Dennis McKiernan: Once Upon a Winter's Night

The father sighed and stroked his care-lined face, for they would spend much of the remainder of the winter jammed together in this insufficient, single room-bickering, fighting, glowering at one another in sullen ire, or sunk in moody silences-for in the cold season the out-of-doors was brutal, and the meager clothes they wore would not protect them from the bone-deep, bitter chill. Even indoors as they were, they kept warm only by huddling within well-worn blankets, and these they had to share.

As the wind shrieked ’round the house and battered as if for admittance, in the dim shadows beyond the clustered fireside arc of family Camille said, “Giles, I shall win in four moves.”

“What?” exclaimed the lad, staring at the board, perplexity in his hazel eyes. “You will? Four moves?”

Reaching out from the blanket they shared, Camille slid a miter-topped piece diagonally along three unoccupied squares and into the occupied fourth. “Hierophant takes spearman. Check. Now, Frere, what is the only move you have?”

Giles studied the board and finally said, “King takes hierophant,” and he smiled his crookedy smile.

“Yes,” replied Camille. “Then my warrior takes this spearman. Check.”

After a moment, Giles said, “This spearman takes your warrior.”

Camille nodded. “Now, with that spearman moved, tower takes tower. Check.”

“Oh, I see,” said Giles. “Then I have no choice but to move my king here, but then you reveal the mate by-” Of a sudden, Giles broke into racking coughs.

Camille wrapped the blanket tighter around Giles’s narrow shoulders, yet he gasped and wheezed, unable to gain his breath. “Here,” said Camille, helping the boy to stand, “let me get you closer to the fire.”

As Camille shepherded Giles toward the hearth, “You just want to steal our warmth,” declared Lisette. “Well, I for one do not intend to move.” An immediate squabbling broke out among the girls, the mother joining in.

Sighing and without saying a word, the father stood and yielded up his place, leaving the blanket he had shared wrapped about his wife.

But before Camille and Giles reached the vacated space, there came a hard pounding on the door, the cross-braced planks rattling under the blows, the barricading bar jumping in its wooden brackets.

Startled, the girls looked at one another and then at the father, who had jerked about to stare at the entry.

“Who could that be?” whispered Lisette. “Thieves? Brigands come to rob us? Kidnappers come to grab up one of us for ransom?”

“Ha!” snorted the mother. “And just what would they get, these thieves and robbers, these kidnappers? Rocks? Dirt? Straw?”

Again the pounding came.

“Papa,” said Camille to her father, even as she huddled closer to Giles, “perhaps you had better see who it is; they may need shelter from the storm.”

Looking about for a weapon, finding none, the father stepped to the door and pivoted the bar up and aside on its axle. Glancing back at Camille and receiving a nod, he placed a shoulder against the rattling planks to brace against the wind and lifted the clattering latch and eased the door on its leather-strap hinges open a crack, putting his eye to the narrow space as a snow-bearing sheet of wind swirled in. “Ai!” he wailed and slammed the door to and crashed the bar down into its brackets.

“What is it, Papa?” cried the children at the fire as they leapt to their feet and clustered, all clutching one another for support, the mother standing and shrinking back against the trembling knot of girls.

“A Bear! A white Bear!” wailed the father, backing away from the barred planks. “A great white Bear of the North!”

As the father retreated and the girls and the mother pressed even tighter together, and Camille held on to wheezing Giles, once more came the massive knock, the planks and bar shuddering under the blow, there at the cottage where the mortal world ended and the realm of Faery began.

Silence fell, but for the storm, and but for Giles’s racking cough. Moments passed, none daring to say aught, none daring to move, except to stare wide-eyed at one another. Finally, Lisette whispered, “Perhaps it’s gone.” Yet no sooner had the words passed her lips, when again came the thunderous pounding, and all the girls but Camille screamed, she to wince and clutch Giles tighter, the lad yet gasping and wheezing with his cheek pressed against her breast.

“Papa,” asked Camille, “how large is the Bear?”

“Huge,” quavered the father, backing away from the entry.

“Large enough to smash down the door?”

“Oh, yes, Camille. Quite easily.”

“Yet he does not,” observed Camille. “Here, Papa, take Giles.” She gave over the lad and blanket to her sire.

“What are you going to do?” cried the mother.

“I’m going to see what it wants,” replied Camille, stepping toward the door.

“Oh, oh,” cried Joie, clutching her twin, “now we shall all be killed.” At this the girls began to weep, and huddled even closer together.

But Camille rotated the bar about its end axle and cautiously opened the door.

With the blizzard shrieking all ’round, the frigid squall howling inward and threatening to blow out the meager fire, a huge white Bear stood on the doorstone, its paw lifted as if to strike the planks again, the wind rippling its fur.

In the fluttering light cast by the struggling blaze, Camille, her loose golden hair aswirl, called out above the blast, “What is it you want, O Bear?”

The Bear raised its head up and turned it aside and stood very still, revealing a leather canister affixed to a strap about its neck, the cylinder a foot or so long and some three fingers in diameter.

Leaving the door to swing wildly in the wind, Camille knelt and with trembling fingers unfastened the tube, her heart beating frantically, for she was fearful of the Bear’s great claws and teeth, though if the creature decided to attack there was little she could do to defend herself or her family within. The moment the canister was free, the Bear backed away a step or two, Camille suppressing a gasp of startlement at the great white beast’s sudden move. But the Bear stopped and once again became still. Camille then stood and, shivering with cold or dread or both, stepped back into the cottage and grabbed the door and latched it shut. Inside, she heaved a great sigh of relief and slumped against the wind-battered planks, the storm howling to be let in again.

“What is it?” cried the father, he and Giles now huddled with the others, spinning snowflakes yet swirling through the air within and drifting down to the clay floor.

“It is a message tube,” said Camille, pushing away from the door and moving to the table. She held the leather canister up for all to see, her hand yet trembling with residual fright. “Now and again by courier, Fra Galanni would receive one similar to this”-she glanced back at the rattling door-“but never one borne by a Bear.”

Camille twisted off the cap and shook out a scroll from inside and set the canister down on the board.

“What does it say?” asked Aigrette, the mother moving opposite.

“It is sealed, Maman,” replied Camille, showing her mother the fix of green wax holding the scroll closed, wax impressed with an ornate signet depicting a wide-branching tree-an oak, perhaps.

“Well, open it, for surely it was meant for us, else the Bear would not have brought it here.”

Camille nodded and broke the seal and unrolled the parchment. The message it bore was written in a very fine hand.

“Read it to us,” urged Lisette, now stepping to Camille’s side.

“Oh, do,” cried Colette, she and Felise rushing forward as well, the others crowding ’round the table after, including the father and Giles, the lad’s coughing finally come to a stop.