Was this place some vestige from the war? Perhaps it had some silly tale attached to it too, like the stream, and the villagers had been told to be wary of it. But why they wouldn't mention it...
Or, perhaps... perhaps the tales weren't silly at all.
I drift over to a table in the corner. There is a small ivory-faced clock there, its hands frozen in motion, and golden candlestick. A little draw reveals a handful of matches. A few seconds later, and a gloomy light flickers into motion, illuminating the faded tapestries hang from the walls. Great chunks of them are missing, threads dangling like shredded flesh. Bits of the woodwork are damaged too, but not by time. They look like they've been clawed, or even... bitten.
Thunder cracks against the sky. I jolt involuntarily, backing into a nearby bust. It crashes to the floor.
Somewhere, above me, another crash echoes out.
“Hello?” I call. “Is someone there?”
There is no reply, but the silence reverberates down the empty hallways.
I set my candle aside and pick up the bust. It is of an old, warty man, who frankly looked a little better without his bulbous nose. My concerns at ruining the piece of art are limited. It is clearly not the likeness of a person; his ears are webbed like a fish. A fanciful creation of an imaginative sculptor. I leave it where it lies and retrieve the candle.
“Hello?” I call up the stairs. Nothing but my own voice bounces back. For a second, just a split second, I think I hear a voice, softer than the wind and even less substantial.
Welcome, welcome, welcome...
I am clearly imagining things, just like I must have imagined the field of flowers. Perhaps I tripped somewhere, banged my head-
Another crash, a scrambling. Something big moving about.
“Hello?” I creep up the steps, trying not to sound afraid.
I see something, a dark, shadowy thing, run from one door to another. Inside the other room, there is another crash, a low moan, like the sound of an animal.
Whatever it is, it is not human.
But it is also afraid of me.
The dust in the air seems to breathe, and swirls about the space like a ribbon caught in the breeze. There are footsteps in the dust, huge, massive paws, as wide as a bear's, long as wolf's. What creature lurks behind that door?
Freedom's voice resonates in my head, telling me to be cautious. I could see him drawing an arrow, but I ignore him. I remembered my Mama telling me, when I was frightened by a stray dog as a little child, that he was more frightened of me than I was of him. I saw the way he cowered under the horse cart, the way his brows furrowed and his eyes widened, and I knew she was right.
I step into the room.
The creature paws at the door in the back of the room, half-hidden by shadows and a large wing-back chair. A massive, bear-like paw scrapes at the wood, and a long, wolfish tail sweeps the floor. The rest is just a black shape.
I set down my candle, eyeing the poker near the fireplace just in case.
“It's all right,” I say, calmly as I can muster. “I won't hurt you.”
The creature stops pawing at the door almost immediately. For a second, I think I hear it whimper, or sigh, but I must be mistaken. The sounds I imagined were... too human, for whatever this was.
It turns towards the chair between us, grasping at the arms, and I catch a brief flash of its face. A single blue eye stares at me through a hole in the back of the chair.
The huge paws have nails like talons. My fingers itch, involuntarily, for the poker. I pray it cannot see that fear in me.
“I won't hurt you,” I repeat. “Come on... come out from behind there. Let me see you.”
The creature groans and shakes its head. No, I thought it shook its head. It is an animal, and animals cannot shake their heads in reply.
I act as if they can. “I'm not afraid,” I say, “and you shouldn't be either. Won't you come out?”
The creature lets out another sigh, makes a motion almost like a shrug of defeat. Its gaze screws to the floor, looking down almost... almost as if it is ashamed. Then it steps out into the murky light and rises to its full height.
It is as tall as a bear, broad and wide, covered from head to toe in black fur. It is slimmer than a bear though, with rear legs like wolf's. Its face... it has such a strange, twisted face. Part lion, part wolf, with a flat snout and nostrils, and a thick mane sprouting at its neck. Two small horns loom over two massive eyes, shadowed by wild eyebrows. I could not have dreamt up such a creature. No, creature is not the word. Creatures can be animals, be fairies, be beautiful and wondrous. No, this thing is a beast.
