I, Beast

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Chapter III: The dream-catcher

I didn't know how, Beauty and I almost succeeded in behaving towards each other like normal people after that. I had succeeded in understanding - at least, I hoped it - that this little maiden was not rigged by the fairy and that she had just a character well defined. In fact, I realised that she was very interesting; in spite of - or perhaps, because of - her lack of education compared to what I knew, she had the right remarks, often astonishing. But I should have known that this calm could not last...
Beauty continued to haunt the castle, still so shyly: it sometimes happened to me to see her in the top of a staircase, almost huddling against a pillar, seeming almost terrified with the idea to descend the steps. How could I have known why?
I had come to observe her very attentively, avoiding leaving my room and crossing her, since I knew that, fatally, I would finish by putting me in anger against her, for the most futile reason. And it was how I realised that her eyes had dark shadows. Wrinkling the eyebrows, I called Maguy who came at once with her cat-like pace - considering the shape that the fairy had granted to her, it was relatively normal. I liked much Maguy and her shape had not decreased anything with this affection, because I adored the cats. My regret was that, since the curse, the animals fled the castle and its gardens.
I shook myself to take again the thread of my thoughts and I indicated Beauty in the mirror. She had just decided to descend the staircase where she was.
"Why is she tired like that?" I asked.
Maguy remained quiet one moment, examining Beauty with an attention which appeared suspect to me: she was obviously avoiding losing face.
"Maguy, no pretence with me!" I exclaimed. "I want to know!"
She raised the shoulders - a curious movement on an hybrid cat and human - and sighed.
"I don't know," she finally answered. "I asked her, but she refused to answer me. Perhaps she can't sleep because she feels captive."
My claws nervously tapped the arm of my armchair and it made an unpleasant noise which disturbed Maguy. I didn't care. The cat-woman tried to persuade me of something, but I did not pay attention: I had made my decision. This evening, I would look at Beauty during her sleep. I wanted to know which was the problem.
Once the decision taken, it seemed to me that the night put much time to come. Beauty took her dinner in the kitchen, as usual - strangely, it was this evening too that I realised that I had never seen her lunching - then went up in her room. She began by going to sit down on the window ledge, the head against the amount, and looked outside. The weather was still mild and she often left her window opened. She remained in this position for a long time, as if she waited for the night to fall, but even by twilight, did she not move. The first stars made their appearance, then the moon. Then with a sigh, Beauty put back the feet on the ground and moved away from her window. Maguy entered and synchronisation could have appeared astonishing, if I had not known that in the kitchen, there was permanently a brilliant surface used as a mirror to observe Beauty, in order to be able to act in the event of urgency. Maguy helped Beauty to clothe for the night, because she rather suspected that if not, the maiden would certainly have slept on the ground with her clothing of day, so much she feared to damage something in the castle. My mirror lighted up when Maguy pulled down the covers on Beauty buried in her pillows.
For a long time, I saw in the night and thus, the fact that there was no more any light in Beauty's room me didn't disturb me at all. I saw perfectly Beauty, her face above the properly drawn covers and her eyes opened large. Not a single second the idea came to me that I didn't have the right to spy her like that; she certainly would have been very annoyed - not to say more - to know what I did.
She looked at the ceiling of her room during a certain time, pushed a sigh, turned on the side, nesting a bit more in her pillows, and closed the eyes after having pushed behind her the long brilliant braid of her hair. In spite of me, I ceased breathing: her face relaxed, making her appear vulnerable and fragile, reminding me painfully of Katherine, even if I had never dared to spy the latter lasting her sleep. The beginning of the night went calmly. It was around midnight - how could I have known it with exactitude, whereas the only clock of the castle indicated the time which remained me before being condemned forever? - when my attention awoke: the sleep of Beauty became agitated, she turned and turned over several times, then suddenly, her eyes reopened, fixing the wall opposite her. Without seeing her distinctly, I known that it was almost a glance of horror.
She sat down in her bed, went up her knees under her chin and enclosed them with her arms. She had a fine night-dress on her back and the light fabric let me see the dark marks that the whip had left on her skin. She shivered, but did not move, in spite of the thick dressing gown which hung with range of her hand. Her pressure around her knees tightened, almost convulsively, then she dropped her arms, slipped out of the bed and went to the window to breathe the fresh air of the night.
