Beary Tales

by Jennifer Malone Wright

  “I see him!” Katya called out above the music.

  Nita’s gaze followed Katya’s extended arm to where she was pointing. “What is he doing?” Nita wondered aloud.

  “Being an idgit,” Leilanni muttered.

  Confused, Nita’s mind scrambled to know the meaning of idgit. “Do you mean idiot?” She asked her.

  “Yes, that’s what I said.”

  “Oh.”

  Leilanni began to shove her way through the mob of humans toward the bar, which Uncle Butchy happened to be standing on top of. He held a bottle of Whiskey in one hand and was tossing fairy dust out onto the crowd with the other. The beautiful gold dust rained down onto the humans in giant glittering clouds. They could see his mouth moving as he shouted something about raining men.

  Holding tight to each other, the girls fought through the mass of bouncing sweaty bodies until they got up to the bar.

  “Get out of my way.” Leilanni shoved anyone in her way aside. “Butchy!”

  Uncle Butchy did not hear them. He continued his awkward dance, swigging down the Whiskey in large gulps and singing loudly along with the music.

  Nita did not think Uncle Butchy sounded all that bad, but his dancing left something to be desired. Not knowing what else to do, they stood beside the bar, watching Butchy make a spectacle of himself. He spotted them and winked, then he turned around and tossed a bit of dust down onto the barmaid. “Give these ladies your best girly drink,” he called down to her.

  The barmaid paused for a moment, her eyes glassed over and she appeared to lose her train of thought. Then, as quickly as she had spaced off, her eyes regained focus and she nodded, tossing a lock of her golden blonde hair out of her face. She wore a blue dress with ruffled sleeves and a short skirt that flared out around her. Over the top of her dress sat a white apron, which was smudged with different colors. Above the breast of her apron was a little nametag with the name ‘Alice’ engraved onto it.

  She smiled at the girls. “Three Wonderland cocktails coming right up.” With that, she pulled out three plastic cups with the words ‘Drink Me’ printed on them. The girls watched with awe as Alice poured colorful and clear liquids from shiny glass bottles into the cups and then stuck a cherry and a tiny little straw into each one.

  “Here you are ladies.” Alice set a drink in front of each of them just as Butchy danced over and tossed several bills down onto the bar. Alice gathered the bills and looked up at Butchy. “Thanks, baby.”

  “No prob.” He winked at her. “And run a tab for me and the girls.” For good measure, he tossed another bit of fairy dust onto her. Then, he nodded at the girls and took off down the bar.

  Nita placed the rim of the cup at her lips and tipped it just enough to get a taste of the colorful liquid inside. It tasted like berries from the forest, sweet, yet tart at the same time.

  Leilanni and Katya tasted their drinks as well. Leilanni flinched and held the drink away from her body. “Ugh, I do not like this,” she complained.

  Katya had a much different reaction after the initial taste. She tilted her head back and guzzled the entire contents of the plastic cup. “This is gooood!” she breathed out when she finished her last swallow.

  “Here, have mine.” Leilanni thrust her full cup at Katya, who gratefully accepted with an exuberant, “Thank you!”

  Leilanni growled and leaned against the bar. “We must hurry. We do not have time for this nonsense.”

  Nita agreed, but didn’t want to encourage Leilanni by voicing it. She scanned the club, trying to find Butchy somewhere in the crowd of dancing bodies. She couldn’t find him anywhere. There were simply too many people packed into the place for her to see him clearly.

  But … she did see something else.

  Near the door, stood the most attractive human she had ever seen. Her thoughts surprised her, there was no reason that a human should appear attractive to her at all.

  He stood taller than most of the humans dancing around the club and wore a black tee shirt with the words ‘Security’ printed on the front in bold white letters. His muscles pressed against the fabric of the shirt so that she could see every ripple each time he moved. This human had long, black hair bound back with a leather string. His tanned skin seemed to glow under the dim lighting.

  He was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.

