Mrs. Beast (5 page)

    
Clip-clop-clip-clop, Hermes' rolling gait cradles Beauty.
 
She's weary, sore, bone-tired; her eyelids droop and she rests her head on Hermes' neck.

    
An hour later, the mule bends to graze on succulent grass alongside the Deep Icy River, and Beauty sits upright rubbing her eyes, wondering how long she's slept.
 
The night is moonless and starless, but Beauty can hear the river dancing over rocks, the chirp and burp of frogs, possum, muskrat, and beaver.
 
She dismounts and asks Hermes, "Is Glass Mountain near?"

    
Hermes points his ears across the river.
 
"In the morning,"
 
Beauty yawns.
 
"We'll cross over in the morning."
 
She unties her portmanteau, wraps her riding cloak around her and beds down for the night.
 
Hermes continues to graze: rip, chew, snort, rip, chew, snort.

*
     
*
     
*

    
When the sun washes the river's east bank in pale yellow light, Beauty awakes to find Hermes has gone.
 
Abandonment is the greatest fear of childhood, and a matter of course for fairy tale beauties.
 
She should have tethered him for the night, but that had seemed untrusting and unkind, albeit hopefully naive.

    
Beauty stands and is seized by light-headedness.
 
She dips a handkerchief in the river and washes her face and hands.
 
She eats the last two slices of apple and stares across the river.
 
Beauty's a good swimmer; with Violet and Daisy as sisters, she learned to swim or sink early on.
 
However, the water is frigid, and Beauty has a cloak, heavy work shoes, and portmanteau to carry.
 
She withdraws the mirror from her bodice.

     
"Magic mirror,

      don't make me shiver.

      Show me a bridge

      across this river."

    
Beauty waits for the mirror to reveal its answer, but thrashing in the weeds nearby interrupts her concentration.
 
The source is a rock bass flopping crazily, caught in a web of fisherman's netting. She tucks the mirror back into her bodice, untangles the net and watches with pleasure as the fish loops and swirls, scales flashing.

    
"Merci beaucoup, belle mademoiselle," the bass gurgles.
 
"You done me a great service and I am obliged to do so in kind."

    
"I need to cross the river, but the water's too cold.
 
Is there a bridge?"

    
"Not a one," the fish answers and turns sideways to size up Beauty with his metallic eye.
 
"You're too large for me to ferry.
 
However. . .no,
 
better not risk it."

    
Beauty squeezes her hands together
 
and pleads to the fish. "Please, whatever the risk, it is not too great. I'm on a most important quest, and I won't go back from whence I've come.

    
"See those turtles sunning on the fallen tree?"

    
Beauty gazes over the river and finds a half-submerged tree supporting twenty bottle-green humps.
 
"They may consent to help, but turtles can't be trusted; not one cell of evolution in two million years, and they're proud of it!
 
With so few predators, they're hard-shelled and cocky.
 
However, due to your kindness, I'll approach them."

    
Beauty watches the fish glide through the water up to the fallen tree.
 
Two-by-two, flat turtle heads emerge from sheaths of puckered neck skin.
  
Scaly legs pop from twenty shells and propel the turtles into the river, plunk-plunk-plunk.
 
They swim toward Beauty in V formation, then to her delight, straighten into a stepping stone bridge from bank to bank.

    
Beauty lifts the hems of her dress and cape and steps on the first turtle's back.
 
She wobbles for a moment, but she doesn't slip; the rough worn soles of Blockhead's shoes provide excellent traction.

    
Five steps--ten steps--Beauty navigates daintily.
 
With the fifteenth step she enters shadows cast by the great Grimm forest.
 
She smells pine and moss; she feels a temperature drop of ten degrees.
 
Step twenty--she's almost there when the turtle beneath her begins its teasing, slow descent.
 
Icy water engulfs Beauty's shoes and sucks them from her feet. Her toenails turn blue and pain flashes up her shins.
 
The bass dashes around the turtle, fanning his fins madly.
 
The turtle snatches his tail in her horny beak and grinds with all her might.
 
Bubbles rise and break, loosing fishy screams.
 
Beauty swings her arms to gain balance.
 
The cape falls from her shoulders, and the portmanteau flies from her hand and sinks like a cannonball.
  
She lunges for the shore, lands with a "thwack," and topples face-first into decomposing muck.

    
As Beauty shivers on the bank, the twentieth turtle and the fish swim to the surface.
 
