Beauty could no longer remember how long she had lived in the Beast’s castle. It had been late winter when she came; she was sure of that, for it had been winter when her father died, and the earth had been only just thawed enough to lay his body in the ground when she had torn into the forest, still raw, still searching for she-knew-not-what. But here, in the castle and its gardens, time inched and flowed in turn, with little to distinguish day from day, season from season. Beauty was never able to remember the last time she had seen snow, or rain, or leaves budding on the branches of a tree. Sometimes she was not even sure there had been any winter since she first arrived. Beauty tried to tell herself it did not matter. She would not spend the rest of her life here, with the Beast as her shadowy watcher. Some day, she would escape the walls of his garden. She was only waiting to see the roses bloom again.
The first night in the castle, Beauty had still been hesitant, unable to understand the new walls binding her. And she was exhausted, from running and from grief. Her hands, she observed, were still floury from setting out the morning’s bread in the bakery. It seemed to her that her hands were not her own, that they belonged to another woman with another life.
With the dregs of her courage she pulled open the great doors at the castle’s entrance until the warped wood scraped against the stone floor. She felt the beat of her heart with every step as she crossed the great hall, and she tried not to jump at the thudding echoes created by the clack of her soles against the floor. The second door she opened was a bedchamber; Beauty no longer felt curious enough to explore, so she had drawn her cloak around her and laid down across the tattered sheets. She was asleep before she could even think of unlacing her boots.
For all her exhaustion, Beauty awoke sometime between midnight and dawn. She did not wake for a bad dream, or a loud noise, or a pressing need to relieve herself; she seemed to have woken on her own. She blinked her eyes and thought, for a moment, that she heard a sigh, but she could see nothing, and though she kept her head raised and her ears alert for nearly half an hour afterward, she heard nothing more.
Her second day in the castle, she stayed out-of-doors, in the garden, freezing as it was. The roses bloomed there even with snow on their petals, and though she did not know how they could stay alive as they did, they comforted her. If she cupped her hands around a blossom she could feel its warmth. By the end of the day her cheeks were flushed and not so pale. But Beauty had other reasons for keeping to the winter roses. In the garden, she knew she was alone; inside the castle she flinched at the swish of her own skirts, and strained her neck looking behind her, certain that something waited for her in the shadows.
The second night, too, she awoke. She did not hear a noise at first, and thought perhaps that she was only restless, thought that she had imagined the sigh from the night before. She was about to relax herself, ease her tensed muscles, when she heard a soft thump, and a scuttling across the floor. Beauty’s eyes did not close again that night, as she wondered what ghosts beside herself wandered the halls of the castle.
For her third night, Beauty was prepared. By this time she had dared to wander the castle a little, and a quick search of the room she began to think of as hers had turned up a cabinet filled with lumpy beeswax candles as well as a tarnished candle holder. When she awoke the third night, as she had known she would, she lit a candle with trembling hands, brandished it into the darkness, and beheld the Beast for the first time.
She did not gasp—she could not breathe. Her eyes would only catalog one small part of him at a time. The yellow-white of his fangs; his horns; the scraggled, matted patches of fur; the great iron cuffs around his arms, his neck; worst of all, the amber fire of his eyes in the candlelight. The Beast sighed, as he had on the first night, and murmured, “Belle,” as he stepped back into the darkness. He never called her anything else.
Beauty was sure there was something different about the Beast now. She could gaze at him without the hairs rising on the back of her neck and her arms, of course; that had been true for a long time. But something else had changed, too, she thought. His fur was not matted but soft and sleek, as if he had been grooming himself with that great pink tongue of his. Sometimes she wanted almost to stroke one hand across it, as if he were an overgrown dog, although the Beast did not much look like a dog. His features seemed borrowed from a dozen different animals, though he was, overall, something akin to a bear. Beauty had always had a fondness for bears.
Food was a problem at first. Beauty was the only inhabitant accustomed to using the kitchen. When she had settled in and started to think of further sustenance than what the wonder of the roses could give her, she began to explore the castle for provisions. At last she found a kitchen, tucked modestly in a far corner of the castle, and a pantry. Standing by the entrance she could see a sack of flour, at least, and dried fruits and root vegetables hanging from wooden rafters, and jars of various sizes, their contents unknown. A modest hoard at best, but it would do. Beauty was used to making do; for even though her father had baked the best bread in five villages—and so had she—he had never learned how to manage his money.
