Roses (25 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

The Library

A
moon-cycle passed and Beauty looked down at her hands one day, scarcely recognizing them. The silver skin was no longer hard and peeling, but soft and supple. She had the hands of a lady now, not a laborer. She touched her palms, feeling the smoothness of them, but it mattered little to her; she would trade them in a second for her old life. She thought wistfully of Imwane every day. She missed it dearly, and she found that she even missed Isole and the villagers. She could not put into words how much she missed Owaine. It was too painful for her to dwell on it.

Champ was the only one who shared her heartache and she told him at length about it on their rides. He flicked his ears as she spoke while they cantered across meadows and zigzagged through orchards in the mornings.

Despite this daily exercise, Champ was getting rounded from all the food on offer at the castle.

“A little less of that,” Beauty said one afternoon as a fresh hay net appeared on a hook in his stall. “The Hillanders would not be
calling you warhorse if they could see you now,” she said, slapping his ample rump.

Champ chewed indigently.

Without him, Beauty knew that she would be lost and bored at the castle. In the afternoons she often found herself idle. If she did not return to the stable, then she had little else to do accept wander the ever-changing corridors or stroll through the eerie grounds. One day she was doing just that when she called, “Beast?”

He appeared in an instant by her side.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

They were standing in a snowy patch by the evergreen maze at the front of the castle and Beauty noticed that there were flakes in the tufts of fur on his cheeks.

“I just . . . just wondered where you were.”

They shuffled their feet awkwardly and she wished for a moment that she had not called for him.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

“No, not really. I just wondered what you do all day in the castle? I never see you when I walk around.”

“I thought you would not want to see me.”

She blushed.

“I just wonder where you go. That is all.”

“I stay out of your way, but I am never far. If you need me, you may call me and I will always hear it.”

She had guessed as much. She felt watched always, sometimes by Beast and sometimes by the castle itself.

“But, will you tell me what you do? Surely that is not a question out of bounds.”

“Well, often I read. Have you seen the library here?”

Beauty at once wished that she had not asked. “No.”

“You must! It is the only good thing about this place.”

“Oh, I—”

Beast’s body shifted back. “Do not worry, I will not make you visit it with me, but you should ask the castle to take you there. I will try to make sure that I am away while you explore.”

“That is not necessary,” she said before she could stop herself.

“You will come with me now?”

“Well . . . I suppose so.”

She could not very well summon him here and then reject him, though she wished they could do anything other than visit the castle’s library.

“This way.” Beast motioned with his paw for her to walk in front of him.

“Surely you should lead the way?” she said. “I have never been before.”

“It is better that you do not see me move, it may unnerve you.”

Beauty did not need to be told twice and she obediently walked ahead of him.

“Take us to the library,” he commanded in a rumble as they entered a corridor.

Outlines began directing them down passages and through halls with hazy ornaments.

“The things in this castle, they do not belong to you?” Beauty asked as they passed a huge, carved urn.

“No.”

“Are they real?”

“They do not look it. But that is what is wonderful about the library; the books there feel real and worn.”

They climbed up a flight of narrow, twisting stairs.

“Have you seen every room in this castle?” she asked.

“I do not think that is possible.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“A long time.”

“Have you—”

“The library will find any book you could possibly want, all you have to do is ask for it. I have never seen every book in the library either, but I suspect that that has more to do with its size than anything else.”

Reaching the top step, Beauty glanced over her shoulder at him and wished she had not. She lost her footing, stumbling a little, and he pretended not to know that he was the cause. His face took her by surprise sometimes. Listening to his voice, she could almost imagine speaking to a man.

The outlines led them on until they reached two wide double doors. As they approached, they were thrown back to reveal a yawning hall stuffed with bookcases. There were books in the walls, in piles on the floor, and on the ceiling. Beauty gasped, for it truly was spectacular.

“Ask for a book,” said Beast. “Any book!”

Beauty did not think that she had ever seen him so animated. She muttered a title under her breath and a slim volume flew towards her. She opened her old nursery book with a smile, turning to an illustration of a troll.

“I had this when I was younger,” she explained, turning a few more pages.

“Ask for something else,” he urged her. “Test it—it has everything.”

She licked her dry lips.

“Um . . .”

“What else did you used to read?”

She stepped away, looking at the floor.

“Nothing,” she said quietly.

“You do not like to read?”

“It is not that. I . . .” She clenched her fingers and jutted out her chin. “I cannot read.”

“You were never taught?”

She swallowed hard. “No, I was never taught to read.”

“Would you like me to teach you?” he asked, adding when she did not reply, “You may say no if you wish.”

“Can I be taught?”

“Yes.”

“Will you be patient?”

He made a growling, crashing sound like a chuckle. “Yes.”

“Then I suppose so. Yes, I should like to be taught to read.”

He stalked over to a table and crouched in front of it, then motioned for her to sit on the chair opposite. She had never been so close to him before, and she could feel the warm gusts of his breath and the heat of his body. She hesitated just a moment before taking the seat that he offered.

He barked a sound and a book flew from a shelf to his hands.

“This is a favorite of mine and I think that you will like it.”

He raised his great paw and turned to the first page with incredible delicacy, using the very tips of his claws.

“You do that very well.”

“I have had a lot of practice.”

He pushed the book toward her and she stared at the dashes and dots.

