by Justin Sloan
Rusty nodded, as if he too was thinking of the legend. “The Elders forged the bonds that tie them, never again to hide under the beds of our boys and girls. Never again… until now. Yes, the Elders’ll have the answers.”
Rusty’s head dropped forward, his paws on his lap. Ari watched, waiting.
“Are you contacting them?” Ari asked.
“Who?”
“The Elders.”
Rusty looked at him with confusion. “Contacting? No, I’m resting my eye. Your boy picked you in the process of acceptance. That means he’s your boy, your responsibility to defend. ‘Sides, only way to contact the Elders is through the passage up in the attic.”
“But no one knows what’s out there, no one even knows how to get there.” Ari gulped, eyeing the ceiling and thinking of all the darkness up there in the attic.
Rusty “hmmphed” and lowered himself from the chair. Even down on the ground, he loomed over Ari. The old bear reached up and popped off his black button eye, leaving him with only the one good brown eye.
“This was never mine to begin with,” Rusty said. “Even if I wanted to go, I’m too old. But there was one once, someone who knew his way to the monster’s lair.”
“But—”
“You find him out there, you give him this and he’ll help you. I promise.”
Rusty grabbed Ari’s paws and thrust the button at him. His good eye lingered on Ari a moment.
“What if....” Ari felt the room spinning, the weight of the whole house on his shoulders. “What if I can’t?”
“You have a duty. You have no choice.” Rusty turned back to his chair and scrambled up, leaving Ari to stare in confusion at the button he now held.
When Ari looked up, Rusty was resting his remaining eye. Ari turned with a gulp to the shadows of the stairs. His fist clenched the button and he knew what the old bear had said was true. It was Ari’s duty to help Rick.
Ari trudged through the darkness, eyes jumping from one shadow to the next as they seemed to darken around him. As he approached the stairs that led up to the second floor, he wondered why anyone would ever go up there. The floor creaked and he broke into a run, away from the stairs and to the bedroom instead. Under the blankets was the safest spot, as everyone knew, so he threw himself onto the bed and hid. Somehow he hoped that, if anyone was around, they wouldn’t notice his trembling form under the blankets.
“I can’t, I can’t,” he told himself.
Scratches came from inside the walls. No, wait—it was coming from the other side of the walls, from Rick’s little sister’s room!
“Tiffany….” Ari hesitated for a moment, and then heard her scream. “Tiffany!”
He darted from the blankets and made it to Tiffany’s room on the other side of the hall faster than he would have thought possible. But he was too late! Her hand reached from the shadows under the bed, and then vanished.
The moonlight shone through the window on the empty room and, once again, Ari was alone. He made up his mind—the monsters would not win.
Chapter Four: The Attic
Each stair was like a cliff for Ari, but he struggled to climb them nonetheless. He had to do it, for Rick and Tiffany. They had no one else but him. He used his shoulder to chicken-wing himself up to the last step, kicking off the wall to make it.
A dark passage lay before him, filled with plants and bookshelves. In the ceiling was the attic entryway, a pull-down staircase with a chain. But how to get to it? He assessed his surroundings and came up with a plan. There was no time for dawdling.
He ran to a potted tree and jumped, pushing off the pot and landing in the branches, where he flung himself from branch to branch Tarzan-style. He leapt from the tallest branch and onto a bookshelf. There, he pushed over a couple of books and used them to give himself the height to jump to the next shelf. Running along the shelf, he thrust himself through the air and to the standing light. It tipped with his weight, as he had planned. He caught his balance and ran along the sleek black bar of the light stand as it fell toward the wall. Finally, he lunged for the attic chain, grabbed it with his falling motion and...
…hung there. He hadn’t thought that maybe his weight wouldn’t be enough to open the stairs. He struggled, moving his body as if he were on a swing as he had seen Rick do often enough. The entryway opened an inch with a click, but then seemed to be stuck.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Ari said.