“Oh, crickets,” my voice feels numb in my mouth. It is almost like I am looking down on the scene from afar, watching someone else speak for me. I have no idea where the courage comes to speak my next few words. “You're certainly a strange-looking fellow.”
The beast sighs and sags, returning to his hiding place behind the chair. It is wearing a red cape, fastened around its neck with a clasp. What kind of beast wears clothing?
The blue eye spies me from the hole.
“I've had worse said,” it returns.
A sudden squeak escapes me, and I knock back into the wall, clasping my hand to my mouth. I slide to the floor, spitting out curses and taking fitful snatches of air.
“You... you can talk!”
“Quite well, so I'm told.”
“You can talk! You're talking!”
“Yes.”
“But... but... but...” as I stumble on my buts, it occurs to me that stranger things have happened in past... hour? I have lost track of time. “What are you?” I ask. “What... what is this place? Where am I? Who are you?”
The Beast sighs. “I am... only what you see,” he says. His voice is deep, and rumbles like the thunder still racing across the skies. “As for this place... it is hard to describe. It is a hidden place, a place of... of a power all but faded. It appears in your world but twice a year, and then vanishes into the ether.”
“I was in the field,” I mutter. “I was... in the woods, and then I saw this place, over the stream... You can't... you can't move a castle.”
“And you cannot make a beast speak, yet here I am.”
“This... this isn't possible! This is the sort of things from... from stories.” I had spent all of my life with head half in the clouds, half in-between the pages of the books I devoured, and for many of those years, I believed I believed in the tales they told. It was only now, it this moment, I realise I was wrong. I never believed, not truly.
“Stories,” the Beast replies, “must come from somewhere.”
This is too much. I sink my head into my hands and breathe deeply. In, out, in, out. I try to count, steady the heart that is beating frantically against my chest. I pinch my temples, feel the short, sharp pain. I am awake. I am not dreaming.
“I'd like to go home now,” I say eventually, my voice a faint whisper.
The Beast lowers himself to the ground, and shrinks back into the shadows over by the empty fireplace. “I am so sorry,” he says. “Truly, I am. For your sake. You will not be able to return tonight.”
“What?” My insides freeze. No, no, no... “Why not?”
“The portal,” his voice is low. “The gateway between my world and yours. It has shut.”
“When... when will it open again?” I try to keep my voice steady, but I am afraid of his answer. I am afraid because I already know.
“The portal opens but twice a year,” he replies, and fixes me with his cool, blue eyes. “I am sorry.”
“No!” I shout. “No, you're wrong!”
A sudden panic grips me. For a moment, I stare at him, waiting for him to change his words, make them not true. I cannot be stuck here. I will not be.
His expression -what little I can discern from it- does not waver, and the truth hits me like a punch to the gut.
“No,” I say numbly. “No!”
I turn on my heels and flee the room, paying
no heed to whatever he calls after me. I shriek at him, yell at him to leave me alone. He doesn't. I can hear him behind me as I race back down the stairs and out into the full-blown storm.
Rain pummels my face, sharp winds pulling at my clothes and hair. I have to wrestle with my skirts just to get down the steps. The sound is enormous. Grey clouds arch like waves, the thunder roars. The landscape is shrouded in dark, moving haze. I can see so little, but I don't care. This place will not keep me.
I find myself in the empty field and keep on running. Undergrowth snaps at my heels. Overhead, there is a flash of lighting. The drums of thunder follow, so strong that the earth beneath me shudders and convulses.
I race further into the field. The skies are so dark it feels almost like night. The rain sears into my skin, the cold burns my throat. I want to scream, but there's no breath left in me.
Where am I?
Lightning strikes the ground a few paces ahead. I let out a soundless shriek, toppling into a nearby bramble patch. I fight against the thorns, shredding my fingers, but it strikes again before I can move, closing it on me like some kind of predator.
