Beauty (37 page)

I thanked him, and he went back to his work. I laid my flowers on the grave. They were marked with my blood upon their thorns. I sat there for a long time. When night came, I told the boots to take me home.

Perhaps in time I can find a stonecutter to make a monument for Giles. But why? In time even a monument will disappear. I remember the twenty-first and shudder. Why make monuments? Why build beautiful things? Why create anything when Fidipur's billions will tear them all down.

I don't know. I have no emotions at all except a sullen anger, which boils away inside me, building up the pressure. I want vengeance against the cause of all this pain. If I had not been pregnant when I came back, I would not have married Edward, I would not have had Elly. If I had not married Edward, I could have had Giles. We could have married, lived together, that ordinary life Carabosse wanted for me.

If I had not married Edward, if he had not had Elly, Edward might not have died, and he certainly wouldn't have married Lydia. Oh, what Jaybee had done when he raped me was more hurt than even he had planned!

When I left the twentieth-how long ago?-Jaybee was raging about, full of fury that he could not find me to do it all again. If I leave him there, he
will
do it again, to someone else. He will cause this pain again, generations of it, begetting sorrow as a cloud begets rain. It is not fitting that this should be so. I can do nothing for Elly. I can do nothing for Giles. Edward is gone. All I cared for is gone.

And Jaybee lives to make more sorrow.

Beauty can be disappointed of its children. The worst thing about being a woman is that things can be begot on us, things we do not want, cannot manage, cannot control. We swell to fruition with disasters implanted in us against our wills. We spew out tragedy. And all the disaster and the tragedy, though begot upon us against our volition, is part us. How much, we wonder. How much was me? What could I have changed?

Carabosse says I carry importance within me. A kernel of something incorruptible, no doubt. A seed. Yet one begot upon me without my consent. Can even Carabosse be sure of the harvest? Can this seed grow bitter fruit? Can it be twisted and warped, as my own seed was warped?

And is this, perhaps, what the Dark Lord wants? What Jaybee wanted, whether he knew it or not? To beget horror on innocence? It cannot be borne. It cannot be tolerated. I cannot let it happen again, to anyone.

All my anger focuses upon Jaybee. Even though magic is thin on the ground in the twentieth, my powers will work there, so I believe, even if only weakly, perhaps enough.

Grumpkin is here. And my cloak. And my boots.

["What's she doing?" I asked Israfel.

"She's going back there. Back to the twentieth.

"Beauty! You mustn't. Please ... "]

23

JANUARY 4, 1993. WISDOM STREET

It is not Holy Wisdom, not Hagia Sophia, the street is named for, but William W. Wisdom, who was Manager of Public Works sometime in the forties. Still, I have always liked the name of the street, and seeing it on the sign at the corner gave me a feeling of welcome when the boots set me down only a few feet from our front door. Our front door. Bill's and Janice's and mine.

Bill had been so excited when we rented the house. To him it represented everything he had ever dreamed of: unimaginable amounts of room, safety, warmth, affection, plenty of privacy in which to indulge himself in his harmless eccentricities; all of the things so notably missing in the twenty-first. To me, accustomed to the vaulted spaces and elegant architecture of Westfaire, it had seemed scarcely better than a hovel, though I had agreed it was far better than the twenty-first.

It was, is, a small frame dwelling, white clapboard with blue shutters and a blue roof, surrounded on its corner lot by a white picket fence. Inside the front door a narrow hall leads back to the kitchen. On the left is a combination living-dining room, on the right, two tiny bedrooms and a bath. Some former owner had built another bedroom and a half bath in the basement, and Bill had chosen those rooms for his own. There he had his closet full of silky dresses and lacy underwear, his high-heeled shoes and fluffy parasols, his full length mirror and his private telephone. Though he never went "out" in his women's clothes, he wore them while he talked on the phone, endless high-pitched conversations full of flirtatious little interjections and giggles.

