by Alyse Zaftig
The clothes had been a gift. The one person who ever visited the house to see him brought them to him years ago, along with an invitation to move to Bearfield. His family had been banned years ago from the town, but the man who visited—Sheriff Pete—said an exception would be made for Liam, on account of his condition. There was even talk of researching a counter-curse. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t move to where people were. He’d tried it—more than once he’d made his way to town—but the looks of fear and revulsion in the faces of the people he met had set a stone in his heart and he’d turned away.
Sheriff Pete stopped by monthly to check in on Liam. He often brought new books and groceries. Back when Liam had been more of a man, they’d played cards together. But the rules didn’t stick in his mind anymore. It seemed that every winter, he lost more of who he was. More of him faded away. How long until he’d be nothing but the beast?
Before the curse he’d been able to shift from man to bear as easy as breathing. Before the curse, he’d been a different person. A thoughtless youth, pretty and strong and cruel in his ignorance.
Satisfied that the stove was well-fired, Liam turned out the rounded loaf of bread onto his baking stone and slid it into the oven with his bare hands. The fire raged, but couldn’t burn him. It didn’t even singe his hair. With the bread baking, he had time to run down to his chicken coop and to take the morning’s eggs from his hens. They were motley birds with feathers of every color. They wandered the woods freely by day and returned to the coop every night. A different person would have worried about foxes or wolves stealing the hens, but no wild animal was that stupid. Liam’s bear scent was all over these woods and every animal knew what was his.
With careful movements he lifted the eggs between his two paw-like hands and deposited them gently into a straw filled basket. Once he had it full, he made his way down to the creek. He had a cooler submerged in the near-freezing water that kept his food fresh. He’d had a refrigerator once, but it had proven difficult to use. The cooler was better. He set his egg basket down and lifted the cooler free from the water. It was a red plastic thing, scratched and beaten up, but still working well. Inside he had the last of his bacon—from one of his own pigs—and a knob of butter that would be perfect for frying the eggs.
He ran up the hill to his house with the food in hand, his thick feet smashing holes in the muddy earth like meteors fallen from space. He looked around at the ingredients and couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. Coffee, for one, but that was impossible. What else then? What did mortals like on their breakfast plate?
Honey, he decided. Honey would be perfect. Everyone loves fresh bread dipped in sweet honey. But the tree was miles away. What if he returned and she was gone? Liam closed his eyes and focused his senses, letting his keen ears hone in on the cottage, on the low crackle of the dying fire within and the gentle snoring of his visitor. No, she’d be asleep a while longer. Plenty of time.
Liam removed the sunbread from the oven, wrapped it in a kitchen cloth, and set it in his breadbox to stay warm. Not for the first time, he glanced at the catastrophic mess of his house—his kitchen in particular—and wondered what the visitor would think. She’d think him a monster, obviously. With the way he looked and the squalor he lived in—what else could she think? She’d feel a disgusted sort of pity for him, he knew. She’d eat his breakfast because he forced the idea upon her, and then at the earliest opportunity, she’d run.
Everyone ran from him. He was a monster after all. What else could they do but run?
But even so, if a breakfast was worth cooking, it was worth cooking right.
Liam ran through the woods at breakneck speed, startling a family of deer and several flocks of birds. He got to the hollow oak—the honeytree—in record time. The opportunity to show a little kindness was such an impossibility in his world—such a novelty—that he couldn’t resist it and it propelled him with an unheard of speed.
The bees were swarming around the tree. They were already constructing new walls out of their secretions. For a moment Liam wondered what they thought of the night’s attack, if they thought at all. Was it spoken of in hushed horror in their hive? Did they view him as a gargantuan terror or rather as some sort of force of nature, like the lightning strike that created the hollow their civilization dwelt in?
He had his answer when they caught sight of him and began buzzing in a low angry tone. A cloud of bees emerged slowly from the tree, like a sword being draw from a sheath. There were so many of them that Liam paused to reconsider his plan. Together, the swarm was much larger than him. And his face still stung from last night’s attack.
