Blue Rose and Raven: Chapter Fourteen

Secrets are revealed and the bond between Marius and the Beast is tested.

When I awoke the following day, I felt my heart being strangled. I had broken a vow to the Beast. My host, my caretaker, my seeming companion. For a moment, I wondered what possible punishments she would mete out. Was there a dungeon? Would I be confined to my room? Just as quickly as they came, thankfully, the fear of punishment left me. There was no reason to think she was so authoritarian. She’d given me no reason to think so in my time being here. The deep shame of my betrayal was a far worse punishment, I realized. How could she trust me after this? I’d come to trust her in the time I was living here.

            There is only what has happened, I told myself. I can’t change what has happened. That was the hardest lesson for me to learn. I’d crossed this threshold already. I could never see my teacher or my family again. I had broken a promise. Now I had to live with these consequences. I took a deep breath and left my room.

            The halls were cast in perpetual darkness and lit with blue fire. A relief, ironically. I walked to the dining hall where the Beast was already eating, alone. I sat down across from her, intentionally keeping my seat away from the table. She quietly sipped tea and didn’t look at me. We sat together in silence for a while. I looked around for any servants. There were none to be found. As if that would’ve helped me.

            “You’re not eating.” The Beast said, eyes in her teacup.

            “I’m not hungry.” I responded nervously. That much was true. Guilt and fear had all but killed my appetite.

            The Beast’s eyes lazily slid to me. “You’re a terrible liar.” She said in a low, threatening tone.

            My heart skipped. “I�"I’m being honest. I’m just not hungry right now.”

            “Really.” The Beast gave a mirthless smile. She set down her teacup, the grinding of china like grinding teeth. “You made a promise to me and broke it.”

            “I’m very sorry. I knew it was a mistake. Please, let me make it up to you somehow�"” I attempted to apologize.

            “Oh, you’re sorry, aren’t you?” The Beast sniped. “You think it’s so easy to repair a broken vow?” She laughed drily. “How quaint. And I thought you were different.”

            “Now wait a minute�"”

            The Beast stood and grabbed her cane. “Leave me.” She started out of the dining room. “I don’t have time for this.”

            I felt myself becoming angry. I merely wanted to apologize for my mistake. Her anger was justified, yes. But I didn’t want to take this to where we would hurt each other. I took a breath and stood. “Beast, wait.” I said firmly. “What happened?”

            “What do you mean ‘what happened’?” She turned, eyes blazing. “You saw everything. You should know it all by now. Figure it out.”

            “No, I don’t.” I fired back. “I barely understood any of it.”

            “But I’m sure you understood enough?” The Beast turned away from me. Her voice caught her throat for a moment. “Now you know all my secrets. You know the history of this damned house and the horrible creature within its walls. You think you could ever understand how it feels? What I feel?” The Beast heaved a breath, then straightened herself. She cocked her beak upward. “I don’t need your sympathy.” She added. Her voice was shaking. It was the scared voice of a child.

            “I did break my vow, I know. I’m sorry,” I said. “I know what I saw of the past was deeply private to you. I am sorry for that as well.” I stopped, gathering every ounce of resolve. “But I just want you to know that whatever happened to you, whoever did this to you to make you look or feel this way was not your fault.”

            “Stop,” The Beast said quietly.

            “I may not know you well, but in the past, I saw nothing to hate or scorn or ridicule.” I left the table and approached the Beast. “I only saw someone carrying a great weight they never asked for.”

            “Just stop it,” She said again, hand rising to her face. “Stop it, please�"” She choked back a sob.

            “What do you want to stop?” I asked.

            “Stop acting like you care. You don’t care. You don’t understand�"” The Beast fell to the floor, hand over her eyes. Tears were streaming down her feathers.

            “I don’t understand.” I said gently, holding her and breaking her fall. “But I want to.” I held her broad feathered frame. “I want to understand.”

