Ice

by Sarah Beth Durst

  They looked at each other for a moment. Then the Bear King focused on the table, and the dishes began to disappear. She jumped as her plate popped like a bubble. Her silverware dissolved into the ice. The frost tablecloth withered. “Stay one week,” he said, “and then decide. Only one week. You waited eighteen years for your mother. Wait one week more.”

  She thought of all the memories she’d just spilled, all the moments she’d lived believing her mother was dead and gone. And now . . . Cassie looked away from the Bear King’s brilliant black eyes. She didn’t want to think about this. “Show me more of the castle,” she said.

  He led her to a grand ballroom with pillars reaching up into arches and the roof open to a pale, cloudless sky. The northern lights wafted over and the deep blue floor mirrored the ribbons of light with shimmering perfection. Staring up at the sky, Cassie walked into the ballroom and slipped. She landed smack on her butt.

  The Bear King bounded over to her. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine, fine, fine.” Her tailbone felt bruised. He bent his neck down to help her, and she automatically shied away. She stood on her own.

  “I never noticed it was slippery,” he said, an apology in his voice.

  “You have bear paws,” she said. “I need crampons on this floor. Or ice skates.” She shuffled over to a pillar. Outside the ballroom, through the arches, she could see the sculptures of the topiary garden glittering with reflections of the night aurora. It was so beautiful her breath caught in her throat.

  She had an idea. She didn’t stop to think about whether or not it was a good idea. Sitting down fast, she unstrapped her mukluks. She wiggled her toes within three layers of socks.

  The Bear King hovered near her. “Are you hurt?”

  Cassie used the pillar to stand. “Not yet.” She pushed off. In socks, she skated across the ballroom. It made a perfect ice rink. Whooping, she crashed into the opposite pillar. Clutching it, she called to the Bear King, “Your turn.”

  He looked aghast.

  She laughed out loud. She felt better already. “Too undignified for you, Your Royal Ursine Highness?”

  “Munaqsri are not royalty. I am merely Bear.” Spreading all four paws wide, Bear skidded across the ballroom on his stomach. With his legs splayed out, he spun a hundred eighty degrees to a stop. Laughing, Cassie shoved away from the pillar and slipped to the center of the room. She smashed into Bear.

  “Yikes, sorry,” she said, disentangling herself. What was she doing? He wasn’t her friend; he was a magical soul-transferring polar bear.

  “Stand still,” he told her.

  She tensed but obeyed. She shouldn’t have started this. She was supposed to be on her way home, not—Before she could complete the thought, Bear pushed. She careened across the ballroom.

  Laughing, she caught herself on a pillar.

  She looked back at the polar bear, sobering. One week, he’d asked for. Was that such an awful price for all the wonders she’d seen? “One week,” she said. “I’ll stay for one week.”

  EIGHT

  Latitude 91° 00’ 00” N

  Longitude indeterminate

  Altitude 15 ft.

  ONE WEEK SLID INTO TWO and then three and then four, and so on. As the days passed, it became easier and easier for Cassie to find excuses to delay returning to the station and facing whatever (or, more accurately, whoever) waited for her there. She hadn’t forgiven Dad for the heavy-handed way he’d tried to ship her off to Fairbanks, or for the way he’d lied to her for her entire life. As for her mother . . . Cassie wanted to see her, but every morning, she woke up and said, “Just one more day, and then I’ll go home.” And every night, she went to bed alone and dreamed of bears and ice.

  As the weeks went by, she stopped thinking about home at all. One afternoon when they’d finished carving ice roses into the pillars of the ballroom (Bear carving and Cassie directing), they lay in the center of the floor admiring their handiwork.

  “Why does this castle even have a ballroom?” she asked. “Did any Bear King ever hold a ball? Were there waltzing walruses? Say that ten times fast. Waltzing walruses . . .”

  Beside her, Bear pushed himself up onto his hind legs. Standing, he was loosely humanoid—if one ignored that he was thirteen feet tall. He held out his paw. “May I have this dance?”