Within the hour a potage was bubbling over the hearth, and Beauty was warming her feet at a comfortable distance from the hot ash. The potage was simple; it was only leeks and parsnips and turnips in a distinctly watery broth, but she had found a little dried tarragon and rosemary to flavor it with, and that was sure to help. There was little Beauty did not know about herbs. Because her father had not turned over as much profit as he should have, she had taken matters into her own hands, began to learn healing-craft so she could earn a little extra in eggs and butter. The aroma of the potage was promising now. She leaned her head back, inhaled, and tried not to think about how fresh the vegetables were for a place that seemed so long abandoned.
To go with the humble potage, a puff of dough was slowly rising on the table behind her. Beauty was surer of the bread than the potage, though she was not used to baking it without the bakery’s oven. She had saved the last scrap of sourdough starter when she had fled her cottage for good. It had been sticky in her pocket, but she could not have left it behind; it was made from the dough her father had set aside from every batch of bread he had ever baked, every batch Beauty had learned to bake under his guidance. Now Beauty could be thankful that the bread, at least, would taste of home.
Afterward, food had a peculiar way of turning up when she needed it. When she had been in the castle some months, she began to long for something beyond the simple salt-and-flour loaves she baked every day. Something rich, she thought, like a brioche, but of course she had no fresh produce; the Beast was the only animal dwelling in the castle. But that afternoon she uncovered a square of soft new butter in the pantry and a basket of eggs in the kitchen, brown ones like she had always used in the bakery. Beauty had been famous once for her brioche, and she pulled off thick sections of it to eat with the onion soup she had made for her dinner.
But the miracle of the pantry was more than that: near-empty sacks seemed to refill themselves, and sometimes there was a pitcher of fresh milk, or a pat of soft, sweet chèvre, or even, every so often, fresh-skinned meat, usually venison. This last made Beauty wonder if the Beast hunted for her, brought her a part of his prize kills like a proud cat. She knew he hunted for his own meals, at least; she had seen him finish off half a rabbit in the garden once, from under the cover of a willow tree. She did not like to think of him hunting, leaping at a doe or buck with fangs fully bared. And she did not ask which farms and small villages the other stores came from, for then she would have had to tell him to stop.
Nor did Beauty ask how the gates of the castle opened for him, how they let him into the forest to track his prey, when they would not open for her.
It was the rose that had started it all. It had called to her as she stumbled through the forest, weary and weeping. But at least she had been alone by then. No one else would have dared venture into this forest, for there had long been stories of terrible ghosts and evil enchantments surrounding it. This was no concern of Beauty’s; she did not believe in ghosts, but she had been glad then for the superstitions of others. And yet if she had been a little more superstitious, a little more common and ordinary, she might not have needed to seek out the forest as her sanctuary.
Night was falling by the time Beauty neared the castle. She had not seen it then; she did not know it was there. She could not feel her hands or her nose, and she thought her tears, too, might begin to freeze. She rubbed at her eyes with clumsy, reddened fingers, and when she blinked she saw a bright spot against the unending whiteness between the coal-dark trees.
Almost without knowing what she was doing, Beauty moved closer, walking now with her shoulders back and her footing sure. The tracks of tears down her face dried in the harsh wind; she would not weep again. She was at the wall now, the wall she would never have seen if not for the crimson rose that dipped tantalizingly from its heights. The rose’s color changed to a deep yellow-gold in the center, as if it were lit by an inner fire. The petals, so fragile in the fresh snow, trembled in the wind. Beauty did not see it but her hand trembled, too, as she reached to pluck it from its vine. She had never had a garden at home. Flowers were not practical.
The rose seemed to dance on its vine; Beauty could not reach it, however she stretched her arm and balanced on her toes. Its fragrance wafted down to her and she made fists with her hands. She would have that rose; she would clasp its fire-brightness to her chest. From inside the walls, perhaps, she could pluck the vine on which it grew. She paced along the wall and came to the gate, a little further down from the cluster of rose-vines bearing a single blossom among them.
