The Girl Who Speaks Bear

by Sophie Anderson

  She’s serving a customer, but she winks and waves me away. “Go and have some fun.”

  Sasha leads the way across the square, weaving through crowds that part ahead of me. People always move out of my way, because I’m so big. They look at me differently too, staring a little longer, smiling a little more stiffly. To Sasha they just nod a greeting. To me they say “Yanka the Bear,” either whispered in awe or shouted too loud. Today it’s worse than ever, because the visitors from distant villages haven’t seen me since the last festival, and I’ve grown over a foot in that time.

  I wonder if as much space would widen around a real bear in the village, and for a moment I want to roar, just to see people’s reaction. But when Sasha stops to talk to some children from school, I only hang back silently, fiddling with the wolf claw in my pocket.

  Liliya, one of the girls my age, turns to me and smiles. “I heard you’re carrying Winter.” I feel a fleeting flush of pride, but it disappears when I notice the sharpness in her eyes and the sting in her smile. “It’s strange they chose you,” she continues. “I don’t think you’ve done much for the village this season. You hardly talk to anyone apart from Sasha and you spend most of your time in the forest.”

  “And carrying Winter is a village tradition,” Liliya’s friend Oksana chimes in. “And you weren’t born in the village, were you?”

  “I’ve lived here nearly all my life.” I shrug, pretending not to be bothered by their words. But anger prickles beneath my skin. Why do they have to remind me how different I am when it’s so obvious anyway?

  “They were probably forced to choose Yanka.” Liliya waves her hand dismissively in my direction. “Winter is massive this year and they’ve tied her to a heavy birch pole. No one else would be strong enough to carry her.”

  “That’s true.” Oksana nods and they turn away to carry on the conversation they were having before I arrived.

  “They’re just jealous,” Polina, another girl from school, mouths behind their backs. I return her smile. Polina is always nice to me, though she’s not really a friend. Like Liliya said, I don’t spend enough time talking to anyone in the village to make friends. I only grew so close to Sasha because we live next door to each other.

  It’s a relief when Sasha finishes talking and we move away from the others, on to the sledding hill. I pick the strongest-, sturdiest-looking sled from the jumble at the bottom and drag it up the steep slope.

  Sitting at the top, high above the village square, the forest at my back and the Great Frozen River stretching all the way to the horizon, I take a long cool breath and my muscles relax.

  “Race you!” Sasha shouts, and shoots off ahead of me.

  I lean back on the sled, pull tight on the rope, and speed down the hill. For a moment my whole body lifts into the air and I gasp in a cloud of ice. Then I bump back onto the track, jolting my heart into my throat. I overtake Sasha and skid to a halt in a flurry of snow. I rise to my feet, legs shaking, skin tingling hot and cold, and a huge smile making my cheeks ache.

  Sasha swooshes into powdery snow next to me and rolls off his sled, laughing. “No one else races like you, Yanka. You’re fearless!” He scrambles to his feet and grins. “Again?”

  I nod. Even though I’ve grown taller than Sasha this winter, as we tramp back up the slope, I feel like we still fit together somehow.

  We race down the hill, over and over, until my lungs are raw and my legs burning from dragging the sled back up.

  Then a drumroll sounds—quietly at first, building until it reverberates like thunder around the square. Sasha and I abandon our sled and join the crowds flowing toward the stage. My skin tingles with excitement, because the festival show is about to begin.

  The main feature of the festival show this year is a puppet show, but not like one I’ve ever seen before. I helped build the scaffolding behind the stage and glimpsed some of the marionettes. They’re bigger than real people—bigger even than me—and it takes three or four puppeteers to control each one.

  Sasha moves closer to the stage, but I stand at the back. Being so tall, I can easily see over everyone’s heads. The drums stop, and a hush falls over the square. I hold my breath as I wait for the show to begin.

  On the stage is a forest made from real trees dusted with real snow, and real snowflakes dance down from high in the scaffolding.

  My heart leaps as kalyuka flutes swing into song and three marionettes appear: two wooden children dancing jerkily between the trees, and their father walking solemnly behind them.

