by Anna Lowe
It was this sick-in-the-stomach feeling that overwhelmed her every time she stopped at the charred hulk that used to be her home away from home. She’d always vowed she’d move back to Montana someday — but Jesus, not like this. Not like this.
Honey, you need to move on, too. Go home to Virginia.
Home wasn’t Virginia. Home was the sleepy town of Black River, Montana. And she sure as hell wasn’t leaving until she uncovered the truth. She’d taken an indefinite leave of absence from her job on the East Coast to find her cousin. Somehow.
There were no survivors, honey. Not unless you count that bear.
Bear? What bear? She’d just about taken the detective by the shoulders and shaken him. Was he mocking her? Making a bad joke?
That grizzly we found half-dead on the lawn of the Boone place. Damnedest thing.
She rushed to the wildlife rescue center the second the police officer mentioned it, even though he shook his head hopelessly.
That grizzly’s probably dead by now. No way can an animal survive wounds that bad.
But the bear had clung to life, as she discovered when she arrived at the rescue center. She knew the place since she and Sarah had volunteered there every summer. That was probably the only reason they’d let her in when she turned up after hours, asking about the bear.
“The poor thing,” the rescue center director, Cynthia, told her. “He’s been badly burned and severely wounded by wolves that mobbed him that very same night.”
Wolves?
“Never heard anything like it,” Cynthia said. “But old man Haggerty swears he saw a pack of wolves mauling the bear right beside the fire. They ran off when the fire trucks arrived.”
“Can I see him?” she asked in a warbly, barely-holding-back-tears voice.
The tears were for her cousin and aunt and uncle, but somehow, that bear became a surrogate for them. From one breath to the next, all her desperate hopes jumped over to him. He had to survive. He had to!
“We doubt he’ll last another night,” Cynthia said as she led Anna to his cage.
That had been her first night back in town, and she’d spent it beside the bear. The folks at the rescue center had taken pity on her, bending the rules so that she could stay.
She’d cried when she saw him, a mess of blood and burns. Every breath the bear took was a pained wheeze. Every tiny movement came with a pitiful moan. Only a few patches of fur remained unmarred, but those were glossy and thick. A grizzly in the prime of his life. What had he been doing at the Boone place? How was he connected to the fire?
The giant lay close to the bars of the cage. Anna slumped down beside it, listening to his labored breath.
“Don’t die. Please don’t die,” she whispered, letting her tears fall freely once Cynthia left for the night.
The bear, of course, didn’t say anything, but she could see his ears twitch.
“Stay with me,” she said, slowly reaching a hand through the bars to stroke his fur.
It was coarse and so dense, her fingers caught in it. A light, sandy shade of brown — as light as she’d ever seen a grizzly. She’d seen a few up in the mountains on summer hikes with her cousin, albeit from far away.
“Don’t die,” she urged when his breathing stuttered and weakened. “Not now. Not like this.”
Tears streamed down her face as she pictured her relatives, trapped inside the house as it burned. No one deserved to die like that. Not a person nor an animal.
“Don’t die,” she whispered.
Her fingers swept softly over the one patch of fur that wasn’t matted with blood or burns, and her voice shook. “Please.”
Her eyes slid shut, and when she opened them, she remembered it was just a bear there and not her cousin in a hospital bed. But it wasn’t just a bear. It was an innocent life. Surely he deserved to live, too?
She was desperate for him to survive, but God, what could she do to help the beast that the vet hadn’t already tried? Human chatter probably didn’t do much for a wild bear, but she kept talking anyway, imagining what might appeal to a bear and infusing her voice with those things. It felt a little silly, but she had to do something.
She closed her eyes and made sure she didn’t just say the words. She thought them, too.
“Think of mountain meadows in spring,” she whispered, imagining waist-high grasses dancing and swaying. “Think of a clear, cool summer creek.” This part of Montana was full of them, and she and Sarah had splashed in plenty, jumping from rock to rock then swimming in the deepest sections to cool off.
“Think of berries growing thick in the fall.” That was one of the things she’d missed most after moving to Virginia, so it wasn’t hard to summon the feeling that went with it. That semi-urgent, semi-sleepy, winding-down-to-winter feeling. The sweet pop of berry after berry in her mouth, the juice sticky on her hands. The succulent scent, wafting on a breeze.
“Just think of all the things you’ll live to enjoy again,” she pleaded. “Stay with me.”
Such a beautiful animal couldn’t — shouldn’t — die in a cage. He should live. Thrive. Find a mate, make sandy-furred cubs, and live to a ripe old age somewhere way out in the deepest, densest forest where nobody would ever bother him again.
“Don’t die…” Her voice grew drowsy. At some point, she withdrew her arm but continued mumbling until she’d dozed off in a heap next to the bear. The creak of a door startled her awake in the wee hours of morning when Cynthia and the vet came to make their rounds.
“Still alive?” Cynthia asked in surprise.
Anna studied the bear closely, terrified at how still he’d become. But then his chest expanded with a breath that was slightly less rattly than before, and hope seeped back into her soul. He was alive, thank goodness. But for how much longer?