I could not remove my eyes of this thin silhouette in white, so fragile, almost ethereal. I was right, the male costume she adopted - since how long did she pose as a boy to remain with Jod? - made her appear unimportant, whereas she could have been splendid, I was sure of that.
Again, she shivered and regained her bed, to snuggle herself under the covers, which she drew until under her chin. It took her time to fall asleep again, as if she feared that what had awaked her come to disturb her again, but finally, her eyelids bent down to be raised no more and her breathing became regular.
I was on the point to doze off in my armchair when my instinct said to me that something was wrong. The breathing of Beauty accelerated and the same scene repeated: she turned over, opened the eyes, sat down, then, after a few minutes in this position, went to the window, to regain her bed when a shiver seizes her. Definitely, something disturbed Beauty and I was sure that it was a nightmare terrifying her.
The third occurred over the morning. The sun was not raised yet, but the night already started to be cleared up. This time, she did not awake simply by opening the eyes, she brutally sat up straight in her bed while groaning, then her mouth opened on a terrible cry and at the time, I wondered how all the castle had done not to hear it.
Beauty trembled of all her members and even the pressure of her arms around her knees was not enough any more to reassure her. She slipped of the bed and went to the gate. When she pulled the handle, she realised with terror that the gate was locked - I had this bad habit, including for the gates of my guests. The eyes opened wide by a kind of fear, she slaved away at the handle, then banged at the door, damaging her hands for nothing.
I was so amazed by this reaction that I didn't reacted immediately. She had to speak to break this trance and she had a deformed voice when she groaned:
"Open the door, please, open the door!"
She banged again at the door, then howled:
"I want to go out! I want to go out!"
She became almost hysterical, tears running on her cheeks, the shoulders shaken by convulsive sobs, howling that she wanted to go out, banging at the door with a rage comparable with mine.
I finally reacted, understanding that she was claustrophobic, and she heard the click of the lock - I had naturally done it by magic, but I could very well force the magic to make noise if I wished it. At once, she rushed in the corridor, thin silhouette in white. I saw her take the path of the keep, that I had shown her the very afternoon.
The proximity of the keep had always been a thing which I had liked, therefore, even without cheating, my room was really close to the keep. I gave up my station and went in my turn in the keep. Beauty was there, leaning over the crenels, as if she planned to jump.
"Beauty, what happened?" I asked gently.
She started and stuck her back against the wall.
"No... nothing," she answered with a chopped voice. "I... I didn't want to sleep any more, then I... I came here before having my breakfast."
She shivered.
"Child, you will take cold. I will fetch you a dressing gown."
I had not intention to bring back him her own dressing gown, which would have forced me to play with the topography of the corridors - and nobody could imagine at which point it was complicated to lay out the corridors in a coherent way in a limited space - and thus, I went directly in my room.
When I returned with a thick dressing gown of dark blue velvet, Beauty was still leaning against her crenel, but she seemed to hold something in her arms. By approaching me a little, I realised that it was a cat. A cat! There no had been animals in this castle - put aside us, naturally - since so a long time that I had lost the account of the years of it.
Beauty raised the head when hearing me approach and she moved away from me, skirting the crenels, without never leaving me from the eyes.
"Don't approach!" she warned me. "I will not let you harm it."
In her arms, the cat had stiffened and sought to flee; she tightened it against her, trying to reassure it.
"Beauty, don't be ridiculous, I don't want... A cat! I adore the cats..."
The tone of my voice was probably sufficient to give her to understand that I did not lie, because she stopped, but as soon as I took a step towards her, she moved back again.
"Don't advance, did I tell you!"
She moved, without knowing it, since she almost had not seen anything of the keep, towards a part where the crenels were broken down and if she continued this way, she would fall into the void without even realising it.
"Beauty, stop!" I exclaimed, hurling me towards her.
She moved back even more quickly and I saw the edge approach dangerously. I stopped, understanding that she was determined to protect this unknown cat from me. It was a narrow escape: her heel was at the edge of the void and she was still unaware of it. I lowered the head and I knew that I had to yield the ground if I didn't want to kill her. I took some steps behind, put the dressing gown down on a crenel and took again the staircase way.
I had just put the foot on the first stairs when I heard a cry behind me. Almost at the same moment, the cat ran between my legs - or rather, paws - descending the staircase with a brisk pace. I went back, almost as quickly as the cat; there was nowhere trace of Beauty. Anxious, I went to the edge and there, I understood all: the stones of the edge had loosened under the weight - however not so high - of Beauty and had precipitated her the void.
