The Beast Is an Animal

by Peternelle van Arsdale

  Just as they arrived at Mother and Father’s house—Alys had already decided it was her house no longer, if she’d ever thought it was—Father turned to her. “Child, I’m more sorry for that than I can say. But someday I’m hoping you’ll realize that punishing you was for your own good. The sooner you learn not to follow your whims, the better for you. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying it’s the way it is. Do you understand me, Alys?”

  “Ay,” Alys said. Once inside, Father told Mother what had happened, and Mother offered to put a salve on Alys’s arms. Alys refused.

  Father protested as Alys turned to go into her room and closed the door behind her. Mother only said, “Leave her be.”

  Alys sat in her room for a while. There was nothing in there but her narrow bed, a table beside it, and some hooks on the wall for her few articles of clothing. She’d had no plan when she came in here, and now she felt bored and closed up. This was where she’d have to spend all night alone, and she didn’t want to be stuck in here now. But she also hadn’t wanted to be out there. With them. Alys could run out easily enough, leave Mother and Father calling behind her. But Alys had learned a great deal about getting along in the short time since she’d been in Defaid, and she knew the best way to have some unhindered time to herself was to offer to do a chore that took her away from home. She got up and went into the kitchen.

  Mother was shelling peas, and Father looked up from his tea.

  “Mother, is there anything you need from the fforest edge? I’ll go gather it for you.”

  Mother turned, and she looked Alys full in the face in a searching, examining way. Alys looked away. “Ay child,” Mother said. “There is. I could use some horsetail and slippery elm. Take a basket and your sharp knife.”

  And with that, Alys was out and free.

  She walked first to the nearest stand of elms. This took her away from the village eyes—the shepherds with their flocks and the women in their gardens and the children at their play. Alys pulled out her knife and sliced a neat stack of strips. Slippery elm, Mother had taught her, was for colds and sore throats. Alys felt capable using the knife, comfortable carrying it. This was something Mam would never have let her do.

  Thinking that, Alys felt guilty for a moment. Instead of the terrible image that so often came to her, she remembered instead Mam’s soft curves and the way she kissed Alys on the forehead before bed. Then she forced herself to think about something else. In its own way that memory was just as painful as the other.

  Horsetail grew nearer to the fforest, so Alys walked on to where the woods began. As Alys drew closer to the green wall of trees, the air cooled and dampened. In the shade along the fforest’s edges, the sounds of scythes slicing through grain and horses’ hooves off in the distance grew muffled, and with her back to the fields, Alys could almost believe that she was alone in all of Byd.

  The fforest was deep and old. Trees grew tall and thick, their branches intertwining far overhead. Moss and fern carpeted the exposed roots, mounds of rock, rotting stumps, and fallen trees. The air was fog, and moisture dripped and trickled from fronds and leaves. Alys heard scurrying and slithering, fluttering and clacking.

  All this Alys noticed from the fforest’s edge. Beyond this border, she was forbidden to go without Mother. Whatever foraging she did had to be done right here, in full view of the cultivated fields. She could walk along the fforest’s edge, farther and farther away from the village as she did now. But Mother had told her that she should never step both feet inside when she was alone.

  Except that Alys did. She always did when Mother sent her foraging. Although Alys was far from the village now and hadn’t seen anyone for some time, she glanced to her right every now and then, to be sure that no one was near, that no one noticed the mouse-gray girl blending in with the tree trunks.

  Then into the fforest she went.

  She dug her fingers into the mossy crevices of trees as she passed deeper and deeper into the fforest, stepping over branches and trickling springs. Mist veiled her hair and face and her clothes grew damp and heavy. She walked this way for some time, longer than she should have. There was no sun overhead to point her in the right direction, only the green and gray cover of leaves and fog. She could wander a bit to the right or left and find herself hopelessly turned around. But Alys wasn’t afraid of getting lost.

