The Gist Hunter (39 page)

Mike's skin moved of its own accord; his neck hairs prickled his collar. He was so completely filled by fear, it felt as if thunderless sheet lightning played across the muscles of his back and down into his thighs.

Then the lightning died and all he could sense was the unavoidable
reality
of the bear: the sight of its rough head silhouetted against the house lights; the oily-musty smell of its fur; the snuffle of its breathing; the wet warmth of its breath on his face.

It's so real
, he thought.
So completely real. But it feels just like a dream
.

It was silly. He knew it was silly, but he also knew he had to speak to the bear. He whispered, "Do you want to . . . tell me something?"

The bear cocked its head sideways, and eased back a little, as if it were deciding how to answer this unusual question.

But Mike already had the answer. As if a tap had been opened, all of the fear suddenly drained out of him, and he was filled instead with a peculiar sensation of lightness—as if he might now just float away, up through the forest canopy, off between the stars, to someplace where he was somebody else altogether, somebody who was so much
more
.

It could have been only seconds, or it could have been forever, that he and the bear faced each other across the boulder. Then the back door opened and his mother's voice called, "Mike! They found him! He's all right!"

And then, like magic, the bear was
gone
. He heard it scuttling through the trees. Mike laughed, because the feeling of lightness did not disappear with the bear. The feeling stayed with him, even after his father came home, enfolded Mike and Mom in one giant hug, then ate a big stack of buttermilk pancakes, and slept for sixteen hours straight.

The bear never came back, not to the woods, not to Mike's dreams. And that summer, he and Jonah learned to fly a glider.