East

Rose

IT WAS PITCH-BLACK in the room. I lay there in the darkness, my heart pounding and my limbs stiff, thinking desperately of what I could use as a weapon to protect myself. But the figure beside me in the bed stayed well away; there were at least two arm-lengths between us, so large was the bed. It briefly adjusted the covers and then lay still.

Of all the things that had happened to me during the past days, this was surely the strangest, the most confusing. At first I wondered if the white bear himself had climbed into bed with me. But though it was a large bed, it was not so large as to fit both a huge bear and myself, with two arm-lengths between. And as my pounding heart slowed, I reasoned that, based on the tilt of the mattress, the weight of whatever was beside me was not much heavier than my sister, although it was difficult to judge because of the distance between us and the softness of the mattress.

The minutes went by and there was no movement at all from the figure. At first my mind whirled frantically, trying to fathom who or what it was. The white lady or man from the kitchen? Or another such person of the castle whom I had yet to meet? Was it indeed human? Or beast? Perhaps an enchanted king or some kind of ghost or spirit. But gradually my thoughts ran out and my fear and confusion seemed to drain away. Amazingly, I slept.

When I awoke there was a dim light in the room. The door was partially open and the light was coming from the lamps lining the hall. I could see that there was no one in the bed next to me, and for a moment I wondered if the whole thing was a dream. But the bed linens on that side of the bed were rumpled, and I knew it wasn't.

There was food waiting for me when I went down to the red-couch room, but I was distracted as I ate the porridge and fruit. I could not stop thinking about the strange episode of the night before. I thought about it continually through the day, as I sat at the loom. I kept having the nagging feeling that, despite the evidence of my own senses, it had been the white bear that had lain beside me. I alternately dreaded and looked forward to going to bed that night. I dreaded it because the whole thing might happen again, and I looked forward to it also because it might indeed happen again and maybe this time would be explained. I resolved to keep the oil lamps in the bedroom lit.

The white bear did not visit while I wove, which, oddly enough, disappointed me. Though I doubted I would get an answer, I still yearned to ask him for an explanation of my night visitor.

When I was done weaving for the day, I ate a meal of meat stew and bread, and, taking the oil lamp with me, went up to bed. The lamps in the hall were no longer burning.

I washed, then put on my nightdress from home. I left one wall lamp lit as well as the handheld lamp, which I put on the table by the bed. I slipped under the covers and waited. I was determined to stay awake so that if the visitor came again I would be able to see its face.

I don't know how long I lay there, eyes wide open, waiting, but suddenly the lamps went out. I started to sit up; I was sure there had been oil enough in those lamps to last the night through. But I froze when moments later I felt something climb into the bed and pull up the covers. I briefly cursed the lack of a flint to relight the lamp, vowing to search for one in the morning.

But this time I had been fully awake when my visitor settled onto the bed, and I was better able to gauge the give in the mattress. It confirmed my initial feeling that this was a being somewhat larger than my sister but certainly not as huge as a bear. It could not be the white bear.

I thought for a moment of trying to speak to the figure but had a strong sense that I should not. Something mysterious was happening, and I felt that the sound of my voice would be jarring and wrong.

Again, the visitor did not move and stayed well away from me. And again I felt my tension drain. As I was drifting toward sleep, I even had the sensation of comfort, almost like I was at home sleeping beside my sister.

And once again the next morning, my visitor was gone.