The folks at the wildlife center let her keep visiting, and she spent days alternating between her vigil at the bear’s side and wandering around town, trying to piece together the truth about the fire.
“My cousin didn’t have any enemies. Why would someone want to burn her house down?”
The police shook their heads sadly. “A lot of crazy folks out there. You never know.”
Looked like they’d never know, either. Not at the snail’s pace of their investigation.
Anna followed any and every lead she could find, but none led to any hard facts. She might have hung her head and gone back to the East Coast after a week if it weren’t for two things. First, a family who kept a seasonal cabin on the edge of town asked her to housesit.
“Always better to have someone keeping an eye on the place, especially after all those fires,” they’d said.
Of course, that hadn’t helped the Boones or the Vosses or the Macks family on the south side of town, but Anna kept her mouth shut. She welcomed the chance to stay in town to find out what she could. She could also afford a little time-out from the real estate business, having just sold two homes.
Second, the bear. The longer she stayed, the more she wished for his recovery. Desperately. One uncertain week became two, and midway through the tenth day, he opened his eyes and looked at her. Right at her.
It was only for a second, but her heart just about leaped out of her chest.
His eyes were the purest, brightest blue she’d ever seen, like a mountain lake shining under the noontime sun. Deep, intelligent eyes that held something special. Something…human almost. They were grateful. Weary. Curious yet pained at the same time, as if the bear wasn’t only suffering from physical wounds. And they focused directly on her. Studying her. Wondering. Wishing, almost.
A moment later, his gaze grew unfocused, and he nodded off into an uneasy slumber. But Anna sat staring at him for a long time, full of shock and wonder. A single second of eye contact had never affected her that way, ever. Not the prettiest eyes of the sweetest deer foal, like the one she and Sarah had helped nurse back to health one summer. Not the bright, proud eyes of the old Clydesdale who used to nicker when she jogged by
his Virginia farm. Not even her grandmother’s eyes that had remained bright and fiery to the last.
Her heart beat faster, harder. Her fingers tightened around an invisible handhold.
She spent the rest of the day wondering why her body and soul wanted to dive back into the moment to relive that unexpected burst of wonder.
She talked to the bear every day, but at some point, she realized he didn’t react to noise. When a door slammed, she’d jumped in surprise, but the bear didn’t flinch. Clapping didn’t draw his attention, nor did the barks or squawks of new arrivals to the rescue center.
Cynthia grew morose when Anna pointed it out. “Even if he survives, it’s going to be hard to rehabilitate him to the wild. A deaf bear?”
Anna didn’t want to ask what the alternative was. A proud animal like that belonged in the wild, not as a permanent captive of a wildlife center.
A day later, he looked at her again with those mesmerizing blue eyes, and she nearly cried at the message coded in them.
Help me. Please. Help me get out of this place.
It brought her right back to all the times as a little girl when she imagined living on a Doctor Doolittle farm where she could be friends with animals who were happy and free. She’d have a friendly lion, a playful tiger, a wolf who could tell her what every howl meant, and yes, a cuddly bear. A big one, like him.
But life didn’t work like that, and much as she wanted to, she couldn’t just set him free.
“You’re hurt,” she whispered through the bars of the cage.
Please, his eyes begged. I have to get out of here.
“You need a while longer to heal.”
Although he was barely fit to sit up, he grew agitated, pacing and turning in his too-small cage, testing the bars with paws the size of dinner plates then crumpling in a heap.
It broke her heart, but what could she do? Even if she dared do the unthinkable, how would she actually manage it? You didn’t just pop a cage gate open when no one else was around and wave an injured grizzly toward the door saying, That way, buddy. Good luck and Godspeed.
A padlock kept the bear’s cage firmly closed, and it was only taken off when the bear was ushered from the front section to the separate back area so the cage could be cleaned. One of the assistants would duck in, change the straw bedding, fill the water, and back out again, then bolt and lock the cage.
Except for the day when the assistant slid the bolt but left off the lock. Anna opened her mouth, and the words were right on the tip of her tongue. You forgot the lock. I’ll get it for you.
But her hand froze on the way to picking it up when she felt the bear’s gaze on her. A gaze so intense, her skin prickled and warmed.
She met his eyes. His gaze pierced her, and not a hair on his body moved. Something pulsed between them. An understanding. A plan. A promise.
Yes, she was going out of her mind. But hell, it sure felt like that.
“Hey, Anna?” the assistant called.
Anna dropped her jacket over the lock lying beside the cage and whirled like a thief caught in the act. “Yes?”
“Time to close up. Want to help?”
“Sure,” she said, much too quickly. “Sure.”
They went around checking every window and every door, and Anna was thorough in every respect but replacing the lock on the bear’s cage. Then she grabbed her jacket and watched him from the light switch at the far side of the room.
The bear sat studying her then dipped his chin in something startlingly close to a nod.
Her hand shook as she turned off the lights, and when she stepped outside and locked the front door, she shook her head at herself. She wasn’t the accomplice to some secret crime. She was slowly losing her mind.
