Ellen Datlow - The Beastly Bride

I don’t trust Molly anymore. She doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does. I don’t want to take some pill that will make my hair fall out.

I don’t tell her, but, even though I owe it to her, I’m not sure I want to stay here much longer. Maybe just look up some more things on the computer. Get her to print some pictures of my possible fathers. I don’t belong down here. Hi said so, too. And I miss the mountains. Mother said I was made for them. I was always warm enough up there, even my feet. Mother’s feet were always cold. What if she’s back there by now? Though I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

Next day Molly pretends to go to school and then comes home. She’s going to go back to school for her dad to pick her up. I guess her dad can’t keep tabs on her all the time.

(Here I am wishing I could go to school and she can and doesn’t do it.)

So we print out all the pictures of Sasquatch, and Yeti, and Bigfoot. None of them look very nice. I like having their pictures, though. I fold them up and button them in the pocket of the shirt Hi gave me.

The next day Molly does go to school. She says she can’t afford to miss too much. She’s not doing very well in French (French! I wonder if I could ever get to take that) and math. She says her dad is already angry enough without her failing two subjects. So I have the whole place to myself again.

I go to the house and bring back food and books, but then I think I should be reading that little book of Mother’s. Maybe I can find out why she went with such an odd. creature. I almost thought “person,” but I’m not sure if either my father or I can be called a person.

I pry open the lock on Mother’s little leather book and there, right on the first page in big letters, she’d written:

A TALE OF TRUE LOVE!!!

And underneath that:

Except at first I didn’t know it.

I shouldn’t have been climbing alone in such a dangerous place, but I like being on the cliffs by myself. I was having an exciting time on a dangerous little trail. I remember falling.

. and then, there I was, looking up into big brown eyes. The creature —Mother calls him a creature, too— was mopping my forehead with a cool cloth. He was grunting little sad grunts. As if he was sorry for me. The way he looked — completely hairy — I never expected him to be able to speak, but when he saw my eyes were open, he said, “I thought maybe you were dead.”

I tried to get up, but I hurt all over.

“Lie still,” the creature said. And then he brought me water in a folding cup, held my head so I could drink.

I had broken my leg and my arm but I didn’t know that then.

He whistled a kind of complicated birdsong and right after that another one just like him came. They’ve got a whistling language. Lots of it exactly like real birdsongs. I love that. I never mastered it though. They use our language, too.

The other one wore a fisherman’s vest full of pockets. He had soft vinelike ropes. They tied my arm and leg to pieces of wood to keep them from moving. They put me in a kind of hammock, and took me to their hidden village. Movable village. They hardly spend two nights in a row in the same place.

Then there’s a break and the start of a new page.

Dear Sabine,

So this is for me. I’m supposed to read it.

As you see, that’s what I wrote shortly after the accident, and then such a lot happened that I stopped writing. Actually for years. It was partly because I had to take care of you. But now it’s because of you that I’m writing again. I want you to know about us, Growen and me. It was Growen’s brother, Greener, who helped Growen rescue me. All the others were against it. They thought helping me was dangerous. I must have lain unconscious for most of the day before they finally decided to help. If not for Growen, they never would have. I think Growen fell in love right then, but it took me a little longer.

You know, Binny, they’re beautiful. Not like any of the pictures people make of them. You must NOT think they’re like those. And you should know how beautiful you are, too.

Am I really?

At first I couldn’t tell them apart. I mean Growen and Greener, or any of them for that matter. Well, I could tell the men from the women. Then I saw that Growen looked at me in a different way. Hopeful. I almost wrote yearning, but it wasn’t that because he always looked sure of himself. As if what he wanted would come true, it was just a matter of when. As if he knew I’d soon see how worthy he was.

Binny, I hope you’re a grown-up as you read this and have fallen in love, too, so you understand.

Should I stop reading and keep this until I’m older? Besides, I haven’t even met anybody to be in love with. Or maybe I can read it twice, now, and then again later.

Of course I didn’t fall in love right away. Everybody and everything was too odd, but when you’re hurting and are treated with kindness, it makes all the difference. Growen was so concerned and helpful and kept looking at me with such admiration.

Except for Growen and Greener, none of the others liked me. They built our cabin and sent me and Growen down from their cliffs and caves and nests.

I don’t know what they’d do about you now. You’re so much more them than me. I hope they find you, though as long as I’m around they don’t want either of us. I’m a danger. Everything is a danger to them and I suppose they’re right. They can’t have been kept secret all this time without taking great care.

I hope nothing I do reveals them. Can you imagine, all of them shut up in the zoo? Or tourists swarming all over taking their picture? Or yours? Be careful!!!!! Don’t ever, ever, ever go down where it’s so hard to hide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, my God. What have I done!

I didn’t realize how important it is for me to be a secret. Me just being down here is a danger to all of them. I should say, all of us . And now Hi and Buck and Molly know about me. Hi said he wouldn’t show the pictures, but I’ll bet Buck will tell about me. He can’t prove it, though. At least I hope not.

And all of a sudden I want to find my kind so much I can’t stand to sit here one minute more. I have to get back. But I already roamed all over the place and none of them came to me and I never saw a single sign of them.

Though there are several more pages in the book, Mother only wrote a phrase here and there, as if she was going to go back and fill them in. One just has: Today Growen died . Maybe she felt too sad to go on except with these little notes.

I put on my shorts and T-shirt, and on top of that Hi’s green shirt, and then his wonderful waterproof hat. I don’t take anything of Molly’s, not even cookies. Except I wonder if she’d mind if I took her social studies book. I like the idea of all these different kinds and colors of people, even though nobody in it has hair all over. Besides, I don’t think Molly cares anything about social studies.

It doesn’t fit in Hi’s big pockets, though Mother’s book does. I’ll have to carry it separately. I’ll pick up one of those plastic bags that keep blowing around everywhere.

I feel bad that I’m not going to say good-bye. Molly got in a lot of trouble because of me. I ought to stay and help, but I’m not going to.