Bryony and Roses

by T. Kingfisher

  Her dreams grew worse. She chased the green-eyed man through hallways and faceless crowds. Things chased her in return. Sometimes she wasn’t sure who was running and who was seeking, or the dreams blended together without an end.

  Once she managed to catch up with him.

  “I found you!” she said, breaking out of the crowd.

  “You haven’t found me yet,” he said. His face was sad, but his eyes gleamed. “If you find me—if you help me—”

  “Help you what?” she asked, half-mad with frustration.

  He put a finger over her lips. The touch jolted her, intimate and shocking, and she woke immediately.

  Catching him did not seem to help.

  The next night, she did not chase him. She turned her back, when she saw him, and pushed her way through the crowd. Was she at a ball? It looked a little like a ball. The people around her wore elaborate clothes, but they faded away when she looked in their faces.

  There is always a refreshment table at a ball. I will go find it and I will have a glass of punch. I will not chase anyone.

  She was so determined on this course that she reached a wall of the chamber—was it a ballroom? The walls did not seem quite right. She had the feeling that there was something outside the windows, something dangerous.

  I will not look through the windows. I will walk along this wall until I get to a corner.

  The wall went on for miles, it seemed, and she was pushing her way past dancers in taffeta and lace. Their dresses rustled and brushed against her as if she were walking through leaves.

  She looked up and saw the corner of the room. Leaning against it, his face in shadow, was the green-eyed man.

  He lifted his hand, almost in salute, and she woke.

  The next night she caught up to him easily and walked alongside, not speaking, not wanting the dream to end before she got answers or—well, something.

  His eyes flicked to her as they walked through the hallways. The windows were stained glass and she did not want to look too closely at them.

  “I can help you,” he said. “If you help me.”

  “Help me how?” she asked.

  “We can leave this place,” he said. “If you can help me.”

  “But what do you want me to do?” she cried, and woke up speaking the word aloud into the empty room.

  During the day she would nap near her garden. (Occasionally, she thought of simply pitching a tent out there, but the notion that she might have no walls between her and whatever might roam the grounds at night was too much to bear.) The hum of the clockwork bee seemed to guard her sleep. She occasionally thought of taking it inside with her, to buzz at night, but she was afraid the metal roses on the candlesticks might confuse the poor creature, or worse yet, the intruder in her room might return, and some terrible fate befall it.

  At night, she kept herself awake reading.

  The Honorable Matthias Irving became a dear, if imaginary, friend. She pictured him as a tall, gawky man with a mild, hopeful expression, wearing clothes with far too many ruffles. She took to holding conversations with him in her head, the way that she sometimes did with her absent sisters.

  “What would you say about this situation, Master Irving?” she asked. “A maiden—well, sort of a maiden—held captive in an enchanted manor—”

  “Promising,” he replied. “O captive maiden, lily fair, fairer far than flower’s flare—”

  “Try saying that five times fast.”

  “I’m a poet. I get to do these things.”

  Bryony was aware, even as she argued poetry with herself, that this was more than a little mad.

  I’ll be having tea parties for him next. Likely it will all end with me wearing men’s clothing and standing on the battlements, proclaiming. I wonder if the Beast will even notice?

  Leaving aside the nightmares, inactivity chafed at her. The garden needed nothing beyond the occasional snip of the shears. She had honed every blade and edge of her tools to wicked keenness.

  At home she would have been harvesting the second crop of peas and putting in the beets, doing her share of the cooking and fighting back weeds. The old chicken coop needed re-building. She wondered if her sisters had gotten to it, or perhaps they had taken the money she brought them and hired a man to do it.

  “Inelegant,” said Master Irving, sniffing. “Three lovely maids, like shining flowers upon the grass, a-thwart with dew! reduced to building homes for fowl. There’s no poetry in it.”

  “There’s not much poetry in chickens. It’s mostly eggs and poop,” she said, and her imaginary poet clutched his ruffles in horror.

