5

Two days passed as quickly as a sigh. On the third day Greatheart and Cider were discovered to have escaped the stable, and were grazing, side by side, by the enchanted stream. Greatheart, to everyone’s surprise, was inclined to get a little huffy and snorty when Ger went to catch him, and wouldn’t let him near the mare, who stood still, ears forward, and awaited developments. I had been watching the show from the kitchen door, chewing lazily on a piece of bread and Grace’s blackberry jelly, but then I went across to join them. “Your overgrown lapdog has some temperament after all,” said Ger with a rueful smile.

“I’ll try,” I said. “We could be all day chasing them.

“Here, you great idiot,” I continued, walking towards the horse, who stood in front of his mare, watching my approach, “you’ve had your fun, a proper night of it I daresay. Now you can behave. Duty calls.” I stopped a few feet away, and held my hand out, palm up, with the last of the bread and jelly. “I’ll put you in with the cow if you’re not good,” I added. We held each other’s eyes for a moment, then Greatheart dropped his head with a sigh, and ambled over to me, and put his nose in my hand. “Cart-horse,” I said affectionately, and slid the halter I had thoughtfully brought with me over his head. Greatheart only flicked an ear as Ger slid a rope around the docile Cider’s neck, and we returned them to the stable, Greatheart investigating all my pockets for more bread. “This should be quite a foal,” said Ger. “I hope it takes after its daddy.”

“Maybe she’ll follow the family precedent and have twins,” I suggested. The father of the twins gave me a pained look, and we went in to breakfast.

I still hadn’t told Grace about Robbie; I dreaded it, knowing the heartache she had already been through, and while I knew that what I had seen in the Beast’s glass was true, it was so little, so very little to ruin Grace’s precarious peace of mind. And since the Beast was persona non grata at home anyway, I disliked the prospect of explaining the source of my information; my family would not have the faith I did in his veracity, and the possibility of truth in what I had seen would cause an uproar in several different directions at once. So I continued to put it off, and continued to scold myself feebly for so doing.

But that afternoon the minister came to call. Hope and Grace and I were all in the kitchen, and Grace asked us with a look to stay. I had not seen Pat Lawrey since my return, and I found myself estimating his worth with the cold calculation Ger used on a fresh load of pig iron, as he smiled and shook my hand and told me how well I was looking and how glad everyone was to see me. He was a nice young man, to be sure, I thought, but not much else. Grace can’t marry him, I thought with a touch of fear; no wonder she still remembers Robbie. Tonight, I thought. No more delays.

Melinda’s son John, the boy who worked for Ger, had spread the word of my return the day after my unexpected arrival, and the house since then had seen a steady stream of visitors, some of them old friends like Melinda and her large family, and some merely acquaintances curious to see the prodigal. All wanted to know what life in the city was like, and I put most of their questions off, and lied uncomfortably when I had to. Everyone thought it was very odd that I had turned up so suddenly, like a mushroom, or a changeling in a cradle.

Melinda had come the very first day; John had gone home for his dinner at noon, instead of eating with us, so he could start broadcasting the news as soon as possible. Melinda came back with him in the afternoon, and kissed me and shook me by the shoulders and told me I looked marvelous and how I’d grown! Her questions were the hardest to turn aside; she wanted very much to know why she hadn’t seen me coming through town—everything that happened in Blue Hill happened in front of the Griffin—and what my aunt meant by letting me come alone, and whether there really had been no warning.

She obviously thought I was being treated very shabbily, and only her good manners prevented her from saying so outright. I tried to explain that I’d left the party I traveled with for only the last few miles, but she refused to be mollified. Then she was shocked that I could stay only a week—” After six, seven months, and a six weeks’ journey to come here at all? The woman’s mad. When are you coming again?”

“I don’t know,” I said unhappily.

“You don’t—” she started, saw the expression on my face, and stopped abruptly. “Well, I’ll say no more. These are family matters, and I’ve no call to be meddling. There’s more here than you care to tell me, and that’s as it should be; I’m no kin of yours. But I’m fond of you, child, so I hope you’ll excuse me; I’d have liked to have seen more of you, but you’re here for so little I’ll have to leave you to your family.”

I was glad to see her, but her common sense and my inability to answer her straightforward questions distressed me, and I was relieved when she took her leave. The only bright spot was watching her and Father together: They spoke for a few minutes apart from the rest of us, after she had already bid us good-bye. They were smiling at each other in a foolish sort of way that they obviously weren’t aware of; and I caught Hope watching them narrowly. She caught my eye, smiled just enough for me to recognize it as a smile; and winked slowly. We turned our backs on them and returned to the kitchen, where Grace had gone already, soberly discussing the dyeing of yarn.

John also took home the tale of the wonderful new bellows—brass-bound!—that I had brought from the city, which served to soften the opinions of people like his mother toward my evil-minded aunt. Ger had found the bellows hung mysteriously in the place of the old ones, which had disappeared, a scant few minutes before John had arrived that first morning after I had come home, and had just the presence of mind to explain where they were from. John swore they were more than twice as easy to pump as the old ones, for all they were so much bigger.

