She wonders if that is what they wish for.
Beatrix is still awake when her sisters crawl into bed beside her: Alice on the far side of their lumpy straw pallet, Isabella squeezed between them.
“Beatrix?” Isabella whispers. There’s a quiver in her voice.
“What is it, Iz?” she asks.
“How far did you go today?”
A pang of sadness rings through Beatrix’s chest. Isabella asks about the forest as if it were a made-up land meant for bedtime stories, as if she has forgotten the clearing and all the memories they made there. She could see it for herself, if she dared to step past the bank where they do their washing.
She brushes a golden hair off Isabella’s cheek and tucks it behind her ear. “Farther than I’ve ever been.” Only a few steps, but it was still true. Every time Beatrix visits the forest, she makes sure of it.
Inches away from her in the dark, Isabella smiles. “Will you tell me about it?”
Alice shifts on the mattress. The bed creaks. The room falls quiet again. Beatrix drops her voice, low enough not to alert their parents, loud enough for Alice to catch her words as she feigns sleep.
She tells Isabella about the trees and the birds and the river, and her sister gasps when Beatrix tells her about the wolf tracks crossing right through the clearing. She doesn’t mention William, afraid speaking of him aloud will spoil the memory.
June 14, 1605London, England
Beatrix wakes with a start to someone pounding on her door.
Well, notherdoor. Which seems to be the problem.
“Clear out, unless you’re payin’,” a man with a voice like gravel calls from the other side of the rough-hewn wood.
Beatrix groans and rolls over.
The heavy door rattles on its iron hinges.
“All right!” Beatrix huffs, flinging back the quilt. Chill morning air rushes against her bare skin, and a shiver cascades through her. She hurries to collect her clothes, strewn across the room.
She pulls her dingy shift over her head and searches under the bed for her stockings, pulls those on, too, despite the holes in the heels from walking the breadth of London too many times to count. She retrieves her skirt and bodice from the corner and slips her feet into the battered leather boots she discarded by the door last night.
The banging has ceased, the silence in the room heavy and unsettled. Beatrix takes the coins from beneath her pillow and slips them into her pocket. She sits on the edge of the unmade bed and attempts to tame her unruly hair. The chestnut waves fall past her shoulders, more tangles than curls. She teases apart the knots and begins to braid a crown around her head.
Maybe she will cut it short, prove to herself that she can change, that she isn’t stuck. But it would be an illusion, like the oaks along the Wye losing their leaves every autumn, only to grow them anew in the spring. Not really a change, just time playing tricks.
Time has proven to be a strange companion. Some days drag like years, and some years slip by like days. Only one thing has remained constant: Beatrix. There are no silver threads running through her hair, no joys orsorrows of a long life written across the sharp features of her face. She is the same. Always the same. Wide-set eyes, one brown and one blue, both far too old for a face so young. A straight nose and a crooked smile. Fair skin that hasn’t been weathered by the sun. A body that hasn’t been touched by age.
What did she expect? This was what that stupid, scared girl wished for—begged for—wasn’t it?
I want to live. I need more time. Please.
As if that stupid, scared girl wasn’t her.
The man pounds on the door again. Beatrix springs from the bed.
“This is an inn, not a whorehouse!” he bellows. The door handle rattles. “Get out!”
Somehow, those two tiny words still twist her guts.
Beatrix snatches her cloak from the foot of the bed and wrenches the door open. She storms past the burly innkeeper, down the narrow staircase, and into the dreary London morning. She slumps against the inn’s rough plaster wall and lifts her face to the milky sky, lets the misty rain cool her skin and her temper. She takes a shuddering breath.
The scent of rain on sun-warmed earth is missing in these crooked London streets, masked by the ever-present odor of smoke and piss. Her heart sinks. She never thought she’d miss the scent of dirt and rain. She never thought she’d have to.
April 12, 1501Lancaut, England