  Unable to look away, Nita began to move across the crowded dance floor. She couldn’t stop herself, as if something pulled her toward this man. She knew, in that moment, nothing was going to stop her from meeting him. The crowd seemed to part as she made her way to him. The music muted in her ears alone and it was only him.

  As if he felt the pull, as well, he looked up from the patron he was speaking to. He lifted his head and his charcoal eyes locked with hers.

  Suddenly, Nita felt tingles surface on every pore of her new human skin. The beautiful human abandoned his conversation with the patron, who now appeared utterly confused as to why he was being ignored. With determined steps and his gaze not straying from her eyes, he strode toward her.

  As soon as he was close enough to her, Nita stretched out her arm, extending her fingers. She just had to touch him. Her fingertips finally made contact with his arm and the whole room seemed to sway.

  He did not appear offended that she had touched him, it was rather the opposite. He reached out and touched her arm in return. “Who are you?” he asked in a low husky voice.

  “I am Nita,” she responded, surprised that she could make words come out of her clumsy human lips.

  He tilted his head to the side curiously. “I’m Mato.”

  Nita inhaled deeply as his fingers spread wide and wrapped around her arm, pulling her closer to him. His scent wasn’t right, he smelled human, but he also had the scent of her fellow bears in the forest. “You do not smell like a human,” Nita managed to tell him.

  Mato threw back his head and laughed. “Neither do you, beautiful Nita.”

  When he laughed she felt like nothing was wrong in the world, no curse, no humans, no evil witch … just perfection.

  Suddenly, keeping his grip on her arm, he slowly circled around her body, tilting his head down into her neck and her hair. “Beautiful Nita.” He stood behind her, his body pressed against hers, and whispered into her ear. “You … are magnificent.”

  Chapter Four

  Meanwhile, Uncle Butchy had abandoned the girls for his whiskey and glow sticks. Maybe if he drank enough he would wake up and the whole thing would be a dream. Maybe Julio would be in the kitchen making coffee and frying up bacon for the both of them, like he always did. Maybe … just maybe. But, that would require more booze.

  The crowd pulsed around him. Their hips pumped, their hands groped and reached into the air. The bodies were covered in sweat and pressed against each other so closely that it was hard to move at all except to dance in place.

  He lifted the whiskey bottle and took long pull, guzzling down as much as he could without vomiting. Suddenly someone wedged their way through the people that were tightly knit around him.

  “Excuse me, Sir.” One of the incredibly muscular security guards emerged from the crowd. “Yes, you with the tutu.”

  Butchy knew perfectly well the security guy was speaking to him, but he still merely pointed at himself and hollered, “Who, me?”

  “You can’t have that out here. No glass on the floor.” The security guard pointed at Butchy’s bottle of Jack and held out his hand for Butchy to relinquish it to him.

  “Idiots,” Butchy mumbled, reaching into the little bag tied to his waist. Then, quick as could be, he tossed golden fairy dust over the security guard. The guard stopped and blinked a few times, as if he had forgotten why he had come out to the dance floor in the first place.

  Butchy waited while the glittering dust came to rest before he leaned in with his bottle and asked, “Now, what were you saying?”

  The guard shook his head a bit and reached up to grasp his forehead. “I … I don’t r
emember.”

  Butchy held up the bottle, tilted his head back and took a long swig right before the eyes of the guard. “Oh yeah,” he hollered over the music, “I hate it when that happens.”

  The guard turned and fought his way back out of the crowd. Butchy took another swig from his bottle laughed as he watched the guy struggle back through the mass of bodies.

  Suddenly, the air thickened around him. He paused and turned in a circle, watching the clear shimmering of magic surround him. The noise from the club muted to a soft murmur, like wearing earplugs. He could still hear it, but it was muted.

  The bubble of magic he stood in was invisible to others as well as an entrapment. He knew there was one person who was powerful enough to create this sort of cage.

  “Bartholomew, just what do you think you are doing?” a soft, but stern voice came from behind him.

