by Jessica Grey
“Well, Bear, you are more than welcome to sleep here by our fire tonight.” My mother shot a pointed look at my gun. “Rose Red, let’s go back upstairs.”
“I am not tired, Mother.” I did lower my rifle, but only so that I could take up position in my mother’s rocking chair. I laid the gun across my lap, resting my hand on it.
My mother sighed, but the bear just nodded his head once at me before resting it on his folded paws.
I sat in the rocker all night. I didn’t sleep and the rifle never left my lap. The bear stayed by the fire until the early morning sun crept through our two small windows. He rose, stretched, and lumbered toward the door.
“Could you open it for me, Rose Red?” he asked as he reached the latched door.
I stood, holding my gun in one hand and brushed past him to lift the latch.
“Thank your mother for her hospitality.”
I nodded. “Bear?”
He turned his head back to me, and as he moved my vision seemed to shimmer. I could see bright sunlight glistening off black hair, a quick smile, dark eyes. I shook my head to clear my vision and the bear stood in front of me once more.
“Yes, Rose Red?”
“Rosie.” I am not sure why I invited him to use my nickname. “You cannot tell me of the—” I hesitated over the word— “the magic?”
“I cannot.” He sounded resigned. “Goodbye, Rosie.” He walked out the door and through our little yard. The drifts were piled high; only the tops of the two rose bushes peeked out through the snow, their bare branches standing like spindly sentries against the walls of the cabin.
“Goodbye, Bear,” I whispered as I once again closed the door. I hung up my rifle and climbed the stairs. I crawled into bed with my sister, and yet I still lay awake. My life had changed. I could feel it in my bones. But I didn’t understand or welcome the change.
*****
We saw Bear only twice again that winter. My mother had hung a small wooden sign out on our split rail fence. She’d had Snow paint a bear on it as none of us knew if he could read. Mother wanted him to know he was welcome to come in from the cold whenever he wished.
February had opened with a raging storm. Sullen gray clouds had hung heavy with sleet and ice all day and by the time dark fell the clouds were loosing their icy burden upon the mountain. He had sought shelter with us then for two nights. They were the deepest and the coldest that we saw the whole season.
Snow and I saw him one other time later that month as we walked through the woods. Our breath still puffed in front of us, but it had warmed considerably and much of the snow had melted. Our weather was fickle though—winter could roar back in at any moment, so we were enjoying our stroll as much as possible. Bear hadn’t talked to us that time as he had been quite a ways off, but he had dipped his head in recognition of us, and we had lifted our mittened hands and waved.
We didn’t see him all spring, and now it was high summer. Summer, when the days were longer than the nights and the sunlight dripped out of the sky like wildflower honey. Our rose bushes were in full, glorious bloom, near bending under the weight of the precious flowers my mother had fought so hard for all year. Snow and I spent several days picking huckleberries, scrambling up the steep slopes and filling our buckets to overflowing. We’d haul them back to the cabin where mother would cook them into jams and jellies and can the fruit. Enough to last the entire rest of the year and to take down into the city to sell.
On one of our picking days we stopped for lunch, popping the fresh, sweet berries into our mouths between bites of the crusty bread mother had sent with us. We didn’t say much, we rarely did, just sat at the top of a little ravine and watched clouds chase each other across the sky. A low rumble of thunder echoed in between the peaks and we watched the storm clouds spit lightening at each other. The storm was traveling fast to the east and wouldn’t blow all the way north to us, which was too bad, as the day was hot and we could have used a cooling rain.
It was then that we heard the voice, drifting up from the ravine, cursing and muttering. Snow and I looked at each other in surprise. We hadn’t seen another person this far into the wood in at least a year. We crept forward and peered over the edge of the small ravine and down to where the creek babbled below us.
