DARKNESS WAS FALLING when I wandered into the forest. Old wives’ tales don’t impress me. I’m not scared of forests and haven’t been so ever since I lived on Hobgoblin Island. An experience like that inures you to such things. On the contrary, I relished the silence and, more particularly, the fresh air. After all the time I’d spent in that airless maze of tunnels, fresh air seemed an incredible luxury. The storm had receded as quickly as it had come. The treetops were bending in the gentle breeze which was all that remained of it, and beneath them reigned a cool, cathedral hush. Looking up through the canopy of foliage I could sometimes glimpse the dark depths of the cosmos strewn with twinkling stars. So much space above me! The trees became denser the further I went, but I walked on briskly. If a plant-sprite or leaf-witch really did live here, I wouldn’t have objected to a little company.
All that aroused my misgivings was the absolute silence. Even in Hobgoblin Forest there had been noises, owls hooting, birds twittering, squirrels scampering, woodpeckers’ Morse, the omnipresent rustle of insects foraging on the forest floor. Here I heard nothing of the kind, just my muffled tread on the soft carpet of leaves and the occasional snap of a rotten branch under my hind paws. So bad was the Great Forest’s reputation that even worms and ants avoided it.
At length, tired out with walking and fresh air, I simply curled up on the forest floor, covered myself with leaves, and went to sleep. It was the most refreshing night’s rest I’d had for ages, totally dreamless and as peaceful as the Great Forest itself.
I make plans
It was late the next morning – almost noon – when I awoke. I gathered a few berries, nuts and chestnuts, munched a handful of dandelion leaves, and washed the whole meal down with some cool water from a spring. Then I set off, meaning to leave the forest behind me as soon as possible and get to the nearest outpost of civilization. I pictured a little village on the edge of the forest, a place in which to practise a profession with the knowledge I’d acquired at the Nocturnal Academy, at least for a limited period. I could work as a teacher, give lessons in astronomy and fossilology, nightingalology, Zamonian archaeology and ferromagnetic deep-sea botany. Name an occupation and I would pursue it. Lacemaker wanted? At your service! I could have worked with equal facility as a sponge diver or violin maker, wine grower, piano tuner or dentist. I could have translated books from all languages into Zamonian or vice versa. Perhaps there was an opening for a grinder of telescope lenses, or an expert on geodetic oscillations between the poles. I might even be able to open a small private school of my own and pass on Nightingale’s store of wisdom to my pupils. Thanks to the excellent education I’d received at the Nocturnal Academy, my professional opportunities were positively limitless.
The Great Forest
Quite contrary to its evil reputation, the forest was a wonderful place. The best thing about it was its absolute normality. It wasn’t a creeper-infested, almost impassable jungle like the forest on Hobgoblin Island, or a treacherous tropical paradise with singing flowers and glass vegetation like the Gourmetica insularis; it was just a healthy forest of the kind that grows in temperate climatic zones, with tall firs and sturdy oaks, slender poplars and an exceptional number of silver birches, the latter arrayed at such regular intervals that they might have been individually planted by hand. Berry-laden bushes grew here and there, and every few steps one came across sun-dappled clearings sprinkled with daisies and toadstools or crystal-clear streams and pools.
It was a genuine delight to roam the forest. I came across no obstacles at all, not even a fallen tree. My chronic headache, the eternal dry cough occasioned by particles of iron, the backache I’d got from bending double – all these were things of the past. I walked all day long, almost without a break, it was such a joy to be out of that rabbit warren. Then darkness descended on the forest once more. I would soon have to find a place to sleep. The possibilities were legion, and it was hard to settle on one of the many picturesque sleeping quarters that presented themselves. I had just come to a clearing when my nose picked up a feeling I’d never experienced before.
Although the reader will rightly object that you don’t detect emotions with your nose, that was just what happened here.
I smelt the feeling of being at home.