The bass sputters, "Shame, shame, shame! Have you no compassion, have you no honor, have you . . ."

    
"Ah, your mudder sucks earthworms," the turtle snaps and joins the retreating mob.
 
The bass opens his wide mouth to retort, spies a blue-tailed fly buzzing over a stand of cattails, and he's gone in a silver flash.

    
Beauty's feet sting as if being punctured with a thousand needles.
 
By grasping two low slung branches, she's able to pull herself free of the muck.
 
She scootches higher to terra firma, swipes mucky locks off her face, and draws her muck-soaked skirt aside:
 
six fat leeches are attached to the three broken blisters on each foot.
 
Beauty's cherry lips quiver and her bright hazel eyes roll to the back of her skull.

*
     
*
     
*

    
"Don't give me that look," Elora the Enchantress snarls at Croesus.
 
"So I used a little silver savvy dust on the mule.
 
Obviously it wore off, just as I'd planned."
 
She fixes the hound with a back-off glare, and he scampers out of her sight.

    
"That's twice Beauty has fainted in the past two days," Elora murmurs and arches one black eyebrow.
 
She lights a clove cigarette and stares out the casement windows.
 
Croesus returns carrying his feeding bowl.

    
"I know she's not sick, and she's never been squeamish.
 
Perhaps she's baking a wee loaf in her oven."

    
Croesus licks his chops and paws his empty bowl.

    
"That's a euphemism, you dolt.
 
Expecting the stork, pollinated, inseminated, spermatized.
 
Pregnant."
 
Elora smirks and poises her fingers over the bowl.
 
"Hungry?
 
I know the perfect dish.
 
Turtle soup and I'll make it snappy."

*
     
*
     
*

    
"Those turtles been up to their nasty business again, Ojars."

    
"Is she dead?"

    
"Nah, her chest is moving."

    
"Oh, man, look at the leeches on her feet.
 
Got any salt?"

    
"I think so.
 
Yeah, in my pocket."

    
"Well dose the little bastards with it now!"

    
"I'm dosing.
 
I'm dosing."

    
"Stomp 'em.
  
Get those blood suckers, Gunnard."

    
Beauty opens her right eye a slit and sees two dwarfs dressed in lederhosen and hobnailed boots.
 
They're a few yards away, yelping and jumping on the sluggish, blood-heavy leeches.
 
Miniature picks, drills, and hammers jangle from their tool belts.
 
Their yellow hair, cut in the shape of inverted bowls, circles pale, hairless faces and dove-grey eyes.
 
Their bodies are coated in yellow down and each jump produces a puff of gold dust.

    
"We got 'em all, Gunnard.
 
Better see if the girl's come around."

    
Beauty squeezes her eyes shut and tries to relax her body, which is extremely difficult because her skin itches from the dried muck and her feet burn with pain.

    
"Hey, Ojars, Deja vu, huh?"

    
"Don't be cute; this is serious.
 
Check her mouth for poisoned apple."

    
"I'm not sticking my finger in there.
 
What if she bites?
 
For all we know, she's not even a girl; might be a hobgoblin in disguise."

    
"Pussy."

    
"Takes one to know one."

    
"Okay, you hold her jaws and I'll clear her mouth."

    
A nubby finger, thick as a sausage, pries open Beauty's jaws and swabs her mouth.

    
"Nothing.
 
What's next?

    
"Poison comb or laces too tight."

    
"Right you are, Ojars.
 
You check her hair and I'll check her dress."

    
Eight fat fingers probe her muddy curls.
 
Eight more frisk her ribs and stop abruptly when they touch the mirror's handle.

    
"Her scalp's clean.
 
Is she bound too tight, Gunnard?"

    
"No laces, but there's something hard as rock inside there."

    
"Take it out."

    
"That's private territory, you knob.
 
I wish Helga was here."

    
"Well she isn't, and it'd take us half an hour to get home and another to bring one of the girls back here.
 
She could be dead by then.
 
Are those letters on her breast?

R U N
.
"

    
"Whoa!
 
Not a good omen.
 
Let's beat it."

    
"We can't do that."

    
"I know, we'll both close our eyes and I'll pull it out.
 
On the count of three.
 
One--two--three!"

    
A small, callused hand plunges into Beauty's bodice and yanks the mirror free of the cloth along with her left bosom.

    
"Gad zooks!
 
It's a magic mirror.
 
We gotta hide it, bury it. What if the queen gets her hands on it?"