  Alys felt only relief. Relief to be away from the black-and-white Elders and their black-and-white wives. And relief to be away from the eyes—all the eyes staring at her, the girl who was awake when everyone else lay dead or sleeping. The adults tried to be secretive about it. But the Defaid children didn’t try—when they caught sight of Alys they pointed and gaped openly until their parents dragged them away. She’d heard the town gossips whisper behind her back: There she is, the one who was awake when the soul eaters came. The one who says she never saw anything. I don’t believe her. Do you?

  Alys wasn’t sure which made her more uncomfortable—the pointing of the Defaiders, or the weird sort of awe shown her by the Gwenith children. They looked at her like she was special. Like she knew something they didn’t—something important that might help them understand what had happened to their parents. It made Alys angry at the children sometimes, because she was just like them, wasn’t she? She’d lost her parents the same as they had. And she was only seven. What did she know? But then, of course, that was all a lie she told herself and them, just to help her carry on the pretense of being good. Because she did know something about that terrible night, and all the time—waking, eating, washing, working—she felt this difference weighing on her. All the time she regretted having gotten out of bed that night. If she hadn’t been so disobedient, then she would be just like the other children of Gwenith. Just as orphaned as they were, but at least not wicked. If I’m special at all, Alys told herself, it’s because there’s something terribly wrong with me.

  Alys kept walking.

  The Elders said the fforest was full of evil things, creatures of The Beast. Having the trees all around her, their branches like arms, Alys could think only of the tree girls—the soul eaters—who’d spoken to her and glided past her that night. She looked around her. It occurred to her suddenly that they could be nearby, or just a little deeper, a little farther. Maybe today they would find her again—or she would find them. This should have made Alys quake and run. And yet Alys was drawn to them with a fascination that frightened her. Perhaps that was proof enough she was bad. But she felt seeing them again might tell her what kind of a child she was once and for all. Mam had told her about the dunking test for witches. If the accused drowned, then she was good. If she floated, then she was a witch. Alys thought it might be the same for her. If she met the soul eaters again and they killed her, then she’d know she was good like Mam and Dad. If they didn’t kill her, then she was bad. It would be terrible to be bad. But at least she’d know. If she was bad, she couldn’t go live with the travelers, even if they’d have her. Which they wouldn’t. Not if they knew. So maybe instead of living in the Lakes, she’d find a cave in the mountains. Build herself fires at night and live on berries and mushrooms. She pictured herself looking like the tree women, living in her cave. Maybe her eyes would grow large and bright like theirs.

  At this thought, a tickle of apprehension made her scalp tingle. Perhaps she wasn’t ready to live in a cave. Not quite yet.

  Alys’s heart beat just a bit faster. It was time to turn back, she told herself. Another day she would return here. Yes. Some other day.

  Her feet slowed almost to a pause, then, just ahead, she saw a pale clump amid all the mossy green—a bloom of fat mushrooms, enough to fill her basket to the top. They looked so homey and welcoming. So much like something a good girl would pick. And though she was still angry with Mother and Father, she knew they would like the mushrooms. Alys hopped over branches and sank to her knees, snipping off the mushrooms with her knife.

  What are you?

  Alys sat straight up, then scram
bled to her feet. A voice was in her head, but it wasn’t her voice.

  What are you?

  She turned around, dizzy. The voice was in her chest now, too. There was no one speaking to her though, nothing but green and trees all around her. Then she glimpsed a flash of movement. Alys could have run, but she no longer remembered which way to go. And the thing moving out there in the fforest was everywhere at once—first it was in front of her, then to her right, then behind her.

  “What are you?” Alys said to the air, to the fforest, to the thing moving among the trees.

  The moment the words left Alys’s lips, the thing stopped moving, and Alys realized she knew exactly where it was. Straight ahead of her there was a tree, and ten black claws wrapped around it like vines. As if sensing it had been spotted, the creature retracted its claws in a flash.

  Alys’s ears closed up to all but the sound of her own breathing.

  I’m looking for the girl. Are you the girl?

  “What girl?” Alys said.

  You’re her. You’re the girl.

