Bear Vet by Zoe Chant

Chapter Nine

“Keep it casual,”Judy coached. “Act like it’s no big deal. You’ve been stroking his neck and playing with his mane for ages. Make him think this is just more of the same.”

Raelynn’s heart was thumping so hard it made her chest into a drum as she untied the scarf around her neck. She sang “Coat of Many Colors” softly as she stroked Black Flame, letting him sniff at the scarf.

“Wrap it around your hand and stroke him with it,” Dad suggested.

Raelynn made sure not to miss a beat of the song as she did that. Black Flame stamped, then settled down. It seemed as if he liked the feeling of silk against his skin.

She could barely contain her excitement. All the hard work she and Dad and Judy had done with Black Flame, taming him and getting him used to people other than her, might be about to pay off in a truly spectacular manner. If she could get the scarf around his neck and show him it wasn’t anything scary or bad, then (in theory) she could replace it with a halter without him even noticing. And then (in theory) she could lead him around. And then, boom! He’d be halter-trained.

Once he was halter-trained, she could lead him into a stable so he could stop running around wild, risking people seeing him on fire. And after halter came bridle and saddle—eventually. She wasn’t sure when hellhorses’ bones matured, but if he was a regular horse, she couldn’t ride him yet without stressing his growing bones. But in a year or so, he’d be old enough. She could almost feel the saddle under her seat, his mane and her hair streaming out behind them as they rode like the wind…

A tug on her hair yanked her back to reality. Black Flame had the bad habit of munching on… pretty much everything, actually. At least she’d caught him before he actually bit any of it off. “No. No biting.”

She threw the arm that held the scarf around his neck and hugged him.

“Careful, Rae,” Dad warned.

“I’m being careful,” she muttered. Raelynn caught the loose end of the scarf with her other hand and, trying to act like it was no big deal, drew it upward around his neck.

Black Flame snorted and whickered, tossing his head. The movement drew the scarf taut around his throat. He bolted forward, yanking the scarf out of her hands, and galloped away, vanishing into the woods. Again.

“Crap!” Rae yelled.

“Language,” Dad warned.

Raelynn rolled her eyes. She was thirteen, not six. “Crab! Crag! Cramp!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Dad said, but he couldn’t hide his smile.

“Black Flame really is coming along,” said Judy. “It takes patience, that’s all. You notice there weren’t any sparks this time.”

“Yeah, that was good,” Raelynn said, cheering up. “He’s getting great at not setting stuff on fire.”

“And he’s coming to the ranch here instead of to our backyard,” Dad added encouragingly.

“He is! He’ll do even better with your herd here, right Judy?”

The cheer went right out of the air. Dad and Judy glanced at each other, communed telepathically or something, and then Judy said, “If I can get the herd here.”

“Of course you can! The Horse Hope Rescue Instagram is on the verge of going viral.”

Another glance. This one was a very annoying How cute, the kid thinks she can do an adult job but we know better type of look.

“I’m serious,” Raelynn protested.

“I know,” said Judy. “And Everly’s been a huge help too. But… Well, we’ll see.” On a scale of hopefulness, that “We’ll see” rated about a three. On a scale of ten.

They left Black Flame the usual armful of hay, then Dad drove Judy back to Welcome Inn.

The instant the truck was out of earshot, Dad said, “I want to talk to you.”

Alarmed and confused, she said, “But Black Flame’s doing better! You said so yourself! We just have to be patient, like Judy said.”

“Rae, this isn’t about Black Flame.”

“It isn’t?” She relaxed. “I can pull up my history grade on the final, I swear.”

“What’s wrong with your history grade? Are you dreaming about Black Flame instead of studying?”

Realizing that she had fallen into a trap of her own making, she hastily said, “No, it’s just boring. Potatoes and taxes and men with beards. And nothing’s wrong with my grade. Much. Like I said, I’ll pull it up on the final. What did you want to talk about?”

The look Dad gave her was serious enough to make her uneasy. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Judy and I like each other. A lot.”

“Yeah, of course I’ve noticed,” she began, then realized what he mean. “Ohhh. You mean a lot, a lot. Are you worried I’ll get all weird and angry like teenagers on TV get when their parents date, and start screaming that she’s trying to replace mom? I promise I won’t. You and mom haven’t been together since I was three. I’m glad you and Judy are a lot. I like her. Normally I’d say I like her a lot, except you made a lot mean something else, so… I think she’s great and I like having her around.” A thought occurred to Raelynn. “Is she moving in with us? Is that what this is about?”

“No. Well—maybe in the future. Probably in the future. How would you feel about that?”

“She’d share your bathroom, not mine, right?”

“Right.”

In fact, Raelynn had been hoping Judy would stick around. She hadn’t been specifically hoping she’d stick as close as inside their home or as her step-mom, but when she considered those possibilities, they didn’t seem horrible. The time they’d spent together taming Black Flame and eating in the backyard and playing with Bruiser and talking about her horses had been nice. Better than nice. Judy felt like family. Raelynn would rather have her a little too close than a lot too far away. Still, she felt that as a teenager, she had to put up some token protest.