            We looked into each other’s eyes. The Beast’s intense gaze was now awash with tears. Any intimidation was gone, replaced with years of sadness and anguish that was plain to see. Her sadness filled me with so much sympathy I shed tears myself. She attempted to speak, only to sob. She leaned her head to mine, and we touched foreheads. I held her, comforting her and stroking her feathers. We said nothing for words were unnecessary. I knew the feeling of wanting to be held just to be held. There were things that words alone could not solve. To feel the embrace of someone who cared was sometimes all that mattered. In that moment, I cared. That was more than enough.

 

            We sat on the dining room floor just holding one another. Or rather, the Beast held me. The Beast was inconsolable for a while. She cried and cried, years of sadness pouring out of her like rain. Through it all I held her. With enough time, the Beast’s crying quieted. She looked at me again with watery eyes. “It must be unbecoming for a host to cry in front of her guest.” She said, ashamed.

“It’s alright.” I said, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “I don’t mind.” I gave her a gentle smile.

“I haven’t been completely truthful with you,” The Beast said, averting her eyes again. “But there is more I need to tell you first.”

“I’m all ears,” I replied.

Together, we stood up. I helped her to her feet and retrieved her cane. We ventured out into the garden. The smell of honeysuckle and summer rain filled the air. All the flowers and trees save for the roses were in full bloom, their colors on full display. It was a far cry from when I first arrived here in the bitter cold of winter. Perhaps it was a sign of something more.

“Magic on its own is naturally wild and untamed. It requires a medium to focus through to be useful, not unlike a wizard needs a wand or a staff. Otherwise, it is unpredictable.” The Beast explained. “My family’s line discovered a way to use their natural talents and focused it into the arts. As such, every one of us was meant to discover a preference for a particular art form. It could be anything; painting, sculpture, baking, sewing. It is the act of creation that is magic. It is something anyone can do. Ours just affects more than the hearts of fellow men.”

I nodded. “Who was the man?”

“My father. He and Mother were masters of many disciplines in music and fine arts. My sister inherited Mother’s talents for draftsmanship and painting. I on the other hand…” She looked at her four-fingered hand. “I was born lame and sick. Our doctors didn’t know if I would survive my birth or if I could walk. But I did, with concessions.” She motioned to her cane. “I did not catch on to things as easily as my parents desired. I tried, but nothing seemed to stick. Every action I made was incorrect. Every sketch, every clay pot ruined, every wrong note. It was never enough. I was never enough.”

“You were a child. You couldn’t possibly know how to sculpt or paint anything that well yet.”

            “I wish someone had told them that,” The Beast said, hanging her head. “I spent years wasting away inside. I felt empty. Until I decided to play our piano.” Some light returned to her eyes. “I’d avoided it for many years. I thought it would terribly hard, like all the other instruments Father foisted upon me. But for some reason, the piano came easiest to me. When I played, the world just fell away, and I became one with the music. I wanted to master it not because I had to, but because I wanted to.” She shut her eyes, savoring the memory. “You must know what it feels like. To find a part of yourself you’d been missing through your art.”

            I remembered my own experiences with painting. I nodded in agreement.

            The Beast’s expression turned hard. “But it didn’t last. When Father learned of my talents, he demanded I received “formal” training. His kind of training. Absolute perfection at any cost.” She turned to me. “In his day, he said, a true master of his craft practiced it until the skin of their fingers fell from the bone. ‘If you can’t do it right, never do it again’.” She shuddered. “I’ll carry those words with me forever.”

            “That sounds more like an obligation than passion.”

            “And that’s exactly what it became. We would have recitals for nobility, and I would perform for them. But for months before, Father made me practice relentlessly.” She rubbed her scaled knuckles. “He was fond of switch branches if I slipped a key.”

            I winced in sympathy. “And then what happened?”

            “My love for the art disappeared. I stopped playing. I stopped leaving my room. I stopped existing in this world altogether. They called me lazy, a hanger-on. ‘Just get out if you don’t care anymore.’, They told me once. ‘Make yourself useful. You’re an embarrassment to our family’. And no one save for the servants seemed to care. I think it was them who kept me from ending my life.” The Beast turned away as if in pain. “There was only one who seemed to care. My little niece, Faustine. She was the light of my life. My perfect little blossom. She didn’t see me as a burden. I was just her aunt, and she was my niece.”

