Beary Tales

by Jennifer Malone Wright

  Uncle Butchy drew his eyebrows together in confusion and looked down. “Oh, you mean this?” He pointed to his chest. “This is a fur coat, see.” He drew open the coat, exposing his dark skin underneath.

  All three bears cringed, drawing back in horror, and then Leilanni stalked forward and smacked him on the cheek. His head jerked violently to the side.

  “How dare you!” she exclaimed.

  “Owww!” Wide eyed, Uncle Butchy reached up and covered the part of his cheek she had struck.

  “You wear the fur of our woodland friends on your body. You murderer!” Leilanni accused.

  Nita tried to ignore Katya, who crept forward, placing her nose close to the coat. “It doesn’t smell right,” she mumbled.

  “Girl, you’re crazy, this is fake!”

  “What is … fake?” Leilanni demanded.

  “Like, not from real animals.”

  A sizzling snap echoed through the air and Uncle Butchy seized, his body went rigid and then convulsed. “Run!” he choked out as he fell to his knees. “Go!” he added when they didn’t move right away.

  They had been so distracted they had not realized that Goldalynn had regained consciousness while they spoke. She stood beside William’s gravestone with her hands held high. A flick of her wrist and electricity shot through the air like a lightning bolt, slamming into the fur coat on Uncle Butchy’s back.

  The girls screamed in horror. None of them wanted to leave Uncle Butchy there for Goldalynn. Katya was the first to rush forward and grab one of his arms. Nita joined her within seconds, taking his other arm.

  Goldalynn fired at them, missing Nita’s foot by about an inch. “Hurry!” Nita yelled. “Leilanni, help us!”

  Nita and Katya hauled Uncle Butchy to his feet, placed one of his arms on each of their shoulders, and ran in the direction of the woods, dragging him along between them.

  Another shot of electric magic flew past Katya’s head, missing its target and hitting a tree. It burned through the bark, sizzling and sparking. The girls kept running, Leilanni in the lead, Nita and Katya dragging Uncle Butchy between them and Goldalynn not far behind.

  Nita felt the awkwardness of not being a bear. Running on two legs was harder than humans made it look. Her muscles were weak now as well. The fairy they carried was not a small creature.

  The evil magic the human was throwing struck all around them as they ran. Nita struggled with the weight of Uncle Butchy, and the forest floor was littered with stray rocks and fallen branches further impeding their escape. She looked down at Katya’s shoes and wondered how she could run with the spikes on her feet.

  Just then Nita felt her ankle twist and the excruciating pain sent her tumbling to the ground, taking Katya and the now semi-conscious Uncle Butchy with them. A squeak escaped from Nita as magic lightning hit a rock beside her, crumbling it into tiny little pieces of stone. Katya scrambled to get up off the ground, pulling Uncle Butchy’s arm on the way up.

  Leilanni heard Nita’s squeal and doubled back to help. “Keep running,” she instructed them and then reached down, grasped Uncle Butchy with both hands, and hefted him over her shoulder. He bounced along over her shoulder as she ran, dodging Goldalynn’s evil magic and catching up with the other girls.

  Fear and instinct to survive drove Nita, who was now in the lead. She pushed aside the pain in her ankle and forced herself to keep running. We have to get out of here, she thought. There has to be a way, there has to be a way. It was the only thing her mind would focus on. She felt Katya and Leilanni right on her heels and knew that horrible human wasn’t far behind.

  The deeper they went into the forest, the more obstacles they encountered. She hopped over a large fallen tree limb and hoped that the girls were following her lead. But then the forest floor dipped and the ground seemed to disappear from beneath her.

  Time seemed to suspend as Nita fell. She threw her hands out in front of her, bracing for impact. On the way down she saw the Spanish moss draped in the trees. She saw the light condensation that covered each leaf that crossed her vision and she saw the aged lines of the bark. She saw the terror on Katya’s face and her lips forming a scream as she tumbled down after her. Uncle Butchy, who had regained consciousness, launched over Leilanni’s head. Both Butchy and Leilanni flailed, trying to grasp anything that would stop the fall.

  However, the impact did not come as expected.

