Beast by Donna Jo Napoli Read Free Book Online

the palace will rise for prayer. Father will rise. I must get to my room and lock myself in.
    Or this will be the day that I die.
    I lift my head to look around, and fall with its weight onto my back. I rise to my shoulder.
    Horror! The body of a lion stretches out before me. The beast has made it over the high wall of the hunting park.
    I open my mouth to scream, but swallow the scream just in time.
    For this must be the pari’s curse! If I call out, Father will come with bow and arrow, and the lion will leap away as the arrow enters my heart. Clever, cruel curse.
    Breath whistles in my nostrils.
    I jump to my feet. But I’m heavy. My head stayslow. This is not my balance. This is not my weight. Nothing is right. I am ill. Over my shoulder I see the back and tail of the lion. I try to run. I fall, splayed on the packed earth under a hazelnut tree.
    In panic I turn to face the beast that will tear my throat.
    Nothing’s there.
    I look down. The massive paw of the beast waits on the ground directly below me. Does it tease me? Ardeshir talked about lions yesterday. He said lions rest or hunt or copulate. He said nothing of teasing their prey—or, at least, not within my earshot.
    Has the pari taken on the form of this lion? Does she wait only to increase the torture? What else could explain why the beast doesn’t lunge at such close range?
    Impossible close range. Nothing is right.
    Can I outwit a master hunter? I inch my right foot forward.
    The lion’s paw moves the slightest bit.
    A wretched idea begins to form — more wretched than anything I have ever heard or read about.
    I look down at the lion’s left paw.
    I move my left foot.
    The lion’s left paw moves.
    Oh, evil thought! I lift my left foot.
    The lion’s left paw lifts.
    This cannot be. The pari has bewitched me again, so that now I believe I am lion. I put my mouth over my foreleg and clamp down. Hair mats against my tongue and palate. My leg hurts; I taste my own blood.
    I am insane.
    My eyes flicker all about in fear. This is too close to people.
    A lion’s thought. My thought.
    I walk on unsteady legs. I try to visualize four-legged animals—a cat, a dog, a deer. Right front paw, left rear paw. Left front paw, right rear paw.
    I walk carefully, gradually increasing my pace. After a while I can do this without thought. I can walk a lion’s walk; crazy or not, I can do this.
    My skin is loose. It’s as though I walk inside it, my muscles rippling beneath a coat. I stop at a coconut tree and spread my claws in wonder. Then I retract them and walk.
    A lion’s walk. A lion’s body.
    Last night the woman in my arms was but a crude dream compared to the nightmare of this morning. I yell to wake myself, to return to my sensibilities. A roar thunders within my head.
    Shouts come from the palace. They scream of lions. I am lion! No insanity, no nightmare, truth. And the hunt starts within the hour.
    â€œThe lion’s in the rose garden—there! Get your swords!”
    I run in a circle. Where can I go? The town is not safe; people will be coming at me from every side. Every side except the hunting park. And that’s exactly where the pari wants me to go—to the woods, where my father will hunt me down. The brilliance of the way this pari carries out her curse takes my breath away.
    I need a plan. In this moment more than any previous of my entire life, I need to think straight. I am Orasmyn, the scholar prince; I can figure out an escape.
    The smell of incense on the clothing of people disgusts me. The stink of their sweat sickens me, panics me. They are coming. They will kill me.
    I’m loping now to the gate of the hunting park, fighting the urge to break into a full run for fear that I’ll stumble in this awkward body. People cry out from behind. I sense where their voices come from with a precision new to me. The gate is fastened by a rope loop. I put my front paws on the top and lift