Finding Beauty

But remember your promise and come back [...] for if you do not come in good time you will find your faithful Beast dead.

—Madame de Villeneuve, Beauty and the Beast

I find him in the garden, limp among red roses, face slack in the gentle sleep of near-death.

I lay a hand on his chest, hard and still, no heaving breaths or deep rumble. To think I could hold his breath in my palm, have him beneath me.

There are pieces of me that want to lie down beside him. I will not tear myself apart to find them.

He is so much less menacing there on the cool green of the garden floor. The wind blows whistles through the leaves, roses whispering lullabies into the fallen beast’s death-dulled ears. They sing to me too.

I look at him, no longer seeing the iron-wrought gates of a prison. He lies here, teeth and claw pulled back to show the flesh underneath. I don't want it, now that I can see it all.

The garden has made itself a grave, roses bright red around his head, the lush grass coming up to swallow him. He can lie in the warm belly of it, and he won't see me walk away.