Beastkeeper (10 page)

“You can't make someone fall in love with you,” the raven said when it finally spoke. “I should know. And that is where the storytellers write their own sugary versions of the truth. A pack of lies until they reach ‘The End.' But no story ever comes to an end, at least not one so neat. There are voices silenced, characters erased at the storyteller's whim.” The bird clacked its beak. “They do not tell you what happens when the children have eaten their way through the witch's treasures and face another starveling winter, when the glass slipper no longer fits the crone's swollen foot, when the beauty doesn't fall in love with her beastly prince.”

Sarah felt deeply uncomfortable. “I hate this story,” she said. The raven was lying to Sarah, she knew it—taunting her for amusement. Nothing it said could be trusted.

The raven cawed in laughter. “I told you the witch-maiden was clever. She knew that even if Inga did ever fall in love and the curse turned the monster back into a man, she would always know that her prince might go back to being a beast if she fell out of love again. It made it harder for her to fall in love in the first place. No love is endless.”

“That's not true!”

“Oho! Is that what you think? Why did your mother fly?” The raven stared, head cocked. “People fall out of love slower than they fall in, to be sure, but there's the story no one wants to tell. It's dull. Boring. The good ones don't always win. Nothing lasts forever.”

A ragged wind had picked up and was winding its way through the branches, rolling a blanket of clouds over the distant sun.

“I don't believe you.” Sarah shook her head. “I won't believe you.”

It became colder—impossibly colder—and Sarah, who had already pulled her sleeves over her aching fingers, crossed her arms and tucked her curled-up hands into her armpits. The warmth there wasn't enough, her fingers chilled right through her sweater to the tender skin of her underarms. She was shivering now so hard that her teeth were rattling in her jaw like dice in a cup. “So,” she said, through the ivory chatter of her teeth, “my grandmother never loved my grandfather, and he had to stay a beast? Is that what you're saying? The curse could never really be broken?”

“There are curses layered on curses in your family, secrets so deep and dark that your parents and grandparents refused to face them,” said the raven. “Your grandfather became beast and burden, for your grandmother had bound herself to him as tight as any bride could. She made him promises on that wedding day, promises she could not keep—that she would love him always, that they would only ever be happy.”

Sarah swallowed hard. The things that the raven was telling her couldn't be true. They were too ugly. “So she keeps him in a cage and feeds him leftovers—why not set him free and go? Surely they'd both be happier.”

“I told you, she cannot. She is as cursed as he is. She gave her word, and the witch-maiden made sure that it was a marriage bond she could never break.” The raven watched Sarah with one pale blue eye, its head twisted so that it could stare balefully at her. “It is a curse that binds your family; it wraps them up tighter than rope and chains, for it is a curse of their own making. The witch-maiden cast it not only on those two foolish, vapid people, but on all their line, for all eternity.”

“Oh,” Sarah said, and sniffed. The cold was making her nose run. “Is my father cursed then, too?”

The raven's eyes gleamed. “What do you think?”

Yes,
Sarah thought, before she could try to convince herself otherwise. Her mother had left him, not bound by any curses to stay when her own love failed, and now her father was turning. How long before he too was an animal, like his father? Was that why he'd sent her away, so she wouldn't have to see his fall? “That's not fair,” she whispered. “He's only half a beast.”

“And you only a quarter,” snapped the raven. “Curses have no care for the thinness of your blood.”

“I'm—I'm not cursed, they said.”

“And you believe them.” Sarah could hear the laughter in its voice, cold and brutal. A talking raven, another beast.

Sarah hugged herself tighter. “I don't care if you say you're not part of this story. You are, or you wouldn't be here. Tell me the truth.”

“Oh, me,” said the raven, and bobbed its head as if it were curtsying before a queen. “We're all cursed here.” And it would say no more. Eventually, Sarah supposed it couldn't, and that was that.

The darkening sky was pressing down, the river running faster beneath its icy shards, churning the snow at its edges to slush. “We'd best be back,” the raven said. “You may come here again if you need a moment away from her, but on no account try to cross the river. Its price is too high, and the Within is not a place for you.”

