Beast (12 page)

“I need more flour to make more bread, Papa,” a young woman said.

Suddenly a young lady materialized, standing over a stove. She was wearing a white blouse and a long, flowing dark green skirt. Though her face was blurry, I could see that she had long auburn hair, which curled at the ends.

“Okay, I will give you money to go to town to get some,” said what sounded like an older man.

As I heard the older man, I turned toward one of the chairs by the fire. The gentleman had on dark pants and a grey button-down shirt. Like the young lady over in the kitchen, his face was blurry. But his hair was brown and curly.

“Papa!” another young woman shouted after I heard a door open and close. “Have you seen the roses? I have been taking real good care of them. They look so beautiful!” she continued.

Then I turned toward the voice of yet another young woman, which was coming in from the door in the back on the house.

When I looked in her direction, I expected to see what I had with the other two people in the house. But, oh, was I wrong.

The young woman who came into the house was the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen. A strange feeling surged through my body. My palms began to sweat, and my heart pounded. I suddenly forgot where I was and what I was doing, and I was breathless. It even felt as if my heart skipped a beat the second I saw her.

She had long strawberry-blonde hair that flowed in the wind from the open door. Her eyes were blue-grey, as Papa’s eyes had been. She also had a few freckles on her cheeks and nose. And her smile, oh my! Her smile lit up the room. Suddenly all I could think about was her.

This beautiful young lady had on a blue blouse, which made her eyes stand out, along with a long brown skirt similar to the other young woman’s.

“Yes, my darling! Their smell fills up this house! Thank you for all the work you are doing!” he said to the beautiful young woman.

“Good! Papa, why do you think the roses bloom even in the coldest winter?” she asked as she walked over to the fireplace.

During their conversation, I could focus only on her, the one who made me breathless and caused my heart to skip a beat—the one who made me long for her.

“You know, sweetie, I do not know. Maybe it has something to do with that story of the Beast Evaline was telling us about,” he said, chuckling.

Then it hit me; I knew why their voices sounded familiar! These were the same people who were riding horses through the Dark Forest in the other vision that I had been seeing for years!

“Oh, Papa! You sound just as silly as she does!” She laughed as she sat on what I could tell was her father’s lap.

“Papa! That story could be real!” a voice that I recognized as Evaline’s cut in, seemingly moving over to the couch.

“Well, want to prove it?” the beautiful young woman said, giggling.

“Sure! But, umm, not personally. I would not want to find out,” Evaline concluded.

They all started laughing.

“Good afternoon, everyone.” Another young lady came into the house from the front door. “I was able to buy more fabric in town to make you that dress, Evaline!”

This young woman looked different from everyone else in the house—at least from what I could see. Her face was blurry like the gentleman’s and Evaline’s. She was shorter than Evaline and the beautiful young woman. Also, her hair was short and red and completely curly. She almost looked as if she could have been related to Russel.

“Oh, perfect! I cannot wait to wear it,” Evaline said as she walked over to the redheaded woman.

The vision faded as the sun started to rise.

Once I came back to reality, I made my way back into the castle to my room. The roses were still sitting on my nightstand, and I sat on my bed, gazing at them. But after seeing that gorgeous young woman at the Rose House, the roses could not compare.

After I turned twenty-one, my body stopped changing and growing. Because of this, I considered myself to be perpetually twenty-one.

As the years went by, I still had the visions of the Rose House, along with the beautiful young lady who lived there. Ever since the vision of her on my twenty-first birthday, something different was always happening in the visions; I was never stuck in the same event. While the others’ faces continued to be blurry, I could still see her as if I were standing right next to her.

I saw her almost once a week; I loved listening to her soft, feminine voice. She would read stories to her family and talk with her father about life. Not only did she take care of the roses at the house, but I also overheard her saying that she worked on the garden in the back by the Dark Forest. In addition, she worked from time to time with their horses.

It did not take long before I realized that what I was feeling meant that I was falling in love with her. Every little thing that I learned about her from her conversations with the other two young women and her father in the visions made me fall for her that much more. She truly was captivating in every aspect.

Before I knew it, over one hundred years had passed. I wondered how long I would be like this. While I was blessed that Buttons was somehow still alive with me, I began to dread the rest of my cursed life.

One day, I decided that I was going to go into the forest to just walk outside of the gates.

“Lead me to the wooden doors, please,” I said to the Invisibles.

They led me to the big doors.

At the doors, I asked the Invisibles to open them. As I took a few steps outside, I thanked them and then continued to walk down the steps to the pebble path. Once at the gate, I stared at it for some time.

“Invisibles, please open the gate for me,” I said into the air.

The gate had not been opened since those men had come with pitchforks to try to kill me, thinking that I had killed others. There were spiderwebs all over the gate. It squeaked loudly, almost hurting my ears, as it opened.

After it opened, I took a step toward where the road used to be. The second I did this, my body began to shake tremendously, and I became frightened. But instead of stopping, I continued to walk farther away from the castle into the forest.

Before I knew it, I could no longer see the castle anymore, but my curiosity to see what was out in the forest kept me walking. Twigs snapped beneath my feet.

While looking around at the forest, I noticed a clearing where there was a pathway. While I knew it was not the best idea, I decided to follow it.

I heard something that made me I stop in my tracks. It almost sounded as if someone were singing. I decided to hide behind a tree, because the sound was becoming louder in my direction.

