Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (phonics books txt) 📕

She went to the stall door and flung the sack outside. Some instinct told her that it would be of no use to try to coax the bear down from the post. She returned to the place where she had slept and sat against the wall. When she heard the bear scraping its way down the post, she did not stir. The bear wandered around the stable, sniffing. When it came to her, it raised itself up, pressing its paws against her shoulders. She felt its mouth fasten on her neck again. She grimaced.

The bear suckled for a few minutes and then subsided. It turned in slow circles and collapsed with its rump pressed against her thigh. Melisto put one hand on it. It seemed to her that she had never touched anything more real than the bear cub. She curled herself around it and slept until dawn.

6. THE SEER AT OROPOS

Melisto began to smell of the bear. She washed in the spring every morning, but she had only one chiton, and it reeked of bear. Some of the other girls pinched their nostrils shut when she passed by. Melisto suspected that they were jealous. Insofar as the bear belonged to anyone, it belonged to her. None of the other children were allowed inside the stall.

Melisto did not like the stable smell — the bear’s droppings had a pungency that stung her nose like vinegar — but the ripe aroma of the bear’s body was now familiar. She spent hours with the cub each day, tending it faithfully and without complaint. On the nights when she waded into the bay and watched the moon, she was barely conscious of the fact that it was she who saw, and the moon that was being watched. In the same way, she did not measure how much she loved the bear. She was the bear. During the early days, she brooded over what might become of it, but weeks went by, and she heard no more about the impending sacrifice. She pushed the matter from her mind.

She visited the bear several times a day, passing back and forth between glaring sunlight and the odorous dim of the stall. The bear welcomed her, sniffing, rooting in her skirt, pawing her and mouthing her. It was eager for food and company, wrestling and play. It was fed regularly, and even with elegance. Twice a day, Agathe, the old woman in charge of the kitchens, provided a generous bowl of porridge mixed with honey. The bear slurped up the barley and licked the bronze bowl clean. When every grain had been ingested, the bear punished the bowl, flipping it over and over, and battering it with its paws. Sometimes it knocked the bowl across the stall and under the door so that it skidded out of sight. Then the cub bawled and squealed until Melisto brought it back.

It seemed to Melisto that porridge was not enough for the bear. She foraged, gathering dandelions, cow parsnips, and fennel. She investigated the roots of plants, digging up any that appeared moist or starchy. She stripped young leaves from trees and filled her skirt with acorns, mushrooms, berries, and wild grapes. The bear investigated her offerings with a delicacy that surprised her. It turned the plants over with its front claws, sniffing with mouth ajar. It was only after a prolonged sniff-and-paw that the bear poked out its long tongue and ate. Once the bear had made up its mind that a plant was edible, it attacked all future offerings with gusto.

The bear was growing. The rope harness that had once been snug was tight. Melisto was tempted to unchain the bear from the post and take it outside like a man leading a horse to pasture. Always she hung back: she knew she wasn’t strong enough to hold the bear. Once the bear tore the chain out of her hands, it was lost to her forever. The cub would go free, but it would also be hampered — perhaps even strangled — by the dangling chain and the harness around its throat and trunk.

So the bear remained captive, and she tended it. She noticed that it backed up, as far from the post as possible, to defecate, and kicked its droppings behind it, as if the stall were a den that should not be fouled. From this, Melisto inferred that the bear wished to be clean. She borrowed the stable pitchfork and scraped the bear’s droppings outside the stall door. Whenever she visited, she checked to see if its drinking water was clear. It seldom was, because the bear regarded water as a toy. It dabbled its paws in the bucket and combed through the water as if it hoped to discover a fish.

Melisto stole food from the storerooms. Once, finding the kitchen deserted, she split a warm loaf and piled it high with soft cheese. The bear greeted her with whimpers of delight and lay down on its belly to consume the treat. It clasped the loaf between its front paws with such ardor that the cheese squirted out the edges. The bear gnawed and gulped in ecstasy. It ate with intense concentration, stopping from time to time to lift its head and lick its chops. One bitten-off chunk of bread rolled toward Melisto. She reached for it, meaning to return it to the bear.

The bear misunderstood. It thought she was taking that piece for herself. It reacted with insane aggression, screaming with outrage and swiping at her. Melisto dropped the bread and scuttled backward. After that, she kept her distance while the bear was eating. She believed that the bear liked her, but there were limits to its patience. She had learned that its moods changed swiftly and drastically; it could be combative one moment and sweetly drowsy the next. Whatever it felt, it felt with every cell in its body. There