“Why's that?” Sarah asked as she scrambled back to the little track that ran between the black trunks. Rain had begun to hiss against the uppermost leaves, and a few drops were plopping down through the thick canopy.

“The Within is the heart of all curses. There the witch wove the spells that turned your family, that bound them in their strange skins. It is a place thick with ancient power, where the witch-maiden made her home, the root of her magic—why would you go there and tempt the curse to wake inside you?”

Another branch slapped forward into Sarah's face, grazing her chin, cutting a thin line across her lower lip. She licked, tasted the blood. Sarah was beginning to think that the forest had a mind of its own, that it wanted her to stay. The going back was harder than the leaving had been. But perhaps there was a good reason for that. Perhaps the forest was trying to tell her something. “Things that make curses, they can unmake them too,” she said harshly. “If the Within is where the witch's power comes from, and the witch is gone, maybe it just needs someone else to use that power.”

“Oho,” said the raven, and flew far ahead, till it was nothing more than a white star in the green and black heavens of the forest dark. Sarah could hear the soft caw in the distance as she battled her way through the close-growing trees.

Oho, oho.

*   *   *

The rain was a steady downpour by the time Sarah reached the castle. She raced across the clearing, hopping over the clumps of tangled blackjack weeds and wiry grass. Even though the rain pelted down, at least it was warmer here. Sarah ran under the stone archway and stopped before the great wooden door, her hair dark and dripping. The door was locked against her, or it was too heavy for her to budge.

She settled on rapping her knuckles against the black wood, so hard that the bones felt shattered under her skin.

Finally the doors groaned and swung outward, so that Sarah had to jump back a little. Nanna stood on the other side, stern-faced and gray like a standing stone. But also dry.

“Um, I was exploring,” Sarah said, even though Nanna hadn't asked. “And I got a little lost.”

“Hmph,” said Nanna, but she stepped aside. “Come in out of the wet, fool girl. You've missed breakfast,” she added as the doors closed behind Sarah, through their own power, it seemed.

Magic.

“Sorry,” Sarah mumbled. She shivered in her damp clothes.

Her grandmother snorted and snapped her fingers in impatience.

Heat flickered over Sarah's skin, snake-fast, and as soon as it was gone, Sarah's clothes were dry. Bone dry, and her hair, which had been hanging in dripping tails, was warm and soft.

Magic.

There was no way she could carry on denying it. And if it was all true, then the raven wasn't lying either.
Cursed.
She thought of the beast outside in the shed, and how the water must be pouring through the holes in the roof, how the beast—how Grandfather—would be lying in mud, would be cold and damp and with no chance of respite. “Um,” Sarah said again.

Her grandmother was striding along the corridors and hallways, and down a flight of unlit stairs. The castle was already a gloomy place, but with the storm growling and spitting overhead, it was even darker and gloomier. Sarah hurried to catch up.

They came to a vast underground kitchen. Here, at least, were warmth and lanterns and huge iron ranges with pots of gleaming copper. A spoon swirled lazily by itself in one bubbling stewpot, and the aroma of beef and vegetables and garlic hung heavy. Nanna pointed to a covered plate on the huge kitchen table. “Your eggs will be cold, but that's hardly my problem. Sit. Eat.”

Nanna was right, the eggs were cold, and so were the bacon and the toast, but they were still there. Another snap of her fingers, and steam rose from the plate. “And that's more than you deserve,” she said. “Now. What is it you wanted?”

At least Nanna hadn't decided to start starving her, Sarah mused. The way things had been going for her, that was almost a relief. “It's about Grandfather,” Sarah said, and then quickly took a bite of toast to give herself something to do. And because she was hungry. It turned out that fighting your way through a snowy forest before breakfast did severe things to the appetite.

“What about him?” Nanna asked flatly. She'd crossed her arms and was staring narrowly at Sarah. Behind her the pots bubbled to themselves, the spoons stirred, the smells wafted.

Sarah swallowed her toast. “Well … it's … he's probably cold and wet where he is now, right?”

