The Bear's House Guest

by Amy Star

  Did I offend you? Did I poke your pride a bit too hard?

  After all, he seemed very adamant about how his senses were still just fine, even if they still couldn’t quite compare to a dog’s.

  maybe

  maybe not

  you’ll never know, now will you?

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes, though the exasperation was tinged with fondness.

  So that’s a yes, then.

  Anything turn up, or just the knowledge that my property is still a No Man’s Land?

  There was another delay before an answer came, and Elizabeth could almost perfectly picture Yusuke sulking in her mind’s eye. Not that she would ever actually say that to his face, or else it would probably lead to even more sulking.

  (Granted, that was just as much incentive to say it as it was to not say it. Yusuke in a sulk always carried the possibility of being hilarious.)

  wolfy got really close to the house and i’m pretty sure it was investigating your doors and windows

  but it didn’t leave anything behind or anything like that, if that’s what you’re asking

  Elizabeth groaned and mashed her face down against her pillow, though she lifted it back up a moment later, so she could tap out a response.

  Lovely. I love being banned from my own house. It’s the best feeling ever.

  I’m going to go back to sleep now. Thanks for keeping an eye out.

  Or a nose out, I guess.

  har har

  you’re very funny

  With a reluctant snort of laughter, Elizabeth shoved her phone back onto the side table, rolled over, and squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe she was getting used to being in peril, as it was surprisingly easy for her to fall asleep, even if her dreams were plagued by the sounds of claws scratching at her door and eyes like small mirrors in the darkness, and though it never got close, it never went away, no matter how far she walked.

  It wasn’t a particularly restful sleep, but it was better than being up all night, at least. She would take it.

  *

  Elizabeth woke to the smell of coffee but not to the smell of breakfast. That was a little unusual, considering breakfast was the one meal Ambrose was guaranteed to cook on an almost daily basis, unless he actually had to leave the house to go to work. And Elizabeth was fairly sure he would have told her if that was the case the night before, which meant there was some other reason that the house didn’t smell like food.

  She scrubbed a hand over her eyes as she sat up and groped for her phone, checking the time. It wasn’t particularly late in the morning, and she didn’t have any new messages after her chat with Yusuke in the middle of the night. So, if anything had happened, it hadn’t happened during the night.

  She stretched her arms high over her head, phone still in one hand as she got out of bed, and she didn’t bother to put on actual clothes, instead wandering out of the guest room in her pajamas and heading down the stairs to the kitchen.

  Mara was sitting at the table, doing a crossword puzzle and sipping from a mug of coffee. She glanced up as Elizabeth made her way into the room, eyebrows lifting at the faintly befuddled look on Elizabeth’s face.

  “There is no food,” Elizabeth observed, not yet entirely awake.

  Mara nodded in agreement. “There is no food,” she confirmed. “Horror of horrors, but you’ll have to scrounge up something to eat on your own.”

  Dutifully, Elizabeth made her way to the cupboard to find a box of cereal, though with a slightly bewildered look still on her face. As she was pouring cereal into a bowl, Mara finally took pity on her and explained, “Maxwell showed up not long after Ambrose got up without any real warning, and Ambrose didn’t want to just leave him to wander around unattended for however long it would take him to cook, get you up, and eat. So, he decided to skip breakfast today.”

  Elizabeth glanced towards the basement door. It was closed, just as it always was, but if she concentrated, she could sort of hear voices from below. Satisfied with that explanation, she nodded slowly and finished pouring herself a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee. It took until she was nearly done eating and she was halfway through her second mug before she was actually awake enough to carry on a conversation, though.

  Leaning her chin in one hand with an elbow on the table to keep herself from melting into a slumped puddle on the wood, she wondered, “Anything to report about the situation at my house?”

  Mara shrugged broadly, palms facing the ceiling. “It was Yusuke’s turn last night,” she replied, hands falling back to the table. “We aren’t both going to check in one night. That would be a waste of time. So, you’d need to ask him.”

  Elizabeth pouted down at the table for a moment before she picked up her mug, straightened again, and drained the last of the mug’s contents. “Fair enough,” she sighed. “I guess I’m just sort of antsy for all of this to be done with.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Mara replied, rolling one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “You know we’re not just going to forget to keep you in the loop, though,” she added. “I mean, it’s your house, and we both know we would be tearing our hair out in your situation.”

  “And here I was worried I was being melodramatic,” Elizabeth drawled wryly, leaning to the side when Mara flicked a pen at her. The pen clattered to the floor and rolled away, and if Ambrose had owned a cat, then the pen would have been a goner. But in that instance, it just found a new home under the counter.

  A few moments passed in silence, and then Mara observed sullenly, “I needed that pen to finish my crossword puzzle.”

  Elizabeth shrugged carelessly and resumed eating her cereal. “Not my problem,” she said between bites. “You’re the one who threw it.”

