“Abuela said it was too powerful for you then.” My mother placed the pendant over my neck. “You know, maybe if you didn’t repress your thoughts and feelings so much, your wolf wouldn’t keep trying to escape.”
I put my hands on my hips, incensed. “You always find a way to blame everything on my being inhibited. Maybe if you hadn’t been so damn uninhibited during my childhood—” I broke off, because this was skirting dangerously close to a memory I did not want to drag out into the light.
My mother made a gesture with her hands that jangled various bracelets. “Abra, you know how terribly sorry I am about what happened that night. And if that’s the event that shut you off from your intuitive, creative side, I’m even sorrier.”
“I don’t want to discuss it.” I gave my mother a cursory kiss on the cheek and climbed into my car. When I reached the Taconic, a light snow began to fall, but it didn’t seem like a problem until I turned off onto a side road near home.
Here, the snow was falling more heavily, and when I turned my headlights on high beam I was dazzled by what appeared to be a whirling geometric pattern. I switched back to low beam and crawled along the un-plowed road, trying to look at the bright side. At least it wasn’t rutting season for deer, and I didn’t have to worry about slamming into some feckless ungulate racing headlong for sex and disaster. I turned on the radio for comfort, and found myself listening to Faith Hill again. This time, instead of boasting about her husband’s stellar technique in the sack, she was singing about how fame hadn’t changed her. You know, there ought to be a—
Dart of brown out of the corner of my eye. The antilock brakes shudder under my right foot. A sudden white bang, a smell of powder, a loud thump.
ELEVEN
I woke and reflexively started licking myself, then pricked my ears, uncertain. There was a huffing sound, something breathing hard, in distress. I gathered myself in, tensing, the hair on the back of my neck rising in fear and alarm. I had a moment of self-awareness: I am a wolf. And then I realized that was not precisely so. I was somewhere in between wolf and woman, which was uncomfortable and sort of upsetting. I closed my eyes and panted, then felt my face with clumsy hands: No, I felt my muzzle with clumsy paws. I felt dizzy and light-headed, my nose hurt, and I seemed to have some kind of rope burn from the seat belt around my neck and chest. When I tried to release the belt, my paws wouldn’t cooperate. Great. Wherever clothing constrained me, I was still human, for all the good that was going to do me. Hands. I needed hands. A sudden wave of nausea hit, and I swallowed hard, nearly gagging on the taste of goat cheese and spinach omelet. Were there any breath mints in my bag? My mouth tasted like sour peasant feet.
I was thinking like a human again.
The car must have hit something, I realized. There was a huge white bag on my lap and powder in the air: The air bag had deployed. I touched my sore nose again. Now I was using fingers, and it was a different nose, not as complex or sensitive, but it still hurt. I didn’t think it was broken, though. Where were my glasses? I bent over to feel for them and was yanked back by the seat belt.
Okay, take this one step at a time. I released myself from the seat belt, rubbing my sore neck. It felt hot, and when I examined my skin in the rearview mirror, I saw the reason: The chain from my mother’s necklace had left a red mark on my skin. Thanks, Mom. Still puzzling over how this had happened, I was trying to undo the clasp when I heard the outside sound again: labored breathing, an injured animal. I felt around frantically for my glasses and found them, twisted beyond repair.
Tossing my glasses onto the passenger seat, I grabbed the bag containing my stethoscope and other medical supplies, carefully opened the car door, and stepped out into the chill January evening. Through the steady fall of snowflakes, my headlights were illuminating a large, dark shape on the ground, and for a moment I thought I was looking at the bulk of an enormous man. I’ve killed someone, I thought, horror icing in my veins, but then I realized that this mammoth shape could not belong to a person. Just then the creature rocked, trying to right itself—whatever it was, I hadn’t killed it. Yet.
Backing up, I watched the great body rippling with effort as it tried to roll itself over. I squinted, trying to focus my myopic vision. The beast looked over its shoulder at me with small, dark, furious eyes, and suddenly I knew what I was looking at. A golden brown bear, his long ears and narrow muzzle giving him an almost canine aspect; his huge, furry body deceptively clumsy. Larded with fat, this was still an animal that could run faster, swim longer, and climb higher than any human. “Easy, boy,” I said, as he tried to roll again, his neck arching as he tried to get his huge paws underneath him.