It was a strange but far from alarming sensation. And then I was transfixed by the most beautiful melody I’d ever heard. Someone was humming in such a sweet, true voice that tears sprang to my eyes. I tiptoed to the edge of the clearing, hid behind a big oak tree, and looked for the source of the song.
There, seated amid a sea of daisies and illumined by the last, slanting rays of the setting sun, like a saint in an old painting, was a girl. But not just any girl: she was a girl bear, and her fur was as blue as my own.
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’
by Professor Abdullah Nightingale
Great Forest, The [cont.]. According to one legend, the Great Forest used many years ago, in its inhabited days, to be the haunt of a special kind of bear with coloured fur [→Ursus polychromus]. These animals are said to have been good-natured, sedentary creatures with a talent for bee-keeping. The legend further states that they vanished from the forest one day, but nobody knows why or where they went to.
No wonder I felt at home here. Perhaps this was the forest of my primeval ancestors. There had to be something in the legend, instinct told me so, and the existence of the girl bear proved this beyond doubt.
Although I thought, in my initial transport of emotion, that the girl bear’s fur was the same colour as mine, this wasn’t entirely true. Mine is more of a dark navy with a touch of ultramarine, like the deep, turbulent sea, whereas hers was a much paler blue like that of the sky, the cornflower or the forget-me-not.
I had never seen a more fascinating creature. From now on and for all eternity, this girl bluebear would be the focal point of my existence. The sole purpose of my life was to love her. I yearned to defend her from any danger that dared to contest our happiness, fight it off with tooth and claw, and I would have ripped the heart out of that danger – if it had one – and devoured it raw. I felt capable of boiling away the ocean to a bowl of fish soup, just with the flames of my passion. I could have stopped the world rotating, then reversed and restarted it, just for one more glimpse of the gesture with which she stuck a daisy behind her ear.
Only one thing, of that I felt quite certain, was beyond me: I could never accost the girl.
The reader will now assume, with some justification, that my very next move was to introduce myself to this wonderful creature and win her heart. She was, after all, in addition to all her other merits, the only other bluebear that had ever come my way. I felt an almost agonizing urge to speak to her. The conditions for a first encounter could hardly have been more favourable: sunset, my restored appearance, the romantic glade. Fate had destined us for one another (of that I was convinced). But at that moment I was overcome by an emotion I’d never before experienced in that particular form: timidity. I instinctively sought an even better hiding place behind a big clump of stinging nettles.
Agonized shyness
The very thought of emerging from the undergrowth and introducing myself to the girl brought me out in a cold sweat. What if I tripped and fell flat on my face? What if she laughed me to scorn? Or took fright? First impressions, they say, are always the most important. Would she think me ugly? What state was my fur in? Did my breath smell? Were my flies buttoned? Had I washed my ears? Those and other equally absurd ideas flashed through my mind, although in my existing state I found them perfectly reasonable. To begin with, therefore, I continued to crouch in the undergrowth as though paralysed and confined myself to marvelling at the girl bluebear from afar.
And that was really all I did for the next few days: remain in hiding and feast my eyes on the beautiful stranger. The forest and its dense undergrowth, the corpulent oaks with their tracery of branches, th
e tall grass, the stinging nettles, ferns and blackberry bushes – all offered plenty of cover.
The cottage in the clearing
The girl bluebear lived in a little cottage on the edge of the clearing where I’d first seen her. The house was built entirely of timber and faced with split logs. It was a rendezvous for all the animals I’d missed elsewhere in the forest. All sought shelter there, and all had made their homes either in the clearing itself or nearby. Birds had built their nests in the leafy canopy, squirrels and voles scurried in and out of the doors and windows as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Brimstone butterflies fluttered across the glade, portly bumblebees hummed with contentment as they went in search of honey, and a family of nine ducks swam in the little stream that flowed through the centre of the clearing. In front of the cottage was a small garden expertly divided into functional and ornamental sections. In the former, plump cauliflowers and pumpkins proliferated, fat tomatoes gleamed, and big rhubarb leaves shielded a double row of radishes from the sun. Rosemary, parsley and chives grew alongside bright red poppies and wild roses. A funny little potato patch, a row or two of carrots and onions, a miniature forest of watercress, clumps of marjoram, mint, and sage – it was clear that the gardener not only displayed an unerring aesthetic sense but had a firm grasp of dietarily essential foodstuffs and the Zamonian and international herbs that went with them. Also growing there were thyme and dill, angelica and arrowroot, rocket and chervil, eggwort and coriander, rabbit’s delight and elfweed, borage and mustard and cress, monkshood and camomile, basil and curly-leafed petroselinum, saxifrage and slipperwort.
