The Shadow of the Bear: A Fairy Tale Retold Read online

  “Come on, there’s another subway down this way a bit.” Bear led them off in a different direction. “It’s a little safer this time of night.”

  This time, they were in no hurry. The snow continued to come down in heavy showers, and there were fewer people around. The streets in this part of New York were broad and the sidewalks were wide. Huge glass windows looked into all sorts of upscale shops. Rose and Blanche dawdled, looking in the windows of the shops they passed, and Bear let them take their time.

  “Oh, just look at that dress!” Rose breathed, coming to a stop and gazing at one of the mannequins in a fashionable boutique. “Now that’s what I would buy if I had the money!”

  “Yes, but it would be almost sinful to buy it—it probably costs so much,” Blanche agreed, looking longingly at the dress in question. It was a long white linen dress with a lace collar and covered buttons. The slim mannequin wore white ballet shoes and a modest straw hat with white ribbons trailing down the back.

  “Couldn’t you just die? Imagine wearing that—on a windswept field—surrounded by wild flowers—ah, rapture!” Rose whispered.

  “Couldn’t you make a dress like that?” Bear asked, looking critically at the motionless figure in white. “I thought you girls sewed a lot.”

  “Oh, probably,” Rose agreed. “But it would be so elegant to buy one—just once, you know.”

  “The material is nicer than what you can get in the fabric stores, and those dresses really are well made,” Blanche added.

  “Although I suppose we could scour the garment district for fabric like that, if we really wanted to …” Rose trailed off. “But it wouldn’t be the same, somehow.” She sunk into thought as they continued walking, the girls giving a wistful farewell to the white dress.

  “It’s more the idea of the dress than the actual dress that attracts me,” Blanche admitted to Bear as they walked on.

  “That’s it! I mean, how often do you have a chance to wear a white dress like that?” Rose pointed out. They passed another clothes store where a tall mannequin modeled a fluted silk gown with a long train. “Oh! How exquisite! I intend to have one some day, just to wear around the house for fun.” Rose gave another sigh.

  Bear whimpered softly and put his hands to his face in pretended despair. “I had no idea you girls thought so much about clothes.”

  “You should be grateful that we think about anything else,” Blanche said with a straight face.

  As they reached the opening of the subway tunnel, Bear halted. “Say, would you girls like to see a special place of mine? It won’t take long. It’s on the way home.”

  Rose and Blanche exchanged glances. Bear quickly said, “You don’t have to come. Not if you’d rather just go straight home. It’s just—well, I can’t really go there during the day, and—I sort of wanted to show you this place. It means a lot to me.”

  An adventure unlooked for was staring them in the face. Rose tugged on her sister’s hand. This was a chance to find out more about Bear and his mysterious life. Blanche’s brow was creased, and she stood stiffly, unsure what to do.

  “You’re sure it won’t take long?” Rose asked Bear.

  “It won’t, I promise. I just thought—it might be interesting for you.”

  Blanche started to shake her head, and Bear looked so crestfallen that Rose’s heart ached. Oh, come on, Blanche, she thought. Don’t play the grown-up now.

  “All right,” Blanche said at last. “But please, let’s get home soon.”

  “All right, then!” Bear gave them a grateful smile and turned eagerly into the subway tunnel.

  “I’m still not so sure about this,” Blanche whispered to her sister as they followed him.

  “Cut it out, will you? We’ll be fine,” Rose whispered back. “Besides, if we can’t trust someone like Bear, who can we trust?”

  “Dad,” Blanche said under her breath, “but he’s dead.”

  “He’s still protecting us,” Rose had to point out.

  Blanche didn’t respond, but Rose could hear her praying a “Hail Mary” under her breath.

  The subways were much less crowded at this stop. The three of them stood waiting in the train’s subterranean cavern, hearing the far off screams of other rail cars in the distance. Blanche stared into the round black tunnel in front of her with troubling thoughts.

