The Curse Girl (14 page)

“Beauty—”

“Don’t even speak to me. I don’t want to listen to your lying voice.”

He went to the window and stared out at the darkness, hands clenched at his sides.

I drew in a shuddering breath. “I’m pretty angry right now at you. But I’m sure in the morning, after I’ve thought about this for a long time, I’ll see some silver lining in all this. So for now, good night. Thanks for lying to me. You acted like a real friend. That was sarcasm, by the way. You’ve been a Beast, just like all the legends said.”

Will wisely didn’t try to speak again. I went to the door and yanked it open. Before I stormed out I glanced at him over my shoulder.

His head was down, and his face was contorted with sadness or anger. Maybe both.

I slammed the door as I left.

FIFTEEN

I spent the next hour huddled on the floor beside my bed, trying to breathe. Will’s betrayal cut me like a knife. I hadn’t realized how much I’d started to like him, how much I’d thought he was a good guy. And now this? He’d lied to me. He’d hidden Drew from me. He’d been a first-class jerk.

I needed to talk to Liam so badly.

The sheaf of papers from the book of letters lay in a pile on my bed. I grabbed sheet and skimmed it, trying to take my mind off everything. The words blurred together, and finally I ground my teeth together and started folding. My fingers formed a shape with the paper while my mind ran over Will’s words again and again. A key. I’d never made a key before. I stared at it dispassionately after I’d finished, then I dropped the paper creation on the bureau and began folding a rose.

I was afraid you’d forget about me if you saw him again
.

“Not your call, Will,” I muttered. How dare he try to manipulate my affections like that? What gave him the right to control me?

I seethed and raged while shadows crept across the windows and the sunlight faded into twilight. When the room was almost black, I grabbed a candle and went in search of the labyrinth.

~

“Liam?”

His breathing rasped loudly in the dark. He didn’t respond to my call.

“Liam. Are you okay?” I crouched close to him in the darkness and blew out my candle. It would light again when I picked it up. He’d told me more than once that the light hurt his eyes, so I didn’t take the chance of causing him pain with the lit candle anymore.

He grabbed my hand and held it tight. I squeezed back, trying to give him comfort. “Are you in a lot of pain tonight?”

“I’m all right,” he rasped.

I scooted down next to him. I wanted to pour out my own story, but if he was hurting I’d pay attention to him first. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, but his voice hitched and I didn’t believe him. His hand lay cold and clammy in mine tonight. “Never mind about me. You’re upset, I can tell.”

“Yeah,” I said. The pain in my own chest throbbed. “Something horrible happened today.”

“Tell me.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay—”

“Please, Bee.”

I relented, or rather, the story poured out of me before I could stop myself from telling him. I almost choked explaining the events of the day—finding the book, my joy, the kiss, and then the revelation from Will that Drew had come to see me.

Liam was quiet for a long time. “That was a terrible thing for him to do,” He said finally. “I imagine he’s very sorry about it.”

“It
was
a terrible thing! He should have told me! I can’t believe he didn’t . . .”

“And what are you thinking now?” Liam’s calm voice soothed my frazzled thoughts. I sighed.

“I don’t know. I’m really, really mad at Will. But at the same time I sort of understand. We weren’t good friends when it happened. And what would seeing Drew have done for me? I’d probably just have freaked out or something.” I traced his fingers with mine absently in the dark. “Maybe it was all for the best. But he shouldn’t have lied to me.”

“No,” Liam said, and the word came out strangled.

I straightened. “Are you in pain again?”

“I’m fine. Really. Don’t be concerned about me.”

He sighed.

I stroked his hand, and the gesture seemed to soothe him. “I’m going to break this curse, and then you’ll be better,” I said. “Believe me, you’ll be the one I miss the most when I’m gone. You’ve been a real friend to me.”

“Bee, there’s something I should tell you.”

I barely heard him, though, because thoughts were suddenly crowded my head. Was I really going to leave? I’d been here so long I half-expected my skin to meld with the wallpaper like Housekeeper’s. I felt a little like a branch, grafted onto a foreign tree. I’d begun to bloom, but now … now I just wanted to be cut away.