Saxifrage and slipperwort
In the ornamental section, the loveliest of Zamonian flowers grew peaceably alongside other, exotic varieties. Witches’ pride and golden primrose, calendula and campanula, asphodel and mandragora, columbine and angel’s eye, hydroganja and ruggerball, ranuncula and Atlantean rose, begonia and parsley orchid, seahorse grass and sassafras blossom, Gloomberg moss and coconut-scented cowslip, black-eyed Susan and paradise lily – all were as admirably arranged as the colours on a master painter’s canvas. What a wonderful place to live in!
The girl bluebear spent her days feeding the animals and tending her garden. Sometimes, too, she took a basket and disappeared into the forest, to return at dusk laden with freshly gathered fruit, berries and mushrooms. When supper was in preparation, tempting aromas issued from the cottage and drifted across the clearing.
I observed the girl at all her activities: not only hoeing in the garden and feeding the animals but seated on the grass, reading. So she was well educated on top of everything else! I was delighted to note her choice of reading matter: not just any old book but Professor Nightingale’s Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs!
She actually owned a hardback edition of that work. What a sound basis for endless conversations of an intellectual nature! Could she possibly be, like me, a graduate of the Nocturnal Academy? I drew up a mental balance sheet: she was beautiful, intelligent, and kind to animals; she could cook and sing; she was a bear and had blue fur. All these items went down on the assets side.
In the end I took to following her on her walks through the forest. I did so at a due distance, flitting from tree to tree like a timid, demented woodland sprite. Numerous animals converged on her and suffered her to fondle them. They emerged from their hiding places wherever the girl went. Squirrels hopped in time to her singing and squeaked the tune, a white stag sometimes hung her basket on its antlers and carried it awhile. She was obviously popular with all the creatures of the forest and adept at communing with them. Even savage wild boars became playful pets in her presence. I now spied on her at every opportunity and on every occasion, from her morning yawn and stretch in the cottage doorway to her nightly blowing out of the candle on her windowsill. I also – I blush with shame as I pen these words – watched her at her morning ablutions in the stream.
I had never derived such an inexplicable feeling of happiness purely from looking at someone, or, more surprising still, just from thinking about them. And this feeling became more intense with every hour, every day I spent in the proximity of the girl bluebear. So, in turn, did my abhorrence of myself and my craven failure to reveal my presence. Morning after morning I vowed I would wait for a favourable moment to emerge from the forest, politely introduce myself, and make her a proposal of marriage. Instead, I continued to cower among the rhubarb leaves like a frightened rabbit.
The uninvited guest
One morning, when I awoke rather later than usual, the girl bluebear had already disappeared into the forest. For a while I cursed myself for oversleeping. Then, plumbing the very depths of infamy, I decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to sneak into the girl’s private domain. I stole across the clearing and started up the veranda steps. The first step gave under my unaccustomed weight, and an agonized groan went echoing through the forest. I promptly recoiled and paused to listen. Was she coming back? No, not a sound. So I crept across the veranda and through the door into the little kitchen-living room. Heavens, what a dear little place! Ranged on the shelves were teacups designed for dainty little paws, and beside them tiny plates just big enough to accommodate a mouthful. Yes indeed, everything in the cottage seemed specially designed for someone at least three sizes smaller than me. I went over to the miniature stove and lifted the lid of an equally diminutive saucepan. What joy! It contained five dear little dumplings floating in creamy brown gravy, and before I knew it I’d wolfed one of them.
