The Little Girl Who Lives Here

A woman stood naked at the top of the stairs screaming. The woman screamed at the stairwell, screamed down the shadowed walls, screamed down the hallway. Her eyes spinning, the woman saw the little girl standing at the door to her bedroom.

“Get in your room. Hide under the bed. Don’t let them see you.”

The woman ran down the stairs still naked still screaming.

The little girl stood at the top of the stairs until she heard the backdoor slam then crept into her room, grabbed her soft fleece blanket and her stuffed pony and hid under the bed. She could hear her mother screaming still though the sound diminished as she ran away. Then it was quiet, and the little girl rested her head on her stuffed pony and soon she was fast asleep.

There were no monsters under her bed, only an old towel which she had put down when she started sleeping there. When her mother became so crazy and got all those black spots. She slept wrapped in her soft blanket for hours and hours. She slept deeply in her warm soft cave where she was safe from all the things that made her mother scream.

When she opened her eyes at last, she saw warm sunlight inviting her to sit in a circle it had made in the middle of her room. She crawled out from under the bed carrying her pony and her blanket. She sat in the warm sunlight and let it caress her face and smooth her brow and run its rays down her cheeks.

At the top of the stairs, she saw her mother’s heart-shaped pendant curled on the floor. She slipped it over head. Everything was going to be alright – she remembered her mother wearing the pendant before, when she was her real self. The house was silent. It seemed to hold its breath, worried that it might frighten her, but wanting her to have her cereal.

She pulled a chair over to the counter and climbed up on it so she could reach the top shelf where she found a box of her favorite cereal, the kind with stars in it. The milk in the refrigerator was thick and smelled nasty, but she found a diet Pepsi and put that on her cereal instead. She propped the pony on the table opposite her and thought he should have breakfast, too. She poured some cereal into a bowl for him but knew that ponies didn’t mind eating their cereal dry and that he wouldn’t want Pepsi on his. They ate together in silence, but they were both happy eating in the quiet sunlit house that tried its best not to scare them.

She wanted to go outside to look for her mother, but she wasn’t allowed to go outside by herself. But if she stayed on the porch that was the same as being in the house because it was attached and didn’t touch the ground.

She stretched out on the couch and looked at the twisted arms of the old oak tree that guarded the house. She wished she could climb up in it and rest up there where the branches made a cozy little nest just her size. It was so quiet. Usually, you could hear people in the distance or cars drive by, but now all she heard was the cooing of doves and the wind in the trees.

It was later on in the day. She knew because she was hungry again. There was still cereal that she could eat, but what she wanted was mac and cheese. She found a box of mac and cheese next to the cereal. She’d seen her mother make it before. You dumped everything into a pot and stirred it up. But first you added water.

She had climbed up onto the counter using the chair, but now she would have to climb down to get the pot that was in a cupboard down below and then she would have to climb back up onto the counter to fill the pot with water. She could do all those things. It wasn’t hard.

After a while, the water started to boil over, but she didn’t panic because she had seen that happen before. You just had to move the pot off the heat and stir it some more.

She was proud of herself because she remembered to turn the heat off so the house wouldn’t burn down. She found a clean bowl in the cupboard and poured the mac and cheese into the bowl. It didn’t look quite right, it was a little too orange, but that was okay. The mac was a little too chewy, but that was okay, too. She ate it anyway. She realized she hadn’t shared any with the pony but then remembered that ponies didn’t like mac and cheese. They preferred cereal.

She took the half-empty bowl out on to the porch where she sat with her blankets and pony. She realized she was thirsty and she’d used the last diet Pepsi on her cereal, but water was fine and she knew how to get water out of the sink. She took her water in its pink plastic sippy cup back out to the porch and drank and ate some more mac and cheese. She pulled the blankets up over herself and stretched out on the couch. It was summer and the air was warm and velvety soft against her skin, and the leaves of the oak tree hummed softly to her in the gentle breeze.

She hugged pony close to her chest and listened to the doves cooing in the branches of the oaks. Frogs were singing their complicated songs, singing of summer and warm water and plants growing. And the doves sang of full bellies and feathered nests and warm breezes. And the warm breeze gently brushed her forehead and her cheeks until she fell fast asleep.

