by Chant, Zoe
“Anything I need to know about?” he asked.
“Do bears come under your jurisdiction?” she asked facetiously.
“Only when they start jaywalking down the high street.” He grinned at her. “We breed them big up here. You’re that photographer that Kenny opened the cabin up for, right?”
“That’s right.”
“If you saw a bear on your way down from there, better let James know,” he said. “He likes to know if he’s got to watch out when in the woods.”
It sounded all so perfectly innocent, but Nessa stifled a slightly hysterical giggle. “I’m pretty sure that he already knows about this one.”
She didn’t miss his abrupt startlement, and the amazement, and amusement in his eyes. He flipped his hat off, showily rolling it down his arm. “I think that now I’m off duty, you and I need to have a chat about this wandering bear. How does coffee and pie at our local diner sound?”
“Like heaven,” she admitted.
Her as-yet-unnamed policeman friend escorted her from her car, across the quiet street, and towards a sleepy-looking diner. He pushed open the door to a carillon of tiny cymbals and gestured her inside.
The diner was cozy, painted in a pale duck-egg blue, with the seats upholstered in navy. The counters and tabletops were cream, with the waitress behind the counter wearing a primrose-yellow apron. She looked up and smiled politely at Nessa, with the smile warming to a true one as she spied the officer on Nessa’s heels.
“Morning, Dan, you on break already? Your usual?”
“Aye, Mary, and one for the lady here. Any apple pie ready yet?”
“No, but we have triple chocolate muffins, fresh and ready to go.”
“Sign us up for a pair of those as well.”
Nessa slid into the nearest one of the booths, quietly marveling at how this Dan had suddenly taken charge. He slid into the booth opposite her and propped his elbows on the table.
“First off, I’m Dan Winters, sheriff of this fine borough.”
“Vanessa Morrison.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked. Nessa shot a quick glance at the waitress who had her back turned, pouring out coffee. “Mary’s the soul of discretion.”
“You are going to think I am absolutely insane,” she said.
“I would really doubt that.”
“So if I told you that I’d seen a grown man turn into a bear, then you wouldn’t think I was insane?”
“I turn into a coyote, so I’d say no,” he said with a casual shrug.
Nessas train of thought screeched to a halt, derailed by the startling new piece of information. She stared at Dan in shock, barely blinking, as Mary delivered their coffees and muffins. Dan bore her stare without flinching.
“I’d demonstrate, but there are no pets allowed in here,” he joked as he wrapped one hand around his coffee and added sugar.
“You’re not joking?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“Not something to joke about, up here.”
Nessa sat back in the seat, her mind slowly starting to work again, jolted out of the paralysis that had gripped it since she had seen that bear emerging out of the mist. There was something utterly truthful about the man in front of her. He hadn’t laughed at her, hadn’t even hinted at amusement. James was a bear. But, he was still James, the man who had made love to her, the man who had called her his gorgeous girl.
“Did he not explain anything to you?” Dan asked.
“He didn’t realize that I was watching,” she said, shredding the inoffensive muffin with nervous fingers. “One minute he was there, the next, there was a bear.”
Dan whistled. “You really must have him distracted, he’s usually more private.”
Nessa blushed and felt queerly pleased with herself.
“Well, I’ll keep it short. Most of us in town are shifters, we just all seemed to gravitate to the area. We mostly get along with each other. James might not want too see it, but he’s the one that we all look up too. Mostly since his bear could knock any of the rest of us silly.”
They spent at least an hour in the diner, Dan sharing stories of James, and himself. To hear him talk, the pair had been good friends ever since Dan had moved to the town. If she had any intention of selling the information, then she could have made a fortune proving legends real. But she took every piece of information in and held it in close to her heart. It would hurt James to have this secret revealed, and that was one thing she would not do.
The more that she learned about this hidden community, the more she felt closer to James.
Finally, a call came in over the radio, and Dan had to go back to work, eliciting a promise from her to call back another time. Nessa stacked the plates, left payment behind, and stepped out into the chill. The air had cooled down dramatically again, and the swirling clouds overhead had thickened.
Nessa knew where her next destination would be. Not back to the cabin in the hope of finding James, and certainly not back to the city. No, she needed to visit the library.
She had noticed it on her way into the town, and made her way there on foot, dodging puddles and hurrying quickly to avoid getting too soaked. The automatic doors whooshed open at her approach, and a blast of warm air hit her in the face. She entered, shaking off the worst of the wet, and stepped through the second set of doors.
For a small-town library, it was well filled. The walls were thick with shelves, and freestanding units formed neat aisles. There were several computers set up near the desk, all unoccupied at this time of day. Near the back of the room, she could see study desks, and it was to these that she made a beeline. They were unoccupied as well, but that was most likely because of the chatting crowd of children.
The school must have been having an outing to the library, as about thirty children thronged the bright reading section, with two teachers trying, and mostly failing, to ride herd. Nessa pushed them to the back of her mind, set her bag on the desk, and then determinedly marched into the aisles to find the books that she was looking for.
