The Eye of the Beholder (3 page)

Once I had seen to the dishes, I slipped outside. The autumn air was cool with a stinging edge; winter was well on its way. Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply of the scents of woodsmoke and burning leaves and listened to the calls of the night animals, the droning of the insects. My first nights in the cottage had been terrifying, for the only animal sounds to which I had been accustomed were those of horses and pet cats and dogs. What a strange, spoiled creature I had once been.

An arm slipped around my shoulders, and I opened my eyes to see Papa tip his head back, his eyes wandering the sky. The first pinpricks of stars were just becoming visible. I caught the sound of Thomasina's laugh, and I knew she and Rowena would soon be home. For a brief, vicious moment, I thought of how wonderful it would be if they were simply to disappear, leaving me alone with Papa.

"I love you, Mira." Papa's quiet voice broke into my thoughts, and I leaned my head against him.

"I love you too, Papa."

He had changed so much. Though he had always been tall with a rather awkward carriage, as if his bones were simply too big for his body, there had once been a softness about him. Now, years of hard, physical labor had thinned him out, giving him a lean, muscular frame. I tried not to think of this too much, tried not to think about how I had known two different versions of Papa. Did he try not to think about how he had known two different versions of Mira?

"I keep hoping…" He fell silent for a moment before clearing his throat and beginning again. "I am putting by all I can for dowries for you and your sisters, but…"

"Dowries! But, Papa, what man could possibly compare to you? I shall never leave you," I said stoutly. In truth, I might not have much choice. Even with meager dowries, Papa should have no trouble finding husbands for Rowena and Thomasina, but I could not expect to be so fortunate. My sisters were beautiful and skilled flirts over whom men routinely fawned, while I had little to recommend me.

"Eighteen is perhaps too young for marriage, but in a year to two, you may well long for a family of your own. Besides, Mira, I am not a young man and I will not be here forever," Papa responded. I did not want to acknowledge the truth of his words. He was by no means infirm, but grief had aged him quite a bit, and his family was not known for longevity. There had been a time when this had not worried Papa, when he had everything he needed to secure good futures for all three of us.

"I am resolute in my determination to be a spinster." I attempted to inject as much humor as possible into my words, but my father could muster only the faintest of smiles.

"Your sisters, they require little, really. Some material comfort will be enough to satisfy them. But you, my love, you will need a man who engages your mind, and I had hoped…" He gestured helplessly.

I knew what he meant. Though the people were generally kind and hard-working, Everforest was a small, isolated farming town. Most of its residents could not read. Those that could did not have time for pursuits that did not put food on the table, and I knew they continued to eye us with curiosity. I could hardly blame them. To such practical people, we must seem rather helpless, if not useless.

"It is a matter of indifference to me, at any rate," I told Papa, which was true. "I am not in the market for a husband."

Papa smiled slightly, but it was sad. "I can think of no one who could deserve you."

The words brought a lump to my throat, and I squeezed him.

"But, Mira, I also do not want you to be alone. Nothing frightens me more than that thought."

I turned and gazed off into the night, hoping Papa would not see me shiver.

Chapter 3: A Beast Is Born

As the sun set on that first day, I cowered in my great hall, not far from where I had been when I had first laid eyes upon the enchantress. Though she was long gone, I stared at the spot where she had stood, as if she might abruptly reappear to rain further punishment down upon my head. My throne was now little more than a pile of slivers. I had descended into a black rage after she had gone and had spent many hours rampaging, tearing down banners and destroying everything in sight. I was amazed and even frightened by the power of that fit of rage. Never before had I been able to cause destruction on such a grand scale.

I attempted to cover my head with my arms and, in so doing, my eyes fell once more upon the shaggy fur covering what had once been my hands. I howled, and the sound was purely bestial. Panic stricken, I attempted to speak and found that, although I could still talk, my voice had taken on a strange, growling animal quality. I immediately fell silent and stared resolutely at the stone wall, averting my gaze from my own body. As the light of the sun died away, I felt a sense of sweet relief at the encroaching darkness. Soon I would no longer have to face the torment of the sight of my own form.

But I received another cruel proof of my physical changes. As the light of the day was replaced by the dark of night, I found that my eyesight did not grow weaker. As a beast, my night vision was much, much sharper; I could see everything clearly. Frantically, my eyes moved from one corner of the chamber to another in disbelief. What agony was this? Not only was I not to be spared the sight of myself in the light of day, I could not even hope for it in the dark of night.

My mind raced, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of unfamiliar sensory information. When it finally slowed, I was exhausted. I could have moved from the great hall and sought my chamber, but I had little wish for the comfort of my own bed. I believed that this was what the enchantress had hoped for when she had transformed me, that my wish to punish myself would cause me even more pain than her punishment had inflicted upon me.

I spent that night sprawled upon the floor of my great hall and, when I awoke with the rising sun the next morning, I caught my first glimpse of my servants. Fear immediately struck my heart.

They had retained their human form, but their eyes were now nothing more than white orbs in their heads, robbed of all human expression. Never before had I seen such a hideous sight. It appeared that they could still see out of them, for they moved without the slightest stumble or hesitation. I opened my mouth to scream and found that, instead, a very inhuman and hair-raising roar issued from it, stopping the servants in their tracks.

"Be gone! Do not come near me!" I roared at them and they instantly obeyed, no doubt finding the size of my teeth and claws even more frightening than they had once found my temper.