“And what would you have me do—bring him in here to keep him dry?” Nanna sniffed. “I think not. He's a beast now, and that's all there is to it. Beasts have hungers. They can't be trusted.”

“And beastkeepers?” asked Sarah.

Nanna said nothing. Instead she looked at the table very hard, as if by staring at it long enough she could turn it into something else, or make it prance about on its four legs. Possibly she could. “Eat your food,” she said finally. “There are chores that need doing.”

Sarah pushed a crispy piece of bacon through the remains of her eggs. “Nanna?”

“What is it now?”

“What happens if you leave here?”

Instead of answering, her grandmother stared at her for a full minute, then, grim-faced, she got up and swept from the room, her skirt trailing like the broken wings of a bird.

 

9

WE MUST BE ENEMIES

IT TURNED OUT
that Nanna's idea of chores all seemed to be ones that kept Sarah outdoors. Whatever it was that kept the castle running, or fueled Nanna's magic, perhaps it didn't extend to the grounds.

That was fine by Sarah; the castle gave her the creeps. Every moment she was inside its walls she felt as if she were being slowly crushed in a damp stone fist. Even if the sunlight outside was thin and not very warm, it was better than the choking dust and mold inside. And it helped to not be around her grandmother.

Nanna set Sarah to weeding an area that had once been a vegetable garden. There were still some straggling, yellowed cabbages among the weeds, and a few shriveled beans here and there, but mostly the garden had been left to its own devices. In one far corner, arum lilies grew against a low stone wall, spearing the sky with their green hearts and yellow tongues. They were her mother's favorite flower, and something about their creamy simplicity made Sarah feel a little better. As if by sitting near them, she was sharing something with her mother.

They made the corners of her eyes prick, it was true, but after a while she stopped feeling so sad, and instead she talked to the flowers in the same way she had spoken to her mother when she'd come home from school. She shared her thoughts and her worries, until her tongue fell as silent as the lilies'. After that she felt a little better.

A few bees swirled dazedly around the tall lilies, pausing every so often to crawl along the cool marble throats of the flowers. Her mother had always loved bees, Sarah remembered. She would tell Sarah that bees were good at keeping secrets, that they carried the dead across from this world to the next. All kinds of nonsense Sarah had hardly believed back then. She wondered now if any of it was true. After all, the world was more magical than she'd ever realized.

One bee landed near her. Sarah paused in her work and stared at it. “And if I told you my secrets,” she whispered, “what would you do with them?”

The bee neatened its antennae, then flew off toward the forest.

Sarah turned back to her work. She dug away with her trowel, tidying rows and filling a rusted, decrepit wheelbarrow with weeds. Despite the cold, she was sweating. It was harder work than she was used to, but at least the rain had stopped, and the clouds were thinning and giving way to a faint, watery sunshine.

“I think I'd rather be back at school,” she said to the flowers as she slammed her trowel into the earth and a clump of cold, wet soil rocketed into her eye. “Ugh.” Sarah leaned back and shook the dirt out of her face. And what was going to happen with school? Her father couldn't have planned on leaving her here for good, cut off from the world, to grow old and mad like Nanna.

She hoped.

Thinking about her father made Sarah's chest go tight and hot.
I miss you
, she thought,
but I don't even know if you miss me
. She had no idea where he was—anything could have happened to him. She remembered the way he'd been before they left to come here. How he'd been all wild about the edges, like a dog who'd missed too many dinners.

Who was making him food now?
He never remembered to eat—it was always Sarah who had to remind him. The thought made Sarah's heart feel small and scared. And maybe he'd lied to her about how things were going to get better. He'd said everything was going to go back to normal, but instead he'd left her here, with this broken magic.

He had to come back for her. If he was gone—gone the way her mother was—there might be no escaping, ever. He might have left her here for good. That thought was so enormous, so terrible, that Sarah had been skirting it for days, pretending it wasn't really sitting in the middle of her mind like a sharp rock. There was no running away from it now. It was too late; she'd looked at that rock and she couldn't unsee it now, or pretend that it didn't exist.