Shifters were legendary, there was no question about that. They were fairy stories, bedtime tales. People who had lived long ago, but disappeared into history when science and rational thinking had become popular. It was assumed that they had all died out, vanished, or as some people thought, never existed at all.
But what if what everyone thought was wrong? She had watched James with her own two eyes, and she had been told by Dan. If this was just a joke, then it was a very elaborate practical joke to play on an out-of-towner.
She returned to the table with an armful of books, gleaned from the children’s section, and set them down. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but hoped that she would find something, anything, to soothe her troubled mind. To hear from a source other than Dan.
She was paging through the first book when she became aware of someone lurking at her elbow. She looked over, and found a pair of bright blue eyes under a mop of red hair staring at her.
“Hi?” she said politely, and questioningly.
As if her greeting had answered a question, the young boy walked away, and came back shortly after dragging a bright yellow chair. He set it beside her own, clambered onto it, and knelt, looking at the book. Nessa couldn’t help herself, and laughed.
“You here to help me with my research?” she asked.
“What you looking for?” the boy demanded, trying to pull the book closer to his nose.
“People who can change into animals,” she said, pulling the book closer so that the boy could see. She wasn’t prepared for his reaction. His eyes clouded over, and he pushed back from her as if she had just told him that she was contaminated with chickenpox.
“What you want to know about them for?” he asked suspiciously.
It wasn’t a confirmation, but it also wasn’t a denial. It could also just be the imagination of a child, but Nessa wasn’t so sure.
“I met a man that could turn into a bear,” she went fo
r honesty. “I wanted to find out if there were any other people out there who could turn into animals.”
The boy still looked suspicious. “People turning into animals is silly,” he said firmly. “It’s not real.”
“So what did I see?” she asked.
“Not a man changing into a bear,” the little boy. “Nope.”
“I’m sorry, Miss, is he bothering you?” One of the teachers noticed that one of her charges was missing and walked over to join Nessa at the table.
“Not at all,” Nessa said. “We were just talking.”
“She said that she saw a man turn into a bear,” the boy said. “Tell her that doesn’t happen.”
Nessa looked straight at the woman and saw what she thought was a faint flicker of worry there. The woman ruffled the boy’s hair.
“Go and join the rest of the class, David,” she said quietly, and ushered the boy off.
“I know that you’re probably used to keeping secrets here,” Nessa said hastily, before the other woman could speak. “But I’m staying up at the cabins near James, and I saw something, and then I talked to Dan, and now I have no idea what to think. Or to do.”
It took a moment for the other woman to parse her disjointed sentence, but when she managed it, she nodded. She held up one hand in the universal sign to hold on, and pulled a phone from her pocket.
With a few taps, she must have sent a message, and it was only a few seconds later that a reply came through. Her face lit in a bright smile, and unceremoniously, she plopped herself down on the yellow chair, folding herself into the small space with the ease of the experienced teacher.
“So you’re the mysterious photographer that the whole town’s talking about,” she said breathily. “And Dan says you’re on the level.”
“Does he now?” Nessa asked, a little flummoxed.
“We like to keep ourselves to ourselves, so when someone starts asking questions, Dan’s the man we go to,” the woman explained. “But he says that he’s already had a talk with you.”
“I wouldn’t call it a talk,” Nessa said. “More like a quick and dirty intro into this secretive and bizarre world that I thought only existed in legends. Followed by tall tales and improbable stories.”
The woman laughed. “Dan isn’t the best for explanations, which is why we don’t usually let him. Last time we let him explain was the time that Chris brought up his partner, and that ended up with the poor man streaking naked through the woods in an attempt to get in touch with his inner bobcat. Chris was mortified.”
Nessa tried to hide her smile behind her hand. “He didn’t try anything like that with me,” she said. “Possibly because he admitted that James could take him. Everything that he told me made sense, it’s just hard to wrap my head around.”
“Right, let’s see if I can get your head straightened out for you. My name’s Marie, you?”
“Nessa. Do you turn into an animal as well?”
“Most of us here in the town do. I’m a goose. We’ve got a variety of species here, mostly wild, native, and non-native. Can I assume that you’re not a shifter?”
“Not that I’ve ever noticed,” Nessa said dryly.
“Believe me, you’d notice,” Marie said, just as dryly. “You’re not alone, we’ve got a bunch of non-shifters around as well, family, friends, and mates. If you plan on sticking around a few days, I’ll arrange a get-together.”
“I don’t know what my plans are yet,” she admitted out loud. “I’m only here on assignment, but…”
Her sentence trailed off, and Marie leaned forward, head tilted in a very birdlike movement. “But?” she asked.
Nessa wasn’t sure whether to answer, to confide in this woman she had just met, no matter how helpful she was currently being. This was something private, something personal between her and James.
“How much does being a goose affect you?” she asked instead of replying.
“You’re thinking of it as there being a human me, and a goose me, and that the two are different. We don’t see it that way. I’m Marie, who occasionally grows feathers. That’s not to say that sometimes things aren’t simpler when I’m wearing feathers, because they can be. When you’re up in the air, just gliding, if things don’t fall into perspective, then you’re doing it wrong.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
Marie made a pleased noise in reply, her eyes distant for a brief moment, before she shook her head and snapped back to herself. “So, what started this bout of confusion?”