She stepped inside the grounds with hardly a thought for the castle before her. Beauty knew her purpose. She went back to where the rose grew—she thought she could see the tip of a red petal from over the wall, nodding in the wind. As she sliced the vine with her pocketknife she heard a sudden, solid sound behind her, and whipped around, afraid. There had been a finality to that sound. Rose in hand, Beauty ran to the gate, more frightened now than she would let herself admit.
The gate was shut. It had swung behind her just as she plucked the rose. However she might rail against its bars, pound with her fists and arms and feet, it would not open. And yet, after a little while, Beauty’s fear and anger ebbed. She was calm, even peaceful. Suddenly this place was the answer to her dilemma; she could no longer live in her village, with her father gone, so instead she would live here, in the heart of the forest where no other dared go. Beauty picked up the rose from where she had cast it aside. Its color had already dulled, and it did not seem the same rose that she had desired so strongly before. But she kept it nonetheless, put it later in a jug of water in her room. Though it had aged so quickly in that first hour, the rose afterwards continued to bloom, alive and intact. Even the Beast seemed perturbed by its strange longevity.
The snow melted away not long after Beauty came to the castle, and soon the garden was all in bloom. More roses grew to replace the one she had plucked from its place in colors of sunshine, apricot, blush, blood red, whiter than snow. All were beautiful, but none were quite like the fiery rose she had taken for herself.
The garden was mostly overgrown. When the weather grew warm Beauty spent days weeding until every muscle in her back cried out in protest and the skin on her knees became marked with the shape of the ground beneath her—but she had much to show for her pains to stop. The roses were the only flowers, excepting the mist of blossoms in the herb garden. There she found rosemary, chives, parsley, tarragon, lavender, marjoram, chervil. Her soups and roasts began to take on richer flavors. She even began to work a little rosemary into her daily bread dough, and half-regretted that she could not sell the result in her old bakery.
Further excavation in the garden unearthed fresh vegetables and fruits: leeks and parsnips; apple trees and redcurrants. Beauty was glad, for her stores had been running low, and the old vegetables had a strange aftertaste to them that she could not place—yet how old must they have been, in a castle guarded by a hulking carnivorous Beast?—Beauty did not like to let her thoughts linger on such things. Her life was simpler, better, if she kept her mind on baking, kept her hands coated in flour. Each day brought with it a new loaf of bread, she told herself, savory and soft enough to pull apart with her hands. If her bread turned out the way it should, then she had done well. She need not think beyond that.
Beauty felt foolish for not discovering the library earlier. She had been wary of exploring too much in the castle after she had first arrived here. Fear of disturbing the Beast, of even coming upon him unexpected, kept her restricted to the little passageway from her chamber to the kitchen, and the corridor to the great hall and the garden outside it. That, and a sense of shame. She did not know why the gates barred her from leaving, but she was more aware every day that she had invaded his space, planted herself in a room and a kitchen that did not belong to her.
She found the library on her own, during a rare rainy afternoon when she grew restless waiting for her dough to rise. Most of the castle’s rooms were disappointing: sparsely furnished with walls that seemed ready to crumble at any provocation. Beauty was about to retreat and see if her dough might be ready when she opened one last door at the end of a long corridor and found what she had been looking for all along: a room lined with tall shelves, with books bound in smooth, tight leather.
Beauty was deep within a battered translation of Ovid when the Beast entered. She had been smiling to herself and holding back tears; the words before her brought back the hushed tones of her mother’s voice lulling her to sleep with stories from the Metamorphoses, stories she had almost-but-not-quite forgotten in the intervening years. She started a little when she heard the Beast’s heavy breath behind her, then smiled and closed the book, one slender finger marking the page she had left.
“I did not know this castle had a library,” she said simply.
The Beast’s mouth twitched in his version of a smile. He did not like to bare his fangs to her. “It is the only room of any value,” he rumbled. “Except perhaps for the kitchen. The books seem to have been left here by…previous occupants; I do not know. It is a good collection, if outdated. I regret I did not tell you of this room myself, but I was not certain if you liked to read, or if you knew how.”
