Chapter 41: The Beast's Gift

Violet was awoken after some hours by the golden press of sunlight, brighter than she’d expected. Even through the glare it took some time to fully wake up, for her sleep had been heavy and profoundly dreamless. She had to wriggle free of it like a wet blanket.

The night was entirely gone and above her Violet could see tiny constellations of azure poking through the holes in the church’s ragged roof, not Glow but rather a cloudless daytime sky. Given that she could see nothing of the sun along the eastern horizon, morning had to be long gone.

Violet blinked delicately as she worked to order her thoughts, for her head remained abominably tender and there was an unsettled nausea clinging to the very bottommost part of her stomach.

“There she is.” The cat said cheerfully as it strolled along the backing of a pew.

“Half the day is gone,” Violet mumbled faintly, her mouth tacky and dry. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“You looked like you needed your rest,” the cat said. “Is your head…?” It abandoned the question with a wince, the answer already apparent.

“Maybe I am getting sick.” Violet said, and was unnerved by by just how much that simple admission frightened her. At home getting sick was no big deal; she’d linger in bed for a few days, feeling extremely sorry for herself, then it would clear up and all would be well.

Her current situation was drastically different. She was a long way from home, from her bed and her mother. From…anything. If whatever was wrong with her became truly serious, she’d be in terrible trouble.

Violet brushed those thoughts aside before they could percolate further and looked around herself. The low, heady thrum of working bees had returned and there was the beast lingering close to the alter, its gaze downcast and fabric restlessly rippling. It seemed to be thinking about something, flicking the machine on and off to the beat of a rhythm only apparent to itself.

Out of the corner of one eye Violet saw the cat evaporate, then jolted as her companion popped suddenly from the shadows held by a fold of her blankets. It landed squarely in her lap and turned a half circle, finding solid ground atop her knees.

“Hmm.” The cat pronounced, fixing her with a sidelong gaze.

“What?” Violet asked.

“I’m trying to think if there’s anything that tastes worse than feverfew.”

This wrung a tired smile from Violet, who found her gaze drifting back to the church door.

“We should get going,” she said. “…Before we lose any more of the day.”

“You should eat something first.” The cat said.

Violet knew this was good advice but could only wince.

“My stomach feels funny.”

Seeing that she was up, the beast slid smoothly over and settled close, just barely within arm’s reach.

g o o d -- m o r n i n g ---- It said with a small and very polite dip of its head.

“Good morning.” Violet answered.

“At least some tea then,” the cat insisted, pulling Violet’s attention back to it. “Should I bother with the willow bark, or…?”

“Can you make tea out of columbines?” Violet asked.

At this the cat showed the edge of a smile, needle sharp fangs flashing free.

“I’ll fetch some mint as well.” It said, but even as her companion began to turn towards the nearest patch of shadow, Violet straightened.

“If we start a fire, won’t the spirit….” The words, a great hurried tumble of them, abruptly dried up as she remembered. To fully recall felt strange, like revisiting the framework of a dream.

The beast sighed quietly. The cat nodded.

“Even if…well….” The cat shrugged briskly. “We’d be fine regardless. Spirits don’t like going out in the daytime.”

Violet considered asking why but couldn’t recall whether or not the cat had told her this particular tidbit back on the island. Instead she sagged into her blankets and looked to the bare stretch of stone floor that stretched between the pews. With ground this solid and safe it was hardly necessary to build a fire ring. All that remained was to collect fuel, and the beast rose to it immediately.

Seeing that preparations were underway, the cat slid off into unspace and Violet watched as the beast carefully inspected a number of pews before nodding approvingly at a dry one that had been spared the worst of the rain.

Leaning forward, the beast opened its jaws wide and patiently levered the pew’s backboard free, leaving the rest of the construction to sag and collapse into a splintered heap. The beast looked slightly baffled by this and Violet couldn’t help but giggle, even if doing so hurt her head.

The beast nosed very patiently through the collapsed remains of the pew, occasionally handing pieces of wood over, and Violet realized after the second or third fragment that it was only giving her the chunks that had no nails sticking out of them.

When she arranged the longer pieces into a careful pyramid the beast watched with unhidden interest, though this time it was careful to keep a safe distance when she showered the tinder with sparks from her lighter and then carefully kindled a blaze. It clearly hadn’t forgotten the corner of itself singed on a previous campfire.

A buzzing cadre of bees swirled around the trickle of smoke rising skyward, as though inspecting the cone of a newly active volcano, but whatever they made of it did not seem to be serious, for they returned to their errands soon enough.

