by C. E. Murphy
"I never wanted children, unless I could beget one on you. Your son is as close as I can have to that, but he's your son. I was never more than a caretaker to him." Her stroking fingers made their way down my belly and thighs, until I, Amber, came to myself shuddering with pleasure and leaning on a windowsill for support.
Night had fallen and the rain had stopped while I'd been tangled in Irindala's…dreams. I had no better word for what they were. My dreams, perhaps, and her memories, but whichever they were, they'd stolen the day away from me. Flushed, I went to wash before dinner, and to my surprise, then found the dining hall empty. I had no sense of the time at all, save that I was hungry, but the Beast had always waited for me before. I ate a little, then, remembering it, went to the observatory to see if the height of the moon might tell me if I'd lost more than the day, but also half the night as well.
I knew before I climbed the observatory's narrow stairs that the Beast was up there: the air's weight changed when he was nearby, and in daylight or at dinner I had become largely accustomed to it. It felt different at night, without the familiar trappings, and I noticed it more clearly. Nor did it fade as I entered the observatory. It was late indeed, the stars so far along in their nightly wheel that morning had to be closer than dusk. The Beast was a shadow on the floor. I barely had time to realize he was lying on his back, belly exposed to the sky like a giant dog, before he flipped himself over and rose to his feet with inhuman speed. "Amber?"
"Did I wake you?" Amusement colored my tone. I couldn't imagine him being caught in such an undignified position unless he hadn't heard or smelled me coming, and I doubted he would fail to do either of those things unless he had been asleep.
He sounded gruffly embarrassed. "Yes."
"Sorry." I sat on one of the cushioned benches, looking up at the stars. "Do you often sleep up here?"
"Often enough," he said guardedly. "I find the distance from the gardens comforting."
"The gardens," I echoed, faintly surprised. "It's the forest that seems threatening, to me."
"And yet it was the roses that imprisoned you here."
I glanced at him, an eyebrow arched. "The roses?"
"The edict that they must not be picked is not mine. I only enforce it."
"With great enthusiasm. Does this place—does it drag you into visions, too? Memories so real it's like you're living them yourself?"
The Beast bared his teeth suddenly, a brief and ferocious gesture. My gut tightened, but his gaze turned away; apparently the anger he'd shown wasn't for me. "No. Not for a long time."
"That's your answer to everything!"
"That is my experience." He sat on the bench opposite me, as well away from me as he could in the confines of the observatory. I thought he was trying not to trap me, which would have been comforting if he hadn't continued in a low growl. "This place, this palace…it rescues stories. It's trying to determine how you fit into its story. Where you belong. What role you play."
I drew my knees up, looking to the stars again. "What role do I play?"
The Beast shook his head. "I don't know. I'm an old part of its story, now. The captive in the castle. But there is rarely more than one captive in the old tales, Amber, so by rights, you must play some other role. It's trying on its memories, the stories that it knows, to see if any of them fit you."
"Why is it telling me Queen Irindala's story?"
A truly massive sound of surprise erupted from the Beast's chest. "Irindala was my mother."
I made an incredulous sound almost as large. "But you're a Beast! Irindala only had one child, the son who was los—oh. Oh." I stared across the darkness at him, dumbfounded. "I knew you weren't always a Beast. How stupid of me."
"Oh yes." The Beast shifted on the bench, folding himself until he lay like an enormous cat, his front feet folded neatly over one another, and looked toward me levelly. "How stupid of you to not immediately realize that the monster who took you captive was in fact the queen's son who disappeared over a century ago. Whatever could you have been thinking."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
He took a breath that expanded his apparent size by half, and exhaled it in something near a growl. "Would you have believed me?"
I spread my hands, trying to encompass everything: the palace that shouldn't be there, the Beast lying before me, the servants who were invisible but extraordinarily good at procuring whatever might be desired at a moment's notice, and said, "Probably."