The smooth white road that had brought me to my own back door had disappeared as though it had never been. That morning, while Ger was discovering his new equipment, I was walking along the edge of the forest. I could find Greatheart’s hoofprints, where he had jumped over the thorny hedge that grew irregularly at the forest’s border, but behind it, nothing. Nothing but rocks and leaves and dirt and pine needles: no road, no hoofprints, no sign even of any large animal forcing its way through the underbrush.

I was still staring at Greatheart’s hoofprints as though they were runes when the first visitors arrived with work for Ger and Father, and discovered the lost lamb returned to the fold. The house was full of people for that day, and the day after, and the day after; I’d forgotten there were so many people in Blue Hill. But my mysterious arrival piqued their curiosity, and many of the men still remembered Greatheart’s strength, and came out to wish us well, and to drink some of our cider.

That third day, Molly arrived shortly before Mr. Lawrey left, ostensibly to deliver a big jar of Melinda’s famous pickles, which she remembered I was fond of, but actually to ask me again about the city. “She must keep you locked in the attic,” Molly said impulsively. “You haven’t seen anything.”

“Well, mostly I study,” I said apologetically.

Molly shook her head in wonder; and then some men who had come to consult with Father and Ger were brought in for tea. It wasn’t till after dinner that evening, the dishes washed and the candles lit, that we were alone, and had time to talk. I had been seeing Robbie in my mind all afternoon, since the minister had left: his thin face lit up by the old happy-go-lucky smile I remembered from the city, when he was making the final preparations for the journey that would make him a fortune and win him a wife.

We were sitting around the parlour fire, busy with handwork, just as I remembered from the days before Father’s fateful journey. I was mending harness; everyone had protested against my working, when I was only a few days home, but I had insisted; and it felt good to be doing this homely work again, although my fingers were slower than they once had been. Everything seemed very much as I remembered it: I derived much comfort from looking around me and reiterating this to myself. I wanted to take as much of this contentment and security back with me as I could.

Hope finished a seam on the dress she was making, and dragged me away from my bits of leather to use me as a dressmaker’s dummy, pinning folds of green cotton around me. “This isn’t going to help you much,” I said, holding my arms out awkwardly as she pinned a swath across my chest. “I’m the wrong shape.” Hope smiled, and spoke through a mouthful of pins. “No you’re not,” she said. “All I have to do is shorten the hem. Aren’t there any mirrors in that grand castle of yours? I don’t understand how you could help noticing something….”

“She’s never noticed anything but books and horses since she was a baby,” said Grace, golden head bowed over a shirt she was making for Richard.

“An ugly baby,” I said.

“Let’s not start that again,” said Hope. “Don’t fidget, I’ll be finished sooner, you silly thing, if you’ll stand still.”

“The pins stick me,” I complained.

“They wouldn’t, if you would stand still,” Hope said inexorably. “But didn’t you grow out of your clothes, and have to have new ones?”

“Well, no,” I said. “Lydia and Bessie always tend to my wardrobe, and one way or another whatever they put on me fits.”

“Whew,” said Hope. “I wish the twins’ clothes would do that.”

“Mmm,” said Grace, biting off a thread.

“But that even you shouldn’t notice anything,” said Hope, kneeling to fold up the hem.

“Well—the day after I came home I looked at Greatheart’s saddle,” I offered, trying to be helpful. “I remember that the stirrup leathers were replaced the first day I was there. I’m using them three holes longer now than I did then. Funny though, I don’t at all remember moving them.”

“What did I tell you?” said Grace, starting on another seam. “Only Beauty would think to measure herself by the length of her stirrups,” and everybody laughed. “Oh dear,” said Hope. “I’ve lost a pin. Richard’s foot will find it tomorrow. All right, foolish girl, you can take it off now.”

“How?” I said plaintively.

After I had been extricated I sat down on the edge of the stone hearth, where I had set my cup of cider, near Grace’s knee. I hated to break the comfortable silence. “I—there’s another reason I came home, just now,” I said; and everyone stopped whatever they were doing and looked at me. The silence was splintered, not just by my words. I looked down into my cup. “I’ve been putting off telling you. It’s—it’s about Grace.”

My oldest sister laid the little shirt on her knees and crossed her hands over it before she looked at me; and then her eyes were anxious. “What is it?”

I didn’t know any good way to lead up to it. “Robbie’s come home,” I said, very low. “He put in at the city dock the morning of the day I came home. I came to tell you—so you wouldn’t marry Mr. Lawrey till you’d seen him again.”

Grace gasped when I first mentioned Robbie’s name, and put out her hands, which I seized. “Robbie?” she said. “Oh, is it true? I can’t believe it, I’ve thought of it for so long. Beauty, is it true?”

I nodded as she stared at me, and then her eyes went blank, and she fell forwards in my lap in a faint. I lifted her gently back into her chair as the rest of the family stood up and started forwards. Father slid a pillow under her head, and Hope disappeared into the kitchen and returned with an evil-smelling little bottle. Grace stirred and sat up, looking at us as we crouched around her. “It had better be true, now,” said Father grimly. “I know,” I answered in an undertone. “But it is.”