As soon as there were coals Violet nestled the kettle at their edge and sat back, gathering her blankets more tightly around herself. The beast observed this with a slightly cocked head, then clicked its jaws, amused.

y o u -- l o o k -- l i k e -- m e

Violet blinked, momentarily baffled, then glanced over herself and smiled, for she was wrapped in fabric from the neck down, body entirely concealed.

“Beast?” She asked.

y e s ?

“What do you look like underneath the fabric?” The question tumbled from her lips before she could gauge its wiseness, but the beast did not seem troubled. It glanced over itself, a pale nimbus of yellowy firelight playing across the polished bridge of its skull, then rose until it was barely touching the ground.

As Violet watched the beast unfurled itself, the fabric stretching wider and longer, creases and wrinkles ironing themselves out, until it felt almost as though she herself were about to be enveloped. Flights of honeybees turned mad loops around the beast’s skull as though celebrating this occurrence, and then items began dropping from out of the fabric.

They were small at first, coins and screws and silver discs with circuitry printed upon their material. Acorns and bits of polished wood clattered to the floor and Violet saw a piece of pink quartz go bouncing off underneath the pews, sparkling like a diamond as it went.

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Books thumped down, their pages gummed together by time and the elements. The polished wooden base of a snow globe fell into the flames but the beast didn’t seem to notice. And then there were familiar things too, cartons and shreds of crinkly plastic with exuberant writing upon them. The beast had carefully collected her detritus and filed it away. At the end of it all fell the machine, still crackling, its glass screen dappled with numbers.

Violet ignored it and looked to the beast instead, which floated in the air, the ragged, frayed edges of its fabric extending out like wings from either side of its skull.

“How long have you been collecting all of this?” Violet asked, looking to the scattered trove of beastly treasures that surrounded her. She wasn’t sure if it would be right to touch them.

Slowly, the beast gathered its fabric back into a more familiar arrangement and sank back down. It seemed smaller now, light in the same way a paper lantern was. Following her uncertain gaze, the beast leaned over and nudged one of the plastic discs against Violet’s knee, inviting her to inspect it.

t h i s -- h a s -- b e e n .. .. f o r e v e r ---- The beast said at last, but did not seem sad to be revealing such a thing. Instead, there was a gentle pride in its voice.

Violet found the dusty form of a cardboard cracker carton, pressed carefully flat so as to travel better, and turned it over. There were facts about cheetahs on the back. She’d read one of them aloud but could not immediately recall if she’d gotten around to the other.

“Did you know that cheetahs are the only species of big cat that cannot roar?” She asked.

The beast nodded slightly.

i -- t h i n k -- s o

It sounded certain enough that Violet knew the beast was only being humble.

“Maybe you were a zookeeper.” She suggested, but though the beast made a good effort at pretending to be intrigued by the possibility, Violet knew that no deeper connection had been sparked.

The beast would have to remain a mystery for the time being. Which was alright. Violet had a feeling that all would be revealed once they reached the Glow.

She helped the beast regather its possessions, but though Violet made a neat pile of books and trinkets a safe distance from the fire, there was a careful order to how the beast went about things.

Small items were stowed first, feathers and bottle caps and pieces of cloth that must have been brightly colored once but were now faded and threadbare. The cartons and other laminated bits of packaging, in a whole dapple of decaying hues.

As the beast reorganized, Violet suddenly remembered something and leaned over, groping beneath the adjacent pews until she found the chunk of pink quartz where it had come to rest in a bed of soft, feathery green lichen. It was streaked with droplets of moisture and Violet wiped them off with one sleeve. A chipped corner of the material crumbled away.

At this the beast leaned forward and delicately took the quartz from her with the tips of its teeth. But rather than stow it safely away, the beast flicked its nose smartly downward and dashed the quartz against the church floor with a hard, echoing crack.

Shards of pink scattered in a dozen different directions and Violet jumped as she was pelted by a few of the smaller pieces. She stared, watching as the beast nosed through the debris.

t h e -- s t a t e -- o f -- t h i n g s -- w i l l -- a l w a y s -- c h a n g e ---- The beast said as it straightened back up with a glittering fragment of pink quartz held between its teeth. ---- b u t -- t h e i r -- n a t u r e -- s o m e t i m e s -- r e m a i n s -- t h e -- s a m e

Violet had never seen anyone smash a beautiful thing simply to prove a point before, but suddenly she had a hard time imagining what else her companion might have done instead.

The beast nudged its nose against her fingers and Violet held one hand uncertainly out. With that, it dropped the chunk of quartz into her palm and then sat back, watching intently.

“Thank you.” Violet said, still halfway surprised. Her eyes fell to the shards of quartz still scattered across the floor, but the beast was already shaking its head.

t h e r e -- w i l l -- a l w a y s -- b e -- o t h e r s ---- It said.

