“No.” She can’t explain it, but she feels a kinship to the beast. Maybe because she wishes she could live out her days alone in the forest, too.
“She frightens me,” William says, but he doesn’t sound scared. He sounds in awe.
“Have you seen her?” Beatrix asks.
He nods. “She’s big, bigger than any of the dogs in the village. Her coat’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Copper threaded through with gold, like it’s captured the last of a sunset. And her eyes…” He trails off, lost to the memory.
“What about her eyes?” Beatrix prompts.
He meets Beatrix’s mismatched gaze. “She looked right at me. It was like she was lookingintome. And then she just disappeared into the trees, like whatever she saw wasn’t worth her time.” He shakes his head. “She was beautiful. Strange, but beautiful.” He looks quickly away, as if he’s said something he shouldn’t.
Beatrix swallows, her throat suddenly dry. “She’d eat you alive.”
William laughs. “Of that, I have no doubt.” He leans close, as if he’s going to share a secret with her. “That’s why I stick to the trees.”
A smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
He frowns. “Next time?”
“I haven’t seen her yet.” She’ll come back to the forest every day if she has to.
William’s brow creases. He looks like his father. “It’s not exactly safe out here.” He sounds like his father, too.
“It’s safe enough for you,” Beatrix points out.
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself so close to dusk.” He sounds nervous now, scared even. “Neither should I.”
“It’s nowhere near—” But Beatrix stops. The clearing has grown darker, the sky overhead a faded violet now, turning dimmer by the moment.
She turns her back on William and runs. He doesn’t follow her, doesn’t even shout after her. Maybe she’s stunned him speechless, fleeing like a madwoman without a goodbye. Maybe he’s too busy laughing at her.
Beatrix races home, her skirt tangling around her legs, her heart pounding against her ribs. She wishes a thousand useless wishes as she runs: that she hadn’t gone to the woods, that she had left sooner, that her dress were cleaner, her hair neater. That she could turn back time or maybe stop it altogether.
Her mother has warned her against wishing, even though her mother wishes harder than anyone she knows. Beatrix can’t remember a night her mother didn’t kneel beside her bed, bow her head over her folded hands, and silently wish with her entire heart for her eldest daughter to hold her tongue like Alice or to happily do as she’s told like sweet Isabella. She calls it prayer, but Beatrix can’t see how that makes any difference. Her mother’s wishes never come true, either.
Beatrix slowly pushes open the door to their cottage, her chest heaving, her breath barely caught. It squeals on its hinges, betraying her.
Everyone is seated at the table. Everyone is staring. Everyone is silent. Her mother takes one look at her ruined dress and her ruined hair, and sighs with the weight of the world. As if Beatrix were ruined, too.
“I’m sorry, Mama, I—”
“You’re not,” her mother snaps.
Beatrix swallows the rest of her apology. Her mother is right. She’s not sorry. Not in the way her mother wants her to be. Isabella lowers her gaze to her plate, as if she can be remorseful for her.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Her father’s voice is slow and husky. He doesn’t raise it. It’s his resignation that cuts Beatrix to the bone. He can’t expect anything better from her.
“Nothing, sir.” Because nothing she can say will make him understand why she runs to the forest every chance she gets. Why she can’t bring herself to stop, no matter how it disappoints him.
When Beatrix peers into the shallows of the river, the eyes peering back at her don’t look like hers. They both match—near enough to pretend, anyway—the dull grayish brown of river stones. And whatever has been lurking in the forest isn’t nearly as frightening to her as the people who refuse to set foot in it. She is safe in the forest, protected bythe same thing that haunts her in Lancaut: fear. She can breathe beneath the trees. It is the only place she feels like herself.
“Then get yourself cleaned up and get to bed.”
“Yes, sir.” Beatrix slinks past the table. The smell of roast mutton and rosemary, carrots, and fresh bread makes her mouth water. She avoids Isabella’s wide, sad eyes and Alice’s disapproving frown.
She should be grateful her father didn’t ask her to fetch his belt, but the ease with which he dismissed her opens a pit in her stomach, hollow and heavy. He’s already returned his attention to his plate. They all have.
It is a portrait of a life without her in it.