“My mother taught me how. She was higher-born than my father was, and accustomed to books. She used to tell me stories, when she was alive; she was fondest, I think, of romances and legends. She had a volume of Marie de France’s lais that I used to read over and over, while I was waiting for the bread to come out of the oven.” Beauty paused. For a moment her eyes were dark. “I left that book behind me, when I came here.” She looked at her lap, her hands twisting in her apron. Finally she added, “I am glad to be able to have something to read again.”
The Beast gave his smile again. “I am glad the books will have someone to read them now. I’m afraid I have fallen out of the habit of reading. My paws are ill-suited for turning pages.” Beauty wondered but did not ask how a Beast would learn to read, as she had never asked how a Beast might learn to speak. He displayed his wrists, his forepaws with their claws all protruding. “I have experimented with instruments to turn the pages for me, but that becomes tedious, more chore than pleasure.”
Beauty looked down again at her book. Then she met his eyes as she had never dared to before. “If you would like,” she began, “I could read to you. I would not mind.”
The Beast’s throat rumbled; after a moment Beauty realized he had laughed. “If you would care to spend so much time with a beast,” he said.
“I would,” Beauty said. “You are not so terrible, for a wild thing.” She swept the folds of her skirt to one side and patted the floor beside her. “Sit with me.”
Hesitantly, the Beast began to lower himself to all fours. He paced in a circle three times before sitting, at last, by her side. The fur of his coat almost brushed against the skin of her forearm. Beauty reached up one hand to readjust her cap before she began.
After a paragraph she halted and turned her head toward him. “Beast,” she said, “Is it all right that I am here? That I have taken up residence? I never meant to be an intruder, but I think you know I cannot leave; I do not know why.” She stopped, unsure of what else she ought to say.
The Beast’s brow furrowed and he frowned. “No,” he said, “you do not know why, do you? I do not keep you here; I am a beast, not sorcerer. And you do not intrude; it is long since this castle has been anything but a sanctuary for those who need it.”
“A sanctuary? But what—” Beauty began to ask.
“I am afraid I cannot tell you that. More things are at work in this place than you know.”
Beauty was silent for a time. Once or twice she began to open her mouth, as if she would ask another question, but she did not. She pursed her lips in concentration, then relaxed them and breathed deep. Finally, she took up the book in her lap and began to read aloud once more, her voice growing clearer and stronger as she continued. As he listened, the Beast laid his snout across the top of her knee. Beauty pretended not to notice.
The readings became a regular event. One day, after they had gone through all the Metamorphoses and two volumes of Marguerite de Navarre, and Beauty had recited from memory all the D’Aulnoy contes defée she could remember from the book of them that had been a present from her father, years ago, one day the Beast was inexcusably late. Beauty read the titles on the shelves over and over again, waiting for him, unwilling to choose a book until he arrived. When she could no longer bear to wait she stormed to the kitchen and began to work her long-unattended dough with unusual vigor, the table rocking with each thump of her hands against the dough.
Beauty heard the Beast enter the kitchen as she set the loaf in the oven, but she did not turn.
“Beauty,” the Beast said, insistent. “Beauty.”
“You were late,” she responded, relenting a little. The Beast spread his great arms to either side. The iron cuffs around his wrists shifted downward and he grimaced.
“I apologize. I was not feeling well.”
This made Beauty rise from her seat. “Where do you hurt?” she demanded. But by then she had seen his face, and knew; he had a white strip of cloth tied clumsily around his head. Toothache.
Beauty almost laughed; she knew the Beast saw the mirth in her eyes because he hung his head down, embarrassed. “You should have come tome. I used to do healing work, besides the baker’s trade my father taught me. Sometimes the villagers called on me when the midwife was occupied. It brought in a little extra, and I liked to be of help.” Her eyes darkened again, though she kept her voice light.
“Come,” Beauty said. “Let me see that bandage. It is loose, you know, you have not tied it well.” The Beast did not move, and looked alarmed. Beauty grew impatient, and crossed the distance herself, taking up the linen herself and unknotting it. “You need a nimbler set of fingers than your own,” she continued, conversationally. “Is the pain just here?—yes?” She re-knotted the bandage precisely, just over the location of the aching tooth.
