“I forgot to tell you that you need to offer a tribute if you want to speak with the ghosts,” said Cubbins.

Another little secret about conversation. How did folks learn to get on in this tricky verbal negotiation called chat? How much had it cost him to grow up without the banter of family life?

Still, Brrr was glad to see the boy sheriff. (Out on his own again, the little dickens!) Almost as glad as if Jemmsy himself had coalesced out of a matrix of midges, free of an iron snare, smiling a soft-cheeked hello at his final friend, allowing Brrr to grin back at his first. But Cubbins was decent company, and Brrr felt both enriched and a little traitorous to the memory of Jemmsy to like Cubbins, too, and so quickly.

He said, hiding his gratitude, “How do you know you need to offer the ghosts a gift if no one in your tribe believes in ghosts?”

“I asked Ursaless. She claims never to have seen the Ozmists, but she insists this is the way it’s done by long-standing custom.”

The Lion raised an eyebrow. “Don’t ask,” said Cubbins, sighing. “I don’t expect to follow her line of reasoning. I just listen and obey.”

“But you’re not allowed to go running off alone,” said Brrr. “Isn’t one disobedience a day enough?”

“You are brave enough to strike out on your own,” replied the cub. “And ten minutes after you left, no one could remember you had been there. So I realized you were right. What is there for me in the court of Ursaless?”

“They’re your family!”

“They’re not the whole world. I can always come back if I want.”

Brrr spoke cautiously. “What if you can’t find them? What if they have moved on?”

Cubbins laughed. “Move? That’s the whole point of the Northern Bears. They never move on. So I’m taking a cue from you…”

He put the comb of honey on a rock in the clearing. The midges swarmed nearer it. In the act of crowding together their apparition took on a more coherent aspect. Not a human face, perhaps not even a face at all, but something with an enriched identity.

“Are ghosts bugs?” whispered Brrr.

“Who knows? Next time you squash a roach, you might be doing in old Auntie Groyleen again. Or maybe bugs are the largest part of life without individual character, so they’re useful vessels for ghosts. I have a theory-”

All at once, words were spoken in the clearing. It was like the echo of a sound divorced from its original imprint. The Ozmists spoke in one voice.

Barter, said the chorus ominously.

“‘Barter’?” whispered Brrr. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Another word for chat, I think,” Cubbins replied. “I’m guessing they will tell you what you want if you tell them what they want.”

“Is this more advice from Ursaless?”

“Common sense. Which as you know doesn’t come from Ursaless. Shhh, let’s find out what they want.”