Grace looked around slowly until her eyes rested on me, and her gaze cleared. “How do you know? Tell me everything. Have you seen him? But you said he was in the city. Please—”

“I saw him the same way I saw you and Hope talking in the parlour, that morning,” I said, and her eyes widened, and I heard Hope catch her breath. “The White Raven is a wreck; I don’t know how he managed to bring her home at all. And he looks ill, and tired. But he’s alive. And I don’t know what he’ll do when he finds out what’s happened to you—to all of us.”

“Alive,” whispered Grace, and she looked at Father, with her eyes as big and bright as summer raindrops. “We must invite him to come here as soon as he may. He can rest here, and regain his strength.”

Father stood up and walked around the room, and paused as he returned to the fireplace. “You’re sure,” he said to me, wishing for reassurance and yet unsure that he could accept it. I nodded.

“Magic,” murmured Ger. “Ah, well.”

Father took another turn around the room—it was too small a room for a man of his size and hasty stride—and paused again. “I shall write to him at once. There will be business arrangements to be made also. Perhaps I should go myself.” He stood irresolute.

“No need,” said Ger. “Callaway is setting out for the city in a few days’ time. He asked me today if there was anything he could do for us—offered to escort Beauty, too, since her aunt doesn’t seem to be providing for her properly. You can trust him with any messages. If you tell him to bring Tucker back with him, you may be sure he will, tied on the back of his saddle if need be.”

Father smiled. “Yes, Nick Callaway is a good man. I’d rather not make that journey again if I can.” Everyone avoided looking in my direction. After a tiny pause, Father turned to Grace. “My dear, six years is a long time. Perhaps you should wait and see?”

“Wait?” she said. “I’ve been waiting six years. Robbie won’t have forgotten, any more than I have. And we’re on even terms now, too; neither of us has a penny of our own.” This was not strictly true; by Blue Hill’s standards, we were very well off. But Grace swept us all before her on the bright, happy look she wore, which we had not seen on her face for six years. “It will be all right,” she said. “I will not wait any longer.”

Ger and Hope exchanged glances and slow smiles.

“Send for him, Father,” said Grace; her tone was that of a queen commanding, with no thought of delay or denial. “Please. I will write to him also.”

“Very well,” said Father.

The next three days crept past me as quickly and secretly as the first three had; perhaps even faster, because after my news of Robbie, we were all preoccupied with him and with Grace, who could scarcely remember to put one foot in front of the other when she walked; with the sudden, brutal urgency of a long and terrible wait ended. Her letter and Father’s were delivered to Nick Callaway, who after being assured that I needed no escort declared his intention of setting off on the very next day. “I’ve no reason to hang about, and I’m anxious to get back before the weather turns—it’s risky enough, as late in the year as it is,” he said. “I should be there in five weeks, if I’m lucky, and home again in twelve, with your friend, I hope.” He obviously thought there was something a little odd in my arrangements, but he inquired no further after I had reassured him that I was well taken care of. “But my party will be traveling much more slowly than you,” I said.

“All right, miss, and a good journey to you,” he said, and rode away, leaving us to be grateful that he hadn’t asked us where our mysterious information about Captain Tucker’s whereabouts had come from in the first place.

On the sixth night I said, “I will have to leave tomorrow, you know”; and everyone spoke at once, begging me to stay one more day. I sat on the fender, twisting my ring around my finger, listening unhappily. Hope and Grace both started crying. I said nothing for several minutes, and the tumult subsided at last, and everyone was silent, like mourners at graveside. Father stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. “One more day,” he said. “It’s not even been a full week yet.”

I chewed my lip, felt the whole weight of my family’s love concentrated in my father’s hand, pushing me down where I sat. “All right,” I said with difficulty.

I slept badly that night. My sleep had been dreamless, these days at home; in the mornings I had felt vaguely cheated, but had each day quickly forgotten it in the pleasure of being able to go downstairs and see my father and sisters, brother, and niece and nephew over the breakfast table. But this night I dreamed in haunted snatches of the castle, of vast empty rooms, of the sinister silence I had feared during my first days there. But now it was worse, because my sixth sense caused it to echo through my mind till my own body felt like a shell, a cold stony cavern with nothing in it but the wind. The comforting if ambiguous presence I had learned to trust during the last few months had disappeared; the castle was as solitary and incalcuable as it had been on my first night there. Where was my Beast? I could not find him, nor could I sense him anywhere.

I woke up at dawn, rumpled and unrefreshed, and stared at the low slanted ceiling for several minutes before I could get myself out of bed. I was moody and distracted all that day, and nothing pleased me; I did not belong here, and I should not stay. I tried to hide my impatience, but my family watched me unhappily, and uncomprehendingly, till I could not meet anyone’s eyes. That evening as I huddled by the fire, my hands idle but restless, Father said: “You will leave tomorrow morning?” His voice was a little unsteady.

I looked up at him, around at all of them. “I must. I’m sorry. Please try to understand. I promised.”