Delicious dumplings
It tasted sensational, a potato-flour dumpling simmered to a turn, perfectly seasoned and enriched with saffron, velvety on the outside and soft as a pear within. At its heart was a preternaturally light dough consisting of breadcrumbs, raisins and dried plums. This gave off an aroma of onions, nutmeg and black pepper that tickled the gums before the dumpling melted on the tongue like butter. I had never dreamed that the culinary art could elevate such a simple dish to such heights. However, the dumpling wasn’t a patch on the gravy or sauce that went with it. In this nectar, which had doubtless been carefully simmered for days over a low heat, reducing it to an essence, hand-picked mushrooms had dissolved into pure flavour. An entire forest, complete with the scent of resin and pine needles, the freshness of morning dew and the wholesome juices of berries and herbs, enveloped my tongue. All my conjectures about the girl bluebear’s culinary skill were surpassed. I wriggled in ecstasy as the dumpling slid down my throat.
Then I came to my senses. Had I left an indication of my presence? Did the girl bluebear count her dumplings before she left the house?
There were four left. What a cold, uncongenial, rectangular number! Wouldn’t three dumplings look considerably more aesthetically pleasing and be less likely to arouse suspicion than four?
All good things come in threes, as everyone knows, so down went the offending dumpling. I wouldn’t have thought it possible that this one could have excelled its predecessor in refinement, but it was true. It had a heart of apricot and cinnamon seasoned with ground white pepper. Exquisite! I emitted a jubilant, blissful growl, half tempted to roll around on the floor in ecstasy. I had never tasted anything more delicious. What surprises did the three remaining dumplings conceal beneath their velvety white coats? Would it make a perceptible difference if the girl bluebear found only two dumplings left instead of three? I doubted it. The next dumpling had a rhubarb and cottage cheese filling flavoured with honey. Supremely delectable! It’s common knowledge that honey holds a special attraction for bears. Right in the middle of the dumpling, doubly protected by the dough and the cottage cheese filling, was a hazelnut-sized blob of pure acacia honey. This, when it took my tongue by surprise, sent me into such a gustatory frenzy that I actually shook a leg. I broke into a kind of dumpling-worship dance, so to speak, hopping in a circle like a native American and growling rhythmically as I did so. In passing I rather casually wolfed the
two remaining dumplings (one filled with plum jam, the other with cranberries and cream cheese). Then I proceeded to lick the saucepan clean. Bending over the stove, I lapped up the mushroom sauce like a husky dying of thirst.
‘Hello,’ said a voice behind me.
I straightened with a jerk and turned round.
I’ve seen only two spectacles during my various lives that impressed me as being flawlessly beautiful. One was a view from Mac’s back of the ice mountains in the Antarctic Circle illuminated by the aurora australis. The other, for all the embarrassment of the moment, was the sight of the girl bluebear standing in the doorway with a basketful of berries, smiling at me.
‘I, er … ah … er …’ I stammered, completely at a loss.
She looked at me, and there was no surprise or fear in her gaze, still less annoyance or anger. On the contrary, she wore an expression entirely consistent with the emotions churning around in my own breast. It was the look of a girl bluebear hopelessly in love.
The whole distressing game of hide and seek had been quite unnecessary. We were destined for one another, we would live together for evermore, here in this forest glade or aboard a ship on the high seas – wheresoever fate chose to take us. I had found my niche in life. My everlasting quest was at an end. Only three paces separated me from my future happiness. Throwing off all my timidity, I strode boldly over and folded her in my arms.
She felt exceedingly thin and sticky, like a length of ship’s rope smeared with tar – indeed, she suddenly looked like a tarry rope as well. More precisely, the girl bluebear had vanished, and in her place was a taut, sticky rope. The cottage, too, had disappeared into thin air. The clearing was still there, but it was empty save for some thin black ropes stretched across it in a skilful, systematic way, like a spider’s web. And I was stuck fast to one of those ropes.