When they were gone, I sat trembling and howling for some time. What was this torture that had been inflicted upon me by that cursed enchantress? How could I ever hope to break the dread curse she had laid upon me? The odds seemed insurmountable. Were any maiden ever able to overlook the horror that I had become, she surely would not be willing to live in a castle full of such repulsive servants.

That day was, by far, the worst--but that is not to say that any day thereafter was easier. It is merely that, with time, I learned to look past the appearance of my servants and to bear the sight of them when I needed them. Their sightless eyes never ceased to send a shiver of revulsion down my spine, but I did learn not to fear them. Indeed, their obvious terror of me helped me to quickly get past any fright I initially felt at the sight of them.

I learned to adapt to the changes of my body, though I never ceased to loathe them. Some were useful, such as the heightened senses that enabled me to hunt much more effectively. I slew a great deal more prey than I ever had as a human king riding upon horseback with a pack of dogs trailing in my wake. Some never ceased to anger me, such as the animal sounds I emitted whenever I was angry or in pain. The sound of a human cry or shout was never lovely to me before my transformation, but I soon longed for those sounds as if they were the sweetest of music. I developed a violent hatred for the growls, whines, and howls that issued from my own body.

One of my first orders of business as a beast was to see to the systematic destruction of nearly every looking glass in the castle. I hesitated only once, when I was in one of the seldom used chambers in the west wing. There, as I stood to the side of a large dressing table, poised to thrust the looking glass onto the floor, I paused. It occurred to me that, if any maiden should by some miracle ever wander into my castle, she might not be so averse to the sight of her own reflection. And so, with some effort, I turned and left the looking glass intact, racing hurriedly to the next so that I could destroy it instead.

I broke every pane of glass in my own chamber, for they too reflected an image of me whenever the light hit them just so. Initially, I thought I might be cold without the glass to hold back the elements, but I need not have worried. My new coat of fur was more than thick enough to keep me warm even on the coldest of nights. It was another of the seemingly thousands of reminders that I was no longer what I once had been, and I was infuriated by my contradictory sensations of hatred for my coat and gratitude for the warmth it provided me.

As for the rest of the castle, it was again solely my thoughts of the maiden who would likely never come that prevented me from smashing the glass in the other chambers as well. However, I forbade my servants from cleaning the glass and, in time, the windows grew so caked with filth that no matter how the sun hit them, they did not reflect my appearance. This had the added advantage of preventing much of the light from entering the castle, leaving its interior cast in perpetual murky twilight. Though this delighted me, it appeared to have an adverse effect on my servants, for they soon began to look very gray and pallid, which only made their white eyes stand out even more prominently and hideously. It was not long before the castle fell into an abysmal state of disrepair, due to my neglect. I would not allow my servants to clean it or to fix any of the objects I broke, for its grim appearance matched my state of mind. My own ugliness inspired a deep sense of satisfaction at the destruction of anything of beauty.

In time, I began to think myself mad, for I was often given to fits of senseless mirth, particularly when I contemplated the breaking of the spell. If an unfortunate maiden did manage to stumble upon my castle, she had best be as hideous as me. I did not think that I would be able to bear the presence of a beautiful maiden. Physical beauty would be too poignant a reminder of my handsome, vigorous former self.

It seemed I need not have let this trouble me, for my three hundred years had nearly passed without any sign of the maiden who was to deliver me, and I had begun to give up hope. I gave in to my rages whenever it pleased me, until the castle was on the brink of falling down around my ears. I knew that my servants ached to set it at rights, but I would not allow them for fear that any restoration to my castle would give me false hopes of self-restoration. They were allowed only to see to my basic needs and to attend to the roses.

Even in the dead of winter, when the snow was heavy upon the ground, those enchanted roses bloomed and grew in riotous profusion over the walls of the castle. I forbade my servants from cutting them. The sight of them afforded me a strange comfort, and I could not bear the thought of any of them being removed from their vine. Such beauty belonged outside the castle walls. When I wished to admire them, I would simply gaze upon them from outside or look at them through one of the broken window panes in my bedchamber.

How to describe such roses? They were every shade imaginable, from the faintest blushing pink, to a yellow as vibrant as the rising sun, to a white as pure as the newly fallen snow. The blooms themselves were enormous, much larger than any roses I had ever before seen. Their petals were perfect and never wilted or browned. When one of them died, the petals simply disappeared, and my servants pruned away the remaining shell. Not only were they beautiful to behold, they were also beautiful to smell. Their fragrance was like the heavenliest of perfumes, though never so strong as to be overpowering, and their scent was one of the few things that made me feel any sort of peace. I could not help but wonder if they would die when I died or if they would go on blooming and growing, unseen by another soul.

There was one other thing that the enchantress had left me, and that was the enchanted pool. I had spent the day tearing to shreds every plant in the once spectacular gardens, shattering each piece of statuary, and obliterating every neat gravel path. Water streamed off my coat as I prepared to empty the only remaining pool when, as though compelled by some unseen force, I glanced down onto its surface. I grimaced at the sight of my own reflection and let out a low growl, but my terrible visage was soon replaced by something that astonished me.

My reflection remained on the placid surface for but a brief instant before it began to show me glimpses of the world outside of the forest. More hours than I could count passed by as I sat beside the pool, staring down at it in wonder and witnessing the passage of time. I saw towns grow and die, watched great and bloody battles, and observed children grow to see the births of their own children and grandchildren. Soon, the world I saw was so far removed from what I had once known that I wondered how I could possibly survive in it if I were to break the curse. I was a relic of the past, an insignificant bit of time that had expired without the notice of a single creature.