Maybe I ought to get back in the car, I thought, but I hesitated, not sure how badly the bear was injured.
And then he was standing on all four paws, sniffing at the air. Flakes of snow dusted his head and shoulders, and I wondered why he wasn’t hibernating. Jesus, he was big. Standing up on his hind legs, I guessed he’d be over seven feet, and as to how much he weighed, my estimate was the equivalent of two sumo wrestlers after a postmatch sashimi binge. I wondered if I looked like a last bedtime snack before settling in for the winter. The voice of common sense was saying, Get in the car, Abra. You’re not a wolf now, you’re a half-blind human, and this bear could take you out with one swipe of his paw.
But without my glasses on, the bear looked somehow hazy and unsubstantial, which was probably giving me a false sense of security. I stood there and watched him swipe at his face with one paw, and he was listing to one side, damaged by the impact from the car. As he came back down on all fours, he sprawled, as endearingly clumsy as a bruised puppy. I had done this to him, and the thought of just driving off and leaving him to a slow death went against everything I believed in.
And that was assuming the car and I were even capable of driving off. Damn, I wished I had Red with me. I felt for my vial of butorphinol, trying to recall how much of the sedative I had left. Enough for a couple of German shepherds, maybe, but would that suffice to calm a creature the size of a trailer home? I was about to find out.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, fishing inside my bag for my hypodermic. “I just need to look at you.” Putting my stethoscope around my neck, I found my mother’s necklace in the way. I took hold of the pendant, and then froze as the bear grunted, fixing me with a strange, almost imperious look. Then he rose up on his hind legs and the breath caught in my throat. My rational brain said he was just trying to get a better look at me. Something more primitive said, this is the king of all bears, and he is going to eat me alive. Mindlessly clutching the moonstone in my hand, I tried to remember everything I knew about bears. Red had told me something about how playing dead worked for grizzlies but not black bears, because black bears’ attacks on humans tended to be predatory. That didn’t help me much, because this bear looked like a black bear, even if his fur was a golden brown and he was as big as a grizzly.
The bear made a loud blowing sound like the wind rustling through dry leaves, then made a strange pulsing noise, nothing like the low, wolfish growl I’d heard bears make in the movies. I felt a wave of light-headedness. I remembered watching a nature documentary where a cougar stared at a deer for long moments before attacking. Red had said that his grandfather believed that the predator was asking permission of its prey, and wouldn’t pounce until it was granted. Why would the prey acquiesce, I had wondered at the time. Now, I understood. There was an aura of power about the bear, a force so strong it was nearly tangible. I could see the lines of tension between the bear and myself, stretched out like the filaments of a metaphysical net. If I ran that way, he would catch me there. If I ran the other way, he would catch me in that direction. Wherever I looked, I saw myself caught. The bear and I were playing a chess game, and all that was left was for me to concede defeat.
Except defeat meant death, and I wasn’t ready to die. My already blurred vision swam with tears, making the bear’s outlines bleed. I blinked, a
nd for a moment, he resembled a man, glowering at me out of slitted eyes.
The car crash, I thought. I’ve sustained a head injury, and this is a delayed reaction. I blinked to clear my eyes, but it didn’t quite work the way I’d expected. Now I was definitely looking at a man in a rough black animal pelt coat. He had a stocky, muscular build, shaggy, golden brown hair, and a beard two shades darker. There was something about him that suggested rough whiskey and raw appetites, a score of hidden scars and blood under the fingernails.
Obviously, I’d hurt my head worse than I realized.
I rubbed my eyes, just like someone in a cartoon, but there he remained. I tried to say something, but nothing came out of my mouth.
Then he broke the silence. At first I thought the noise he made was a symptom of some sort—perforated airway, escaping blood. Then he repeated the sound and made another, and I realized that he was framing words. There was a “wh” sound that kept recurring, and a soft “sh” coupled with something guttural. It reminded me of an American Indian language I’d heard once in a linguistics class.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said. “But I’m a veterinarian. I can help treat your injury.” I swallowed hard, and moved in closer.