She woke up with a funny feeling. She felt safe and warm. She felt everything was right in the world and that she was loved and protected. It was still night outside with some stars in the sky but no moon. But she was warm and comfortable right where she was, and she didn’t want to move back inside and sleep under her bed. She settled back under her blankets and cuddled next to the warm soft breathing thing that was wrapped around her and went back to sleep.

When she woke again the sky was just beginning to glow on the horizon The warm brown arm was still around her waist and she never wanted to move again. A larger darker shape sleeping on the deck stirred, shook itself and sat up.

“You’re the little girl who lives here,” the bear said.

“Yes, I am,” the little girl who lives here said.

“That was delicious mac and cheese you left in the bowl. Thank you.”

“I made it myself”, she said with true pride.

“You did a great job.”

She could feel her bear friend stirring behind her. And with a little sigh, the bear cub sat up next to her.

“Can we have more mac and cheese?” the bear cub asked.

“We’ll be back later,” the mother bear said. “We’ll have dinner together.”

The little girl thought she would draw a picture for them while she waited for them to return– all of them sitting together at the dining room table. She thought the mother bear would like to take it with her. She wondered where they lived and if she could visit them some time when it was okay to leave the house again. When her mother came back. She felt the tears start up moving in a straight line from her heart to her eyes, at but she pushed them back down. She didn’t want to feel sad.

When she finished her drawing, she put it in the middle of the table like a center piece. She thought she would set the table. She wasn’t quite sure she remembered how to do it, but then she wondered if the bears used forks and spoons. Their hands were so big and flat, maybe they couldn’t pick up a spoon. But she would put them out just in case.

She made the last two boxes of mac and cheese and let it cook a little longer than before so the mac wouldn’t be so chewy. It still looked too orange though and she remembered seeing someone pour milk in the pot before, but the milk was bad. She could add butter. There was half a stick of butter wrapped up in paper in the refrigerator, it had some breadcrumbs stuck to it, but she didn’t think the bears would mind. She stirred it all up and tasted it. It was delicious. She turned off the heat, and poured the mac into three bowls, giving the mother bear the most. Then she set the bowls around the table and waited for her friends to arrive.

She took her blankets and her pony out on to the porch and curled up on the couch where she would just take a little nap until they got here.

She felt something warm nuzzle her face. She reached up her hand and petted the bear cub’s fur. The bear nuzzled her again.

“It smells really good. Is that mac and cheese for us?”

“It is. Come in and we’ll have dinner.”

The cub bounded straight in and ate her bowl of mac and cheese right away. She picked the bowl up in her hands and licked it clean. The little girl who lives here thought she would try eating that way too, it was a very quick and easy way to eat except she got mac and cheese all over her face. The bear cub licked it off for her. It was kind of slobbery, but she didn’t mind. The mother bear came in and ate from her bowl without picking it up. The little girl handed her the drawing which had a little mac and cheese on it.

“I made this for you,” she said.

“Thank you,” the mother bear said and ate it right up. “You can live with us if you want,” she said.

“I’m not allowed to leave by myself.”

“You wouldn’t be by yourself. You would be with us,” the bear cub said.

“Oh,” the little girl thought about it.

“All the houses are empty.” The mother bear said. “It’s like what dogs get – like rabies. People have been getting rabies, they run away screaming or they die right at home. Everyone’s dead, except very young children like you. You seem fine.”

The little girl started to think about her mother getting rabies. But she stopped herself. She wouldn’t let herself cry. She fingered the pendant around her neck, instead.

“It will be so much fun,” the bear cub said. “You will be my sister. We can swim together in all the pools and we’ll keep you safe and you can cook for us. There’s so much food in all the houses.”

“And I’m glad you can talk to us,” the mother bear said, “most of your kind forgot how to do it. Only the very young ones like you. We’ll help you remember how to live with us as you get older. We’ll keep you from forgetting how to live in the world. You’ll be a different kind of person.”

And thus it was, that a little girl became bear’s best friend. She used her nimble hands to help them eat delicious food and to open doors and packages, and she became almost one of them, part of the family. She saw other little children like herself swimming with bears in the river and sometimes running with packs of dogs or coyotes. But she didn’t care. They weren’t her family; the bears were and she would be loyal and true to them forever.