  Cassie grinned at him. “Delighted, Your Royal Ursine Highness.” She put her hand in his. Her hand was minuscule in his vast paw. “Don’t fall on me,” she ordered. She could not reach his shoulder so she settled for putting her other hand on his forearm. Her fingers sank deep into creamy white fur.

  Gently, he guided her across the ballroom. His paw covered half her back. They danced in silence. Across the topiary garden, deep amber sunlight filled the horizon. Warm orange spread across the ice. It was . . . The word that popped into her mind was “romantic.” He spun her. She felt dizzy staring up at his fur.

  I’m happy here, she realized. Thinking that, she felt as if she were on the edge of a sea cliff. “We need music,” she said, trying to break the mood.

  “I could sing for you.”

  “You sing?”

  “No,” he said.

  She grinned. He dipped her backward. I’m happy here because of Bear, she thought. She glimpsed the golden light, and a tear welled in her eye. He pulled her upright. “Sun,” she said quickly to explain the tear.

  “It is the last of the light,” Bear said.

  Startled, she stumbled over her feet. He steadied her. How could she have stayed here for so long? What did Dad think had happened to her? And Gram? And her mother. She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about her mother right now, not during the end of the light. She always loved the last glimpse of the sun’s rays before the long polar night.

  “Come with me,” Bear said. He dropped down onto all fours and trotted out of the ballroom.

  “Don’t you want to watch?” she called after him.

  “Don’t you want a better view?” he called back.

  Grinning, Cassie chased after him. She had only been up in the spires a few times. Bear disliked the narrow stairs. One of his predecessors had designed them for humans, not bears, and it embarrassed him, he’d told her, to waddle up them. She’d teased him about that for days, but she didn’t tease him now. Today felt different somehow. Maybe it was the loss of light. Maybe it was the dancing.

  Bear squeezed into the stairwell and climbed up the spiral stairs. Emerging onto a balcony, Cassie walked to the delicate bowed railing. “Careful,” Bear said.

  She ignored him and leaned over the ice railing. “Look at that,” she breathed.

  The Arctic sprawled before her. Gold and silver, it looked like vast riches. The sky, enormous, glowed blue. Streaks of rose clouds faded into deepening blue, staining the ice azure.

  “Do not turn around,” he said—it was a human voice, softer and thinner. She may have heard it only once, but still she recognized it instantly. Her back straightened, tingling. He put his arms around her waist. It felt perfectly natural to lay her hands on his. She did it without even thinking about it. Both facing the horizon, they watched the last drop of gold melt into blueness, and then he released her. When she turned around, he was a bear again.

  “Bear . . . ,” she began. Her back felt cold now. Wind blew her hair into her face. She brushed it away from her eyes.

  “I look forward to tomorrow,” he said. It was the same phrase he said every night before he left her.

  Where did he sleep? She’d never asked. Maybe he went onto the ice or out into the gardens or into one of the other glittering rooms. He’d told her once that she slept in his room. “Stay with me,” she said.

  He looked at her. Cassie saw the twilight sky reflected in his black bear eyes. She felt her face blush. Tonight was . . . different. She just didn’t want it to end. That was all. “I mean, you don’t have to leave,” she said. “It’s okay. I trust you. You can sleep in your room again.” She added quickly, “Just sleep.�
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  He regarded her silently for a moment longer. She shifted from foot to foot and began to wish she could swallow the words back out of the air. Maybe she should have thought first before she’d made the offer. It would change things, if he stayed. She knew that instinctively, but she shied away from thinking about how they’d change.

  “As you wish,” he said.

  He waited for her to lead the way. She brushed past him as she left the balcony, and she laid her hand on his back, intertwining her fingers in his fur. She’d touched his fur a thousand times before, but this time she pulled her hand away. He wasn’t just a bear. She remembered his human arms around her waist and his breath on her neck. This was the first time since that first night that he’d turned human.

  Outside the bedroom, she had him wait in the corridor while she changed into her flannels—and then changed again into the silken nightshirt that she’d found on her first night in the castle. She told herself she was just being polite. The nightshirt had been a gift. She climbed under the covers. “All right. I’m decent now.”