My little Beauty was there, hanging to a stone which was loosening and, head raised, she understood what was going to happen. I laid down close to the void and held out a helpful paw to her.
"Take my hand, Beauty, quickly!"
She shook the head.
"I cannot," she said with a chopped voice. "I cannot release my catch!"
She fought obviously not to close the eyes; she had the giddiness! Then I leaned even more, with the risk to loosen the stone and put with all the delicacy of which I was able my hands under the arms of Beauty. Slowly, gently, not to frighten her more than other thing, I brought her up towards me, towards the security - of the keep - and I felt her contracting herself under my hands.
When she reached the ground, she collapsed against me, any will disappeared, the nerves broken. I saw that her hands still bled of her combat against the door.
"By heaven, child, you are wounded!"
I lifted her, almost like a child, and she let me do; I wrapped her in the dressing gown so that she wouldn't take cold, then I led her in a small comfortable room contiguous to mine. I took an ointment - magic, naturally - and started to mass it on her hands. She let me proceed without the least word and I had almost the impression that she was in such a state of shock that she was unable to defended herself: I was taking scandalously advantage of her weakness.
But when I raised the eyes towards her, I saw that it was not at all the case. She had taken a certain countenance and let me tend her with a certain astonishment than other thing. When I finished, I timidly held up the hand towards the collar of the dressing gown which, too loose-fitting, was slipping of her shoulder. My paw was close to her cheek and she did not even have a quivering.
"You feel the roses," she said as in a dream. "I mean... the ointment..."
"Yes," I answered in the same way.
"However... I did not see roses in the gardens..."
"There are, Beauty. Do you love roses, child?"
"I like the flowers," she said with simplicity. "And the rose is the most beautiful flower."
"Then I you will show them tomorrow... if you want it."
"Yes," she whispered.
"In my company?" I insisted, not being sure that the "yes" was for showing her the roses or being with me.
"Yes, Milord," she repeated.
"You should go back to bed, Beauty. You are tired."
She tried to rise, but if she had recovered her spirits, her legs refused to obey her. She looked at me, helpless.
"If you allow me...," I said.
I leaned and lifted her in my arms. I remembered this day when, by twice, I had carried her in her room without her knowing it. This time, it was different: she knew and she did not protest. Something sang in me.
Strangely, the marks of whip seemed to still make her suffer. I was unaware of how long that put to disappear - in fact, I didn't know anything about whips - and I wondered about what I could do to relieve her. The ointment that I had used for her hands could help her a little. By seeing her room, Beauty seemed to have a gesture of refusal.
"I don't want," she said abruptly. "The nightmares will come again to haunt me!"
She bit her lip, furious to have let escape this indication. I entered nevertheless her room and, instead of depositing her on her bed - I was unaware of why, that did not seem to me polite to do it - I deposited her on a broad armchair. I sat on a low stool, almost to her feet, while she changed position.
"Beauty, I noticed your back and I would like that you ask Maguy to apply ointment above tomorrow morning... I mean, this morning."
I plunged the hand in my pocket - where I had naturally not put the ointment - and I felt well quickly the shape of the pot under my clumsy fingers. I held the pot to Beauty who took it without saying anything.
"As for your nightmares, I would like that you trust me sufficiently for speaking of them with me; I have like an idea on the person in charge of all that, but I cannot fight against her. However, I believe I have the capacity to ensure you an end of night, if one can say that, quiet."
My mirror had a certain number of qualities: in addition to the fact of showing me all absolutely that I wanted, it had also taught me the magic and I had become rather gifted in the field, even if the fairy certainly managed to restrict my possibilities. I thus knew a certain number of spells - I called that thus, even if it were certainly not the proper term - of which one of them could be used for Beauty. I started thus to sing a complex song and slowly, around the bed of Beauty, wove a kind of slightly luminous net. With the words, the net became complicated and soon, it seemed that a tiny insect could not have passed through. I completed the spell and I watched the net disappear.
"What was it?" asked Beauty with a voice almost calm, as if she were indifferent to the magic - quite to the contrary of Katherine.
"It is a dream-catcher. The good dreams remain hung there and the nightmares either are kept outside the net, or destroyed, if ever they manage to pass by a mesh weaker than the others. That should be sufficient for the moment."
Beauty looked at me with an air completely incredulous.
"Go to sleep, Beauty," I ordered to her nicely. "I will give commands so that nobody will come to awake you."