  Who could you trust, really? Anyone you knew might suddenly turn on you and become someone else. People had free will. Even the holiest saint, however unlikely, could decide to become a devil. The people who seemed most stable might suddenly fall away, swallowed into the earth when you looked away, and not be there when you turned back. Anyone could die. The world was spinning with dire possibilities, and nothing, no one could be relied on.

  She heard the roar of the dragon behind her and looked to see the flashing malevolent lights and hissing nostrils of the train. It hurtled past them even as she looked, and halted, snorting, waiting for them to enter its belly.

  Rose stepped excitedly inside, her eyes dancing. Blanche could tell that she was exhilarated by the mystery of adventure. Rose sat down in the closest empty seat and Bear and Blanche sat on either side of her.

  Blanche sat stiffly, gazing woodenly at their reflections in the window opposite them. Bear was hunched over, his arms folded on his knees, studying the floor. His mood had clearly changed from enthusiasm to reticence. What did that portend, Blanche wondered. Was he regretting having asked them to come with him? Where was he taking them anyway?

  Stations flashed by them, red lights flared in the windows suddenly and vanished, noises tumbled over each other and passed by from dark to dark. The lights in their compartment went out for a minute. Her own image in the reflecting window disappeared. Light slashed across Bear’s face like a dagger, and he vanished.

  The lights came on again. The world was weaker, yellow. The car rushed on as before, but the squalid interior seemed strange. Blanche could not feel or hear her own body. She, Rose, and Bear had diminished. Only their reflections in the window remained. In the dim light of the grimy car, their images seemed stilted, absurd. They were automatons, substitutes for real people, puppets dangling over a convulsion of dissonance and confusion. She felt dizzy for a moment.

  The lights flickered off again. Were they gone for good? Would the train ever stop, or would it hurtle on forever, now that it had reduced its passengers to ghosts and shadows? Were they to be prisoners forever in its tumultuous innards? She could not breathe.

  The noise changed. The dragon gave in to friction and slowed sullenly, tearing and snapping at the ground. Ordinary light—ordinary city noise poured into the car as the doors opened with a hiss and a bang. The crowd propelled them out of the car onto the pavement. A guitarist was plucking away on the far side of the track, emitting a melancholy air.

  They had escaped—for now. Blanche shivered in the wispy breath of the dragon and wished she were safely at home in her bed. The heady joy of the opera had vanished, and she felt even more unprepared than usual for an adventure.

  Chapter 5

  LEAVING THE UPROAR of the subway tunnel, Rose felt a little overwhelmed by the silence outside. The snow was still falling thick and fast, smothering the City in a layer of downy white. It was almost as though the weather had drawn a muffling hood over the City’s head. An occasional taxi flashed past, making furrows in the white roads, but otherwise, this section of the city was deserted.

  “Where are we?” Rose asked Bear, looking around.

  “You’ll recognize it in a moment, I think,” he said. He had started to walk faster now, so the girls had to hurry to keep up. There was a change in him. He now seemed much taller, casting off his habitual slouch in his eagerness. He was in his own element, following some purpose, something familiar to him but foreign to the girls. It was as though he was transformed into a denizen of fairyland, about to enter his own haunted realm.

  Blanche reached out and clung to her sister’s hand. Rose felt her thin mittened finge
rs clutching her own. She knew her sister was beginning to be frightened. But Rose was too caught up in the mystery to be afraid. She strained to hear the enchanted song Bear was listening to. Her heart was pounding, but to the rhythm of a marching drum, not fear. There was a sense of purpose here, and although she did not understand it, she rejoiced to be a part of it.

  As the three of them moved down the snowy streets, Rose became aware of the three pointed towers of a Gothic church challenging the skyscrapers looming beyond it. A black rose window spread its wings across its facade, a whorled eye staring, entranced, beyond the world. She realized that Bear was heading for the church. And all at once, she recognized it. It was St. Lawrence, the abandoned church beside St. Catherine’s.

  “We’re right by our school!” she blurted in excitement.

  “Yeah, I thought you’d figure it out. We just came from a different direction, that’s all,” Bear said.

  Blanche cast glances towards the school fearfully. Rose knew she was remembering the times she had seen Bear hanging out in the schoolyard with the druggies.