  The polar bear padded softly into the room.

  Cassie tucked the sheets around her body as he approached the bedside table. She could still change her mind, she knew. If she asked him to leave, he would. But that felt . . . cowardly. This was Bear, after all. And she’d only invited him here as a friend. Friends could share a bed.

  She wished she’d stuck with the flannel.

  He breathed on the candle. It flickered and died with the scent of waxy smoke. Now the room was so black that it looked thick. Bear (now human, she guessed from the sinking of the mattress) climbed into the bed beside her. She remembered the last time he’d climbed into bed with her—on their wedding night. “Touch me and it’s back to the axe,” she said.

  She heard him sigh. “I would never hurt you, not intentionally, not ever. You should know that by now.”

  “I don’t taste as good as a seal.”

  “You do not have enough blubber,” he agreed.

  She felt the mattress shift as he settled into his pillows. Flat on her back, she lay as rigid as ice. “Don’t snore.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  She snorted. “Cute.”

  “Good night, Cassie.”

  “Night.” Clutching the sheets to her chin, she listened to him breathe. It sounded like a gentle wave. Gradually, his breathing slowed. Could he be going to sleep? She prodded him. “You awake?”

  “I am now.” He rolled over, and she felt the mattress dip down toward him. He was facing her, she guessed. Her skin felt hyperaware. At least a thirteen-foot polar bear did not make a thirteen-foot man, she told herself. He was, at most, seven feet tall.

  “Talk to me,” she said. “Tell me a story.”

  “As you wish,” he said. “Once upon a time, there was a little wallaby . . .”

  She smiled. “Wallaby?”

  “Yes, wallaby. And this wallaby lived . . .”

  * * * * *

  She was smothering in sheets. Cassie kicked. Her foot contacted something solid. She heard a grunt. Bleary, she blinked awake. Walls did not grunt. “Bear, that you?”

  “Hmm.”

  She kicked harder.

  “Ow!”

  Served him right. He was sleeping in the middle of the bed. She yanked the covers back and curled with them on the pillows.

  “Thief,” he said. He tugged on the sheets.

  She grunted at him.

  “Was I snoring?” he asked.

  “You don’t snore,” she told him. It was a definite plus.

  “You do,” he said. “It is like a cat purring.”

  She kicked the covers away. “Too hot,” she said. “Is it morning?” Crawling out of bed, she found her flashlight. She turned it on.

  She saw a sudden flurry of sheets. Bear rolled off the bed in a tangle of white. “Stop the light!” he said.

  Cassie pointed the flashlight at the white lump. “Hey, I’m the one who hates mornings,” she said lightly, but he continued to conceal himself. “Bear? What’s wrong?”

  “You cannot see me.”

  She’d never seen him, she realized. The two times he’d transformed—last night and her first night here—she hadn’t seen him. With the flashlight, Cassie climbed over the bed. He was buried on the floor under the covers. Not an inch of skin was visible. “Come on,” she said. “I promise I won’t laugh.”

  “You cannot!” There was a blur of sheets as he stood up. He looked like he was wearing a bad ghost costume. He knocked the flashlight out of her hands. It rolled under the bed. “You must never see my human face,” he said. “Promise me you will not try.”

  “Why not?”

  “Promise me.”

  He sounded serious, even desperate. She didn’t think she’d ever heard that in his voice before. “You certainly have your quirks,” Cassie said lightly. “Turning into a giant bear wasn’t unique enough?” He didn’t laugh.

  Bear begged her, “Please, beloved. If you care about me at all, do not look.”

  He hadn’t called her “beloved” since the day they’d met.

  She dangled over the bed and retrieved the flashlight. She switched it off, and the room plunged into darkness again. “Happy now?” she said, but her voice shook. His pleading had unnerved her. She felt as if she had violated some sacred taboo. But she hadn’t meant any harm. All she’d wanted to do was look at him.

  Bear said nothing.

  She waited another second. “Bear? Are you all right?”

  “I must go,” he said.

  He couldn’t be that angry. “I didn’t . . . ,” she began.

  “There is a bear being born,” he said. “I am needed.”

