Page 5 of True North
The guy didn’t answer. His silence was starting to seem a little odd. Did he not know how to talk? Maybe he was deaf. Maybe he’d been out in the woods alone for so long that he had forgotten English. Maybe he just didn’t want to talk to JT, which seemed a little rude seeing as how JT had just fed him a home-cooked breakfast.
The guy picked up the coffee mug and cradled it in his hands. He brought it toward his face and drew in a deep breath, his eyes closing in apparent pleasure over the smell. Then he looked at JT and offered him an uncertain but very sincere smile.
Success. JT returned the guy’s smile and went back to the important business of eating his sausage patties.
They sat in peaceable silence for a few minutes. JT couldn’t believe the guy wasn’t cold sitting there buck-ass naked, but maybe he was just used to it, or maybe bear shifters ran warmer than ordinary people. The guy still seemed wary and watched JT closely, so JT wasn’t able to study him the way he wanted. He was super curious about this guy, but he didn’t want to scare him off. Slow and cautious was the way to go.
Even eating slowly, JT couldn’t make his meal last forever. At last, he finished the last bite of food and the final sip of coffee. The guy was still holding his own mug, hunched over on the bench and watching JT, his face expressionless again. JT wasn’t sure where to go from here.
He pushed his plate to the side and touched his hand to his chest. “I’m JT.”
The guy’s eyebrows drew together. He looked at JT like JT had just grown a second head. But then, before JT could apologize—for what? Having basic manners?—the guy touched his own chest and said, “Mikhail. Misha.”
“Misha,” JT repeated, and the guy nodded. What was that, Russian? JT had been right about Siberia, then. But what was a Russian guy doing hanging out in the Ontario wilderness? JT had so many questions, but this wasn’t the right time to launch into an interrogation. He’d gotten a name and a smile: that was enough for now.
He sat quietly as Misha finished his coffee. The mother duck who lived in a tree near JT’s toolshed led her ducklings across the yard on their way down to the lake, and Misha made a delighted noise and pointed at them, glancing at JT as if to say,Do you see that?
“They do it every morning,” JT said. “Cute, right? Third summer in a row she’s nested here.”
Misha said nothing. He watched the ducks until they reached the edge of the water and awkwardly flopped in. Then he drained his mug, set it carefully on the table, and rose to his feet. He stared at JT for a few long moments before he turned and went loping off into the woods.
“Okay, see you later,” JT called after him, more amused than offended. What a weird guy. JT hadn’t gotten any answers, and he was more curious than ever. He was encouraged that the guy had shifted, though, and that he’d stayed to eat, and had wanted to interact with JT about the ducks. If he showed up again, maybe JT could even convince him to keep out of the trash.
* * *
Misha shifted as soon as he was in the trees, and when his feet next hit the ground, they were paws. He shouldn’t have done any of that, and he didn’t know what to do but run until he felt safe again.
His thoughts were a jumbled mess. He hadn’t been in human form since he left Toronto, whenever that had been. He had forgotten what it was like to have two hands and a mouth that could speak, even if he didn’t have anything to say. It was easy to be a bear: uncomplicated. He slept, he looked for food, he ate the food he found, he stayed away from humans and from other bears. It was easy to operate on instinct and not think too much about anything.
Changing shapes had brought everything back to the surface: the guilt and shame and terror that had driven him from Toronto, the complex tangle of longings that kept bringing him back to the guy’s house even though he knew it was a bad idea.JT’shouse. He had a name. He had made Misha breakfast and smiled at him, and Misha knew he needed to stay away, hehadto, he knew he should keep heading due north until he was too far away to think about turning back, and he also knew he was lying to himself. He wasn’t going to leave.
He loped inland from the lake until he came to the gravel road leading to a wind farm north of town. Then he slowed to a walk and cut to the south. He didn’t have any destination in mind. His days had no pattern. He slept when he was tired and looked for food the rest of the time. Day and night meant little to him, especially at this time of year, when the sun rose early and set late.
