The Princess and the Snowbird Read Online Free PDF Page A

sounds.
    Some of his stories seemed too young for her, but she listened anyway. Some were meant to teach her lessons. When she bragged about how fast she could run, he told the story of the fish who learned to dance skimming on top of the water and boasted to the others of his kind until he was scooped into a net and carried away to feed a young farmer and his wife.
    “I don’t dance,” said Liva.
    “Of course not,” said her father.
    And he told her the next day the story of a little girl who would not go to bed at night when her mother called for her, and so became lost in the woods and was sadly devoured by a monster of the darkness.
    “I am not a little girl, Father,” Liva growled at him. “And I know that there are no monsters.”
    “Just because you have not met any does not mean they do not exist,” he replied with a wry bear smile. “Who knows what you might discover when you leave this forest and make a life for yourself away from your mother and me.”
    It was difficult for Liva to think about leaving her parents and the forest. She did not want to leave, and yet she did not want to be a child in their eyes forever.
    “I think I have aur-magic enough to go wherever I please,” said Liva with a touch of bravado.
    Her mother made a low sound of disapproval, and her father’s expression turned grim. He father looked at Liva sternly, and shook a paw at her. “You underestimate the power of humans. You are only one, and they are many, with or without the aur-magic.”
    Liva thought of the hunting party of humans she had met before. She had not told her parents about them because she thought they would overreact and perhaps forbid her to return to that part of the forest. “But they have no claws, no fur. They cannot run on four legs. They do not even know how to smell their way through the world.”
    “Even so,” said her father. “They are more fierce than a bear and more bloodthirsty than a mountain cat. Keep away from them if you can, Liva. Promise me that.”
    “I will, Father,” said Liva. And she meant it at the time. She was not even interested in humans, except perhaps for that one. And what chance was there that she would ever meet him again?
    Then her father was tired and had to rest. After his nap, his stomach rumbled, but he made no move to find food for himself. So Liva dug with her claws to bring him his roots from the river, which was south of the cave, thatevening, and the next and the next. She used her teeth to make sure that the beetles were cleaned out from his fur each morning, before they began to bore into his skin. In the following months, as she grew to near full bear height, he began to depend upon her more and more for help, and Liva began to depend upon her own knowledge of the world. Her father might once have known more of magic than she would ever learn, but that was all done now, and he belonged at home in their safe cave in the forest.
    Then came the morning in deep winter when Liva woke in bear form to find the hound at the entrance to the cave, staring into the morning light. The bear was nowhere to be seen.
    “Is he gone to the river?” asked Liva, surprised because it had been weeks since he had gone that far from the cave. He must have been feeling very well indeed.
    “No,” said her mother.
    “Then where?”
    Her mother did not answer.
    Liva felt a sick twist in her stomach, and her throat was so dry that her words cracked. “He will be back soon,” she said, her voice as plaintive as it had been when she was very young. “Won’t he?”
    Her mother turned around, and Liva could see the truth in her red-rimmed hound’s eyes.
    No, it could not be. Liva began to rock back and forth, keening.
    Her mother leaned over and whispered, “It is well.”
    But it was not well!
    “He is old,” said Liva. “It is dangerous. There are humans.” Was that not what her father had told her? To stay away from humans and be safe?
    But the hound said only, “Whatever