Free Under a Bear Moon by Carrie S. Masek

afraid of dogs. “I didn't mean—” she began.
    “No problem.” Greg pointed to the book he'd been reading. “How about this one? ‘In some places bears are becoming so rare, mating patterns have been affected. When bear population density falls below required limits, even the male's ability to sense and track the female for miles by her distinctive scent is insufficient to insure he'll find a mate.’ It doesn't say what the required density is, though.” Greg flipped through the rest of the book, then closed it. “Interesting, isn't it? People fall in love at first sight; bears fall in love at first scent.”
    Lynda sipped the last of her orange juice and shrugged. “A lot of animals use scent to find a mate. It doesn't have anything to do with love.”
    Ignoring her, Greg dropped his voice and waved his hand through the air as if painting a picture. “Imagine a bear sitting alone in the forest. Suddenly, the most wonderful fragrance in the world blows by. He follows it over hills and through dense brush. He fords rivers, roams miles in his search. Sometimes he loses the scent and wanders lost until the fickle breeze blows it back to him. Only with luck and perseverance will he ever reach the end of his quest.”
    “A beautifully smelly female?”
    “Why not?” Greg asked, suddenly serious. “Why couldn't someone fall in love with a scent as well as a sight? It's at least as accurate an indicator of what a person's like.”
    He sounded so sincere, Lynda had to smile. “But we're not talking about people, Greg. We're talking about bears, European brown bears.” She paused. “It makes a great story, though. You should write it up for your creative writing class.”
    Greg shrugged. “Maybe. How about a snack? I'm starved.”
    Lynda handed him her glass and turned back to her book. “No, thanks. I want to read the next article. It's about a congregation of bears in 1955. Apparently, nearly seven hundred of them converged on a valley in Romania.”
    Greg leaned over scanned the page. “Sounds like a family reunion.”
    “Or maybe they were lonely.” Lynda nodded toward the hall. “Go on, I'll just be a minute.”
    Greg stood, and left the room. The article was shorter than Lynda had expected, and she finished taking down the pertinent facts before Greg returned. She stood and stretched, intending to join him in the kitchen, when her eyes strayed to the papers he'd moved earlier. In bold letters across the top page Greg's father had typed, “Were-bear Chronicles.”
    Picking the pages up, Lynda started to read. Written in the first person, the chronicles were apparently a novel, a fictional autobiography of someone who was a man by day and a bear by night.
    Like a werewolf, Lynda thought.
    But the author scoffed at werewolf legends, maintaining the original stories were about bears, not wolves. He wrote of being one of a race of men who transform when struck by moonlight, about the joys of wandering moonlit forests, about the problems facing an urban shape shifter. She read how even the weakest sunlight turned him back into his human form, leaving him naked and defense-less.
    Lynda was just turning to a page titled, “My Youth,” when a deep bellow startled her.
    “Who are you, and what are you doing?”
    Lynda dropped the papers and looked up. A man filled the hallway. He was taller than Greg and even more massive. A graying beard obscured his face, and his grizzled hair was tousled, as if he'd just woken up.
    “Dad, you're awake.” Lynda heard Greg's familiar voice and let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
    “Yes. Who is this?” His voice had mellowed into an approximation of Greg's bass rumble and was colored by a slight European accent.
    “Lynda Malone, my lab partner in biology. Lynda, this is my dad.”
    Greg's father stepped into the living room. “It will be dark soon. Please walk the young lady home.”
    Lynda handed him the papers. “I hope you don't mind my reading