  Drums roll again, deeper and more sinister than before, and the father abandons his children in the darkest part of the forest. My face tightens into a frown as I wonder if my birth parents abandoned me in the same way. But I can’t stop watching.

  The biggest marionette of them all jumps out from behind the trees, accompanied by the screech of violins. The flock of tiny children sitting cross-legged in front of the stage jump too, because it’s a house with chicken legs, and a Yaga—a terrifying witch who gobbles up lost children with her iron teeth—is leaning out its window, cackling.

  “Yanka,” the lady beside me whispers. It’s Inga, who always buys Mamochka’s chamomile tonic for her nerves. She points to where Mamochka is waving, beckoning me over to her stall. I glance back at the stage. I know this story already, but I want to watch the puppet children trick the Yaga, and I especially want to see the children’s father find them at the end and apologize for leaving them in the forest. But Mamochka is flapping her hands frantically.

  I sigh and wander over to her stall, which is cluttered with remedies. Woodsmoke from the nearby barbecues swirls around me, mingling with the scents of melted cheese and butter from sizzling stacks of pancakes.

  “It’s nearly time.” Mamochka smiles as I draw close. “Are you ready?” She brushes the snow from my skirt.

  A kaleidoscope of butterflies hurtles through me, but then Mamochka reaches up to tuck my hair behind my ears and her familiar fussing calms me. My hair is thick and brown, with flecks of yellow and black. I like the colors, but I don’t often get to see them because my hair doesn’t grow past my chin—though I hardly ever trim it.

  “You look beautiful.” Mamochka lifts one of her necklaces of strung sushki—the hard, sweet little bread rings she gives customers to dunk in hot tea—and I duck so she can loop it over my head. It falls next to my arrowhead necklace, which has bounced free of my sweater. “Enjoy this moment.” Mamochka cups my face in her hands and kisses my cheeks. I kiss her back, wishing I was still small enough to be enveloped in one of her hugs. There was a time when I fit perfectly in her arms.

  The crowd around the stage applauds the end of the puppet show and music swells, faster and louder. People surge toward us and a babble of babushkas—the grandmothers who organized the festival—jostle me across the square while singing loudly about the end of winter and the coming spring. My heart races. Everything seems too loud and everyone seems to be moving too fast.

  Winter looms above me, straw sticking out from beneath her blue dress. She has round pink cheeks and a wide smile drawn on her sackcloth face.

  “Lift her up,” the babushkas sing. “Burn Winter to bring on the spring.”

  I wipe my sweating palms on my skirt, place my hands on either side of the birch pole, and lift it into the air. It’s heavier than I expected, and I take a step back to balance myself.

  The crowd cheers and blood rushes into my cheeks. I’m right in the center of the square, hundreds of faces staring up at me.

  “Yanka!” A chorus of voices sings in tune with the music. “Yanka the Bear!”

  My stomach tightens, and my legs give way. The pole wobbles.

  “Sasha!” one of the babushkas shouts. “Come and help Yanka.”

  “Yanka doesn’t need help; she’s as strong as a bear.” Two girls giggle behind me and my jaw clenches, because it’s Liliya and Oksana. Their voices are soft as sable, but their words are hornets, full of venom.

  T
he crowd cheers again and the music swells louder. Drums pound and feet stamp, jouncing my heartbeat. Kalyuka flutes scream into my ears and accordions play faster and louder. The crowd bounces like a stormy ocean. Everyone is clapping and yelling. My ears ring and my vision blurs. Then a flash of pink crosses the white sky, and the bullfinch sings, “Yanka! You don’t belong here! You belong in the forest!”

  Liliya and Oksana laugh and I’m sure they’re thinking the same thing.

  “Yanka the Bear!” the crowd roars. “Strong as a bear.”

  All of a sudden, I want to run to where the trees are tall and I am small and there are no crowds of people, no drums, no bouncing babushkas, and no giant straw doll needing to be burned.

  “Hey, Yanka.” Sasha puts his hand on my arm, and his calm, gray eyes swing into focus. “We’ll do it together.” He moves opposite me and grips the pole, his hands below mine.

  My heart stops racing and the urge to run fades away. But my face burns. I should have been strong enough to do this on my own.