The Beast chuffed, the deep sound I was coming to recognize as his laughter, and dipped his head in a nod. "Perhaps you would have. I think it didn't occur to me. People rarely find their way here, and I encounter few of those who do. Much of my time is spent…" He moved a paw as a cat might twitch its tail, or a human wave a hand, as if trying to say something words didn't easily convey.
"As a Beast?" I ventured. "Without thought, without…time?"
"It was sheer fortune that I wore trousers when I first saw you," he said, as if that supported my theory. I supposed it did, at that, but it made me smile anyway. "I hadn't bothered with any kind of…humanity…for—" His gaze lifted suddenly and I said it for him, amused: "A long time."
"Quite a long time indeed," he agreed. "If I'd been more in practice I might have been less…"
"Terrifying," I offered. "Loud. Monstrous. Rabid. Enrag—"
"That," the Beast said prissily, "is quite enough. But yes. All I knew was that someone had picked a rose, and I was furious. It took me most of the way to the garden to remember how to use words."
"You succeeded admirably, in the end. Loudly. Viciously. Frighteningly. But admirably."
He gave me a look that really did remind me wonderfully of Pearl. "Must you?"
"I'm beginning to think I must. How did you end up a Beast?"
"Ah," he said, softly. "That I can't tell you."
"You don't know?"
"I can't tell you. Like the picking of a rose, like the—" He stopped himself suddenly, then began again. "There are things that must and must not be done, here. Telling the entirety of my story is one of them."
"But why?"
"Amber. I am a Beast in an enchanted castle in a forest. What other answer do you expect?"
"Well, there must be some way to tell me."
He sighed. "The enchantment will tell you, if you wander the deeper parts of the palace unguarded. The main hall, the dining room and kitchen, our bedrooms, they're safe enough, but beyond them…" His tremendous shoulders rolled in a shrug. "You should know, though, Amber…the magic will want to make you a part of its story. To make you fit into the roles it already knows. And it will try to kill you, if it fails."
"Stars of earth and fire," I said as mildly as I could. "Has that happened often?"
The Beast rose, a dark and dangerous shadow against the starlight. "More than once."
He paced toward the stairs, clearly intending to leave me alone with the weight of that information. I waited until distance had nearly taken him, then said, "Beast. We missed dinner together, so you had better ask me now. Because you have to, don't you? It's one of those musts."
He turned his head back, though we could never make eye contact in the darkness. "Amber, will you sleep with me?"
"What would happen if I said yes?"
"I don't exactly know."
"So no one ever has."
His low laugh rolled across the room toward me. "No. No one ever has. The last person I was obliged to ask was perhaps the most beautiful person I have ever laid eyes upon. Perfect, a pure paragon. He…did not take the request well."
I murmured, "Oh dear," and then more clearly, but measuredly, wondering what the cost of either answer would be, said, "No, Beast, I won't sleep with you."
He bowed his head. "I thought not. Good night, Amber."
I said, "Good night, Beast," and he left me alone in the dark.
I stayed in my room most of the next day, working on perfumes and—I knew this perfectly well—avoiding any possibil
ity of the enchantment drawing me down a hallway and trying to fit me into a predestined place. I emerged for dinner, which the Beast, very cautiously, took with me. I accused him of having been practicing eating like a civilized person, and he allowed that he may have been, and the evening passed in a strangely pleasant manner, even up unto the asking and answering of the ritual question. I didn't press him for any further details about the castle, the enchantment, or the paragon who had not cared to be propositioned by a Beast, and retired to bed early.
Dawn seemed to come even earlier, tenacious golden glow prying through my eyelids. I pulled a pillow over my head, determined to sleep a little longer, but heard someone repeating my name with increasing urgency. It wasn't the Beast, so I thought I had to be dreaming, as the servants had no audible voices and there was no one else to talk to. Finally, though, my oldest sister's voice sharpened unmistakably, and I bolted out of bed to her snapped, "Amber!"