Father tried to smile, but didn’t quite manage it. “You were well named,” he said. “At least—I will still dream about you often?”

I nodded.

“At least I know that much now,” he said with an effort.

I couldn’t speak, and soon afterwards I went upstairs. I laid aside the plain clothes that Grace and Hope had lent me, and shook out the creases in the dress I had worn when I arrived; my sisters had wanted to wash and press it for me, but I had refused; there was no need to give them extra work. They acceded to what they were pleased to term my perversity eventually; with great practical knowledge of such matters, they said I would ruin my lovely dress, but I shook my head. I would leave it to Lydia’s and Bessie’s inspired care. There was little packing to do; then I lay down and tried to sleep. But this night was worse than the last, and I tossed and turned and clawed at the bedclothes. I fell asleep at last, but my dreams were troubled.

I dreamed that I was walking through the castle, looking for the Beast, and, as in my dreams of the night before, I could not find him. “I am easily found, if you want me,” he had said. But I hurried through room after room after room, and no Beast, nor any sense of his presence. At last I came to the little room where I had first found him, and where I had seen Robbie in the glass. He was sitting in the deep armchair as if he had never moved since I had left him a week before; his hands lay palm up on his knees, but the right one was curled shut.

“Oh, Beast,” I said, “I thought I would never find you.” But he never stirred. “Beast!” I cried. “Oh, Beast! He’s dead, and it’s all my fault”—and I woke up. The weak grey light that serves as harbinger of red and golden dawn faintly lit my window. I fumbled for a candle, found and lit it, and by its little light saw that the rose floating in the bowl was dying. It had already lost most of its petals, which floated on the water like tiny, unseaworthy boats, deserted for safer craft.

“Dear God,” I said. “I must go back at once.” I dressed and hurried downstairs, finding my way by touch through the home I no longer remembered; no one else was stirring. I left the one full saddle-bag we had never opened, and picked up the other, which was more than ample for my small needs; the bags had lain undisturbed all this week on the table in the corner of the parlour. I picked up some bread and dried meat from the kitchen and ran to the stable. I had marked the tree beside which I had found Greatheart’s hoofprints the morning after my arrival, and now I led my anxious horse along the border of the forest till I recognized the white knife slash in the bark of the tree. I mounted, adjusting harness as I rode, and Greatheart was soon crashing through the brush.

But we didn’t find the road. This did not disturb me at first; we jogged, trotted, and cantered steadily till the morning sun lit our way for us, and the forest floor showed a patchwork green and gold and brown. “You need only get lost in the woods,” I recalled. The edge of the forest was long since out of sight. I turned to make sure; beyond trees I saw shadows of trees, and then shadows of shadows. I dismounted, loosened the girths, and fed myself and the horse some bread; then we walked on side by side for a little while, till Greatheart was cool. Then my impatience grew too great, and I remounted and we cantered on.

Trees slapped me in the face, and Greatheart’s gait was uneven as he picked his way over the rough ground. It seemed to get worse the farther we went. It hadn’t been like this on the other two journeys. By noon we were tired and blown, and Greatheart walked without fidgeting to go faster. My father and I had struck the road after only a few hours’ easy riding. I dismounted again, and we walked together, the foam dripping out of the horse’s mouth. We came at last to a little stream; we both waded and drank and splashed our hot faces with the cool water. I noticed the water had an odd taste, a little bitter, which lingered in the mouth a long time after drinking.

We turned and followed the course of the stream, for want of a better guide. The way was a little easier here; the trees and thornbushes did not grow so closely together near the water, where the ground was softer and covered with low leafy bushes and marsh grass. The stream murmured to itself, but paid us no heed, and the sharp smell of the grasses Greatheart broke underfoot bit our throats. The sun walked down the afternoon sky, and I saw no sign of the road we were looking for. I knew from glimpses of the sun through the trees that we were still heading in more or less the direction we had started from before dawn; but perhaps this was of no use in this forest. Nor did I know if the Beast’s castle lay at the geographical center of the forest, nor whether we were heading towards the center at all. We could only go on. Twilight came upon us; we were lost in good earnest now. I had little notion of woodcraft. I had had no notion that it might be necessary.

Greatheart strode doggedly on. We had been traveling for over twelve hours, and even Greatheart was nearing the end of his strength; we had stopped to rest infrequently and briefly. I couldn’t rest. I dismounted and we walked. Greatheart stumbled occasionally, more often as the shadows grew up around us. I didn’t notice if I stumbled or not, although when I stood still to look up at the sky my feet in their soft slippers took advantage of the pause to tell me that they were sore and bruised. Greatheart stood still, his big head hanging. “This will help a little,” I said, and took off his saddle and bridle, and hung them neatly on a convenient tree-limb. “Maybe we’ll be able to come back for them.” I took what remained of the food I had brought, then hung the saddlebag over the pommel. After a moment’s thought, I pulled off my heavy skirt, added it to the pile, and tied my cloak over my petticoats and twisted it tightly around me with a ribbon. “Come along,” I said. Greatheart shook himself gingerly and looked at me. “I don’t know what’s happening either. Come along.” And he followed me. The absence of that skirt made a big difference to my feet.

