August 18, 1497 Lancaut, England
Twelve days. Twelve days of skimping on her chores, of giving the flimsiest excuses to her sisters, of ignoring the disapproving glares of her neighbors as she walked far too quickly for a woman of sixteen—down the path to the church and past it, to the edge of the wood and past that, too.
Twelve days, and Beatrix has seen no more sign of the wolf than the tracks it left behind.
She shifts against the stiffness that has crept into her back.
It’s cool in the shade of the oaks. Cooler still, hidden beneath the underbrush, her belly pressed into the earth, her cheek resting against her folded arms. The tracks remain undisturbed: paw prints the size of her hand sunk deep into the silty bank.
Her own small boot prints follow beside them now, as if the tracks were a path that should’ve led her to the beast they belonged to instead of an empty wood.
The bushes on the riverbank rustle. Her pulse quickens. Too large for a fox, too heavy-footed for a deer. Blood rushes in her ears.
The forest warden’s son crashes into view. Beatrix releases her breath in a huff. There is an entire forest surrounding Lancaut, yet here he is, carelessly tromping through her clearing. He crouches near the water’s edge and examines the tracks. She wills him to move on.
The boy stands, wipes his hands against the rough fabric of his trousers, and listens.
The summer has changed him, freckled his skin and turned his brown hair light.
He has grown into himself since the days she’d stumble upon him whittling beneath the trees or thrashing in the river, spoiling the silence.
He must be a head taller than her now, and he’s broader, too, the boyish lankiness of his limbs fading with the August heat.
He takes a long look around the clearing before continuing on, following the curve of the Wye through the trees.
Beatrix scrambles from the underbrush, sure her chances of seeing the wolf have been ruined.
The scrubby branches catch at her braid, tug her wild strands loose.
She stands and smooths down her skirt, a futile gesture considering the soiled state of it.
She’ll have to run home straightaway if she has any hope of being presentable by dinner.
“There’s a sight you don’t see every day.”
Beatrix spins to face the amused speaker. The forester’s son leans against the wide trunk of an oak, grinning like a fool.
“What are you doing here?” She should be gracious, grateful that it is William Woodward standing in the forest with her and not his father, who would surely be dragging her out from the trees by now.
But she can’t bring herself to be polite to the intruder.
This is her clearing, with the hollow log for sitting and a bank that slopes so gently to the water’s edge it is no trouble to navigate in her dress, even when it’s muddy—where she can peer into the shallows and see herself peering back; where she could make it home at a run before her parents or sisters suspected a thing.
He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Same as you, I expect.”
Beatrix bristles. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
William gives her a roguish smirk—the one that makes every girl in Lancaut swoon—and she fights the urge to roll her eyes at him.
He pushes off the tree and steps toward her.
“Sure I do. You’re Beatrix Atwood. You live in the cottage at the end of the lane.
Your favorite color is yellow, but all your dresses are shades of brown.
You love to wear flowers in your hair. Your boots are always caked in river mud, even on a Sunday.
” His gaze trails to the prints on the bank.
Her heart races. Those things weren’t hard to see. Anyone could notice them.
If they dared to look at her.
“That only proves you’ve been watching me, William Woodward,” she says, “and that you spend too much idle time in oak trees.”
His eyes dart from her wild hair to her dirt-streaked face to her soiled dress, as if he is considering revealing everything he sees in her. Her face burns. She’s sure she doesn’t want to know.
He nods to the riverbank. “I only meant I suspect we’re both here on account of that wolf.”
She gasps. “Are you hunting it?”
“What?” He laughs. “No. My father would lock me up if he knew I was tracking her.” He lowers his voice. “Are you hunting her?”
Beatrix rolls her eyes. “I just want to see her.” She has never seen a wolf, and seeing something new in Lancaut is the rarest of opportunities. She isn’t about to pass it up.
“Doesn’t she frighten you?” he asks.
“No.” She can’t explain it, but she feels a kinship to the beast. Maybe because she wishes she could live out her days alone in the forest, too.
“She frightens me,” William says, but he doesn’t sound scared. He sounds in awe.
“Have you seen her?” Beatrix asks.
He nods. “She’s big, bigger than any of the dogs in the village. Her coat’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Copper threaded through with gold, like it’s captured the last of a sunset. And her eyes…” He trails off, lost to the memory.
“What about her eyes?” Beatrix prompts.
He meets Beatrix’s mismatched gaze. “She looked right at me. It was like she was looking into me. And then she just disappeared into the trees, like whatever she saw wasn’t worth her time.
” He shakes his head. “She was beautiful. Strange, but beautiful.” He looks quickly away, as if he’s said something he shouldn’t.
