East

Rose

THE WHITE BEAR HEADED due south of the farm, keeping to the woods and away from the places where people lived.

It was a frosty, clear night, and the stars shimmered against a black sky. Usually, looking up at the stars on such a clear night filled me with a breathless pleasure, no matter how often I gazed at them. But that night I was hardly aware that there was a sky.

Riding a bear was nothing like riding a horse. First of all, the bear was far larger, and I could not ride with both legs straddling his back, the way one does with a horse. At first I didn't move at all but stayed frozen in the position I had been in when I had landed on the broad back—sort of a crouch, my legs tucked under me. When he first began to move, I instinctively grabbed hold of the great ruff of fur at the back of his neck to keep from sliding off.

But after a few hours I grew stiff. I had the feeling we would be traveling for a long time, so I got bolder and began to shift my body, trying to find a comfortable position. I finally settled with one leg dangling down and the other bent under me. I didn't need to use my legs to hold on. Despite his enormous speed, the white bear's gait was surprisingly smooth and his back so broad that as long as I kept a firm hold on his thick fur, I was in no danger of falling off.

The white bear's fur was extraordinary. It was as soft as rabbit's fur, yet much thicker and longer. When I burrowed my hands into it—which I only worked up the courage to do after we had been riding a long time and my fingers were numb with cold—my hands and forearms disappeared up to my elbows. And the fur was so warm. It took only moments for my fingers to thaw. My legs, too, stayed warm, nestled in the deep fur.

But the rest of me—my face and upper body—was cold, and I was very glad of my cloak. I thought of Neddy finding pins and carefully lining up the torn edges, and my eyes blurred with tears. Better not to think about Neddy.

I thought instead of the beast upon which I was riding. I remembered the imaginary companion of my childhood. How many times had I imagined myself riding a magnificent white bear through the night?

He moved faster than I would have thought possible for such a large animal, and by daybreak we had journeyed far, into country I had never seen before. The land was heavily forested; there were fewer and fewer evergreens, more broad-leaved trees. We were still heading south.

Though the journey lasted seven days, the white bear stopped only once.

During that time I must have been in some kind of trance—or maybe it was an enchantment or spell. For those seven days I neither ate nor drank, nor slept. The strangest thing was that I didn't feel any different, except extremely aware and alert. It all seemed very natural; I was drinking it all in—the vivid greens of unfamiliar plants, the distant call of a strange bird, even the approaching smell of the sea.

When the white bear did stop, it took me by surprise, and I found myself slipping off his back and landing quite hard on sand. Catching my breath, I sat up and gazed around me. We were on a remote stretch of brown sand and waves were breaking not twenty feet away. It was dawn, and over my right shoulder the sun was just beginning to rise. Considering the direction we had been traveling, I guessed that this must be the southern reaches of Njordsjoen, the North Sea. And even though there was an enormous white bear not two feet from me, I felt a thrill of wonder. My grandfather had sailed this sea, and my great-grandfather before him. I had always promised myself that one day I would come to Njordsjoen, although I never could have imagined it happening quite like this.

Out of the corner of one eye, I saw the bear fiddling with something small and dark, and then he pulled at it with his great paws. Like taffy, whatever it was began to lengthen and grow.

I watched, dazed and fascinated, and then suddenly he came toward me, and before I knew what was happening, I was being encased from head to toe in some kind of soft, pliable covering. It was brown and smelled of fish and musk, and I thought maybe it was a sealskin. Then he pulled it up over my eyes and I felt myself being patted all over, as if I were a bairn being checked to see that my blankets were snug on a cold night. Suddenly I felt a pressure on the back of my neck and shoulders, a clamping down. I was being lifted and we were moving forward. Then the light and sound changed, became dimmer and muffled, distant.

Though I could see nothing, I knew we were then underwater.

I panicked for a moment, wondering how I was going to breathe, but I quickly discovered that I could breathe quite normally and gave myself over to the sensations of traveling under the sea, swaddled in sealskin and being carried, I suspected, in the jaws of a great white bear.

We were not long in the sea. If anything, the white bear swam faster than he ran. A strange regret overcame me when I felt myself being carried out of the water and laid upon the ground. The bear made quick work of removing me from my cocoon, and soon I was again on his back and we were speeding through a completely foreign country.

