“Nina,” the voice said, “don’t cry anymore. I won’t hurt you. I’m here to help!” The orbs grew in size until Nina realized they were eyes, and the eyes belonged to a porcupine. Twinkling fireflies surrounded the rotund animal.
The porcupine waddled up to Nina and looked to be smiling at her in the glow of the flashing bugs. Her apprehension subsided, and she leaned down for a closer look, careful of his quills.
“Hello, little Nina,” Porcupine said, “you’ve gotten yourself into a prickly situation, haven’t you?”
“Y–you can talk,” Nina said.
“Of course I can!” Porcupine said with a laugh that wiggled his quills.
“Are you a magical animal? That must be why you can talk because regular animals don’t talk,” Nina reasoned.
Porcupine tilted his head. Nina wasn’t sure, because she had no previous experience with talking porcupines, but it looked like he was frowning.
“All animals can talk,” Porcupine said. “But not everyone wants to listen. Little Nina, you’re special. You’ve always listened and cared for us.”
A dozen questions popped into Nina’s head, but she chose to ask the most important. “Where did you come from?” Nina thought if he got into the cave, then perhaps she could get out the same way.
The fireflies circled overhead, creating a ceiling of blinking stars above them and casting a soft glow in the darkness.
“An opening near the river,” Porcupine said. “But it’s much too small for someone your size.” He shuffled past her toward the cave entrance. With an umph he tried to push away the boulders, but they were too heavy for such a small creature.
Porcupine put his lips in a crack of light between the rocks and called out for help. Nina wanted to tell him that no one would come to help because she’d been yelling forever, but he seemed so sure that someone would respond. And soon Nina heard noises outside the cave. Then the noises became audible voices.
Porcupine nodded at Nina with a gleam in his eyes. “I hear Wolf, Racoon, Caribou, and Turtle. Oh, there’s Possum now. And Rabbit and Squirrel. The birds are just arriving too. Do you hear Turkey? He’s quite gurgly, isn’t he? We must have woken him from his tree nap. And Hummingbird is here now. You’ll love her.” Porcupine pressed his mouth to the crack again. “Little Nina has been trapped in here and left to die. I’m not strong enough to move these rocks. We must help her!”
Voices rose outside the cave. Some sounded alarmed and shocked, and others were angry enough to raise the hair on Nina’s arms. But all of them sounded intent on saving Little Nina.
“Who am I,” Nina mumbled, “that these creatures should want to save me?”
“Who are you?” Porcupine asked. “You are Little Nina, weaver of fine clothes and fabrics and a crafter of sturdy furniture. Our homes and forest are full of your creations.” Porcupine lifted his front feet, one at a time, and Nina saw that rather than brown, his tiny feet were blue.
“You’re wearing my socks!” she exclaimed.
Porcupine smiled at her. “Wait until you see the others.”
An angry roar echoed from deeper within the cave. Nina and Porcupine heard the sounds of movement, followed by growls and grunting that came closer and closer.
“Wh–What else is in here?” Nina asked, hunching closer to Porcupine whose quills quivered and lifted.
Porcupine shuffled forward, peering into the darkness. “All kinds of animals find refuge in this cave,” he said. “But that doesn’t sound like any natural forest animal.”
The fireflies formed a blinking line stretching out in front of Nina and Porcupine toward the dark, as if to light a pathway for whatever was coming.
“Not natural,” Nina whispered. “You mean, a monster? A goblin or—”
The creature growled again, a strangled, frustrated sound, and its hulking shadow stretched out of a cave tunnel. The animal walked close enough to the flashing firefly light for Nina and Porcupine to see it wasn’t a monster.
But Porcupine had been right. It wasn’t a natural forest animal either. The creature stood on two legs. A mottled and matted pelt, resembling a combination of animals, covered its body. There was the gray fur of a wolf, patches of coarse, brown moose hide mixed with soft, golden brown beaver fur. A wild and knotted, black, shiny fur sprouted from its head, covered its face, and tangled into its strange long-limbed body.
