The Suggestion Box, Vol. 4: A to Z Challenge

Letter Q: "The Quietest Question"

*This story is a tie-in to the story for THE LEGEND OF THE ECRIVAINE, specifically List #5 for reference! [ https://www.wattpad.com/story/70917105-the-suggestion-box-vol-2-the-legend-of-the ]

Summer 1914

Quail Point of Quebec had seen its fair share of uproar. The parties and stories during the winter, when Québécois winds swirled and blew against the walls outside, would set the rafters quivering as burly, bearded men swapped tales with fresh-faced youths.

Nobody expected a woman to ever have cause to enter the lodge.

Gloria Quincy was quite used to being unexpected.

She knew, by the quell that swept through the building at the moment she crossed the threshold, that she would need to fight to be heard. She could tell, by the way men nudged their neighbors and quibbled in voices buried deep within their mouths, that she would have to be very clever to find the quarry she sought.

But Gloria Quincy was an exceptional hunter, of a very different sort.

She scanned the room, querying with her eyes until she found a receptive match. Most of the surrounding crowd had returned to quarreling with each other, so not one of the knot of ten men she approached acknowledged her.

"Listen here," a man whose wiry hair bristled like the quills of a porcupine wagged a knobby finger at the self-assured lad across from him. "Yer want ter know where the best bear cross, ye need ter know what signs to look for."

"I've tracked bear before, old man," the younger man quipped. "Scat, tree markings, prints—"

"Don't be giving me any brush, now!" The hunter protested. "I made the mistake of thinking that all these signs in one area came from different animals, so I was safe. I ask ye, lad—" he pulled back his collar, revealing a sizable divot in his lumpy, scarred skin, barely covered enough by a thin layer of skin to be regarded as "healed." The man left it exposed as he asked the question, "Have ye ever seen one bear leave all of them himself?"

A hushed silence settled, then one of the quarrelsome boasters went in on the storyteller. "Pooh, that ain't anything; why one time, I nearly got quartered by an angry buck that had just lost a mating duel!" "I was nearly trampled by a moose with feet as big as my head!" "I got stranded on an ice floe off of Greenland and nearly froze to death!" "Stranded? How quaint! Aren't you the most careful man of the lot?" "Aye! Most always I am. But this time, I had to smack off an iceberg and take my chances because I was trying to escape a polar bear!" "Polar bear, nothing! What about the time I had to escape a whole wolf pack in the dead of winter!"

Gloria edged around the table to a shadowy corner, where a quintessential old man with a salt-and-pepper beard sat, watching the quibblers with about as much regard as she felt, herself.

He glanced up as she took the seat across from her and quaffed her own quart of beer.

"And what about you, Queenie?" The man muttered. "Aren't you going to try and best these fine gentlemen, and prove yourself among them?"

"Only if you do it first," Gloria teased. "Name's Quincy, actually; Gloria Quincy."

"Pleasure, Miz Quincy; I am Claude. What brings you to Quail Point? We don't typically attract quality patrons like yourself up here."

His eyes twinkled queerly, and Gloria wondered if she might have found her quarry. "What would you say if I told you I could summon a dragon?"