The only memory of her mother that lingered, intact and undiminished, in Ava’s mind was the sight of her swinging from the rafters of the barn.
But now, on the porch with Wash, with the broken insect in her hand, she could remember something more: she and her parents together at the Fall Festival, happy.
And then her eyes were open and she was on the porch again and there was something rising up inside her throat. She turned her head away from the porch and heaved until she vomited and, even in the dim light of the night, they could both see the blood mingled with the bile.
“Oh, God,” Wash said. He stood and turned to go into the house, his eyes wide.
“No!” Ava managed. “I’m okay. Don’t tell. Please.”
“What?”
Ava spat the last of the bile from her mouth. Her head ached and her bones felt hollow once again.
“I don’t want to go back to the hospital, Wash,” Ava said. She sat up, huffing, and looked Wash in the eyes. “Just keep this between us. I’ll be fine.” She smiled a fast, apologetic smile. “You’ve never seen a person vomit before? It’s no reason to call the ambulance.”
Wash sat again. He pulled his knees to his chest and folded his arms across them. “Okay,” he said, and there was guilt in his words.
“I’ll be fine,” Ava said. “Really.”
It was only later that the children remembered the cricket. When the vomiting began, Ava had opened her hand and the cricket had escaped. Neither of them, amid the darkness and the worry, saw the small black marble leaping away quietly into the night. Neither of them heard its song, vibrant and full of life.
Where there should have been crickets and the singing of owls in the deep darkness of the woods, there was only the sound of door hinges rattling. The sound of a low, snuffling growl. The sharp intake of air as a large dark snout sniffed at the bottom of the door.
Her father—tall and wide, with skin as dark as blindness—was there with the shotgun, easing up to the front window above the couch, craning his neck to get a better angle on the animal.
“You can’t kill it,” Ava’s mother said. She appeared suddenly behind the child, like the ghost she would eventually become. She placed her arms around her daughter—the two of them standing in the center of the living room like small trees, both of them thin as rails, their nightgowns displaying all of their bony angles. Ava’s mother squatted beside her and placed one hand on her head and said, in a voice that seemed like a command rather than a reassurance, “He won’t kill it. I promise.”
“I suppose I’ve got to reason with it, Heather?” Macon said. “Dear Mr. Bear,” he said in a stern voice. “Please cease and desist your activities on these premises and return to your home. Have a beer.”
“You can’t kill it, Macon,” Heather replied, holding back a smile.
“I’m open to other ideas,” he said. “But I don’t think they make an Idiot’s Guide to Speaking Bear, so I believe my options are limited.”
“You can’t kill it,” Ava parroted. Very suddenly her concern over the life of the bear was greater than her fear of it. After all, she was only five years old. “You can’t kill it, Daddy,” she said.
Still Macon was at the window—shotgun in hand—twisting his neck and squinting his eyes, peering out and seeing little more than darkness. But the pounding on the door and the bellowing confirmed that nothing had changed. There was still a bear trying to get into their home.
“It just wants food,” Heather said.
“It’s just hungry,” Ava said, supporting the case for the bear.
Macon stepped away from the window and walked to the door. He lingered there, looking at the hinges and listening as the bear growled and moaned and banged against the door.
Macon moved away from the door and returned to the window above the couch. There was darkness and the broken silhouette of a mountain covered in trees beneath a thin salting of stars. But he could not see the bear. He would not be able to take aim at it from here. If he were to kill it, he would have to open the door. A thought came to him then. “Ava,” he called, “did you feed this bear?”
“No!” Ava said loudly, and the bear responded with a bellow—whether it was confirming or condemning the girl’s story was uncertain. The yelling of the bear was so loud and well-timed that, for an instant, the family couldn’t help but laugh. They knew then that all of the dark sharp-tooth things that existed in the world would not enter into their household. At least not tonight.
Macon sighed and, with resignation, said, “Okay.” Then he opened the breach on the gun and removed the shells and leaned it near the door and, in the loudest, deepest, most policelike voice he could muster, yelled, “Dear Mr. Bear! As sheriff of Stone Temple, I hereby demand that you vacate these premises. If you do not comply I will be forced to issue a warrant for your arrest. We do not entertain visitors at this late an hour.”
The bear fell silent.
Macon chuckled to himself. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said, turning to his wife and daughter. But in their faces he saw something akin to gratitude. Come what may, he would spare the animal’s life, and they loved him for it.
“Go away, Mr. Bear!” Ava shouted, looking at her father as she spoke. He seemed pleased, happy even. “No visitors this time of night,” she said.
“The diner doesn’t open until seven,” Heather shouted. And then they all laughed. “I’ll cook you eggs in the morning,” she yelled. “Eggs and bacon and maybe pancakes, whatever you want. But you’d better be a good tipper!”
“No bad checks,” Ava inserted, her face bright.
The small family could hardly breathe for laughing. It was a loud, hearty laugh that reverberated around their small, drafty home in the heart of the mountains. “Come with me,” Heather said. She took Ava’s hand and led her into the kitchen. When they returned Ava and Heather both carried cooking pots and metal spoons and they began banging and stomping in circles, half dancing, half marching, with Ava chanting, “Diner opens at seven,” in rhythm with her stomping and banging.
Macon held his sides with laughter.
“You hear that, Mr. Bear?” Ava called. “You’ll get eggs and ham in the morning. The diner opens at seven. But go away now, people are trying to sleep!”
Then, after a few more moments of silliness, Heather and Ava stopped and all three of them listened. They heard only silence. The bear was gone.
The family sat up together for the rest of the night, giggling and talking of nothing in particular. And when the sun rose it found them crumpled in a heap on the couch—Ava’s mother holding her in her arms, Ava’s father holding them both. Then, without word or explanation, the three of them cooked breakfast and, true to their word, set aside some eggs and ham. They set off into the woods, far enough away from the house so that the bear would not begin to think of their home as a place to be frequented in the hopes of food.