“Help me? You hurt me, woman.” His voice was low, gruff, and had a French Canadian accent. Which fit perfectly. Straight from central casting, the lumberjack from hell.
“I d-didn’t mean to,” I stammered. “I didn’t see you. I have medical supplies in my bag.” I squinted, trying to make out the man’s expression. I thought he was staring at me as though he were mulling my words over, syllable by syllable.
Then he snorted. “You want to help me, cherie? Then come, by all means, come, treat my injury.” His Quebecois accent was thicker now. He smiled, revealing strong, white, even teeth, and spread his hands. I thought about the football player who had walked me home from a college party, then lunged at me in what he had claimed was play.
“I’m just going to examine you, all right?” Reaching into my bag, I closed my hand over the hypodermic filled with butorphinol as I came closer. From two feet away, the man gave off a powerful, musky animal odor, and his skin glittered. His nostrils flared as if he were scenting me, as well. Then something in his eyes changed. I knew that look. It was the look I got from my animal patients right before they attacked.
I whipped my hand out, trying to inject him with the hypodermic as he grabbed for my wrist. He was faster.
“Ah, what is this?” He shook my wrist and I yelped. “Is this what you call ’elp?”
“It’s just a sedative, to help calm you before I look at the injury,” I said, my teeth chattering. If only I’d had Telazol, I could have knocked him out completely. From now on, if there was a now on, I was going to carry Telazol. And a stun gun. And some tear gas. “Please, let me go.”
“But you charged me,” the man said. “You challenged me.” Casually, as if part of an experiment, he ground the fragile bones of my wrist together under his fingers.
“I didn’t mean to charge you! It was my car, I couldn’t stop in time.”
The man put his face close to mine. This close, I could see that his eyes were a blue so dark they seemed almost black, and that he had no visible pores. Instead, there was something glittering beneath his skin, as though there were flecks of gold dust embedded in his flesh. His breath stank of raw meat and berries. “Woman, if my claws tear your stomach open, am I responsible?” I stared at his hand, and now I could see the long, black claws at the ends of his blunt fingers. “If your car hits me, who is to blame?” I knew there was a counterargument, but I could not seem to string the words together to defend myself. I felt a wave of fatigue, as I often did when I wasn’t wearing my glasses. It was harder to clear my head when my vision made everything look soft and fuzzy. My captor paused, and whatever he saw in my eyes, it must have looked like concession. He opened his mouth, revealing massive canines.
“No!” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to transform. I’d only attempted this once before, and I knew that it was like giving yourself over to something, like coordinating two different melodic lines, like singing one pattern while strumming another. But there had been a full moon that night, and a lot of pheromones zinging through the air, and tonight there was just me, alone with Ursa Major. For a moment, I thought I felt something, but then I realized that I was flat on my back, not a wolf, but a great whimpering girl. Great. The bear-man stared down at me.
“What are you?” I remained prostrate as he approached. My jeans and parka were not enough to protect me from the cold blanket of snow on the ground, but I forced myself not to move.
“What am I?” The man scratched his bearded chin as if the question intrigued him. “Maybe I am a ghost, eh? For a long time, I thought I was a ghost. But then, I was in a ghost-place. I forgot how it feels, to have skin and bones.” He rubbed his hands up and down the rough fur of his greatcoat, then grinned, a flash of white in his bearded face. “Maybe I even forgive you for hitting me.”
“I really didn’t mean to,” I said, adding, “I’m Abra. Do you have a name?” My friend Lilliana had once told me that a great way to diffuse hostility was to use people’s names to establish rapport. Red had taught me that all names retained some of their owner’s power, even false names and pseudonyms.
My companion smiled, as if he had caught me in a clumsy attempt at a trick. “You can call me Bruin, if you like. The pale humans called me that, back when they still told their stories about me.”
Bruin—the name for bear in old French and English folktales. I dimly recalled a tale in which Snow White had a sister, Rose Red, who wound up marrying a bear who was really a prince. Well, that was encouraging; maybe he wasn’t going to eat me, after all.