Only once did the white bear speak. It was soon after our sea crossing. We were moving through a lush, rocky valley crowded with rushing streams and slippery boulders.

"Are you afraid?" came the words from deep inside the bear's massive chest.

"No," I answered, and it was true. I had been too busy watching and listening; absorbing all the sensations, from the wind on my face, to the rhythmic rocking of the sightless underwater world, to the rich, flowery smells of the air as we moved southward. I had been caught up in the easy grace of the bear's motion and had given little thought to where we were going or to what would happen once we got there.

But later, during the fifth or sixth night, I did begin to think of those things. I must have sensed that we were nearing the end of our journey.

The moon had waned since that first night we set out, but it was still bright and I could clearly see the landscape around me. The land was mountainous in places, though the mountains were small and green rather than towering and jagged as in Njord. There were no pines at all; instead there were lush, broad-leaved trees, some with splashes of bright-colored blossoms. The smell was different, too—a thicker, richer smell of earth and flower and ripe fruit.

I was suddenly very hungry and thirsty, and found myself wondering if the white bear was hungry, too. The thought crossed my mind that I was to be the beast's meal, at the end of a long journey. I shivered, though the air was warm.

We were moving along the base of a small mountain, through a thick forest of some kind of pungent, wide-spreading tree I had never seen before. Though I could not make out any sign of a path, the white bear was surefooted. I had the feeling he had gone this way many times.

Without warning he stopped, and after seven days and nights of constant motion, I felt dizzy at the lack of it. There was a ringing in my ears. My stomach growled and my throat was dry.

The white bear knelt as he had when I'd said goodbye to Neddy, and I sensed he wanted me to dismount (if indeed that is what you call getting off a bear's back). I was even more awkward than before; going seven days with no food or sleep had left me weak. And though I didn't exactly fall off as I had on the sandy shore, I still wound up on my backside.

The bear stepped away. I heard a low rumbling from his throat, and even some faint words, but I couldn't make them out. And then there was a soft whooshing, and a piece of the mountain suddenly swung aside, as if it were a great earthen doorway. An entryway into the mountain lay open, and inside, a muted light flickered.

"Come," said the white bear.

I gingerly got to my feet, swayed a moment, then stumbled forward, my eyes fastened on the warm light within.

The bear let me go first, walking just behind me. If I hadn't been concentrating on putting one foot before the other without collapsing entirely, I might have been very frightened. As it was, I made it through the entryway and the next thing I was aware of was a delicious aroma, as of a great stewpot of juicy meat and vegetables simmering on a fire. My mouth watered; I let out a groan and forgot entirely about being afraid.

"This way," the bear said, and I followed, my nose telling me that he was leading us to the source of the smell.

We traveled down a long hall, past several rooms, and I got a fleeting impression of browns and golds, antlers on the wall and fur rugs on the floor. It reminded me of descriptions I had heard of a wealthy person's hunting lodge. Except it was bigger, as big as I imagined a castle would be.

At last we came to a room with a large fireplace and a great long table, which was laid out with various shapes and sizes of dishes, some covered with cloths. And in the fireplace was hanging a large black stewpot, the source of the wondrous aroma.

I stood still, swaying slightly as I stared at the pot, when I heard the white bear's voice. "Eat," he said, and then he left the room.

I made my way as fast as my limbs would carry me to the fireplace, took up a bowl, and ladled steaming stew into it. I crouched there by the hearth and spooned the tender chunks of meat and vegetables into my mouth. When the bowl was empty, I filled it again and then staggered over to the table and fell into a chair.

I emptied that bowl, too, with the aid of a great hunk of melting-soft bread I had found in a cloth-covered basket. I peeked under a few more of the crisp white cloths and found baked apples in pastry, and strawberries, and rich, thick cream, and all sorts of delicious cakes. Tempting though it was, I was suddenly exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. I ate a few bites of a small piece of yellow butter-cake with blackberry preserves in the center, and drank half a cup of fresh frothy milk. There was a large dark-red velvet couch not too far from the hearth, and I sank down upon it, my stomach uncomfortably full. I thought about the white bear, wondering uneasily where he was at that moment, and then I fell asleep.