  She smiled pleasantly as Mara heaved an exaggerated sigh, rife with aggrieved exasperation, and went to fish her pen out from under the counter.

  There were worse ways to start the morning. If nothing else, it was hardly even evident that Maxwell was in the house, and Elizabeth would never consider that a bad thing. So, she enjoyed her breakfast and her coffee in silence, save for the sound of Mara’s pen scratching over paper and her occasional noises of bemused irritation. It was probably strange to think of it, but it was nice to feel like everything was normal, even when she knew that wasn’t necessarily the case.

  *

  It was wishful thinking to consider that maybe she wouldn’t see Maxwell that day, and Elizabeth knew that. After all, she wasn’t so antisocial that she would just hide in the guest room all day, and frankly that felt uncomfortably like letting him win. She wasn’t sure what he was winning, but that wasn’t important, so much as the fact that Elizabeth didn’t want to let him win anything.

  So, she finished breakfast, headed upstairs to shower and get dressed, and then made her way back down the stairs to the couch in the living room to read a book and pretend to watch the television while mostly just using it for background noise.

  It was around lunchtime when the basement door finally opened, and Maxwell emerged. He closed the door behind him, and Elizabeth assumed that was a sign that Ambrose wasn’t quite finished for the day, even if he didn’t need Maxwell’s presence for the moment. That meant she had the…dubious honor of Maxwell’s full attention.

  He offered her a slightly bemused look and cocked his head to one side. “I expected you to be at work,” he observed. “You seem to work quite frequently, though I don’t actually know where you work.”

  “I still have days off,” she replied, not offering a single hint of an answer to his unasked question. “It’s illegal not to.” Elizabeth slid down in her seat and pulled her book closer to her face. She was entirely positive that Maxwell understood the silent hint, but he ignored it, instead taking a few steps closer to the couch.

  He huffed out a laugh as he moved. “You don’t say,” he returned flatly. “Are you at least enjoying your day?”

  She couldn’t quite help herself, and before she could arrange her thoughts into something politer, th
ey spilled out of her mouth. “I was until my book got interrupted.”

  She glanced up over the top edge of her book as casually as she could, and she had to fight very hard not to start snickering at the look on Maxwell’s face. He looked somewhat affronted, while at the same time trying desperately hard to pretend that wasn’t what he was feeling, and his placid smile had gone somewhat stiff and plastic around the edges.

  There was a tense pause, presumably as Maxwell waited to see if Elizabeth was going to take her statement back, or at least soften it somewhat. She did no such thing—in fact, she just lifted her eyebrows somewhat expectantly and drummed the fingers of one hand against the back cover of the book—and after a moment, Maxwell stuttered back into motion. His smile softened again, even if it looked like it took a force of will for him to manage it, and he finally turned to head towards the door.

  “I’ll leave you to your reading, then,” he offered as his hand landed on the knob.

  He paused again, looking at Elizabeth with something like expectation, as if he was waiting for her to ask him to hang around just a little bit longer. She had no intentions of doing that, though, and instead she shifted her book to a one-handed hold, freeing up a hand to wave him towards the door as she offered in a tone tinged with careless impatience, “Right, okay. Bye. See you next time.”

  With that said, she adjusted her hold on her book again and lifted it back up to fully hide her face behind it as she focused intently on the page.

  It wasn’t until she heard the door open and close again that she was able to actually focus on the words at all.

  As much as she enjoyed spending time with Ambrose and his friends and as comfortable and welcome as she felt in his house, she couldn’t wait until she could go back to her own house, where Maxwell had no excuse to show up, and where Elizabeth would be able to happily report him for trespassing if he tried to.

  It took a little while before she could begin to fully appreciate her book again, but the rest of the day was calm after that.

  *

  Elizabeth was just getting ready for bed, tugging down the blankets on the side of Ambrose’s bed that she had decided to claim as her own, when her phone started buzzing to alert her to a flood of messages. She waited until she was comfortable beneath the covers and resting against a pillow before she actually checked the influx. It would be a little while before Ambrose headed to bed himself, so there was no worry of the light from the screen disrupting anyone, even if it was just as blinding as it ever was.

  Unsurprisingly, the messages were from Mara

  so I’m at your house.

  and there’s definitely been some activity, but it seems sort of old?

  not super old but at least a few hours old.

  so someone is definitely still scouting your house out on a regular basis, but I’m pretty sure it’s only happening at night.

  There was a pause then as Elizabeth contemplated how to reply, before another flurry of messages arrived.

  so it’s probably safe to head to your house in the day if you need to get anything.

  but I wouldn’t recommend showing up at night or staying for longer than you have to just yet.

  no reason to invite trouble before we have to, after all.