Bruin was still touching his hands as if he couldn’t quite believe that he had them. He threw back his head and laughed, a deep, husky sound from deep in his chest. “Sacre bleu, it feels good to be—How do you say it? Incarnate?”
“You’re manitou.” I said it softly, suddenly recalling Red’s wound. It occurred to me that I probably had heard some bastardized version of the Rose Red fairy tale, edited for children. The original story probably had a lot more blood in it.
Bruin looked pleased at the mention of the Algonquian word. “So we are not forgotten? There are so few of us left. I thought, perhaps, that your kind had stopped believing.” He hunkered down beside me, and his coat gaped open; beneath it, he was all naked, hairy, muscular man. “Maybe you would like to worship me, little human?”
“I’m really not the worshipping type.”
“I could change your mind.”
In the blink of an eye, Bruin melted into bear form again, and the powerful ursine odor of his fur sent chills down my spine. The innate human desire to curl into a fetal ball was warring with the lupine urge to assume a submissive posture. Lupine had bought me bargaining time, so I was going with that. The bear put his long nose down to my neck and sniffed.
“Ah, not human, after all. Wolf woman,” Bruin said. Or maybe he thought it; I didn’t see his mouth move, and his muzzle wasn’t shaped for human speech. “I have not met your kind in a long, long time.” He sniffed me again, and I had a chilling recollection of a news story about a tame bear that had started licking its trainer’s face and then, without warning, had torn out his throat. “But you are more woman than wolf, I think.” I couldn’t help it. I giggled. It was partly a result of fear and anxiety, and partly because this ancient spirit beast delivered his lines like a bad B-movie actor. And while I wasn’t familiar with bears, I knew all about bad B-movie actors. “A very attractive wolf woman,” he added, a giant, glossy brown bear with a Quebecois accent so thick you could have served it on toast. Unable to contain myself, I giggled.
“You laugh at me?”
I shook my head, but the whole thing was absurd, a bear glowering down at me and speaking like Klondike Sam. I laughed harder. My whole life, I have had an inappropriate impulse to laugh u
nder duress. Hunter used to hate it. At the age of sixteen, I nearly got knifed by a mugger for chuckling nervously when he demanded my pocketbook. But of all the times in my life when it would be a really, really bad idea to laugh, this one topped the list.
The bear reared back, and for a moment I thought he was going to bite me. But instead, he became a man again, his nostrils flaring, and he pressed his enormous bulk down on me, crushing me into the earth. I could barely breathe, and my labored attempts brought his gaze to my chest. His heavy, irregular features took on a sensual cast. “I could make you stop laughing. I could make you worship me.”
His mouth came down on mine, and he inhaled my breath. Dear God, he was going to rape me. The thought seemed to suck the strength out of my muscles, and with a jolt of panicked strength, I began to fight him, trying to wrestle my arms out from under him. He threw back his head and laughed, and I realized I was dizzy, as if I had just lost a great deal of blood. I looked into his dark eyes, which gleamed like obsidian, and I felt so small and insignificant that it seemed ridiculous that a being as powerful as this would waste his time on a creature like myself.
“Not laughing now, eh?” Bruin looked down at me as if I were his own personal picnic basket, and he was just deciding what to consume first.
He began to lower his head, and I held my breath, thinking, How can I possibly satisfy him? Not with something so trivial as sex. And then I knew. I could offer up my life for his pleasure. And it would be my pleasure, too, a pleasure so great that the sacrifice would be its own reward.
A second before his mouth touched mine, I realized: That wasn’t my thought. And I remembered what Red had said the manitous would feed on. Sacrifice.
I gathered whatever saliva was left in my mouth and lobbed it at him.
Bruin twisted away with a hiss, as if my saliva had the power to repulse him physically. I spat again, and he gave a low bellow and fell back, which seemed like a victory until he fell on my leg, crushing it. I screamed and for a moment, I saw him standing there, blinking stupidly. For a frozen moment, I did something I hadn’t done since early childhood. I deliberately let my eyes go out of focus, making the bear dissolve into the shadows around him. If I refuse to see you, you’re not there anymore.
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