they quickly picked themselves up and floated back onto the shelves. I clutched another book and tugged. This one felt different, like it was attached to something. I pulled until something snapped, then I released the book and the shelf swung open.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Beauty in the Mirror

  Through the opening in the bookshelf, I found myself in a hallway with a door at the other end. I was certain it would be locked, but when I turned the knob, it swung open on silent hinges. I stepped into a vast hall. Endless. It stretched for ages in both directions, and there were people all around, all of them covered in red cloaks. I stared at them, and they stared back, until I realized it was only me. Hundreds of Reds staring at herself. The walls were covered floor to ceiling with mirrors.

  I didn’t see Beast anywhere. Granny always says never to trust mirrors. They can be tricky things, especially if they’ve been enchanted, which I suspected these were. Some mirrors will reflect things as they really are, while others reflect things that could be, or things that are happening elsewhere, or even things that you wished were true.

  I saw myself reflected in the mirror dozens of times. Just plain Red. Same tangle of brown hair, sharp gray eyes, and small pale face.

  Something shifted in the nearest mirror to my right. A woman appeared. A real beauty. Her skin was flawless, a hint of pink in her cheeks and on her lips. Her sapphire-blue eyes contrasted sharply with chestnut hair that curled softly around her face and shoulders. She looked familiar to me, but it was impossible that I had seen her before now.

  “Her name is Beauty,” said a voice. The woman’s lips moved like she was speaking, but the voice was far too deep to belong to her. I turned and found Beast standing in front of the beautiful woman in the mirror.

  “The name suits her,” I said.

  “Do you think so?” said Beast. “I’m not so certain.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “No one would deny that she’s beautiful.”

  “I believe many would deny it,” said Beast. “Especially now.”

  I looked back and forth between the beast and the girl in the mirror. There was no resemblance, except for the striking similarity of their eyes.

  “She’s you,” I said. “This is you before…”

  “Before I asked your grandmother for immortality,” said Beast. “Yes. This was me. My name was Beauty.”

  “It still is,” I said. “A name can’t be taken away.”

  “Yes, a great load of good it’s doing me now, isn’t it?” she said wryly.

  I looked down at my feet. Though we say your name is your destiny, and parents choose names carefully, it’s not a guarantee for a happily-ever-after. Mistakes can be made, tragedy can occur, and other people’s destinies can get tangled with your own and make a mess. I’d gotten tangled up in such messes before, and now I was dishing them out right and left. Goldie, Borlen, Wolf…maybe even Beast.

  Beast stared at her former beautiful self with longing. I wondered how many hours she spent here, just wishing to be beautiful again.

  Something moved in a mirror to my left, a shadow shifting in a thick forest. It was hazy and far away, so I couldn’t tell what it was.

  Beast cleared her throat. “I received a message from your granny.”

  I whipped around and faced Beast. “You did? When? How is she?” My heart ballooned with hope.

  “She’s alive. She hoped the castle was feeding you well and asked me to remind you to wash behind your ears.”

&nb
sp; “That’s all?” My heart deflated.

  “She gave me a message, too. She told me to take a look in the mirror and remember.”

  “Remember what?” I asked.

  “How to break the curse.”

  I gaped. “She told you how to break the curse?” Granny never told someone how to break a curse. She skirted, hinted, and teased, but never would she tell you exactly what to do. “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘Love life more than you fear death.’ ”

  I frowned. “That’s it? All you have to do is love life?”

  “More than I fear death.”

  “But how can you control that? How can anyone choose not to be afraid?”

  “If I knew, I would not look like this,” said Beast. “And if you knew, you would not be here, would you?”

  I looked down at my cloak and rubbed the edges between my fingers, then glanced back to the mirror where the beast was reflected as Beauty. I understood her a little better now. How could she love life as a beast? And how could she not fear death as Beauty? It seemed upside down and inside out, and I was having difficulty not resenting Granny at that moment.

