The Beast of Beauty (11 page)

She had been gone for over an
hour. I was beyond worried about her, but there wasn’t anything that I could do
about it. My ankles were driving me crazy. I wanted to go out and look for her,
especially after her weird headache earlier.

She had seemed weird before her
headache. I wanted everything to go back to normal, back to the way that
everything was when we were dating, but she was still acting like she was
afraid of me. Who could blame her, though? I had spent so much time with her
and I didn’t even realize who she was.

I would’ve given anything to go
back in time to the night that she brought me to the cabin. If I could do it
all over again, I would listen more intently to the sound of her voice and I
would recognize it in an instant. She deserved that. She actually deserved much
more than that.

I should’ve known who she was
when I saw her, too. Sure, the curse made her look a little differently, but
her eyes were exactly the same. They were a beautiful mixture of every single
color that eyes can be. I had spent so much time looking into her eyes, and I
knew that they made me feel safe even when the rest of her appearance
frightened me, but I still didn’t catch on. I was pathetic. Even Jasper
recognized her on sight.

Jasper… what if she wasn’t back
because Jasper found her?

I slung my feet over the edge of
the mattress and tried to stand on them, but I fell to the floor in pain.

“I am not helpless,” I said out
loud and got on my knees.

I crawled on my knees to the door
and out onto the forest floor. The small twigs hurt but not bad enough that I
stopped.

“Adeline!” I yelled. “Adeline!
Are you okay?”

I then remembered that people had
been out in the woods looking for me and decided that I probably shouldn’t be
yelling in desperation.

Adeline came running around the
back of the cabin.

“Daniel? What are you doing?
You’re going to hurt yourself,” she said.

“What are you doing?” I asked,
anger seeping in my voice.

She stammered, “I…I was just out
here thinking. I caught another rabbit.”

She seemed upset, so I didn’t push
it, “Oh,” I said. “Why another rabbit? Why not a squirrel or some other small
forest animal?”

“Well, a squirrel is harder to
catch because it can climb and bounce through trees. Rabbits stay on the
ground. Plus, they have more meat per animal usually,” she explained.

“Would you like me to skin it for
you?” I offered.

“Sure, but let’s get you near the
fire pit first,” she said.

She tried to lift me, but she
couldn’t.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t know, you’ll have to
stand up and lean most of your weight on me I guess.”

She helped me stand, and we
hobbled over to the rocks by the fire. The pain was pretty bad, but we made it
work.

“Why can’t you carry me anymore?”
I asked as soon as we got settled with the rabbit.

She shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe
I’m turning back into a human?”

I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t
even thought of that.

“Really? That’s great!” I
exclaimed. Everything was going to be back to normal in no time.

She sighed, “I wouldn’t get my
hopes up if I were you. It’s just a possibility. I still want to eat this
rabbit, and I’m so hungry that I almost wouldn’t mind just biting into it right
now.”

I stared at her, “Well, if you
want to…”

“No!” she exclaimed, “I don’t
really. I mean, I do, but my mind is still too human to let me I guess.”

I laughed, “Okay, would you like
to go inside while I do this again?”

“No, I just won’t look,” she
said, turning her back to me.

I went through the process of
skinning again, as quickly as I could since she was so hungry, and she made the
fire, not even glancing in the direction of me and the rabbit.

I handed her the rabbit, “Okay,
all done.”

She began to cook it, “I’m sorry
it took me so long to come back,” she said slowly. “I just couldn’t stop
thinking about what happened between us. I know it was over six months ago; I
just can’t accept the fact that anything could be the same between us. You
chose Jasper over me, and I needed you a whole lot more than he ever has.”

Her words hurt me.

“I know,” I said, “I was too
afraid of what everyone would think to put you first, and I can never apologize
enough for that, but there’s another side to the story that you don’t know.”

Her face twisted, “What?”

“It had a lot to do with your
mom. I had never lost anyone close to me before; I still haven’t. I wanted to be
there for you, but I didn’t know how, especially when I was as upset as I was.
I have no idea how you got through that; I’m still not over it. Your mother was
such a great person, and I loved and appreciated her so much. I couldn’t stand
the thought of going to your house and her not being there. I was afraid, so I
ran. I broke up with you so that I wouldn’t have to deal with my own pain, and
in doing so, I made you face your pain all alone. It was the most selfish thing
that I did,” I said earnestly.

She looked at me in wonder, “That
never crossed my mind. I didn’t realize how badly that you were wrestling with
it too. You could have told me.”

