Beastly Beauty

Eighty

“This is the big moment,” Beau said. “I’ll go first and check for any weak spots. After I’m across, you start out.”

He was talking too much. He was nervous. Arabella could see it.

“We’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s strong enough to hold us. It held you and Henri and Florian as you built it.”

“Barely,” Beau said, worry in his voice. He glanced at the far side of the bridge. “Right, then. I’m off. But there’s one thing I want to do first …”

He folded her into his arms, and time stopped for Arabella. She closed her eyes, feeling his warmth, the rise and fall of his chest, the beat of his heart under her hand.

“It’s my last chance to hug the beast-girl,” he whispered. “I’ll miss her.”

He held her for a beat longer, and then he was gone, making his way across. He stepped carefully, holding his arms out for balance, Camille’s parcel of rolls clutched in one hand. There was no railing to stop his fall. There was nothing but the pilings and the thin boards stretched between them. Arabella could hear them, creaking and popping under his feet.

“Go. Keep walking. Don’t stop,” she whispered, urging him on.

The monsters in the moat heard the groaning of the boards; they felt the vibrations of Beau’s footsteps. One by one, they surfaced, their tortured faces contracted in snarls of malice, their bony hands clawing at the air.

Arabella’s heart jumped into her throat once, when a board whined, then sagged frighteningly low, but Beau got across it and then, miraculously, he reached the other side. He stepped onto the far bank, set his parcel down, then turned around.

Arabella saw a broad, beautiful smile spread over his face. He looked back at her, beckoning. “It didn’t fall down! Can you believe it? Come on, Bells! Walk across!”

Arabella felt a hand slip into hers. She looked down. Hope was standing there.

“Go,” the little girl said.

Faith was standing next to her. “And hurry,” she added, nodding at the bridge. “All the faith in the world isn’t going to keep that piece of junk standing.”

Arabella raised Hope’s hand to her lips and kissed it. She hugged Faith. Then she started walking. The first few steps were easy. The decking barely moved under her feet. But as she made her way farther along, the boards started to bounce. She had to put her hands out at her sides, as Beau had, to keep her balance. She took another few steps, and then a gust of wind blew down, rattling the bridge and throwing her off-balance. Her arms windmilled; her stomach did, too. She stopped, took a breath, regained her equilibrium, and continued.

“Keep walking! You’re doing fine!” Beau shouted.

A few more steps, a few feet gained, and then Arabella made the mistake of looking down. The dark gray waters seemed to rush up at her; one of the monsters opened its black maw wide. Dizziness gripped her; she lurched to one side.

“Arabella, hey! Look up! Look at me!” yelled Beau.

The sharpness in his voice snapped her out of her vertigo. She pinned her gaze on him, steadied her breath, and kept walking. If she looked up, not down, if she kept her eyes on him, she could do it. Two more feet gained. Five more. Her heart leapt with joy. She was actually crossing the bridge.

But her happiness was short-lived. For when she was exactly halfway across the bridge, she found that she could no longer move forward. Not a step, not an inch.

It wasn’t because the bridge’s height made her feel dizzy. Or that the groaning, thrashing creatures below it scared her. It was because a wall, invisible and impenetrable, was blocking her way.

Arabella felt as if her heart had tumbled out of her body and fallen into the moat, to be ripped apart by the soulless things there. She lowered her head, fighting back tears. “What a fool you are,” she said to herself. “A fool to have hoped. A fool to have believed.”

She loved Beau. With all her heart. But he didn’t love her. He’d only said he did. Out of pity, perhaps. Or maybe out of greed. After all, he was a thief, wasn’t he? If he truly loved her, the curse would be broken; there would be no wall between them.

“Come on! Don’t stop, Arabella! Keep walking!” Beau shouted.

“I can’t,” she cried.

This was just how it had happened all the other times. A wall, halfway across. Stopping her. Turning her around. To the heartbroken servants. To the figures in the clock. To the bleak prison that was her life.

“Of course you can! Just don’t look down. Look at me!”

Arabella lifted her face. “It didn’t work. It was never going to work. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

“What are you talking about? You’re halfway there! Just keep going!”

Arabella shook her head. She raised her hands over her head and slapped at the air above her, but her hands didn’t whoosh through it. They stopped suddenly, forcefully, smacking loudly against a barrier no one could see.

Beau stared at her, bewildered. He took a few steps forward. “No. No. Just stay there, Arabella. I’m coming to get you.”

And then he was thundering back across the narrow planks. She saw them bow and pop as his feet passed over them. One pair of crisscrossed pilings swayed forward, torquing the decking. Her heart squeezed with fear. If she didn’t stop him, right now, the loose pilings would topple; the decking would collapse underneath his feet. He would fall into the middle of the moat, where no one could help him. The monsters would tear him apart.

She had to make him turn back.

“Stop, you fool!” she shouted at him, backing away from the invisible wall. “You’ll bring the whole bridge down! You’ll kill us both!”

But he was already at the halfway point. “I’ll get to you!” he shouted, pounding his hands against the wall. “I’ll find a way around this thing!”

Arabella forced a hard laugh out of herself, and harder words. “Don’t bother. Of course there’s a wall. Of course we didn’t break the curse. Did you think for a moment I could fall for you? You’re nothing but a thief.”

Her words hit Beau like an arrow to the heart. “What are you saying?” He shook his head, wounded and confused. “This isn’t you. You’re upset …”

“Oh, but it is me. What you see is what you get, Beau—a beast, inside and out. Don’t you understand? I just played along. To get you to build a bridge. To get you to leave. How else could I get rid of you?”

“Arabella …”

Her nose wrinkled. “Go,” she snarled.

The hurt in Beau’s eyes deepened. He hauled off and punched the wall. Again and again. Until his fist was bloody. And then he turned and walked away from her. He stopped when he reached the other side of the rickety bridge, just for a moment, as if he might turn and speak to her again, but he did not. He started walking instead. Toward the dark forest. The trees welcomed him, then closed around him. And he was gone.

“You’re free,” Arabella whispered. Relief flooded through her, but it was followed by a rush of sorrow so searing, she dropped to her knees on the bridge. Sorrow for Valmont and Percival, Camille, her parents, and everyone else inside the castle who longed to be free of the curse, but never would. She felt no sorrow for herself, only a deep desire to have it over with. After a hundred years, all she wanted was relief. From the guilt. The remorse. The despair. Espidra was right, she was always right: Love had abandoned her.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “Come, child,” said a hollow voice.

Arabella nodded. She rose. The clockmaker was standing behind her, slender and elegant in his black suit. He led her back to the gatehouse. When they were both inside it, he turned, raised a pale hand, and made a swirling motion. In the moat, the waters started to churn. The monsters swarmed to the pilings. Some pushed against them, some pulled. Others knocked their skulls into the pilings over and over again, until they shuddered and swayed, and the ropes binding them snapped, and they pitched into the moat, bringing the walkway down with them.

Arabella watched as the clockmaker destroyed her work. She watched until the last board had toppled end over end into the water. Until the last piling fell, and nothing was left of what she and Beau had built together.

And then she followed the clockmaker through the gatehouse, across the courtyard, and into the castle.

She glanced back once, just once, before the heavy wooden doors slammed shut behind her.