Beauty in the Beast Read online

  With the twist of one finger, I made the dragon’s head rear indignantly.

  “‘I have destroyed this city, roasted its people and used their bones to pick my teeth. I am still strong and clever.’

  “‘But they are just men. You said yourself that men are like flies, and it is easy to crush flies. I am no simple man. Your strength will be tested against me. Or are you afraid?’”

  The wings flared and the tips of the angry red fabric flapped from the rush.

  “‘I am not afraid! How dare you suggest such a thing? I will crush you, dragon-blooded or not!’

  “‘Good. Then it is settled. We will duel.’

  “The dragon grinned with its sharp teeth and bared its claws, which glittered like knives in the morning light. ‘Yes, we shall. And I shall tear you apart to prove my strength.’

  “‘Ah! But what will that prove? Being part dragon myself, I know that a dragon’s true strength is not in his claws.’

  “‘Oh? And where would our true strength be?’

  “‘In your stomach! What use is tearing people apart if you do not have a strong stomach with which to eat them?’

  “The dragon sat back, curling its claws and frowning. It sat and it thought, and finally it spoke. ‘You are right. Let us see who can eat the most men.’

  “‘A good idea. But you have been eating men all day and all night. Eating men is easy for you. I have a better idea, one that will test the true strength of your stomach.’

  “‘Oh?’ The dragon began to grow a slight bit suspicious. ‘What would you have us eat? Horses? Cows?’

  “‘No. The four elements. To men, it is a sign of greatness if one can consume all four elements. No man has been able to eat all four.’

  “‘Pah! Men are weak and do not have the strength to handle the raw power of the elements! I will eat all four and prove myself greater than a man.’

  “‘Good. Then it is settled. We shall start with water.’ Sir Coal held out two bottles. Uncorking one, he poured clear, clean water into his visor.

  “The dragon leaped into the air. ‘Give me! Give me!’ It snatched the remaining bottle from the knight. The liquid that poured out of this one was black and thick and smelled like lamp fuel. But the dragon, which had been asleep for four hundred years, had never smelled oil before and drank it down greedily.

  “‘Very good! Now, earth.’ Sir Coal produced two lumpy bags. He opened one and tossed its contents through his visor. Rocks clanked down his hollow armor.

  “‘Give me!’ The dragon took the other bag and threw it into its mouth, whole. The burlap of the bag hid the taste of metal and gunpowder from the shells inside…

  “‘Water, earth. Now air.’ Sir Coal held aloft two sealed bladder bags and shoved the first through his visor.

  “‘Give me!’ The dragon took the other bag and gobbled it down, and its stomach rumbled slightly as the hydrogen inside the bag began to leak.

  “‘Finally, the element that kills all men. I am beginning to feel ill. Are you sure you can continue?’

  “‘Puny man! What is this last element? We will eat it, you will die, and I will roast your body and use your bones to pick my teeth!’

  “‘The last element is fire!’ The knight held up two Lucifers, both unlit.

  “‘Fire!’ The dragon laughed. ‘I breathe fire! Little man, you are done. Where is your fire? I will eat it!’

  “‘I will make it. But first, before I do, I must ask of you this: we shall count to five and fly away from each other before eating the fire.’

  “‘Ha! What is this? Do you try to trick me, puny man?’

  “‘Not at all… It is simply a human ritual during a duel to count to five before firing.’

  “‘You men have such strange customs! Fine. Make your fire and I shall count to five!’

  “Sir Coal struck the Lucifers. He handed one to the dragon and flew very fast in the opposite direction with the other while the dragon counted.

  “‘One…two…three…four…five!’

  “The knight crushed his Lucifer against his visor, extinguishing the flame. But the dragon tossed its Lucifer down its throat and clacked its mouth shut. It smiled, as if in victory—

  “Its stomach gurgled loudly.

  “And it exploded in a huge ball of fire and smoke!

  “The dragon was gone.