“I will say the words and you will repeat them after me,” he said. “If you see a word you recognize, then interrupt.”

“But these markings make no sense.”

“They will in time. If I am to be patient, then you must be patient also. Besides, I do not think it will take you long to pick up the skill.”

She hoped that he was right.

“Once upon a time,” he began, hovering his claw over the markings.

“Once upon a time,” she repeated.

After that, Beauty met with Beast every afternoon in the library and they would read together for several hours. Sometimes she would get frustrated and stomp off through the maze of towering bookshelves until she had calmed down, but Beast always tried hard to contain his temper during these lessons. She only discovered how hard he tried when she came back to their table after a tantrum one afternoon and found the book in front of him torn clean in half.

“Did you do that?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Was it because of me?”

“Do not worry, this library is good at fixing itself. I am sure that I have torn this book at least once before.”

“But it is one of your favorites.”

“I know, but it will be mended tomorrow. We shall carry on our lesson then.”

“No, we can read another book.”

“It is probably best—”

“But I want to read another.”

He saw her pleading face. “If you wish it.”

He called down another book and Beauty was more careful to control her own temper after that.

As Beast predicted, she learned quickly and could soon read whole paragraphs with just a few corrections. One day, she insisted they read late into the evening, she was so gripped by the story’s plot.

“Beauty, you must ready yourself for dinner.”

The library was dark and the candles in the golden chandelier had lit themselves.

“But we need to find out if she loves him too.”

“You should take the book to bed with you and finish it before you sleep.”

“But then you will not hear it.”

Beast paused, his hazel eyes locking with her own.

“I have a better idea,” she said. “I will take it to dinner and we can read it together then.

“If you wish it.”

Once she had reached a competent level of reading, Beauty wanted to learn to write and the library produced a quill and ink for her.

“It is harder than it looks,” she muttered, scratching the nib over the parchment.

“I do not doubt that you will master it soon,” said Beast, encouragingly.

If she was not reading or writing, then Beauty liked to wander through the bookshelves, Beast following at a distance. Sometimes she would try to count all the books, but that was impossible, for there were volumes hidden in the most unlikely places. Often, she simply liked to pull out books at random and leaf through them. One afternoon, she saw a yellow spine in a slot on the wall high above her head.

“That one!” she said to the library, pointing, but it brought down the book below it. “No, that one—the yellow one!”

When it brought down the book next to it instead, Beast suddenly jumped onto the wall, climbing up the rows of books with his claws. He grabbed the desired volume and carried it down, landing with a crouch on the floor beside her.

“T-thank you. I wish that I could do that.” She was a little breathless.

“I have read that book before,” he replied.

“Yes?”

“It is about the Southern Realm.”

Beauty took it back to their table and they began to read. It conjured a dry landscape of sand and rock, where the days were
blistering and the nights were cold. As she read, she forgot the snow and the castle and lost herself in the words. When Beast had taught her to read, he had given her a kind of freedom—a way to endure the prison of this enchanted place.

“Is this what the Southern Realm is really like?” she asked after they had reached the end of the chapter.

“Yes, it is hot and desolate. There are deserts there.”

“You have been?”

He shifted. “A long time ago.”

“Is it like Sago?” she asked.

“It is a drier heat. When have you been to Sago?”

“A long time ago.”

They read another chapter before stopping again.

“How well do you know the realm?” he asked.

“Not well at all. I know Pervorocco and The Neighbor, and I have heard of the Wild Lands. I did not realize that there was more.”

“There is much more.”

He led the way through the maze of bookshelves to a section in the right wing of the library.

“Maps,” he said to the air and a chest of scrolls shuffled up to them. He carried a few back to their table awkwardly in his paws and unrolled them.

“This is what we know of the realm so far,” he said. “It is likely that there is much more that we have never found. The Wild Lands, for instance, are ungoverned and could be large or small for all we know.”

Beauty stared at the jagged shapes and expanses of sea.

“The Scarlet Isles,” she read, running her finger over the words to say out the sounds. “The Jade Rivers.”

She swept her hand over the golden parchment, following the illustrations with her finger, and suddenly her hand bumped with Beast’s paw. “Oh!”

“Sorry, forgive me.”

He quickly stepped away from her. His fur had felt bristly and the bones of his paw hard, as if she had touched Champ’s hoof.

“No, do not worry,” she said, and they both turned back to the map.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-E
IGHT

The Voices

A
s Beauty rode Champ through the grounds one morning, she realized that she had been at the castle for almost two seasons. The thought caught her by surprise and, sensing her shock, Champ skidded to a halt in the middle of an orchard. Beauty glanced at the crooked, leafy branches around her, which were hung with russet apples, and could scarcely believe it. Back at Imwane, it would be summer and there would be rainbows arching over the hills and children playing on the hillside. Hally would hold a feast in the barn to celebrate and they would sing Hilland songs and drink ale.

She looked over her shoulder at the castle, as far away as it was ever going to be. The rest of the realm was carrying on without her. Come autumn, the horses would be taken to town and sold and then new steeds would be caught and the cycle would begin again. She wondered if Owaine would ask for a village lad to help him since he was too old to train them all alone. She wondered if this new lad would whisper soothing words to the horses and make them
into perfect rides. She wondered if Imwane, Owaine, and all of the Hillanders would eventually forget her.