The Beast of Beauty by Valerie Johnston Read Free Book Online

dandelions and clovers.
    I sighed, aware of the unlikeliness
that I would find either plant in October.
    Nevertheless, I went back to the
cabin and saw a small lean-to shed beside it. I tiptoed up to it so that I
didn’t wake up Daniel.
    “Dang,” I breathed as I saw that
it was locked. I tightly grasped the lock and pulled down. It made a huge
popping noise, but it broke.
    “I’m so strong!” I whispered to
myself with a smile.
    Inside the small shed was a rake,
a small shovel, a rope, and three five-gallon buckets stacked within each
other. I breathed a small sigh of relief as I grabbed two of them and set off
to find food and water.
    The water was easy to find. There
was a small stream that wasn’t far from the cabin, and it was flowing nicely
because of the storm last night. The water wasn’t as clear as I had hoped, but
I used it to clean out both buckets and it didn’t look too nasty. I made a
mental note of where the stream was so that I could come back to it after I
found food. I didn’t want to tote around a bucket full of water when I didn’t
know how long I would be walking.
    It was about ten minutes before I
came upon a clearing. I stood very still and used my newfound senses to make
sure that no one was around before stepping out into the sunlight. To my
delight, there were both clovers and dandelions in the field.
    There weren’t very much of
either, but I was relieved nonetheless. I picked and picked and picked until
the bucket was full, and then I smashed it all down so that I could add more. I
wanted to make this trip as little as possible, and I also knew that it was
going to take a lot of these things to fill us.
    I walked back toward the woods.
At the edge of the clearing, I saw a small spot of color. I looked closer to
see that it was a single red rose on a rose bush.
    “How weird,” I whispered to
myself. I picked it and put it on top of the greens, grateful that the cabin
would have something beautiful in it.
    I hiked back to the stream and
filled the other bucket with water. I hoped Daniel wouldn’t be too disappointed
that it was a little dirty because we had no other option for water at the
moment.
    I carried both buckets back, only
vaguely aware that the water bucket weighed more than the plant bucket.
    When I got back, Daniel was still
asleep. I tried to be quiet, but I woke him while shutting the door.
    He jumped when he saw me,
probably scared at my appearance, and then his face softened when he
undoubtedly remembered that I wasn’t going to hurt him.
    “Hey,” he mumbled, “Can I have
some more pain medicine?”
    I instinctively looked around for
a clock to see how many hours that it had been since he took the last ones, but
there was no clock here, and I had no idea how long that I had been away.
    “Uh, sure,” I said, positive that
he still had to be in pain and wishing that there was something more that I
could do.
    “Lay back down,” I told him after
I gave him three more pills. He obeyed.
    I stood looking down at him,
wondering if I should tell him about the food and water yet or if I should just
let him fall back asleep. I spent so much time trying to decide that he dozed
off.
    I knew that I shouldn’t be afraid
of speaking to him, but I was. I didn’t want him to fear me, so I tried to only
speak when spoken to so that I didn’t startle him.
    At least my voice was the same,
and not scary or gruff. I didn’t know if I could bring myself to speak at all
if I sounded the way that I looked.
    I quickly remembered my beastly
form and grabbed the spell book to try to figure out what exactly happened and
if it was reversible.

Chapter
Thirteen: Jasper
     
    I awoke to the obnoxious sound of
knocking at the door.
    “I’m sorry, officer. What is the
problem? What has Jasper done?” I heard my mother say.
    I jumped out of bed as fast as I
could and felt the room spinning. I had more to drink the night before then I
realized. I held my head as I walked to the bathroom and