While I was making my way over to the tree, I stepped on something that pierced one of the pads on my right foot. I let out a loud roar because of the pain.

After I roared, I looked up and saw three men on horses staring at me. My claws were out; my mouth was open, showing my sharp teeth; and I was standing straight up. The three men screamed, turning their horses to gallop away from me.

“It is the Beast! He is going to kill us! Hurry, let us leave here!” one of them said.

They were the first people I had seen in one hundred years, and they thought I wanted to kill them.

That is when it hit me.
The story I overheard the young woman named Evaline telling the group riding on the horses was indeed about me, expect for the part about me killing people
, I thought. My stomach began to twist and turn, making me nauseous.

I hurried back to the castle as fast as I could. I was terrified that they would find me and attempt to kill me, as those men had when I had first changed. Never again would I go past the gate of the castle. It just was not worth it.

Before I knew it, another one hundred years had passed. I still thought a lot about the beautiful girl who lived in the Rose House. Also, I still had the vision of going to the Rose House in my mind’s eye. Unfortunately, I still had the nightmare of my parents’ death too.

One day, as I was walking around the castle with Buttons at my side, the vision of the night of my parents’ death came to my mind. The whole horrific event replayed. The creature started his chant, but I fully understood it this time. When it began to chant, I heard the following words: “You have heard the warnings, but you still did not believe. Say good-bye to your life, as you wish you could leave. In a year’s time, things will change from what is known to something strange.”

This was what it was chanting at my parents before it killed them, but what did it mean? What warnings was it speaking about?

The roses in my room were still as beautiful as ever. When I was sad or lonely, I would walk to my room to just enjoy the roses. I started to refer to them as the enchanted roses.

Even though I had been this way for over two hundred years, I still was not used to being the Beast. I attempted to keep my mind off of what I looked like, and I covered all the mirrors.

I continued to play the piano. As my fingers grew, it took longer to adjust to them. But I still tried my hardest to play. Buttons would come into the music room while I played and sit on the bench with me. Though my desire to play in the ballroom was still there, I did not want to play, because I would think of Mother and it would bring me pain.

Even while I played the piano, my thoughts were centered on the beautiful young woman. Her smile, her laugh—I could not shake them out of my head.

As I thought about her more and more, I wondered if she were real or just in my mind. However, because the vision of my parents had been real, I could not help but hope that she was real.

Chapter 7
 

I
t was a dark and stormy night when I first saw him. Rain was coming down hard on the windows, almost sounding like hail. Wind was howling like a wolf at the moon on a clear night. The library lit up when the lightning struck, and thunder shook the castle.

I could see him in my mind’s eye. He was wearing a brown coat that covered him from the rain. The horse that he was riding was a beautiful chestnut color with a rare white mark on his right hip.

From what I could see, the rider looked exhausted, with worry written all over his face. He looked very ill. This old man kind of reminded me of my papa; he had curly brown hair that seemed to be greying a little.

In the back of my mind, I could hear my father’s voice. Many times he had let travelers stay in our castle on nights like these. Because of this, I thought of following Papa’s example.

I did not normally allow people to find their way to my castle, because of what happened with the men in the forest. But hearing my father’s voice and seeing the old man who reminded me of him changed my mind. I knew that Papa would have wanted me to do this.

I told the Invisibles, “Allow him to find his way to the castle. And prepare a warm meal for him and a fire to sleep by.”

This was the first time that I had ever let the Invisibles make my castle appear before anyone. Though I was nervous, I knew that it was the right thing to do.

As I watched him make his way closer to the castle, I decided to grab the roses from my room. Even after all these years had passed, the aroma could still fill a room no matter how big. I thought that the man would enjoy the beauty as I did.

Once in the dining room, I set the vase down on the table, next to the plate that the Invisibles had set out for the gentleman.

I could almost see him approach the gate surrounding the castle. At that point, I ran from the dining room, up the stairs, and into my father’s old study, to the window that overlooked the courtyard in front of the castle. Papa used to watch me play outside from there. It would be the perfect place to watch my visitor.

The storm was becoming fiercer, and the thunder claps were getting stronger and louder. Now that the old man was closer in my mind’s eyes, I could see his face a little more clearly. His eyes were a deep blue, as Mother’s had been. The more I looked into them, the more sadness I saw.

It made me curious to find out about him, but the last time I had shown myself to a human, it had not ended well. I thought that I would terrify him if I appeared to him. Now that more years had passed, I had a hard enough time looking at myself in the mirror.

He approached the gate and dismounted. The old man gaped at the gate before trying to open it. It was made of wrought-iron bars that formed a unique design. The design was of a tree with different fruits on the branches.

With his right hand, the old man carefully put his fingers on the outline of one of the apples in the gate. The moment his fingers came in contact with the gate, it opened.

This startled him; he took a step back and looked at his horse and then the storm behind him. I could tell that he was hesitant to walk forward. A clap of thunder overhead made the horse nervous. When the lightning struck, the gelding saw me in the window, looking down at them.

The man started to walk slowly up the pebble path. When he was a few steps away from the castle, the horse’s reins jerked him back; the horse would not move. He walked back to the horse, rubbed his neck, and then whispered something into his ear.

After this, the horse started walking with the old man. The horse followed closely behind him—so closely that the horse’s feet almost stepped on the old man’s heels. I could hear them approaching. The clink of the horse’s shoes on the pebbles rang louder than the rain.