Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The next morning started as it should. Wanting to keep an eye on the beast, Cerise didn’t sleep in her room again. Both her and the creature slept near the fire, subconscious minds drawing them closer for warmth. Yet every time Cerise awoke, finding herself nearer the bear, she scooched away.
Several hours passed before she could fully fall asleep, mind and body unable to shut down with the creature so close. Yet eventually, fatigue won over, and she plunged into fitful rest.
Hazy lilac light shone through the windows at daybreak, filtered by a steady fall of thick snowflakes. Cerise slid away from the bear while sitting up, reaching for fresh wood to restoke the fire. As she moved, the beast huffed and averted its gaze, as if rejected.
“Don’t take it to heart. You’re a bear.”
It grumbled, yet as it stared at the growing flames, a sadness lingered in its eyes.
Cerise retrieved the woodcutting axes and sharpening stone, and then returned to the hearth to sharpen Beloved and the axes.
The bear watched her work in silence, nothing more than the sounds of the delicate yet sharp slide of stone against metal and crackles of burning wood filling the cabin.
The pleasure of routine, satisfaction of sharp blades, and the bear’s somehow gentle presence brushed a peace over her.
When Eirwen rose, her sister collected water and placed it over the fire to boil for their morning tea. While they waited for the frigid water to heat, Eirwen worked on Cerise’s leg, pulling out the cold that stiffened her knee during the night.
The bear remained in its place, shifting positions and watching their routine with calm.
Perhaps they could make a new normal with this creature.
Maybe she could fashion a pack for it, have it help carry wood on days she chopped trees.
It could accompany her when fishing, checking traps, and measuring the curses’ spread.
If she treated it well enough, perhaps it would protect her when they came across living, corrupted creatures, and she wouldn’t have to fight alone.
Maybe it could help her scratch away the runes, if its claws grew out.
Her body relaxed at the thought of a shared burden.
After a breakfast of eggs, root vegetables, and herbal tea, Cerise layered herself in furs and hides for the day, strapping woodcutting axes to her sash and walking with Beloved.
Eirwen, resistant to the cold, followed Cerise outside in thin clothes, frost crunching between her toes.
With the grace of a ghost, Eirwen fluttered to the coop to check on their chickens, where she’d start her daily rounds of care for their pets, garden, and home.
Cerise, as always, strolled to the perimeter fence to ensure posts were stable and uncorrupted.
The bear strayed behind her, seeming content to watch them work.
Until Cerise tapped the first wood post.
The bear huffed, a low growl in its throat, and slapped its paws on the ground.
“What?” she snapped.
It shook its head, nodding in the direction behind it. It glanced back at Cerise, then swung its head around before turning again to her. Motioning her to follow it. In her fantasies this morning, the bear obeyed her, not the other way around.
“There are important tasks to accomplish, bear.” She fixed her focus to the fence once more, tapping Beloved on the wood and scanning for the black tendrils of disease.
It growled louder, a puff of anger in its grumble. It pounded its paws on the ground, the thin layer of ice over the snow cracking with its determination.
Cerise glared at the beast, which once again thrust its head to the side, begging her to follow it. With a sneer, she returned to her work. Whatever the thing wanted, it could wait. It didn’t get to barge into their lives and dictate how they lived.
An agitated, desperate roar erupted from behind her, raising the hairs on Cerise’s arms and shooting the blaze of battle readiness through her veins. She swiveled, Beloved aimed at the creature, bracing for its attack.
But the bear remained in place, and when the dagger of Beloved leveled at it, the beast whined.
It plopped onto its bottom, hind legs spread in front of it.
It lolled its head as close to a hunched shoulder as it could and swung the opposite fore paw to the scrunched side of its body.
It grunted with each motion, swaying as it struggled to maintain its balance on the back legs while motioning with its front.
The swing of its legs grew faster, the huffs and grumbles growing more desperate and persistent. A stab of pity shot through Cerise as the poor beast toppled over with a frustrated grunt. It sighed, exasperated, and crawled back onto its legs.
She squinted at the creature. It had been attempting to draw attention to its side.
“The rune?” she asked, and it nodded. “What about it?”
It thrust its head back again, toward the forest.
Cerise cast her gaze over her shoulder, ensuring Eirwen wasn’t in ear shot. Even so, she lowered. “You know about the ones in the forest, too?”