  Nita saw the layers of dirt that covered the forest floor lift up and begin to swirl around her like a forming funnel cloud, each tiny granule gaining a life of its own. The air in the center of the funnel wavered and then lit up with a white glow. Her extended hands landed smack in the middle of the glowing phenomenon and instead of connecting, they slipped right into what was supposed to be hard earth.

  Chapter Three

  Nita ached over every inch of her new body. Her head throbbed viciously, beating relentlessly at her temple. With her eyes still closed, she scratched her fingers against the cold, hard cement beneath her.

  What happened? she wondered, but quickly remembered Katya, Leilanni, and Uncle Butchy and her eyes immediately snapped open.

  The night was still upon them, so darkness still veiled most of her surroundings with only a dim greenish lamplight providing a way for her to see. She saw dark walls made of old, decaying stone all around her. Katya lay sprawled on the ground beside Leilanni, who was on top of Uncle Butchy’s legs. They were all unconscious. Oh, please don’t let us have gotten away from that woman just to have one of us die.

  She ignored the pain in her ankle and her throbbing head as she crawled over to her newfound friends as quickly as she could. Butchy was the first to wake. His transparent wings fluttered slightly, and then his eyes popped open and he jumped to his feet reaching to make sure his fairy dust pouch was still in place.

  “How did … what?” His head turned from side to side, trying to place where they were and what exactly had happened. “Well, there goes what was left of any kind of buzz I had,” he muttered to himself.

  “Hey, butch one! Wake up Leilanni!” Nita called out as she lifted Katya’s head into her lap.

  Butchy rolled his eyes and muttered, “Of course.”

  Nita wasn’t so new to being a human that she didn’t recognize the sarcasm.

  “And girl, it’s Uncle Butchy, there aint nothin butch ‘bout any of this.” He gestured the length of his body.

  “Katya, wake up!” Nita ignored Uncle Butchy and shook Katya gently, causing her head to loll back and forth.

  Uncle Butchy nudged Leilanni’s leg with his toe. “Hey, wake up, grouchy!” He nudged again and then jumped back, expecting Leilanni to react aggressively when she came to.

  Katya finally woke and looked up at Nita with her twinkling green eyes. “Where are we?” she asked as she pulled herself into a sitting position and got a good look at their surroundings.

  “I don’t know.” Nita, tried not to sound as worried. “I’m more concerned about how we got here.”

  “Get away from me, creature!” Leilanni growled from beside them.

  Katya raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t really matter where we are. All that matters is that we are alive and away from that terrible human.”

  Leilanni stood beside them, her white outfit now marred with black dirt from the forest and the street. “I do not call being in this body, being alive. I am not a human, this body feels …disgusting.”

  Uncle Butchy stood on the other side of Nita and Katya in order to distance himself from Leilanni. He had his fingertips pressed to his temple in frustration. “Girls, there has to be a way to turn you back into bears. Magic can always be reversed, it’s just a matter of finding the way to reverse it.” He adjusted his tutu and then swiped some of the dirt off of it.

  Nita and Katya picked themselves up off the ground and Katya looked at Uncle Butchy with wide eyes. “She will still be chasing us, wont she?”

  “Yes.” Uncle Butchy nodded. “I’m afraid she probably will. She seems t
o be pretty powerful since the fairy dust barely works on her, I’m positive that she will want to find a way to change you back just as much as you want to change back.”

  “Was it magic that brought us here?” Nita wondered aloud.

  Uncle Butchy nodded, “Yes, I’m afraid it was. How it happened, that I don’t know. Maybe a lingering of the spell.” He paused then let out an exasperated sigh. “And sometimes, magic just presents itself for some reason or another. Someone heard your call and sent me, maybe they created an opening for us to escape, who knows.”

  “We should get out of this darkness,” Nita declared. She wasn’t afraid of the dark when she was in the forest, but the strange walls and ground made of stone did frighten her. As a bear, she had never been any place where the ground wasn’t made of earth.

  “What are those noises … and that smell?” Katya sniffed the air around her and crinkled her nose. “I have never heard such noises.”