The last bit of daylight was fading and leaving the silver water black when I saw something pale glimmer through the trees to my left. It was long and low, too still and too straight for running water. I caught my breath, and began to struggle through the suddenly dense undergrowth, Greatheart snorting and crashing behind me. It was the road. It stretched out to my right, and ended a few feet to my left, in ragged patches of sand and stone. It did not run as smooth and straight as I remembered, but my eyes were blurred and tired. My feet touched the road just as the last light died, leaving the road a grey smudge in the blackness.

“We’ll have to wait till moonrise now,” I said fretfully. After standing, looking uselessly around me for a few minutes, I went back to the side of the road and sat down under a tree. Greatheart investigated me, then wandered out into the sandy road and had a good roll, with much snorting and blowing and waving of legs. He returned to drip dust on me, and I fed him some more bread. He ate a few leaves off the tree I was under, then settled down on three legs for a nap. I sat, hands around my knees, waiting till the moon climbed high enough for us to make out our way. It seemed like hours, but it wasn’t long; the moon rose early, the sky was clear and cloudless; even the starlight was bright enough to cast a few shadows through the tangled undergrowth. The road was a dim pale ribbon, leading farther into the forest, promising nothing. I sighed, then walked over to the horse and thumped his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Do you think you might be ridden?” I rubbed some of the dirt off his back with a corner of my cloak, and mounted with the aid of a low-hanging branch. I had first taught him to respond to my legs and voice when he was a yearling, before he had ever worn any harness; but that was a long time ago, and I felt very insecure on a back as broad as his was now, without a saddle. But he stepped onto the road and broke into a gentle trot, little more than a shuffle, and I clung to his mane and managed fairly well. I found myself falling asleep as I rode. All that kept me awake at all was the horse’s changes of gait, walk to jog, a brief canter, and walk again, as he set his own pace. His head was up and his ears pricked;—I concentrated on not falling off—and on not thinking what might lie ahead of me. First we had to find the castle.

Any number of nights may have passed without my knowledge or comprehension. Greatheart shifted from a jog to a walk, and then stopped altogether. I opened my eyes and looked around vaguely. We had come to the big silver gates, but they remained closed, even when Greatheart put his nose out and touched them. I kneed the horse around till I could reach out and push them with my hand; the surface was smooth and slightly chilly to the flat of my palm. Then it quivered like the skin of an animal, and seemed to flush with a warm grey light like the earth’s first dawn. It swung open slowly with the sound of someone breathing. I did not wonder at this long; Greatheart broke into a gallop as soon as the gates opened wide enough to let us through. I dug in with my hands and legs and held on.

We didn’t see the castle till we were almost upon it. It was dark, darker than the shadows around it; even the moonlight shunned it. The lights in the garden were few and dim, and blocked to us as we galloped through the meadow and the stand of ornamental trees. Greatheart went straight to the stable and stopped. I slid off his back, my legs almost folding under me when my feet touched the ground. The stable door didn’t open. I put both hands against it, and it shuddered, as the gate had; but it remained shut. I pushed it in the direction it usually opened, and as slowly and wearily as Sisyphus I forced it open. One or two candles lit wanly as we went in. I opened a stall door and sent Greatheart in, hot as he was, threw a blanket over him, gave him a swift pat and word of thanks, and left him. I would tend him later. I had to find the Beast.

The great front doors to the castle were open, to my intense relief. I ran inside. A lantern lit, its wick nearly guttering. I picked it up and adjusted it; it was plain hammered copper, with a glass bubble to protect the flame. I carried it with me down the corridor. The dining hall was cold and still, like the parlour opposite, though both the doors stood wide. I went upstairs.

It was much worse than my dreams had been. I was tired, deadly tired, and sore and hungry, and so filthy that the creases of my petticoats chafed me when I moved; and my feet hurt worse with every step. I was too tired to think; all that my mind held was: “I must find my Beast.” But I couldn’t find him. I was too tired even to call aloud to him, and too numb to hear even if he had answered. All my senses were dull; I could catch no feeling of his presence. The castle had never been so large. I crossed hundreds of halls, passed through thousands of rooms. I didn’t even find my room, nor did I hear any rustling that might have been Bessie or Lydia. The castle was deserted, and as chill and dank as if it had stood empty for many years. Some of the thicker shadows might have been dust and cobwebs. It was fortunate that I carried a lamp with me, because few of the candles lit at my approach, and many of them winked once or twice and went out again as if the effort were too much. My arm ached with holding my lantern aloft, and its light trembled with my arm’s shivering; its faint glow spilled around me, but none of the shadows held the Beast. My stumbling footsteps echoed in solitude.

More time passed. I tripped over the edge of a carpet and fell sprawling; the lamp turned over and went out. I lay where I was, too exhausted to move, and found myself weeping. I dragged myself to a sitting position, disgusted at my weakness, and looked hopelessly down the long hall in the direction I had been going when I fell; and in the darkness I saw a tiny puddle of light. A light. I got to my feet and went towards it.

