“Once there was a good and dutiful girl who stayed home and toiled while her two older sisters went out every night to drink and dance in the town.
“One day, when all the sisters were in the kitchen, a strange bird came and perched on the windowsill. It was large and dusty and ugly with a long, dangerously curved beak. The two older sisters shrieked, and one took up a broom to beat at the creature and chase it away. But when they had gone to attire themselves in beads and satin for the night’s revels, the bird returned. Instead of chasing it away, the youngest sister spoke kindly to it and offered it a dish of corn. Then she took a damp cloth to the bird’s feathers, crooning nonsense to it all the while. When the bird was finally clean, she could see it had plumage of iridescent gold and that its beak shone like topaz. It flapped its great wings and flew away, but returned every night that week once the older sisters were gone to their parties, and sang pretty songs while the youngest did her work.
“On the seventh day, the bird waited until the older sisters had left to prepare for their fun, then flew in through the kitchen window. All at once there was a great flapping of wings and a sound like trumpets. There in the kitchen, where the bird had been mere moments before, the girl now beheld a handsome prince dressed in robes of gold.
“‘Come away with me to my palace by the sea,’ said the prince, ‘and all will pay you homage and you will want for nothing in this life.’ And as you may know, when you have had very little and worked very hard, that is no small offer.
“So the girl put her hand in the prince’s and away they flew to his palace by the sea. But once they arrived, the girl found that the king and queen were not so happy with his choice of a peasant bride. So the queen set three challenges for the girl—”
The beast snarled and Ayama jumped, for she hadn’t realized that he’d lain down quite so close to her, his snout nearly touching her knee. His lips were pulled back in a sneer.
“What a foolish story you’ve brought me this time,” he complained. “She will accomplish the three tasks and wed the handsome prince. What joy for them both.”
“Nonsense!” said Ayama straightaway, for she’d thought on this story quite a long time as she’d walked through the wild lands, and how the ending she’d been told as a child had seemed far more enchanting before she’d actually met and spoken to royalty. “Of course that’s not how it ends. No. Do you remember the girl’s older sisters?”
The beast gave a grudging nod and settled his great head on his forepaws.
“It’s true they were selfish and silly in many ways,” said Ayama. “But they also loved their youngest sister dearly. As soon as they found her missing and a golden feather on the chair, they guessed what had happened, for they had seen plenty of the world. They saddled their horses and rode all day and all night to reach the palace by the sea, then pounded on the doors until the guards let them in.
“When the sisters entered the throne room, making a racket and demanding that their sister return home to them, the prince insisted that they were just jealous sorts who wanted to be princesses themselves, and that they were wicked girls who liked to drink and dance and be free with their favors. In fact, the sisters did like all those things, and it was precisely because they’d seen so much and done so much that they knew better than to trust handsome faces and fine titles. They pointed their fingers and raised their loud voices and demanded to know why, if the prince loved their sister so, he should let her be made to perform tasks to prove her worth. And when he did not answer, they stomped their slippered feet and demanded to know why, if the prince was worthy of their sister, he should bend so easily to his parents’ will. The prince had no answer but stood there stammering, still handsome, but perhaps a bit less so now that he had nothing to say.
“The sisters apologized for not doing their share of the chores and promised to take the girl to parties so she wouldn’t have to settle for the first boy who flew in through her window. The younger sister saw the wisdom in this bargain, and they all returned home together, where their days were full of work made easier in the sharing, and their nights were full of laughter and carousing.”
“And what lesson am I to learn from this story?” asked the beast when she was done.
“That there are better things than princes.”
Now Ayama stood and the beast knelt before her, his big shaggy head bowed, his horns glowing. “Do you have no more stories for me, little messenger?”
“Only one,” said Ayama, the jagged knife in her hand, “the story of a girl who was sent into the wood to slay a terrible monster.”
“And did she?”
“You have committed dreadful crimes, beast.”
“Have I?”
“Speak truth.”
“I killed the king’s soldiers for they wanted to kill me,” he admitted. “I tried to reason with them, but people do not always hear the words of a beast.”
Ayama knew what it was not to be heard, and she also knew the beast did not lie. He might sometimes be cruel, and he was most certainly dangerous, but he was truthful—just like the thorn wood. For when Ayama had awoken after her adventures, it was the wounds from the thicket that had proven all the sweet blossoms and starlight had been real.
“They have told me to return with your heart,” she said.
The beast gazed upon her with his blood-red eyes. “Then perhaps you should.”
Ayama thought of the king who had imprisoned a monster when he might have raised a son, a king who blamed that monster for his people’s suffering while doing nothing to ease it. She thought too of the first question the beast had asked her, when she’d knelt by the pool and he’d knocked the cup from her hand.
Do you wish to become a monster?
Ayama returned the knife to her pocket and withdrew her little copper cup.
“Beast,” she said, “I am thirsty.”
The beast let Ayama bind his forepaws with the iron brambles of the thorn wood, and across the wild lands they traveled, Ayama sheltered from the sun by the shadow of her towering companion.
When they entered the valley and came in good time to the town, many people ran from the streets, scattering to their houses and pulling the shutters closed. But others trailed after them, staring at Ayama in her wide hat and apron and at the beast bound in thorns.
Up the hill to the palace went Ayama and the beast, through the great gates, followed by the crowd. When the guards saw Ayama, they leapt to attention, for she walked with her head held high. She was still the same solid, graceless kitchen girl, but she was also the girl who had thrice survived a monster and who now herded him through the city as he snorted and glared at anyone who came near, his twisted horns gleaming with mysterious light.