A Bear Named Boo

Prologue

"It's mine!" I growled, clinging to a scaly branch with my baby bear teeth.

It wasn't a matter of me finding it first (which I didn't) or of me being the eldest cub (which I wasn't). It was the simple fact that I was in control of the stick now, and Cari had to figure out how to get it away from me.

"Boo, I found it first!" my brother whined through his teeth, which were clamped firmly around my branch.

It was true - but irrelevant.

He tugged. I winced as the wood left a cluster of splinters in my mouth, but I refused to let go.

"Mama," he complained.

A sharp pop sprung from her lips. We shut up.

We were far outside our territory. Mama was busy sorting through the strange scents carried by the wind, hunting desperately for her daughter's trail. She was huffing nervously, her head high as she stared around, first at the road below, then to the grassy slope that swept upward on our left.

Cari's deep brown eyes barely concealed his worry. I hated seeing him worried. To distract him, I let out a fierce growl and yanked on the stick.

It was my fault that we were so far from home. It was my fault our sister was lost. I didn't want to think about that. This small game would at least scatter the gloom that threatened to settle over us like a blanket of rain.

An enormous box rumbled along the black river below us, making me jump. Cari snatched the stick away from me, but I watched the box until it disappeared into a thick cloud of trees. This wasn't the first box we'd seen. There had been many since we'd stepped onto this hillside, rushing along the black river, back and forth, like squirrels collecting nuts. 

Mama began to trot across the slope. Cari, proudly carrying his prize, followed after her. Below them, at the edge of the black river, something moved behind a bush. 

"Mama?" I called nervously.

There it was again! A flash of colour – a wholly unnatural shade of blue – behind the tangled branches of the bush.

"Mama!" I yelled, panicky. "Mama!"

She turned, worried about me, and in doing so she turned her back on the bush.

A hot, tingling rush of panic leapt from my chest to the back of my skull as a creature peered out from the brambles. It crouched with oddly long limbs as though it were about to attack.

"Behind you!" I cried.

A bolt of lightning cracked down around us from a cloudless sky. We flattened to the ground as an echo of the noise swelled rumbled through my chest.

Cari's terrified eyes turned to me.

"Mama!" I cried.

She didn't move.

Cari squeaked. "Mama?"

She lay unmoving. Her weight was all on the side of her muzzle, making her nose and lips wrinkle backwards. It was as though she was deeply, impossibly, asleep.

We leapt to her limp body, mouthing the fur on her neck, tapping her muzzle with urgent paws. The earth throbbed under my paws, matching the pounding deep in my chest. Cari's ear brushed against my face, softly. His body was taught against mine.

Unnatural colours rippled behind branches. The gangly creature stood tall on its hind legs. It was thin and pale and looked pitifully fragile compared to Mama's impressive bulk.

The sun glinted near the creature's front paws. It was clutching the straightest, darkest stick I'd ever seen, and a wave of sickness rushed through me.

It's a Man. All of the myths about Mans told of their deadly sticks – but surely it wasn't a Man. It wasn't real. This day wasn't real. Mans don't exist.

Cari's warm side quivered, and my ears caught the very real sound of a branch breaking. The creature by the road moved in our direction.

Mama would get up and chase it away.

Another branch cracked. The Man advanced toward us.

We pressed ourselves against Mama's warm fur, letting her kind smell engulf us, but it was wrong. It was tinged with something sharp and metallic. It was all wrong.

"Mama..." Cari pleaded.

She didn't move.

A shout, flat and strange, rose from the road.

Cari took off. His whirling paws kicked me lightly as I tailed him.

The crown of a dark tree pierced the blue sky above us. We tumbled to its base, colliding over the roots. Sweet bark dust blew into my face as our claws tore into the trunk, and then we were off the ground, racing past limbs, up above the shaded boughs.

The familiar crunch of my claws into rough bark swept me into another time and place, where both of my siblings were at my side. We'd flown up trees on countless occasions, terrified of blowing leaves and harmless things. The following nights in the den had been some of the best, as we laughed with Mama about our terror, and breathed in her warm comfort.

I looked around, meeting Cari's petrified stare. How had things gone so horribly wrong?

I swallowed and looked down.

Far below our paws, below the branches and beyond our haven's shadow, lay our protector. Mama's beautiful red fur and golden sunstripe glittered in the sun, but there was no laughter inside of her, or love, or even anger. No life. Nothing.

A gust of wind rattled the leaves around us, and I tightened my hold on the branch as it bobbed lightly through thin air.