Beastkeeper (11 page)

She had no idea where her father was, or what had happened to her mother.

Without them, she was truly alone. Nanna hardly counted, since there was not the slightest hint of grandmotherliness about her at all, and Sarah didn't know if her other grandparents were even alive.

A hot prickle filled Sarah's eyes, and her lip began to tremble. She missed her parents. She missed them so much that it made her throat tight and her whole chest feel like someone had wrapped rubber bands around it until she could hardly breathe.

A sound of feathers brushing together made her turn quickly, wiping her face as she did. She didn't need anyone feeling sorry for her—or worse, feeling nothing at all.

“Oh, it's just you.” Sarah scowled at the raven and tried to keep the quiver out of her voice. “You're sneaking up on me now.”

“So I am. How did you hear me?”

“I don't know. I just did.” She shook her head. “Raven, I need to know … is my mother dead?”

The raven didn't answer her directly. Instead it pecked at the ground, as if it had been distracted by plump, wriggling worms. But the earth in this patch was empty. Sarah knew, because she'd just been digging it over earlier. The raven was trying to ignore her. Perhaps the question made it uncomfortable.

“Do you know?” Sarah prodded at it with a wisp of old grass, and the raven hopped back, feathers ruffled. “You don't, do you?”

The raven clacked its beak. “Of course I do. I certainly know more than a little monster of a girl like you.”

“So tell me.”

The raven puffed up its breast, and gave a sigh that sounded far too human. “She's not dead yet. But like all creatures, she will have her allotted span.”

Sarah frowned.
Whatever that means.
The curse, of course—but what about it? It was all too complicated and messy. It made her think of the time when her mother had tried to take up knitting and how that sad little ball of wool (which was supposed to have become a scarf) had become a tangle of knots and bits of dirt, oddly intertwined with a small key that didn't fit any of the locks in the house. The curse was like that—it had turned something soft and jewel-bright into a snarled mess of filth. The thing was to find the loose ends and slowly unpick it. To try to find a truth in the lies, and smooth it out and follow where it led her. “And … my dad?”

It occurred to Sarah that the truth might not be something she wanted to hear, and she swallowed, waiting for the answer.

The raven calmly straightened its feathers with its sharp beak.

Impossible thing!
Sarah tried for a different thread. “What happened to my grandfather—now that my mother is gone, is it happening to my dad?”

“Undoubtedly,” said the raven. “He will begin to change, faster and faster, until there is nothing human left in him at all, except for the memories of the man he was.”

“Can—if he falls in love with someone else? Someone who loves him back? Could that save him?”

“By the terms of the curse, only the first love counts.” The raven looked down its thick beak and prodded at the ground, as if it couldn't face Sarah. “I'm sorry.”

Sarah's trowel fell from her numb fingers to land on the soil with a soft
thunk
. “But why did he bring me here, then—why leave me and run away?”

“Perhaps he did not want you to see the change,” said the raven. “Humans are such prideful things.”

“We have to stop it,” Sarah said. “We have to find my mother and make her go back to him and—”

“And what?” cawed the raven. “Keep him in an iron cage and feed him scraps? Your mother did right, leaving him. It's better than what Inga did, too scared to run, too scared to change.”

“What do you mean, change? You said the curse would kill her. Now you say it won't—or is it all lies?” A little bit of hope grew in Sarah. Perhaps her mother was out there still, waiting to come back one day.

“I never lie,” said the raven. “The terms of the curse are … complex. Even if your grandmother falls out of love, she has to stay, unless she wants to be turned. If she leaves, she changes too. The witch who decided the terms thought them most amusing and ironic at the time—” The raven suddenly clicked its beak shut, as though it was stopping itself from saying more.

“She turns too? Into a beast?” Was that what had happened to her mother? It was better than death. It had to be.

“No,” said the raven. “Not a beast. But death will come to her, sooner than you think.”