  She was, if not grateful, at least relieved when a weed appeared in the garden.

  It was not a terribly large weed, a little spike that appeared on the edge of one of the flowerbeds. The stem was dark red and it had tiny fuzzy spines and dark knobs that hadn’t yet turned into leaves.

  “Huh!” said Bryony. “Where did you come from?”

  Well, you were halfway hoping for one. Don’t be surprised when you get it. Not in this house.

  She thought about leaving it just to see what would happen, but it was too close to the sage, and something about the shape made her suspicious. It had come up too suddenly.

  “You’re a runner, aren’t you?” she said. “Let’s find out…”

  She grabbed the weed in her gloved hands and began to tug.

  It resisted for a moment, then came up easily, and sure enough, it was not an isolated plant but the end of a long, pale runner. Bryony kept the pressure up, seeing the root zigzag up through the bed, trailing tiny root-hairs.

  “Don’t you dare break…” she muttered.

  She followed the runner to the lawn, still pulling. She expected it to break off in the grass, but it had grown thicker and apparently sturdier. It continued to come up through the grass, leaving a broken line of soil behind it.

  “What in the name of God are you doing?” asked the Beast, coming up beside her.

  “Don’t stop me,” said Bryony. “I’m pulling a weed. This is amazing.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “If you say so…”

  There was really no way to explain to a non-gardener the sheer visceral joy of pulling a weed up and getting every last inch. Bryony kept tugging, hand over hand, waiting for it to break.

  By the time it finally snapped, she had tracked the runner nearly twenty feet and left a scar in the lawn. She held up the end of the weed like a snake and laughed out loud.

  “Well, you’ve killed it,” said the Beast. “Shall we ask the house to cook it for dinner? Or do you mount weeds like trophies over the mantelpiece?”

  “I might,” said Bryony. “If I were going to, it’d be this one. Look at this thing!” She brandished the end at the Beast.

  “Very nice,” he said. “Err. Is that the right thing to say about a weed? Very fierce?”

  “It’d like to be fierce,” she said, examining the bit that had come up. “Teeny little thorns…hell, I think it’s a rose!”

  The Beast went very still.

  “Some of the big swamp roses send out runners, but I’ve never seen one go that far,” she said. “I wonder where the main root is…”

  “Does it matter?” asked the Beast, his voice suddenly harsh. “Burn it, or throw it away.”

  She looked up at him, startled.

  “I’m sorry?” she said, not sure if she should apologize or get angry. “Was I—oh, Lord! Your roses! Should I have left it?”

  The Beast stared at her for a long moment. There was a thin rim of white around his eye, like a horse about to bolt. It was unsettling to see.

  She was suddenly aware, as she had not been for weeks, how large the Beast was, and how thin the air around him seemed. Her lungs labored and only force of will kept her from panting.

  “No,” said the Beast, turning his back. “No. Weeds should be pulled.”

  He stalked away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  One night, days of tr
oubled sleep later, she heard the footsteps again.

  She was awake instantly, and had time to think, Goddamnit, I wasn’t actually having a nightmare that time, I don’t think I was even dreaming yet, why am I awake? before she recognized the stealthy tread.

  Bryony had been keeping her knife under her pillow at night. She inched her hand under her head and clutched the hilt, listening to the footsteps outside the bed-curtains.

  It sounded like the intruder was pacing back and forth this time. Bryony lay under the blankets, not daring to move.

  She’d rehearsed this in her head while tossing shovels of chicken manure about. When the intruder came back, she would draw her blade, fling the bed-curtains back dramatically, and demand to know who he was and why he was there. She’d point the blade at him and shout. She would be furious and bold.

  It appeared in practice that she would do none of those things.

  Actually, I think I might pee the bed.

  The footsteps reached the desk, turned, and went back toward the door again. She could hear them rounding the foot of the bed while her heart crashed in her ears.

  What if he comes to the head of the bed? What if he tears down the bed-curtains? I can’t see anything through them, so he shouldn’t be able to see me, but what if he does? Oh God, what do I do?