“No, I couldn’t have. I was too
afraid. So instead, I basically told you the only reason I was breaking up with
you was because I was a jerk, and then I played the part so well that you had
no reason to try to come up with any other reason for my behavior,” I said,
ashamed.

Her voice shook, “Daniel, I
understand how you feel. I wanted to run away too, but the difference was that
my pain would have followed me no matter where I was. There was nowhere on
earth that I could have gone that would have let me forget about her. Honestly,
I think that it was better that I dealt with it on my own. I just wish that you
would’ve been there as my friend. I also wish that school wouldn’t have been so
terrible either, so that I could at least get a break emotionally.”

“I know,” I said, “and I
should’ve taken up for you with Jasper, but I was too afraid of him. He has so
much power over all of the people at school, and I didn’t want to mess things
up for basketball, especially when I thought I had a chance.”

“I’m still sorry that you didn’t
make the team,” she said. “I know that it really meant a lot to you, all
competition with Jasper aside.”

“Thank you,” I said. “And I’m
sorry for just about everything else. I’m sorry for every time that you were
hurt and it was my fault, every time it was someone else’s fault and I could’ve
stopped it or made it better, and every time that there was nothing I could’ve
done.”

We sat and talked by the fire
until we were so sleepy that we couldn’t even think of anything else to
discuss. It was marvelous.

“How will you get back into the
cabin?” I asked, unsure of my ability to help him.

“I’ll just walk on my knees like I
did to get out here,” he said. “It didn’t hurt too badly.”

I looked at the area from the
fire pit to the cabin. It was littered with small twigs and other seemingly
sharp objects.

“Okay, just let me do something
first,” I said.

I got up and used my feet to make
a trail for him. I pushed all of the twigs away until all that was there was
the forest floor. After I was finished, I ran my hand across it to make sure
that it was as soft as it looked.

I sighed, “There are a few small
rocks here and there, so just be careful. Walk on your hands and knees so you
can scope out where you don’t need to put your knees with your hands.”

He smiled, “Okay, you got it.
Thank you for going through all of this trouble for me.”

He did exactly as I said. I
walked ahead of him to get the door open so he could crawl through to his bed.
Once he was inside, I put out the fire with some of our water.

“We’ll need more water soon,” I
yelled to him. As I walked to the cabin, I realized that it seemed much darker
outside that it had the nights before. I looked up to the sky and saw that
there wasn’t a cloud in sight obscuring the stars.

“I’m losing my night-vision,” I
whispered to myself as I walked inside.

“Will you be able to carry the
bucket of water?” Daniel asked me as I entered the cabin.

“Probably, it just won’t be as
easy,” I said. “My night-vision is going away as well. It seemed much darker
outside than it has been, and I can’t see you in here without a light anymore.”

“You could see me before?” he
asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “Not as easily
as if it was daytime, but I could see your face.”

I lay down on my mattress,
wishing that I could still see him in the dark.

“I’m glad that you’re here,” I
told him. “Even if we are across the room from each other, I feel safe.”

He chuckled, “Well, it’s a small
room.”

I laughed, “True.”

I thought for a moment that
things could be normal between us. I knew that it would be unwise to lay beside
him on his mattress, but I scooted to the edge of mine as if it made us world’s
closer. There was a strange shadow on the floor, and I looked up at the
windowsill and saw the silhouette of the rose. Its petals were in a wilted
heap.

Then, my insides started to hurt.

I curled up into a ball hoping
that nothing was wrong with the rabbit that I ate. I hated throwing up, and I
for sure didn’t want to in front of Daniel.

I started coughing
uncontrollably.

“You okay?” he asked through the
darkness.

I nodded, and kept coughing. Then
I realized that he couldn’t see me nodding and tried to mutter, “Yes.”

After the coughing subsided, I
took my hands off of my face. I rubbed my fingers together, and they felt
sticky and weird. I opened the cabin door to let in some of the light from
outside, and saw that my hands were covered in something dark.

“What is it?” Daniel asked.

“I think its blood,” I answered.
“I just coughed up blood.”

“What? Are you serious? Are you
okay?” he asked frantically. “What happened?”

I paused to think about it,
“Yeah, I’m okay, I just feel kind of sick. Maybe the rabbit was bad?”

“Eating bad food doesn’t make you
cough up blood,” he reasoned. “Do you think that this could be connected to you
losing your strength and sight?”

I thought about it for a moment.
What if something happened to Amara too? What if that’s why there are no other
entries in the diary?

“Oh no,” I whispered.