Then she saw his fur caught up a little in clumps and tufts where the bandage had displaced it, and she ran her fingers over them, untangling them, standing on her tiptoes for the places she could not quite reach, until the Beast remembered himself and knelt. Her fingers lingered over the fur of his face, his cheeks, stroking until she realized her breath was coming heavy and hard, and so was the Beast’s, and she pulled away.
“There,” she said, unnecessarily. “That should do.” Then, careful to direct her gaze to the room around her and not to the Beast before her, she stepped toward a shelf of spices and retrieved her jar of cloves.
“You might also try chewing one of these, to help ease the ache,” she said, proffering the jar. The Beast extracted one clove with the point of a claw and chewed, looking down at her as if she were a cat that had tried to meow and had barked instead. She took no notice. “In the future, Beast, you ought to rinse your mouth out with water each morning and night to keep your teeth in better health. You mustn’t neglect them; you want them to be strong enough for tearing meat from bone. And you might chew a little parsley in the mornings, too. There is plenty in the pantry and in the garden. A Beast need not have bad breath.” Beauty wrinkled her nose. “And yours is quite bad.”
The Beast chuckled. “I will take your advice, then, Beauty. I did not know you had skill with healing, but I might have guessed. You have secrets about you.” Beauty did not answer him. He held out an arm.” Shall we go to the library, then, and make up our lost appointment?”
Beauty stopped herself from putting her arm in his and shook her head.” Only after the bread is done, Beast. I cannot leave it unattended now. You must be patient.” The Beast sighed a deep, mocking sigh and placed both paws under his chin like a petulant child. Beauty laughed again and turned back to the oven.
Her name was not really Beauty, of course. What parents would saddle their child with such a mockery of a name, bound to curse her however pleasing she is to the eye when she is grown? That was only what the Beast had always called her, Belle, or Beauty. There was no one now to call her by her other name, and she has grown used to answering to Beauty by now. She wondered if the Beast, too, had another name besides what she called him, la Bête, the Beast. He might, she thought. He could talk, after all. Sometime he must have had parents, a family, and they could not all have been named for the beastly hybrids they were. But if he did have another name, he had not told her, as she had not told him her true name. It had been so long since she had lived in the world, so long since anyone had called her by it. She was named after her father’s mother; she remembered that. Her father used to sit her on his lap, when she was a child, and sing her name to her, and her name was…
It was…
She clasped both hands over her mouth. She inhaled. She bit down on her tongue. This did not help her.
She could not remember. She could not remember her own name.
One day Beauty exhausted herself in weeding the garden; she had been abandoning it to read extra chapters with the Beast, and she took a day to extract all the interlopers choking her precious herbs. The next day she woke up late, so late that the Beast had come to find her when he did not smell bread baking or a roast on the spit when she did not arrive in the library.
She was drawing her hair back to pin it under her white cap, as she always did, when he arrived at the door. When she saw the Beast, her grip loosened and her hair fell all around her in a cascade, chestnut against her ivory chemise.
The Beast drew in his breath. Beauty looked away. “You startled me,” she said.
The Beast took a moment before responding. “I had never seen your hair before. You keep it bound so. I was not even sure what color it was, though I admit I have tried to guess.”
Beauty grinned nervously and pointed to her eyebrows. “Brown,” she said. “You might have guessed it easily enough.”
The Beast shook his great head. Beauty found herself fascinated by the space between his horns, the softer, lighter patch of fur that grew there. She remembered herself when he spoke. “But it is not simply brown,” he insisted. “It is rich; there are a thousand other colors, and when the light from the window hits it, as now, it is illuminated, like a halo around you.”
It was Beauty’s turn to shake her head. “I am no saint. Now give me a moment to bind my hair and dress myself. Then we shall read together. We had finished the first part of the Roman de la Rose, hadn’t we? You liked it so far, Beast, didn’t you?” She chattered to fill the space in the room as she twisted her hair with both hands.
The Beast held out one paw, palm towards her. “You need not bind your hair. It is pretty the way it is.”