It nodded and huffed, seeming relieved. It rose to its legs and motioned toward the woods with its head.
Cerise tapped Beloved into the ground, leaning on it. If the bear knew something, she needed to follow. Yet, she couldn’t leave her work incomplete.
“Fine. We’ll go look at them. But later. When I’m ready.”
The bear groaned as Cerise returned to tapping Beloved against the wooden fence posts. A moment later, heavy footsteps lumbered around her, stopping at the fence several posts ahead. The bear rose a paw and tapped the wood.
“Careful, beast.”
It rolled its bright pink eyes, sourness flooding Cerise’s stomach. Such a disrespectful creature.
Yet helpful, too. It continued tapping the posts, seeming to watch for movement.
“Check for signs of the disease, too.”
It grumbled in response and at the next post, its eyes lingered several seconds longer, scanning it for the curse.
She observed the bear for a dozen fence posts and gave the ones it worked on a second assessment. All posts remained solidly in place. No black marks stained the wood. Perhaps she could trust the creature with this task, after all.
It would halve their time, allowing her to scour more of the forest for food and runes.
A sick foreboding weighed her down at the first post she skipped.
This bear hadn’t been doing this for years, like she had. Its eyes weren’t trained like hers to note the curse. Its ears weren’t attuned to the minute cracking of wood as it strayed from its place.
Her laziness, her want to trust the bear, might allow Azkanix’s curse to leak into the home.
If it did, all would be lost.
They’d either have to return to Tyrnoraen, which Cerise would never do, or they’d need to somehow survive in the woods without Zyrdriel’s blessing. Which was another impossibility.
Cerise’s brief moment of relief crashed, the burden of their life heavy on her shoulders.
She checked each post the bear did, just in case. To her surprise, when the creature noticed this, it didn’t seem offended. It didn’t roll its eyes, grumble, or huff. It simply stalked beside her, a silent companion, while she checked the fence.
Once they reached the front gate, ending their winding around the fence, Cerise gave a satisfied tap of Beloved on the ground and said to the bear, “Lead the way.”
It grunted and wandered southwest, away from the Merathel Mountain Range that tore from the earth behind them. Spots of bright green glowed from the woods where fragments of bone jutted from the ground, the clouded sunlight a soft purple haze in the sky.
Not even five hundred paces from her home, the bear stopped at a gnarled, twisted tree. Once an ancient oak, it was now bent and blackened from Azkanix’s curse, the wide branches shedding bark and twining with its neighbors, allowing only faint rays of light to press through the web-like canopy.
Circling the tree, the bear’s gaze roved over the wood. It stopped on the other side, and peeking its head around the trunk’s curve groaned at Cerise, which she assumed meant to follow.
Cerise tracked the focus of its eyes to the tree, shoving the fallen strands of red hair behind her ear. Her muscles tightened, fingertips twitching for a weapon when her gaze landed on what the bear saw.
A rune. The same one etched into the bone the day before. Carved in deep, precise lines in the wood, only visible from the ethereal necrotic glow that shone through the marks.
The bear stretched onto its hind legs and scratched its stubby claws in frantic strikes over the marks.
The dull ends did nothing more than slice the tiniest fibers of bark, and it grumbled with dissatisfaction.
Sitting, it gave a pointed look to Cerise, her woodcutting axes, the tree, and then back to her.
She grunted back, irritated. It didn’t need to tell her what to do.
Swinging the axes from her hips, she hacked into the dead tree, blades eviscerating the rune in two strikes. When the dead light faded, the bear stood with a relieved huff and turned to trod into the forest.
“Not yet, beast.” Cerise hacked deeper into the tree.
Since she’d already cut into the wood, she might as well see if any of it was salvageable.
Yet, no matter how deep she cut, the wood was black all the way through.
Cerise grumbled, furrowing her brow as she circled the tree to hack into the other side.
With how thick it was, she’d assumed there’d be some useable wood hidden within.
She continued to slice, the axes a steady thunk thunk against the tree, splinters of diseased lumber spraying around her.
The bear waited patiently until the oak creaked with the weight of its lean.
It stood beside Cerise and pressed its hulking weight into the tree, encouraging the last dead fibers to break.
The tree crashed down with a thunderous crack, smacking into nearby cursed trees, tearing down entwined branches.