I just wanted to get out.

“Beauty,” Liam said urgently.

I reached out a hand to see if he was in pain and accidentally grazed his face. My fingers brushed across fur, skin, a scar.

… A scar?

“Liam?” My voice came out unnaturally high-pitched. “What is it you want to tell me?”

A growing sick feeling had started gnawing at my stomach.

“Well,” Liam said. “It’s . . . er . . . Bee, I want you to listen to me—”

I picked up the candle. The wick flamed to life in my hands. I thrust the light forward, illuminating his face.

I saw a wolfish face, half human and half monster. I saw long, glistening teeth and electric blue eyes. Human eyes.

Will’s eyes.

He scrambled back, hiding his face from the light.

“Will?” I gasped. But at the same time, deep inside me, everything was clicking into place. I’d suspected this. I’d known, somehow.

But that didn’t make the utter betrayal I felt any easier.

“Please,” Liam said. Will said. He was both of them. His voice was different, all rough and scratchy, but the eyes were the same. The scar was the same. It was definitely him, even though he looked like a monster instead of his normal self.

“Will?” I repeated. His name was the only thing I could say. A tremor went through my whole body, like an earthquake of emotion. I just sat there paralyzed, holding the candle over him, my arm shaking. Wax dripped down my arm.

“Beauty, please—listen to me.”

I scooted backwards, shaking my head. This was too much. First Drew, now this—what else had he lied about?

“Listen! I couldn’t tell you at first because—because you’d have run away! Look at me! I’m a werewolf! I’m chained up down here at night because I’m dangerous. You want to see the beast of legend? This is the beast. This is me, cursed!” He drew in a sobbing breath. His eyes were bright, feverish. The words kept spilling out of him, a waterfall of desperate explanations. “I was so lonely, because everyone else was afraid of me when I was like this, and you weren’t … and then I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how. I wanted you to be my friend. And then when you were my friend, I didn’t want to lose you. You hated Will, but you didn’t hate me.” His voice broke over the last bit.

Fresh pain exploded inside me. “If you wanted to be my friend, you should have told me the truth instead of lying and manipulating me. That’s like, Friendship 101 stuff!”

“I am so sorry,” he said, his face twisting with pain. He looked like a wounded animal.

Something inside me hardened into a tight, cold ball. “It’s a little late for that.” I rose to my feet.

“Beauty,” he rasped. The chains jangled as he jerked against them violently. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Some place without you in it.”

He yelled my name again, but I didn’t stop until I’d gotten back to my room.

Halfway there, I realized I was crying for the first time since my mother had left me. His betrayal had uncorked a powerful emotion inside the deepest corners of my inner self. It hurt so bad I doubled over on the floor of my room, dropping the candle. Nobody had ever hurt me this way before, not even my father when he’d left me here, because my father had never loved me or cared about me.

Not like Will.

I curled up in the middle of my bed and cried myself to sleep.

~

I woke before it was light. I uncurled slowly, stretching my stiffened limbs and moaning as blood rushed into my extremities. My throat was scratchy and dry, like I’d swallowed a fistful of leaves, and my head throbbed. At first I didn’t understand what had happened, and except for a dull ache in my chest I felt almost normal.

And then everything hit me like a splash of icy water. Last night. The fight. The revelation. Will had lied about Drew. Will had lied about being Liam.

Was there anything Will hadn’t lied about?

I sat up in my bed, fumbling for something to fold so I could calm down. My fingers closed over cold metal. A key? I vaguely remembered making it the night before, when I had been so distressed. What good was a stupid key? I needed a baseball bat, or a crowbar. Something I could use to smash every breakable thing in this house.

I slid out of the bed and dragged on a coat, the key still clasped in my fingers. Someone knocked on the door, probably Housekeeper, but I ignored them, and eventually the person slid something under the door and went away.

An envelope. Probably more explanations from Will. I glared at it, not wanting to pick it up.

I didn’t want to speak to him right now. Ever, maybe. It was hard to think through the fog in my head.

The key was heavy in my hand. I looked down at it, and an idea began to form. I almost sobbed when I thought of it. Impossible … right?