  Then the creature came out. A creature she’d seen only once before—in the High Elder’s book. The Beast. There It stood on Its long, bird-like legs, Its featherless wings pulled in close to Its body. It was half again the height of the tallest grown man that Alys had ever seen. Its eyes—tiny, black, shiny, and sharp—were pinpoints above a short snout with gaping, sniffing nostrils. Pink lips pulled back over fangs, long and thin, the two longest extending well past Its chin. A black tongue jutted out between Its teeth, tasting the air.

  Alys resisted the urge to fall backward. She felt a clenching in her heart like a muscle that had been worked too hard and too long.

  The creature stepped toward her, lifting Its long bird legs over roots and fallen limbs, Its black-clawed feet clacking against rocks. When It was close enough to touch, It bent forward at the waist and pushed Its face directly into Alys’s own, so close that she could stare straight into the shiny black of Its eyes. She smelled earth and fur. The Beast’s nostrils dilated and contracted, sniffing her. Then Its long black tongue slipped between Its fangs and Alys felt It graze her left cheek.

  You’re the girl. Give me something. Give me that.

  It hinged backward at the waist, and then down again, now staring at the small, sharp knife that Alys held in her hand. It reached out one claw and tapped the knife on the blade. Tap, tap.

  Yes, that. Give me that.

  “Why do you want my knife?”

  It hinged up again, looked Alys in the eyes. Alys looked back, blinked. The creature blinked.

  To hold. To remember you by.

  Alys’s heart unclenched, the pain in her chest now gone. The hair on her arms lifted, and she felt warm blood flow to her skin. Hardly knowing why, but feeling that it was exactly the right thing to do, Alys gave the knife to The Beast, handle first.

  The creature grasped it fully. Then It tilted Its head, sniffed.

  Show me your arms.

  Again, hardly knowing what she was doing, but not at all hesitating, Alys rolled up her sleeves and showed The Beast her forearms, striped with red welts from the High Elder’s stick. Then It licked her.

  The moment The Beast’s tongue touched her skin, Alys was lost to herself. Or rather, she became—for a moment—something else. She became storm and weather. She wasn’t she or he. She was dirt and tree and root. She smelled the mineral wetness of rain on rock. No, she didn’t smell it. It wasn’t sensation. It was being. She was the rock. She was the rain.

  Then Alys came back to herself. She felt a chill across her skin as The Beast’s tongue ran up one arm and down the other. Its tongue felt like a thousand feathers softly landing on her. And like that, the stripes were gone.

  “Thank you,” Alys said. She was no longer the weather, but she sensed the weather in The Beast. She smelled the rain.

  You’ve seen them. The soul eaters.

  “Ay,” Alys said. “I have seen them.”

  You will see them again.

  Alys thought of what The Beast had first said to her—It had asked what she was. Not who she was. And The Beast had said that It was looking for her. “Why were you looking for me?” Alys said. “Why me?”

  The Beast cocked Its head. You are like them.

  This was her answer, then. The answer to the question that had buried deep inside of her the night the soul eaters passed her by. The question that had grown ever since, roots as deep as its branches were wide—that was now as big as the tree in back of Mother and Father’s house. Alys felt again the shiver that had passed through her when the soul eaters had touched her shoulders. She felt the thread connecting them, connecting her. The likeness to those creatures that had killed her parents.

  “Am I . . . am I evil then?”

  The Beast regarded her closely. Then It opened Its mouth as if to roar, but instead Alys felt wind. It blew through her and Alys felt stream and canyon and blade of grass and petal. Then The Beast crouched low and leapt. Alys heard scrambling and scraping and leaves slapping. She thought she saw a flash of movement in the trees overhead, but The Beast was gone.

  SEVEN

  That evening, Alys refused to let Mother look at her arms. There could be no explaining their smooth, unmarked whiteness.

  Mother shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She gave Alys some salve and let her go to bed without helping with the dishes.

  As Alys lay sleepless in her bed, she thought of nothing but The Beast. She recalled the sensation of weather. Of being weather. Was that evil? Was it unnatural? But what could be more natural than wind? Alys felt it blowing through her, felt herself spin with it.