He was alone all the time, and lonely, too, in a vague bearish way. He wasn’t actually a bear: he was a shifter, and although bears were solitary, shifters were social. He had spent all his life in a close-knit community linked by blood and loyalty until—
Until he moved to Toronto. Since then, he had been on his own.
He should never have left Khabarovsk. He had thought about that all winter, dozing through the endless cold days in the den he had dug into the hollow left by a fallen tree’s roots. He hadn’t left without reason; he had taken the chance to go to a new place where he could be himself, maybe, and do the frightening, thrilling things he wanted most. But it hadn’t worked out that way, and maybe there was no way it ever would have. He should have stayed in Russia with his family and learned to set aside his furtive longings. Better there than here, where he was lonely and eating garbage and still not getting any of the secret things he wanted.
He had thought more than once of approaching some of the shifters whose scent marks he came across along the lakeshore, but he hadn’t yet worked up the courage. He wouldn’t be able to say much to them anyway, so what was the point? Better to keep to himself and not take the risk.
He found a nice bed of ferns not far from the road and slept for a while. When he woke again, he felt calmer. What had happened, really, that would affect him in any meaningful way? He didn’t have to go near JT’s house again or even stay in this general area. There was nothing so special about JT. Misha could go anywhere he liked. He could walk all the way to Alaska and swim across the sea to Russia and go home.
For several days, he stayed north of town, close to the river that ran east to west before it emptied into the lake, and thought only bear thoughts. When he found himself turning south again, he didn’t think about why. He was still close enough to the city that the lakeshore was lined with houses, and he hit all of his favorite spots, the houses that didn’t secure their garbage cans and the one that had a heated outdoor pool. He had an embarrassing encounter with a territorial and fearless German Shepherd that ended with him retreating into the lake, and he made a mental note to avoid that house in the future. Bear business as usual.
He exited the trees into a wide, grassy yard in the middle of the night. This was a good house with good trash and a hot tub, and then the human part of his brain rebelled and forcefully reminded him that this wasJT’shouse, where he had shifted into his human form and eaten fresh strawberries.
He stopped dead and sniffed the air, nose twitching. The lights were off in the house. JT was asleep, surely. The moon was high and nearing full, and the night was quiet aside from the distant hoot of an owl. Something on the deck smelled delicious.
Misha approached cautiously, not sure what he would find. Beside the sliding doors at the back of the house, a large cardboard box sat on a bench. Next to it was the source of the smell: a Tupperware container with something smeared on the lid in a thin ribbon. Misha sniffed it and took a tentative lick. Peanut butter?
He sat back on his haunches. JT had set a lure for him, or maybe a trap. He could probably use his claws and teeth to open the container, but it would be much easier with hands. Curious, he leaned forward to peer inside the box. Fabric? There was a note taped to the side of the box, but his English reading comprehension was shoddy at best, and reading even Russian in bear form was a challenge. He couldn’t be bothered.
He licked the peanut butter from the lid of the Tupperware and weighed his options. He could ignore this bait altogether and continue on his way. He was hungry, though—he was always hungry—and whatever JT had left for him was probably good to eat. He did a quick lap of the house to make sure JT really was inside sleeping and not lying in wait for him somewhere, and then he went back to the bench and shifted forms to open the Tupperware.
The container had two compartments. One held sliced cheese and crackers, and the other, large green grapes: food that could be left out for a day or two. Misha crouched on the deck, the night air cool against his bare skin, and ate every morsel. The cheese was soft and greasy, and the grapes lacked the crisp texture of refrigeration, but everything was delicious. Aside from the breakfast JT had made for him the other morning, Misha hadn’t eaten anything but vegetation, fish, garbage, and carrion since he emerged from his winter den. He had missed these flavors and the whole experience of eating something in human form, the chewing and swallowing, even the way his tongue and teeth felt afterward. After the first sharp edge of hunger faded, he slowed down to savor every bite.
When he was finished eating, he snapped the lid back onto the container and returned it to its spot on the bench. Then he looked through the cardboard box. His night vision wasn’t as good as a human as it was as a bear, but the moonlight helped, and his fingers found zippers and buttons. After a few long moments, his addled brain managed to put the pieces together. JT had set out clothes for him.