Eighty-Three
The forest was Beau’s enemy now.
Nothing looked familiar. It was as if every tree, every rock and stream, were conspiring against him. Trying to confuse him, turn him around, send him off in the wrong direction.
Snow was coming down now, driven by a merciless wind. In a few more hours, dusk would fall. Beau knew that if he didn’t find his way soon, if he didn’t get to the shelter of the castle by dusk, he’d be in deep trouble.
Eyes squinted against the vicious wind, he didn’t see the ground slope away in front of him. He tumbled forward, landed on his hands and knees, skidded down a steep hill, and managed to stop just a few feet from a rushing stream. Groaning, he stood up and brushed the snow off his britches. He recognized the stream. He’d crossed it on his way to the town. He remembered clambering up the high bank. That cluster of rocks sticking up out of the water was what he used to cross the stream, wasn’t it?
The rocks were snow-capped now. “Probably icy as well,” he said grimly. He looked left and right, trying to see if there was a better way across—a downed tree, maybe—but there was not.
A brutal gust of wind came at him again, making him bow his head. “Why did you lie to me?” he shouted into it.
You know why, the voice inside him said. To make you go.To save you.
For most of his no-account life, no one had cared if he lived or died. But Arabella did. She cared so much, she’d built a bridge for him. And then she’d given her life to make sure he crossed it.
Beau knew the voice was right. Arabella hadn’t told him the truth about the curse. After a hundred years, it ended.
And she ends with it.
Fear spurred him across the snowy stones. It was a bad idea. He was exhausted; his limbs were stiff and slow from the cold. His foot skidded across the top of one and he fell, bellowing with shock as his body hit the frigid water. Sputtering and shouting, he got to his feet, staggered through the water, and climbed up the opposite bank.
When he reached the top, he looked down at himself. His clothing was soaked. His mittens were gone. His britches were ripped, and his knee was bleeding. Mind and body numb, he lurched forward, but he hadn’t taken five steps before his wounded leg buckled and he fell to his knees. Head bowed, he realized that he would die here. He was too far from help. And he didn’t care. He’d never been so cold in his life.
“Beau! My darling boy!”
Beau’s head lifted. His eyes widened when he saw who’d called his name. His mother was standing in front of a silver birch tree, reaching out to him through the snow, a look of heartbreak on her face. “Get going, Beau. Hurry!”
He nodded at her. He would go. Soon. Very soon.
“You’re nothing but a useless boy! Go! Get out of here!”
Beau’s head snapped around toward the new voice. His father was standing by a snow-laden pine, his red-rimmed eyes like burning coals in his bloated face, an empty whiskey bottle in his hand.
He felt another hand grip his shoulder. He turned slowly, too numb to be frightened, and saw Raphael bending down beside him. “Look at yourself, you hopeless idiot,” he said. “You’re going to freeze to death here. And for what? For a woman who couldn’t care less about you. She’ll laugh at you when you show up back at the castle, if she even lets you in. You’re nothing but a thief, and that’s all you’ll ever be.”
Nothing but a useless boy…
Nothing but a thief…
“N-n-no,” he whispered through chattering teeth. Then louder. “No.”
Beau squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, his mother and father were gone. They were only an illusion, a deception manufactured by a brain that was shutting down.
And Raphael? His words? They were deceptions, too. In the howling storm, with the cold stealing life from him minute by minute, he saw that clearly.
Love had broken Beau. He had loved his mother with all his heart, and she had been taken from him. He had loved his father, and the man had walked away. He loved Matteo, and yet he’d had to leave him. And the pain of those losses had been unbearable.
But closing his heart was the easy way out. It was easy to build walls and hard to build bridges. Love wasn’t for the weak. It took courage to love another human being. It took ferociousness. A baker had told him that. A woman who had lost everything but refused to lose hope. A woman who was ten times braver than he was. He hadn’t heard her words then. He hadn’t been ready to. But he was now.
With a yell that started deep down inside him and rumbled up from his heart to his throat, Beau got up. He pulled the collar of his coat around his neck, pulled his cap over his ears, then put his head down and staggered through the storm.
He couldn’t see much, only a few feet in front of him. Yet he saw everything. He saw the truth that he’d been running from his entire life.
The only way out of the darkness was to go deeper in.