Sunrise was coming from my vanity. Not reflected in it, but coming from it: the room's increasing brilliance shone from mirror's amber casing, and the mirror itself had taken on a silvery light of its own. I lurched to it, hardly awake enough to focus. My own tangle-haired reflection was barely visible in it, but Pearl, with her white hair cut short again so it was a cap of flyaway curls, looked out at me as though she sat five steps away, not across half an enchanted forest. "Oh, stars of heaven and earth, there you are. I've been hissing at you for half an hour."
"Pearl?" I sat heavily on my vanity stool, too thick-headed to comprehend what I saw. "Pearl, is that really you?"
"Of course it is. Keep your voice down. The family are all sleeping."
"What are you…how are you…?"
"I'm a witch, and I'm fine, thank you." Her familiar pedantry made me laugh, but I put my head down on the vanity table suddenly, overwhelmed with seeing her and not wanting to shed tears. Her voice softened unexpectedly. "We're all right, Amber. Are you?" I lifted a hand, trying to indicate a yes, and she went on, still more gently than I expected from my austere older sister. "That Beast paid well for you. The pearl he sent is a focus. I knew it had power the moment I touched it, but it's taken me this long to understand it well enough to contact you. I couldn't do it without the full moon. The ocean bends to the moon's pull, and the pearl is a prize of the sea. Its power waxes and wanes, but even in the dark of the moon it's a focus like nothing I've ever imagined."
By then I'd recovered myself enough to raise my head again, and even to smile at Pearl's enthusiasm. "Witchery suits you."
A pale gleam came into her eyes. "With a little more time, I think I can cast an enchantment to free you, Amber. Can you hold on there a little while longer?"
"Yes, but I don't think you can—" I cut myself off, remembering the Beast's inability to directly affect his fate, but his confidence that Pearl's magic would have an indirect effect. My sister, pale eyebrows elevated, waited for me to finish, and I spoke more slowly, trying to think out what the Beast had implied. "He knew you would discover its magic. He had faith in you."
"In me? How could he—" She stopped herself just as I had, muttering, "Obviously he knew us all, or he'd have never sent these particular jewels and stones. Maman has worn hers since the day it arrived, just over her heart. What does he expect me to do?"
"I don't know. The enchantment here is dreadfully powerful, Pearl. Whatever you do, don't rush it."
"Me." Pearl smiled faintly. "When have I ever rushed anything, Amber?"
"Never. Oh, Pearl, it's so good to see you. How are the boys? How is Glover? Has Opal noticed him yet? Is Father all right? I miss you all so much." A tightness constricted my chest, crushing further questions a way.
A suspicious glimmer shone in Pearl's eyes, but she wouldn't lift a finger to dash tears away. "The boys are strong and healthy. Jasper has grown four inches since you've seen him, Amber, and Flint's voice is changing. Jet has an opinion on everything and gets elbow deep in dirt whenever he has the chance. Opal was well on the way to noticing Glover before Father returned without you. She's been…well, you know how Maman often is? Faded? Opal has become more like that than I'm happy with, and even Daniel can't bring her out of it."
"Daniel?"
"Daniel Glo—oh. Glover. His forename is Daniel." Pearl, for the first time in her life that I could recall, looked vaguely ashamed. "I never knew, until I heard Opal use it. Now we all call him Daniel."
"It's a fine name. And Father?"
Pearl's voice lowered. "Worse than Opal. He can't forgive himself for leaving you there, although the way he tells the tale, I'm not certain he had much choice."
"He didn't. Pearl, can you waken him? So he can see that I'm all right?"
"I don't know if more than one of us can use the pearl. You told him!" she said, suddenly more acerbic and more herself. "You told him I was a witch."
"It came up," I said, hardly remembering how. "Has he taken it all right?"
"He hasn't fought me on it, if that's what you mean. He's taken nothing well since he came home, though. He feels guilty."
"Wake him up," I said firmly. "He needs to see I'm all right."
"Are you? The Beast sounded…" Pearl faltered, obviously uncertain what words would sufficiently describe my captor.
I nodded. "And he is. But he's more than that, and I don't even understand all of it yet myself. I'll be all right, Pearl, I swear it. But please, let Father see that I am. At least let us try."
