“My house!” I roar as I spot my and Mamochka’s home in the distance. Huge flames are darting toward it. “Please.” I lean on the porch balustrade. “I need to make sure Mamochka is safe.”
The house splashes out of the river and swerves into the forest, toward my home. But after only a short distance, we run into a cloud of thick black smoke. Heat crackles in the air and a flock of panicked crows scream as they flap away. Yuri coughs violently and the snap of burning branches echoes around us. Shards of burning wood and tangles of smoking moss dance in the air.
“Back to the river,” Elena shouts. “It’s not safe here.”
The house tilts sharply as it veers back to the river. My heart lurches. I know the house must go back to the water so it doesn’t catch fire, but I need to get home, to Mamochka.
So before the house retreats any farther or I’ve had the chance to think through what I’m doing, I clamber over the porch balustrades. And though we’re high above the burning forest, I jump, the only thought in my mind of getting home, to Mamochka.
I fall through smoke, vaguely aware of Mousetrap screaming as he clings tight to my ear. Branches smash into me, collapse and crash around me. But I don’t feel any pain. All I can think about is making sure Mamochka is safe. I land with a thump onto hard, hot ground and wrestle my way out of a tangle of flaming brambles.
Soot and ash dance in the air, obscuring my view and filling my nose with a suffocating stench that blocks all scents of home. But I know the way. My heart pulls me there. I run faster than ever before, feet searing, eyes stinging, and throat burning.
I grit my teeth and swallow back coughs that cramp my lungs. Fires rage around me, leaping from tree to tree and scurrying through the undergrowth like a living creature.
Finally, I surge ahead of the flames and reach a stretch of bare earth that’s cool under my paws. I breathe a sigh of relief but keep on galloping toward home.
Trees fly past and I recognize some of them: the fallen cedar I climbed over when I first entered the forest, the aspen with the deeply curved trunk.
“We’re nearly there,” Mousetrap trills. His encouragement lifts me, until I feel like I’m flying.
My feet drum the earth. I flow between birches and leap over bushes until I see the dark outline of my home. I skid to a halt in the garden, my heart thundering in my chest. There’s no light from the windows. The house is quiet and still.
Blakiston glides down from the roof and lands in front of me. “When I saw the fire, I knew you’d come here. So I flew ahead, to see if I could help.”
“Where’s Mamochka?” I gasp. “Sasha? Valentyna?”
“I hooted outside the window until they looked out and saw the smoke. As soon as they did, they left for the village square, on a cart pulled by dogs.”
“Thank you.” I sigh with relief. Everyone will be much safer in the village square, next to the Great River. “How’s Sasha?” I ask. “Was he recovered?”
“He’s fine. Bullfinches brought star-shaped leaves to your mamochka and she made tea with them. As soon as she spooned some into his mouth, he woke.” Blakiston opens his wings. “We should get out of the path of this fire.”
I nod. Hearing Sasha is well lifts such a weight from my shoulders I could float into the air. I glance around the garden, wondering if there’s anything I can do to keep our home safe.
Mamochka has turned the earth already, so it’s smooth and bare. There’s nothing that could burn, but a few of the pines at the bottom of the garden are so tall they could fall onto the house if they caught alight.
I bound over to the tallest one, rise onto my back paws, and push with all my might. It creaks, cracks, and smashes to the ground, away from the house. Mousetrap darts into the forest and I move on to the next tree.
An orange glow flares to life a short distance away and creeps along parallel to the garden. I call Mousetrap and he sprints back, carrying a flaming twig in his mouth. He drops it, kicks earth over it, and leaps onto my shoulder.
“I set fire to some dry branches, to block the fire coming the other way.”
“Good idea.” I slam into another pine, forcing it over, then follow the trail around to Sasha’s house.
The fire line Mousetrap lit is burning bright. Mamochka does the same thing in summer—burns the dry undergrowth near our home to stop fires from coming too close. We’ve never needed their protection before though. The forest fires have never burned this close to the village. Not since I’ve lived here anyway.