“It is impractical the way it is. I might scatter stray hairs in my cooking, and that is unappetizing.”
“There is no one but you to complain of such things.”
“It would fall over my face.”
“That is nothing; push it away again.”
“It will make me too warm when I work in the garden, under the sun.”
“It cannot be so suffocating as a full coat of fur.”
At this, Beauty had to smile, and she knew the Beast had won. She left her hair as it was, wavy and tangled and free, and she stayed in her chemise, and walked with the Beast to the library, leaning her head on his shoulder.
One day after they had walked in the garden together and watched the sun set, Beauty asked him a question.
“Beast, do you care for any food but raw meat? Bears will eat honey, after all, and dogs and goats and pigs will eat anything they are given. Are you so different?”
The Beast halted; Beauty had to take two steps back to face him again. He spoke. “I have killed animals for my meals for a long time, longer than I care to think about. I do not have to eat them raw, but it is easier. I do not know much about cooking, and I am ill-suited for it. I would only singe my coat standing by open flame or a hot oven.”
Beauty frowned. “How did there come to be food in the kitchen, when I first came here? I remember, I’m sure of it. You could not have been expecting me.” Her voice rose at the end, as if she were asking a question.
“No, Beauty. I never expected to have a companion here.”
“Stores of fruit and vegetables, even dried, do not keep so long.” Beauty’s voice rose more sharply. She stood in front of the Beast, blocking his way.
“The kitchen here was nearly cobwebbed over before you came. The pantry was empty. You know the truth of the matter, Beauty, as you know why the gates do not open, as you know why you do not seek to leave this place, though you tell yourself you are only waiting for the spring. The next spring, in a place with no seasons, no winter, no change. You know why you are here.”
Beauty closed her eyes in pain, unable to bear the weight of his words. He reached an arm toward her, too soon; she opened her eyes and saw his gargantuan paw, claws extended, the iron cuff tightened now and cutting into his flesh, and she cried out and turned from him. She fled to her room. The Beast did not try to follow.
It was not long after this, by Beauty’s estimation, when she woke up one morning with a new resolve. Carefully she combed her fingers through her hair and dressed. Her skirt was ragged now; she had no other. If she had cared more about clothing she might have wished that her empty wardrobe would fill itself as the pantry did, but whenever Beauty found a hole in her skirt she simply patched it with part of sheet from one of the long-unoccupied bedchambers.
She rapped three times on the Beast’s door. “I know you are awake,” she added, and stepped back. The Beast’s door swung outward and he padded out, a curious look in his eyes.
“You do not usually call on me,” he said.
Beauty was quiet for a moment. She had been trying to plan out what she would say, and he had interrupted her. “I know,” she said. “But I do not see why today cannot be different.” She raised her head.” Beast, I would like to cook something for you.” She flushed pink; the words sounded foolish now that she spoke them.
The Beast went very still. “I do not mind raw meat. It is what I am built for.” One paw shuffled back and forth on the floor. “But I would not mind a change, either.”
Beauty pivoted on one foot, facing down the corridor. “Then come with me to the kitchen.” She did not look behind her. She was nervous now, though she had been wanting to do this. She learned how to make good bread because she loved to watch her customers take their first bite, close their eyes, and smile. Those smiles, and the satisfaction they gave her, were what she missed most from her old life. She had no customers now, and her bakery was gone. But she had the Beast.
As she plied soft bread dough with her hands, Beauty kept up a chatter; if left to his own devices the Beast would be silent, and he would watch her hands, and if he did she might for the first time bake a bad loaf. Beauty was making a rich bread, not her usual; it was something she had been experimenting with however long ago in the bakery. She did not know what might tempt a Beast’s palate, but this bread, once she perfected it, would be her best. She was certain of that.
When at last she laid the bread into the oven she sat down at the table, shaking a little, feeling as if she had just ended a dramatic performance. “I don’t know if it will turn out,” she admitted. “I’ve never made it quite that way before. I just followed my instincts.”
“Then it will be good, and I will eat all of it,” said the Beast.
“Half of it, you mean,” Beauty countered. “I am hungry, too, though I’m a quarter of your size.”