I rose and left her room, but at the time when I closed the door, I heard distinctly:
"Thank you."
I was almost singing when I regained my room and, if I did not manifest my joy, I clearly felt something in me which heated my heart. I wanted almost to congratulate me, but I didn't know at all of what!

The air that Maguy affected while returning from Beauty's room had something amusing. She was in my room for an unspecified reason and I saw well at her face that she died of desire for asking me what had occurred this night. Beauty probably stretched out the pot of ointment to her without adding explanations - knowing Beauty who, sometimes, seemed to want to imitate Stoat on the fact of being taciturn - and, if I didn't choose the wrong product, the wounds on her hands should have already practically disappeared. Poor Maguy really didn't have any indication.
I wondered a little how the relation with Beauty was going to evolve. Was the girl going to be more open after what had happened this morning? Was she going to stop being wild and terrified?
Alas, her attitude hardly changed; she continued to stay very close to the walls and to fear the least staircase. I wondered about this fear of the staircases, but I knew perfectly that if I spoke about it to Beauty, she would withdraw into herself and I couldn't get to know anything. Also, I undertook to discover some new capacities of my mirror. I had been able to learn the magic thanks to this mirror, to be able to create by myself a dream-catcher, would I be able to read in the spirit of somebody the dreams - or rather the nightmares - which haunted him? I was to try, to help Beauty.
Nobody asked me why I wanted to help Beauty and myself, I was not concerned a single moment with my motivations: that seemed normal to me. Beauty was my guest - even if I had made her come to the castle by violence - and it was my fault if she suffered from these nightmares. How I could have known what I was going to know?
This day thus, Beauty rose late and I looked at her sleeping, calmly thanks to my dream-catcher. It even appeared to me that she smiled in her sleep and I felt a wave of pride. If my Master in magic had been a person and not a mirror, I was certain that he also would have been proud of me.
As I already said, Maguy had a strange air while entering my room after having dealt with Beauty. I did not need a long time to realise that all the servants were well-informed that Beauty had stretched out the pot of ointment to Maguy without the least explanation and all also knew that I was the only one who could have given it to her.
I believed one moment that Sevulf, by the privilege which gave him his seniority in the house and the familiarity that he often adopted towards me, even if he remained always respectful, was going to ask me the question which obviously burned his lips. But the excellent education which had always been required in the house of my parents retained him to do so.
Moreover, Stoat, while entering Beauty's room, felt the magic, with my personal touch, and she discovered the dream-catcher. All the servants were struck by it. Especially that the attitude of Beauty, still so timid, hardly helped them to understand.
This day, therefore, I avoided going to meet Beauty, as would have been my first movement with someone else. If one of the nine girls who had preceded Beauty had known my external aspect, after what it had happened this morning, I would have been to meet her during the day, but Beauty was different. Courageous, with a strong character, she had nevertheless a fragile side, which made her even more vulnerable than my Katherine.
I remembered that I had promised her to show her the garden of roses, but that seemed to me to be the bad day. Unconsciously, perhaps, I was afraid to get angry and to waste all that had occurred on the keep. I thus saw her go in the garden and she succeeded in finding the kitten. It was a nice little animal with the fur colour tortoiseshell, touching and obviously very affectionate, because the kitten did not cease pressing its nose against Beauty's neck or caressing her with its leg. I hoped just that it was not a new lure of the fairy.
With the cat, she went on Raynal's tomb; she sat on her heels, the cat in her arms, and seemed to meditate. Then suddenly, she said:
"He was kind, very kind, with me this morning, Raynal. I had never seen him like that. Is he always like that or was it only an accident? I mean... since the beginning, he shouts a lot after me and I don't always understand what I did. The first day, I was impertinent and it was normal, but I did not understand when he was furious the last time that I came here or when he found me in the abandoned room."
She kept silence one moment, patting nicely her cat, then began again:
"That would be certainly much simpler if he said to me of what consisted exactly the curse of which those of the castle are victims, but I have the impression... that he does not have confidence in me."
She lowered the head, then added very quickly:
"It's normal, of course: he doesn't know me and... I hardly resemble to somebody with who one can make confidence. I am not from the same social sphere as him; I don't have any education, nothing! It's perhaps also his way of avoiding me a bitter humiliation... I don't know, Raynal; I am not able to understand him and I would like to help him so much!"
