Free Where the Sea Used to Be by Rick Bass

on her cigarette. She seemed to be falling away, dreamy-eyed. “Does anyone still work on it?” he asked.
    â€œNot so much, anymore,” Artie said. “Sometimes a little. But not like before.”
    â€œIt’s real pretty,” Mel said. “You’ll have to see it in the summertime.”
    â€œBut it doesn’t serve any purpose?” Wallis asked.
    â€œNo,” said Mel.
    Wallis and Mel said their good-nights and went to the door. Danny called out, “Wait a minute!” as they were leaving—they didn’t hear him—and produced from behind the counter a bulky camera, and snapped off a quick crooked photo of the two of them going out together, with snowflakes swirling in through the door.
    They crossed the street and hauled firewood in silence, glad to be out in the cold fresh air, carrying one armload after another from the shed to the back porch, wearing down a packed trail through the knee-deep snow. Helen’s firewood was fresh-split larch, dry but heavy, and Wallis enjoyed the smell of it. He scented, too, the deer blood still on him as his body warmed.
    Tired and tipsy—four drinks for Wallis, but only one for Mel—they skied home, following the snow-covered wall. At one point where the road crossed a small creek Mel said, “Come here,” and skied a short distance into the woods, following the creek.
    Stars glimmered broken in the riffles. Mel was crouched next to a mound of snow. She laid her head against the ground. “Listen,” she said.
    At first Wallis heard nothing—his face right next to Mel’s, his eyes watching hers. She watched him back, but she was listening to the ground below.
    â€œWhat?” he said, but she only held a finger to her lips, and kept listening, watching Wallis as if willing him to hear it, and then he did. He had to reach deeper to hear it, and when he did, it was like a background sound he had already been hearing but hadn’t paid attention to. It was a kind of humming.
    â€œThis is where he sleeps every year,” Mel said, and for a moment Wallis thought she was talking about Matthew again. “An old black bear,” she said. “He must weigh five hundred pounds by now. This is his creek,” she said. “He dens here below the cliff every November and lets the snow cover him.” She pointed to a small hole in the snow-mound. “He’s breathing only about once a minute. His blood is right at thirty-two degrees. But his breath is still warm. It melts the snow for these blowholes.” Mel smiled. “Do you think he hears us?” she asked. “Do you think he hears us, and is dreaming about us?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Wallis.
    â€œI think he does,” said Mel.
    They lay there over the sleeping ice-hump as if trying to give him extra warmth, and listened. They could hear the creek gurgling.
    â€œWhen will he come out?” Wallis asked.
    â€œMid-April,” Mel said. “When he hears the leaf-buds opening. When the creek sounds different, and when the sun starts to strike the ice cave again—when it starts to glow inside. He’ll get up and stir a few times in the winter—will stick his head out, may even walk around in a circle, as if confused, just checking things out—but then he’ll go back into hibernation.”
    â€œHave you ever seen them do that, in winter?” Wallis asked. “Come out of their den?” He tried to imagine it: the big black bear wandering across the snow, moving like a sleepwalker, just going in circles, and almost everything else in the woods silent.
    â€œNo,” said Mel. “Sometimes I’ll come across their tracks, and I’ll know that I’ve missed them by a day, or even hours—but I’ve never actually seen it. It may be one of those things you don’t see,” she said. “It may be one of those things you’re not supposed to