“I trust you,” said the Beast.
Beauty did not answer for some time. Then, finally, as she stretched her sore arms, she said, “And I trust you, Beast.” He did not respond, though he turned his head to face her.
The bread seemed to take forever and a day to come out of the oven. Beauty had begun to pace the floor restlessly, casting dark glances toward the oven door. Then, of course, the loaf had to cool; Beauty pushed the Beast’s paws out of the way when he tried to reach for it too soon.
At last Beauty deemed it ready, and tore off a piece with her hands. She held it out for the Beast to take. He did not transfer it to his own paws but craned forward and gently took the morsel between his teeth. For an instant Beauty felt his warm breath on her hand. The Beast straightened and chewed thoughtfully.
He sighed deeply. “It is very good,” he began. “It is excellent, and soft, and—will you make more tomorrow?”
Beauty laughed. “If you would like me to, I will.” She reached out and placed one hand over his paw, resting on the table, ignoring his flinch. “I will make it every day, if you want.”
After finishing off the loaf between the two of them—and, as the Beast was four times her size, this did not take long—he asked her to walk in the garden with him.
“It is a particularly nice day, I think,” he said. “And the flowers are at their brightest.” He paused and looked sideways at her. “But I suppose you would know about that,” he added.
“What do you mean?” Beauty asked.
The Beast sighed. “You are feeling happy today, are you not, Beauty?” he said simply.
She nodded, and did not know what to say. They walked together out of the front doors. As the Beast had said, the sky seemed a purer blue today, and every blade of grass was crisp and sharp. A warm breeze brushed past the flowers and the blossoms bobbed gently.
Beauty spoke. “I am glad you liked my bread, Beast. I missed sharing it. I think I told you I was a baker’s daughter. The truth is, baker’s daughter or no, I would have wanted nothing else but to work dough all day. I liked to think that I was feeding the village. I would like to think that I was feeding you, too. Making you—content.” She hesitated at this last word.
“Do you care about that? Whether I am content?” The Beast seemed actually surprised.
“Well, you are—my friend.” Beauty was growing uncomfortable. She did not want to say the words. She felt unsteady, and placed her hands on his arms, well above the cuffs of iron that cut into his wrists. He saw her waver, and swept one arm around her back, to steady her, to draw her closer.
The words slipped out, treacherous. “I love you, Beast,” she murmured. Then she tried to pull away, but suddenly she was confused, for in front of her eyes the cuffs split themselves and broke into pieces, raining down on the grass beneath them. The Beast’s eyes widened. He took up Beauty’s hands.
“I thought you’d never say those words,” he said. “You’ve released me.”
Beauty drew her head back. “Released you from what?”
“I was under a spell, and a compulsion not to speak of it until it was broken—I hinted at it before, do you not remember? I was something of a trickster once, a Loki or a Mercury.”
“Or a Pan.”
The Beast frowned. “I was never as bawdy as Pan. But I was fond of not-so-friendly pranks, in my younger days, and plots, and there were many who did not share my sense of humor. They were—I suppose you could think of them as bad fairies. Of course, you might have thought me a bad fairy too, if you had known me then. But these fey thought themselves vigilantes. When they decided they’d had enough of me, they caught me and bound me up with cuffs of iron to block my—unique abilities.”
Beauty raised one eyebrow. “What abilities?”
The Beast grinned, no longer shy of showing his fangs. “Like most tricksters, my Beauty, I am a shape shifter. They caught me, unfortunately, in one of my less adaptable forms. I would have sought something a little more pleasing for you if I could have.” His deep brow furrowed. “Let me see.” The Beast winced, and shimmered and dissolved into the form of a man, wild-haired with a wicked grin, clad in an elegantly embroidered, if old-fashioned, tunic and cloak. Beauty would not have known him but for his eyes, which were the same. His grin widened.
“My human form. What do you think?”
Beauty reflected. “It isn’t bad.” She reached out a hand for a lock of his hair. “Not bad at all.” She leaned her head toward him, and he moved in faster to kiss her. Beauty closed her eyes and sighed a little, but she was the first to withdraw.