  Sasha helps me carry the pole through the noise and the chaos, and then we lift it high and slide it into the bonfire stack. I try to back away, but the crowd won’t give. Smoke rises from the bonfire and flames lick up Winter’s skirts. Just as the straw doll erupts into a towering blaze, a deafening crack echoes through the air. It takes a moment for me to realize it’s the Great Frozen River—the ice is splitting and the water is starting to flow. With perfect timing, the Big Melt has begun.

  There’s a roar of excitement. Then people link together in great circles and spin this way and that, dancing in celebration, dipping and bobbing gracefully under raised arms. Trapped among them all, I try to follow their steps, but when I duck under arms, I bump them, and when I jump and spin, I pull the elegant dancing lines out of formation.

  Sasha is swept away from me, and my chest tightens as I lose sight of him. I turn around, looking for him or Mamochka or even Polina’s friendly face, but all I see are too-wide, unfamiliar smiles. I fight another urge to run away. People laugh and sing as Winter’s cheeks blacken above me and her arms shed sparks into the wind.

  The flames dance into the shape of a dragon and I think of Anatoly’s story from last night. If it was true and my birth mother was a great warrior who fought a fire dragon, what would she think of me not being able to carry a straw doll on my own?

  I touch my arrowhead necklace and it shivers, like the forest whispering secrets. Until Sasha grabs my arm.

  “Come on.” He pulls me toward the ice fort. “The siege is starting.”

  Snowballs rain down from the glistening turrets and I lift my arms over my head to protect my face. A mass of bodies flows toward the fort and shouts rise from every direction.

  “Storm the walls!”

  “Lift me up!”

  “Yanka, help me!”

  I duck down and link my hands together so some of the younger, smaller children can use them as a step to climb onto the walls.

  “Yanka!” Sasha calls. He’s reached one of the turrets already. “Climb up!”

  I dig my foot into a gap between two ice blocks and start to scale the sheer, icy walls. People clamber around me, quicker and lighter on their feet, but I’m strong. I can do this. I push my gloved fingers into cracks and heave my body up and up, until I’m high on the wall, near the battlements.

  Sasha and some of the other children reach down to help me. “Grab on!” they shout, but I shake my head. What if they can’t pull me up? What if they drop me, or I accidently pull them over the edge?

  I look around for another handhold, but snowballs rain down, splattering my face.

  The block I’m holding lurches, and my blood runs cold as I think I might fall. I grip on tighter, but the block keeps shifting and sliding.

  “Grab my hand!” Sasha shouts. “Let me help you.”

  But I shake my head again. I’m too big.

  I reach for the edge of another ice block, curl my fingers around it, and pull as hard as I can. But my body doesn’t rise. My feet scramble against the wall, but they only weigh me down, and they ache and burn inside my boots.

  Then the wall buckles and my heart stops. I’m too heavy.

  “The wall is collapsing. Grab my hand. NOW!” Sasha leans farther until his fingers are almost touching mine.

  I look down. Children scream as they scatter from the tilting section of wall. I look back up, at the long line of arms reaching for me from the safety of the turret, Sasha in the middle of them.

  “Come on, Yanka!” he yells, and finally I reach for him—but it’s too late.

  My fingers slip through his as the wall drops away and I fall through the air.

  I see the bullfinch, flying through a wolf-gray sky, and I hear him call my name. Then I see my boots as my head drops back and I wonder why the soft leather is splitting along the seams. And finally, I land hard on my back, and am swallowed into a thick, dark silence.

  I wake hot, cloudy headed, and too heavy to move. Curtains ripple in the faint breeze drifting through the open window. I’m in my room, back in my and Mamochka’s house, bathed in morning light. I wonder how I got here and how long I’ve been asleep. It feels as if a thousand years have passed since I was last awake.

  The scuffle of Mousetrap hunting vibrates through the floorboards and the sounds and scents of Mamochka cooking breakfast rise from the kitchen below. I lie in bed, enveloped by the familiar feel of our house, and slowly the events of the festival come back to me: sledding with Sasha, struggling to carry Winter on my own, the bonfire blazing and the frozen river cracking, climbing the walls of the ice fort. Falling …

  A groan rumbles in the back of my throat. I’m embarrassed for falling and upset to have missed the rest of the festival. I didn’t realize how much I’d been looking forward to running through the fire maze to Mamochka, and later walking back with her and Sasha through a glowing sunrise.

