Beauty and the Werewolf

One of her own jars of liniment came floating into the bathroom as she got out of the bath. Wryly, she thought how glad she was now she had made so many…though she certainly had been thinking of the horses, and not herself, when she had!

With the liniment rubbed into her sore, sore legs — and the Godmother’s ointment applied to her face — she climbed into her warmed bed, feeling just slightly muzzy from the mulled wine. The last light of sunset was fading from the sky, and Sapphire came to pull the curtains shut over the windows, and light the candles in the headboard of her bed. She had settled in with a book that Sebastian had given her to read yesterday, when she noticed that Sapphire was still there, holding a ball of what looked like beeswax.

“Wax?” she said, puzzled, taking it.

The slate rose. “Ears,” Sapphire wrote.

For a moment, she stared at the word, puzzled. Then it dawned on her what Sapphire meant. “All right, I’ll try it,” she agreed, and rolled the lump of wax in her hand until it was soft, then divided it in two and stuffed it in her ears.

When the howling began, she could still hear it…but it was muffled, and she could even pretend to herself that it was far, far distant — the howl of something out in the woods, on the other side of the walls. Some wild thing, and not a man she knew, trapped in the mind and form of a beast… The intense relief she felt that she was not going to be suffering the same fate was tempered with pity for him, now that she could afford it. Two more months, and she could go home! But he would still be trapped here, a prisoner three days of the month — and right now, a prisoner every other day, as well, by his own decision.

Hmm. We’ll see about that.

The book caught her attention immediately, however, and soon she was too engrossed in it to think much about poor Sebastian — because it was about The Tradition. It went into much more detail than Sebastian had, though that detail was more along the lines of how Traditional power worked in the world, with examples, and possible solutions to common problems. She noted that it must have been written for magicians, not Godmothers, because more than once the solution to a problem stated simply “call on a Godmother”.

She had to work very hard not to get too angry at this faceless thing that they called The Tradition, because of all things, she detested being manipulated, and this was manipulation on the grand scale.

Though if she was going to be honest, she would have to admit that she hated being manipulated in part because she did so much manipulation herself. Pot calling the kettle black, she noted wryly. Still…she’d never manipulated anyone but Genevieve and the twins, and that had been to keep peace in the household. Someone had to, or Genevieve all by herself would wreak the havoc of confusion — not to mention shatter the monthly budget. And…well, she more or less manipulated the rest of the household. She called it “managing,” but there was some manipulation, too. But wasn’t that what a good household head was supposed to do? You couldn’t just order people to get along and expect that they would do it. You had to make them want to.

Oh, yes, there is another excuse. It’s all “for their own good”. Sapphire brought her another flagon of mulled wine, and she took a sip to take the nasty taste of truth out of her mouth. And another, because she knew very well when she got home she wasn’t going to stop manipulating them.

Ugh. Truth was not fun. And often not pretty.

But this Tradition is already manipulating them. I’m just trying to counter it… And that was true — it was right here in black and white. When Stepmothers weren’t Wicked, or downright Murderous, they were generally Vain, Petty and Vindictive. And Stepsisters were perpetually Jealous, just as Petty and Vain, and Greedy. All by herself, without even knowing what she was doing, she had mitigated all of that, so the worst that could be said of Genevieve was that she was lazy and vain, not even Vain with the capital V. And the twins were entirely sweet-natured and well-intentioned. Well, all right, she hadn’t known she was doing all that before now, but now that she knew about the blasted Tradition, she could be more careful about what she did and how she did it. Only for real good, not for my good, and certainly not telling myself that it’s for their good. It was going to be a very hard vow to keep, but she knew she was going to have to do just that.

She sipped and read — the wine did a fairly good job of keeping her from getting too angry — making mental notes as she went along. Finally, the last of the wine was gone and she put the flagon up on one of the shelves in the headboard, and blinked, feeling it hit her with more force than she had expected.

Well, then, time to sleep… She blew out the candles, and set the book aside…and the next thing she knew, it was morning.

For a moment she was confused by how muffled sound was, until she remembered the wax and pulled it out of her ears. It was a brilliantly sunny day, and she groaned as she started to get out of bed, feeling her legs aching and sore despite the hot bath and the liniment.

I hurt in muscles I didn’t even know I had! she thought, and moaned a little again. Sapphire whisked into the bedroom at that, bringing the liniment with her, and Bella was very glad to see it, too.

It seemed that Eric had planned more of the same for her today, for another of Sebastian’s old suits had been laid out. But there had been some additions to it — some lovely embroidery at the square neck, and a little lace at the cuffs and neck of the shirt. Nothing that Sebastian would have worn, she was sure, since she had a good idea of his taste now. She smiled to see it, though; this had to be Sapphire’s work, and Sapphire was determined to make sure no one forgot she was a girl!

But the first thing she did was go straight to her mirror and her message box. She read her letter with one eye on the mirror; she wanted to see her father’s reaction to his. She had written to her father about her adventures in weaponry and horseback riding, and to her relief, he seemed more amused than anything else. His letter had been full of news about the way that the servants were taking care of him, “cosseting me” in his words. And how Genevieve seemed to be working with the Housekeeper, which was nothing short of astonishing so far as Bella was concerned.

The vague, uneasy thought flitted across her mind. What if they don’t need me, after all? Would she still be welcome? Wanted? It vanished a moment later, but the taste of it lingered.

Meanwhile she waited, watching, for him to get to the part where she told him that she had not changed on the first night of the full moon. And when he did, the sheer joy in his face practically took her breath away.

And it quelled the unease. There was no doubt he wanted her back home.

She went down to breakfast to find Eric there; he didn’t seem to notice the little additions to her attire.