The light stand had hit the opposite wall and rested at a forty-five degree angle, giving Ari an idea. He swung back and forth again, this time working to propel himself toward the light stand. On the first attempt he got close and missed, but on the next he grabbed ahold of the light. He managed to tie the chain around the light stand, and then dropped onto the stand and commenced to jump up and down on it. Finally, as he had planned, the standing light rolled off the wall and, with a giant crash, sent Ari sprawling across the hall.
He recovered and shook it off as his eyes rose to see that the attic stairs were down, ready for him to climb. Taking one step at a time, Ari felt his heart pound. The attic wasn’t a place that teddy bears just went to for fun. He had no idea what to expect. He reached the top, reminding himself why he was doing this. His chest puffed out with determination as he poked his head up.
Dust floated by like clouds. Thin cracks in the roof allowed slivers of moonlight to shine through. Piles of mothballs surrounded old boxes and mounds of clothes. Books lay scattered across the floor, paint speckling the book covers that boasted pictures of dragons, magical rings, and swords.
Ari pulled himself up and wrapped his arms around his chest, shivering, his breath visible in the cold.
“Hello?” He took a cautious step, amazed at the amount of junk.
A mural covered the slanted attic roof. A painting of a land with sunlight and trees, teddy bears of all types lying in the grass, eating and drinking. Balloons and kites floated from some of their hands. Below, the mural showed a house with a boy hugging his teddy bear, and farther down, staring up from the dark basement, were vicious monsters.
Ari stared in amazement. Why would someone put this in her attic? He moved along the mural, his paw brushing against the paint. But wait, that felt wet! He pulled his paw back to see fresh green paint on his fingers.
A growl sounded from the other side of a stack of boxes and Ari froze. His paw gripped the button he had received from Rusty as he turned to the stairs. He put the button in his teddy bear pouch, sown in where humans had pockets, and prepared. With a “hi-ya!” he pounced.
Ari landed ready, waking a ghoul mid-snore. It was a man-sized beast with red eyes and pink skin. With paint-speckled fingers, the ghoul gripped a paint brush. Its free hand clung to the key hanging from its neck as its eyes popped open. Spotting Ari, it howled and clumsily retreated to the shadows.
“Hey!” Ari said in confusion. “Wait, where you going? I need your help!”
“Garr, leave me be,” the ghoul said with a voice like teeth scraping on cement.
“You defend the entrance to the Elders? I—I seek an audience.”
“Is that so?” The ghoul rubbed its eyes, getting bright green paint on its face. It assessed Ari and pulled a pallet of paint from behind it. Then the ghoul began to paint brown over a patch of green.
“Excuse me,” Ari said.
“I heard you, garrr. Patience, patience.”
“Listen, I need—”
The ghoul turned on him, eyes narrowed. “I HEARD you the first time!”
Ari took a step back, trembling, so small in comparison. But he said, “I’ll fight you, you know. If you don’t help me, I will.”
The ghoul eyed him with doubt before returning to its painting. “Is fighting all you know?”
Ari stared, dumbfounded. But as he stared it became evident the ghoul was painting a door. The ghoul finished and turned to Ari, a key in its hand.
“No good gate-keeper, garr, would allow one to move by without a riddle, am I right?
”
“My boy and his sister, they were taken by the monsters.”
“I doesn’t care, I doesn’t care. I have one job, see, one job.” The ghoul lumbered forward, slimy skin glinting in the moonlight. “Tell me then, what have I got in me pocket?”
Ari stared, blinking.
“Come on now, answer.”
“Is that supposed to be some sort of riddle? You haven’t got any pockets!”
The ghoul paused and blinked as if unsure. It looked down and quickly covered itself. “All these clothes around. Garr, okay, I’ll give you that one. Best two out of three?”
“Now listen here, you said if I answered your riddle you’d give me the key.”
“NO! Answer me. What is my name? What is my birthdate?”
Ari walked over and clenched his paws, staring up at the ghoul. “I have no idea.”
