The Bear

The woman, my grandmother said, lived all alone by herself way out in the woods. And some nights, while she was stirring her soap in a cauldron out back behind her house, stirring until her arms grew tired and her shoulders ached, she sang to herself a song of loneliness.

“Won’t somebody come stay with me, stay with me, stay with me. Won’t somebody come stay with me, all through the night.”

And from far away, whispering through the woods in a low voice not unlike the woods themselves with their dark trees and darker shadows, came a voice saying, “I will.”

And the woman stirred her soap then without singing, because the voice that rolled up out of the woods was full of fright, the voice of a murderer lurking in the darkness. She was scared, looking into the shadows where the wall of trees stood sentry to who knew what went on within. She’d heard stories, the woman had, and seen things, and some nights she feared the woods and what might come from them, more so when strange voices called back in answer to her song.

But soon she became lonely again, as she stirred her soap, even though her arms were tired and her shoulders sore, and she began to sing once again a song called up from her loneliness about wanting someone to come stay with her, stay with her, stay with her. Won’t somebody come stay with her, all through the night.

And from the depths of the forest, though closer now, came the same low menacing voice saying “I will,” called out of the night as if some secret darkness were held within. The woman stopped her song and her stirring to stare into the trees at what was coming nearer. There was all manner of darkness in the world in those days, my grandmother said, late at night, glancing out the window, where not far away the wall of trees began and the woods closed in. We could hear coyotes calling to one another and perhaps a few last wolves yet harboring in the blue hills, and there was indeed a wildness in the manner of the world when we were children. A sad note had crept into my grandmother’s voice, much as the old woman stirring her soap, something of longing and loneliness, of waiting for what might come.

There were lines on her face, and sweat from the heat of the fire beneath the cauldron, a greying strand of hair that fell across her brow. And soon the loneliness overcame her once more, stronger than her fear of what might walk out of the woods. She began to sing once again.

“Won’t somebody come stay with me, stay with me, stay with me. Won’t somebody come stay with me, all through the night.”

And right up close to the trees, which were right up close to the house, so close some nights she could hear the scratching of fingers as branches scraped the side, came the voice. “I will,” the voice said, sung it, as if it were eager to come out of the woods. The woman stopped her stirring. She pushed back the greying strand with her shoulder. She turned toward the trees to see what waited therein. She did not like the woods nor living this close to them. Some mornings she hacked at the wall of trees and burned the old branches, but the trees in that forest in that part of the world in that time long ago grew dark and strong and repaired themselves at night, when the moon hung like a fingernail over the house.

“I will,” the voice said, and in it came the echo of her longing. She looked hard at the wall of trees right up near the house where she stirred her soap. But soon again her loneliness was overcome by her fear and she began to sing once again. And as she sang and as she stirred and as she shouldered the greying strand from her lined face, a bear eased itself out of the woods and crossed the small short distance from the trees, dark and black and hoary as the first days of the world in its getting. The bear took the woman, and bore her off into the forest to eat her, and left behind there was only the soap, swirling, until it stopped and was still.

My grandmother told this story late at night when we stayed over and black storms were boiling up out of the west. “Won’t somebody come stay with me,” the woman sang, “all through the night.” And from far away the bear sang back to her, his voice like a shadow on a tombstone, her voice like a gate swinging open. All stories are metaphor for what fears we hold inside, although I never understood this until many years later, when I learned my grandmother had been raped by a family friend when she was 14. She was forced to keep quiet for fear of what might be done to her if she told, and because of the shame others knowing would cause her. To leave the memory behind she hitch-hiked across the state of Arkansas, trying to find family who would take her in, and while she was walking she was picked up by a man who bore a Bible on the seat beside him, but still tried to raise her dress to get at what was underneath. She got out of his car and walked until another car picked her up, this one steered by another man with the same impure thoughts, and in this way she made her way across the state, dodging danger in each car driven by men with something else on their minds.

I knew none of this late at night with the lightning flickering outside, drawing the world into shape. Not of her struggle, nor her stoicism in the face of it. She wore out her shoes while walking, and she wore out her voice telling men to leave her alone, just as she would sometimes wear out her voice telling stories to us late at night while the dark hung outside the window. She had lost her first child. She had lost a second one not long after that. Her first house had a dirt floor. Her second had no windows nor running water and when storms came she lay awake listening to the nails pulling away from the wood and wondering if her house would hold together. Like many women of her time she had no choice but to marry, and though she would eventually be carried off by a good man and forget how many others had tried to rape her, she still told the story, which makes me wonder now about the bear, and the woods, if she were trying to tell us something, or only repeating what she had heard once, as a child, when the world was a darker place.

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This was from my first book. Originally published in Slice Magazine.