Nights were always harder than days. When London slept, and she could not, Beatrix felt that implacable loneliness in her bones. Last night, it sat in her heart like a dark pit, the edges crumbling away, threatening to swallow her whole. She told herself it had nothing to do with the day. The man had simply been her type: tall and lean, with a knowing smile and a spark in his eye that told her he was trouble. And trouble, Beatrix had discovered, was the best way to forget.
She forgot his name easily enough. Forgot, as she matched him drink for drink, that everyone she has ever known is gone. Forgot, as she fell into bed with him, that everyone she has ever loved is dead. Forgot, wrapped in the darkness with him, that she is to blame for all of it.
The sun has risen, and so have the memories. William, leaning againstan ancient oak, grinning like a fool at her muddy dress and disheveled hair. The way he looked at her the night he swore they were not so different. The scent of the forest on his skin when he pulled her into the steps of their first dance. Into him. Into the rest of their lives together.
Her heart—the wicked, wretched thing—betrays her. Sends a smile to her lips even as the memories tear her open.
Beatrix buries the thought of him, tries to think of nothing and no one. She gathers the coins, shoves them under her pillow, and pulls the heavy quilt over her head. Sleeping in a bed was a rare luxury. She refuses to waste another second of it dwelling on her past.
Stillness settles over the room. Beatrix closes her eyes, wills sleep to return, to plunge her into oblivion. A whisper fills the hollow spaces she has chased her memories from, in her own weary voice.
One hundred years and one day.
She really should stop counting.
August 18, 1497Lancaut, England
Twelve days. Twelve days of skimping on her chores, of giving the flimsiest excuses to her sisters, of ignoring the disapproving glares of her neighbors as she walked far too quickly for a woman of sixteen—down the path to the church and past it, to the edge of the wood and past that, too. Twelve days, and Beatrix has seen no more sign of the wolf than the tracks it left behind.
She shifts against the stiffness that has crept into her back. It’s cool in the shade of the oaks. Cooler still, hidden beneath the underbrush, her belly pressed into the earth, her cheek resting against her folded arms. The tracks remain undisturbed: paw prints the size of her hand sunk deep into the silty bank. Her own small boot prints follow beside them now, as if the tracks were a path that should’ve led her to the beast they belonged to instead of an empty wood.
The bushes on the riverbank rustle. Her pulse quickens. Too large for a fox, too heavy-footed for a deer. Blood rushes in her ears.
The forest warden’s son crashes into view. Beatrix releases her breath in a huff. There is an entire forest surrounding Lancaut, yet here he is, carelessly tromping through her clearing. He crouches near the water’s edge and examines the tracks. She wills him to move on.
The boy stands, wipes his hands against the rough fabric of his trousers, and listens. The summer has changed him, freckled his skin and turned his brown hair light. He has grown into himself since the days she’d stumble upon him whittling beneath the trees or thrashing in the river, spoiling the silence. He must be a head taller than her now, and he’s broader, too, the boyish lankiness of his limbs fading with the August heat. He takes a long look around the clearing before continuing on, following the curve of the Wye through the trees.
Beatrix scrambles from the underbrush, sure her chances of seeing the wolf have been ruined. The scrubby branches catch at her braid, tug her wild strands loose. She stands and smooths down her skirt, a futile gesture considering the soiled state of it. She’ll have to run home straightaway if she has any hope of being presentable by dinner.
“There’s a sight you don’t see every day.”
Beatrix spins to face the amused speaker. The forester’s son leans against the wide trunk of an oak, grinning like a fool.
“What are you doing here?” She should be gracious, grateful that it is William Woodward standing in the forest with her and not his father, who would surely be dragging her out from the trees by now. But she can’t bring herself to be polite to the intruder. This isherclearing, with the hollow log for sitting and a bank that slopes so gently to the water’s edge it is no trouble to navigate in her dress, even when it’s muddy—where she can peer into the shallows and see herself peering back; where she could make it home at a run before her parents or sisters suspected a thing.
He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Same as you, I expect.”
Beatrix bristles. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
William gives her a roguish smirk—the one that makes every girl in Lancaut swoon—and she fights the urge to roll her eyes at him. He pushes off the tree and steps toward her. “Sure I do. You’re Beatrix Atwood. You live in the cottage at the end of the lane. Your favorite color is yellow, but all your dresses are shades of brown. You love to wear flowers in your hair. Your boots are always caked in river mud, even on a Sunday.” His gaze trails to the prints on the bank.
Her heart races. Those things weren’t hard to see. Anyone could notice them.
If they dared to look at her.
“That only proves you’ve been watching me, William Woodward,” she says, “and that you spend too much idle time in oak trees.”
His eyes dart from her wild hair to her dirt-streaked face to her soiled dress, as if he is considering revealing everything he sees in her. Her face burns. She’s sure she doesn’t want to know.
He nods to the riverbank. “I only meant I suspect we’re both here on account of that wolf.”
She gasps. “Are you hunting it?”
“What?” He laughs. “No. My father would lock me up if he knew I was tracking her.” He lowers his voice. “Are you hunting her?”
Beatrix rolls her eyes. “I just want to see her.” She has never seen a wolf, and seeing something new in Lancaut is the rarest of opportunities. She isn’t about to pass it up.
“Doesn’t she frighten you?” he asks.