She nodded and stood, climbing the stairs without releasing the pearl. I heard her whisper his name, and could see from how my field of vision moved that she shook him. He awakened with a concerned grunt, and I heard explanatory murmurs before she sat beside him on the edge of the bed, and his face, with hers in the periphery, swam into focus. He had aged visibly, more than just the old careful dye job having fully grown out. He looked thinner, paler, in a way the moonlight didn't account for. "Amber?"
"It's me, Father. I'm all right." Tears spilled over my smile. "I'm fine. Pearl says you've been worried. You don't have to worry, Papa. The Beast and I are getting on reasonably well, and I'm fine."
"How can you get along well with that monster?" His hoarse voice cracked, tears shimmering in his eyes.
"He's better tempered when someone hasn't just stolen his roses." I tried to loosen the tightness in my chest with a deep breath, and failed. "Is it still alive?"
"It's putting out roots," Father said bitterly. "Opal tends it, and Daniel says it should go in the ground soon. Your mother won't touch it, and neither will I."
"Perhaps it will thrive as long as I do," I said, then regretted it as Father's face pinched. "I intend to thrive a long time, Father. The Beast makes no demands of me. We usually dine together."
"How can that thing eat in a civilized manner?"
I breathed, "Awkwardly," and thought better of trying to offer further solace. "I'm so glad to see you, Father. I wish I could see all of you."
"Next time," Pearl promised. "At the next full moon. We'll have the whole family awake, now that we know it works."
"It will give me something to look forward to," I promised. "Tell everyone I love them, please?"
"We will." Their image blurred, and Pearl cast a sharp look toward the window. "There are clouds coming in. They may affect the spell. If it's cloudy the next full moon, Amber—"
"I'll wait for all three nights of it," I said. "And if we miss that one, there will always be another. I love you. I love you!" The last words were cried as murkiness swept my mirror, and I heard nothing in response. I buried my face in my hands, dragging great gasping breaths, and only dared lift my head again when I was sure I had conquered tears.
The reflection in my mirror showed a woman, not just the girl I had been when Father and I had left the hunting lodge together three months ago. I didn't know exactly what the changes were: some roundness lost from my cheeks, perhaps, and a hollowness in my throat that hadn't been there before. Mostly, though, I thought it was my eyes. In the moonlight, their h
azel tint took on a greener shade, though by daylight, with the mirror's amber frame, I thought they looked uncomfortably yellow. Like a beast's eyes, though not like the Beast's, whose beady gaze was as brown as any boar's. I preferred the green, even if there seemed to be a new understanding of sorrow in my reflection. I rose and found a robe, drawing it around myself as I went to the room's balcony.
Two days' worth of rain had stopped sometime while I slept, and though clouds had come to obscure Pearl's moon, here the night was bright. The forest had a malevolent, creeping sense to it beneath the blue night, though I doubted our grounds had diminished any.
Our. A moment's defense of the Beast to my father, and suddenly the palace was ours, not his. But then, we were its only two denizens, and unless Pearl's magic worked some rare witchery indeed, I didn't expect to be going anywhere any time soon. So ours it would be, if only in my thoughts. I brushed water from a balcony seat and settled into it, drawing my feet up off the cold floor.
Pearl was not the person in my family I would have imagined as the savior of a captive in a castle. Jasper, of all of us, seemed most suited to the role: I could see him, even at seven years old, brandishing a blade and fighting his way through brambles to rescue a lost soul. But the lot had fallen to Pearl, whose arrogance was at least matched by her intelligence; if we had to depend on someone to rescue us, there were worse choices. Particularly since Pearl would take failure as a personal affront, and the last time she'd been thwarted, with Solindra Nare, it had wakened in her a witchery none of us had dreamed slumbered within. If she was stymied in her first attempt at freeing me, I half expected her to take on the guise of a faery queen, and wreak havoc on the forest and palace alike.
Comforted by the thought, I drifted, half asleep beneath the moon, until my legs relaxed enough that my feet fell down and hit the cold floor, and I yelped and ran for bed.