Though the basement rooms had been his place, he hadn't been stingy with his time and effort in the rest of the house. He and I had refinished the kitchen cabinets, taking endless hours to do it, more than the cheap construction was worth. He had sweated over the tiny lawn, fighting the weeds and mowing it twice a week. He had planted the junipers and the Seafoam roses on either side of the door. In summer they were a cloud of white. Now their brown canes poked through the rare light snow, like old bony fingers. I knocked. Janice opened the door as though she'd been standing in the hallway, waiting for someone. She said, "Yes?" in a tone of voice that told me she didn't know me. Well, why would she?

"I've come about Bill," I faltered. "May I come in?"

She stood back, rather grudgingly, to let me enter, her head tilted to one side, her bird's eyes fixed on me as though I were a bug. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to tell her who I was, but I fought it down. Telling her would involve too many explanations, and I couldn't guarantee she'd believe any of them. Besides, I could not depend on her good will. Her relationship with Bill and me had always been a reluctant one. I must have squeezed Grumpkin, for he protested at being held so tightly. I put him down on the floor and he promptly began to sniff his way around the hall.

"That's Dorothy's cat," she said. "Where did you get Dorothy's cat?" Once we had agreed that I was to be "Dorothy," Janice had never used any other name for me. Bill had always called me Beauty when we were alone.

"I'm a friend of hers," I said. "She asked me to come tell you what happened." I made the comeback sign. Janice would trust a comeback sooner than anyone else, though she didn't trust anyone much. She looked startled, but she made the sign in return.

"Where is she?" Janice wanted to know. "And where's Bill?"

"Dorothy's gone away," I said, breathing in deeply. There was no kind or easy way to tell her what had happened. "Jaybee broke in here while you were away. He told Dorothy he'd come for her, Bill got between them, and Jaybee killed Bill and attacked Dorothy. He hurt her ... raped her. She's gone away."

She stared at me, unbelieving. "How did you ... ? I don't understand how you ... "

"I was a sort of witness to it," I said. "I was here when it happened."

She fell back into the chair just inside the door, her mouth open. "Jaybee? Bill?" Her eyes filled with tears. "I should have known. Oh God, I should never have left Bill alone."

Her emotion seemed genuine, though to my certain knowledge she had only tolerated Bill and me.

"He was like my son," she cried, the tears making red tracks down her face. "My son I was bringing to God. Oh, I loved him so."

I started to say, "You never let him know that," remembering just in time that I wasn't Beauty, wasn't Dorothy, wasn't who I was. I was older. A lot older. In the hall mirror I caught sight of myself, a woman in her sixties, perhaps. All gray-haired. With crepey skin on my arms. I looked at my hands, seeing the spots on the backs of them. Time. I had used it up, going back and forth. Used it up. I started crying, too, partly for Bill, partly for myself. All I had seemed to do lately was grieve. Grumpkin came over and extended a paw, asking his "prrrt." How had he aged so little? I picked him up, to hug, for warmth, for something.

"Who are you?" she asked. "Do I know you?"

"My name is Catherine Monfort," I said through my tears. "I came because Dorothy asked me to, and because she thought you might let me stay here."

She threw her hands up, shaking her head, no, then realized how inhospitable that looked. Janice couldn't bear to look bad, though she didn't care what she did if no one knew. Finally she nodded, pointing at the front bedroom, tears running down her face. "He was here yesterday. He asked for 'Beauty.' He even asked for Bill. That bastard. He was laughing at me. Oh, God will punish him. Oh yes, God will punish him."

"Jaybee?" I asked, knowing already that's who it was. Yes. Jaybee. Still looking for Beauty. He hadn't given up.

Janice had her hands folded under her chin, her eyes closed, her lips moving. While she cried and prayed, I went into the bedroom. My bedroom. All my things were still there, except the few I'd taken when I'd run away. My clothes, young clothes, for a college girl. Well, I could wear the nightgowns. The panties. The jeans, maybe. The shoes. Not the brassieres. I had little enough to put a brassiere around. My chest had gone flat, not saggy, just flat, like the fairies. Fairy blood, I guess. Sylph blood. Better than flopping, I suppose. Somewhere, I'd have to get some clothes suitable to a woman my age. I hung up my cloak, set my boots in the closet, put away my book and Mama's box in the drawer of the bedside table. Grumpkin jumped up on the bed, kneaded a place soft and lay down, eyes slitted, just as his daddy used to do. I turned to find Janice in the doorway, staring at me.