  I turned away from Beast’s beautiful reflection, and a movement caught my gaze. In the other mirror, shadows came together and took the shape of a figure. But Beast paid no attention to it.

  “It is a hard thing to lose someone you love,” said Beast. “But perhaps the harder thing to lose is yourself.” Beast looked back in the mirror at her beautiful reflection. “We lose ourselves when we’re afraid.”

  “Is that why you asked Granny to make you live forever?” I asked. “Because you were afraid?”

  “I am still afraid,” said Beast. “But I’ve learned at least one thing.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Life is like a story. It doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t end.”

  My heart squeezed in my chest, for this felt true to me, however painful. It’s not that I needed Granny to live forever. I just couldn’t imagine a time when I wouldn’t need her.

  “If I could just…” But the words swelled in my throat. My eyes burned.

  Beast put a gentle paw on my shoulder and turned me toward her. I looked up into her furry face, so monstrous, and yet somehow softer and kinder than many human faces I’d seen. “I am what I am because I was afraid.”

  I dried the traitorous tears running down my cheeks. “You’re not so bad,” I said. “I’ve met uglier humans, at least on the inside.”

  “Humans can be pretty beastly, can’t they?”

  I nodded. Funny that we always tell stories with wolves and beasts and demons as villains, but in real life it seems the humans are always the worst enemies. You could be your own villain.

  “I know you want Granny to turn you back into a princess, but she can’t. Truly.” I said the words gently, without rage or malice.

  Beast nodded, resigned to the truth, but no happier about it.

  “You’ll find a way to break the curse yourself,” I said. “Granny must have known that. She would never have cast a spell that would have truly cursed you forever.”

  Beast nodded. “Your granny seems to be a very wise witch.”

  “She is.”

  “And because she is so wise, she will not live forever.”

  I looked away. My throat tightened, so I couldn’t speak. Though I knew Beast was right, I still couldn’t look the truth directly in the eye.

  “She will want to see you strong,” said Beast. “Before it’s too late.”

  I looked up. “You mean we can go?”

  Beast nodded. “Keeping you won’t do me any good. At least, it won’t change anything.”

  But I did see a glimmer of change in her, just a small ray of hope that the curse would be broken one day, somehow. I thought Granny would be proud of Beast in that moment.

  “Thank you, Beauty,” I said, and turned to leave.

  “Red?” said Beast.

  “Yes?” I said, turning back.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  I heard Granny’s words echoing in my head.

  Don’t be afraid, Red.

  She had said it when I first tried to use the magic inside me. She said it when I was leaving to try to find a cure for her.

  Red, don’t be afraid.

  I so wanted to be brave, truly brave, not just strong and fierce. I thought I was beginning to know how.

  “Red!” I heard Goldie shouting from outside the room. She sounded frantic. I ran to the door, and she came barreling through, panting. “Where have you been? I woke up and you were gone and I was hungry and the room wouldn’t give me any food and who are all these people?” She gaped at the hundreds of Beauties and Reds and Goldies reflected in all the mirrors.

  “It’s okay, Goldie. They’re just mirrors.”

  “My hair is an awful mess,” she said.

  Beast chuckled, probably thinking how she wouldn’t mind messy hair instead of all her fur.

  “Goldie, we can go home now,” I said.

  Her eyes widened. “We can?” She looked from me to Beast. We both nodded.

  “Is your granny going to break the curse, then? Will she be a princess again?”

  “Not yet,” I said. I looked back to the mirror where the image of Beauty was now turned toward us.

  “Who’s that?” Goldie pointed.

  “Her name is Beauty,” I said.

  “Not her. The person next to her.”

  I shifted my gaze. The other figure in the mirror was much closer now. He was out of The Woods and walking through the rose garden, seemingly walking right toward the mirror. The figure had a stiff gait and was covered with what looked like furs, with a bow and quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder. “It’s Horst,” I said.

  “Where is he? Can he see us?” Goldie asked.