A man—I could tell only because of the voice, the rest of him seemed to be just a dirty lump of raggedy clothing—appeared to be stuck somehow beneath a large boulder near the water’s edge. Snow followed behind me as I made my way down the little path that led to the water. It wasn’t steep, and we had been down it before, but the spray from the creek tumbling over rocks had made it slippery, so we made our way carefully, tucking our skirts up a bit higher so as not to trip over them.
“Hello?” I said as we got closer. “Are you in need of help, sir?”
The man tried to turn toward the sound of my voice but broke off in another curse. As I got closer, I could see that his long, gray beard was stuck under the rock. I had no idea how he would have gotten himself in such a predicament. Perhaps the rock had rolled down the hillside onto his beard while he was sleeping?
“Go away!” he shouted at us.
Snow and I paused, shocked at his words and his tone. He was obviously in need of help; why would he refuse it? Snow nudged my shoulder, and when I looked up at her, she tilted her head toward the creek bank. A pan and a sluice box were stacked neatly along with a rucksack. He had been panning for gold. I sighed in frustration. No new gold had been found in our area for years. The rush was over, but there were always those men who were sure that because these mountains had once bled gold, there were still more veins to tap. It was like a drug, the gold lust, seething through their own veins until like the mountain they bled only the desire for gold.
“This is my stake!” the man fairly screamed at us. I glared at him. He was old, older than my father would have been had he lived, and he was unkempt and unwashed. The gold lust was evident on his face and in his eyes. He was mad with it.
“We are not trying to steal your gold. If you’ve found any that is. I must warn you, it hasn’t been found here for years, and when it has, it’s only bits and pieces.”
“Away! Get away, you vile girls!” The old man was almost dancing now with rage. He made a funny picture as his beard was stuck it caused him to bend almost in half from the waist.
“Fine.” I turned to go, figuring it was best to agree with him. If he wanted to die alone in the forest, it was nothing to me.
Snow was kinder than I, however. “Rosie, we cannot just leave him.”
“Why ever not? He doesn’t want help from such ‘vile girls.’”
The old man took the opportunity to interject, “Go away or I will magic you! I have the power to curse you.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You’re going to curse us? You who cannot even free yourself?”
“Don’t laugh at me, girly. I have powerful strong magic. I traded for it with a medicine man.”
“It must be quite powerful. Your gold pan is empty, and unless you accept our help, you could die out here all alone. If you’re lucky, you’ll die of exposure and not at the claws—or teeth—of a wild animal.”
I reached into the pocket of my apron and took out my small knife. With a quick flick of my wrist I cut the prospector’s gray beard clean in half.
He stood up quickly, howling in rage, and grabbed my wrist.
“How dare you cut my beard, you spiteful creature!” Spittle flew in my face as he hollered. His breath made me gag. The rage in his wild eyes was unlike anything I’d ever seen in a human before. I began to feel afraid.
“Let my sister go!” Snow shouted. She ran forward and kicked the back of the prospector’s knee. His leg began to buckle, but he righted himself and turned, backhanding Snow across the face with his free hand. The anger that coursed through me then was more than a match for his wild rage. I took advantage of his momentary distraction to knee him as hard as I could. As he doubled over in pain, I twisted his arm, pulling o
ut of his grasp.
I ran to Snow, pulling her up from the ground where she lay dazed. A small trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
As we scrambled across the slippery rocks of the creek bank toward the pathway up the side of the ravine, the old man recovered enough strength to chase after us. We were a few steps up the path when I felt the yank on my braids. Even Snow pulling frantically on my arm couldn’t stop my backwards movement. My eyes watered as he pulled me back down to the creek. He’d reached into his pocket and pulled something out. It was a talisman of some kind, made of twigs and shaped like an animal. It could have been a wolf or a bear, I couldn’t tell through the pain in my head and the tears in my eyes.
“Let me go,” I gasped. “We were just trying to help you!”
“Ha! You’re trying to steal my gold! I’ll teach you to pull a knife on me! Don’t think you’re the first to try to cross me!” He held the talisman up, rubbing it with his dirty thumb and began to chant something in a language I didn’t know.
