Hilary and the Beasts, Part 25

“Betty?” 

Hilary made her way to her sister’s room the next morning, carrying a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and berries. She wanted to ask her more about Bear’s progress. Neither she nor Bear had been at breakfast. Mrs. Fox had said something about Bear having tripped over something or the other and ended up with sore legs. He took his breakfast in his room. 

Her sisters had been moved into their own rooms two days after their arrival. Betty’s was smaller and not as lavish as hers, but it suited her. It was painted soft peach, with a lovely old polished wood desk that had a delightful view of the garden. Her bed was much smaller, with beige and pink cotton linens rather than the more lavish satin ones in her room. 

“Hilary?” Her youngest sister was bent over her typewriter at the desk…but the tapping wasn’t as rapid-fire as it normally was. “You can leave my breakfast on the table.” She nodded at the small oak stand next to her desk. “I’ll eat it when you finish here.”

She frowned, pulling a peach brocade-upholstered chair to her sister’s desk. “Betty,” she took her hand off the typewriter. “Talk to me. It’s not like you to miss breakfast.” She didn’t like how pale the young woman was…or the haunted look in her large fawn-brown eyes. She more closely resembled a frightened deer than a girl.

“Hilary,” she finally murmured, “I had a nightmare last night. A different one from the ones we’ve been having since we came. It was really intense.” 

Hilary put an arm around the girl. “Can you tell me about it?”

Her sister nodded slowly. “Yes. It starts in the library, but it’s dark and shadowy. Even the moon is limited to a single shaft that struggles to get through the window. I touch Newspaper, but he’s silent. It’s…too quiet. I barely hear my footsteps.” She smiles a bit. “Oh, I’m dressed nicely, more for a ball than a night in the library. I wear that pale blue lace dress I wore to the Frick Mansion last July, and satin slippers, with pink roses in my hair. There’s vases of pink and blue roses on the tables. I could smell them.”

Betty’s delicate, high cheekbones turned a rosy pink. “That’s when I see…him. The man in our dreams who flirts with me, who gives me roses, who protects me when the monsters attack us. What I can see of him in the moonlight…oh, he’s never been so handsome. He’s still in the white tuxedo, with the moonlight glinting off the silver in his black hair. He gives me the cheekiest grin and winks at me and kisses my hand. He has this look in those amber eyes of his…they almost seem to tease me.” She sighed. “I know I’ve seen that look somewhere before.”  

Her older sister made a face. “I don’t like where this is going.”

“Everything looked so different in the moonlight.” She closed her eyes, trying to remember. “The books themselves…the curtains, the shelves…nothing but shadows. But he wasn’t a shadow. He was real. He gave me a bouquet of the most beautiful pink roses I ever saw. He took my hand, kissed it, gave it a wonderful, gentle squeeze.  He held me so tightly, hugged me, nibbled at my neck like something out of my soap operas.” Now she was nearly the color of her red sweater. 

“I hope this didn’t go on all night.” Hilary wrinkled her nose. 

“I wish it had!” Betty sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t think he wanted to let me go, but he did finally pick up the copy of The Blue Fairy Book Bear and I were reading earlier. It was still open to Snow White and Rose Red on the table. I leaned over him, and…we read it together. He still couldn’t speak. He never made a single sound the entire time, but I saw his lips moving when I went over that last part about the prince and the troll that Bear had trouble with. He could read.” 

Betty’s velvet eyes were haunted. “He pointed at the book, then at the door. He pointed at Newspaper, at his world news section. The section that talks about the news in Europe and Asia. His face…when he pointed at the newspaper, at the books, it was so much more serious…but so terribly, horribly sad, too. The look in his eyes when he mouthed the words in the paper…I thought he was going to cry.”

She gulped. “I felt so terrible for him, I went to his arms. He held me, stroked my neck. I thought…he was going to kiss me…or I was going to kiss him…when I heard…them.” She shuddered, her face turning pale in the morning sunlight.

The way Betty said that, the hair on the back of her neck rose several inches. “Them who?”

Now Betty was nearly in tears. “It was those horrible monsters! The ones who attack us in our dream, who drag the men away. I tried to stop them. The roses withered when they came near. I tried to hit them with the books, but they just pushed me into one of the stacks. That man..” 

She drew in a breath at the memory. “He fought valiantly, Hilary. He was furious! He was like a tiger, on all of them at once. I saw him once in the moonlight, when he hit the largest monster and knocked him over the couch. He looked so familiar! I knew him!” Her gentle, clear voice wavered. “But when I went to look again, they grabbed me by the waist and dragged me back.”

“Oh Hilary,” whispered Betty, “it took three of them to get him down. He was trying to protect me. He kept looking at the one holding me with nothing but worry. But that monster…he grabbed him  hard by his collar and yanked him to his face. Said he was stupid and useless, that by the end of the year, he’d be nothing more than a tame animal to be petted and paraded on a leash. I tried to call to him, but one threw its awful slimy hands over my mouth.” 

She gulped, the tears now flowing down her pale cheeks. “They beat him, Hilary, beat him roughly over the head for reading with me. They beat him just for reading! And when I tried to stop them, one hit me on the head.” She rubbed the back of her noggin. “And then I woke up screaming.”

“Good god.” She rubbed her sister’s back. “Forget breakfast and your work. I think you ought to take a good, long nap after a nightmare like that. I’ll bring you some weak tea and toast.”

“I hate weak tea.” She tapped at a word on her typewriter. “This will help me more than anything. Writing always makes me feel better. That,” she sighed, “and knowing Bear is all right. I had that dream for a reason, Hilary. Those dreams mean something. I just need to figure out what.”

She patted her sister’s back. “We’ll figure it out together, dear. I’m going to breakfast. When you’re ready, come join us. I think the others should hear this. And yes, I will find out if Bear is feeling Betty.” 

Her smile nearly glowed. “Thank you, Hilary.”

“Of course, dear.” Hilary put the chair back and headed out the door to the sound of a typewriter furiously clacking away. Something was seriously wrong here. She was sure those “dreams” they had were more than dreams. Now she just needed to figure out what they meant, before her sisters…especially her beautiful, brilliant youngest sister…were the ones who ended up with broken hearts.