She clasped the cat against her and the little rascal took advantage from it to put the legs around her neck. She smiled quickly - a smile which transformed her entirely - then continued:
"He is so good to keep me here, within the castle, where I am completely useless, when there's so many needs of labour outside! I don't know why his father, or I do not know who, made the decree which exiles the women, but that lord had not understood that the women also worked and helped the men. Now, those who are there must work much harder and longer, to carry out same work as that which was done before. At least, it's what the old ones among us say..."
I felt humiliated by hearing her say that and, on a certain side, quite irritated: on the one hand, I had not thought of the additional work which was going to fall on those which remained on site when I had made this decree and on the other hand, I found irritating to hear a criticism on behalf of this dirty child without education. I reddened of my own thoughts - a reddening Beast, that was to be a spectacle quite rare to see! - because it was not Beauty's fault if she had not received education! I still remembered when she had spoken about the "good hearts" who pushed her back when she approached the holy places; who would have liked to teach something to this child who already did not know anything about the gods?
It was when I took a great decision; I didn't need a long time to develop my plan. But the execution would be delayed, I knew it, because I had initially to gain a little more Beauty's confidence, to observe her behaviour in front of my roses and finally, I wanted to put in order the problem of her nightmares. It seemed to me that it would be impossible to understand her as long as there would be bad dreams which haunted her. But at sunset, I would know!
By studying my mirror and the lessons it dispensed to me, I learned new things on the dream-catcher and I discovered how to capture the nightmares coming to run up against the protective net. I was sure that the bad fairy would not give up so easily, but another thing disturbed me: why was she always so much after Beauty? She had left all the girls quiet, except my gentle Katherine, when the feelings we had for each other grew, but there was nothing like that between Beauty and me! Was there something in the nature of Beauty which I had not seen, something which had a relationship with my curse?
I continued to watch over Beauty; she was always near Raynal's grave, the kitten asleep on her knees and her nimble fingers worked something, undoubtedly like the iris made of grass that I had discovered the last time. Reassured, I turned to my servants.
"... not," said Sevulf. "I don't know anymore what to do! I really do not know how he will react when I speak to him about Beauty. She is yet a nice child."
"She does not have her place within the castle," chirped Weaverbird, who, I did not know why, seemed a little hostile towards Beauty. "She is here like a caged bird. This child, as you say, Sevulf, needs freedom and she is not comfortable here."
"You did not see her back!" protested Maguy. "The poor child must spend her time being beaten by a sadistic foreman!"
Weaverbird turned towards her his beak and beat his wings two or three times.
"She does not suffer from it, Maguy! She is used to it!"
"How can you say such a thing!" Fiona was indignant. "This child has the skin more fragile than your hard leather! It is not because she was not born in velvet and lace which she feels nothing, Weaverbird! You despise simple people and yet they would have many things to teach you."
"It's not what I wanted to say!" protested Weaverbird. "I wanted simply to say that she never complained about the lashes of whip she received and that her most cherished desire was to go back to her kin."
"Weaverbird," intervened Stoat of her calm voice. "Beauty never complained about the lashes she received for the good reason that she didn't dare: she is a timid child, in spite of the bad impression she could haven given to the Master the first day, and to complain could have passed like a reproach, which she cannot allow; this work was all that she had to live. As for her kin, Jod was the only one who cared for her. He saved her from death, when all the adults present looked away, it was thus normal that she does all that he could to remain in his company and to pay him back of this gesture, especially when one knows that to save Beauty from death meant to have a new mouth to nourish whereas himself did not gain enough to eat his fill."
I was almost impressed to hear Stoat speak so lengthily. Weaverbird lowered the head, half ashamed, and Geolf said with his rough voice one of the first correctly articulated sentences that I had heard to him to say:
"She is an adorable child and I am very happy that she is here."
As strange as it could appear, Beauty, once the first fears disappeared, had bound friendship with Geolf on one hand and Eponerius on the other hand. The first did all that he could to do to make disappear the too prominent bones from the girl by adding flesh above and ordinary servants had grown rich considerably, because Beauty continued to dine with them. As for Eponerius, Beauty adoring to spend much time in the stables, she had naturally met often their person in charge, who had taught her several things. I even believed - but never Eponerius, nor Beauty would not have admitted it - that he had started to give her lessons of equitation.

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Text � Azrael 2000.
Dreamcatchers. Copyright � Stephanie Pui-Mun Law 1999. Used with permission.
Set Hour Time, from Moyra/Mystic PC.