But I didn’t really care what he was saying. His mention of the knife reminded me that that I still had it. I’d slipped it back into my apron pocket after I’d wrested my arm back from him. I grabbed it and stuck it into his leg. He screamed, but he didn’t let go of my hair.
Snow flew at him again, shrieking and beating her fists against his face. He couldn’t hit her this time without letting go of either me or the talisman. He continued chanting, trying to pull me farther out into the creek to escape her fists.
A roar seemed to shake the ground under my feet. I looked up just in time to see Bear bounding across the creek. The prospector saw him too and dropped my braid to put his hands up to defend himself as Bear fell on him in a writhing mass of fur, claws, and wicked teeth. I wrapped my arms around Snow’s waist and half fell, half jumped, away from the fray, splashing into the cold water of the creek.
Snow and I scrambled toward the bank, trying to ignore the sounds behind us. I saw the prospector’s talisman floating near the bank and scooped it up with a shaking hand.
“Run home,” we heard Bear growl. Snow and I scrambled out the water and obeyed him without looking back.
My heart was pounding and my lungs were strained to bursting by the time we reached home. We tumbled through the cabin door, slamming and latching it behind us. Mother looked up in shock from where she had a big pot of huckleberries bubbling on the stove.
“What’s happened?” she asked urgently. I realized we must look a fright. There was blood on my dress and Snow’s face. We were both damp and covered in mud and bracken.
“A man—” Snow gasped out. “A prospector...tried...to hurt us.”
My mother’s face contorted in fury. She strode toward the mantle and grabbed Father’s gun. I shook my head and put my arm across the door as she started toward it.
“Bear.” I said simply, still trying to slow my frantic breathing.
Mother stood for a moment, and I knew she was still dying to go out after the prospector. We stood in a silent, tense group for a few moments. I was worried about Bear. I didn’t think there was any way that the prospector could overcome him. But he had claimed he had powerful strong magic. But then, Bear was magic too, wasn’t he? And strong.
I felt a pain in my hand and realized I was clutching the prospector’s talisman so tightly that it was scoring my palm. I opened my clenched fingers and stared at it. It was made of twigs, yarn and beads. The twigs were bent and twisted into the shape of a bear. I could see that now. The snout was too short and the body too bulky to be a wolf. Maybe this is what he had traded for with the medicine man?
As I stared in fascinated horror at the talisman, Snow moved over to the window. She gazed out silently for a few minutes, and I knew she was worried too. Finally she gasped. “Rosie! Bear is coming!”
I ran to the door and unlatched it, swinging it wide open and stepping through to stand between the rose bushes. Bear was walking slowly toward the cabin. I breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t seem to be injured in anyway. He looked up and saw me standing in the doorway, and he began walking even faster toward me.
I didn’t want to meet him still holding the prospector’s wooden bear. I broke it in half—the twigs were so dry, they splintered easily—and then broke it in half again. I dropped the pieces onto the dirt and kicked them with the toe of my boot under the bush with the crimson flowers.
The wind began to pick up, playing with the strands of hair escaping my braids and pushing at my skirts. It continued to blow, harder and harder, picking up dust in the field outside the cabin and spinning it into little cyclones. The roses dipped and bobbed against the strong gusts. Petals began to scatter, flying out and getting caught in the dust devils—spinning and spinning in a shower of blood red and white.
I didn’t know what was happening. I felt as if the wind might pull me to pieces, but that wasn’t why icy fingers of fear were clutching at my heart. I could feel their frozen grip in spite of the heat. I didn’t even bother to fight against the feeling. I was afraid.
I couldn’t see Bear. He had been walking toward me out of the forest and into our little clearing, and now all I could see was dust and rose petals.
“Bear!” I screamed, but the wind snatched my voice away.
The wind stilled. It didn’t taper off; it just stopped mid-gust. The petals and dust all hung suspended in the air for brief second and then settled to the ground. It was like a sudden rain shower, but instead of water droplets, crimson and snowy petals fell from the sky.