“Is something wrong?”
“I need to understand,” Beauty said. “How did I come to break the spell?”
The Beast-that-was said nothing. He simply looked at her, and waited, until her face flushed hot and red, betraying her. She could no longer deny the truth.
“I knew it,” she said unhappily. “I did not want to know. I am a witch.”
“And a powerful one at that,” he told her. “You broke cuffs of iron—though you have done more than that, in your time here. Do you know how many years most magic handlers must work, and hone their craft, before they can begin to tamper with iron? I might have had those cuffs off long ago if…” He stopped himself. “That is not true. Most enchanters never much liked me, and my skills are limited to my form.”
Beauty did not speak. The Beast-that-was tried to turn her head to face him, but she would not yield. “Beauty,” he said. “Tell me why you came here. Tell me what you were doing in the forest.”
Beauty’s breath came too fast for her. She tried to cover her face with her hands as she gulped and hiccupped. “My father died in the fall before I came. I took over the bakery. He had wanted me to, he had trained me. But the villagers, or some of them, did not like it. They did not like me. They thought it strange that I ran the shop by myself, and they knew I had no inclination to marry. They would not buy my bread, and they began to act as if I did not have ears to hear them talk about me, or eyes to see them narrow their eyes and make wards against me as I passed. That I was a helper to the midwife was worse; I worked with magic-seeming herbs and poultices, as witches do.”
Beauty stopped short; she could not work her voice and throat. The Beast-that-was held her and said nothing. He waited for her to continue. “They said I was a witch. I knew they would not suffer me to live much longer. I fled into the forest the morning they came to my door with torches and ropes, faster than they could follow me. I knew they would not set foot in this forest after me. They think it is haunted.”
“It is haunted, Beauty. By me, and by you.” He smiled as he spoke, and Beauty did too. It was enough to sustain her. “But you are a witch, Beauty,” the Beast-that-was continued. “One of the better ones I’ve seen, considering you did it all unknowing. If you had dared to think it, you would have known, of course, how you shut the gates to keep yourself here, where you might find shelter, and how you conjured up food when you were in need. Even the library is more populous than it was before you came here, although you’ve been steadily ignoring the influx of new books to our collection.”
Beauty laughed weakly. ” Gardens have always seemed to bloom in my wake, and my bread never comes out dry. But I could not let myself be what they thought me, a monster and a terrible thing.”
“You did what you needed to do,” he said gently. “I should have known you were a greenwitch. But to break the bonds that held me—I would not have guessed it in your power. You are stronger than you know.”
Beauty met his eyes then, and steadied herself. “I still do not understand. I do not even know when I am doing witchcraft.”
“You will learn, I think, in time. But you will have to learn the rules, now you are conscious of your abilities. When you have mastered the rules, you will know when not to use magic, and then you will hardly be able to use it at all.”
Beauty smiled, not quite laughing. “That is well enough. I suspect,” she added, “that breaking that spell of yours broke a lot of rules as well.”
“Then we are lucky that you did not know them.” The Beast-that-was leaned towards her, grinning impishly, but she moved back again.
“What is it now?” he asked.
Beauty tried to think how best to tell him. “Beast—should I call you Beast?”
“I never cared much for my old name, and I cannot remember it anyway. I will be Beast if you will be Beauty.”
Beauty smiled sweetly, but the corners of her mouth were impish. “Beast, I was wondering. I shall love you, you know, regardless—and I am glad you have a human form—but do you think you could be the Beast, the old Beast, for me again, from time to time?”
The Beast was motionless, his mouth a little agape. “You want me to be the Beast? Are you sure of that? I never thought that form suited me best, and I—”
“Please, Beast. That is what I fell in love with.”
The Beast was quiet a moment, but at last he nodded. He winced again, and once more the air shimmered and melted to reveal the Beast, the old, sweet bear-like Beast before her again. Beauty took both his paws and kissed him again, fiercely, on his snout.
“Come, my Beast,” she said. “Let me read to you, and tame you.” The Beast half-smiled and shook his head.
“Come now, my Beauty,” he said. “You know I cannot be tamed.”
She laughed, and kissed him again, and together they walked back to the library.