It was the room I had found the Beast in on the first night, and the room I had dreamed about last night. A dying fire in the hearth cast the dim light I had seen through the partly open door; it creaked on its hinges when I pushed it farther open. He was sitting in the wing chair, his closed right hand on his knee, as if he hadn’t moved since I had left him over a week ago. “Beast!” I cried, and he didn’t move. “You can’t die. Please don’t die. Come back to me,” I said, weeping again, kneeling down by the chair. He didn’t move. I looked around wildly. The bowl of roses still sat by his elbow. The flowers were brown, and petals lay scattered on the floor. I pulled the white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dipped it in the water, then laid it across the Beast’s forehead. “My love, wake up,” I said.

With a motion as slow as centuries he opened his eyes. I didn’t dare move. He blinked, and some light returned to his dull eyes, and he saw me. “Beauty,” he said.

“I’m here, dear Beast,” I said.

“I thought you had broken your promise,” he said; there wasn’t a shade of reproach in his voice, and for a moment I couldn’t answer. “I started late,” I said, “and then it took me a very long time to find my way through the forest.”

“Yes, it would,” he said, speaking with pauses between the words. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “as long as you’re all right. But will you be all right now? I’ll never leave you again.”

He smiled. “I’ll be all right. Thank you, Beauty.”

I sighed, and started to get to my feet; but I staggered, and saved myself only by clutching the arm of the chair. The world splashed around me like black water in a bilge, and I couldn’t find my feet. The Beast reached out a hand, and I sank onto his lap. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“You’re very tired, you must rest now,” he said. “You’re safe home.”

I shook my head. Now that my most pressing fear had been disposed of, a few thoughts stole tentatively back inside my mind. “Not yet. I have to see to Greatheart—I’d still be in the forest without him—but I had to find you first—and then there’s something I must tell you.”

“Not now,” he said.

“Yes, now,” I replied. I paused a minute while the world stopped pitching and rolling. I could hear the Beast breathing; I didn’t think he had been when I first entered the room. “Look,” I said. “Dawn.” Tendrils of pink were climbing above the forest, and a little hesitating light came through the window, and we could see each other’s faces clearly. The Beast was wearing golden velvet, I noticed, instead of the dark brown I had last seen.

“I can’t sleep now,” I said. “It’s daylight. What I want is breakfast.” And I stood up, and walked to the window. As the light increased, a little of my strength returned. I leaned my elbows on the window sill and looked out across the gardens. They had never looked so beautiful to me before. The Beast joined me at the window. “It’s good to be back,” I said.

“Were your family pleased with the news you brought?” he said.

I nodded. “Yes. Grace won’t be good for anything now, till they have had proper news of him. But that’s all right too. They hope he’ll ride back with the man who’s carrying her and Father’s letters to him. Will you let me—sometimes—look in the glass again?” I added timidly.

The Beast nodded. “Of course. You know, though, I feel a little sorry for the young minister.”

I looked out the window again. I waved a hand, indicating vaguely the sweep of garden and meadow, and said, “You—this hasn’t suffered any lasting harm by my—er—delay, has it?”

“No, Beauty, don’t worry,” he said.

I hesitated. “What would have happened—if I hadn’t come?”

“Happened? Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

I stared at him, not comprehending, as his answer hung between us in the morning air. “Nothing? But—” And I stopped, not wanting to mention, or remember, his dreadful stillness when I had first entered the room.

“I was dying?” he said. “Yes. I would have died, and you and Greatheart would have returned to your family; and in another two hundred years this castle would have been lost in a garden run wild, with the forest growing up to the dooryard, and birds nesting in the towers. And in two hundred years after that, even the legends would have left, and only the stones remained.”

I took a deep breath. “This is what I have to tell you then,” I said, looking up at him. The Beast looked at me inquiringly. I looked down again, and said in a rush, to the grey stones of the window sill, “I love you, and I want to marry you.”

Perhaps I fainted, but it wasn’t at all like the first time. The Beast disappeared, and then everything else did too, or perhaps it all happened at once. There was a wild explosion of light, as if the sun had burst; then, like a shock wave, there rose up a great din of what sounded like bells ringing, huge cathedral bells, and crowds shouting and cheering, horses neighing, even cannons firing. I huddled down where I stood and pressed my hands to my ears, but this helped not at all. The castle trembled underfoot as if the stones were applauding in their foundations; and then I could feel nothing under my feet at all, and I was buoyed up by light and sound. Then it all ceased as quickly as it had begun. I lowered my hands and opened my eyes cautiously. The gardens looked just the same; perhaps the sunlight was a bit brighter; but then it was morning, and the sun was rising. I turned around and looked into the room.

The Beast was nowhere to be seen. A man stood beside me, dressed in golden velvet, as the Beast had been, with white lace at his throat and wrists. He had brown eyes, and curly brown hair streaked with grey. He was taller than I was, though not so tall as the Beast; and as I looked at him in surprise, he smiled at me, a little uncertainly it seemed. He was quite alarmingly handsome, and I blinked and felt foolish. “My Beast,” I said, and my voice sounded shrill. I felt like a scrubby schoolgirl beside this grand gentleman. “Where is he? I must go find him—” And I backed away from the window, still looking at my unexpected visitor.

