farther we have to go.”
But here, the horse could provide no answer – none that I could interpret, anyhow.
I sat upon his back, my hands resting lightly on the branch of the Heartwood. The trees of the Wood seemed to acknowledge our approach, bending forward as if in stately bows, in a wind they felt but I could not. Dappled sunlight danced across the forest floor.
The horse changed pace again, abandoning his walk for a quick and eager trot. At
this, it seemed to me I felt the wind, and more, I heard the sound it made as it brought the treetops together, then pushed them apart, as if they were passing on a message.
Belle is coming. Belle is coming. Belle. Belle. Belle
.
Once more the horse shifted pace, into a canter this time. And now I made no
request that he hold back, for I thought I understood. He was eager to be home.
“All right,” I said. “Go on, boy.”
At this, he sprang forward so swiftly that I closed my eyes and held on tight. And so I missed the moment when we passed from the Wood where anyone could travel into the one of enchantment. Whether I would have known the boundary when we crossed it, to this day, I cannot tell.
Finally, with an abruptness that almost tossed me straight over his head, the horse stopped. We’d come to our precipitous halt in front of a pair of elaborately carved wrought-iron gates. In the center of the gate on the right was the silhouette of a man, with one hand outstretched. Opposite him, in the center of the left gate, was a woman, reaching back toward the man.
When the gates were closed, their hands would meet. When the gates were open,
they would be apart, yet still reaching for each other. A pair of horses rearing up on their hind legs created a curving arch atop the gates.
“One of those is you, I suppose,” I said. The horse gave his head a toss. As if at the sound of my voice, the gates swung open. Just as my father had said, they did not make a sound.
I gasped. Perhaps it was just the shadow of a nearby tree, but as the gate opened, the figure of the man altered, if only for a moment. Instead of the smooth lines that suggested a nobleman in fine clothes, it seemed the silhouette grew jagged; desperation etched in every line. It looked like a soul in torment.
But with the gate swung wide, the shadow passed, and I was gazing once again at
a young man reaching toward his sweetheart.
“I guess this means we can go in,” I said. The horse tossed his head and stamped, setting the silver buckles on his harness jangling/ but he stayed right where he was. And all of a sudden, I understood.
This Beast doesn’t miss a trick, does he
? I thought.
“May I please come in?” I called out, my voice clear and strong. I’d been a little concerned about that, if truth must be told. Talking to the horse was one thing, to his master, quite another. At any rate, there could be no harm in being polite. Less chance of being eaten on the spot, or so I sincerely hoped.
“My name is Annabelle Evangeline Delaurier,” I went on. “I have come to honor
my father’s debt, to return the branch of the Heartwood Tree. I have come of my own accord. I would like to enter, if you’ll let me.”
The horse whickered its approval. There was a beat of silence. Then, as if he’d
heard an answer that I couldn’t, the horse walked through the gates.
Don’t look back, Belle
, I thought.
Don’t watch those gates shut fast behind you
.
But of course I did it anyhow. I turned and watched the gates that marked the
place between the world I thought I understood and the one I was quite certain I did not, close silently behind me. The man’s and the woman’s outstretched hands were truly clasped together now. The young couple was reunited.
I turned my face away. Toward the heart of the Wood. The home of the Beast, the
monster.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The remainder of my journey was just as my father had described. The path the horse and I trod was narrow, and made of ivory-colored stones so cunningly made there was not a chink for a single blade of grass to grow. On one side, an orchard of fruit trees stretched into the distance. On the other, roses grew in great profusion, tumbling over one another in what must have once been a series of formal flower beds, long gone wild. The scent of the flowers was so strong I could almost see it in the air. And, woven in so tightly it could not be separated out, was also the bitter tang of loneliness.
The path wound for about half a mile, then broadened out. The horse rounded a
gentle curve, and suddenly, I could see the rise with the great stone house and its courtyard and stable sprawling across the top. The horse moved steadily up the hill until he reached the courtyard, then stopped. The house was to my left now, and the stables to the right. I looked around, but could see nowhere I could easily dismount. So I sat on the horse’s back, my palms against the bark of the Heartwood Tree, as if for good luck, and waited.
