Bryony and Roses (21 page)

“What happened?” she asked.
 

“I heard you screaming,” said the Beast. “I’m sorry, I had to carry you here.”
 

“Not my finest hour,” she said. Her voice was quavering, which made her angry. “But yes, I remember that perfectly well.” Her face had been pressed against the Beast’s chest, and she had wanted to howl like a baby and sob into him and have it all go away, while simultaneously wanting to pull her knife and stab him a couple of dozen times.
 

Interestingly, neither of those feelings had subsided very much.
 

“That wasn’t what I meant,” she said. “What happened—why—”

Why is there a bloody bedroom in your enchanted manor house? Where did she go? What happened? Is that going to happen to me? What is going on?
 

There were too many questions. The Beast nodded as if she’d managed to actually ask them, instead of stammer herself into silence.

“She killed herself,” he said. “Her father took a rose from my table, and I was young and foolish and still thought that I might find a way around the curse.”

The candles began to wink out, one by one. The house was listening. The Beast reached out and took one in his hand.
 

“I demanded that he bring his daughter to me, and he did. I thought she might be able to break the curse.”

The air was as thick as syrup. Bryony took a shuddering breath and nearly choked on it. The walls seemed to lean in over them, the ceiling lost in shadow.
 

It’s only the parlor room, they’re only walls, they have that stupid rose-pattern border, it can’t do anything to us, they’re only walls—

Bryony found that she did not believe herself, and stopped trying.
 

“She did badly,” said the Beast. “I think the spirit of the—the—” The horrible silence seemed to slash at him. He hunched his shoulders and retreated from whatever he was going to say. “I think the house tormented her, a little, but mostly it was fear of me. She screamed whenever I came in the room. I would have released her—you must believe me, I would have—but I could not get near her. In order to tell her she was free to go, I would have had to stalk her like an animal through the halls, and I thought that it might drive her mad at last.”

The only candle left in the room was the one in the Beast’s hand. Candlewax flowed down its sides and over his fingers. It must have burned, even through his fur, but he did not release it.
 

If he does, it will go out, and we’ll be left with whatever’s in the dark.
She willed him to hold the candle. Her own fingers seemed to be frozen on the handle of the teacup.
 

“I left her notes, telling her she was free. I do not think she found them.”

Of course not. House would have dealt with notes easily, even if it did not know what they said.
 

“In the end, she committed suicide,” said the Beast. “I was too late to stop her. It was so long ago. I thought the house would have cleaned up the blood. I have never seen that room since that day.”
 

The candle was half-burned down now. Bryony had her mouth open and was panting shallowly, trying to get enough air. The room was very hot. She should not be shivering so much when the room was so hot.

“I tried to get word to her father,” said the Beast. “When the house took in a traveler, I would leave notes for them, too. I had to hope that they would find him and tell him…something.” He shook his head slowly, fur rippling. “And years passed, and when anyone who might have known her would be dead of old age, I stopped trying.”

It has been longer than I guessed,
Bryony thought.
I do not know what else I would have done in his place.
She wondered if any of the travelers had ever been allowed to see the Beast’s notes.
 

“I should never have kept you here,” said the Beast. The candlelight painted orange highlights under his eyes. A human would have looked more villainous, but there was little that mere candlelight could do to his face.
 
“It was a great crime. But when you took the rose—I thought that it was trying to get out—and then you seemed so brave and so fierce, and I had lost all hope, and I thought that you might have the knowledge—I am sorry!”

She heard the apology. On some level she understood it, both the enormous inadequacy of it and the truth behind it. But something else he had said was growing in her mind, something far more important.

“You could have let her go,” she said, forcing each word out through the clotted air.

“Yes,” he said.

“You could let
me
go,” said Bryony.

“Yes,” he said.
 

The room exploded.
 

The Beast threw himself over Bryony, knocking her back on the couch, so she saw only a flash of light as the candle flared up and then things were flying through the air. The Beast’s body shielded hers from the worst of the impacts, but one leg was free and she hissed as debris struck it.
 

Teacup and I don’t know what is and ah! God! that had to be a candlestick, oh God, I think it’s throwing chairs at us—

The Beast grunted. She could feel him jerking as furniture struck them. The house was apparently reducing the room to matchsticks.

God’s teeth, if this is what happens when you keep talking, I see why the Beast always stopped.
 

The wind howled. She could hear doors slamming. It appeared that House was having a full-on tantrum.
 

“Enough,” she could hear the Beast saying, although she felt it more than heard it. The word seemed to thrum from his chest through the whole of her body. “Enough. I’m done. I’ve stopped. Enough.”
 

After what seemed an eternity, the noises stopped. A long time later, the Beast sat up.
 

Most of the furniture in the room was destroyed. The couch they’d been sitting on was more or less intact, but one arm had been ripped off and hung at a crazy angle. The tapestry over the fireplace was askew, and the fireplace logs were all over the room.
 

Bryony, feeling slightly squashed, rolled up her trousers and examined her leg.

“Are you hurt?” asked the Beast. “Did it hurt you?”

“Bruises, that’s all.” She rolled it back down. “Think I took a candlestick to the shin. But what about you? I felt some of those hit.”

“It is nothing,” said the Beast impatiently.

“The hell it is!” said Bryony. She wasn’t sure if she was angry or furious or overjoyed—that she could leave, that they weren’t dead, that she believed the Beast when he said he hadn’t killed the woman in the white bedroom. Whatever emotion it was, it was near to overflowing.
 

“You’re shaking,” said the Beast.

“Never mind that! What happened to you?”
 