It was too much. Curses on curses. Sarah stood and slapped the mud off her knees. Enough was enough. Her father hadn't gone to some special hospital to get better; her mother wasn't going to turn up out of the blue and pretend that nothing had happened. The whole mess felt like a nightmare, but Sarah had finally realized that it was real. And no one was coming to save her.

There was no way to find the truth in all these tangles. And what would she get for it if she did? A monster for a father, and a mother who had left her.

“Right,” she said. “I'm leaving.” The tears had all dried up, and in their place was a hopeless, hard anger. She marched toward the gravel road that her father had driven down. The raven flew after her, wings clapping awkwardly.

Gravel crunched like dry cereal under Sarah's sneakers. No one called out after her, screamed at her to return. The only other sounds were the hushing of the leaves, the slow flap of the raven's wings, and the muted calls of the birds in the forest. Sarah walked for an hour, following the deserted road hemmed in by trees, putting the castle far behind her. The raven followed and said nothing, until Sarah rounded a curve in the road and stopped, her heart plummeting like a rock tossed into a still pond.

The raven cawed once, an apologetic sound, and flew off.

Ahead of Sarah stood the crumbling castle, overgrown with ivy and moss, outlined by the red light of late afternoon.

There was no escaping the forest, it seemed. Not without a guide.

*   *   *

The rest of the week, Sarah moved in a haze, only half aware of what was going on around her. She ate breakfast, tended the gardens, helped feed her grandfather at night. Her skin was numb, her brain bundled up in fog.

She didn't speak to Nanna or to the raven, just nodded dully and did what she was told. At night she sat on her bed, Steg and Hedge on her lap, a book balanced open. The words would swim in front of her eyes. No matter how hard she tried, it seemed not a single line would stay still, would make its way into her brain. When she felt like crying, she would cup her hand over the little hard nugget of the silver bear on its chain, and push until it felt like the tiny animal was clawing into her chest.

It was on the seventh day that she finally spoke again.

Sarah rammed her trowel into the ground—she'd cleared most of the castle vegetable gardens by then, and had been instructed that her next task was to try to bring order to the blackberry canes on the far side of the clearing. When she spoke, the words felt thick and dusty, all crammed up in her throat like balls of old newspaper. “What about me?” she croaked.

The raven, which had been pecking delightedly at a stringy earthworm that Sarah had turned up while digging, paused and looked at her. It ruffled its feathers once, gave the earthworm a last jab, then hopped up onto the nearest handle of the wheelbarrow. “What
about
you?”

“When do I turn into a beast?” she asked softly. “When I fall in love?”

The raven was silent.

“Well,” said Sarah, looking around at the new-turned earth, the bundles of dying weeds, “I won't let it happen. I'll never let it happen. And I won't let Dad stay a beast. And I
won't
be lied to.”

“If you say so,” the raven cawed sadly, and flapped off over the trees until it disappeared like a melting snowflake.

Sarah stood up and shivered. Her jacket lay folded on the low, tumbled remains of a wall, and after a brief hesitation, she grabbed it and pulled it on. It left her feeling hot, but Sarah knew that where she was going, she'd need it. She'd stuffed woolen gloves into the pockets, and a narrow scarf. Perhaps, underneath the stumbling zombie she'd been for the last few days, the real Sarah had been planning this all along.

Sarah grinned to herself, even though a ripple of shivers spread in circles down her shoulders and back.
I'll find them. I'll fix it.

The raven had told her not to go to the Within, that the witches were all gone and no one could help her family now, but Sarah no longer believed this. She'd noticed that the raven told her only what it wanted her to know. It was Nanna's creature, but it also wasn't. Captive and spy, it played its own games, Sarah thought as she set off into the forest.

The trail was easy enough to spot, and she followed it, avoiding the garlands of webs and the spikes of the low branches, always listening for the faint trickle-rush of water that would tell her she'd reached the river she wasn't to cross.

She followed the cold, the puff of her breath, and the wet-black trunks of the pines. Animal tracks zigzagged through the undergrowth, confusing her steps, but she carried on, teeth clenched with determination.