Beatrix swallows, her throat suddenly dry. “She’d eat you alive.”
William laughs. “Of that, I have no doubt.” He leans close, as if he’s going to share a secret with her. “That’s why I stick to the trees.”
A smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
He frowns. “Next time?”
“I haven’t seen her yet.” She’ll come back to the forest every day if she has to.
William’s brow creases. He looks like his father. “It’s not exactly safe out here.” He sounds like his father, too.
“It’s safe enough for you,” Beatrix points out.
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself so close to dusk.” He sounds nervous now, scared even. “Neither should I.”
“It’s nowhere near—” But Beatrix stops. The clearing has grown darker, the sky overhead a faded violet now, turning dimmer by the moment.
She turns her back on William and runs. He doesn’t follow her, doesn’t even shout after her. Maybe she’s stunned him speechless, fleeing like a madwoman without a goodbye. Maybe he’s too busy laughing at her.
Beatrix races home, her skirt tangling around her legs, her heart pounding against her ribs.
She wishes a thousand useless wishes as she runs: that she hadn’t gone to the woods, that she had left sooner, that her dress were cleaner, her hair neater.
That she could turn back time or maybe stop it altogether.
Her mother has warned her against wishing, even though her mother wishes harder than anyone she knows.
Beatrix can’t remember a night her mother didn’t kneel beside her bed, bow her head over her folded hands, and silently wish with her entire heart for her eldest daughter to hold her tongue like Alice or to happily do as she’s told like sweet Isabella.
She calls it prayer, but Beatrix can’t see how that makes any difference.
Her mother’s wishes never come true, either.
Beatrix slowly pushes open the door to their cottage, her chest heaving, her breath barely caught. It squeals on its hinges, betraying her.
Everyone is seated at the table. Everyone is staring. Everyone is silent. Her mother takes one look at her ruined dress and her ruined hair, and sighs with the weight of the world. As if Beatrix were ruined, too.
“I’m sorry, Mama, I—”
“You’re not,” her mother snaps.
Beatrix swallows the rest of her apology. Her mother is right. She’s not sorry. Not in the way her mother wants her to be. Isabella lowers her gaze to her plate, as if she can be remorseful for her.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Her father’s voice is slow and husky. He doesn’t raise it. It’s his resignation that cuts Beatrix to the bone. He can’t expect anything better from her.
“Nothing, sir.” Because nothing she can say will make him understand why she runs to the forest every chance she gets. Why she can’t bring herself to stop, no matter how it disappoints him.
When Beatrix peers into the shallows of the river, the eyes peering back at her don’t look like hers.
They both match—near enough to pretend, anyway—the dull grayish brown of river stones.
And whatever has been lurking in the forest isn’t nearly as frightening to her as the people who refuse to set foot in it.
She is safe in the forest, protected by the same thing that haunts her in Lancaut: fear.
She can breathe beneath the trees. It is the only place she feels like herself.
“Then get yourself cleaned up and get to bed.”
“Yes, sir.” Beatrix slinks past the table. The smell of roast mutton and rosemary, carrots, and fresh bread makes her mouth water. She avoids Isabella’s wide, sad eyes and Alice’s disapproving frown.
She should be grateful her father didn’t ask her to fetch his belt, but the ease with which he dismissed her opens a pit in her stomach, hollow and heavy. He’s already returned his attention to his plate. They all have.
It is a portrait of a life without her in it.
She wonders if that is what they wish for.
Beatrix is still awake when her sisters crawl into bed beside her: Alice on the far side of their lumpy straw pallet, Isabella squeezed between them.
“Beatrix?” Isabella whispers. There’s a quiver in her voice.
“What is it, Iz?” she asks.
“How far did you go today?”
A pang of sadness rings through Beatrix’s chest. Isabella asks about the forest as if it were a made-up land meant for bedtime stories, as if she has forgotten the clearing and all the memories they made there.
She could see it for herself, if she dared to step past the bank where they do their washing.
She brushes a golden hair off Isabella’s cheek and tucks it behind her ear. “Farther than I’ve ever been.” Only a few steps, but it was still true. Every time Beatrix visits the forest, she makes sure of it.
Inches away from her in the dark, Isabella smiles. “Will you tell me about it?”
Alice shifts on the mattress. The bed creaks. The room falls quiet again. Beatrix drops her voice, low enough not to alert their parents, loud enough for Alice to catch her words as she feigns sleep.
She tells Isabella about the trees and the birds and the river, and her sister gasps when Beatrix tells her about the wolf tracks crossing right through the clearing. She doesn’t mention William, afraid speaking of him aloud will spoil the memory.