Beastly Beauty

Eighty-Eight

Arabella was lost in the forest.

It was dark. She held her hands out in front of herself but could barely see them.

She knew the way back home, of course she did. She just couldn’t seem to remember it. She needed to remember something in order to find the way again. Or was it someone? It was so hard to think. Her head ached. She was so tired.

Was it the way she’d felt when her mother told her that she should never say things like sewer system or public baths out loud, not if she wanted a husband? Was it the way she’d felt when her father said she must not talk about the physics of keystones or the ideal height to girth ratio of load-bearing columns because it made her sound absurd?

Was it the way other girls traded glances and giggled when she lingered by building sites instead of shops? Was it the way boys turned sullen when she knew things they didn’t?

She started to take a few halting steps, and then a voice came out of the forest.

“That’s not the way to your home, Arabella,” it said. “It’s the way to mine, though.”

Arabella turned, startled. The clockmaker was standing a few yards behind her.

“These memories will only carry you further into the night. Look up, child,” he said. “At the stars. At the night that cradles them.”

So Arabella did. She tilted her face to the glittering heavens and remembered.

The way a shiny chunk of graphite felt pinched between her thumb and fingers. The way it slid over paper, making archways and loggias, porticos and pediments. Making the visions in her head real.

The way her heart swelled when she opened a book and found herself at the Temple of Dendur, the Parthenon, the cities of the Aztecs.

The way her head felt, so stuffed full of ideas she thought it would burst. Ideas for roadways and bridges, aqueducts and squares. Cathedrals and castles and palaces.

Tears stung behind her eyes at the unbearable beauty. Of the dark sky, the stars. Of her memories. Of the girl she used to be.

She looked at the clockmaker. “A hundred years,” she said softly. “It took me a hundred years to come home.”

“Some people never find their way back.”

“Is it broken now? The curse Espidra placed on me?” Arabella asked, afraid to hope.

“Do you still not see?” the clockmaker asked. “You cursed yourself, my child, when you turned your back on your difficult emotions and succumbed to despair. Now you must make peace with them, and make a place in your heart for them. They belong there every bit as much as joy, pride, and compassion do.”

“But I’m afraid of them. I let them out and a man died.”

“The prince had a choice in how he behaved. The boy he was beating, the defenseless animal he was savaging—they had none. You tried to help them.” Death took Arabella’s hand in his. “You tried to control your emotions, to keep them down, but they burst out and ended up controlling you. If you wish to break the curse, stop fighting them. Let them be. You need them.”

Arabella nodded. She understood. “Without the darkness we would not appreciate the light,” she said.

Death shook his head. “No, child, without the light we would not appreciate the darkness. There is good to be found in difficult feelings. How would injustice be stopped without anger? How would selfishness be curbed without guilt and shame? How would compassion grow without regret and remorse? Do this, Arabella, and despair will stay away. That is the one emotion you must guard against, for she is jealous of my power and wishes to do my job for me.”

Death squeezed Arabella’s hand, then released it. In his other hand, he held a tricorn hat. He brushed a bit of dust off it, then placed it on his head.

“You’re leaving.”

“For now.”

“And me?”

“You may leave, too. But you must hurry. It’s almost midnight.”

“But you’ll come back someday.”

“I always do.”

“When?”

The clockmaker gave her a rueful smile. “Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

Arabella nodded. And then she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”

And then she was gone, running out of the dark woods, running across the bridge from her past to her future, running for home.