The last bit of daylight was fading and leaving the silver water black when I saw something pale glimmer through the trees to my left. It was long and low, too still and too straight for running water. I caught my breath, and began to struggle through the suddenly dense undergrowth, Greatheart snorting and crashing behind me. It was the road. It stretched out to my right, and ended a few feet to my left, in ragged patches of sand and stone. It did not run as smooth and straight as I remembered, but my eyes were blurred and tired. My feet touched the road just as the last light died, leaving the road a grey smudge in the blackness.
“We’ll have to wait rill moonrise now,” I said fretfully. After standing, looking uselessly around me for a few minutes, I went back to the side of the road and sat down under a tree. Greatheart investigated me, then wandered out into the sandy road and had a good roll, with much snorting and blowing and waving of legs. He returned to drip dust on me, and I fed him some more bread. He ate a few leaves off the tree I was under, then settled down on three legs for a nap. I sat, hands around my knees, waiting till the moon climbed high enough for us to make out our way. It seemed like hours, but it wasn’t long; the moon rose early, the sky was clear and cloudless; even the starlight was bright enough to cast a few shadows through the tangled undergrowth. The road was a dim pale ribbon, leading farther into the forest, promising nothing. I sighed, then walked over to the horse and thumped his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Do you think you might be ridden?” I rubbed some of the dirt off his back with a corner of my cloak, and mounted with the aid of a low-hanging branch. I had first taught him to respond to my legs and voice when he was a yearling, before he had ever worn any harness; but that was a long time ago, and I felt very insecure on a back as broad as his was now, without a saddle. But he stepped onto the road and broke into a gentle trot, little more than a shuffle, and I clung to his mane and managed fairly well. I found myself falling asleep as I rode. All that kept me awake at all was the horse’s changes of gait, walk to jog, a brief canter, and walk again, as he set his own pace. His head was up and his ears pricked; I concentrated on not falling off—and on not thinking what might lie ahead of me. First we had to find the castle.
Any number of nights may have passed without my knowledge or comprehension, Greatheart shifted from a jog to a walk, and then stopped altogether. I opened my eyes and looked around vaguely. We had come to the big silver gates, but they remained closed, even when Great-heart put his nose out and touched them. I kneed the horse around till I could reach out and push them with my hand; the surface was smooth and slightly chilly to the flat of my palm. Then it quivered like the skin of an animal, and seemed to flush with a warm grey light like the earth’s first dawn. It swung open slowly with the sound of someone breathing. I did not wonder at this long; Greatheart broke into a gallop as soon as the gates opened wide enough to let us through. I dug in with my hands and legs and held on.
We didn’t see the castle till we were almost upon it. It was dark, darker than the shadows around it; even the moonlight shunned it. The lights in the garden were few and dim, and blocked to us as we galloped through the meadow and the stand of ornamental trees. Greatheart went straight to the stable and stopped. I slid off his back, my legs almost folding under me when my feet touched the ground. The stable door didn’t open. I put both hands against it, and it shuddered, as the gate had; but it remained shut. I pushed it in the direction it usually opened, and as slowly and wearily as Sisyphus I forced it open. One or two candles lit wanly as we went in. I opened a stall door and sent Greatheart in, hot as he was, threw a blanket over him, gave him a swift pat and word of thanks, and left him. I would tend him later. I had to find the Beast.
The great front doors to the castle were open, to my intense relief. I ran inside. A lantern lit, its wick nearly guttering. I picked it up and adjusted it; it was plain hammered copper, with a glass bubble to protect the flame. I carried it with me down the corridor. The dining hall was cold and still, like the parlour opposite, though both the doors stood wide. I went upstairs.
It was much worse than my dreams had been. I was tired, deadly tired, and sore and hungry, and so filthy that the creases of my petticoats chafed me when I moved; and my feet hurt worse with every step. I was too tired to think; all that my mind held was: “I must find my Beast.” But I couldn’t find him. I was too tired even to call aloud to him, and too numb to hear even if he had answered. All my senses were dull; I could catch no feeling of his presence. The castle had never been so large. I crossed hundreds of halls, passed through thousands of rooms. I didn’t even find my room, nor did I hear any rustling that might have been Bessie or Lydia. The castle was deserted, and as chill and dank as if it had stood empty for many years. Some of the thicker shadows might have been dust and cobwebs. It was fortunate that I carried a lamp with me, because few of the candles lit at my approach, and many of them winked once or twice and went out again as if the effort were too much. My arm ached with holding my lantern aloft, and its light trembled with my arm’s shivering; its faint glow spilled around me, but none of the shadows held the Beast. My stumbling footsteps echoed in solitude.
More time passed. I tripped over the edge of a carpet and fell sprawling; the lamp turned over and went out. I lay where I was, too exhausted to move, and found myself weeping. I dragged myself to a sitting position, disgusted at my weakness, and looked hopelessly down the long hall in the direction I had been going when I fell; and in the darkness I saw a tiny puddle of light. A light. I got to my feet and went towards it.
It was the room I had found the Beast in on the first night, and the room I had dreamed about last night. A dying fire in the hearth cast the dim light I had seen through the partly open door; it creaked on its hinges when I pushed it farther open. He was sitting in the wing chair, his closed right hand on his knee, as if he hadn’t moved since I had left him over a week ago. “Beast!” I cried, and he didn’t move. “You can’t die. Please don’t die. Come back to me,” I said, weeping again, kneeling down by the chair. He didn’t move. I looked around wildly. The bowl of roses still sat by his elbow. The flowers were brown, and petals lay scattered on the floor. I pulled the white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dipped it in the water, then laid it across the Beast’s forehead. “My love, wake up,” I said.
With a motion as slow as centuries he opened his eyes. I didn’t dare move. He blinked, and some light returned to his dull eyes, and he saw me. “Beauty,” he said.
“I’m here, dear Beast,” I said.
“I thought you had broken your promise,” he said; there wasn’t a shade of reproach in his voice, and for a moment I couldn’t answer. “I started late,” I said, “and then it took me a very long time to find my way through the forest.”
“Yes, it would,” he said, speaking with pauses between the words. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “as long as you’re all right. But will you be all right now? I’ll never leave you again.”
He smiled. “I’ll be all right. Thank you, Beauty.”
I sighed, and started to get to my feet; but I staggered, and saved myself only by clutching the arm of the chair. The world splashed around me like black water in a bilge, and I couldn’t find my feet. The Beast reached out a hand, and I sank onto his lap. “I’m sorry,” I said.