I knock over three larches at the back of Sasha’s house, then race toward the village. Thick black smoke plumes into the air above it, and long before I see the village hall, I can tell the linden trees behind it must be on fire. I trip over my feet and skid all the way down the hill into the village square.
It’s bursting with people. The older babushkas and dedushkas sit with the youngest children and the sled dogs at the far side of the square, closest to the Great River. All around them, people rush back and forth, pulling carts stacked with water barrels and buckets. The busiest area is around the roaring linden trees, behind the hall, so I stagger to my feet and run in that direction.
“A bear!” Several of the children shriek as I dart past.
I round the village hall and run straight into searing air alive with sparks and embers. People are backing away from the nearest tree, scarves tied around their mouths and axes in their hands. But it’s too late to cut it down. Already the trunk is sizzling with flames, crackling in the heat. The tree creaks and leans over the village hall. Someone shouts a warning, and everyone sprints away, toward the square.
Except me. I squint at the tree, wondering how I can stop it falling onto the hall. The flames curl into the shape of Smey, with his three heads and forked, flickering tongues, and I smile, because it’s like a sign I can defeat the fire.
“It’s too hot,” Mousetrap yells into my ear. “You’ll burn yourself.”
I race past the tree to the river on the other side and plunge into the icy water. When my fur is soaking wet, I run back up to the blaze.
“Yanka!”
I turn to the deep, rumbling roar and see Anatoly galloping toward me, his fur dripping as he rushes out of the river. Behind him I catch a glimpse of the house with chicken legs, almost invisible in the darkness. The house is standing in the waters of the Great River, the silhouette of the Lime Tree on its roof reaching up to the star-filled sky.
“Help me push that linden tree back before it falls onto the village hall,” I shout to Anatoly, then rush into the flames. The heat makes me gasp and hold my breath as it burns the back of my throat. I rear up and slam my front paws onto the linden tree. The skin on my pads sizzles and I bellow in pain as I lean all my weight into the trunk.
Anatoly rises next to me. He’s so enormous that his front paws land on the tree above my head. The tree pitches backward. “It’s falling!” he shouts, and with an earsplitting creak the tree splinters and crashes down. It lands on the tree behind it, and three trees domino to the ground in quick succession. They all fall away from the hall. My heart lifts, until one last tree wobbles and leans, farther and farther, the opposite way—toward the hall.
“Run!” Anatoly roars, but before I’ve turned around, the tree collapses onto the roof of the village hall.
The roof buckles and the wooden walls curve outward. With a deafening bang and a fountain of flames, the whole hall slams down on top of me. Anatoly disappears behind an avalanche of roof panels and wooden beams.
My back explodes with pain. Claps and booms sound all around me and I press my ears tight against my head. “Mousetrap!” I yell, panicking because I can’t feel him on my ear anymore. I thrash around, struggling to get out from beneath the jumble of wood on top of me, so I can find Mousetrap.
“I’m here, human girl,” Mousetrap squeaks weakly from my shoulder. Flames curl up and singe the fur on my cheeks. “Get up,” Mousetrap squeaks louder, and I fill my muscles with every drop of strengt
h I have and heave myself up. The rubble on my back slips away and I crawl out from beneath it.
I squint against the blinding light and heat, my gaze darting around as I desperately try to orient myself. The hall has fallen over me, and I’m surrounded by the remains of burning walls and broken roof panels. My heart races and my toes twitch, but I don’t know which way to run. I can’t see a way out.
“Anatoly!” I yell, but there’s no sign of him, and if he does shout back, I can’t hear him over the roar of flames.
“Over there.” Mousetrap clambers down my snout and points to a far corner. Flames surge up a section of upright wall, but in the center is a large, dark window. I glimpse my reflection: the image of a huge brown bear with a tiny white weasel on her snout. But then I see Sasha and his parents, and Mamochka, on the other side.
I run through the flames, focused entirely on wanting to be with them. But I slam into the window and fall to the floor. I shake my head, confused. I was sure I would smash through the glass.