  “Are we going to the school building?” Rose asked.

  “No. We’re going to the church,” Bear said.

  “Really? But I thought it’s been locked up.” Rose gave a skip of anticipation.

  “I happen to have a set of the old keys. I used to be an altar boy there.” Bear said the last sentence offhandedly.

  Rose laughed at him. “I can’t imagine you as an altar boy.”

  Bear gave her a ghostly smile. “Believe it.”

  They crossed the snowy street slowly, as though wading through a river of slow water, with the traffic light heedlessly changing colors above them. Bear leapt up the steps to the church in three bounds. The girls scrambled after him, breathing hard. He pulled out a key from beneath his coat, looked around once, then said, “Follow me,” and pushed it into the lock. The door opened and he slid inside, cracking it for the two girls to follow.

  Rose squeezed her sister’s hand tightly and plunged into the pitch-black cavern. Blanche followed, and Bear shut the door with a click behind them.

  The chilly smell of must and grime assailed Rose’s nostrils. She heard Bear and Blanche breathing hard, but she could not see anything, although she felt they were standing close by.

  “This is so neat!” Rose exclaimed, and at once felt hollow, shallow. This place was sacred.

  Blanche wrapped her arms around herself tightly, gazing around cautiously. She still looked wary.

  “My violin teacher told me what a beautiful church this is—or was,” Rose said. “Blanche, they used to have school masses here, instead of the assembly hall, before it was abandoned. The floor is unstable.”

  “Oh, just wonderful,” Blanche said in a restrained voice.

  “It’s only unstable in certain places,” Bear hastened to assure her. “Don’t worry—I know where the weak spots are.”

  Rose chided herself for babbling and making her sister even tenser. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark, and she could make out that they were standing in a narrow vestibule. In front of them were doors with dark glass windows. Through them, faint light showed.

  There was the sound of scuffling as Bear’s shape turned to one side and hunched over a low table. “I keep some vigil candles over here with matches. Hold on, and I’ll get a light.”

  Then there was a scratch, and a faint glow. Rose temporarily lost perspective as the flame of the candle made the shadows briefly impenetrable once more. Her eyes adjusted again, and she saw Bear’s face with its mane of hair floating above the wax taper. He had become a cave man, his face gaunt with dark eyes alert and cunning like some strange beast. The light grew, illuminating his shape, and casting light on their faces. Rose felt as though she were being put under a spell—eye color: deep green and fey.

  Bear put a hand on the door behind him, illuminating a panel of dark colored glass and dropping a pool of light onto a tiled floor. The door opened, and he led them into the church, holding up the candle like a torch.

  They found themselves in a large, spacious place full of indistinct forms. Bear led them down the main aisle, boards creaking beneath his boots. Rose could make out pillars and an occasional jeweled glimmer of a stained-glass window catching the glow of a streetlight outside. Their footsteps echoed weirdly in the emptiness that was full of something.

  “Can you see anything?” Bear asked them in a whisper.

  “Pews,” Rose whispered back.

  They reached the end of the aisle and stood before the sanctuary. Bear pointed with the light to the roof. “The roof leaks, and it’s been rotting the floorboards in the sanctuary. That’s where the floor problems are. I wish the parish had fixed the leaks when they first started. The problem will only get worse as time goes on.” He set the vigil light down on the marble altar rail with a deep sigh. “But the diocese seems determined to let this place run down. It’s a crying shame. You can’t see much of it now, but it was a magnificent church.”

  “You really seem to care about this place,” Rose commented.

  Bear looked at both of them, a fleeting look of mischief on his face. “Well, as an enchanted prince, this is the closest thing to a palace that I’ve got.”

  “Oh yes!” Rose said. “I had forgotten.”

  He turned to the sanctuary. “I’ll light the candles so you can see more.” He stepped inside the sanctuary carefully. “This is the part of the floor that’s weak. Wait here.”