Can lightning do this?
The castle has been swallowed up by blackness, but so has everything else. I can't see anything. No path, no escape, no way out. I spin around hopelessly, searching for something to guide me, pull me out. A part of me expects Freedom to appear out of nowhere and pull me to safety, but another, larger part of me knows, with absolutely certainty, that he is not coming. No one is.
I call out his name, anyway. I call for Papa, and Honour, and Hope, and Beau... and I even call for Mama. Praying that she will take me.
The clouds clash overheard, the lightning cracks, the thunder booms, and for a minute, I think I might be dying. My breath stills, my eyes drift, and all thoughts seem to dribble away.
Chapter Two: The Beast
It is dark when I wake. All is quiet now, all still. I am warm and clean and dry.
I sit up slowly, rubbing my face. My skin feels rubbery, as if it belongs to someone else. For a moment, I think I might be sick. I feel dizzy, lost, hazy. I must be at home. Honour has swaddled me up in blankets, tucked me in bed-
But this bed is too cold to be mine, and when the feeling returns to my skin, I feel silk.
This isn't real. This isn't happening. I roll onto my right, reaching out a hand, searching for Hope. Her bed has been but a few inches from mine all of her life.
But no hand clutches mine, only air.
I'm still in the castle.
I lie back and breathe, carefully, counting every breath, hoping that this will keep my mind from drifting. My hands have been neatly bandaged. I touch my fingers cautiously, but there's only a slight, fuzzy pain underneath the gauze.
As my eyes adjust, little portions of the room open up. I am lying in a large, four-poster bed, under a soft quilt and layers of silk, but they smell a little musty, as if they have lain dormant for a long time. Thick rugs carpet the floor, rich drapes hang over the windows. It is clearly an elegant, sumptuous place, but it all looks grey and lifeless.
I am not used to the silence. My whole life, I have shared a room with my sisters. The night is always filled with the sounds of breathing, of other people shuffling under their covers. I have always liked the rare few moments of the day when I could be alone in my bedroom, curled up behind the curtains, lost in a book. I have always liked solitude.
Until now, that is. This solitude is unnatural in its endlessness, its completeness. Silence engulfs me.
My feet find their way into a pair of soft slippers. I stand up and go to open the curtains. Dawn, or something like it, has started to break over the far-off mountains, illuminating the same pale, barren garden I walked through the day before.
Those are my mountains, I realise. They are the same mountains I can see from my room back home. How can it be that I cannot reach them?
Suddenly, a chill prickles across my skin. I move over towards the fireplace and pull a new log into the grate. Tiny, faint embers from last night's fire remain. I prod at them with the poker, expecting the job of re-lighting it to take some time, but there is a sharp click and all at once there is a roaring fire before me.
I jump back.
Really, I think, a fire that makes itself shouldn't be too much of a surprise, seeing as I appear to have stumbled into some kind of abandoned fairy realm, inhabited by a mysterious talking beast. A self-maintaining fire should be easy magic compared to that.
The Beast.
Was he the one who brought me up here, bandaged my hands, removed my wet clothes? His paws did not look capable of such deft actions, yet I was sure he was alone here. Who else could have done such a thing?
The pearl-faced clock on the mantelpiece chimes softly. Seven o'clock. People would be stirring at home by now, lighting fires, starting breakfast. Freedom would probably be stirring for another expedition into the forest.
Or would he be?
He had probably been up all night, scouring the forest in search of me, forming a party, organising a hunt. Papa would have gone with him. Honour would have stayed behind, comforting Beau and Hope, only letting her own fears show once Freedom and Charles returned and told her they had had no luck.
I can see Honour's face breaking, shattering like a piece of glass. I can see her falling into Papa's arms, and Freedom wrapping himself around both of them. They would have sobbed, and worried, and fallen into fitful sleep. My heart clenches at such a thought.
“I'm so sorry,” I say aloud, as if my voice can somehow travel where I cannot. I stare into the embers, wishing I could send a message from this hearth to theirs. I'm all right. Don't worry. I will be home. I'm safe.