“Wait, Beauty,” the man said.

I stopped. “Your voice,” I said. “I know your voice.”

“I am the Beast,” he said. “I was laid under an enchantment to live as a dreadful Beast until some maiden should love me in spite of my ugliness, and promise to marry me.”

I continued to stare bemusedly at him. My voice sounded weak and silly in my ears: “Your voice—I recognize it, but it sounds different.” I said inanely: “Is it really you? I mean—I—well, I find this rather—er—difficult….” I trailed off, and put my hands to my face, pinching my chin as if reassuring myself that I was awake; and heard the clink of bracelets falling back from my wrists.

“Yes, I am really I,” he said gently; “but my voice is coming from a smaller—human—chest now.”

“You’re the young man in the last picture,” I said suddenly.

He smiled wryly. “Yes; but not so young now, I’m afraid. Even enchantments aren’t perfect protection against time. But then I don’t feel like a young man anymore.” He looked down at his hands. “It took me the first decade just to learn to walk like a man again.”

“Who did this to you?” I said, and backed up against the window ledge, grateful for its support, as I had been grateful for the support of a balustrade on another first meeting months ago.

He frowned. “It’s an old family curse of sorts. My forebears were, um, rather overpious, and overzealous in impressing their neighbors with their piety. After the first few generations of holier-than-thou the local magician got rather tired of them, and cursed them; but unfortunately their virtue was even as great as they made it out to be, and the curse wouldn’t stick. So, being a magician, he settled down to wait for their first erring step. My family laughed, which didn’t improve his temper any—and unfortunately for me, at last, that erring foot was mine.

“You’ve probably noticed the carving around the front doors.” I nodded. “That was I, two centuries ago.” He looked away, and when he looked back at me, his smile was strained. “I’m sorry I’m so old—I think it works out to about one year in ten—I’ve been waiting a long time. I can’t let you off now, you know. I hope you don’t mind very much.”

“I can’t marry you,” I burst out, and the smile left his face as if it had been cut off, and his eyes were dark and sad. I blundered on: “Look at you. You should marry a queen or something, a duchess at least, not a dull drab little nothing like myself. I haven’t anything—no dowry, not even a title to hide behind.”

“Beauty—” he began.

“And you needn’t consider yourself in my debt because I’ve undone your enchantment for you. You’ve”—I rushed on—“done a great deal for—for my family, and for me. I’ll never forget—my months here.”

His expression had become quizzical as I was speaking. “Let’s leave aside my debt, ah, or responsibility for the moment. As I recall, we had a conversation along similar lines at the beginning of our acquaintance. You suffer from the oddest misapprehensions about your appearance.” He looked over his shoulder. “If I remember correctly, there should be a mirror that has reappeared just outside, in the hall. Come.” He held out his hand, and I reluctantly put mine in his, and heard the clink of bracelets again, and looked down. “Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “They’ve done it again. How—?” I was wearing the silver princess’s dress; the skirts drifted around me in a shining mist, and I wondered how I hadn’t noticed before that my straggling hair was clean again, and combed, and pinned to my head. I seemed to have had a bath while the foundations had danced under me, and my exhaustion had been washed away with the grime of travel. I felt the griffin necklace around my throat, and the high-heeled shoes on my feet.

I tried to pull my hand free when I noticed the change, but his fingers closed around mine. “Come,” he repeated. I didn’t have much choice. I followed him unhappily out into the hall, and there, as he had said, was a mirror in a golden frame, big enough to hold a reflection of both of us as we stood side by side and looked into it.

The girl in the mirror wasn’t I, I was sure of it, in spite of the fact that the man in golden velvet was holding my hand as he was holding the girl’s. She was tall—well, all right, I said to myself, I do remember that I’m tall enough now. Her hair was a pale coppery red, and her eyes, strangest of all, weren’t muddy hazel, but clear and amber, with flecks of green. And the dress did look lovely on her, in spite of the fact that she was blushing furiously—I felt as if I were blushing furiously too. I leaned closer, fascinated. No, there, it was I, after all: The quirk of the eyebrows was still there, the dark uneven arch that had always said that the eyes didn’t believe what they saw; but then since I had only seen them in mirrors, perhaps this was true. And I recognized the high wide cheekbones, but my face had filled out around them; and the mouth was still higher on one side than the other, and the high side had a dimple.

“Are you convinced?” said the man in the mirror.

“Oh dear,” said the girl. “It’s magic, it’ll fade away. It’s not possible.”

He put his hands on my bare shoulders and turned me to face him. “I should warn you, my darling, that we haven’t much time. Things all over the castle will be waking up, and discovering they exist again, and then coming to find me, and to meet their new mistress. There’s no magic left that can hurt you, nor any that remains that will fade away. Your family will be arriving soon—with Robbie—and if our minister wakes up in time and remembers where he left his Bible, we can have the wedding this afternoon. Double, if you like, with your sister.”

