Dennis McKiernan: Once Upon a Winter's Night

Sighing and forcing a smile and raising her hand in au revoir, Camille started trudging toward Faery, but the Bear growled and did not move.

Frowning, Camille looked back and said, “O Bear, do we not go this way? It is your own tracks in the white I follow.”

Yet the Bear still did not move.

“Oh, my,” hissed Aigrette to Henri. “Something has gone wrong. The prince will take back his gold.”

Camille returned to the Bear’s side. “What is it you want, O Bear?”

Giles frowned down at the glittering snow and then looked up at Camille. “The letter, Camille. Remember the letter?”

Camille looked at her little brother. “Y-yes. I do. But what does it-?”

“ ‘I await your answer,’ ” quoted Giles. “ ‘If it is yes, my ambassador will bear her to me.’ Oh, Camille, don’t you see, the Bear wants you to ride.”

With uncertainty, Camille looked at the Bear. “Is that it, O Bear? You wish me to ride?”

“ Whuff. ” The Bear lowered his head.

Taking a deep breath and catching hold of the harness, Camille mounted up, Gai and Joie gasping in borrowed fright, Lisette frowning in disdain, while Felise and Colette and Pere and Mere looked on in wonder at Camille, the golden-haired girl perched as would a lady riding sidesaddle upon a horse. Only Giles laughed in glee; but then the Bear began to move away, heading toward the twilight realm, and Giles’ laughter died in his throat and tears sprang to his eyes, for his beloved sister was leaving.

Without turning, Camille waved adieu to her family, for she did not want them to see she was weeping; after all, she was all of sixteen and now on her own, and surely beyond such displays. Nevertheless, tears flowed down her cheeks to drop away in the cold. And she cast the hood of the cloak over her head to hide her teary-eyed face and to fend against the chill, while the Bear padded forward toward twilight.

Before the Bear had gone halfway, Aigrette turned and rushed back into the hovel to count once more the measure of precious gold, Lisette trailing after. But the rest of the family remained where they stood, watching, as Camille rode away to an unknown fate on the back of a Bear from Faery.

Across a winter-fallow ’scape laden with crystalline snow went the Bear, with bundles strapped to his harness and a young girl mounted above. And Camille’s heart hammered ever more frantically the closer to Faery they came. Even so, even though her mouth was dust-dry with fear, just ere crossing out of the mortal world and into the mystic realm, she managed to turn and wave to the cluster of kindred standing beside the little stone cottage where all of her life she had lived; yet even as they raised their hands to return her distant au revoir, the Bear crossed over the marge, and within ten strides or mayhap ten hundred, the hovel and family were gone. And though it was midmorn in the world behind, it was twilight in the numinous domain. Camille gasped in surprise, for though she had not known what she had expected, it certainly was not this, for they had entered a burgeoning forest, a realm where the gentle air of mid-spring wafted among newly leafed-out trees, a place where winter held no grip.

Camille cast back the hood of her cloak and shook loose her flowing tresses to cascade golden down her back. And she breathed in the scent of the woodland, fresh and full of new promise, where, somehow, in spite of the twilight, the shades of the forest seemed darker, and yet at the same time the hues were more vivid than any she could ever dream. Old were these trees, some of them, their roots reaching deep, their great girths moss-covered, their branches spread wide and interlacing with others overhead. Yet here and there was new growth-thickets of saplings and lone seedlings and solitary treelets, all reaching upward into the strange, crepuscular half-light. Yet, her eye was drawn to the old growth: oak, she could see, proud and majestic, and groves of birch, silver and white; maple and elm stood tall, with dogwood and wild cherry blossoms filling the air with their delicate scents. And down among the roots running across the soil, crocuses bloomed, as did small mossy flowers, yellow and lavender and white. Birds flitted here and there, their songs claiming territory and calling for mates. The hum of bees sounded as they moved from blossom to blossom, and elsewhere beetles clambered along greening vines and stems. Overhead, scampering limb-runners chattered, and down among the grass and thatch, voles and other small living things rustled. Somewhere nearby and hidden in bracken, a small stream burbled and splashed, as if singing and dancing on its way to the shores of a distant sea. Bright and dark and twilight were these woods, and full of wakened life, and Camille was filled with the marvel of it all.

While looking this way and that in the impossible task of trying to see the whole of it, Camille unclasped the brooch at her neck and removed the cloak from ’round her shoulders, for the air was mild and she would be shed of the warm garment. As she reached for a strap of the harness at hand to affix the cloak under, Camille looked down and said, “Oh, Bear-” but her words chopped to silence, for the Bear was no longer a pristine white, but an ebon black instead.

“Bear!” she exclaimed in wonder. “You’ve changed colors.”

The Bear merely grunted, and padded onward across the sward and among the close-set boles of trees.

As they travelled on, the twilight brightened, as if day were coming unto this mystical land. Onward they went and onward, the day getting brighter and brighter, yet whenever they topped a clear rise and Camille looked back the way they had come; in the distance hindward twilight yet cloaked the land. Frowning, she looked ahead, and twilight seemed to reign there, too, as well as to left and right.

Full daylight came where the Bear now trod, the day nigh the noontide, and still there was twilight afar, seeming diminished no less than before.

Glancing up at the sun above, the Bear plodded a bit farther, to come under the widespread limbs of a great oak, and there it was he stopped. He looked over his shoulder at Camille.

“What is it, O Bear, that you desire? Should I dismount?”

“ Whuff. ”

Turning full sideways, Camille sprang to the ground. She stretched her legs and walked about, for she was not used to riding. She came to the edge of a brook, and the bourne sang its rippling song as it tumbled o’er pebbles and rocks. Kneeling at stream edge, she drank long and deeply of the chill water, and rose up to her knees to find the Bear standing nigh. She wiped her lips on the back of her hand, then said, “Oh, Bear, that was perhaps the most delicious draught ever. Is all of Faery like such?”

The Bear grunted noncommittally, and then, moving downstream of Camille, he stepped to the brook and lowered his great muzzle and took a deep drink himself.

Camille stood and brushed off her knees, then straightened and filled her lungs fully with the cool, crystalline air. “Bear, what name has this place? Oh, I don’t mean Faery itself, but this glorious woodland around.”

The Bear raised his head from the bourne, water streaming down from his muzzle. He glanced about and grunted, and then lowered his head again.

“Well, then, let me see. Since your master is Lord of the Summerwood, then this cannot be his demesne, for here ’tis spring, not summer. This must be the Springwood instead.”

The Bear again raised his head, and cocked it to one side as he looked at her, and then he gave a soft whuff.

“Does that mean yes, that I have guessed aright?”

Again the Bear whuff ed.

Camille clapped her hands together and laughed. “Oh, Bear, you are not much of a conversationalist, yet when you speak, I listen. But hear me now: my breakfast was sparse, and all of this travel and your constant chitter-chatter has made me quite hungry; you wouldn’t happen to have some food in those bundles you carry, now would you?”