with the stack of pots. Her eyes were burning. It felt like her last link with home had just trotted away out of sight.
This isn’t permanent. You’ll find a way to escape, or the Beast will let you go when you’ve done whatever it is that he wanted you for. It’s not forever.
“May I show you to your rooms?” asked the Beast, picking up the satchel that contained her few non-gardening-related possessions. “Do your plants need—err—immediate attention?”
He is trying to be polite. He may be a monster, but he is trying.
It made Bryony feel a little better. She straightened up and blinked a few times, fiercely, until the burning went away. “They’ll keep until tomorrow. You will have to show me where I can dig my beds.”
The Beast made a sweeping gesture with one arm. Now that the snow had melted, Bryony could see that the manor grounds on either side of the boxwood hedge were exactly as one would expect . Rolling lawn and gravel paths, as far as the eye can see… A second fountain reared off to the east, surrounded by shrubs clipped into aggressively geometric shapes.
“Anywhere,” said the Beast. “Wherever it pleases you.”
Oh dear, thought Bryony with dismay, eyeing the military precision of the grounds. My garden is going to look very strange out in all that. She tried to imagine the purple spires of meadow sage and the exuberance of lamb’s ear. It will be very untidy.
Well, let it be untidy. The groundskeepers and I will figure something out…
Aloud she said “I will have to talk to your groundskeepers.”
“There are none,” said the Beast.
“What?” Bryony turned in a slow circle, waving a hand toward the boxwood. “Who keeps everything trimmed and pruned and mowed and—how? Places like this take a whole army of caretakers.” She did not add, “And you could grow enough vegetables to feed a village with all that wasted labor,” but she thought it.
“The house does it,” said the Beast. “All of it.”
“So who does live here?” asked Bryony, gazing up at the vast manor house. Ranks of windows marched across its face. It could have held the entire population of Lostfarthing, with an entire wing left over for unexpected guests.
“I live here,” said the Beast. “And now you. That’s all.”
CHAPTER NINE
Perhaps the Beast is lonely.
That was the thought that Bryony kept returning to, all that long morning. It made a certain kind of sense, but she had a feeling that it was not the whole reason, or even a very large part of it.
People who were merely lonely did not try to send coded messages by squeezing your hand. Something deeper was afoot.
That the Beast was a person, Bryony did not even question, but then, she believed on some level that Fumblefoot was a person, and Blackie the goat, and the neighbor’s large and grumpy tomcat.
It was not that she was sentimental about animals. Chickens, for example, were not people. You looked into a chicken’s eyes and you saw the back of the chicken’s eyeball.
The Beast, however, was definitely a person, even if he looked like a nightmare.
His feet made no sound as he walked. This was understandable on the carpet, where even Fumblefoot’s hooves had been muffled, but then they came to the end of the corridor and a pair of glass doors that led into a tiled courtyard. Bryony’s boots clomped on the tiles, but the Beast glided along as silently as snowfall.
In the center of the courtyard was a little open circle, where a bare white birch tree lifted its branches.
All around the base of the tree grew roses.
Unlike her sullen rosebushes at home, these were fully leafed out, little blunt ovals of green with dark red veins. There were flowers in every stage from barely budded to blowsy and dripping petals, all of them deep, dark scarlet. Small drifts of petals lay across the tiles.
She did not want to compare them to blood. It was a shame that there were so few dark red things
This isn’t permanent. You’ll find a way to escape, or the Beast will let you go when you’ve done whatever it is that he wanted you for. It’s not forever.
“May I show you to your rooms?” asked the Beast, picking up the satchel that contained her few non-gardening-related possessions. “Do your plants need—err—immediate attention?”
He is trying to be polite. He may be a monster, but he is trying.
It made Bryony feel a little better. She straightened up and blinked a few times, fiercely, until the burning went away. “They’ll keep until tomorrow. You will have to show me where I can dig my beds.”
The Beast made a sweeping gesture with one arm. Now that the snow had melted, Bryony could see that the manor grounds on either side of the boxwood hedge were exactly as one would expect . Rolling lawn and gravel paths, as far as the eye can see… A second fountain reared off to the east, surrounded by shrubs clipped into aggressively geometric shapes.
“Anywhere,” said the Beast. “Wherever it pleases you.”
Oh dear, thought Bryony with dismay, eyeing the military precision of the grounds. My garden is going to look very strange out in all that. She tried to imagine the purple spires of meadow sage and the exuberance of lamb’s ear. It will be very untidy.
Well, let it be untidy. The groundskeepers and I will figure something out…
Aloud she said “I will have to talk to your groundskeepers.”
“There are none,” said the Beast.
“What?” Bryony turned in a slow circle, waving a hand toward the boxwood. “Who keeps everything trimmed and pruned and mowed and—how? Places like this take a whole army of caretakers.” She did not add, “And you could grow enough vegetables to feed a village with all that wasted labor,” but she thought it.
“The house does it,” said the Beast. “All of it.”
“So who does live here?” asked Bryony, gazing up at the vast manor house. Ranks of windows marched across its face. It could have held the entire population of Lostfarthing, with an entire wing left over for unexpected guests.
“I live here,” said the Beast. “And now you. That’s all.”
CHAPTER NINE
Perhaps the Beast is lonely.
That was the thought that Bryony kept returning to, all that long morning. It made a certain kind of sense, but she had a feeling that it was not the whole reason, or even a very large part of it.
People who were merely lonely did not try to send coded messages by squeezing your hand. Something deeper was afoot.
That the Beast was a person, Bryony did not even question, but then, she believed on some level that Fumblefoot was a person, and Blackie the goat, and the neighbor’s large and grumpy tomcat.
It was not that she was sentimental about animals. Chickens, for example, were not people. You looked into a chicken’s eyes and you saw the back of the chicken’s eyeball.
The Beast, however, was definitely a person, even if he looked like a nightmare.
His feet made no sound as he walked. This was understandable on the carpet, where even Fumblefoot’s hooves had been muffled, but then they came to the end of the corridor and a pair of glass doors that led into a tiled courtyard. Bryony’s boots clomped on the tiles, but the Beast glided along as silently as snowfall.
In the center of the courtyard was a little open circle, where a bare white birch tree lifted its branches.
All around the base of the tree grew roses.
Unlike her sullen rosebushes at home, these were fully leafed out, little blunt ovals of green with dark red veins. There were flowers in every stage from barely budded to blowsy and dripping petals, all of them deep, dark scarlet. Small drifts of petals lay across the tiles.
She did not want to compare them to blood. It was a shame that there were so few dark red things
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