He could turn back, he knew. There were other hives with perfectly acceptable honey in them. The bees that guarded them were normal sized and their stingers wouldn’t have a chance against his thick skin. But no, he couldn’t turn back. It wasn’t any sort of macho posturing. Liam was smart enough and humble enough to know his limitations, but rather he found he had an insatiable need to impress the visitor in his cottage. He needed to show her the best his world had to offer.
If you’d asked him why he felt such a need, he would not have been able to articulate it. The bear in him thought the whole idea was ridiculous. Indeed, it felt animosity still to the stranger who had entered his territory. But the bear craved more of the honey and would do anything to get it. In its heart, his bear was a simple creature who craved nothing more than sweet foods and long naps and hours alone in the woods. It was the man in him that needed to impress the woman. It was the man that let out a wild whoop and tugged his thick canvas coat over his face and ran at the hive, scooping out a thick handful of honeycomb, stuffing it into a pail tied around his waist and then running off as fast as he could, with those terrible dagger-huge bees giving pursuit.
He didn’t escape unscathed.
The bees were confused by his clothing and focused on his exposed hands and face, stabbing them with a fury. Many bees gave their lives that day in their war with the lumpy, giant invader. Liam couldn’t help but admire their brave sacrifices. His right hand had swollen up to twice its usual size, with dozens of their stingers and torn abdomens lodged in his skin. His face burned and then went numb under the bees’ assault. They gave off pursuit after half a mile, but as he escaped their torment he swore they took special notice of him and buzzed louder, as if to say, “And stay out!” at his broad half-bear back.
As he ran back home, the stolen honey filling the little pail on his waist, he picked the bee remains out of his skin, yelping loudly as each barbed stinger was ripped from his skin.
They gave a good fight, those bees did. He wouldn’t go back for their honey again anytime soon.
He had healed somewhat by the time he returned home. It was a gift of his shifter blood. He had enhanced senses, the strength to topple trees, razor sharp claws and a regenerative ability that defied all convention. Or he should have. In reality, all of his shifter gifts had been diluted by the curse. He healed, but not as fast as his kin. His senses were keen, but best when the sun was down. And of course, he could not shift at all. His cousins—the rest of the bear shifter kind—boasted an immunity to any weapon forged by man. But he was not so lucky. Fire wouldn’t burn him. Cold couldn’t bite his flesh, but a blade would cut him.
The others in his family, when they had taken ill or been wounded in ways that would have killed a mortal, had retreated into hibernation. It was a healing sleep that lasted as long as it needed. They said there was a cave under Bearfield where the old bears dwelt, hibernating for decades at a time, awakening when their bodies and minds had knit themselves back together. His mother was there. And his older brother. Both victims of the car accident that took the rest of his family away. But Liam knew, in his heart, that he would never go to the cave. The curse would deny him that. If he was mortally wounded, he would die. He wasn’t just half a bear, he was also half mortal.
When he returned to the farm, he found his visitor still asle
ep, snoring gently. Her scent was emanating from the cottage as surely as the smell of his bread had wafted out of the kitchen. She smelled of warm paper, of mint leaves growing in a half-shadowed glen, and of hope. His senses were dull during the day, but even so he found the smell of her intoxicating. Even his bear found it curious and wanted to go snuffle around the cottage door, so as to examine it more.
But, he knew, that would be creepy and an invasion of her privacy.
Instead he set about the chores that kept the ramshackle farmhouse in one piece. He fed his chickens and checked the fences that marked the edge of his land for any disturbance and then, since she was still asleep, he decided to catch up on his wood chopping. It was the most he’d done in a day in years. Usually he could manage one chore a day, if he was at his best. But mostly he slept and dreamed and read the few books he had left.
