The Bear: A Novel (12 page)

We are
only two just Stick and me only. I feel scared that the black dog is coming soon and look to the open grassy wet and that isn’t a place I know. We waited in the forest and it’s not the spot either.

“We need to find Daddy, Stick.”

“Okey.”

“We need to go.”

Stick doesn’t answer. I look farther away and there is a line that goes into the bush and it’s like a trail that Daddy makes around the cottage for walks. A path. There is one from the boat to the cottage but you can go longer around the whole way and that is long. I can do it but Stick can’t make it without a carry. I can do it but I will need to watch out for snakes because Daddy or Momma goes first to watch. I can surprise a snake but a grown-up sees a snake before it gets surprised.

Stick is scratching his bum on the ground and I wish he had pants for the important hike but he needs to go with no pants. I pull on the back of my pj’s because they are showing my bum smile. We take water on hikes in bottles and Stick and I don’t have bottles. I wave him over and he follows me but his feet are draggy. He is going so slow and the black dog could catch him in one step. I bend down and drink from the puddle and I scoop chocolate milk water in my hands for Stick. He tries to hang his tongue out like his inside dog but he doesn’t really think it lives inside him this time. He licks up a little from my hands and it feels better on my hands so I stick them in the puddle and the mud is better. I scoop muck up and put it on my hands and arms and I think aaaaah. It doesn’t itch for one second and phew. Stick is watching me and even though I still don’t like him I tell him to turn around and I take a big scoop of muck and tell him to stay still. He screams really loud and runs away because he thinks I will beat him in a mud fight. I don’t care because there is all the mud for me.

I find bubbles on my legs and arms when I scrunch up my pj’s and I cover all the places with mud. It feels better that way and a little cold but the mud is warm and it will soak through to my bones and is making me better and taking away the powers from the black dog spit. I am all mud and I get up to find my spear to keep the black dog away because I don’t want any more spit on my skin or it will melt off and I will be only bones like at the museum hanging on wires. I get it in my hand and try once more to spear. I let out a big roar and I spear down. No bones!

“Rwoooooooooooar,” I say and I know I can beat the black dog and I must find where Daddy is waiting. I don’t know this time if that is at the dock and the cottage or Toronto.

I hear sniffy sounds and Sticky is crouched down like Snoopy in trouble and looks like he thinks I will hit him. Like maybe I saw Mrs. Buchanan swat with a magazine rolled into a tube like inside paper towel but she says to Momma she didn’t.

“I can get the black dog,” I tell Stick.

He sniffles again because he thinks he is a dog and maybe I have magazines in rolls and I see that he doesn’t know English enough with too many worms in his head to know what I am saying. And he was asleep so he doesn’t know about the enemy and babies don’t know even though he is not really a baby anymore.

“Come on,” I say. “We are going.”

He whimpers again. “Go?”

I think Stick wants to know where. I try to think and I close my eyes and remember before I ever played with Barbie and Momma got so mad for me begging. I used to be a good girl and Momma ran my bath at nighttime. She checked the water and told me to put a foot in and say if it was right and so many bubbles came up to my chin. We played for a long time for so long and I had a boat and Momma helped me make a river through all the bubbles so my boat could get through on a journey. We played a lot of things. She stirred up the water for more bubbles. We made me a beard and new hair out of bubbles that stuck up with horns. She lifted me up so I could see in the mirror and we laughed. The bubbles went pop pop pop and they went to bubble heaven and the water was just like gray dirt because I was at the park so much time with the sand. Momma helped me lie back and she put her hand under my head so that I could float in the water. She said that is so good I will be able to swim at the cottage in the summertime. I felt so happy and Momma hums the song and I sing our bath song with her too. She smiles and says my hair is floating like seaweed. She laughed and said she thought it was funny and she did the floating song with Grandpa when she was a little girl.

I need to be good and make us four and get back to the tub.

“Come on.” I wave at Stick and start to walk the pathway and holding my spear in case of the black dog. At the end should be the cottage and I get Momma and the boat and we will go to Toronto and find our family will be four.

