“I’ve been reading it all wrong,” I said, wiping flour from my hands onto the borrowed apron I’d found in a drawer. “I started from the beginning, but if I want to know what happened to you, to this place...” I trailed off, flipping to the back of the journal. “The answers would be at the end, but there is one passage that caught my attention.”
I skimmed the passage I spoke of, my stomach knotting at the words.
“‘Something watches us from the forest’,” I read softly. “‘Each night someone comes closer to the walls. Henri says I imaginethings, but I know what I see. Glowing eyes, gleaming in the darkness. That hunger in their stern set promise evil.”
Beast growled low in his throat, the sound rumbling through the kitchen like distant thunder. Whether it was agreement or warning, I couldn’t tell. I closed the journal reluctantly, knowing I needed to finish my tasks before diving deeper into its mysteries. My eyes did catch a few page flips, showing me something that would be worth investigating. The last dozen pages were different. The elegant script growing hurried, sometimes jagged, as if written by a hand that trembled.
“I’ll read more tonight,” I promised him, returning to my bread dough. It had risen beautifully overnight, the yeast from the sourdough starter I’d found working its magic despite the years the kitchen had sat abandoned. “We’ll have fresh bread with dinner. And the beans should be ready soon.”
The beans bubbled in their pot, filling the kitchen with an earthy aroma that reminded me of home. I’d seasoned them with herbs from the magical acre—rosemary, thyme, and a pinch of something that smelled like sage but had leaves shaped like stars. Before Beast, before Gaspard, before the drowning cage, these simple domestic tasks would have seemed mundane. Now they felt like rebellion against the chaos.
Oh, how this would’ve been the future of dread for a younger me. Now, it helped ease the true dread I’d lived through but hadn’t coped with. Not yet. I didn’t have time to process my pain, and I knew it would open a damn once I let my feelings manifest. So I kneaded in the kitchen, boiled beans with herbs. Like proof I was still human, still myself, despite everything that had happened.
The soap mixture had set overnight as well, thickening in the wooden bowl I’d found. I’d combined wood ash with rendered fat from Beast’s previous hunt and a generous handful of thelavender I’d gathered from the hidden garden. Now I turned it out onto the worktable, where it formed a perfect dome.
“Look,” I said, gesturing Beast closer. “It worked! I wasn’t sure the proportions were right, but—”
Beast approached, his massive head lowering to inspect my creation. He sniffed at it, then looked at me. His eyes darted from the soap to my chest, then back again, his ears twitching in what almost looked like embarrassment.
I frowned, following his gaze. The soap had formed a perfect dome with a small peak at the top, a red wildflower below the surface, remarkably similar in shape to...
Oh.
Heat flooded my face as I realized what he saw. The soap looked exactly like a woman’s breast, complete with a nipple-like protrusion and color where air had escaped during setting. My breast, to be specific, which Beast had seen and touched and…I swallowed hard, the memory of his tongue against my bare skin suddenly vivid in my mind.
“It’s—it’s just soap,” I stuttered, snatching it up and nearly dropping it in my flustered state. “It doesn’t—it’s not meant to—”
A strange rumbling sound emanated from Beast’s chest. It took me a moment to recognize it as laughter. The first I’d heard from him. The sound was rusty, as if long unused, but unmistakably amused.
My embarrassment turned to indignation. “Art thou laughing at me?”
His eyes crinkled at the corners, head tilting in a gesture that screamed mirth. Great. Even a cursed beast found my discomfort entertaining.
“Well, I’m glad someone’s amused,” I muttered, setting the soap back down with more force than necessary. But I couldn’t maintain my irritation, not when his laughter revealed anotherfragment of his humanity. Another piece of the man trapped inside the beast.
I felt my own lips twitch in response. “Fine. It looks like a breast. Are you happy now?”
He made that rumbling sound again, and I found myself laughing too, the tension dissolving like sugar in hot tea.
“Thou art impossible,” I said, but there was no heat in my words. I cut the soap into more appropriate slices, studiously avoiding looking at Beast. “I think we both need some air. Would you... would you show me more of the forest? The one behind the castle?”
Beast’s laughter subsided, but something warm remained in his gaze. He nodded, turning toward the back door with a gesture that clearly invited me to follow.
Outside, the hidden grove welcomed us with impossible sunshine and vibrant colors. Every time I entered this space, the shock of its beauty struck me anew. How could such life exist so close to the decay that consumed the rest of the forest? What magic preserved this small paradise?
Beast dropped to all fours as we entered the garden, his movements shifting from the almost-human gait he adopted inside the castle to something more animal. I walked beside him, feeling strangely like a noblewoman taking her exotic pet for a stroll. Except this “pet” stood taller than me, nearly so on four legs, and could tear a man to pieces with one swipe of his massive paws.
“It never looked like this where I’m from,” I said, gazing around at the abundance of life. “Our village always felt... muted somehow. Gray? As if joy itself couldn’t quite take root there.”
Beast made a soft sound, neither agreement nor disagreement, but acknowledgment of my words.
We hadn’t walked far when the first animal approached. A doe with twin fawns at her flanks. To my amazement, she loweredher head before Beast in what could only be described as a bow. Beast nodded in return, a gesture so regal it momentarily took my breath away. This wasn’t just an animal interaction. This was a subject greeting her king.
As we continued deeper into the grove, other creatures came to pay their respects. Rabbits, foxes, birds of all descriptions, each pausing in their activities to bow or dip or flutter in Beast’s direction. He acknowledged each one with the same grave nod, his eyes watchful and protective.
“They know you’re their guardian,” I said softly. “You protect them from whatever’s corrupting the forest.”
Beast’s gaze slid to mine, a flash of surprise in those amber depths, as if he hadn’t expected me to understand so easily. He huffed in what seemed like agreement, then nudged me forward, clearly wanting to show me something specific.