  Horst came closer and closer, so close that if he walked any farther, he’d walk straight through the mirror. But he stopped just behind Beast’s beautiful reflection and squinted his old eyes as though searching for something. Beast growled a little at Horst’s image.

  “Do you know him?” I asked Beast.

  Beast did not answer. Horst nocked an arrow, pointing it straight at Beast. She stared at the hunter in the mirror, frozen like a poor animal caught in a trap.

  Horst released the arrow. The mirror shattered, bits and shards of glass exploding in every direction. I grabbed Goldie and pulled her into the protection of my cloak. Beast roared. When the glass settled, I looked up. Beast had an arrow in her leg.

  And there was Horst, standing amidst the shattered glass, his face stony and unreadable. Without a word, he grabbed another arrow and shot Beast in the other leg. She roared again and collapsed to her front paws.

  “No!” I shouted at Horst, punching him as hard as I could, which hurt my hand quite a bit and Horst not at all. His stomach was as hard as rock. He looked down at me as though I were a harmless bug, until something big and solid crashed into another mirror. A gargoyle. Another came down, and another. They snarled and lunged at Horst, but Horst didn’t even flinch at the stone monsters. He punched one directly in the face, crushing the stone as though it were brittle bone. Another attacked him from behind, but Horst grabbed it and threw it across the room.

  Beast had now pulled the arrows out of her legs and was struggling to stand. Horst nocked another arrow.

  “Stop! Stop! Don’t hurt her!” Goldie cried.

  I moved to attack Horst at the same time as a gargoyle. Its stone wing clipped me on the back of my head, swift and hard. I stumbled back. The room went bright. It spun and shattered like the broken mirror, and then all went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Where the Heart Is

  I woke in a dimly lit room with a wolf staring down at me. I sat up quickly and then cried out as my head exploded.

  “You’re awake!” Goldie jumped to my side. “She’s awake!” she said to someone else.

  “Careful,” said a gruff voice.
“That gargoyle smacked you good and hard. You’re going to have to take it easy.”

  Horst stood beside me, holding a steaming cup. I took a sip and immediately spat it out. It was horribly bitter.

  “Drink it,” said Horst. “It will help with the pain.”

  I drank two big gulps, and the pain did ease a bit. My head became clear enough to remember that I had seen a wolf. I looked up. Its head was mounted to the wall.

  I swallowed my own scream. It’s all right. It’s okay. This is the huntsman’s home, after all.

  The walls were covered with the skins and heads of every sort of beast of The Woods. Deer, moose, bears, mountain lions, jackrabbits, and wolves. I counted six wolves on the wall, teeth bared, with shiny black stones for eyes. Was this Wolf’s pack, hunted and hung on a wall? My heart ached for Wolf. I trembled and clutched the blanket in my fists, only to feel that it was also fur. The hair was brown and matted. It reminded me of Beast. I flung it off me.

  “You shot Beast!” I shouted at Horst. “You killed her!” I lunged at Horst, but the room spun and I collapsed back on the bed.

  “Easy there,” said Horst. “I promise you, Miss Red, I didn’t kill the beast. Injured her, perhaps, but she’ll heal soon enough and live to be a beast for another thousand years, cursed as she is.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed until the room was still again. Horst was right. Beast couldn’t be killed, no matter what. The arrow and the shattered glass had made me panic and forget that Beast could not die. She didn’t need my help.

  “Then…you know about Beast’s curse?” I asked.

  Horst nodded.

  “How did you know Beast was holding us prisoner?” I asked.

  Horst seemed caught off guard by the question. “Your granny…She told me a beast was holding you captive. She asked me to rescue you. She couldn’t in her condition, of course.”

  This didn’t sound like Granny. She firmly believed people should rescue themselves, but then, she was ill, possibly out of her mind, and I was her only grandchild.

  “I have to get to Granny,” I said, trying to stand up again, but Horst restrained me.