Then a long brown face bursts toward me. Glass and shards of wood rain down from Yuri’s short, velvety antlers. His legs stamp through the charcoaled wall as if it’s a patch of brambles, and he lowers his head to me. “Grab on!” he shrieks, his eyes bulging with fear.
“I’m too big,” I shout. “I’m too heavy for you.” But as I lift a paw, I see fingers, blistered and burned. I gasp for air but can’t catch enough. My lungs have shrunk.
“Come on.” Yuri dips his woolly neck into my arms and I cling on tight as he pulls me back through the window and out into cold air.
“Yanka!” My name echoes around me, scores of voices saying it all at once. A blanket is thrown over me. Sasha’s father prizes my hands from Yuri’s neck and lifts me into his arms. I wonder how that’s possible when I’m a bear, huge and heavy, but then I remember seeing my fingers in the fire.
I crane my neck to look down at my legs, but they’re covered with blankets, and smoke is thick in the air. Then Mamochka appears at my side, saying my name over and over as she cups my face in her hands and kisses my cheeks, and I realize I don’t care what I look like anyway, because I’ve finally found my way home.
I’m bundled onto a cart in the village square and wrapped in so many blankets I can barely move. I struggle to stand, because I want to find Anatoly, but my body feels weak and wobbly as a spring fawn.
Then I spot Anatoly in the shadows, behind the flaming ruins of the village hall, and I finally relax because he’s fine. He gives me a nod, turns, and disappears into the darkness.
I know Anatoly wants to leave because he’s a bear, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling disappointed. For as long as I can remember, Anatoly has arrived like a shooting star, filled my imagination with fantastic stories, and then left—always too soon and without ever saying goodbye.
And now I know he left me as a baby too. And for all these years never told me he was my father. Despite understanding his reasons, I still feel a sting from his abandonment.
Mamochka sits next to me and tries wrapping an arm around my shoulders, then settles for fussing over me when it doesn’t fit. She dabs goose fat and cucumber ointment on the burns on my hands and face. “Yanka,” she whispers, tucking my hair behind my ears, “I’m so glad you’re home.”
I wrap my arms around Mamochka and realize, for the first time, that although I’ve grown too big to fit into her arms, she fits perfectly into mine.
Tears prick my eyes, but strength surges through me, pushing away all thoughts of being unwanted and abandoned. Mamochka has loved me and cared for me every day since she found me. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to realize how much strength that has given me.
Every time I’ve wobbled, she’s been there to stop me falling. Her, and Sasha, and Mousetrap. And a few other people in the village too: some of the babushkas and dedushkas; Sasha’s youngest cousin, Vanya; and Polina, with her friendly smile. Together they’ve supported me, but I’ve been too blind to see it.
I kept thinking I needed to do things on my own to feel strong, but sitting here, enveloped in Mamochka’s love, with Mousetrap on my shoulder and the villagers all around, I feel stronger than ever.
Mousetrap snores loudly into my ear and Mamochka leans back and peers at him. “Is that Mousetrap?” she asks. “With a winter coat at the start of spring?”
“He’s very proud of it.” I nod and beckon Yuri closer. He’s hovering a short distance away, nervously watching the sled dogs gathered farther along the riverbank.
I pat the side of the cart I’m sitting on and Yuri lies down next to it. “This is Yuri.” I rub the top of his head between his antlers, and he looks up at Mamochka with wide eyes.
“Is she part of our herd?” he asks.
I nod. “This is my mother.”
Mamochka strokes Yuri’s silk-soft snout and frowns at the cuts and burns on his cheeks. She rises to her feet and pulls pots of ointments and powders from her pockets. After she’s finished smearing Yuri’s burns with her remedies, she turns to me. “Do you need any more?”
I stretch my arms and legs, to see if any of my burns are still sore. The fur on my legs rustles and my claws splay wide. “Oh!” I look down at my legs. The blanket doesn’t hide their shape. “I still have bear legs.” A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth as I think of walking through the forest, feeling all the vibrations running into my soles. But then I remember why I went into the forest in the first place. I turn to Mamochka, words cascading from my lips. “I don’t want to go to the hospital, because these legs don’t need a cure. They’re part of who I am. In the forest, I found my story and learned these legs are a gift. I want to keep them.”
