They were the only doors in the castle that would not open for me.
Was he not permitted in my room even if he tried?
Or was I the only one locked from private quarters?
I thought about knocking. Instead, I took myself to the library and read aloud until I felt certain I wasn’t alone.
“Do you live in the throne room?” I asked.
He made me wait for my answer as he always did. As if it were a hard question. But it must have been, because apparently, I’d confused him somewhere along the way.
“I live in the castle. But I have duties in the throne room.”
Was it meant to be a jest?
“Duties?” I didn’t mean to laugh. “Such as ... what?”
“The duties of a prince.”
He’d told me I confounded him. It couldn’t be anything compared to how I felt concerning him. But the thought of prodding further felt like walking forward, and I’d determined to be content in my corner.
So I settled deeper into my chair and said, as if it were no matter of consequence, “I think I’ll take my afternoons here. Reading. You’re welcome to join, but don’t let me keep you from your duties.”
He said nothing, which was as good as agreement, I suppose.
After that, a pattern began to emerge. I used mornings as I pleased, sometimes taking my violin to the ballroom and sometimes playing to the birds outside my bedroom window. Here and there, I took Honey for a ride. Rarest of all was my practice in needlepoint. My creations were shaky and impatient at best, nothing like Callista’s careful instruction and even less like Astra’s pristine stitches and delicate knots.
Afternoons I reserved for the library. I always read aloud, and sometimes, a rumbling voice added keen observations during my pauses. And they were always keen; uneducated or not, the beast was not unintelligent.
“Can’t I see you?” I asked once.
“No,” he answered. He did not elaborate if the reason was magic or choice.
He never interrupted my reading, never stopped me to ask the meaning of a word or passage, even after I encouraged it as my instructors had done with me. If he did not understand something, he kept it to himself, speaking only if he had a thought or wanted one from me. I found myself growing ever-maddeningly more curious about not only his appearance but also his mind—the questions and ideas he kept to himself. I had never wondered at anyone’s mind before. Either they shared their thoughts as readily as I did, or I did not care to wonder.
In particular, I itched to know his thoughts on the swan who wished to be human.
It was the final story in the book of folklore, one I had heard before and always enjoyed. It was lyrical in its telling, more poetry than folktale, and I read with concentration, trying to give my audience an unbroken world of silent, longing song, without my tripping tongue to interrupt the picture of it.
The swan traveled far and wide in search of a fairy who would turn her human. Though no fairy revealed itself, she found in a broken temple the pendant of prayer, which granted the appeal of her heart. Her wings she traded for delicate fingers, her feathers for feather-soft skin.
She walked the harsh streets, her bare feet bleeding on the stone, and she saw cruelty she had never before witnessed, the betrayals and the beatings. The walking world was not as rosy as her yearning had made it out to be.
She looked back on her peaceful pond and saw with new eyes how it sparkled in the sun, how the frogs and reeds sang to the evenings, how there was as much good in her own world as was outside it. She dove deep into her pond’s pristine waters and shook the pendant from her neck, leaving it to be buried in the sand. As she surfaced, she saw in her renewed reflection everything she could hope to be.
At the end of the story, I waited for the beast’s observation, but none came.
“Beast?” I prodded. “What did you think of that one?”
But he only thanked me for reading, then disappeared for the afternoon. He never stayed long, but it still felt more abrupt than usual. Just to be sure, I peeked around the edge of my chair and found a cushioned stool, empty of its occupant, with only a creased indentation in the leather to show there had been a seat there at all. I smuggled the folklore book to my room with my violin.
After exhausting folklore, I introduced him to philosophers, reading passages on the ideas of origin and death, of the meaning of life and the lack of meaning in it. Scholarly writings seemed to be his least favorite, as he shared the fewest comments about them, although during one pause, he did say, “Now I know why you talk the way you do, with all the air.”
My cheeks flushed.All the air.
“Whimsy,” I said. “That’s society’s word for it. I am whimsical. Nonsensical. Impractical.”
“I never said it was nonsensical.” He always corrected me if I misinterpreted his meaning. “And if it is whimsical,” he added, “then whimsy is welcome here.”