Violet rolled the present between her fingers. It was roughly diamond shaped and streaked with tiny veins of silver. When she held it up to the light they glittered and seemed to illuminate the quartz yet further.

“Where did you find this?”

i -- d o n ’ t -- r e m e m b e r ---- Said the beast. ---- b u t -- i t ’ s -- b e a u t i f u l

That it was. She could only look away reluctantly.

“What about everything else?” Violet began to ask, then realized that pursuing an origin for every single item in the beast’s possession was probably excessive. “…What’s your favorite item you own?”

i ’ m -- n o t -- s o -- s u r e -- a b o u t -- o w n i n g

                t h e y -- m u s t -- h a v e -- b e l o n g e d -- t o -- o t h e r s .. -- b e f o r e -- i -- c a m e -- a l o n g

The beast spent a moment hunting through the pile of items Violet had collated, then came back up with a small silver disc, or what Violet might have assumed was one had she not seen the many dozens of finely machined teeth all along its edges. There was a tiny hole in its center, the edges chipped and worn.

Violet took the proffered item and turned it delicately over, her piece of quartz shuffled awkwardly between two fingers.

“What is it?” She asked.

i -- d o -- n o t -- k n o w

        i t -- h a s -- s i g n i f i c a n c e , -- i -- t h i n k ,

                a s -- t h e s e -- a l l -- d o .. -- i n -- t h e i r -- o w n -- w a y s

Violet handed the silver disc back over and watched as the beast swallowed it, moving with evident care. With that done, it moved to collect those items that still remained.

Violet rolled the piece of quartz between her fingers.

“I’ll make this into a necklace.” She decidedly, which earned her an approving nod from the beast.

After a little while the cat returned, stepping comfortably out of a shadow cast by the beast, a great bouquet of columbines, mint and feverfew held in its teeth. Violet could see streaks of blood staining a few of the longer flower stems and assumed that her companion had taken the opportunity to go hunting in the middle of its other errands.

“Mph,” the cat complained indistinctly, then set its load of foliage into Violet’s lap so as to be better understood. “I saw four false animals while collecting tea supplies. They’re really out in force today.”

Violet couldn’t help but tense.

“Were they close to here?” She asked uncertainly.

“Not very,” the cat said, and though Violet could tell that her companion was making an effort to appear more nonchalant than it truly was, she didn’t think it was actually frightened. “Your friend the influence is back to locking me out, so I can't tell what it’s up to.”

The kettle was beginning to whine and bubble so Violet gingerly shifted it away from the flames. She didn’t think her head could abide a rising whistle.

“The beast gave me a piece of quartz.” She said, electing to change the subject.

“Ah.” The cat said with a sober nod, unable or unwilling to add anything else.

Focusing further on her tea, Violet stripped the columbines of their blossoms, collected mint leaves from their stems…then found herself hesitating at the sight of the feverfew, their innocuous golden blooms staring innocently up at her.

“Come on, they’re good for you.” The cat cajoled, nudging at her elbow with the whole of its body weight.

“None of it’s helped.” Violet said.

“You can’t say that. For all you know, you’d be feeling much worse right now had you not bravely swallowed all manner of willow bark and feverfew concoctions.” The cat countered. “Besides, you’ve got mint and columbines to even the flavor out.”

Violet wasn’t convinced that anything could neutralize the bitterness of feverfew. The cat did have a point, she knew, but the sourness in the pit of her stomach made the prospect of enduring yet more herbal remedies a dismal one.

“How about this,” the cat said after a moment of silence. “I’ll have a sip of tea…to commiserate if nothing else. But only if you promise to drink the rest.”

At this Violet perked up a little.

“Really?” She asked.

“Really,” the cat confirmed. “My palate is much more sensitive than yours, so if I can do it then you really have no excuse not to.”

Violet found herself nodding, lured in.

“First popcorn, now tea,” she said. “Are you developing a taste for human food?”

The cat gave her a mildly scandalized look and elected not to answer. Violet giggled and got to work adding the feverfew to her tea. If nothing else, she figured, the flavors would be interesting.

Once the tea was fully steeped and somewhat cooler, the cat gathered itself and leaned in, gentle curls of slowly rising steam tracing through its whiskers. For a moment Violet was sure that it would offer only a dainty little lap and leave it at that, but her companion took a proper mouthful and then sat back, a peculiar jitter running the length of its body. Then it had swallowed and was busily propping itself straight, a grimace barely suppressed.

“There,” the cat declared, whiskers askew. “That wasn’t so bad.”

Violet didn’t believe this for a second, but the cat had kept its end of the bargain, so she resolved to keep hers as well, swallowing the tea down as quickly as possible.

And, strangely, the cat was right. When taken like this, the tea wasn’t bad at all.