Beauty in the Beast Read Free Page B

thoughts, Rolph opened his eyes. “You say you’re storytellers.” His smile was not unkind, though it seemed wooden and did not quite meet his eyes, as if the expression was unpracticed. It turned decidedly wry. “I’m surprised. Have you not been replaced by talking automatons?”
    Miles snorted a laugh. “The mechanics have tried, though their automatons will never replace us. A tom doesn’t have the imagination to craft its own stories. It can only repeat the ones that we weave.”
    “Indeed.” Rolph arched his eyebrows.
    I straightened. “I have an idea. Why don’t we each tell you a story? To show our gratitude.” I glanced at the others.
    Miles nodded. “That sounds grand.”
    Rolph regarded us for a moment, then threw a long glance out the black front window, mouth turned down as if in thought. Outside, the wind howled like a thing that never lost its breath. At last he nodded. “If the storm still rages when you are finished, you are welcome to stay until morning.”
    Fred smiled sheepishly and gave a nod to Rolph. “My songs are far superior to my stories, so if it’s all the same to you, I would rather accompany my companions.”
    Rolph nodded.
    “I’ll—” Beth sneezed. “Sorry! I’ll go first. I can perform the piece I’ve rehearsed for the Frost Fair, if you don’t mind children’s stories. My puppets are in the sled, but I can manage without them, I’m sure.”
    Frederick leaped up. “Hold on. I’ll get them.”
    “Fred! Don’t you dare!” But he was already donning his coat.
    “Relax. He needs to fetch his lute. You wouldn’t want him to accompany us with his singing , would you?” I put a hand on Beth’s shoulder and looked up at Fred as he buttoned the coat. The musician winked down at me.
    When Fred returned, he carried his lute in one hand. He paused at the doorway to brush snow from his tangle of blond hair, then set Beth’s portmanteau by her side. She rummaged through it to produce several puppets and props. A Queen Victoria puppet with a foil crown, a suited knight, a long dragon made of silk, a collection of tiny finger puppets, two suited men with top hats and a small, crude replica of an analytical engine.
    She arranged them in front of her. “I call this one ‘The Steam-Powered Knight.’”
    Fred grinned and struck up a light tune. Miles pulled on his knit cap and lowered to the ground on Beth’s other side. Together we lifted the dragon puppet by the wires that articulated its wings and settled it behind Beth, out of sight. She glared at us as the tip of its silk tail tickled over her forehead, then laughed and settled into her story.

Chapter Two
    “Once upon a time, in a modern London very much like our own, a dragon awoke. Sleeping far beneath the ground in a cavern even deeper than the sewers, it had hibernated for four hundred years. Its rousing shook the streets of the city, and it burst to the surface in a shower of stone. It arrived in a huge, billowing cloud of smoke, so that everyone who saw it thought it was some sort of terrible new technology. Men and women ran screaming. Children’s hoops and balls went rolling. Steamcoaches crashed in the streets.”
    As Beth spoke, Miles and I raised the dragon above her head, stretching its neck and spreading its red wings like two terrible flames.
    “Please excuse me.” Beth interrupted herself. “We’ve a smoke machine for this part. Miles releases a huge burst of smoke as the dragon puppet wakes.” She pointed at the dragon above her head, finger tipped with a tiny puppet.
    Rolph cracked a small smile. The expression erased some of the etched lines in his face and softened the creases at the edges of his eyes, warming his face. My heart lifted just a little. Oh, stop . Not every rugged hermit is a prince in hiding or a tormented knight.
    Beth splayed her fingers, each sporting the tiny puppet of a person, wiggled them like citizens trembling in panic and returned to her narration.
    “‘It’s a