And she was kidding herself. She wasn’t going to solve the mystery of her cousin’s disappearance, and she wasn’t going to save a wild bear. She was going to pack up the few things she’d brought and head back to Virginia the very next day. She’d get real, stop wishing, and accept the truth. Her cousin was dead. The bear would be taken care of by the authorities. And that was that.
She tried forcing the truth into her mind by repeating those words all the way back to the house she was staying in, all through dinner, and late into the night. She tapped the bedsheets for an uneasy hour, telling herself it was time to admit defeat. Waking at the crack of dawn, she faced her bleary-eyed reflection in the mirror. The restless hours of sleep had exhausted rather than refreshed her, but she knew what she had to do.
Get real, Anna. It’s time to get real. Go home. Mourn Sarah. Forget about that stupid bear.
And then her phone rang.
And rang and rang. Urgently, as if it knew what the message was.
“Anna?” Cynthia was breathless by the time she answered. “We need you right away.”
Her heart raced into a sprint.
“What happened?”
“The bear is gone. Did you notice anything before you left yesterday?”
She answered quickly and lied so effortlessly, she shocked herself. “No.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a thing.”
Chapter Two
Anna did go back to the East Coast, though it took her a few days longer than she thought. When she got to Virginia, she did exactly what she’d promised herself: she got real, mourned the death of her cousin, and forgot about that poor, injured bear.
Well, okay. Two out of three wasn’t bad.
She did get real. She went straight back to showing and selling homes. She did mourn her cousin, shedding tears just about every day and every night — and every time in between when some little memory would pop out of nowhere and make a mess of her emotions again.
But she didn’t forget about the bear. She didn’t want to forget about him. And how could she, given the mysterious circumstances of his disappearance?
She’d seen it with her own eyes the morning she’d rushed to the wildlife center after Cynthia’s call. The cage stood wide open. The back door was open, too. No signs of damage, no claw marks.
“I don’t understand it.” Cynthia had fretted, pacing back and forth. “The lock is just lying there. The bars of the cage are untouched. But the bolt was just slid open like the bolt on the back door. The front door was locked from the outside. How could a bear possibly get out?”
Anna had looked around, gaping.
“The doors were locked when I left last night. I know they were,” she’d stammered. Okay, the padlock to the bear cage hadn’t been, but she left that part out. And anyway, Cynthia was right. No way could a bear slide the bolt to the cage.
“I can’t understand it. What happened?”
Anna had no clue. She still had no clue, months later. She’d even called Cynthia a few times, asking whether the bear had been seen, but the answer was the same every time.
“Not a sign of him. It’s the craziest thing,” Cynthia said.
Anna mulled it over every morning and every night. Would she ever discover the truth?
The paperwork for her aunt and uncle’s property in Montana came through, and though it made her sick, she signed off on the deed transfer, accepting the property as next of kin. Although she’d tried to accept her cousin’s death, signing the property deed made all the doubts come back, along with the niggling feeling in her heart. What if Sarah wasn’t dead? The evidence hadn’t been conclusive, after all. And the feeling of Sarah being out there somewhere never quite went away. Some nights, Anna reached for the phone, sure it was about to ring with a call from Sarah. A few times, it had felt so real, so strong. First came the times when she was sure Sarah would call and cry for help — as though she’d survived the fire but was on the run from some evil force. Then came a time when Anna was sure Sarah would call and beg for her advice. Heart-to-heart advice, the way Sarah had once done when her boyfriend, Soren, had broken up with her. More recently, Anna reached for the phone with a smile when she sensed that her cousin had good news to share.
Which was crazy. She was just imagining things, right?
When the phone rang one night, she all but jumped to answer it, but it was Cynthia, not Sarah.
“Hi, Anna. How are you?”
Going crazy, I think.
“Fine. How are you?”
“Doing fine, sweetie. Listen, some folks have been asking about the land. Will you consider selling it?”
Anna sucked in a deep breath. It would kill her to sell that property, just as it would kill her to go back.
“No. Not selling. Not now.”
Cynthia sighed. “Yeah, I can understand. Too much a part of your family.”
Anna nodded into the phone. “I still can’t believe they’re gone.”
Cynthia sighed deeply. “I know, honey. I feel the same way sometimes. Just last week, Sally James got back from Arizona. They’re looking to retire down there. Can you believe that?”
“Well, I guess the winters aren’t quite as harsh down there.”
“Anyway,” Cynthia went on, “Sally said she stopped in this cute little café where she swore she saw Jessica Macks. Craziest thing.”
“Who’s Jessica?” The name rang a bell, but that was it.
“Jessica Macks from the place south of town. The place that was burned down.”
Anna froze. “She saw Jessica alive?”
Cynthia sighed. “You know how it is. You think you see somebody, but then you’re not sure.”
Her heart pounded in her chest. “Did Jessica know Sarah?”
“Around here, everyone knows everyone. But yes, I guess they did know each other. Sarah was always hanging around that Voss boy. What was his name?”
“Soren,” Anna said immediately. The love of Sarah’s life. Or so she’d thought before he left her.
“Right, Soren. His brother Simon and Jessica were a thing for a while, too.”
“Where did Sally see her? When?”
“Honey, don’t get your hopes up. Sally’s eyes aren’t that good. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”