I heard him sit up, “What? What
is it?”

I explained to him how I read the
end of the book, and that it was a very abrupt ending. I spoke slowly because
didn’t want him to know that I was as afraid as I was.

“You think that she got sick from
this spell as well?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “It doesn’t go
on for long enough after she changes to be able to compare it to what’s
happening to me.”

He sighed, “I wish there was
something that I could do.”

“Me too,” I said. “All we can do
right now is hope that it doesn’t get any worse.”

As soon as I said it, I wished I
hadn’t because all of these images of getting worse popped into my head. What
if I became even weaker? What if my body kept rejecting this spell until it
killed itself?

“I’m sure it won’t,” he said, but
his voice negated his words.

I thought that my life before all
of this was terrible, but this was the absolute worst. I couldn’t go see a
doctor. I couldn’t call someone and ask for their advice. I couldn’t even find
a computer and Google it. I was completely on my own to deal with it.

I hated Amara. I hated her for
writing down her horrible witchcraft so that it could affect people like me who
didn’t even want it. I hated her for not continuing the story and letting me
know what happened to her. As far as I could tell, she was terrible and selfish
and she had ruined my life without even knowing it.

I began to fall asleep, and I
wondered if Daniel was able to do the same. His breathing was steady, but I
could no longer tell if his eyes were open or not.

“Goodnight,” I whispered into the
darkness.

“Goodnight,” he whispered back.

I drifted off, my heart filled
with love for Daniel and hate for Amara. I felt like I was ripping in two. This
might have been the worst predicament that I had gotten myself into in a long
time, but it was also the happiest that I had been in a long time.

I awoke the next morning in a
panic. The first thing I saw in the morning light was the blood on Adeline’s
bed. I looked around frantically for her and saw that the water bucket was
gone. Relieved to have an idea of where she was, I lay back down and began to
think.

I tried to piece together the
puzzle of Adeline’s sickness. There had to be some reason that all of these
things were happening to her, but it didn’t make any sense.

I had to save her, and the only
way I knew how was to read the diary. I felt like I was invading both Amara’s
privacy and Adeline’s, but I didn’t know what else to do.

Just like Adeline had said, the
last entry was abrupt. There was no ending to what happened to Amara and
Thomas. There was the spell that could change Adeline back, but it didn’t work
for her just like it hadn’t for Amara.

I worked my way backward until I
got to where Amara changed into the beast, and I still found nothing. There was
no hint in the entry about the beast that there was some kind of side effect,
especially something as big as a deathly illness.

I kept working backward, hoping
to find some kind of explanation for Adeline.    

Instead, I found a healing spell.

“Yes, that could help her!” I
said aloud. I was so excited to find something to help Adeline. She was going
to be okay. I had found our answer… but then…

Assuming Adeline had read this
whole book cover to cover… she would have known that the healing spell was
there already. She could have healed my ankles.

My insides shook. I tried to make
excuses for her in my head and thought that maybe there was a chance that she didn’t
see it.

There had to be a chance that she
didn’t just hide it from me in order to keep me here longer. That was too cruel
for her. She would have given me a choice, especially after how close that we
had grown yesterday.

I heard her approaching, panting,
with the water bucket. When she walked in the cabin, her days-old clothes were
drenched in water from the splashing she made as she heaved it. She plopped
down on the bed in fatigue.

“Hey, sorry about the blood, I’ll
try to clean it out now that we have more water,” she breathed. “I hope that it
didn’t scare you.”

I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know
how to confront her without accusing her.

“What is it?” she asked, looking
confused and exhausted.

Then, she glanced down at the
book, and her eyes widened.

“You read the book?” she asked.

I nodded. She looked a little
nervous, but not enough for me to call her out on it.

“Oh,” she said. “See, I told you
that there was no explanation of any kind of sickness after the spell is used.
The book just abruptly stops.”

“Did you forget to tell me
anything else?” I asked. My voice was a little too rough, but I tried to hide
it.

She lowered her head, and I knew
for sure that she knew about the healing spell.

“Why in the world would you hide
something like that from me?” I asked carefully.

She sighed, “I found out after
you already knew who I was. I was too caught up in the moment of you knowing it
was me and not running away, and I didn’t want to ruin that. If I would have
found out when you were still referring to me as Violet, I would have told you,
I’m sure I would’ve.”

“Do you realize you have kept me
here against my will? You’ve basically tricked me?”

She began to cry, “I didn’t mean
to, I just didn’t want you to leave again. I promise that I didn’t do it to be
cruel or to manipulate you.”