I had a brief vision of my family riding over the meadows towards the castle. Behind them I noticed that the holly hedge was gone; the silver gates framed a broad white road that led through a park that had once been a dark enchanted forest. Hope rode the chestnut mare, Cider; Grace rode a horse only a few shades paler than her glorious hair. Ger’s and Robbie’s mounts were blood bays, with black legs and ears; brown Odysseus carried Father, and Melinda rode beside him on a cream-colored mare, her rose-silk skirts falling like water over the mare’s white shoulders, her face as bright as my sisters’. My family was dressed in the rich things I had found in my saddle-bag: Father in white and the iridescent blue of aquamarines, Ger in red and grey and black, as fine as a lord, riding beside Hope in her green dress and sea-colored emeralds. Grace was next, in gold brocade and rubies, and Robbie, in scarlet and green, rode close beside her, holding her hand, healthy and strong and happy again. I could still see the white in his hair, but now the vivid contrast suited him, lending his handsome face a wisdom and dignity beyond his years.

Behind them hundreds of people walked the white road; more road in carriages, and on horseback, splendid as the procession for a king’s coronation. The last of them were so far away that I could not distinguish them from the green leaves and the flowers, and the singing birds.

Then the image faded as the man who stood beside me continued: “I love you, Beauty. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” I said, and he took me in his golden arms, and kissed me. When we parted, it was only to a hand’s length, and we looked long at one another, smiling.

He raised my hand to his lips, held it there for a moment. “Shall we go down now?” he said.

I turned my head, listening to a purposeful stirring in the castle halls beneath us. Little tremors of sound and motion licked the threshold of the pilastered hall we stood in alone; but I thought my ear picked out an individual rustling it knew well. “I think I hear Lydia.”

He turned his head also. “Very likely. I’m afraid you’ll find there are a good many Lydias about the castle now. I can recall a veritable army of housekeepers, each more enthusiastic than the last.” He paused. “You know about Lydia and Bessie, then?”

I nodded. “I’ve been listening—rather a captive audience, you know—to their conversations for several months now. Since the night I fainted,” I said shyly. “You know. When I began to learn to see.”

He smiled. “Yes, I know.” More briskly he added: “Then you’re a little prepared. They’ve been very good to me; they needn’t have stayed when the change came, but they chose to, for my sake—for the sake of what remained of my humanity. Although I can admit now that sometimes their common-sense attitude towards everything, including being enchanted, could be as much an irritation as a comfort. I daresay you know something of that.”

“Yes, I do,” I said, and dropped my eyes from his a moment. “I worried often about what it was I had to figure out, and about the last hope they couldn’t talk about.”

“You understand now, don’t you?” he said, and raised my chin again with his finger. “The terms of the magic were that you agree to marry the Beast. Not something that Bessie and Lydia, with their silver-polish and dust-under-the-rug consciences, could understand. I’m sorry.”

I smiled. “I understand now. But it doesn’t matter and you needn’t apologize. They have been very kind to me too. Even if we did differ a little about suitable dresses.”

He considered me a moment, a mischievous light creeping into his eyes, and said: “Was that the dress—that night you wouldn’t come out of your room?”

I grinned and nodded, and we both laughed; and the last shadows fled away from the corners of the castle and flew out of the window like bats, never to return.

He drew my hand through his arm; far below us in the bright, sunlit courtyard we heard a clatter of hoofs, and Grace’s laugh as she dismounted. Then I heard Melinda’s voice, and Father’s answering her. “A triple ceremony, I think?” said my lover.

Ger said: “Where Greatheart is, Beauty cannot be far away.”

I saw my horse standing, tall and proud and shining like the sky before a storm in winter, his mane riding his crest like thunderheads on the horizon. He was draped in crimson and gold, and a red rose was tucked under the crownpiece of his bridle. Beside him a black horse stood, like him enough that the two could have been brothers; his saddle was silver, and the trailing skirts sapphire blue; and a white rose gleamed like the moon between his black ears. Just as I saw the two grooms, dressed in green and white, standing at the horses’ heads, and several more assisting my family—and then more, striding out of the stable doors, dressed in their livery, with red and white roses at their breasts, going to assist the crowd of people collecting in the courtyard—the image faded once again.

I turned back to the man at my side. “I don’t even know your name.”

He smiled. “I’m afraid I no longer remember it. You will have to name me. Come; introduce me to your family. I am looking forward to meeting them.”

“I am looking forward to their meeting you,” I said, and we left the hall that held the room where Beauty first met the Beast, and descended the stairs together, as thousands of candles in the crystal chandeliers blazed in greeting, till they rivaled the light of the sun. As we approached the great front hall, the doors swung open, and the sea of sound and scent and color swept in and foamed around our feet. My family stood nearest the threshold, and they looked up with glad expectancy. The crowd caught sight of us, and everyone sent up a cheer; Greatheart and his brother neighed and stamped, and above it all rang the wild music of bells and pipes and horns.