I walk and I want to go fast because Toronto is a long way home. I hear breathing behind me. I check quickly because of the black dog and it is Stick and I know that. He is always following me and I tell him he needs to walk faster. He moves his arms like he is walking his fastest and swinging his arms but he is going so slow and I keep saying “Hurry up.” He looks sad and keeps itching. He didn’t want the mud on his black dog spit place so he wouldn’t let me help and it’s his fault. We walk on the path and there are a lot of bushes on it that hit me in the face. I let a big one go and I hear a scream and I look back and Stick has been whacked on the head with it. I help him stand up again. I tell him not to walk so close.

I tell him to go faster to keep up. We are walking and there are very many bushes on the path and someone is not very good at making a path. I keep walking and pushing through and I feel a leaf that is wet. It shakes on me and gets my pj arm wet too. I stop and I am frozen because I don’t know why it is wet and then I get scared that it maybe is spit from the black dog. Maybe he is making me follow him or I am very close. I listen very much around me because it is hard to see from all the bushes and I hear something come so I turn and hold out the spear. The bushes wiggle and then they go apart. I get so scared and my breath flies out and I go “Ha.” And I see Stick pops through the leaves again.

“You are lucky I didn’t stab you,” I yell at him.

He has cuts on his face and he is crying and he tries to talk but I can’t understand because of all this snot and it just sounds like baby talk.

“You can’t sneak up at me,” I yell back. I don’t like him crying because that scares me too. There are more wet leaves around us. One drool goes on my forehead and one goes on my cheek and it’s like the black dog is working to scare us on purpose and there is a lot of spit in his mouth because he is about to eat a feast.

I know he is close because even the black dog can’t spit far. I stab into the bushes with my spear and Stick starts to scream and I need him to shut up because I can’t hear the black dog and I yell at him to be quiet and he screams louder. Every time he screams I get more scared because it means I can’t hear when the black dog will pounce. I stab into the bushes and I turn around and try to look all ways but I can’t see. There is a dark spot and I run for it and I stab but my spear flies out of my hand and goes away. And with Stick crying and shouting the black dog knows where we are and is finding us and spitting.

The spit is like rain. And the spit starts to go into my hair I am getting wetter and wetter in the spit and soon I won’t be able to move but at least Stick has stopped screaming and I can only hear him crying a little. My last chance is to get the spear in my hand and try to stab before I freeze and have to watch my body get eaten. He will start with my legs and chew them off so I won’t be dead yet. He will eat my arms and chew out my belly even though it is empty. I won’t get dead until he has eaten so much and it is only when he decides it is time to eat my head for dessert that the lights will go off and it’s bedtime except I get dead. I push around in the leaves for my spear and I know it is here. I keep looking for a long time and each time I push away a bush and it’s not there I feel more and more scared. It is raining hard and there is water all over me and I am shaking and so so cold and I think I will probably get dead.

I can’t
find my spear and I stop looking because it is not here anymore. Near me it’s only bushes. I push away from them and then there my spear is on the ground. I get it in my hand and I am glad, but then I can’t see because of so many bushes. I get out to a place with mud on the ground. I am all wet and the black dog has turned everything to wet rain and is waiting. But then I see it is a stump and there are only stumps and they look dead. The dead stumps look like an army that got beat and they are all dead so they rot. The wood is like splinters down the side and there is black on them and mushrooms. I hold the spear and watch. I don’t like the stumps and want to get away. It is grayer but not nighttime. It feels like a bigger monster flew into the sky and its belly is hiding the sun from me. I shiver from the cold and my kneecaps have come loose. I think they might drop onto the ground and then I will have to look for them. So they won’t fall off I crouch down by one of the stumps and keep my knees bent with the caps on the top of my legs. I hug my legs. Then I look behind me for Stick. He is not there. He always follows me and I can’t ever stop him most times and now he isn’t there. I walk back a bit because I think he sat down on his bum. No Stick. I call him and he doesn’t say anything back. I wait and I think he will come and he doesn’t come. I feel a big cry in my eyes and my stomach goes around. “Stick?” I yell again and no one answers me. I am one.