  Hours had passed but she was no closer to sleep when she heard a light tap at her door. Mother opened it, holding an oil lamp. “Wake up, child. I need your help.”

  Alys dressed quickly and emerged to find Mother already wrapped in her shawl and standing by the door with the lamp in one hand and a basket in the other. “Come.”

  The village was dark and quiet, and Alys knew without being told which house they were headed toward. It would be the only one with lamps lit, the only one where sickness kept everyone awake. As a midwife, Mother was often called away in the middle of the night. Alys would know this had happened because Mother looked grayer the following morning, the circles beneath her eyes more purple than lavender. This was the first time Mother had awakened Alys to come with her.

  The lit-up house belonged to the Pryces. Mary Pryce had given birth to a baby boy the day before. Mother hadn’t attended the birth. Mary’s mother had called the town’s other midwife instead. But now they wanted Mother. Mistress Pryce must be in a bad way. The villagers had their friendly loyalties to one midwife or another for routine complaints, but Father had said that when things looked grim, they always called Mother.

  The night was mild, but when Mother and Alys entered, the house was stifling. A fire blazed in the hearth and all the windows were shut tight. Alys began to sweat under her wool. Mother blew out her lamp and set it on the kitchen table where Brother Pryce was sitting. He was a plain-faced man with thin blond hair. He looked pale and frightened. Mary’s sister, who looked to be about Enid’s age, stood rocking the baby. He mewled and fretted.

  Mother took in the room with her sharp eyes. “Where’s Mary?”

  “Upstairs,” Brother Pryce said. His voice came out choked.

  “Our mother is with her,” the girl said.

  “The baby needs his mother. Sarah, give the baby to Alys. Then I want you to tamp down that fire and open a window.”

  Sarah hesitated, but Alys took the baby from her. He was small and heavy. Alys stared into his open brown-gray eyes and his tiny open mouth. She felt his confusion at this place he was thrust into. How hard and bright it was.

  “Mother said the windows must stay shut to keep the demons out,” Sarah said. She wrung her hands and looked at Brother Pryce. He looked at Mother, but said nothing. Alys sensed an empty space where his body was. As if he’d left a
wax figure of himself sitting here and the real him had gone elsewhere.

  Mother shook her head. “There are no demons here, child. Just do as I say. Alys, come with me.”

  Upstairs, there were two rooms and Mother led Alys toward the lamplit one. Here, too, a fire blazed and the windows were closed tight. Mother set down her basket and took the baby from Alys. She gave Alys a wordless look, which Alys understood without question. Alys tamped down the fire and opened a window. The fresh air was bliss in her face.

  Mother had told Alys there was a particular smell to death. Alys had been around enough dead and dying animals to know what she meant. There was a sweetness to the rot of death, like meat gone bad. But the smell in this room wasn’t death. It was stale breath and unwashed bodies.

  Mary lay against pillows, sweaty and flushed. Mother held the baby in one arm and pulled back Mary’s blankets with the other. She petted her like a child, making soothing noises in the back of her throat, almost like singing. “Sit up now, child. You’re going to feed this baby boy. She unlaced the top of Mary’s nightgown and felt her breast. “Ay, your milk’s come in, child. And your boy needs it. Come now.” The baby seemed to sense the nearness of milk and had grown frantic in his mewling. Then, as soon as Mother pressed the baby to Mary’s breast, there was silence. Mary weakly stroked her baby’s small head, and Alys tried not to stare. She wondered if Mary would live. Mother had told Alys that fever after birth was a bad sign. She hoped Mary wouldn’t die. It would be a shame for that baby not to have a mam. Often enough when the mam went, the babe soon followed.

  Mother turned to Mistress Jones, Mary’s mother. “Sister, you look spent. You leave this to me now. Go lie down. I won’t leave your daughter. Rest now.”

  Mistress Jones looked fit to fall over. But still she protested. Mary said to her mother, “It’s all right, Mam. I’m feeling better.” Alys didn’t believe Mary, but Mistress Jones wanted to, so she kissed her daughter’s forehead and ran a hand over her grandson. Then she left the room like a passing shadow.