Beastling of Grey Village by Katie Mansion

In the far reaches of an old storybook, there lived a princess who resented the charge of her crown. Her burden was heavy and her riches grown stale.  

On Midwinter Day, she drew on her ermine cloak, and set off into the forest under the expectant light of dawn, watched only by the will-o-the-wisps dancing over the blue-white snowbanks.

She shivered in the biting wind, and the silk of her dress was surely ruined to the knees. A suitable trade, she would have said, were her lips not numb.

As the last star bowed to the light of day, the Princess came upon the treasure she sought.

The door to the Witch’s cottage was warm as she knocked, warm as though bathed by a summer afternoon sun. The Princess bared her teeth in a practiced smile as she was admitted. Victory, of a kind.

The Witch sat on the low wooden stool of a beggar. Old and stooped, she shelled peas into a wooden bowl held aloft by her knees. Each pea a different hue, as they struck the bowl, each rang with a different sound – a child’s giggle, a teacher’s chastisement, a father’s gentle instruction.

“You seek?”

“How did you know?” Asked the Princess, given to suspicion by nature and nurture.

“All who visit are seekers,” the Witch said simply. She gestured to the floor before her.

On knees unused to bending, the Princess sank gracefully to the floor.

“Ask, then,” the Witch barked, not unkindly.

“I seek my freedom,” the Princess gasped, the words torn unbidden from her throat. They left a bitter tang of resentment in their wake.

A pea hit the worn walnut bowl with a lamenting wail.

“I am bartered, I am begged. My time is not my own. Others demand, instruct or order, and I wish to taste possibility. My riches are not worth my pains.”

“Strong magic, but within my power.” The Witch looked her in the eye then, and the Princess near flinched. Amid a face worn from endless suns, the witch’s eyes were cataract-white. Blank and bottomless.

The Witch sought then to warn the Princess, so she might consider all the ways this bargain could harm her. It was a valiant effort, but the Princess paid no heed. For she was a politician, merely one who wore a crown. Blind to her needs and full of desire.

Unheard was the pleading note in the Witch’s voice.

“What of the cost?” The Princess asked, eager to finish.

“Your names.”

This was no little thing, the Princess supposed, but easily sacrificed. After all, her given name rarely passed the lips of her people or her court. Princess was her title, and Princess the sum of her soul.

A title was so much easier for people, for titles had bearers, not feelings. A crown was more useful than a girl.

“Done,” she said.

The witch silently held out the bowl. With fingers that trembled though nimble and quick, the Princess took one, and placed it upon her tongue.

The cottage was silent.

“Nothing happened!” She seethed.

“It did,” the Witch replied, sad and knowing.

Mollified, she returned through the ice-thick woods. The snow crunched crisp with possibility, and she hastened to return, placing foot upon footprint.

When she arrived at the castle gates, she was barred by the guards’ crossed pikes.

“Name?”

“I…” The syllables of her name were lost to her, and when she sought them, they danced beyond reach.

In that moment her mistake was clear. For her name was not only those bequeathed at her birth, but titles bestowed.

Her name was her place in the world, and that was the true cost of the Witch’s bargain.

“I am She,” She whispered, as tears of icy contrition carved their way down her cheeks. Regret is cold, and it froze the tears like pearls upon her face.

“That’s not a name,” the guard sniffed. “That’s a state. A fragment of identity.”

“I was born within these walls, this castle my birthright.” she hissed, indignant in the face of their refusal.

She knew these guards, but they did not know her. Recognition had been stripped, bargained away along with her name.

A flame sparked within her heart. The kindling hadn’t yet caught, the fire merely a match. Struck and flickering. The guard’s words added to the fire, and as She wept, the inferno grew.

“Useless!” She cried at the unmoving guards. “Pathetic! The King ought to dismiss you from his ranks!”

Her words were barbed, but they glanced off their armor, and earned her naught but a boot to her chest.

Shivering, gasping, and furious, She staggered away. Bereft of options, She followed the lane towards the nearest village. It was unpaved, little more than two ruts in the grass, and She cursed her family’s apathy when she tripped upon unseen potholes and boulders.

For had She not agreed with her parents, when the Queen had sneered “What need have peasants for paved roads?”

The village had felt the Crown’s cruelty. Neglect of funds and kindness, the village felt loss. Gaps on the table on feast day, grain stretched longer with chaff.

She stumbled into the village and had no choice but to cast herself at their feet. To depend on their mercy.

But mercy had starved, and each worn door of the cottages, tenements and farmhouses shut in her face in a percussion of refusal.

Alone in the dark, She dug into that rage she felt, and screamed into the oncoming storm. She roared, feeling it bow her spine and form fingers into claws, until she sank into the fetid mud of the village square.

“What a beastly creature,” a voice said, with a detached neutrality. Like discussing the quality of a pair of boots.

A woman and two men standing above her. They were villagers by their clothing, and elders by their bearing. They had born witness to hardship, and earned the pride that straightened their shoulders.

“Horrible,” the others agreed.