  Uncle Butchy rolled his eyes. “Girl, we are in a city. Those are cars and people you hear.”

  “More humans,” Leilanni scoffed.

  Nita had never heard of a car and voiced this to Uncle Butchy. “What is a … car?”

  “You’ll see.” He eyed the girls up and down again and frowned. “You’re outfits are all ruined now, and your hair...” His frown turned into an expression of utter disgust.

  Curious as to his meaning, the girls looked to each other, searching for the answer to what he was insinuating. Katya, pulled up a lock of her long red hair and examined it for a moment and then her tongue slipped out and she began licking the tress of hair.

  “Oh my god, girl, what on earth are you doing?” Butchy reached out and slapped her hair out of her hand.

  Confused, Katya waited a moment before answering him, but it came out as more of a question than a response. “Grooming?”

  “You use a brush to groom,” Butchy shuddered, feigning mock horror. “Don’t ever lick your hair again ... Ever.”

  Nita decided to ignore Uncle Butchy and his strange obsession with clothes and hair. She wanted to keep moving on, no, she needed to keep moving on. She beckoned to the girls. “Come, we must travel this, city, as Uncle Butchy calls it.”

  Together, the foursome crept through the dimly lit alleyway until it spilled them out onto the sidewalk along a busy city street. Nita’s jaw dropped when she saw the scene before her. She latched onto Leilanni’s arm when she saw the giant creatures with light spewing forth from their eyes speeding past them. Humans were everywhere, walking past the creatures without giving them a second look.

  “Get back!” Leilanni cried out, pushing Nita and Katya protectively behind her.

  “Relax,” Uncle Butchy told them. “Those are the cars I told you about.”

  “The cars are evil! I have never seen a living thing like them.” Leilanni responded.

  Nita could not relax. She looked to Katya and saw fear in her eyes as well. The bear in her wanted to go back to the forest, to find soft earth and silence. But she knew she must stay and do as Uncle Butchy bid, or else she would never be able to return to her bear form.

  “The cars are not evil and they are not living things,” Uncle Butchy explained. “They are machines. Come on, let’s go.” He beckoned them to follow him.

  Nita refused to let go of Leilanni, so Leilanni practically had to drag both her and Katya after Uncle Butchy through the crowd of humans.

  While they walked, Nita examined her surroundings. Aside from the cars and the humans, there were many buildings, each illuminated with brightly-colored, artificial lights. She could not see even one tree anywhere. What kind of places did not have trees? It did not seem right at all.

  The hard ground on which they walked was different than the ground that the cars drove on. They walked on a smooth white ground, while the cars zipped along a hard, black river of stone, divided by colored lines. Nita began to wonder about these cars, how did they not collide into each other?

  She noticed that a few of the humans passing by them seemed to stare at their odd group, mainly at Uncle Butchy.

  “Why do the humans stare at us? Are we not like them?”

  Uncle Butchy waved his hand dismissively. “Maybe fairies make them uncomfortable.”

  “Oh.”

  “But, don’t worry, they won’t bother us as long as we don’t bother them. Just keep walking.”

  Nita nodded but didn’t answer him. She was too busy continuing to ogle the city. It was an assault on every single one of her senses. The colors were unlike any she had ever seen in her life, so bright and unnatural. She could smell food cooking from every angle and her stomach rumbled, telling her that it had been far too long since she had eaten. But, the scent emanating from the humans was almost enough to cause the hunger to subside. They smelled awful.

  Suddenly, the smell of humans wasn’t as strong as the scent of food. She sniffed and followed the scent. To her left, she saw a shop with what she knew to be bread. She had never tasted bread, but somehow, she knew it was called bread and that it was tasty.

  “Watch it!” She felt something bump into her from the side that wasn’t clinging to Leilanni. A growl escaped her lips before she could stop it and when she looked back to see what had bumped her, she saw a blonde human with colorful butterfly wings sprouting from her back.

  Katya looked on with wide eyes. “Is she a fairy like you, Uncle Butchy?”

  Just then the butterfly woman turned. “Watch your mouth, bitch!” Butterfly woman pointed at Katya and then ran to catch up with her group.