Grabbing my backpack, I stuffed everything I’d brought to the curse house inside. My clothes, my toiletries, my hairbrush. The things that I’d brought with me. The things that were mine.

I left the things he’d given me, the things Seamstress had made me, the things I’d made myself from paper. Except the key. That went into my pocket. I got dressed quickly, my breathing quick and heavy in the stillness. Hope began to blossom in my chest.

This might work.

When I was finished, I tiptoed to the door and slipped out.

The house was still in the pre-dawn darkness. The glimmer of light shimmered at the windows, signaling sunrise. I moved noiselessly across the carpeted floors, slipping up and down staircases and through studies and halls. Finally I found the foyer.

I hadn’t been back since the day I’d come. Everything was the same—the overturned furniture, the scattered papers. The heavy oak door with the brass knob.

Everything else faded into a blur around me. Slowly I crept forward. My heart struggled in my chest. Hope made me dizzy. I pulled the key from my pocket and slid it with a clink into the keyhole.

My pulse crashed in my ears. My fingers were numb.

I turned the key.

Click.

The door opened.

I was free.

SIXTEEN

I left without looking back. I ran all the way across the lawn. Dew soaked my socks and bits of wet grass clung to my legs. I kept running into the woods while the tears streamed down my face. My lungs ached and my nose burned, but I didn’t stop.

I ran all the way home. I wanted to see Drew first, and my other friends, but I ached for my stepsisters and I needed to see my father.

There were no words in my mouth for him. But I needed to see him anyway.

When I reached our street a fresh burst of energy filled me, propelling me forward. The sun had risen and cars were rumbling past—people were on their way to work, or school, or something. I realized I didn’t know what day it was, what month it was. The air was cold and crisp, and the tree branches were mostly bare, with a few clinging leaves still stubbornly hanging on. My breath made a cloud in front of my mouth. Maybe it was late October, early November? I shivered in my spring-appropriate clothes.

I turned the corner for my house. My sneakers beat a rhythm on the ground as I jogged up the front walk. I slowed to climb the steps.

I was home.

“Bee?” An incredulous voice behind me cried out.

Turning, I saw my old neighbor, Mrs. Teasley. She stood by her mailbox, her morning mail dangling in her hand. Her eyes widened as she saw my face.

“It’s you,” she gasped, dropping the mail. “Dear child, I thought, everyone thought—I mean, people supposed that you’d … well, never mind. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I managed, doubling over and sucking in a breath. “I’ve been gone, I know, but—”

“We thought you were gone forever.” She scooped up her letters and came to the fence that divided our lawns. Her eyes darted over me, like she was checking for bite marks “It’s good to see you, honey. You look well.”

“I’m sorry I can’t talk long,” I said. “I need to speak to my father.”

She raised both eyebrows. “But the whole family is gone to the city.”

Her words hit me like a punch in the gut. The city?

“What?” I managed. My words came out in a squeak of disbelief.

Mrs. Teasley nodded. “Oh, honey. They left months ago. In the summer. Your stepmother is getting treatment there. You’d been gone so long, and your father said—”

I shook my head, cutting her off. “Thanks for telling me. I—I didn’t know.” I didn’t want to know what lie he’d told her.

Her face crumpled with compassion. I looked at my feet. I needed to find Drew and Violet and everyone else.

“Mrs. Teasley?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Uh . . . what day is it? And, um, what month?”

Her wrinkled face didn’t change expression at my odd, possibly deranged-sounding question, and I loved her for it. “Saturday, darling. And it’s November now.”

“Thanks.” I stared down the stairs.

“Bee,” she called after me.

I turned.

“Your mother was a good woman. Misunderstood, maybe, but a good woman. You look just like her. I always wanted to tell you that.”

I smiled my thanks.

She went into her house, and I hit the road.

~

My stomach started twisting into a million knots as I got close to Drew’s house. He lived only a few streets over from me, and I’d be there in a minute. All kinds of emotions filled my head and my heart. Had he forgotten about me? Would he slam the door in my face, frightened by rumors, or would he be happy to see me?