Mother Bear: Excerpt from For An Uncertain Future

Heln stood a watch. She did not have to do it: she was still a child until wedded, and she had taken her turn pulling, but she wanted to. Being grown must mean something more than a space in the long hall, more than being tied to a man.
So she had slept the early watch, the easy watch that happened while light still graced the sky, and was awakened in the dark. Lesti touched her shoulder. “Are you ready?”
She climbed out of the pile of warm bodies that was her sleeping family. She thought she saw her mother crack an eye to watch her go. “I am ready,” she whispered.
Lesti walked to his own space – sixteen was too old for a boy to sleep with his parents but he was yet unwed. It would be a cold night alone.
Heln moved to the edge of camp, the south end. From there she could stare out across the dark ice, watching more with her ears than her eyes. The sky was mostly clear, only a few clouds blocking the view of the stars. They had names, she knew, and the elders grouped them into shapes. Wilma the Hunter, Harsawngetorix the Trickster, more. She saw only the points of light themselves, though.
Ice creaked and groaned and the trees whispered. Messages of love, perhaps, soft sighs of longing. Do trees contemplate the future?
Another sound: footsteps. Not stealthy, and from behind her. Heln turned to watch, barely able to pick out a figure in the dark. A person.
The figure came close enough to touch. “Your sister is off again in the blue dreams,” Mother said.
“You, too?”
“Yes, I know. She was born with them. Children credit their parents with such small wisdom.”
“Not true,” Heln said. Then, “Yes, I suppose it is true, after all. Again, I am sorry.”
“Just life,” Mother said. “I was the same, ever the same. Come, sit. Let us watch the night together.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because I am through with sleep for the night. Because I do not want to be groped by your father in the small hours. Because...”
“No, not why watch. The company is welcome. We spend too little time side by side. I mean, why do the young reject the wisdom of their parents? Why are we all such fools?”
Mother laughed, a soft sound. “I am not so old,” she said. “I remember. But truly, the task set before the young does not allow much room for respect, or for caution. Your job is to get what you can and mine is to hold on to what I have.” Mother put an arm around Heln and they sat that way for a time, under the stars.
Later, Heln said, “To find a lover, to make a way in the world. These things require chances that seem foolish to parents.”
“Yes, you have it now.”
“And you want to keep me. Keep me young, keep me nearby.”
Mother sighed. “There is truth in these words. But also I feel another need. To be rid of you, to chase you off. With harsh words, with spite.”
Heln sat up a little straighter. “Truly?”
“Yes. I know I hurt you. And I cannot seem to stop it. We are just wolves in the end, or foxes, or bears. When the young are big enough to fend for themselves, ever it falls to the mother to chase them out of the den, out into the wider world.”
“Is that love, then? To be unkind when cruelty is due, to let the cub become the wolf it must be?”
Mother pushed closer, held tighter. “Call it fate, if you like. Our hands are never so free as we would wish them to be. The animal inside takes over. Does a bear love its cubs? She would die for them, sure. I do not know.”
“Mithodroxes. What does it all mean? Can we save her?”
“From what? Fate? Some things are the designs of gods. Fate is an animal just like a mother. One day, it chases you out of the nest. Does it love you or hate you? Who can say? But some days, it chases the young into a snare, an ambush, a failure. And then while you struggle, fate stands aside to watch, indifferent.”
“You sound like Father now,” Heln said.
“I know, my child. I know. That is no small thing and no accident. He always was wise, even when he was a young man.”


Read this short story in its entirety in For An Uncertain Future.  https://www.amazon.com/Uncertain-Future-stories-universe-Children-ebook/dp/B0775HY69D/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8