  She bit down hard on her lower lip.

  Any thoughts, Master Irving?

  Master Irving was apparently hiding somewhere safe. She thought of her sister Holly instead.

  Don’t panic, obviously. If the curtains come down, stab anything you can reach and start screaming for the Beast.

  The vision of the Beast running on all fours, faster than any human, comforted her a little. Wherever he was, if he heard her, he’d come. Hopefully that would be soon enough to staunch the bleeding or keep the intruder from dragging her through the window or something.

  But the curtains did not come down. The quiet footsteps walked back and forth, from the window to the door, and then finally she heard the sounds of the window being unbolted, and then silence.

  What if it’s a trap? What if he’s standing there, waiting for me to move?

  She waited for what seemed like an eternity, all too aware that time was probably moving in a crawl, and what felt like a year might be less than five minutes. At last, when her choices were to move or to go completely mad in the bed and save everyone the trouble, she slid the knife free of its sheath and moved as quietly as possible to the edge of the bed.

  Still nothing. No sounds.

  She set a foot down on the floor. Her stomach clenched nauseatingly, waiting for something to clutch at her ankle from under the bed.

  Nothing.

  She got both feet on the floor, took a deep breath, and flew across the room. She fumbled with the lock for three agonizing seconds, then flung the door open—or tried.

  The door hit something heavy and only slightly yielding.

  Panic clawed at her throat. She slammed her shoulder into the door, forcing it open, screaming something, she had no idea what. The door moved another few inches, and then the pressure was gone and a dark shape filled in the hallway. In the dim moonlight through the windows on the landing, she saw only a looming shadow.

  She thrust her knife at it, still screaming, and felt the hilt torn from her hands.

  The shape grunted. “Light!” roared a voice.

  And there was light. Candles sprang into flame on every wall.

  Bryony’s throat closed, stopping her in mid-scream.

  The Beast stood over her. Far up on his shoulder, looking very small, the hilt of her knife protruded from his flesh.

  Bryony gulped. She wanted to burst into tears but crying seemed rather unhelpful, so she didn’t.

  The Beast held her eyes for a moment, then reached up and wrenched the knife out. She cringed.

  “If you are going to stab me,” said the Beast, “I would suggest a much bigger knife. This one is…cute.”

  “My sister gave it to me,” said Bryony weakly, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “House can doubtless provide you with a larger selection. I would actually suggest a pitchfork instead, given your existing skill with them.” He cleaned the knife off on his sleeve and handed it to her. The fur around the wound was growing dark and matted. Bryony stared at it in fascinated horror.

  “You were in front of my door,” she said stupidly.

  “Yes,” he said. “I have been sleeping there since you said there was an intruder.”

  “That’s it!” she said, seizing on this. “He’s back! That’s why I—I thought you must be—I was going to yell for you—”

  The Beast’s eyes lit dangerously, and he pushed her to one side. “Here? Now?”

  “A few minutes ago,” she said, as he pulled the door open the rest of the way. “I waited until I heard him go.”

  “By your leave,” said the Beast, and stepped into her room without waiting for an answer. Bryony followed in his wake.

  He prowled the length of the room, his nostrils flaring. Bryony retreated to the doorway.

  “The room smells like you,” he said finally. “If there is someone else here, I cannot smell it. Only you, and roses.”

  “That’s probably the soap,” said Bryony, sighing. “Or the pomanders.” She wondered what she smelled like.

  Probably sweat and chicken manure. “I keep asking the house for lavender or something, but it seems stuck on roses.”

  “Roses are very important to it,” said the Beast.

  “And to you,” said Bryony, remembering the Beast’s fury over his stolen rose.

  “Mm. It is different, but this is not the time to discuss it.”

  “Would you smell it? If there were someone here?” asked Bryony timidly.

  The Beast frowned, bringing his tusks into sharp relief. “My sense of smell is less strong than a hound’s, and my own blood is muddling my nose. Perhaps not. I cannot swear that there was no one here.”