I threw the book so that it
plopped beside her on the bed.

“Heal me. Read me the spell,
now!” I yelled.

Through her tears, she flipped to
the right page, and recited,

“
This wound is not forever

Its power no longer shows

Use this endeavor

To bring this to a close.”

Instantly, I felt the remnants of
pain disappearing from my ankles. I stood up in the cabin for the first time,
towering over her as she sat on the mattress on the floor.

“You shouldn’t have hid the truth
from me. I was going to stay here with you after I got better, do you realize
that?” I said, “But you didn’t trust me to stay if you gave me the choice, and
by denying me the choice, you betrayed my trust in you.”

She nodded, but didn’t say a
word. I flung the door open and started marching back toward town. She
should’ve known better than to keep something that huge a secret. She had no
right to control whether or not I knew about that spell. I couldn’t have stayed
out in the woods with her, anyway. I would’ve eventually needed more to eat
than grass. We would’ve had to find a way to take showers. The policemen would
have found us because of our nightly fires. It’s a wonder that they hadn’t
already. It made no sense for me to be out in the woods in the first place. I
decided that the next time that I needed to cool off, I was going to choose a
different location, or just lock myself in my room for a while.

As I got closer to Holbrooke,
thoughts of Adeline began to fade from my mind as I began to fear facing my
parents again. I hoped that they would be too happy to see me to be angry at
me. I began to come up with an alibi so that they would not go out in that
direction looking for Adeline.

“I fell in the woods during the
storm,” I practiced aloud. “I hit my head and was knocked out for a long time.
I wandered around until I finally made it back.”

I just hoped that they would buy
it.

A police car was parked in my
driveway. I lowered my head as I walked to the front door, ashamed at what I
must have put my parents through. I knocked on the door and waited.

My mother answered, and as soon
as she saw me, burst into tears. She leapt though the distance between us into
my arms.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she
said through her sobs, “We were so worried about you.”

Right on cue, my father appeared
in the doorway. I expected him to give me a condescending look, but instead he
wrapped his arms around both us.

“I’m so happy to see you, son,”
he said, hugging us tighter.

After a few long moments, we
untangled ourselves from each other.

“Come in,” my mother ushered,
“Come tell us what happened. The police are here too.”

I walked in to see two officers,
looking as relieved as my parents.

“We’re glad to see that you’re
alive and well, young man,” the oldest-looking cop said, “I’m Officer Harvey.
Are you emotionally stable enough to answer some questions, or would you like
to spend some more time reuniting with you family first? We can wait outside.”

“No, let’s go ahead and get this
out of the way,” I said. “I really feel stupid telling all of you this… but the
fact of the matter is, I hit my head when I was in the woods. I was upset
because of not making the team, and so I thought I’d go for a quick run to
clear my head. Then that freak storm happened, and I got disoriented and fell.
I’m not sure how long it took me to wake up. Then I started my way home, and
here I am.”

“So, you went running on Friday
night?” Officer Harvey asked.

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

He sighed, “Well, son, it’s
Monday morning.”

I looked as shocked as I was; I
had completely forgotten how much time had passed. I hoped that it didn’t make
my story seem unbelievable.

“I’m going to take him to the hospital,”
my mother interjected. “We need to make sure that he didn’t really damage
something when he hit his head.”

My father grunted in approval.

“That’s a good idea,” the other
officer agreed, “In the meantime, if you happen to remember anything else, just
come by the station or give us a call, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

We all stood up to leave at the
same time, and my parents hugged me again.

“Come here real quick, son,” my
dad said, pulling me into another room.

“I know you aren’t telling the
whole truth,” he said.

I lowered my head.

He sighed, “I know you left
because of me. You were running away.”

I looked up at him, but didn’t
deny it.

“Son, I know that it’s hard on
you to live here, with me being the mayor, not being friends with Jasper
anymore, Adeline’s mother passing away, and the like. I’ve been on the phone
with some of our relatives, and if you want, your aunt has a small house that
you can live in and finish out high school online, and then you can go to
college wherever you want. We love you so much, and we don’t want you to leave,
but we want you to be happy. Please, just consider it, okay? Stay with us if
you can, but if not, we understand. This town has been a great source of drama
for you, and I apologize for my role in that.”

I didn’t even know what to say,
“O-okay Dad,” I stuttered, “Thank you.”

He nodded, and we walked out the
door to go see what was wrong with my head, even though I knew that if there
was anything wrong with my head, Adeline had already healed it.