*   *   *

Sarah was lost. She turned around, shoving branches out of her way and panting. “Stupid.” She ducked to avoid a particularly low-hanging tangle of twigs. “Tree.” A bundle of pine needles scratched against her cheek. “Thing.” She wasn't upset yet—at least, not upset enough to start crying—but she could feel herself getting more and more nervous, her heart going faster. What if she stayed lost forever—starved to death in the forest?

Or got eaten by something?

Were there wolves in the forest—or just beasts?

“Raven!” she yelled.

The forest muffled her call, and all she heard back was the faintest hush of the last withered leaves rubbing softly together, like a witch's hands.
At least I'm close to the center, I think
. The forest borders were home to a variety of trees, but when the raven had led her to the river's edge, the forest had been given over completely to the pines and their jagged needles and cones, their sharp resinous smell. The dark heart of the forest.

She backed out of the tangle she was in and glared at the branches. “Fine,” she said. “Have it your way.” There had to be other routes in.

Silence fell around her with the light, swirling snow. Sarah looked up, her breath misting out from her mouth like dragon smoke. Tiny flakes were dancing their way down through the branches. And then, ever so faintly—a thin splashing noise, like a running tap in someone else's house.

Gotcha.

She took another path between the trees, following the sound as it grew. Every now and again small flurries of snow twisted down through the branches like frozen dandelion seeds and covered her faint footprints.

Finally the trees parted, and the forest opened out to a small bank leading to a black, icy river. It wasn't the same part she'd been to before—this section was rockier, and green-black water spilled over several little ledges to create a series of riffles and rapids. Icy froth churned and collected in the whorls.

There's no way I'm getting across this.
There were some slippery-looking rocks that spiked up through the tumult, but they were like rotted black teeth, and far apart. The river was wider than she'd remembered.
Admit it, Sarah, it was a stupid idea anyway.

Instead of admitting anything to herself, Sarah shuffled closer to the bank and peered down. The drop was steep, and here and there the river had eaten away at the sides to form a precarious overhang. She edged back. “Blast.” There was no way to cross the churning river.

A long, low growl sounded behind her, and Sarah froze. Her breath steamed, her whole body shook, but she couldn't move.

Silence.

Just when she was ready to relax and turn around, the growl came again. Closer. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut.
Oh please, please don't be real.
Very, very slowly, she began to turn around. Her heart was knocking out a beat so loud and fast she half expected the forest to be shaking along with her. She stared at the forest edge, at the flickering blackness, saw nothing, and let go of the breath she'd been holding.

It lunged out of the shadows, bursting from between the trunks, high-backed and shaggy as a wolf, but with round golden eyes in a squat bearlike face. Its ears were sharp and pricked, and behind them curled iron-gray horns.

“Oh,” squeaked Sarah. There was nowhere for her to go—the river was at her back, and the beast before her. It was drown in freezing water or have her throat torn out. She'd read somewhere once that if a wild animal charged, you should stay perfectly still, but she wasn't exactly sure if this really worked, and more importantly, if it worked for beasts of the magical persuasion. She shut her eyes and tried not to scream.

The beast galloped toward her, paws slamming against the ground, shaking the snow down from the nearby pines. It plunged closer and closer.

And stopped.

It sniffed loudly. A stinking blast of its breath burned against Sarah's face, strong enough to ruffle her hair back. The beast panted and sniffed. The thick, meaty reek enveloped Sarah, almost making her gag. It reminded her of that smell in the shed, of Grandfather.

Sarah wanted to whimper, could feel the whimper building up inside her.
Don't let it know you're scared, don't let it know you're scared.
She kept taking shaky little breaths and hoped that the beast would get bored and go.

“Away with you,” called a slow, drawling voice. A familiar voice.

Alan?

Sarah's eyes flew open. She was face-to-face with the beast, its golden eyes as big as apples staring into hers.

The beast grunted, sending another fiery blast of its breath over Sarah's face, then drew away, as if uncertain.