Porcupine backed away from the approaching creature. “Please, please don’t hurt us,” he pleaded. He ran back toward the rockslide, pressed his mouth against the crack between the rocks, and shouted, “There’s a beast in here! Hurry and help us!”
Nina stood petrified for a few seconds, but then feeling a surging need to protect her new friend, Porcupine, she snatched up her bow and nocked an arrow. “St–stay back,” she said in a brave, but trembly, voice. “Stay back or I’ll have to–to hurt you.”
The creature stopped. The fireflies danced around it in a swirl of twinkling light. The animal blinked its black eyes at Nina, and they stared at each other.
Porcupine pressed himself closer against the rocks and begged the animals outside, “Help us.”
Outside the Cave of Madness, the group of animals rushed into action. Racoon hustled up to the blocked opening. He tried to wrap his arms around a stone, but they were much too short. Fox scratched and bit at a boulder, but he chipped a tooth and nothing more. Caribou thrust her long antlers beneath a rock and tried to pry the stone loose, but the effort broke off her antler.
Turtle shook his head; he knew there was nothing he could do. Possum dropped down from the nearest tree, and she, Squirrel, and Rabbit bounced around the rocks, trying to loosen even the smallest one. Turkey gobbled, and Hummingbird flitted around, both encouraging the animals, but it was no use. They could not move the stones.
“What’s going on here?” a deep voice asked. Mama Bear had come out of the forest without the other animals knowing.
Now that they saw her standing among them, the smaller animals scattered because they were frightened. But Wolf was not scared of Mama Bear, so he explained what happened. Mama Bear also knew Little Nina, and she was, in fact, wearing a daisy chain belt dotted with polished granite stones that had been crafted by Nina. The belt was too small for Mama Bear’s large waist, so she wore it around her wrist instead.
Mama bear embraced one of the boulders in front of the cave’s mouth, and with her impressive strength, she heaved it out of the way. With a rumble, more stones rolled out of the way, and a patch of sunlight from the outside stretched into the cave’s interior. Mama Bear grabbed another large stone as the animals cheered her on.
Inside the cave Nina held her bow and arrow steady at the creature until the sound of crashing rocks had her lowering her bow and turning around. A beam of sunlight shone directly into her eyes and blinded her. Nina stumbled backward and dropped the arrow. Porcupine yelled, and his quills scratched against Nina’s pants as he scurried away.
More rocks shifted, and as Nina’s eyes adjusted, she saw the creature was lifting rocks on the inside and heaving them out of the cave’s mouth. It was helping them escape. The more sunlight that stretched into the cave, the more detail she saw on the creature. It wasn’t a strange beast at all, but a mangy bear in need of a bath.
With the animals on the outside helping and the bear helping inside, in a matter of minutes, Nina and Porcupine were free. They rushed into the forest, full of thanksgiving and joy. Nina thanked each animal and noticed they all wore something she’d made. Some of the fabric hues had faded on the items she’d stitched years ago, but others wore newer pieces, and they looked like a celebration of vibrant color.
“What about the beast?” Caribou asked, creeping toward the cave.
“Yes! The terrible ogre!” Squirrel squeaked.
Nina looked around the group for the animal who’d been trapped with her in the cave, but the peculiar bear was gone.
“It wasn’t an ogre,” Nina explained. “I think it was a bear.”
>
“You think? Couldn’t you tell?” Turkey asked and gobbled for emphasis. A few other animals agreed.
“It was an odd sort of bear,” Nina said. “Tall and—”
“Funny colored and too skinny?” Mama Bear asked. Nina nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen this bear too. He keeps to himself, spends most of his time in the cave.”
Nina looked toward the black hole of the cave and shuddered. “Why would anyone want to spend time in there? It’s the Cave of Madness!”
“Madness?” Mama Bear asked with a laugh that sounded like she’d trapped thunder in her throat. “We call it the Cave of Wisdom. What happens to you inside depends on how open your mind is and if you’re ready.”
Nina frowned. “Ready for what?”