It’s your move, Beast
, I thought.
I’d like to be able to say that my first sight of him was magical and supernatural, that he appeared from out of nowhere with a crash of thunder and a puff of smoke. Papa had said the Beast had seemed to come from out of thin air, from everywhere and
nowhere, all at once. So expecting the extraordinary hardly seemed far-fetched.
In my case, he came from the stables, as if he were a stable boy preparing the stall for the horse. It was so prosaic, I might have laughed, but even I am not that brave. It’s hard t laugh when your heart id in your throat.
Though I suppose it could be said that he did appear magically. For, one moment,
the horse and I were alone in the courtyard. And, in the next, there was a figure, a shadow within a shadow, standing in the open stable door.
I gave a jolt, and the horse beneath me shifted a step, steadied, then pawed the
ground with one dark hoof, as if annoyed at my response.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “But this isn’t exactly easy for me, you know.”
The horse blew out a breath, and the figure in the doorway stepped forward into
the light. I shivered, even as the air in the courtyard seemed to ripple with heat. My heart began to beat in hard, fast strokes, so loudly it would have been a miracle if he didn’t hear it all the way across the courtyard.
He was tall.
That was my first thought. Even from a distance, and from my vantage point on
the back of a high horse, he was tall. Lean and rangy like a wolf, was my second, not particularly comforting, thought. I felt my courage start to waver.
You can do this. You have to do this, Belle
, I thought.
Half a dozen steps the Beast strode toward me, the soles of his boots making not a single sound. Then he stopped. I had no idea why. The horse stretched his neck, as if testing the bit between his teeth.
“I suppose,” I heard a deep voice say. “That you are quite real.”
I gasped, for I felt his voice pass through my skin, through muscle and flesh, until it came to rest in the marrow of my bones. Papa had said the Beast had the voice of a man, but this was not quite accurate, I thought.
For no human being I had ever met spoke in a voice like that, sounding heart and
mind together, at once, as one. A Beast may have the ability to camouflage its skin. Men are better at hiding their hearts.
“I don’t understand you,” I somehow found a way to reply. “I am Belle
Delaurier,” I said, as I had at the gate. “I am here by your order. You gave my father shelter, and he took away a gift you did not wish to bestow. I have come to bring it back and to fulfill his promise.”
The Beast took three more steps. Two more, and he would be close enough to
touch.
“So you
are
real,” he murmured, almost as if speaking to himself. “I have not imagined you. You are real. You have come. I see a dark gray dress on my horse’s back, strong hands on the reins, and your hair…”
he paused, and I had the sense he was studying me intently. “Your hair curls and
it is brown. But your face…” His voice faltered and broke off. “Your face eludes me,” he continued after a moment. “Your features slip in and out of focus, like a star at the end of a telescope.”
“I am not a star,” I said, a sudden ache in my throat. “I’m just a girl named
Annabelle.”
“Annabelle,” he echoed, and I seemed to feel the strange power of his voice in
every part of me. As if it were seeking the way to make me visible. “But I thought you said…Belle?”
“Belle is my nickname,” I answered. “It’s what I’ve always been called. I think
that may be your problem – with my face, I mean. It makes you think you’re supposed to look for Beauty.”
“And I can’t find what isn’t there?” the Beast said. “Is that your point?”
“It is,” I replied.
He took one more step, and then another until he was standing right beside me.
“Real and honest,” he said. “A powerful combination. You do not spare feelings,
not even your own. So I will tell you a truth of my own in exchange for yours: What I can and cannot see is not determined by your face alone, Belle Delaurier. It is…part of the reason I reside in this place, so that I might learn to use my eyes.”
“I don’t understand,” I said once more.
“You will,” he answered. “Or so I hope, in time.”
He placed a hand against the horse’s flank then, not an inch from my knee. I
stared down. Like the rest of him, his hand was long and lean, though broad across the knuckles.