The noise of his chopping awoke her. He’d broken his axe years ago and split the wood with his bare hands. It was efficient but loud.
When she emerged from the cottage wearing clothes that had belonged to his first love, the bear in him raged at the violation while the man in him felt overcome with a giddy enthusiasm.
She smiled when he spoke, but not in a cruel way. And when she gazed upon him there was no fear or disgust in her scent. Perhaps a gentle pity or a curiosity, but no malice at all. When she gazed away, out the window or towards the road, she smelled strongly of fear. But it was not of him. No, she was afraid of whatever had driven her this far.
Liam kept his face hidden as much as he could. His hands, too, he kept away from her sight for fear of her horror at seeing their half-fused bee stung grotesquerie.
She ate the eggs and bacon with a gusto that made wonder why they bothered with plates at all. Why not lick their plates clean? But it was when she tried the honey—first tentatively and then with a gulping mouthful—that Liam felt something stir in his heart.
Rose—for that was her name—had a cautious face. She squinted at the world. She wrinkled her nose. It was as if she expected every delight to come with some hidden cost. But when she tasted the honey all of that fell away and she glowed. Her eyes squeezed shut tightly in appreciation and a small moan fell from her lips. Then she looked at Liam wide with wonderment—her whole self transformed. When suspicious and polite, Rose was merely pretty. But when she let her walls down in that moment of honey-tongued revelation, the real her shone through and was more beautiful than Liam had any right to witness.
He could watch her eat every day for the rest of eternity and count himself a happy man, he realized. What a strange idea that was. It made him wish he had more to give her, more to share with her. It made him realize what an absolute heap of filth he lived in.
Once they were done with eating, he mentioned his phone to her. She considered the idea thoughtfully, a measure of worry on her face as if it was a trap.
“It’s an old phone,” he added. “I don’t even know if it still works.”
Rose’s eyes flicked to regard his hands, before darting away.
“Yes,” Liam agreed. “I find it nearly impossible to use these days.”
Rose cocked her head. “Your hands weren’t always that way?” Her breath smelled of honey now.
Liam shook his head.
“I assumed it was a birth defect sort of thing,” she said. Her voice was so kind that it made him ache. “Was it an accident? Like with farm equipment?”
“It was a punishment,” Liam said. He wanted to say more. He opened his mouth to tell her about the witch, about the curse, but nothing came out. The magic had locked his words away, too.
“That’s horrible,” Rose said. “Who did this to you?”
Liam fought for the right way to tell her. His bear raged inside him for a moment, making his vision go red and his breath grow ragged in his chest. “I deserved it,” he said. “That’s all I can say. Years ago, I was unkind to a stranger.” He held up his hands, palms facing Rose, showing her the bear claws that poked through irregularly from the tips of his fused fingers.
Her breath caught, but she reached out and took his hands in hers. And where his skin was fire, hers was as cool as the mountain stream. Just her touch seemed to soothe his bee-stung skin. She was so much smaller than him. Each of his hands were nearly as large as both of her pressed together.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, and meant it. “Have you tried seeing a doctor? Maybe they could help?”
Liam smiled wryly. “Nothing can help. But thank you.”
They sat like that for so long that Liam’s heart swelled within his chest. With her examining his hands in hers. Her breath tickled him, leaving traces of her honey-scent on his skin in an intimacy he had never deserved. It was only minutes, but for Liam an eternity of happiness was contained in that interaction.
She would leave—soon, likely—and all he would have to remember her by was this moment with her cool hands stroking his and he knew he would cherish this moment for the rest of his life. His bear ridiculed him as a soft-hearted and sentimental fool. But had he ever been so happy? Such a small kindness it was, but for a man who lived alone it was a feast.
“The phone?” she asked, finally.
“Let me show you,” Liam rumbled, getting to his feet. “It is upstairs. Follow me.”
He lead her into the ruined dining room and living room, where he often slept in his messy nest of ripped blankets. Shame filled him at the squalor, but Rose didn’t say anything at all.