“For what the cave has to teach you,” Mama Bear said.
Nina hugged her arms around her chest. “The people in town tell different stories about this cave, about how it rattles the brain and makes you lose your mind. But I guess I shouldn’t have been so scared to be inside the cave then. Learning doesn’t sound frightening.”
Mama Bear laughed again. “Some of your people would say the path to wisdom is too frightening. One must experience life, endure hardships, and expand their minds to gain wisdom. So they choose to live in ignorance and foolishness instead, which is more harmful for all of us. Others can’t accept the truth found in the cave, so they reject it. Yet they’re never able to forget there is a possibility all they believe and know is wrong, but they fight it, which is its own form of madness. Learning can be very frightening.” Seeing Nina’s wrinkled brow, Mama Bear shook her head and leaned down closer to the little girl’s face. “I can see you’re not ready yet. Good thing we rescued you today. But perhaps one day you can go into the cave on your own and learn what it wants to teach you.”
Porcupine wiggled and cleared his throat. He said, “Someone must take care of Nina and raise her. My food will not suit a girl. Maybe there is someone here whose diet is better for a hungry human.”
“Can’t we take her home?” Rabbit asked.
“Oh, no,” Porcupine said. “Definitely not.”
Nina hung her head, and her shoulders slumped. “I can’t go home.”
“Why not?” Wolf asked.
“My stepfather,” she said. The word caught in her throat like a briar. “He’s the reason I’m here. He wants me dead. If I go home now, he’ll only try to trap me or kill me again.”
“I can share my worms with you,” Robin said.
“How about bark?” Beaver asked. “I know where the best trees are.”
“I have a stash of seeds and insects,” Owl said.
“Those aren’t suitable for Little Nina,” Porcupine said.
“I have something.” Mama Bear’s shadow loomed over Nina, and Nina leaned back her head to see all the way up to the bear’s broad face. Mama Bear reached into a pouch at her side. Then she held out a clawed hand. Resting in the pad of her paw were blueberries, fresh and deep blue.
Nina hesitated.
Mama Bear said, “Go on. Try them.”
Nina hadn’t eaten all day, so she gobbled the blueberries eagerly. “Thank you.”
“It’s settled then,” Porcupine said. “Mama Bear will watch over Little Nina and teach her the ways of the forest, how to forage and survive. Mama Bear will be your foster mother, and you will be the bear’s child.”
The other animals agreed and dispersed, leaving Nina with only Porcupine and Mama Bear. Porcupine said his goodbyes and then scurried away. Nina watched him go and felt an ache in her chest as she thought of how much her life had changed and how it would continue to change. She would never see her mother again. Her stepfather wanted her dead, and she would live forever in the forest as the child of Mama Bear.
“Come now,” Mama Bear said. “It’s getting late, and your brothers will be wondering where I am.”
“My brothers?” Nina asked, following Mama Bear on a trail through giant-size fir trees.
“Two cubs,” Mama Bear said.
“Do they–do they eat people like me?” Nina asked.
Mama Bear’s deep laugh echoed through the forest, and pine needles fell like evergreen rain, filling the air with the sharp scent of nature and a sweet hint of sap.
“No, child,” Mama Bear said. “Your kind is not good for food. Unless we were starving and desperate, which we aren’t.”
While they hiked through the forest, Nina focused on Mama Bear and relaxed her mind. Nina wanted to know if she could see inside animals the way she could with people. But Nina only caused her right temple to throb. Forest animals were not like people, she decided. They didn’t hide their true natures. Their intentions and feelings were obvious, and their words weren’t coated with honey or altered for the listener. Nina felt relieved she wouldn’t have to work so hard to understand the animals. They felt free to be just as they were created to be.
Nina’s cub brothers were twice her size and twice as rambunctious. They wrestled and growled and tossed one another around the way Nina had seen men tossing bags of potatoes onto carts. They were pleased with the addition to their family, even though they told Nina she was scrawny and slow. She felt both surprised and happy to see they wore vests she’d sewn out of leaves and pine needles. When they showed her they had a hole full of her designs, she laughed in delight until tears rolled down her cheeks.
