Chapter Text
Beatrice snorted. “Supposedly, it’s meant to ward off evil spirits. Well, Wirt? Is it working? Do you feel repulsed?”
She held up the pumpkin, a teasing smile lit up her freckled cheeks.
Wirt stuttered. “Uh. No. N-not really. I think it’s cute.”
He didn’t dare reach out and touch the jack-o-lantern in progress though, fearing that his touch would bring the gorge to life again and undo all of Beatrice’s hard work.
There was an invisible barrier between himself and the O’ Neal’s porch. Something within him stilled if he tried to get too close to it. His joints froze. Wirt felt as though he was being watched. And if he took one wrong step the floor would collapse underneath his feet. The feeling wasn’t rational. There was no logic to it. And if it was magical in nature, he could not sense it. The O’ Neals did not strike him as a family that would deal with witches anyway.
And yet, part of him expected Beatrice’s mother to come barreling out of the house brandishing a broomstick every time he came to visit her but the O’Neal matriarch was kind. Fierce but kind. (Like his own mother, if she was shaped like a teapot and a couple inches shorter. But thinking about mom often left him choked for words. He missed her. He missed Greg. He missed home. So he tried not to think about them.) Beatrice loved her mother, and the way she spoke of her father reminded him of his stepdad. Greg’s dad was a goofball. A practical jokester with the most boring job in the world. He was an economics professor with the heart of a class clown. In contrast to Wirt’s father, a wealthy CEO of a theme park franchise and the strictest man Wirt had ever met.
Beatrice’s folks were good people. They were farmers by necessity and bakers by trade, but the family earned most of their living from the gristmill. A couple times a month, neighbors came by to exchange wheat and corn for flour and grain. The O’Neals worked the mill and when they were done they sent their eldest into town to deliver the goods they promised.
They accepted almost anything in exchange for use of the mill; food, tools, textiles, you name it. Wirt’s middling offerings of berries, truffles and wild carrots were more than enough, Beatrice reassured him, whenever he stopped by to make use of the mill. Once, Wirt had offered to lead a deer nearby for Mr. O’Neal to hunt, but Beatrice took one look at his face and firmly told him that wasn’t necessary. Not to mention dangerous, Wirt! What if he shoots you by accident? Yeah, no. We’re not doing that.
Still, Wirt was unable to help his cautiousness as he peered through the bars of porch railing to admire Beatrice’s handy work. This was as close as he could bring himself to be and his heart was still an anxious flutter in his throat.
It was a beautiful jack-o-lantern. Bright orange and freshly washed. Beatrice had carved a vampiric smile for its mouth, given it a classic triangular nose, and impressively, carved smooth half moons for the jack-o-lantern's eyes. There was a trick to that, but Wirt hadn’t been given the chance to learn it. His mother could carve fine works of art into pumpkins too.
“Well?” Beatrice pressed.
“It looks great,” Wirt said earnestly. His eyes slid up past her to the door of the homestead. It was shut but… he could hear the collective boisterous voices of the family inside.
Beatrice beamed. “Thanks. I have another pumpkin right here with your name on it. Why don’t you join me on the porch and we can sit down together like civilized people. I feel exhausted watching you stand there all the time.” She saw his look, the doubt that flashed through his eyes though his face, like the rest of him, was hidden by the shadow that shrouded the Beast. “They don’t bite, you know. Well, except for Jeremiah. But he can’t be worse Greg.”
Wirt shook his head. “I appreciate the offer but no. No, thank you.”
Beatrice crossed her arms over the top of her Jack-o-lantern. “Is this like a fae-folk thing? Do you need permission to enter our house? Because I know mom gave you an open invitation to visit any time you wanted.”
“That’s not the same thing.” Wirt said, but truthfully he didn’t know enough about the Beast— or himself in the way he was now, to say if the monster was even tangentially related to the fae.
“Oh my stars, it is a fae thing, isn’t it?”
“No, really it’s not.”
Beatrice straightened her back. Her voice boomed. “I, Beatrice O'Neal, grant the Beastling, Wirt, permission to enter my family’s ancestral home whenever he damn well wants. But-especially-when-my-mother-invites-him-over-for-dinner.”
Wirt drew an involuntary breath blinking bright white eyes at the sensation of… something, unraveling. Like a knot in his chest, or the weave of a wicker basket coming undone. The sensation was not unlike getting caught in fragile spider silk, but in reverse.
“...wait, don’t tell me that actually worked .”
“I-I don’t know.” Eyes saucer wide, Wirt took a step back. “I don’t think it’s a good idea anyways. I mean, do your parents really want a monster—“
“You’re not a monster, Wirt.”