  “The knight returned to the palace and set himself down on the steps. There, the queen and the House all waited for him. The explosion had been so big that all of London could see it, and when they saw him, they let up great cheers.

  “‘Long live Sir Coal dragon slayer! Hip-hip huzzah! Hip-hip huzzah!’

  “Though much smaller than the dragon, Sir Coal the Steam-Powered Knight had used his clever wits, and a little mechanical boost, to outsmart the monster!”

  * * *

  Rolph clapped his hands lightly. “Huzzah!” Delight transformed his face. I could see now that he was not much older than I, perhaps no more than thirty-five. His laughter made me glow inside. “Well done! Very clever. Who’s next?”

  Miles said, “Beth has gone. That leaves me and Tara. Ladies first.”

  The heat of a blush blossomed over my cheeks and spread down my throat. I hadn’t had such a violent reaction since I was sixteen, and I fervently hoped that the shadows and orange light from the fire hid the worst of it. My companions knew I was rarely so shy. I rocked forward with a quick retort as a cover-up. “‘Ladies first’? And what does that make of poor Fred?”

  Miles arched one eyebrow. “Apparently, not a gentleman.”

  “I resent that,” said Fred, though his tone was light. He picked a soft tune on the lute. “I am, in fact, the very picture of the perfect gentleman. Polished, poised, poetic—”

  “And plebeian. And did we mention puerile?” Beth giggled.

  “Prim,” said Fred. “And remarkably…well pitched.” He brought his tune to a harmonious finish and made a short, flourishing bow.

  My blush died down with my laughter. “All right. I’ll go, then, since Miles is too gentlemanly.” I tossed him a cheeky grin, then smiled at Frederick. “Fred, will you politely provide me with a little pleasant music? Something slow and a touch melancholy, like a quiet winter evening.”

  “Of course, madam.”

  Fred began a soft tune. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing my features. My eyes drifted shut. When I opened them again, I felt the smallest of smiles tug at the corners of my lips. “My tale has no name. But for your sake, I will call it ‘Ice Flower.’”

  Chapter Three

  “Not long ago, in a small village near the woods, lived a man and a woman who were very much in love. They married under the bright spring sun and made their home together in a small cabin at the edge of the trees. The man was hardworking and honest, and he built good, solid barrels for the brewers to fill with beer and the traders to fill with goods. The woman was very beautiful, with hair as black as a raven’s feathers and eyes as green as verdant leaves. She wove baskets in the cold months and filled them with flowers in the warm ones. Sometimes she had the odd habit of staring past things, because like her mother before her, she could see things that other men could not and could sense things that no one else could. Every night, she left a saucer of milk in the back for the faeries, beneath the tree that bowed over their house.

  “In their second year together, the woman gave birth to a baby girl with hair as black as her mother’s, and eyes as green. The summer blessed them with balmy winds and autumn brought their village good harvests. But the winter of the child’s first year fell especially hard, and with it came a terrible sickness that struck the people of the village.

  “One evening the woman saw the shadow of Death pass over their front window. She and her husband threw their cloaks around themselves, bundled the baby into a basket and stole out the back door into the freezing night.

  “Sensing that he had been thwarted, Death sent a terrible storm after them. But they ran
under the thick cover of the woods, where they were shielded from the worst of the wind and the snow. They ran and ran and soon became lost deep in the trees, where the realm of the spirits and Fae borders the land of mortals.

  “Dark creatures chased them—creatures that panted like wolves but moved like cats, silent and shadowed. Their eyes glowed an unnatural green, and their cries sounded like the cries of men lost in woods, of all the people that they had eaten but still lay in their stomachs. The creatures were not of this world, you see, and their stomachs were endless and deep and never filled.

  “Sensing that Death had marked the man and the woman, the creatures surrounded the two and snapped their jaws ravenously. But before the beasts could fall upon her and her husband, the woman stooped to the ground and hid her babe under the shelter of a large rock. Under this rock lay a small patch of moss, still green and soft, shielded from the winter. And so the creatures snatched up the man and the woman, swallowing them whole, but left the babe untouched. They could not smell its presence, because it was not the child’s time to die.