“No one does!” The ghoul fell to its butt with a thump and burst into tears. “That’s the problem, you see? We ghouls wait up here, guarding the attic, and no one even cares about our name!” The ghoul buried its face in its hands, shoulders heaving.
Ari scratched his head, glancing between the ghoul and the door. He stepped forward, arms spread. “Listen, I’m in a hurry. Maybe you could tell me your name, and we could talk more when I return?”
The ghoul’s sobs increased to a high pitched wail. “Garr! I don’t even know MY OWN NAME!”
“What?”
“A ghoul has no name. We don’t get ‘em.”
“Okay, okay, let’s call you... Grant, okay? That’s a good name, right? One of Rick’s friends has that name, and he’s a nice kid.”
The ghoul’s whimpering stopped. He glanced up, hopeful. “Yeah...? Yeah. Grant the Ghoul, huh? Sounds good, garr.” Grant smiled and wiped first a tear, and then long, drooling snot. “Tell you what, you seem like a nice bear.” He removed the key from his neck and inserted it into the door he had painted. The key glowed with the moonlight, turned in the lock, and the door opened. Bright daylight shone through.
“Thanks, Grant.” Ari took a step toward the open door, but Grant held out an arm, blocking the way. Ari looked down at the arm and followed it to the paint-speckled finger that pointed to the painting, the part with the basement.
“You can’t always return the way you came. To return... Garr... the way may not be so simple.”
Ari gulped, but nodded. “I’ve made my choice.”
Grant pushed the door open wider. “Then may the light be with you, little friend. And do come back.”
Ari nodded and stepped through the door.
Chapter Five: A Picnic for Teddy Bears
Grant’s painted door led to a land of green grass and lush trees. The sun shone bright as if from everywhere, not a shadow to be seen. The door behind Ari faded away as he stepped away from it. He thought back to Grant’s warning. As long as he found Rick and Tiffany, he would find a way back.
Ari could hear water flowing and birds chirping. From somewhere in the distance, laughter floated toward him on the air. He cautiously stepped through the trees, looking for the source of the sounds. The laughter seemed closer, just past some bushes. Ari peeked from behind a bush to see a vast field of green grass. Teddy bears, many like him but others of all shapes and sizes, chased each other, flew kites, or lounged around on blankets. A balloon floated into the bright sky.
Ari rubbed his eyes. He had never seen so many teddy bears! He stepped into the sun, cautious, but no one noticed him. They were too busy having fun. A warmth touched his fur and he smelled apple pie at one moment, pumpkin-pecan the next. He took a deep breath and felt like he could lie in the grass and never get up, but he forced himself on.
He walked through the crowds in complete bewilderment. A large purple ball flew his way and he dodged it nimbly. Two small bears ran past, giggling, and Ari saw a family sitting on a blanket, chatting and eating turkey and stuffing. A small bear wore a plaid dress and held a lollipop the size of her body.
A waterfall formed a pool where teddy bears swam. A bear stepped out and shook herself dry. She wore a yellow bathing suit, with an orange-and-yellow flower in her fur.
She saw him looking and waved. “Come on, water’s great!”
He looked around and, seeing no other bears, pointed at himself with a silent “me?”
“Of course you,” she said. “Shy or something?”
Ari strolled over, scratching his head and looking around.
She stretched, as if waking from a nap. “I tell you, I could get lost here, you know? Just relaxing all day. Perfect bliss.”
“Yeah....” Ari replied in a dreamy voice.
“We have a picnic, me and some of the other bears, if you aren’t up for the water. What’ya say?” She started to walk off and turned to look over her shoulder at him as if she knew he would follow.
But Ari hesitated. “No… I—the monsters.”
“What’s that?”
“The monsters, they’re back and they took Rick… I mean my boy, and his sister—”
“Are you crazy?” She stepped away from him, eyes wild. “I’ve heard of bears like you, bears that stay here too long and begin to lose it.”
“No, I’m telling you, the monsters took my boy!”