She got her hand on his shoulder and shoved it down. He sat, probably out of politeness. When she stalked around behind him, she could see that his robes had been shredded.
 

“House,” she said, “I need hot water and cloths. And astringent.”

When she looked around, nothing had appeared.
 

“
House.
” She snapped her fingers, as if the building were an unruly dog.

A tray appeared on the floor. It was probably her imagination that it seemed very grudging.
 

The Beast’s fur had protected him from most of the smaller debris, but there were still large splinters jutting out of his back. She pulled them out with her fingers. “So that’s why you can’t say anything important.”

“Yes,” said the Beast.

She could feel the house watching them. It seemed sullen but exhausted, as if it had spent its rage.

 
“And if you tried to say something more than that—”

“It would be worse.”

“I see.” She pulled the last splinter out and picked up the cloth. They were both silent while she washed the wounds. His shoulders were hunched as if expecting a blow.

I thought that it was trying to get out.
 

What did that mean? What was
it?
 

Is he talking about House? Oh God, I can’t even ask him out loud!

When she finished, the cloth was pink and stained. She rested her forehead on his shoulder. She could hear him breathing.
 

His heartbeat was as slow and regular as a clock. Her own had slowed, but it was nothing like steady.
 

House had tried to physically hurt them. Could easily have killed them.
 

She had allowed herself to become complacent. It had been so easy. The frilly dresses, the tea trays, the ridiculous roses on everything…

She had forgotten, for a little while, that she was inside an enormous self-aware prison. And apparently it could choose to destroy them at any time.
 

But perhaps the prison door was open after all.
 

“Beast,” she said, “you have to let me go.”

“I know,” said the Beast.
 

He rose to his feet. “Come to my workshop,” he said, holding out his hand. “Please.”

She nodded.
 

They walked together through the halls of the house. His feet made no sound, and she was not sure that hers did either. She leaned against him, feeling exhausted beyond measure, feeling as if she had failed.
 

There is a mystery here. I’ve known it all along. I knew it the first day. And all this time, and I am no closer to getting to the bottom of it.
 

And now I’m leaving.

She wondered what Holly would say. Perhaps soon she’d have a chance to ask.

The doors opened for them slowly and shut with a wicked snap behind them. House was still angry. It didn’t matter. The long walk to the Beast’s workshop, leaning against each other, felt like a retreat from a lost campaign.

I’ve failed. We didn’t win. But now at least I can go home.
 

When they reached the workshop, the Beast caught the door in his hand and held it for her. He lit an oil lamp himself.
 

The air seemed clearer than it did in the hallway, untouched by the house’s wrath. The light gleamed off all the tiny brass cogs and scattered tools.

The brass ladybug lay on the table. It was much closer to completion than it had been the last time she saw it. One metallic wing lay extended across the worktable, revealing the clockwork inside.
 

“Here,” said the Beast, reaching into a drawer and thrusting his hand toward her, not meeting her eyes. “This is for you.”
 

It was a ring. Bryony peered at it, puzzled. It was made of silver, or some silvery metal, set with a small green stone and a single gear. On one of the teeth, fine as the point of a needle, was etched a tiny leaf.
 

There was no obvious power source, but as she watched, the gear turned a single notch. The click was almost inaudible. The leaf, which had been pointing at the green stone, now pointed slightly above it.
 

“If you care to return,” said the Beast, “you must do so before it turns completely. When it has completed a full circuit, it will be too late.”
 

“And if I don’t care to return?” she asked.

The Beast looked away. “Then throw it away,” he said. “I expect you to.”
 

Bryony slid the ring onto her finger. “How do I return?” she asked. “Do I mount up Fumblefoot and ride into the woods and hope?”

She had startled him, she could tell. He took a deep breath. “I’d suggest you come back with fire and an army and burn this place down, but perhaps that’s not practical. So hold the ring. Say, “I want to go back to my Beast again.” That’s all.”

“Sounds like something Irving would have written,” she said.

A little of the old Beast she knew crept back into his eyes and his voice. “If Irving had written it, it would have rhymed and involved bluebells.”

Bryony smiled.
 

“You should finish the ladybug,” she said.
 

He nodded. “Perhaps I will.”

The Beast stood up. He loomed over her in the shadows of the workshop, but she was unafraid.

“Go home, love,” he said. “And if you can, forget that any of this ever happened.”

He bent down and kissed her on the forehead.
 

There was a fairy tale that Bryony had read as a child, and most of it she had forgotten. One part of it stuck with her, however, a description of a long and terrible journey—
sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam, sometimes she flew through the air, sometimes she crawled on the ground.
 

The journey from the Beast’s manor was a little like that.
 

She could see nothing before her or around her, and she could only sometimes feel the ground under her feet. She thought that she walked forward, but perhaps that was only an illusion.
 

I do not know if I am flying through the air, but then again, I am not a princess, like the girl in the story was. Perhaps flying is only for princesses. I would feel better if I could see where I was.
 

She was cold and then she was hot.
Perhaps I am feverish. Perhaps I have been feverish for a long time, and I have only dreamed about a Beast and a manor and a terrible wild rose.

The silver ring on her finger was cold and hard and she could feel the tiny notches of the gear.
 

It seemed that things brushed at her as she travelled, things like leaves or branches, and she raised her hands to bat them aside.
Not being able to see is a problem.
 

Are my eyes closed? Let’s see if—ah, yes. That’s better.

There was light ahead of her, fractured into bits. She walked toward it, batting aside the leaves. Definitely they were leaves now, and that was sunlight and…