Am I? I had not felt safe during that violent storm, the one that seemed to chase me like a cat did a mouse. I am trapped in this place, after all, trapped with only a monster for company, albeit a seemingly well-meaning one.
I am not sure I want to see him again. I would prefer to stay in this room and sleep away my troubles, sleep away the time I have to spend here. Had he really said the portal only opens twice a year? Was this place to be my home for the next six months?
I stare around my chamber, wishing away the gaudy, alien furnishings.
No, not my home. My prison.
I sit in the room as the weak sun rises, and the flames flicker and hum, the warmth never quite reaching me. It is a good hour before I move again. My clothes have disappeared somewhere, so I am dressed only in my undergarments and the thin pair of slippers. The dresser houses little but a small array of nightclothes and under things, but the wardrobe has three large, rather ridiculous gowns.
I have never been the sort to be vain, but these puffy dresses are hopelessly outdated; the sort of thing that would have been fashionable some twenty years ago, and they are all quite inappropriate. None of them match my mood. I just want something familiar, or plain, but that doesn't seem to be an option.
Finally, I pick the least offensive of the gowns and, with some difficulty, wrestle into it. It is a poor fit; impossible to lace properly on your own.
Luckily, my boots are sitting beside the fire. I must look quite the picture, with my unkempt hair, well-worn boots, and a fine gown, but I don't give it much thought. Even if I was ever the sort to care much for my appearance, there is no one here to see me.
A cold chill sweeps down the corridor as I step outside my door. Dim lights flicker into half-life, casting shadows along the walls. Portraits of long-ago people, tapestries of ancient times, landscapes of forgotten moments in history. All stare down at me.
The occupants of the paintings look strange. At first, I cannot put my finger on it, until I gaze upon one so unusual I at first take it for a fantasy landscape. It is a picnic between a large group of... creatures. There are small, stout wrinkled little men, tall, elegant women with sharp features, tiny creatures with wings or horns. Not human, no matter how delightful.
But the castle in the background is this
one.
At first, I take it just for something fanciful, imaginary, but after this one I notice the features of the others. So many of the subjects have wings, or unusual eyes or noses or ears. In fact, the more I look, the more I wonder if any of these people are human at all.
There are several ruined statues with missing arms or legs, some busts lying in scrambled heaps. The occasional painting marred by deep tears in the canvas. So many signs of a battle. But why was this place not plundered afterwards? And if, by some unlikely chance, both sides destroyed each other- where are the bodies? Dust, dirt, leaves, crumbled stone coat the floor- but not a single bloodstain, a hint of bone.
A shiver runs through me, and I quicken my pace. I half expect to come across some dusty skeleton, some faint, eerie remnant of life, but the place is utterly deserted- no signs of life past or present.
I reach the entrance of the castle. Light streams in through the painted glass, casting the first colour I have really seen on the hard marble floors. Not really knowing where I am going, I turn left down another short corridor, and find myself in an armoury. It is well-stocked, but neglected. Back in the village, General Beaumont was known to have the best armoury for miles around, yet his collection pales in comparison to this. There must be thousands of weapons; bows, blades, spears, clubs... no muskets though, and a great portion of the cache is unfamiliar to me. There are instruments I cannot name, can barely describe... and even those I know seem different somehow. The detail on some of the blades is as exquisite as it is alien.
I pluck one of the crossbows from the wall, and Freedom's voice swells in my ear. He compliments the weight, the feel, the design, and criticises the condition, the badly-maintained string. The voice grows so loud that I abandon the weapon, slamming it back into the bracket, and seize a sword instead.
It is far lighter than any one of General Beaumont's swords that he used to let me hold, much lighter than any of Freedom's practise swords. Freedom never let me use his real one, but for years we would chase each other round the garden with weighty wooden blades, until Beau was old enough to hold one and Freedom decided he didn't need a brother substitute any more.
The Rose and the Thorn Page 2