A strong and capable hand
, I thought. One that could both cradle and crush. It was covered in a fine layer of fur, copper-colored, like the coat of a fox. The tapering fingers ended in short nails, pointed at the tips. They looked sharp.
The horse turned his head and rubbed it along the Beast’s arm. The Beast lifted
that hand and stroked it along the horse’s nose.
“What is your horse called?” I burst out.
The hand stilled for an instant, then continued its motion. “Corbeau.”
“Raven,” I said. The horse tossed its head, as if acknowledging its name. “It suits him, and it’s a much better name than Midnight.”
The Beast made a sudden sound, like a strange, harsh bark. I started, and the horse shied. The Beast stepped back.
“I’m sorry,” I said, when Corbeau was calm once more. I stroked a hand along the
horse’s neck, on the opposite side from where the Beast stood. He made no move to step in close again, I noticed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I know you didn’t,” the Beast said. “I think that’s the problem. For the record, I don’t intend to eat you. I don’t intend you any harm.”
“What do you want, then?” I asked.
“Company, for one thing,” the Beast replied. He made a gesture in my direction,
and I managed to keep myself still this time. And to see what the Heartwood holds. Your gather said you might be able to show me this.”
“I hope so.”
“Will it take long?”
I hope not
, I thought.
For both our sakes.
“That is up to the wood itself, not to me,” I answered honestly. “Every piece of
wood I’ve ever touched has shown me its secret eventually. Some take longer to reveal what they hold on the inside than others. The Heartwood has held on to its secrets for a very long time.”
“That is so,” the Beast concurred. There was a quick pause. “Thank you,
Annabelle.”
“What for?” I asked. “I haven’t done anything yet.”
“Oh, but you have,” he countered. “You came, and you have spoken the truth
twice now, even though it frightens you to do so. Another person might have given me an easier answer, one they imagined I might like to hear. You did not.”
He stepped to stand beside the horse once more. “I’m sure you’d rather be a
million miles away, but I am glad that you have come, Annabelle.”
“If you will call me that,” I answered, “then I will try to be glad I’m here as well.”
For, in only a few minutes with this stranger, this Beast had done what I had been unable to convince my family to do in nearly ten years: He had called me Annabelle.
“And I will do my best to see, and to reveal, what the Heartwood holds,” I went
on. “Though, since we’re busy appreciating the honesty, I should probably mention that I can’t promise that what I find will be what you want. My ability is to see truly, not on command.”
“If you see truly, then you reveal will
be
what I want,” the Beast replied. “And now, I don’t suppose I could persuade you to come down off Corbeau. I’m sure he’s ready for his stall.”
“Of course,” I said, though my lips felt stiff. It was clear he meant to help me
down himself.
I handed down the bundle of my shawl, being careful not to touch him. He took it
from me just as carefully, then set it beside him on the cobblestones. I settled the branch of the Heartwood in the nook of one elbow, as if it were an infant.
“Hand it to me,” the Beast said simply. “I’ll give it back when you’re on the
ground.”
For the space of time it took for me to draw a breath, I was certain that I was
going to say no. but, at the last instant, I changed my mind. Cradling the branch between my palms, one on either end, I leaned down. The Beast reached out and grasped the Heartwood in the middle. A tingle, so sharp it was almost pain, shot into my hands and up my arms. I think I made a sound.
The Beast froze, his great hands gripping the Heartwood so tightly that I saw his knuckles beneath the copper-colored fur, for they had turned stark white.
“Look at me, Annabelle,” he demanded in that fierce, compelling voice. “Look
into my face, into my eyes for the span of time it takes to count to five. Look at me and let me see you. Look at me and free us both.”
The tingling in my arms was truly pain now. Spreading across my shoulders,
burrowing into my chest, aiming straight for my heart. When it reached it, I would be transformed. Whether it would be as simple as dying, I could not tell. But of one thing I was certain: I would no longer be the Belle Delaurier I knew.