Oliver nods as if he understands. “Too far-fetched?”
“Something like that.”
Shakespeare’s faeries are unbelievable, but not in the way Oliver means. They are mischievous, often endearingly so. Well-meaning tricksters. Not malevolent. Not scheming and selfish.
“What aboutRomeo and Juliet?” he asks.
“Hated it.” She didn’t cry at that one at all, the only dry eye in the place. William would have loved it. And maybe she would, too, in another life, but it only made her angry. “Love conquers all” is a lie. Even Shakespeare knows it.
“Me, too,” Oliver admits. “Too far-fetched.”
Beatrix gives him a wry smile. “You know, I don’t go to the Globe for the theater.”
He offers her an orange. “I noticed.”
“Well, most people don’t.” She scowls and snatches the fruit from his hand. “You wouldn’t have either, if that drunkard hadn’t shoved me into you.”
He glances up from his half-peeled orange. His eyes meet hers. “In that case, I’m glad he did.”
Heat creeps up Beatrix’s neck. She looks quickly away. “So, what’s your business in London?”
Oliver hesitates. “I just finished my university studies. I thought I’d do some traveling while I have the chance.”
She’s not exactly surprised. She knew he was too well-off to be in the pit. But she imagined a scholar would be more… uptight.
“What about you?” he asks.
“I wanted to see the city.” It will be another hundred years before she dares to utter the truth aloud. Of dying. Of the curse. Of the boy who shattered her heart with two whispered words.
Of running without looking back, all the way to the doors of St. Paul’s.
June 25, 1505London, England
Night has fallen again by the time Beatrix stumbles onto the largest, longest bridge she has ever seen. Her feet ache. Her filthy clothes and the deceitful ring weighing on her hand are the only possessions to her name. She hasn’t slept more than an hour at a time since she left Lancaut: catnaps snatched on the back of bumping carts or hidden among the trees along the road. Hunger gnaws at her insides. Could she starve to death? Maybe she will find out.
She passes through the wide stone gate, beneath a dozen spiked and tarred human heads. They gaze down at her with glassy eyes, shining in the moonlight. The ones who still have eyes, anyway. She swallows the bile rising in her throat and hurries across the bridge. Buildings loom over her, closing her in. The night is warm, but she shivers as she steps into the city.
And then she stops, unsure of where to go, of what to do now. Lost, in every sense.
She will learn the streets of London until she knows them like the back of her hand. She will learn to swallow her pride, to bite her tongue. To beg. To steal. She will learn what she is capable of doing to survive and how much she can endure before she breaks. But not tonight. Tonight, she is only Beatrix from little Lancaut, scared and hungry and alone in this strange new place.
A spire rises like a dark shadow against the skyline to the west, blacker than the inky night. Beatrix hurries through the narrow city streets, pulled toward it as if it were a guiding star in the heavens. She reaches an open churchyard and freezes.
St. Paul’s Cathedral is the grandest church she has ever seen, even larger than the abbey in Gloucester she visited with William, with greatpointed arches built out of warm stone and a spire that disappears into the night. St. James’s was nothing in comparison.
She slowly walks up the shallow steps and reaches for the carved double doors. She pulls her trembling hand away before she can lay a finger on the sacred place.
Could she open it? Or would some invisible force stop her?
Not allowed.
Not welcome.
Not real.
Not anymore.
Beatrix holds her breath. She lays a tentative palm against the wood, half expecting her flesh to burst into flame. But she feels nothing. She exhales slowly, heaves the door open, and steps through.
