Page 53 of Roaring Spell

“Why do you have four copies of the same book on territorial disputes?”

“Different editions. Different commentaries.”

“You need four different opinions on where bears can legally fish?”

“Fishing rights are contentious. The nuances matter.”

“The nuances of salmon?”

“You’d be surprised.”

A knock at the door interrupts her critique.

“You filed poetry collections under ‘Emergency Resources.’” She doesn’t look up from the shelf. “That’s not a category.”

“Poetry emergencies are real.”

“Tell me about your childhood.” She cradles a mug of tea I don’t remember making. “The sleuth. What was it like, growing up with bears?”

“Loud. Competitive. A lot of wrestling.” I shift against my pillows. “My mother died when I was young—complications from a shifting injury. My father raised me, but the whole sleuth helped. Bears raise cubs communally.”

“That sounds overwhelming.”

“Sometimes. But also safe. I was never lonely.”

“But?”

She sees too much.

“But I was often solitary.” I stare at the fire. “Even surrounded by family, I felt apart. I was always the calm one. The one who settled disputes. I did it so well that people stopped asking if I had disputes of my own.”

“You became what they needed.”

“Exactly.” Something in her voice hits somewhere I wasn’t expecting. “I learned early that showing emotion made people uncomfortable. They wanted me to be the rock. So I became the rock.”

“And buried everything else.”

“In notebooks. Where no one would find it.” I meet her gaze. “My father discovered my first journal when I was sixteen.”

“What did he say?”

“He said writing was a valid outlet but I should hide the journals better.” A faint smile. “Then he never mentioned it again. Bears aren’t comfortable with emotional conversations.”

“But he understood.”

“He understood I needed an outlet. He just couldn’t be that outlet himself.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “My family never wanted me to feel anything. Emotions created weather. Weather created problems. The solution was to feel less.”

“That’s impossible.”

“They didn’t care about possible. They cared about convenient.” She sips her tea. “I spent years trying to shrink myself. Trying to take up less space.”

“Did it work?”

“The storms always came anyway. Then they blamed me for not trying hard enough.” She sets down her mug. “When I left, my mother said she was relieved. She didn’t mean it cruelly—she was just honest. My presence was exhausting. My absence was easier.”

The anger rises before I can stop it. “That’s not relief. That’s failure.”