  “Humans are mean,” Katya pouted.

  Leilanni released a guttural laugh. “You need more back bone, weak one.”

  “I’m not weak.”

  Leilanni looked like she wanted to argue more, but Nita lifted her other hand to Leilanni’s shoulder in a calming gesture and shook her head, silently telling her to let it go. Then, suddenly she smelled something that reminded her of home. The sweet perfume of flowers.

  “Oh, look!” Katya pointed to a stand outside one of the shops that had its own forest of beautiful flowers surrounding it. “How pretty!”

  “Pretty flowers for a pretty girl!” a voice called out above the crowd.

  Nita searched the humans for the voice and was unable to place it.

  “Come on, ladies, come on over and see what we have for you.”

  Then she saw it, another crazy looking creature. This one was a giant flower with a human face in the center of its purple petals. He was waving one of his leaf stems, trying to get them to approach him.

  Leilanni turned her ice blue eyes on the man in a flower suit. “Back off you unnatural half breed.”

  Nita watched his eyes grow wide and his stems fall to his side in defeat. She smiled at Leilanni’s fierceness. She was a strong warrior and Nita would have loved to see her as a bear before they were trapped by the evil human.

  “Ah!” Uncle Butchy came to a halt “This is just what we need.”

  “What do we need?” Leilanni demanded, finally getting annoyed with Nita and Katya enough to shrug them off of her arms.

  “Music, booze and men!” Uncle Butchy giggled, heading for the door. But, Leilanni reached out and grabbed his arm before he could go any farther.

  “Is this where we will find our answers?”

  He shook his head. “No, this is where we will find some alcohol.”

  “Is alcohol something we need?”

  Nita could tell that Leilanni was becoming frustrated with their Fairy Goduncle very quickly. So she stepped in and pried Leilanni’s hand off of Uncle Butchy. “Leave him alone.”

  “I do not need to leave him alone. He needs to find our cure.”

  Uncle Butchy must have finally had it with the blonde and her icy demeanor. “Listen here, Missy! I do happen to need the alcohol. I’m supposed to be retiring. I am not supposed to have to do this anymore.” He gestured to the three of them. “And I just broke up with my boyfriend, Julio, right before you three calle
d to me and had me pulled through the magical realms to save your asses! If I want a drink, I’m going to have a fucking drink!”

  Katya tilted her head and looked to Leilanni with a raised eyebrow. “I could use a fucking drink, too. I’m thirsty.” She leaned in even closer to Leilanni. “What’s a fucking drink?”

  Leilanni shrugged in response, not particularly caring what it was.

  Uncle Butchy, on the other hand, didn’t wait for them to agree or disagree; he pushed through the large red door that had a smaller door painted on the front of it.

  The girls didn’t move, they stood stock still, staring at the door as it slammed shut in front of them. After a quick glance at each other, and realizing they had no other choice, they quickly followed.

  Nita took the lead and pushed the door open just as Uncle Butchy had. Immediately, they were assaulted by loud, pumping music and the sour smell of sweat. The club was dimly lit except for large platforms off to each side, which had a spotlight shining down on dancers.

  One dancer was a woman. She wore a tiara, encrusted with sparkling fake rubies, propped on top of her golden hair. Nita thought her dress appeared as a second skin, it was so tight. The neckline plunged to her mid-section exposing a fair amount of cleavage. A pattern of playing cards covered the white dress. With closer inspection, Nita noticed each card was the same ... the Queen of Hearts. The woman danced with her eyes closed, as if she were feeling the music more than hearing it.

  The dancer on the other side was a man, he wore black slacks and a jacket with tails, only there was no shirt underneath the jacket. His abs glistened with sweat … or oil … and on his head sat a top hat with crazy decorations all over it. Unlike the female dancer, he engaged the crowd of women at the platform by his feet. Nita watched closely as he reached down and plucked a bright red feather boa off of an excited young lady and wound it around his neck.

  “Where is that winged maniac?” Leilanni growled, scanning the crowd of humans who were jumping up and down with raised hands and glowing necklaces of all different colors. Some of the humans even had bracelets that matched the necklaces.