  Bryony sat down on the edge of a chest and ran her fingers over an inlaid spray of leaves. “But he couldn’t have come past you, could he?”

  The Beast shook his head. “There is no chance.”

  “But I heard him unlock the window,” she said. “If he came in through the window, he would have had to lock it again while he was wandering around—and why would he break in it all?”

  “Has anything been taken?” asked the Beast.

  Bryony huffed a laugh. “How could I tell? The house keeps the place stuffed with knick-knacks and it changes them out practically by the hour.” She looked over at the desk. She had not written any more questions down, and the blank stationary was undisturbed.

  The Beast frowned. “It would be very strange to have a burglar here.”

  “Very strange.” She ran a hand through her hair, suddenly aware that she was only wearing a thin nightgown and there was a man—or a general approximation of one—in her bedroom. She found the rose-pink robe and pulled it on. The Beast looked politely away.

  “You can say that I’m having a nightmare again,” she said bitterly. “Or that I’m doing this just to torment you.”

  The Beast considered. “I do not believe that,” he said finally. “You were genuinely frightened.”

  She looked up, startled. “I might just be a very good actor.”

  He shook his head. “You smelled frightened. I do not know that one can fake that. And you were screaming.”

  “Was I? I suppose I was. But that could mean anything,” said Bryony. She didn’t know why she was playing her own devil’s advocate. Perhaps she merely wanted to hear him say that he trusted her.

  The Beast shook his head. “Don’t you remember? When you threw the door open, you were screaming for me.”

  Their eyes met for entirely too long, and Bryony had to look away. “Come on,” she said, too abruptly, “I stabbed you, so the least I can do is clean it up.”

  “It’s nothing,” said the Beast.

&
nbsp; “I stabbed you. With a knife.”

  “Not very well,” he said, almost apologetically. “I fear that it is very shallow.”

  “Nevertheless, I am going to feel horribly guilty about it unless you let me at least put a bandage on it,” she said.

  “Oh, well, in that case…” He looked around for somewhere to sit, eyed the bed for a moment, then settled for dropping to his haunches on the carpet.

  This put them at about eye-level. “House, some bandages and hot water, please.” Bryony studied the Beast’s shoulder, and tried to remember what Holly had done the time that Fumblefoot got a string of catbriar wrapped around his hock. “And some small scissors.”

  The Beast looked faintly alarmed.

  “Don’t worry, I never stab anyone twice in the same hour. I don’t want them to think I’m unoriginal.”

  “I confess, I am more afraid you will clip me bald.”

  “Vain Beast.” She found the tray by the basin, which House had provided with hot water and, of its own volition, a bottle of sharp-smelling astringent. “Can I put this on the wound?”

  “If you must,” said the Beast.

  She soaked a cloth in hot water and wiped at the wound. The Beast gazed over her head with a long-suffering expression.

  It took her several minutes with the scissors to trim the hair away from the gash, and the Beast was right, it really was quite shallow. Bryony eyed her handiwork gloomily.

  “It’s not that I want you to be hurt,” she said, “and I’m glad I mostly missed, but still, it doesn’t fill me with confidence if I have to stab someone who deserves it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do better next time,” said the Beast encouragingly. “Practice makes perfect.”

  “Ha ha.” She glared at his shoulder. “You’ve got some hair stuck in the wound. It’s going to get nasty if I don’t clean it out.”

  “Do what you have to do.”

  She had to lean across his arm to get at the shoulder. His fur was short and soft, but there was no give to the muscle at all, a skin of velvet over stone. Bryony snorted.

  “Hmmm?”

  “You feel like somebody put flocking on a rock.”

  He laughed at that. She could feel the rumbling against her skin and through the soles of her feet. It was a queer, shivery sensation, not entirely unpleasant, and it made her thoughts go a bit sideways, so she slapped his shoulder the way she would Fumblefoot’s. “Quit twitching!”