PodCastle

* Author : Matt Dovey
* Narrator : Eliza Chan
* Host : Summer Fletcher
* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh
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Originally published in Sword and Sonnet.


Rated PG.
The Bone Poet and God
by Matt Dovey
Ursula lifted her snout to look at the mountain. The meadowed foothills she stood in were dotted with poppy and primrose and cranesbill and cowslip, an explosion of color and scent in the late spring sun, the long grass tickling her paws and her hind legs; above that the forested slopes, birch and rowan and willow and alder rising into needle-pines and gray firs; above that the snowline, ice and rock and brutal winds.
And above that, at the top, God; and with God, the answer Ursula had traveled so far for: what kind of bear am I meant to be?
She shouldered her bonesack and walked on.

There was a shuffling sound among the bracken, small but definite. Ursula hesitated, a dry branch held in her paws, her campfire half-built. Ambush wasn’t unheard of — so many bears sought God on the mountain that bonethieves couldn’t resist the chances to steal — but it had not been so large a sound, and she couldn’t smell another bear beneath the pine scent. It was something smaller, lurking in the dim light of the forest floor, behind the massive rough-barked firs that filled the slope.
“Hello?” she ventured, still holding motionless. “It’s quite all right. I’m building a fire, if you’d like to join me.”
A badger stepped out from the ferns, his snout twitching and cautious, a stout stick held warily in his paws. He eyed Ursula for a moment, weighing up the situation, and she gestured ever so gently to the fire she was building, trying to come across as safe, as friendly. As likeable.
He straightened and walked forward. He kept the stick before him, but Ursula understood. Bears could be dangerous.
Two more badgers followed him, one much smaller — “Oh, you’re a family!” said Ursula. “I’ll make a seat for you!”
She stood, turned, dashed back, dropping to four paws in her enthusiasm. She ran to where she’d seen a fallen log not twenty yards away by the river and hauled it back, her claws dug into its softened bark, dragging it and dropping it by the fire pit with a thud. She grinned at the family, proud of her resourcefulness —
The badgers cowered, the two behind the father with the stick, who tried to meet her eyes but couldn’t help glancing away for places to burrow and hide.
Ursula lowered herself slowly to sit. She made a point of picking up smaller twigs to lay on the fire, the least threatening pieces she could find. “Sorry,” she said quietly. “I forget how I can come across. Please. Sit down.” She concentrated on building the fire, determinedly not looking at the badgers, not wanting to startle them, trying not to let their fear hurt her nor to berate herself for getting carried away and upsetting others. For letting her shyness get to her: for overcompensating for it.
If only she knew who she was, instead of pretending so poorly.
“Thank you,” said Father Badger from the log, and Ursula smiled at him, keeping her teeth covered. “Forgive us our caution. We . . . have never met a bear before.”
“I’m Ursula,” she said.
“My name is Patrick,” said Father Badger, “and this is my husband, Willem, and our new daughter Ann.”
“And how old are you, Ann?” Another careful smile,