  “For a while, the babe lay under the rock, quiet and unmoving. Then, a most curious thing happened. Tendrils of ice snaked over the ground and over the rock, and when they reached the babe, they blossomed into delicate frozen flowers. From each of these stepped a tiny faery with crystal wings and shining blue hair. They approached the child with eyes rounded in wonder, as they had never seen a human babe so far from a village before—and without its parents. The smell of the shadow creatures and death still lingered in the air, so they understood that tragedy had befallen the child’s parents. Though made of ice, the pixies had hearts as bright and warm as candle flames. Together they lifted the baby’s basket and carried it through the veil between worlds, which was as thin as a whisper here deep in the forest.

  “The faeries, knowing that people lived in houses, made a small shelter for the baby from tree bark, moss and rocks. They lay it inside, where they sang to it, and fed it, and kissed its forehead. Living in the Fae realm, eating Fae food, the baby was filled with the magic of the ice faeries, so the cold nights did not freeze it, and its eyes turned as blue as the deep ice of a lake.

  “When spring came, the ice faeries went down to sleep and became water, soaking into the ground and feeding the new growth. The faeries of warm spring days and long summer afternoons were fickle and paid the child no mind, except to visit it curiously. The spirit of a mother wolf—whose children, the dogs, were the brothers of men—took the baby under her care, for what mother can abandon a child?

  “The babe learned to go about on her four legs as well as the she-wolf, and had just started to learn the language of the wolves when autumn fell and the she-wolf knew it was time to return to warmer hunting grounds. In their realm, spirit beasts eat just as mortal beasts must, and though the winters are not as biting, the cold still weakens them.

  “The summer Fae lay down to sleep on the brown curling leaves. With the first frost, the blue flowers bloomed, and out stepped the ice faeries, reborn. They were overjoyed to see the round-cheeked, happy child, and they made merry. They taught her the Fae tongue and how to walk upright like a man. They cared for her until the last frost and the spring thaw chased them away, when the wolf returned.

  “And so the years passed and the girl grew strong and proud and tall, able to smell the rain in the air like a wolf and dance the night away like a faery. To walk like a man and run like a creature of the forest. At the end of the girl’s thirteenth autumn, the she-wolf said goodbye to her, saying, ‘You are old enough to run on your own, to find your own food and to sing under the moon. Farewell, girl-child, who is a child no longer.’

  “The following summer the girl wandered the woods until she came upon a village. In fact, it was the very village in which she had been born. She watched the people with fascination, for she had never seen another human before. They were like her, yet unlike her in so many ways. They talked in a language she could not understand, but they smiled and laughed and frowned and cried, just as the faeries did. She saw them laughing and playing, but also sick and dying, something she had never witnessed among the Fae. The people of the village could not see her. This was because she stood on the other side of the veil in the spirit realm, and though she could look through the veil as if it was a window, the people of the village—like most mortals—had forgotten the knack of looking back.

  “When winter fell, the girl described what she had seen to the faeries and they explained to her the meaning of sickness and of death. Like leaves in autumn, all humans fell to rest at the end of their season. But unlike the Fae, they did not spring up again at winter’s first breath or spring’s waking blush.

  “From then on, the girl spent her summers among the village people, learning their language and following their lives, all from the spirit side of the veil, never seen but always watching.

  “She watched as amazing things happened: men and women kissed and lay in bed together. Women had babies, and the babies grew into young children. The people were as beautiful as flowers, bright blooms whose fleeting existence made them most precious. For once, she felt truly alone. Though she had the ice faeries in the winter and the village in the summer, she did not know the bonds that these men and women knew.

  “Near the end of her nineteenth winter, she told the Fae, ‘I must leave this realm. I wish to know the love of a man.’