  I sit up and slide my legs out of bed. Several of Mamochka’s herb compresses fall to the floor and a minty smell fills the air. My legs feel huge, and so, so heavy.

  I’m still wearing the skirt Mamochka embroidered and large furry boots. I frown at them in confusion. These aren’t my boots. They’re made from thick brown fur and have what look like long, dark claws on the toes.

  The boots touch the floor and I lift them straight up again with a start. I felt the floor! The cold of the floor hit me as if these boots were my own skin. I peer at them closer. I wiggle my toes and the claws on the ends of the boots wiggle.

  Hands trembling, I pull my skirt upward. The boots go on and on. Past my ankles, past my knees. Blood drains from my face and my heart thunders in my chest. These aren’t boots. Or trousers. These are my legs.

  My body locks up tight with horror, and the room sways. I gasp for air, feeling dizzy and sick. My legs are enormous. Thick and muscular. And covered in fur. My feet are so wide they’re almost round, with great claws on the toes. Like a bear. I have bear legs.

  I lie back and close my eyes. This is impossible. I open my eyes again and blink at the ceiling. I’ll sit up and my legs will be fine.

  But they’re not.

  I open my mouth to shout for Mamochka but end up holding my breath instead. I’m not sure why. I always go to Mamochka when I’m unwell, but this isn’t aching feet or stomach cramps or chapped lips. These are bear legs. I brush my legs with my hands, desperately trying to sweep them away. But nothing changes. Touching them only makes them feel more real.

  The fur is coarse and bristly and smells of the forest in spring. It’s chestnut brown with flecks of yellow and black—like my hair. A cold wave of panic crashes over me as I wonder if the hair on my head has changed to fur. I shoot up to look in the mirror, but my balance is all wrong. My legs are too heavy, and my knees don’t bend as I expect them to. I tumble forward, smack into the floor, and wail, even though I’m not really hurt.

  “Yanka?” The stairs creak under Mamochka’s feet. “Are you all right?”

&n
bsp; I scramble back onto the bed and cover my legs with blankets. My face burns with shame.

  Mamochka opens the door and smiles too wide. It reminds me of the way the people at the festival smiled—the way people smile when they’re wondering why I’m different—and I realize Mamochka has already seen my legs. Tears well in my eyes. I didn’t think Mamochka would ever look at me like that. I didn’t think a smile could hurt so much.

  “Oh, Yanka.” Mamochka sits next to me and strokes my hair with trembling fingers. “I know this is strange, and you must be scared, but you’re going to be fine. I promise.” Her voice shakes like a nightjar’s and anger burns inside me, because her words and body don’t match—and that feels as wrong as my legs.

  “How is this fine?” I throw back the blankets and glare at my feet. The sight of my legs and the sharpness of my words sting my throat. This isn’t Mamochka’s fault. I shouldn’t be shouting at her. “What’s happening to me?” I bury my face in my hands.

  “You fell from the ice fort yesterday and were knocked unconscious. Sasha and his parents helped me bring you back here and get you into bed. Then, during the night, your legs swelled and …”

  “Became bear legs?” I feel my forehead crumple in confusion.

  “They’re not bear legs.” Mamochka tries wrapping an arm around my shoulders but settles for hugging an elbow when she can’t reach. “They’re just injured. I’ve tried compresses for the swelling, infusions for the excess hair, and poultices on your thickened toenails, but …” Her voice trails off and she bites her lip.

  “But what?”

  “I think we should go to the hospital, in the town across the Great Frozen River.”

  I pull away from Mamochka and stare at her in shock. “But nobody from the village ever goes to the hospital. You can cure anything.”

  “I thought I could.” Mamochka twists her hands together in her lap. “But I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve tried birch buds and mustard, nettle seeds and charred pine cones, whitlow grass, bilberries, horsetail, bladder wrack … I even tried the ant oil and earthworm salve passed down from my grandmother. Nothing is making any difference.”