Perhaps not all kindness had starved, for they showed her to a pig pen, where they handed her a barrow and fork, and bade her set to work.

“But- my clothes!” She protested, lifting her hems from the filth.

The old woman of the small cottage nearby, looked at Her, and nodded quietly. She left, then returned with an armful of homespun clothes.

Shaking her head, She snarled up at the woman. “No.”

“My daughter and son-in-law died,” the old woman replied, “I have six granddaughters to provide for. Your clothes, though ruined, will pay for your shelter. Your labor, for your food. This is the bargain I strike.”

Fingering the rough fabric, She hesitated. It was only hours ago she lost so much more than she imagined in a bargain. But the witch had warned her, and it was a deadly night.

So she donned the rags and took up the fork.

The bells tolled midnight as She threw down her fork. Vicious satisfaction warmed her when it struck the stone pen with a clatter than cleaved the night.

There was a shed, little more than a lean-to against the pigpen, and this was to be her home. It was full of straw and the chatter of rats, yet it was blessedly dry, and straw was better than mud to lay her head.

She cried that first night. Hot, furious tears borne of her soul. It was confusing, how the old woman’s kindness felt so much like cruelty.

The next day, She was awoken by the woman’s oldest granddaughter.

“Beastling! You’re late!”

“That’s not my name,” She growled. “My name is…”

The small girl frowned down at her. “Granny says it’s Beastling. The mayor decided.”

Barely dawn, but already She shook with rage.

Beastling.

Humanity could be stripped, but girlhood was permanent. She was not even granted the insult of Beast.

But there was no other name, so she wrenched it on like a shoe two sizes too small.

Beastling’s new life held little comfort and littler joy. Each night brought pains and tears soaked into straw.

Each day, she found her own little way to lash out at the world.

On the second day, she spilt pig muck on the cottage path. In the second week, she broke the baker’s cartwheel, tumbling flour into the puddles. In the second month, she sowed the mayor’s vegetable garden with salt.

There was always a reason. The eldest granddaughter mocked her grief. The baker leched and leered. The mayor kicked at village cats.

Grey village was boiling with anger, and after she finished her chores each day, Beastling stalked out of the village. On the riverbank, a willow tree perched on the verge of surrendering but persevering through spite.

She admired that.

It was her single place of peace, and daily she sat in the embrace of its branches. The smoldering coal of anger in her heart cooled in the leafy cocoon, listening to the sweet song of the birds.

After a season, the miller’s son appeared. He approached slowly, a little each day, and one afternoon, he parted the branches and bade her a question. “May I sit with you, Beastling?”

The miller’s son, Percy, was poor but honest. He too felt alone in the world, for his parents were bitter, scorning the hues in his soul. He saw in Beastling a kindred spirit.

Beastling scowled. “I shan’t stop you, but call me Beastling again, I’ll put frogs down your shirt.”

Percy nodded slowly and took out his sketchbook and a nub of graphite. He set to sketching, and Beastling squashed her curiosity as she wove reeds into baskets.

A season passed, with it, the search for the King’s heir. Hope withered like spring blooms.  

Each day, she threw herself down beneath the willow tree, stubbornly angry. Each day, Percy ambled along and sat his burly frame down. He gently talked to her of his day, and asked about hers. He talked her out of vengeance, and admired her fire. Showed her his drawings, and asked for her story.

He never once called her Beastling.

One day, he arrived with sadness weighing his tread. “Will you stay here forever?” He asked.

Beastling shrugged and tore at the grass. “Expect so. I am trapped by my choices.”

“Would you leave?”

“I have no possessions, not even a name. Where could I go?”

“With me. I have an artist’s apprenticeship and I leave with the harvest.”

Beastling considered this. She should go. She liked Percy, his sweetness and his smile.

But there was bad blood in the village, and revenge to deal out.

Beastling left the willow tree then and did not return. She threw herself into righteous fury, but no longer was she satisfied. She felt a bone-deep melancholy and longed for her friend.

As the harvest neared, her rage-fire cooled. It burned itself out, banked with sadness.

On Harvest’s Day, the streamers were bright, and the villagers danced. Beastling watched from her shed as Percy bade farewell, bag in hand. It was no easy parting, and the shouting echoed.

Beastling felt compassion, then, for Percy.

By the time she reached the market square, he was gone, and she readied her claws. The millers deserved her ire, did they not? They should pay for their cruelty to Percy.

But she would lose him. He’d be gone with the breeze, his absence a wound.

Her choice to make.

Beastling threw down her fork and tore down the lane. His arm was warm when she caught it.

“Would – would you take me, as I am? I am only Beastling.”

“I would.” He smiled, radiant. “But we should leave Beastling here with the pigs.”

He hugged her then, and named her Juniper for the fragrant tree that grew by mill. Together, they broke the curse she’d lain on herself on Midwinter Day.

Hand in hand, they left that miserable village in that selfish kingdom, and searched for bluer skies.

Katie Mansion is a lover of fairytales and retellings living in Buckinghamshire, England. When not working as an engineer, she is dreaming up new magic and hanging out with her cat, Bandit.