  “The faeries warned her that she would have to give up her immortality if she left the land of the Fae. She would be susceptible to the sickness of mortals, and eventually, one day she would die.

  “‘Yes, I know,’ she said.

  “With great sadness, the Fae showed her how to step between the worlds.

  “‘If ever you wish to return, come to this place and sing for us in the cold of the winter, and we will welcome you,’ said the faeries, and the girl—now a woman—smiled and kissed them all on their tiny cheeks.

  “She stepped out of the realm of the spirits and Fae and into the world of mortals. The chill wind stole her breath away. The cold was no colder here in the land of mortals, but was somehow more bitter, and the air was heavier, and the shapes of things were harder. Barefoot, she walked through the snow to the village. She knew the way well. The snow stung her feet and made them numb, and by the time she made it to the village, she was exhausted with hunger and exertion.

  “She went to the house of an old lady, one who she knew took care of other members in the village, and she knocked on the door. The old woman exclaimed out loud at the sight of the girl, who was clothed in the soft furs of forest creatures, and whose feet were bare, and whose eyes were as blue as the thickest ice.

  “Though the old woman had never seen the girl before, she seemed hauntingly familiar. The old woman, who had lost her family in the sickness that struck the village nearly twenty years before, took the girl in and treated her like a granddaughter.

  “The girl had spent much time at the old woman’s side, though the old one did not know this. So she knew where everything was, and just how the old woman hung her clothes on a line before the stove, and how she liked to eat her porridge in the morning. Eager to please and eager to participate in all she had watched over the last six years, the girl helped the old woman around the house.

  “The winter passed and spring came, a whole new experience from the other side of the veil, although everything was just the same.

  “When summer bloomed, the girl spent her days wandering the field of wildflowers that carpeted the hill just beyond the village. One of the village men—a fine, honest boy—saw her one day as he rode past. Instantly smitten, he stopped and dismounted to wade through the blooms and spend the remainder of the afternoon with her, and every afternoon after. They tumbled deeply into love. With him, she knew her first kiss, and it was sweeter than the first kiss of frost at the beginning of winter. They married that autumn as the colored leaves fell all around them, and moved into a small house nearby the old woman’s. Husband and
wife, they loved each other all through the winter, and through the spring that followed, and the summer, and the whole year after that. For the first time she knew the warmth of a man’s body in the deepest winter. But she did not become round with a baby as other women did, for she had spent too long in the Fae realm, and the spirit of winter nestled deep inside her, barren and still.

  “One morning during her second winter with her husband, he returned from a trip along the forest road and gifted her a flower he had found on the ice, a flower whose petals were as blue as her eyes. She took it and remembered the ice faeries.

  “A week later, she saw the shadow of Death pass over their front window. Her husband slipped that day on the ice and there perished. She knelt by his side with her forehead to his forehead and closed her eyes. It felt as if the world closed around her like a curling leaf, and she would drop away. That night, she lay cold in bed. She had no one to laugh with at the fire’s edge, and no one to fit a palm perfectly against the small of her back. That was how she first came to know the sting of loss and the true meaning of death.

  “The next day, she found an ice flower outside. She picked it up and remembered the promise of the ice faeries, that she would always be welcome back in their realm.

  “But the girl, now a woman, decided to travel the land and know life. So she bade goodbye to the people of the village and the old woman who had been so kind to her, shuttered the house she had shared with her husband and took off to explore the rest of the country, and the city of London, and the lands beyond. And though she knew weakness and skirted death, she felt a satisfaction that she had never known in the ageless land of the Fae and the spirits.

  “She still wanders today.”

  * * *

  Fred plucked out two lingering notes, after which a silence fell over the room. The fire had settled into a deep, smoldering orange glow, sending off pops and sparks. My skin was itchy where the wet pant leg had warmed and stuck damply to my shin, but I was too comfortable to move, lulled by my own voice. The wind still whistled through the eaves, strong and probably very cold, but it was warm and still here inside the cabin.