  Bear resembled a dark, hulking stagehand moving about the scenery, thought Blanche. He passed the stripped altar and went out through a small door into what must be the sacristy, and returned with a brass candle lighter. He leaned over and lit it from the small candle he had been carrying. Then he began to light the candles of various heights that stood in dusty branched candelabra on the back wall. Slowly, the facade was illuminated with halos of gold, as though it were the stage for a play. Blanche could see now that there was a high altar on the back wall, layered like a palace, with niches where men and women with wings and robes stood frozen in adoration. Lastly, Bear lit the candles on either side of the carved tabernacle that was fixed to the wall behind the altar. The gold tabernacle box was closed, but the red glass holder where the sanctuary lamp would have stood was empty.

  Bear stood there a moment, silent, gazing at the floor. He seemed to have forgotten about them altogether, absorbed in some thought or memory. As he stood in the flickering glow of the candles, his long matted hair hallowed in amber, he had changed yet again. Blanche couldn’t tell how, but she sensed, dimly, a quiet, enormous sorrow overwhelming him. She couldn’t see his face, and there was no change in his silhouette, but a feeling emanated from him—and from the very walls of the church—of a deep and potent loss.

  Her eyes traveled upward to the empty tabernacle, to the pallid faces of saints and angels, to the darkness of the weakened roof, and she felt that sorrow beginning to slip in at the edges of her consciousness. And beyond that sorrow was a blackness, a terror, mixed in with the larger terror of the void and chaos of the City. Something had happened here—something terrible. She felt a coldness grip at her rib cage and she clutched the altar rail in sudden fear. There was something trying to get at them—no, trying to get at Bear. It was almost as though he was not resisting, but was allowing it to overwhelm him.

  Rose stood behind Blanche, erect and composed. The heat of the candles radiated against the frosty air of the nave, and the candle in front of them warmed her face. Again, her heart was beating the hard cadence of a march— questions falling and rising in her mind. Who was Bear? Why had Bear taken them here? What was his connection to this place? She sensed, dimly, a quiet sorrow and fear filling Bear, but she wasn’t troubled by it. The sense of danger made her lift up her head higher. There were battles coming. But life was meant to be a battle, wasn’t it? There was nothing to fear.

  They could have dropped into the stillness of eternity for an hour or more. None of them moved or spok
e for several minutes. Only the candles continued their ceaseless dance on the forsaken church walls.

  At last, Bear roused himself and set the candle lighter to one side. He turned to face the girls, and his features were enigmatic in the candlelight.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said simply.

  “It’s—lovely,” Rose said at last. “I’ve never seen such an altar.”

  “If we could come here in the daytime, you’d see much more of the church’s character,” Bear said. “But you can feel it, even in the dark. Can’t you?”

  “Yes, I can,” Rose affirmed. Blanche said nothing.

  He walked towards them in a roundabout fashion. “Careful of the floor. Come around behind the altar. You can see the statue of Christ best from behind it.”

  Rose hadn’t even noticed the marble statue of the Savior towering above the tabernacle, and felt somewhat guilty. But when they reached the spot Bear indicated they should stand, her mind was arrested by something else, completely different—there were stains on the carpet behind the altar.

  Even in the shadows, she could make them out—faint, irregular marks on the light plush of the carpet. Suddenly, Rob’s story about bloodstains behind the altar flooded her mind, and she felt nauseous. But that was silly. Rob had been teasing her, hadn’t he? She drove it from her mind ruthlessly, a profane distraction in this holy place. But the thought still mocked her.

  Rose saw Bear gazing at the statue of Jesus and realized his expression had changed again. Now he seemed to be struggling to contain a silent fury inside him. Suddenly, he noticed her and all at once, averted his eyes, as though he hadn’t meant to drop his guard.

  “You ready to go?” he asked, and his voice sounded tired.

  Blanche nodded, but Rose was too distracted to answer. As Bear went back and forth, extinguishing the candles, the sisters watched as the barren church slowly succumbed once more to its habitual gloom.

  Outside, they all stood on the steps of the church in the snow. The spell had dissipated, but the girls still felt the remnants of its strangeness.