the nearby foliage and gently covered the village. The crows called from nests in thatches. A farmer led a cow to market while a bell swung from its fatty neck. Some of the older women took buckets to the well in the centre of the village where all of the mudded lanes met. The children arrived before chores, to run in the swirl and chase loose chickens. A gang of four children were tormenting a small brood. One particular strong-willed fowl broke away, as did a small boy determined to whack the squawking thing with a stick. It ran on idiot legs to the outskirts, quickly followed by the boy swinging away. Just as the boy was about to brain the poor creature, he stopped in his tracks. The stick fell into the mud and his eyes and mouth were opened as wide as they had ever done. There she was, a figure slowly wandering from the mist, injured in body and spirit. She passed the boy without noticing his existence. The boy could not take his eyes off the bloodied girl. The girl’s mother, who resembled something between a woman and a ghost, came from her cottage as if drawn by an invisible force and found herself facing her daughter. A whispering crowd had formed and she parted the group with their worried glances. The girl fell to her knees, exhausted; her riding cloak was wrapped around her, matted with blood.
“Mother,” the girl said, pleading with a barely audible cry.
“What did you do?” the mother screamed with a sudden outburst—screaming and pointing a shaking finger at the girl’s riding hood, now a dirty crimson.
“What did you do?”
Later, after time had passed and the story became myth, the village children would dance in a circle and sing a rhyme.
“Poor Blood Red Riding Hood has gone and turned insane,
Poor Blood Red Riding Hood has lost something in her brain,
Poor Blood Red Riding Hood, her grandma skinned and gone,
Poor Blood Red Riding Hood, to the asylum.”
From the moment the midwife pulled Eleanor into the world, the little brown bear had been there. When Eleanor arrived, the bear could not contain his excitement, so much so that as baby took her first breaths bear drew the first gasps of thought. They lived in a home, with a father and a mother, although the bear rarely paid attention to what or where; he belonged to Eleanor and that was all. Her first word was “burr”, her first steps encouraged by the bear being held temptingly out of reach. There was a day and there was every day, where the bear knew nothing but happiness. It radiated from Eleanor and the bear felt the warmth of all the love given to him.
They would watch the grey and fog world from Eleanor’s window; carts and sacks were pulled across the cobbled streets with a clack, clack, and clack of hooves.
Eleanor gave the bear the gift of a voice.
“What are they?” gasped the bear from Eleanor’s mouth.
“They are horses; we use them to go places.”
“They are big; they will not hurt me, will they?”
“Oh, silly bear, I would not let anything ever hurt you.” She poured the bear another cup of invisible tea and they watched the world some more.
The kitchen was Eleanor’s favorite place to be. From the center table, little girl and brown bear watched the maids busily do their work. Eleanor was always given smiles, milk, jam and bread
“He’s such a handsome bear, and you such a pretty young lady” Mrs. Brown the cook remarked between stirs.
“Thank you “, said the bear in the little girl’s voice. Eleanor smiled and gulped milk.
The bear worried; there was boiling and sharp chopping and fires sizzling. Enough to turn a bear into black leather tatter. Luckily before long the Mother arrived. She would make her way to the kitchen, calling and pretending to be cross
“Is Eleanor being bothersome?” The Mother would ask,
“Terrible”, replied Mrs. Brown
Eleanor rolled her eyes and the mother couldn’t help but laugh covering the child in love.
As life passed by, time moving through the house found itself trapped by the Old Grandfather. The bear had observed it now and again. The Grandfather had a wooden body as tall as the ceiling. A face blank and white except for twelve eyes and two spindly, pointed arms. The bear could only watch as the Grandfather devoured seconds, fed on minutes, gorged on hours, days, weeks, months and years. It took them all with a tick, tick, tick. Then Eleanor, taller than she had ever been, placed the bear on the high shelf next to the pot-doll sisters (Milly, Maisy) and the tatty giraffe. Eleanor gave him a little grin, straightened his faded red bow, and then left him there. The bear had been prepared for this—that Eleanor would no longer need him; however the bear was not prepared for how cruel this would be. The Grandfather went tick tick tick.
On occasion Eleanor would pass by, of course—the shelf was above her bed—but they no longer took trips around the house for play and invisible tea. They never watched the world. Eleanor took her schooling; the bear remained trapped on the high shelf. The Grandfather went tick tick tick. How long had the bear been on the shelf? His brown fur speckled white with dust. Strange sounds filled his ears. Whispering, terrible whispering, speaking Eleanor’s name; it floated, sailing the air, fading when Eleanor was near. Had she heard it? Was there anything to hear? The bear presumed that a bear without a human was not bear at all and doomed to madness. No, not madness, there was more.
Eleanor’s smile grew infrequent and faded. She carried a weight and she walked with an invisible heavy burden. There were echoes that travelled along the walls in the day, and nights were a wet cough and the source of Eleanor’s misery. Through the windows from the world of cobbles and fog came the shouts of “cholera” and worry. It was this that brought Eleanor back to the bear.
She pulled the bear from his shelf prison and squeezed him into her so hard, the bear thought his sides sure to split. Tears soaked his fur, so happy Eleanor was to be with the bear—had she missed him as much as he had her?
“Oh, bear,” Eleanor cried, “Mother has been taken from me. The cholera has sent her to heaven.”
The bear did not know what heaven was or for whatever reason the mother had gone there. All the bear knew was Eleanor needed to hold him again and that was all.
The bear watched from the window sill to the street below. There was his Eleanor surrounded by others but very much alone. She was garbed in black—it was as if his Eleanor were among a flock of ravens. She held onto the father. He did not seem to notice, only looking up as a wooden box was removed from the house and placed on a horse cart of flowers. There was a crack in the air and the sky wept; it poured down the window pane. The bear pushed his face to the cold window; however, something else caught the bear’s curiosity. Across the way on the rooftops, hidden behind the rain and perched directly above Eleanor, was an amiss, an ominous, a creature made of nothing but menace. It turned and caught the bear in its twisted gaze, and somewhere amongst what was almost a face there was a smile. The rain made it impossible to see more and then the procession moved on and Eleanor was lost to the bear, as was the creature.
The absent mother was replaced by a melancholy. Eleanor moved as a half-child, pale skin and, within her once-happy face, sunken red eyes. The father was rarely to be seen, except when he came stumbling into the home with the stench of foul liquid