The female bear turned and stumbled. She caught herself and then broke into a run away from Ari.
Ari pursued for several steps, but stopped when he noticed the other bears glaring at him. They turned their young bears away from the crazy stranger.
“Listen to me, I’m telling you there were—”
“Monsters?” a voice said.
Ari whipped around to find three grizzly teddies flanking a polar teddy bear, all in fine cloaks. The grizzlies wore wooden swords and shields.
“The name’s Aldis,” the polar bear said. “I’d advise you to keep quiet on such matters as so-called monsters.”
“But they were real. They have—”
Aldis held up a paw. “Enjoy yourself. Laugh, eat, swim.”
“You have to help me! The children. I don’t know what they’re doing with them, I don’t know how much time we have.”
Aldis stared at him for a moment, arms crossed, and then he laughed. The others joined in until Aldis said, “Enough! There are no more monsters.”
“But I’ve seen them!”
Aldis glared at him for a long moment. “We have rules against such talk in these parts.
This was infuriating. Ari breathed deep, massaging his temples. “Okay, okay. Listen, I just want to find Rick. He’s gone, and I was told the Elders could help.”
“I am the Elder Bear. I will not.”
“You’re Father Moroz?” Ari knelt. “Oh, great bear, if only I’d known.”
The grizzlies mumbled, distraught over something. Aldis fidgeted, glancing back at them.
“No!” Aldis laughed. “No one sees Father Moroz!”
The three grizzlies joined Aldis in laughter again, stopping when he stopped.
“I am the bear council,” Aldis said. “Number two only to Father Moroz. Anything you have to say, you can say to me.”
“As I said, my boy—”
“I won’t hear of it.” He spun on his heel to go. The grizzlies right-faced, preparing to march.
Ari stared, dumbfounded. Determined, he stepped forward. “Bring me to Father Moroz. Now.”
Aldis paused mid-step. He turned, furious. His frown slowly transformed into a smirk. “Yes, why not? Bring him, boys.”
But they didn’t take him to any shining white castle with pillars of gold. Instead, they took him to the edge of a seemingly never-ending ocean, where they tied his hands with rope. One of the grizzles pulled a rickety looking rowboat from the tree line, and the other shoved Ari into it. The boat had a small white sail and the wood was rotting in places.
On each side of the beach, stone statues of teddy bears in robes faced west as if guarding this land from whatever was out there.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,”
Ari protested. “Check if you want, they have Rick, they have his sister!”
Aldis shook his head with a wicked smile. “You’re just a tiny pebble. We like to keep our pond ripple-free.”
With a nod from Aldis, the grizzlies shoved the boat. It rocked as the small sail filled with wind, and Ari fell to his side.
“Enjoy the ride,” Aldis said as he walked off, leaving the boat to sail into the deep blue seas.
Ari pushed himself up and struggled with his bonds. “You can’t do this!” he said, but his voice carried away on the wind and his words were wasted.
Chapter Six: A Boat Ride
The boat continued on, full speed ahead over choppy waters. Ari tugged and gnashed at the ropes until the last bit of frayed rope came undone. Paws free, he rushed to the rear of the boat and stared back in the direction he had come. The land was merely a speck, far off.
The wind blew around him, a chill on its salty breath. Ari figured that if he could turn the sail, it would push the boat back the other way. No luck. The sail was just a piece of cloth tied to the mast and came undone when he tried to move it. He snatched the cloth out of the air, in case he would need it later, and then sat at the side of the boat. He tried putting his paws in the freezing water and paddling, but the boat kept on at the same speed.
When he looked back again, the land was gone. All he could see was water in every direction. A surge of panic pulled at his insides and he felt his chest about to cave in. He couldn’t let this happen! He plunged into the freezing water and yelped. He pushed against the boat, kicking with every ounce of strength he had. But it was no use. The boat kept right on going, and passed over him, pushing him down. He gulped for air, but all he got was water. He dived to break free of the boat’s pull, but the wood caught the material of his arm and he was stuck.