“Aren’t I keeping you back from the children?”
“Not at all, and I notice that you keep changing the subject. Spill, Nessa.”
“I saw James turn into a bear. I thought that shifters were something out of legends, and then suddenly, there’s one right in front of me. And he and I…I thought that we had something between us. Something special. And then out of nowhere, here’s this big secret that I’ve discovered, without him knowing. He’s James, and he’s a bear. But why doesn’t this bother me more?”
And that was it, at the heart of it. She didn’t care that James was a bear. She was falling in love with this man, and his bear form didn’t bother her. It was just another part of him.
And all the conventions of her normal life dictated that she should be freaking out, should be running for civilization as fast as she could, but she wasn’t.
Marie sat silently and let her work all this out, and Nessa was fairly sure that her emotions were playing out on her face like it was a filmstrip.
“Why doesn’t this bother me?” she repeated. Marie shrugged, palms held outwards and upwards.
“You’re the only one who can answer that, Nessa, but I can tell you that you’re not alone. It’s not a bad thing, to be accepting. It’s not a bad thing at all.”
“Thank you,” Nessa said gratefully.
“Happy to help.” Marie grinned. “But I didn’t do much. Just cleared away some of the cobwebs so that you could work things out yourself.”
There was a sharp whistle from somewhere behind them, and Marie was up from her chair in a flash. “That’s my call,” she said brightly. “Nice talking to you, Nessa, and I hope you stick around long enough for me to arrange some introductions for you. Take care!”
“Thanks,” Nessa said again as Marie disappeared, and then looked down at the stacks of books she had found.
Shifters were real, and this didn’t bother her. She had no urge to run to the papers. Shifters were real, and she was in love with one.
She loved James.
That was all that was important.
She took a few minutes to file the books back in the right places, to the approval of the librarian, before she headed out of the building. She contemplated taking a turn around the town, see a few of the sights, but pushed the thought aside, since she did want to get some work done before the night came again. She crossed the road and headed back to her car.
The rain continued on the drive back to the cabin, and when she arrived back at her temporary home, the rain seemed like it was on for good. It sifted down out of the dark sky in a constant stream, soaking her to the skin in minutes. Nessa grabbed her camera case, braced herself, and trotted off into the woods in search of photo opportunities.
She thought that she was following the same path that James had led her on the previous day, but the fog rising from the ground and the falling rain made it hard to tell. All trees looked the same to her, even if they were photogenic. The white curls of fog created an eerie atmosphere, and she stopped occasionally to take photos.
After about half an hour, she wasn’t sure if she was still heading in a straight line. She’d also nearly fallen in a dry creek bed. She hadn’t reached the clearing that had held the caribou, but then animals had probably more sense than to stand out in the rain and get soaked. She looked up at the sky, and as if in answer, the rain began to come down heavier, whistling through the branches of the trees.
Off to her right, she could hear the burbl
e of water running over rocks, just audible over the noise of the rain. Where there was running water, there was the chance for photographs, and the chance to find some animals. Rather than make this a wasted trip, she turned and trudged off through the undergrowth.
The sound of the water grew louder, and Nessa emerged from the undergrowth to a more cleared area. A stream, swollen by the rain, burbled through a small rocky ditch, water tinged brown with carried soil. It was picturesque, and would have been more so, if it wasn’t for the ever-present rain. Nessa snapped a few pictures and then packed her camera away. She was cold, soaked to the skin, and hoped that James would be back at the cabin. She needed to talk to him.
As she turned away from the stream to retrace her footsteps, her boot caught on the soft ground. Saturated with water, the soil gave way as the bank crumbled. Nessa felt her ankle turn, and the flash of pain disorientated her. As her balance went, she couldn’t find it again. She fell, and the cold stream water rushed over her. Then her head hit a rock, and blackness engulfed her.
***
James paced backwards and forwards within his cabin. He walked the same path from his front door to his kitchen, occasionally looking downwards to see if he was wearing a hole in the floor. The salmon was wrapped in foil in the oven, lemon tang heavy in the air, contrasting with the sweet scent of chocolate.
As he came level with the window again, he twitched aside the curtain. Nothing had changed. Her car was still outside the cabin, and all the lights were off. A strong wind blew the sleet around in blinding eddies, and the chill coming off the glass was enough to make him keep his distance. His inner bear paced in the confines of his mind, prowling and growling, uneasy and unsettled.
She was just delayed, that was all. Perhaps she had fallen asleep in the bath, or on the couch with a book. There was no need for him to worry, she would be over soon.
Another ten minutes of pacing, another check on the resting salmon, and another twitch of the curtains. Still nothing. His bear roared a demand, and in his own worry, James was helpless to resist.
He grabbed his oilskin coat from its peg, slinging it around his shoulders. The cold wind bit into his exposed skin, and he pulled the collar of his coat up tight around his throat. He made his way across the gap between the cabins, and up onto her porch. The door was firmly locked. He knocked, waited a beat, and then knocked again. No reply.