Liam pointed up the broken stairs that led to the second floor. “Up there. First door on your left. You’ll find the phone there. But,” he added, “take care where you step. The stairs have snapped under my weight so walk on the edges of the platforms, where the stair meets the wall.”
Rose nodded. She looked up the broken staircase and swallowed hard. “I don’t like heights,” she said. “Or really, it’s falling that freaks me out.”
“If you fall,” Liam said. “I will catch you.”
“Promise?” Rose said, giving him half a smile.
Chapter 5
Liam called them stairs, but Rose didn’t see any stairs. She saw little nubs of wood, not even as wide as her feet, poking out of the wall. He was crazy if he expected her to climb them. In the geography where the stairs should have been was empty space, shattered support beams and below it all a thicket of splintered wood and rusted nails.
Rose had never liked heights.
As a child, when her mother had found out about her fear of them she made Rose climb onto the roof of the garden shed and jump off onto the soft lawn. The goal had been to cure her of her irrational fear by making her conquer it, but Rose had landed poorly and twisted her ankle and spent hours in the emergency room. If anything it solidified her fear.
“Go ahead,” Liam said encouragingly in his pleasant rumble. “Just up there.”
Rose knew she should be scared of the man. He was a weird hermit who lived in a half-collapsed house and kept his face hidden in the shadows of his hood—but she wasn’t scared of him. Working in the library, she’d developed a sense of which people were easy and which were difficult, and which might pull out a knife when you told them their time on the public computer was up. Ronald Carter tripped every alarm she had. Liam didn’t. He looked rather monstrous, but under it he had a good heart and a kind smile. Well, it sounded like he had a kind smile. She hadn’t really seen it clearly yet.
“What the hell,” Rose said. “Fortune favors the bold.” She gripped the railing tightly and found her footing. She took each step carefully, with trembling feet, even as the fear sweats came on, making her palms slippery. When she was halfway up, she glanced down and saw a forest of rusted nails looking back up at her and her hands spasmed on the railing. Her eyes snapped tightly shut.
She was going to remain on that broken step until she died of old age, she decided. Nothing would move her. The mountain could erode under her feet. Developers could bulldoze down the forests and put up a supermarket. But she’d still be
there, stuck halfway between the known and unknown, refusing to budge ever.
“What’s your favorite book?” Liam asked.
“Excuse me?” Rose opened her eyes and glanced back at him. Her breathing steadied. The sickly heat she hadn’t even realized was there broke and left her body. “Is this really the time?”
Liam’s smile under his hood was dazzling. “I don’t get many visitors and so rarely can talk books with anyone.” He scratched his chin with his clawed hands. “Right now I’m in the middle of an Austen phase but before that I was reading the old Russian masters.”
Rose blinked at him. He was not what she expected at all. If he had told her he couldn’t read at all, or that books were for other people, she wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But this—this was unexpected. “As a librarian,” she began, “I find it unfair to say which book is my favorite. It’s like a mother with her children, you know? They all have their redeeming qualities.” She paused a moment, then added, “Well, most do.”
“Keep climbing,” Liam said. “The library is up there, too. And I’d be very happy if you could throw down some books when you’re done with that phone call.”
“Certainly not,” Rose said sternly. “But I will hand them down to you. I think if I threw them they’d take away my library badge.” She didn’t know why, but she winked at him then. She never winked at anyone. She wasn’t a winky kind of girl. But there it was. It had been done. She’d winked and Liam looked away, ducking his head in a hurry.
He was embarrassed, she realized. Is he into me? The idea didn’t horrify her—instead she found it sweet.
With her mind turned away from fear and thinking about all of the books that were on her favorites list, she climbed the remains of the steps.
The second floor was different from the first. It wasn’t dirty and smashed and stained, no, it was dusty and a bit moldy but otherwise untouched. How many years had it been since Liam was up here?