I keep yelling and I stab in the bushes and I saw Stick on the path and I don’t know where it is anymore. The rain is more and big drops knock on my head. I keep going through the bushes and tackle my way and it looks clear in front of me so I think I will see our fort. I push the bushes away and see the dead stumps again and I don’t know why. They are in front when I left them behind me, so they jumped over my head and sat down here. It smells like wet shoes. My feet are soaked except no shoes and so just the skin is turning white and wrinkles. I shiver and the rain seems to turn up more and there is no fort. I wish I could go back to the fort if the cottage is not here. I look up and down to remember the path again and it has jumped away from me too.

I don’t like it being alone. I have so much worry for Stick and I have my spear in my hand and I hold it tight but my body is feeling sleepy. I don’t know if I can fight a black dog and maybe I am not a brave queen that can do a battle or even just a brave princess. I cry and cry and I think there are tears in my eyes and down my face but I don’t even know because there is so much water and it is raining and that adds in with my tears and no one can see me. My snot gets out of my nose and my body does little throw-ups to push my tears out so hard. I cry and nothing makes me feel better. I know something bad has happened and I look at my hands. Gwen is not there. I don’t know where she is. I try and think and stop crying to get myself back in but I can’t. My whole body has gone away because I am one and that is not enough to be in a family so I am lost too. I got left behind. I need to get back because maybe they don’t know I am gone. It is hard to think because the rain is banging so hard on my head. I put my head in my knees and I stare at the ground and my arms are over my head. My arms are a little bit like an umbrella but not that good. My brain can work without the banging of the drops and I think where is Gwen? Does she know I am gone or did she leave me on purpose because I was bad? And maybe she is jealous because I wanted Barbie and so so mad. I could like her to sniff even if she is wet and where is Stick? He is so warm. He was in the bushes and his face got bloody and the black dog was there. Everyone is gone. Just one and maybe one.

I have to squint out to see through the rain and I look to see if Stick or Gwen is close to me. Usually he tries to follow me all the time. He breathes and I hear it through his nose and if I stop he bangs into my bum because he follows so close. He is not beside me and he is not one of the stumps or sitting by the stumps. I stand up and look from higher but there is no Sticky. I know that he is scared and he doesn’t like rain and he will really want me like I want Gwen but no one has anyone anymore. The rain comes more and it beats me back down to hugging my knees and I cry harder now because Sticky can’t even hug his knees and stay on his feet because he is too fat. I don’t know where he is.

Electric lightning starts. There is a flash everywhere and someone has turned on the lights and there are not lights. It flicks once and twice and God is making the lights show everything around me that looks like the black dog but it is not except I’m not sure because the electric lightning blinks too fast on and off on and off and I can’t see. I see it like knives in the sky and I am not supposed to be outside. It might hit my head because there are only stumps and I am a little bit taller. And the electric goes again and I hear the angels banging and I know they are very mad and God is mad because Stick is gone and I am very bad because I lost him and that is what I was supposed to do is watch.

“Stick!” I shout.

I listen but I don’t hear him not even whining. I want to call Gwen too but she can’t walk without me to carry her.

“Sticky! Stick!” I stand up and the rain hits me on every side of my body and I shout both his names over and over and my throat has claws that are ripping me and I am so scared and my kneecaps wiggle so much they will fall and my tummy heaves and I have a little barf and my arms are so bubbled and red and my face is hot and might fall off but I have to keep calling and I shout for Stick for the longest time I can. And finally I can’t shout because my voice isn’t making noise out of my throat. My legs fall down and I am on the ground and my heart has shaken loose and rolled away. I can’t open my eyes. All I see is my lids and black and I can barely feel the rain but the itchy black is eating up my skin from the outside and crawling all through my blood. I want to get up but I can’t. Only my brain can think so everything is black and I can’t move. He has pushed me over and is eating my insides and melting away my skin. The black dog is inside me.