            My thoughts turned to Caesar and his unconditional affection, his love of hugging our legs. I remembered the feeling and missed it.

            “Then one day, I woke up wrong. This wasn’t new, I’d felt wrong for a while. Then I looked in the mirror and saw this,” She stroked her feathered face and long beak. “This frightful visage.”

            A realization dawned on me. “You mean you weren’t cursed?”

            “I am cursed, in a sense. But no third party did this to me. It was entirely self-inflicted. When they discovered news of my affliction, my family tried everything to fix it. But no medicine nor the greatest magicians in the land could change me back. They all came back with the same thought: No one could break this curse but me. Except this curse is rooted in untamed undisciplined magic. It is a wild spell conjured and inflicted unconsciously. There was no way of fixing it save for ending my life. But who knows if that would work either.” The Beast breathed in, gathering herself for the next part of her story. “But it didn’t stop there. Soon the sun went down and never rose again. Then the servants became like statues when looked at. I remained in my stupor while my kin pleaded and screamed for me to stop it. I couldn’t.” She turned away from me. “So they abandoned me.” She said quietly.

She sniffed. I sensed she was crying again. I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “That sounds terrible. I’m sorry this has happened to you.”

            She found a bench and sat down. I followed beside her. “The conditions of the manor make it so things barely age if they are here. In my solitude, I may have barely aged while the rest of the world continues without me. For all I know, my family is long dead. I think it’s a fair trade if I remain here, where I cannot hurt anyone else.” She leaned on her cane. “My solitude was hard at first. I cried for days at a time, crying out for someone to help me and hearing nothing. The servants tried to help me, but they could only do so much. Eventually the tears stopped flowing and my heart hardened. I accepted what I had done. I had driven them all away. The only people who should’ve mattered to me, and they were gone because of me.” She nodded to one of the raven statues in the garden. “My family’s sacred animal, the messenger and giver of knowledge. An appropriate visage to be stuck with forever, don’t you think? Except I only bring gloom and distress.”

            “I cannot imagine how that must feel. To hold onto that for so long.” I said.

            “I was content for a while being alone. No one found this place for many moons. I assumed the world had truly forgotten about me, which I didn’t mind. Then that winter’s night your mother stumbled in from the cold. And I remembered the outside world existed. And�"”

            “Yes. I know the rest.” I cut in. I didn’t want to be reminded of the past or my decision. “That’s why I’m here.”

            “No. There’s something else I need to tell you.” The Beast nibbled on a talon, not unlike a scolded child. “As I said, I haven’t been completely truthful with you.”

            “What else do you need to tell me?” I asked her.

            “When your mother took the paintbrush�"” The Beast sucked in a shaking breath. “I said she violated an ancient law of hospitality. I said that there would be grave consequences if she did not pay back what was owed.”

            “Yes, I remember.” I narrowed my eyes. “What are you saying?”

            The Beast shut her eyes. “There is no ancient law.” She exhaled harshly as if venting foulness. “I made it up.”

            My mind went blank. “What?’

            “Your mother’s arrival awakened something in me. I realized how much I missed the sight of another human. I just wanted someone to talk to again. I made up a story to ensure that she would stay with me.” The Beast’s words were small and timid. “I know why I did it, but I knew it was wrong. I would’ve let her leave very soon. Instead, you came along. You with your kindness and your compassion. Your love for your family. And what was more, I felt a kinship with you I never expected to feel with anyone ever again.” Tears welled in her eyes again. “And you helped me play again.”

            My thoughts reeled. So many things connected in an instant, emotions arcing like electricity. I was angry, I was relieved, I was sad, I was confused. There was no singular thought I could express in that moment and remain coherent. Instead, I simply asked, “You’re saying I could have left at any time?”

            The Beast nodded, a bitter tear rolling down her cheek.

            The image of Mother weeping in the snow flashed in my mind. I shut my eyes to ignore the pain of the memory. “Excuse me,” I said, standing up. “I need to be alone.” And I left the Beast in the garden.

Author's Note

General thoughts.