  Elizabeth paused to make sure nothing else was forthcoming, but the stream of messages finally seemed to be done for the time being, and she started tapping out a reply. She had to erase it and start over a few times, just to make sure she didn’t sound too sullen or too ungrateful. After all, she was grateful. But that didn’t miraculously do away with the fact that she was rather fed up with the entire situation.

  (Was a reverse hostage situation a real thing? That was what it felt like. Maybe she would look it up later, though she already knew even as she pondered it that she would forget it by morning.)

  I guess that makes sense. Not quite the result I was hoping for, but thanks for staying on top of it.

  I appreciate it.

  There was a pause before another message arrived, and Elizabeth couldn’t help but to picture Mara just sitting on her porch while she texted without wearing anything. The next message just solidified the fact that it was probably that exact situation.

  not a problem. and hey, I’m a dog. I love to be helpful.

  but if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to make like an egg and beat it before your unwanted houseguest decides to show up for the night.

  I mean, I really doubt we would be lucky enough for this to be the one night he decides not to stop by.

  Talk to you later.

  With that simple farewell, Elizabeth set her phone down on the bedside table and stared upwards at the ceiling, allowing her eyes to gradually adjust to the darkness until she could actually see the ceiling.

  Everything seemed so complicated, but at the same time, she supposed she was terribly lucky. She didn’t even want to know what sort of situation she would be in if she didn’t have Ambrose and his friends.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Elizabeth watched quietly as Maxwell stepped inside, hardly even announcing himself before he did so. He glanced around, and Elizabeth suspected he would have lingered for conversation if not for the fact that Yusuke was in the room, and he absentmindedly gestured the wolf towards the basement. Maxwell paused for only a moment after that before he headed for the basement door and disappeared down the stairs.

  It was sort of uncomfortable, just how often Maxwell wound up at Ambrose’s house. True enough, it would have been less uncomfortable if he left Elizabeth alone or if she had seen it coming, but he didn’t, and she hadn’t. The fact of the matter was that Elizabeth hadn’t actually expected him to be around much at all.

  As it turned out, Elizabeth had been very mistaken about just how often Ambrose’s clients had to show up for him to do his job for them. She had assumed it was a one-time thing. They arrived, Ambrose made a note of the relevant information, gave them a helpful folder of papers, and sent them on their way again, and that would be that. She could acknowledge, in retrospect, that it had been a very simplistic, naive line of thought, considering just how long it could take to get a completely legal passport or driver’s license.

  It was much more drawn out than she had initially assumed it to be, especially when information was being manufactured completely, which meant Maxwell had to show up a lot. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by it, and nor did he seem particularly put out. If he had been living as a wolf for so long, then Elizabeth wasn’t sure where he was staying at that point, but he was always groomed and dressed in clean clothes whenever he showed up. She supposed that should have been a good thing, but something about it still sort of bothered her, even if she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. Maybe it just made it seem like he was being disingenuous about his circumstances.

  Even considering that, though, she couldn’t say she would have much to complain about when it came to Maxwell, if not for the fact that he was very…personable. Ordinarily, Elizabeth would have considered that to be a good thing, but not when it meant he was constantly lurking near her like he was waiting for something to happen.

  Maybe if he had seemed like more of an ordinary man, Elizabeth wouldn’t have minded as much, but after being divorced from his humanity for so long, spending any amount of time around Maxwell felt like she was dangling herself over a pit with a hungry dog in it, waiting for it to decide whether it was going to leap at her or wait for an easier, more opportune meal. It wasn’t a great feeling and always left her a little unnerved, as if she needed to look over her shoulder at every noise for hours afterwards.

  She mentioned it to Ambrose, and if nothing else, she was gratified to find that he didn’t especially like Maxwell either. Considering Ambrose could turn into a bear the size of a truck, Elizabeth found it oddly impressive that Maxwell even managed to give him the creeps to some extent.

  (Was that vindictive? Probably not. Or at least she was going to tell herself it probably wasn’t vindictive.)
r />   *

  Elizabeth had never quite been sure what it meant when someone said it felt like they were being watched. No one had ever been interested enough in her for that to become a trend.

  One day, though, she learned. And frankly, she had been happier not knowing what it felt like. To know that someone was trying to burn holes in the side of her head with their eyes alone, as if staring at her was the way to absorb every detail about her, made the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand up. It left her feeling like her skin was crawling, like she was going to need to shed her skin and crawl away from it like a snake before the feeling stopped.

  Slowly, she peered over her shoulder, and she couldn’t even be surprised when she found Maxwell watching her intently. Though the smile on his face as he lifted a hand to wave at her was placidly pleasant, the look in his eyes made it seem like he was planning something, and she wanted to throw a glass of water at him just to force him to leave for a few minutes to dry off. Not an entirely rational feeling, perhaps—or at least not the most efficient way of getting rid of an unwanted guest—but there it was regardless.