  Oh crap, Butchy thought as he slowly turned around to face the Queen. “Your Majesty.” He quickly lowered himself into a deep bow.

  “Rise,” she instructed.

  It had been a long while since he had seen the Queen of the fairy realm. She looked much the same as she always had. Her blonde hair cascaded down her back all the way to her waist and her penetrating eyes were the color of aquamarine gemstones. Those eyes saw everything, one could not hide much from the queen. She wore a gown of almost the same color. It wasn’t all poofy as one would imagine a fairy queen would wear. This gown reminded Butchy of a Greek Goddess. The loose folds of the gown wrapped around her elegantly. No jewels or decoration, save for the wide belt at her waist, were to be found, as they would take away from the Queen’s natural beauty.

  The one exception as far as jewels went, was her crown. The symbol of her leadership to the fairy realm sat atop her head as if it had always been meant for her. The diamonds glittered against the dim lighting of the club like a beacon in the night sky.

  Butchy rose as she had instructed, knowing if she was here to speak to him, it was not to compliment him, nor praise him for anything he had done.

  “I asked you a question, Bartholomew.”

  Butchy lowered his head. “I don’t understand, your Majesty.”

  She tilted her head, her gaze boring a hole in his whiskey buzz. “You know exactly what I am talking about. You have charges and a time sensitive mission to accomplish.”

  “Your Majesty …” he began, but she cut him off.

  “Bartholomew, you know the rules.”

  “Yes, your Majesty, I do. Forgive me, but I simply do not understand why I have been given charges in the first place. I am supposed to be retired now.”

  “I understand your frustration. However, for some reason, these girls chose you and once the charges are assigned, they cannot be given to anyone else until their story is complete.”

  Butchy wanted to groan.

  The Queen continued. “These girls have unfortunately come across a rather nasty and extremely rare curse. Two forces of magic have combined. When you cast out your magic, it collided with hers. Good and evil never, ever mix well and there is only one thing that will be able to end it.”

  “True Love?” Butchy guessed.

  The Queen nodded. “Yes. The most powerful of all magic is the one within us.”

  Boy, this conversation was just getting worse and worse. “Again, forgive me, Majesty, but I don’t know if there is any possible way that I will be able to help these girls find true love. They were bears! And now, they are humans that act like bears. And that Leilanni one is mean as hell. I don’t even think she is capable of love.”

  With a shake of her head, the Queen responded. “It matters not. Everyone and anyone is capable of love and there is someone out there for everyone.”

  Butchy’s thoughts immediately went to Julio. Had he and Julio had true love or was the love only on Butchy’s part? “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  Her voice became stern again. “You can and you will. And most of all you will cease this insolent behavior. Your charges do not need a drunken Fairy Godfather trying to lead them to true love.”

  “But …”

  She held up her hand. “Enough, Bartholomew. None of your petty excuses will work. I understand that you are supposed to be retired and I am sorry for that.” She snapped her fingers and what looked like a gnarled twig appeared in her hands. “Since you have resumed your Fairy Godfather status, here is your wand.” She offered the familiar object to Butchy.

  He reached out and accepted the wand. If he was stuck with having to come out of retirement, he was going to need the wand. It had more power than the fairy dust, which was easily accessible for all fairies from the realm.

  Once the wand was tucked safely into his fur coat, he queried the Queen about the girls. “Your Majesty, what if I fail this assignment? I haven’t the faintest idea of where to start looking for true love for these girls.”

  Her lips finally turned up into a smile and her eyes softened. “Ah, Bartholomew. Don’t be so quick to doubt. Love always finds its way.” She lifted her hand and gestured in the direction he should look. There, through the shimmering shell of magic, beyond the pulsing body of humans, he saw Nita and a male human staring into each other’s eyes. Both were gently touching the arms of the other and a bright, golden mist encircled them like a giant glittering ribbon.

  The ribbon wound its way up from their legs, moving with its own magical life force.

  “Oh my…” Butchy tried to form the words. “What is that?”