  “Now?” It wasn’t birth season yet. The bear cub was premature. “You . . . feel it?” He’d told her about this once, how munaqsri could sense an imminent birth or death. They could also, he’d said, summon each other, but she’d never seen him do that. “Can I come with you?”

  “It is a munaqsri duty.”

  She felt a rush of air, and then she heard the door open. She called after him, “See you at breakfast?”

  The door slammed. She hugged her shoulders as the room chilled.

  * * * * *

  Sometime the following night, Bear slid into bed. Automatically, Cassie curled against his warmth. She didn’t think about how natural it felt to do so. She murmured, “Hello.”

  He said nothing, but buried his face in her hair.

  Gradually waking, she remembered she was annoyed with him. He had left her alone. Her whole day had been turned upside down. She’d resorted to eating dried fruits and nuts from her pack. She couldn’t work the table without him. Worse, she’d been bored for the first time ever here. It reminded her of blizzards in the station: nothing to do, nowhere to go.

  His breathing sounded uneven, choked. She frowned and reached to touch his face. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you sick?”

  His cheek was damp under her fingers. She snatched her hand back as if it had burned. “Bear, what’s wrong?”

  “I was late,” he said. His voice shook. “It was far. I was too late.”

  “What do you mean ‘too late’?” She wished she could see him. She peered into the darkness as if she could pierce it. “What happened?”

  “I should have been patrolling the ice. If I had been nearby, I could have given that cub a soul in time. If I had been an hour closer, it would have all been well. I was miles late.”

  “Late?” She tried to understand. He’d missed the birth?

  “The cub was stillborn,” he said. “No soul, no life.”

  She could hear the tears in his voice. Did he want her to comfort him? Hesitantly, she put her arms around him. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m here.” She held him close.

  NINE

  Latitude 91° 00’ 00” N

  Longitude indeterminate

  Altitude 15 ft.

  THROUGH THE DARK DAYS OF WINTER
, Bear “patrolled” the ice, waiting to feel the summons of a birth, while Cassie waited alone in the castle and grew more and more restless. In his absence, she prowled the topiary gardens under the perpetually starlit sky. By winter solstice, she knew them by heart.

  Carved owls stared down at her with glassy eyes reflecting a thousand stars. It was as silent as a museum. She could hear the crunch of ice under her mukluks. It sounded like firecrackers. She had a great urge to run through the gardens with her arms stretched wide, shattering all the trees in her path—but she didn’t. Instead, her feet took her through the maze of translucent hedges to the center of the garden. Rosebushes ringed a single sculpture, the newest.

  It was her: her long hair, her high cheekbones, her bony elbows, her height. It is the heart of the garden, Bear had told her after he’d finished carving it.

  She studied the statue. The ice hair looked blown by wind. Stray pieces curved upward, twisted together. It was a perfect likeness, down to the short lashes on her eyes and the short nails on her hands. Her twin grinned upward, as if she were laughing at the castle spires, or higher at the star-choked sky. What am I still doing here? Cassie wondered. I should be on a snowmobile, not a pedestal.

  Who was tracking bears now? Dad? Owen? Scott would be taking bets on the number of cubs being born. Jeremy was probably stir-crazy by now.

  And what about her mother? Cassie couldn’t imagine what she was doing. All she could picture was her mother’s image from photos she’d seen, but even that memory lacked details, such as the color of her eyes.

  Cassie snapped a perfect stem. The ice rose fell into her hands. Absently, she twirled it. Petals caught the moonlight, and tiny moon rainbows flickered in their curves. She put the rose behind her ear.

  She’d never meant for this to become permanent. She was supposed to be an Arctic researcher, not the Polar Bear Queen. What had happened to all her plans? Didn’t she care about them anymore? Didn’t she care about her mother? Or her father? Or Gram? Or Max or Owen? When had she stopped thinking about them?

  Cassie turned away and pushed past the bushes. Ice tinkled like a thousand bells. She halted in front of an ice apple tree. Grabbing hold of the branches, she clambered up the tree. The ice creaked under her weight, and the rose fell from her ear and shattered.