Perhaps that was what happened to Brrr’s parents. Maybe they entered the world of humans. But he didn’t want to talk about it to Cubbins: all this curiosity was a new thing. Likely born of hearing how lovingly his friend Jemmsy had remembered his own father as he lay dying. For the first time Brrr tried the gambit of changing the subject. “How did you come to be sheriff?”

“I’m just the youngest. The youngest is always everything important, except the Queen, of course. I’m the sheriff, and the bursar, and the accounts receivable department, and the chaplain and the social affairs committee and the historian. As soon as someone accidentally has another cub, I will yield my place to him or her. The youngest is in charge around here. We forget as we grow. Or did I already say that? It worries me when I repeat myself accidentally.”

“You’re fine,” said Brrr.

“You haven’t said why you’re leaving the wild for a human settlement.”

Brrr didn’t want to speak yet about Jemmsy. It was his secret. His mistake, maybe, or maybe the key to his own rare and beautiful future. In any case, he wasn’t sure if he wanted Cubbins coming along. Cubbins was a lot more adorable than Brrr. Cubbins might move into the cottage of Jemmsy’s father while Brrr was kept on a leash in the yard.

“I have some books to return to a library. For a friend,” he said, becking his head at the leather-bound stack of them.

“Books!” said Cubbins. “What are you doing with books in the Great Gillikin Forest, for crying out loud?”

“Returning them. As I said.”

“But where’d you get them?” Cubbins was riven with book-lust. “Let me see, may I? Three Treatises on the Liberty of Speaking Beasts. What’s that one with the faded gilt-Ozma Incognita. Oh, my. A trove. And chosen to appeal to the likes of us.”

“Well, don’t get your grubby paws all over them. They’re not mine to loan.”

“What’s this silvery emblem?”

“A medal,” said Brrr. In a softer voice, with a tone of hesitation, as if nearly too modest to continue: “A commendation for bravery, as it happens.”

“I’d never have guessed it,” said Cubbins, piercingly earnest, though his eyes were still on the books.

“If you don’t mind, I have a schedule to keep,” said the Lion. “It’s a busy life, mine. As I’m learning. Now, can you set me on any sort of a path that would be useful, do you think?”

“The Tenniken that we Bears have never visited and don’t believe in lies south by southwest,” Cubbins said without sarcasm. “The only way I can tell you for sure brings you uncomfortably close to Cloud Swamp. Though maybe you wouldn’t mind that the way we Bears do.”

“I never heard of the place.”

“Cloud Swamp? Oh, it’s a soupy section of the woods. A wetlands, I suppose you’d call it. Not all that far from here, most of the time, though it has a weird tendency to be migratory. Imagine not knowing about Cloud Swamp.”