“I won’t call her Mom,” she warned her father. “Just Judy.”

“Your mom is always going to be your mom,” Dad said gently. “And I’m sure Judy is fine with being Judy.”

Trying to sound magnanimous, Raelynn said, “In that case, I think I could adjust.”

“Good.” Dad patted her shoulder. “And if you’re weird and angry sometimes, that’s okay.”

She gave a snort like a horse. She’d learned it from Black Flame.

“Well—I’m glad we had this talk,” Dad said. “But it’s going way ahead of what I meant to talk about. Judy doesn’t know I’m a shifter. She doesn’t even know shifters exist. And I want to tell her.”

“Well, of course,” Raelynn began. Then her mind leaped ahead of her words. In a sudden, hideous flash, she understood the purpose of the entire conversation. “No! If you tell her you’re a bear shifter, then she’s going to ask you whether you got bitten by a werebear, and you’ll tell her no, it’s genetic and you were born like that, and then she’ll say, ‘Oh, so Rae’s a bear too,’ and then you’ll say, ‘Well technically yes, but she’s a failbear. Can’t control her shift. Such a horrible, humiliating, awful—”

Dad had been trying to break in from “failbear,” but at that point he spoke loudly enough to drown her out. “Rae! You are not a failure. You shouldn’t be embarrassed—”

Her voice rose to match his. “But I am! And I don’t want Judy to know! She thinks I’m this cool girl who tamed a hellhorse. I don’t want her to know I’m the loser bear who’s thirteen and can’t do what other bears could do when they were in kindergarten!”

“You’re going to learn to control your animal,” Dad said firmly. “You’re a little older than the average bear, but—”

“I’m WAY older than average, and I’ll NEVER learn!” Raelynn yelled. If she shouted loud enough, it might stop her from crying. “And you promised you’d never tell anyone about me shifting unless I said it was okay.”

“You will learn,” Dad said. “And a promise is a promise. I won’t tell anyone you’re a shifter unless you say I can.”

“Great!” She sniffed hard. “So tell Judy you’re a shifter, and if she asks about me, tell her it skipped a generation and I’m not.”

“I can’t lie to her. How about if I tell her about myself, and if she asks about you, I’ll say that whether you’re a shifter or not is private.”

“Then she’ll know there’s something horribly wrong with me, or you could just say whether or not I’m a shifter. She’ll probably think I turn into a giant blob made of bear parts that don’t fit together right, or when I shift I go crazy and try to murder people and you have to chain me in the basement, or—”

“We don’t have a basement.”

Raelynn knew he was making a joke to try to lighten up the conversation, but it only made her more panicked and ashamed. She shouted over him, “Or she’ll think I turn into an animal that can’t think like a human, and she’ll be right!”

They’d reached home without her even noticing. Dad parked the truck and turned off the engine. Tears were running down her face. She hadn’t even noticed when she’d started crying.

He hugged her, murmuring, “Rae, Rae, everyone’s got something about them that isn’t perfect and they’re embarrassed about. Especially when they’re your age.”

“You didn’t,” she sniffled.

“I had terrible acne,” he said. “I have scars on my face from it. It’s why I grew a beard originally, to hide them.”

She hadn’t known that, and looked up curiously. “I don’t see them. Are they where the beard covers?”

He shook his head. “Look close. See, on my cheeks?”

“No.”

“Those little raised white flecks?”

“Oh… I never noticed.”

“That’s what this bear thing is going to be someday. It’ll be something in your past that’s over. Something you have to tell people about, or they’ll never know.”

She didn’t believe him, but she didn’t want to keep talking about it. “Well, I don’t want Judy to know now. If you tell her you’re a bear and she asks if I am too, just say look sad and change the subject, and she’ll assume I’m not one either.”

Dad gave her a look. “Lying by implication is still lying. I can tell her that’s not mine to say and if she’s curious she can ask you. Whatever happens then is up to you.”

“Ugh, I don’t want to lie to her either,” Raelynn blurted out before realizing the trap she’d fallen into. “Look, just don’t tell her you’re a bear, and then it’ll never occur to her that I might be one too, and then none of us have to lie.”

Dad rubbed his head like it ached. “I have to tell her about myself eventually. We were just talking about her moving in with us.”

Raelynn knew he was right. But the thought of Judy learning her dark secret made her panicky. “Well, don’t tell her yet, all right? I want her to keep on believing I’m cool for a little while longer.”

“Judy will still believe you’re cool. She’s not going to care at all about this. Think about it, Rae. She’s not a shifter. She doesn’t know about shifter prejudices. She’ll just be sad that it upsets you.”

“You promised,” Raelynn insisted. “You promised you’d never tell anyone I’m a shifter unless I said it was okay. And telling by implication is still telling. Promise me you won’t break your promise.”

Dad sighed, but said, “I promise.”