"Do you have a job?" she asked. She had suddenly realized she might have to support me. Janice wouldn't do that!

I shook my head.

"What can you do?"

"Handle horses," I said.

"Nobody's going to hire you for that, at your age." The words were a sneer. Janice was sounding more like herself.

I nodded, telling her I knew, thinking of Wellingford. "I managed an estate for a family for a while."

"If you could get references, that might be useful."

"I met Dorothy at college. We were both studying the same things. I'm a fair Latinist."

"Maybe we can find something academic. Through the network."

She meant the comebacks' forgery network that provided social security cards, birth certificates, educational documentation, and even jobs for returnees. What I really wanted to do was find Jaybee and follow him around, until I knew what he was doing, what his vulnerabilities were. That might have to wait.

Janice was still crying, wiping her eyes. "What happened to Bill? To his body?"

I tried to tell her and I choked. It was as if it had happened yesterday, rather than a year, two years ago. I finally got it out, about Jaybee having carried his body away.

"That bastard," she whispered again. "Oh, that rotten bastard." Then she wiped her eyes and said firmly, "When the day of judgement comes, he'll be among the damned." Then she went out, shutting the door behind her, leaving me alone.

I lay down on my own bed next to the cat, so tired it was hard to think, hard to move. I was old. Funny, I didn't know where my youth had gone, but I was old. When I looked in the mirror, I expected to see someone else, that younger face, that smooth skin, that unlined brow. Mama was still young. I should be still young. Instead, there was this thin, slightly wrinkled woman with flyaway gray hair who had to lean close to the mirror to see because she was nearsighted. I sat up and stared in the mirror, squinting my eyes as Thomas the Rhymer had taught me, wishing to see true.

It reminded me of one of the songs they had sung in Faery, in Oberon's court. "Lovely the days of your youth, and fleeting as grass. Stay with me forever in Faery, my golden-haired lass ... "

And that reminded me of Puck and Fenoderee, my only friends. I said their names, wishing they were with me.

"Yes?" said Puck. He came out from the wall, from the bookcase, from somewhere near there. Grumpkin opened his eyes for a moment, yawned, then went back to sleep. He wasn't impressed by half-naked Bogles appearing out of the walls. Puck said, "I came to tell you Elladine is back in Faery."

I felt my heart thudding, like a weary hammer. "Is she angry at me?"

"Why should she be angry at you?"

"Because I ran off." I felt guilty about that, had felt guilty ever since I'd done it.

"I ran you off," he said. "Elladine is of Faery, and she's old in years. Age is a powerful protection against such as he. He's not really interested in those of Faery, so he let her go. He wouldn't have let you go."

"Still ... "I said, tears in my eyes.

"Still, nothing. She risked your life taking you on that Halloween ride. It was sheer arrogance, too. Elladine is arrogant where humans are concerned. All that lot are."

I thought it must be true. "She never comes to me, even though I know she can!" I cried. "She never came to me when I was a child. The only time she came was after the Curse, to move my body, and it wasn't even me!"

What I felt was the same longing I had felt ever since I was a child. I needed someone to care about me. Stubbornly, I could not stop seeking love. I wanted Elladine to love me.

"Beauty, you're such a child," he laughed at me. "Why don't you take affection from those who'd give it to you gladly? Me, for instance." He made a languishing face at me, enough to make me laugh.

"Elladine told me you're trying to be an angel," I said. "Is that why you're here, looking after me? And how come you never came before when I was here?"

He chuckled ruefully. "I was here before. As soon as Carabosse let me come. Who do you think pushed those boots into your hands when that man was coming after you?"

"I didn't see you."

He shrugged. "I know. Carabosse thought it was dangerous for me to show up, in the flesh, so to speak. You knew nothing about Faery then, and she thought you might go silly."

"I wouldn't have," I said indignantly. "If I could get dragged from the fourteenth to the twenty-first, and then back here, if I could go through all that with Jaybee without going silly, why would I go silly seeing you?"

"Magic's thin on the ground here," he said. "She thought perhaps you'd stopped believing in it."

I sniffed to verify the fact. "I can hardly smell it at all. If I put on my cloak in full sunlight, people can almost see me."