  “That, Bartholomew, is true love,” the Queen responded.

  Something about the golden mist struck a memory within Butchy’s alcohol saturated mind. But for the life of him, he could not pin point what it was. “Majesty, that golden mist, it’s not fairy magic.” He was unable to take his eyes off of the couple and the mist.

  “I am not the one with the answers you seek,” the Queen told him softly.

  “Well who is?” The demand came out more fiercely than he had intended, realizing his mistake he turned to face her. “Forgive me, your Majesty.”

  Again, she offered him a soft smile. “That is a puzzle you will have to figure out on your own. Remember, shape up and proceed with the assignment.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head down slightly signaling her intent to leave. “Farewell, Bartholomew.”

  With that, the Queen and her magical bubble disappeared. The noise and frenzy of the crowd remained, but far across the room he could still see the bright golden ribbon around Nita and her male.

  Then, something snapped in his memory. His free hand went to his head and he almost dropped his bottle on the floor. “Could it … could it be?”

  While Nita was busy with Mato and Butchy visited with the Queen, Katya bobbed up and down to the beat of the music. “I like this,” she told Leilanni. “It makes me feel good inside.”

  Leilanni looked down at her as if she had lost her mind. “It makes me feel annoyed.”

  Katya frowned. “Everything makes you feel annoyed.” Leilanni appeared to contemplate before she answered. “My home made me happy … and food, I also like food. I am happy when I have food.”

  Katya nodded that she understood. “Me, too.”

  Both girls fell silent and turned, leaning on the bar facing the dance floor so that they could watch the assortment of odd humans.

  “I do not understand this human world,” Leilanni said in a voice barely loud enough for Katya to hear. The music was so loud they practically had to yell to speak to each other. Katya only shrugged in response. She was mostly intrigued by it all. But, at the same time, she longed for her bear form and her home that she had been taken from. “I want another fucking drink. I am thirsty.”

  She turned around to find Alice, but instead she came face to face with a male human in a black suit. He stood out to her because growing out of his blond hair was a set of white rabbit ears. He stood in front of her as if he had been waiting for her to turn around. With a shake of her head she muttered, “This just gets curiouser and c
uriouser.”

  “Hi there,” the rabbit greeted her. “What can I get you?”

  Katya held up her empty plastic cup. “I just need another fucking drink,” she yelled above the music.

  The rabbit smiled and pulled out a fresh cup. “Coming right up.”

  While she waited, she noticed there were lots and lots of those shiny bottles of colorful liquid that they used for drinks sitting on shelves behind the bar. Directly behind that was a mirror that ran the entire length of the bar.

  Her reflection stared back at her, only she had never seen her human reflection before. Katya turned her head to the side and watched the pretty redhead turn hers the opposite way. “How strange,” she whispered and raised her hand up to wave at the woman staring back at her. The woman waved back with the opposite hand. Then, she stepped to the side and the woman side-stepped as well.

  It was then that she realized the woman in the mirror was wearing the same outfit as she was. She looked down at her purple blouse and fingered the material, then peered up through her lashes at the woman in the mirror. She was doing the exact same thing.

  “It’s me,” she exclaimed with excitement, rather pleased with the idea of being able to see what she looked like.

  “Ah, do you like our looking glass?” The rabbit handed her the plastic cup with the colorful drink she liked.

  “Yes, yes I do.”

  “Don’t worry about the drink, honey. It’s on your friend’s tab.”

  “Thank you.” She accepted the drink and gave the looking glass one last glance. Her reflection stared back at her and then wavered, like when you touch the water of a still lake. The redhead in the mirror suddenly changed. The image blurred and her red hair began to turn black. Katya stared harder as she tried to figure out what was happening. Why was her reflection changing?

  Suddenly, the image cleared.

  Katya gasped as the face of the woman in the mirror changed before her eyes. The plastic cup slipped from within her fingers and hit the bar, splashing pink liquid all over the wooden surface.