The Third Bear Read Free Page A

Others thought this folly - what if the Third Bear found them first?
    Finally, Horley raised his hands to silence them.
    "Enough! If you want me to go to the witch in the woods, I will go to her."
    The relief on their faces, as he looked out at them - the relief that he would take the risk - it was like a balm that cleansed their worries, if only for the moment. Some fools were even smiling.

    Later, Horley lay in bed with his wife. He held her tight, taking comfort in the warmth of her body.
    "Rebecca? I'm scared." "I know. I know you are. Do you think I'm not scared too? But neither of us can show it or they will panic, and once they panic, Grommin is lost."

    "What can I do?"
    "Go see the witch woman, my love. If you go to her, it will make them calmer. And you can tell them whatever you like about what she says."
    "If the Third Bear doesn't kill me before I can find her."
    If she isn't already dead.

    In the deep woods, in a silence so profound that the ringing in his ears had become the roar of a river, Horley looked for the witch woman. He knew that she had been exiled to the southern part of the forest, and so he had started there and worked his way toward the center. What he was looking for, he did not know. A cottage? A tent? What he would do when he found her, Horley didn't know either. His spear, his incomplete armor - these things would not protect him if she truly was a witch.
    He tried to keep the vision of the terrible winter in his head as he walked, because concentrating on that more distant fear removed the current fear.
    "If not for me, the Third Bear might not be here," Horley had said to Rebecca before he left. It was Horley who had stopped them from burning the witch, had insisted only on exile.
    "That's nonsense," Rebecca had replied. "Remember that she's just an old woman, living in the woods. Remember that she can do you no real harm."
    It had been as if she'd read his thoughts. But now, breathing in the thick air of the forest, Horley felt less sure about the witch woman. It was true there had been sickness in the village until they had cast her out.
    Horley tried to focus on the spring of loam beneath his boots, the clean, dark smell of bark and earth and air. After a time, he crossed a dirt-choked stream. As if this served as a dividing line, the forest became yet darker. The sounds of wrens and finches died away. Above, he could see the distant dark shapes of hawks in the treetops, and patches of light shining down that almost looked more like bog or marsh water, so disoriented had he become.
    It was in this deep forest that he found a door.
    Horley had stopped to catch his breath after cresting a slight incline. Hands on his thighs, he looked up and there it stood: a door. In the middle of the forest. It was made of old oak and overgrown with moss and mushrooms, and yet it seemed to flicker like glass. A kind of light or brightness hurtled through the ground, through the dead leaves and worms and beetles, around the door. It was a subtle thing, and Horley half-thought he was imagining it at first.

    He straightened up, grip tightening on his spear.
    The door stood by itself. Nothing human-made surrounded it, not even the slightest ruin of a wall.
    Horley walked closer. The knob was made of brass or some other yellowing metal. He walked around the door. It stood firmly wedged into the ground. The back of the door was the same as the front.
    Horley knew that if this was the entrance to the old woman's home, then she was indeed a witch. His hand remained steady, but his heart quickened and he thought furiously of winter, of icicles and bitter cold and snow falling slowly forever.
    For several minutes, he circled the door, deciding what to do. For a minute more, he stood in front of the door, pondering.
    A door always needs opening, he thought, finally.
    He grasped the knob, and pushed - and the door opened.

    Some events have their own sense of time, and a separate logic. Horley knew this just from