As Ernie approached, Matt reached into his side pocket for his knife. It wouldn’t do much, but gripping it made him feel better.

Ernie let loose another rattling growl, each note connected by a series of lower notes. The bear’s ears were pinned back. Never a good sign.

Adrenaline soaked Matt’s nerves, leading to irrational thoughts that could lead to a mistake. He took a deep breath and watched the bear, prepared to flee or fight. But Ernie wasn’t looking at him. Oh no, Ernie wasn’t paying attention to him at all.

Ernie was staring into the fire.

Right at the ballooning face.

Angry Ernie stalked up the hill, all six hundred plus pounds of his massive body. The ground quaked under Matt’s feet each time the bear stepped forward. Soon the details on Ernie’s face were revealed by the flames, a muscular warrior in the night riddled with battle scars.

Matt backed away from Ernie and down the orchard slope, knowing bears couldn’t run as well downhill. When he reached the bottom the scene above him turned unexplainable. There before him loomed Ernie— the bear of legends—apprehensive and growling at fire’s edge.

The night sky thrived behind Ernie, framing him in the shimmering of all that is.

A bone deep sense of earth and place tugged on his soul.

Why does Ernie see the face in the fire if you’re only imagining it, Matthew? A little voice asked in his head. Is the bear imagining it too?

Matt stepped back.

Ernie’s growl raged into a spittle-dispensing roar. The bear clamped his jaws shut and glowered at the fire.

Sparks popped from the flames, in the direction of Ernie.

Ernie let loose a high-pitched yip as if wounded, then stood on hind legs, roaring and pouncing down onto the fire with colossal front paws. Huge chunks of fiery wood spun across the orchard like flaming helicopter blades. Matt ducked. A twenty-foot column of fuming embers plumed into the air, flickering amongst the pinprick lights of the Milky Way before fading to dull ash.

Ernie stood there, sniffing the air through the smoke entrails, paws in the charcoal as embers rained down on him.

The bear backed off the fire, several embers glowing in his rich fur. Ernie didn’t seem fazed, instead grunting and studying the orchard. Confident in the result, the bear ambled down the hill, back towards the bog.

As Ernie sauntered downhill, Matt climbed back up. Embers sizzled in the bear’s fur and the rank scent of burning hair filled Matt’s nose. He followed Ernie with his headlamp as the bear entered the wall of choke-cherry and alder and disappeared.

Matt slowly turned to the fire pit, his mouth agape. The face was gone.