And then he was standing right in front of me. A young man with thick, sable hair and brown eyes that looked like deep, dark pools. He was beautiful. He was smiling at me, but his eyes were serious. He looked at me as if he somehow saw past everything everyone else saw. As if he knew me. And I knew him.
“Bear,” I whispered as I threw myself into his arms.
Down the Rabbit Hole
I knew better than to go following a white rabbit down a rabbit hole. I mean, first rule of Fairy Tale Investigations right?
And yet here I was trailing a large white rabbit through a maze of winding, dark alleyways.
In my defense, it wasn't a real white rabbit. It was a guy in a bunny costume, complete with floppy ears and silly grin. The kind of bunny that overzealous parents stuck frightened children on the laps of for pictures once a year. In other words, creepy as hell. Cause what isn't creepy about a six-foot-three-inch bunny with a bow tie? Nothing, that's what.
The bunny picked up his pace, so I increased mine. He hadn’t given any indication he’d noticed he was being followed and I’d thought I’d been pretty discreet. There were a lot less people here than there had been in the alleys right off the main street though, so it was getting harder and harder to remain inconspicuous.
The oversized rabbit ducked around a corner and after pausing a moment to pull my gun out of its holster, I followed.
I came face to face with a giant, toothy grin. So much for remaining inconspicuous.
“Why are you following me, lady?” The voice was gruff; I’m pretty sure he was disguising it.
I leveled my gun at one of the costume’s buck teeth. “Special Agent Harrison. I need you to take off the bunny head. Slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
The bunny slowly reached up and removed its head. The man inside the suit was stunningly attractive. Black hair, sea-colored eyes, ridiculously square jaw. But then, I’d expected that.
“Can I see some identification?” he asked, tucking the bunny head under his arm. I was right, the voice had been a fake. His real voice could have melted butter on a subzero day.
I kept my gun trained on him with one hand and reached into my back pocket with the other. Flipping open the little black wallet, I flashed him my badge and i.d. He glanced at it. I didn’t appreciate how unimpressed he looked.
“Your name is Alice?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Special Agent Harrison,” I corrected as I stuck the
badge wallet back into my pocket.
“Special Agent Alice Harrison. And here you are following a white rabbit. Alice, I’m not going to lie to you: I’m concerned for your career advancement. Irony aside, it’s just not the best general life choice. You never know where you’ll end up.”
“Technically, I wasn’t following a rabbit. I was following you. And you’re just a Charming in a rabbit suit.”
“Oh, I’m never ‘just’ anything.” He gave me a lazy grin and a wink. Was this guy flirting with me? While I had a gun pointed at him? I felt my blood pressure notch up in irritation.
“Yeah, actually, you’re ‘just’ under arrest.”
He didn’t even look flustered as he leaned against the nearest wall, casually crossing his ankles. “What for?”
“You are Erick Phillips, current Charming of the “100 Years Sleep” tale?”
“Yup, that’s me. Though really, Alice, “Charming” is such a politically incorrect term. As if all that matters about me are my good looks and wonderful personality.”
“Special Agent Harrison,” I reminded him. From where I was standing, and honestly, my gun arm was getting tired so this could have just been the annoyance talking, his personality didn’t look so wonderful. My bias could have also been due to the arrest warrant burning a hole in my pocket. “Erick Phillips you are under arrest for world jumping without a permit, purposeful tale deviation, and failure to pay all fees and tariffs associated with said world jumping.”
Phillips smirked at me. “How like the Office of Narrative Order to be so concerned with money.”
“The last charge actually carries the longest minimum sentence.” I shrugged as I unhooked the handcuffs from my belt. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the fine.”
“Oh, that’s cute. Do they hand out mugs with that clever little saying on them at the O.N.O?”
“I’m pretty sure they’d prefer you didn’t do the crime in the first place. Turn around and place your hands on your head.”