“All these years,” Nina said, “I wanted to believe someone or something would find even just one of my creations.”
“Just one?” one cub exclaimed. “Wait until we show you all the things you’ve made. They’re all over the forest!”
During the next few weeks, Nina’s cub brothers led her all through the forest to spot her wheelbarrows being pushed by a family of gnomes. Her fairy doors, when placed against the trunk of a tree, opened secret passageways to other trees in other forests. Her furniture crowded into foxes’ dens and owls’ trees. Curtains fluttered out of bird nests and fairy houses built inside bright red mushrooms. Deer wore her hats skewed on their heads to avoid their antlers. A duck draped a royal blue cape over his back and waddled proudly past them. And Nina caught sight of a black horse wearing a sparkling crown of crystals she’d crafted last autumn during a harvest moon.
Mama Bear showed her all of the tricks for foraging and finding the best spots for climbing. She taught Nina how to catch fish from the river and how to tell the difference between berries and plants that were safe to eat and how to avoid the poisonous ones.
Nina’s cub brothers taught her the secrets of the forest, like how to find woodland fairies and how to avoid the goblins because they were tricky beasts. They showed her a dim-witted, short-tempered troll living beneath a poison ivy mound, and during the full moon, they snacked on berries and watched pixies dancing through the trees.
In turn, Nina taught her cub brothers how to carve treasures from wood. Even though their clawed hands were clumsy with the delicate pieces, they were still pleased with their rudimentary creations. She gathered pine needles, birch leaves, ferns, and mosses, and with threads made of lichens and river mist, she stitched together new clothes suited for rowdy cubs and made more sophisticated, yet useful items for Mama Bear. Within a few months, Nina’s ache and longing for home and for her mother lessened. Her memories turned vaporous, and she settled into her life as a bear child.
One day after spring arrived in the forest, Nina and her cub brothers went fishing. The winter melt caused the river to swell and thunder over rocks. The cubs, now nearly three times her size, ventured out into the waters to catch the fish bursting through the surface and flying over frothy rapids.
Since she didn’t have claws, Nina had created a spear. She stood on the bank and focused on the swiftly moving waters. By the time she speared one fish, her cub brothers had tossed a dozen onto the bank. They teased about her meager catch compared to their growing pile.
“Slow and steady wins the race!” Nina shouted at them.
They laughed. “Slo
w and steady finishes last!” one brother called back to her as he hurled a fish in her direction.
Mama Bear joined them and brought a woven basket. She and Nina piled the fish inside, and then Mama Bear waded out into the cold waters to fish with her sons. Nina remained on the riverbank, watching and smiling.
A tingle started in her toes and traveled up to her fingers. Using the pointed end of her spear, she drew a word in the wet earth, something she hadn’t done in ages. There was no need to practice her writing or to even remember the shape of letters. So she stared at the lines and squiggles, watching them swim in and out of focus in her gaze, until finally her mind connected the letters into a word and then into a name she recognized. She’d written her father’s name. Nina placed her hand over her heart and shivered. He’d been killed by a bear. Nina gazed out at Mama Bear. It couldn’t have been her bear mother, Nina thought. Could it?
An animal burst out of the forest behind Nina. “Run!”
Nina gasped in surprise, unable to immediately identify what kind of creature sprinted toward her. It raised its mangy arms and ran with a limp. Then she recognized it was the odd bear from the cave many months ago. Did the bear mean to attack her? Nina gripped her spear.
But he stopped a few feet from her. “You must get out of here. They’re coming! Get them!” He pointed toward her cub brothers and Mama Bear.
“W–what?” Nina stuttered, trying to shift her thoughts from the need to defend herself from the bear to the idea that something else was coming for them.
Ignoring Nina, he ran to the riverbank and waved his long arms at Mama Bear. He shouted words across the rapids, and Mama Bear motioned to the cubs. All three of them rushed out of the water as fast as the river would allow.
Nina, the Bear's Child Page 3