Beastly Beauty

Seventy-Seven

It is midnight, and Arabella runs.

Under the pale silver moon. Across the white fields. And into the woods.

In pursuit of a stag.

Her powerful limbs carry her through creek beds. Her broad paws crash through the eggshell ice. The shock of cold water makes her gasp, then laugh.

She barrels through bracken and briar, under pine boughs, past boulders.

The resiny tang of evergreens, the musty loam of the forest floor, the mineral scent of new-fallen snow—these perfumes are finer to her than costly civet or ambergris. They call to her blood. They spur her on.

Here in the woods, unlaced and unseen, the beast inside her is free to want. To chase what she desires and take it. Without shame. Without guilt. Without apologies.

Today, after dawn’s light, she will shed this heavy pelt forever. She will banish her dark and difficult court and never look upon their faces again. She will walk out of the castle and over that bridge. Today, the curse will be broken.

And yet, as she leaves the forest with leaves in her fur and dirt under her claws, as the gray dawn rises over the trees, it is not the morning sun’s rays in her eyes that cause her to blink.

It is her own tears.