“So you did need a story, not medicine, after all.” Mamochka smiles as she tucks another blanket around me. “I just saw you turn from a bear into a human,” she whispers. “I don’t think I can say the stories of the forest are only fanciful tales anymore. Clearly, there’s magic in the forest, and in you.” Mamochka puts a hand on my cheek. “I’m sorry, Yanka. I should have listened to you. I was just so scared.”
“You’ve always been scared of the forest, but it’s beautiful, Mamochka. And I know how to be careful in there and keep myself safe.”
“I’ve never been scared of the forest.” Mamochka shakes her head. “I’ve only ever been scared of losing you.”
“We won’t lose each other.” I put my hand over Mamochka’s. “Because we belong together, don’t we?”
Mamochka nods. “We belong together, no matter what.” Her eyes well up and she laughs. “Oh, look at me on the brink of tears. There’s no need.”
Sasha appears with three mugs of steaming tea and we all sit, close together, and watch the villagers douse the last few fires with barrels of water. I want to get up and help, but Mamochka insists I sit and rest, and tells me everything is under control now anyway.
Some of the older babushkas and dedushkas amble over and scold me for running away and worrying my mamochka, but they smile and kiss my cheeks too. Little Vanya bounces up and demands to know everything about where I’ve been.
As I tell him a few stories, I notice Liliya and Oksana staring at me, their whispered words buzzing like hornets. Liliya points at the bottom of the cart. There’s a bear claw poking out from underneath my blankets.
I wiggle it and laugh. Their words can’t sting through my bearskin. I know now it doesn’t matter how they see me. It only matters how I see myself. And I know I belong here, in the village. No matter where I came from, or what legs I have.
I look around until I see Polina, a friendlier face, and I wave at her and smile. She smiles and waves back, and warmth flows through me. One thing I’ve learned on my journey is that it isn’t as difficult to make friends as I thought. And I already have more friends than I realized.
The sky pales in the east, announcing the coming dawn. But over the Great River the sky is still dark and vast and deep. There are scattered stars, wispy clouds, and a pale, sinking moon. All
different, but there’s room in the sky for them all. Just as there’s room on earth for all kinds of people. If I believe I belong, I’ll find my space.
Mousetrap stirs in his sleep and nuzzles against my neck. I reach up and give him a stroke. We don’t have to be the same to fit together.
I scan the darkness above the water, looking for the house with chicken legs, but there’s no sign of it. I can’t see Valentyna in the village either, and I wonder where she and Elena have gone. I shake my head and sigh. I didn’t get a chance to thank them or say goodbye.
Soon, there are only a few people left in the village square. One of the babushkas brings me a rubakha tunic and a warm reindeer-skin coat and hat. Mamochka pulls a long skirt from one of her bags and I recognize the embroidered pictures on the hem.
“My skirt!” I exclaim. “The one you decorated for me.”
Mamochka nods. “The search party found your clothes outside the bear cave. They returned to the village, thinking a bear had gobbled you up.”
“Oh no.” I shake my head, thinking of all the grief and worry I must have caused.
“It’s all right.” Mamochka squeezes my hand. “I never believed that for a moment. And when I sewed your skirt back together I could tell it hadn’t been torn by a bear. The seams were just split open.”
Mamochka helps me dress under the blankets, and as I slide my skirt over my bear legs I smile. My legs feel right—like this is how I’m meant to be. Because my home is in the village, but a part of me will always be at home in the forest too. I reach into my skirt pocket, and my hand closes around my map and the wolf claw. Ivan’s claw. Maybe next time I see him, I’ll give it back to him.
Mamochka bustles around, trying to load too many things onto the cart, and I stand and sway as I find my balance on two legs again.
“I’ll walk back with Sasha and Yuri,” I say, rearranging the cart so that Sasha’s parents can sit inside instead.
The Girl Who Speaks Bear Page 19