“—a beast,” Wirt corrected, dishonestly. He tried to ignore the painful tinge in his chest. “Do your parents really want a beast in their house? What if my antlers get caught on a chandelier? Or—or I track mud on the carpet.”
“First of all,” Beatrice began. “I’m flattered you think my family is wealthy enough to own a chandelier. Two, my mom popped out ten kids: she doesn’t care about mud. She knows you’re a wild thing. Heck, she lets the dog in the house. You can’t smell worse than the dog, Wirt.”
Wirt leveled her with a half-hearted glare. He could think of a dozen more realistic reasons for the O’Neals to be wary of letting him into their home.
Beatrice made a face. “Come on. Just take one step on the porch. Nothing bad will happen, I promise.”
Wirt did not move.
Inside the house, the O’Neals had quieted. Were they eavesdropping? Why bother asking, of course they were… their third eldest daughter was conversing with the creature known to steal people away. What reasonable, responsible parent would let their daughter talk to a monster like that alone?
Wirt swallowed. “Beatrice….”
“Just one step,” Beatrice urged gently, “you don’t even have to come inside.”
He bit the inside of his cheek. Stubbornness withering under his friend’s pleading look.
It took a herculean effort to shuffle closer. Instinct kept his head bowed, shoulders hunched, and that was a little bit embarrassing itself. But Wirt knew anxiety. It couldn’t be reasoned with. Trying to logic at the thing only fed it. He could’ve spent a month, steps from the porch, trying to rationalize how silly it was that the thought of entering Beatrice’s home sent his heart palpitating so hard in his chest, it felt like a physical wound. But it wouldn't have made a difference.
It felt like uprooting a tree, taking that first step on the lowest rung. A silent, little voice urged him to back away from the house. To plant his feet firmly in the soil, in the shade of the red October sun, flee deep into the forest away from this man-made thing, but that was silly. Wirt trusted Beatrice. He had no reason not to. He’d live in a house all his life before he became the Beast anyway. This was ridiculous.
If Beatrice was statuesque after he took the first step, she’d become all but invisible by the third. ‘You’re doing it, Wirt.’ The silent, breathless smile on her lips said. ‘You’re doing it.’
Under the porch itself now, Wirt took stock. The frantic flutter in his throat slowly eased the longer nothing happened.
He felt strange. Displaced. He’d woken up from one dream to enter another. He didn’t belong here. This was the domain of the Other.
A cheerful shriek shattered the fragile peace. The warmth drained from his face. Quick as a whip, and pouring backward like a shadow chased away by torchlight, he fled back into the garden, back into shade provided by the hedge surrounding the porch.
He caught his breath, gasping, and clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound. His eyes watered.
It took Beatrice a couple seconds for her eyes to catch up. When they did her face went red with anger. She twisted around and yelled. “Jeremiah! I’m going to strangle you! I’m going to kill you to death!”
There was a scuffle. Some scolding, whining, hushing. A beat passed. Enough time for Wirt to gulp down enough air to calm his racing heart. He clutched the lantern against his chest in the interim. Waiting. Breathing. Hating himself and this stupid, stupid impulse to run.
Caged behind his arms and the chamber of metal and glass, his soul flickered.
Beatrice leaned over the railing.
“Oh Wirt,” she sighed, as she found his dimly glowing eyes through the branches of the hedge. “You know my family is not scared of you, right?”
They should be . But the words were caught in his throat and he swallowed them back down because he knew Beatrice was as stubborn and pig-headed as he was and she’d already made up her mind.
“I know,” he said hoarsely.
“You don’t have to be scared of them either,” Beatrice added, softer.
He shook his head. “Maybe some other time, Beatrice. I’ll... I’ll tell the foxes to leave Mrs. O’Neal’s hen house alone.”
He peeled away from the hedge before she could catch his eye again. Down the shallow embankment and behind the waterwheel and across the creek to where the hill became steep again. He was well behind the treeline before he could bring himself to look back.
That was a mistake. Beatrice wasn’t alone on the porch anymore. Her mother and one of her brothers stood next to her. Her mother rubbed her shoulders, reassuring. She whispered something into her daughter’s ear. She looked sad. Beatrice’s brother leaned over the railing on her other side, trying to spot him in the dappled shade of the forest. The sun was low in the sky. The shadows long. He would not spot him.
But Beatrice’s eyes were fixed to where he stood.
Wirt gulped and shuffled back shamefully. He turned tail and sank deep into the woods. Maybe next time he wouldn't disappoint the only friend he had in this endless place. Maybe next time.