She was very frightened. There were no people nearby, and so they could not scream. The cry was some kind of ragas, pitiful.
It ascended to a roar, then rose to a squeal, and in the twilight sounded especially eerie and dreary. Lauren sat frightened and listened to the sad, full of mournful call of some unknown forest beast. Finally, the cry subsided.
But soon, a rustling sound and a strong crack of bushes were heard in the distance. Cautiously peeking around the corner, Lauren was surprised to see a little bear cub waddling toward the hut. He was funny stomped, bouncing, and kept turning his head, listening and sniffling at everything around him.
When he reached the rainwater tank, the bear cub drank enough, then sat down and looked at the girl who had come to him. So, it was you who roared, she asked the bear cub. Who hurt you? The bear cub wiped his face with his paw and sneezed, then crawled over to Lauren and poked his nose into her leg.
The girl quickly ran to the gatehouse and brought sugar, left by one of the hunters, and handed a few pieces to a furry guest. He instantly licked up the treat and roared again, much more cheerful this time. Where’s your mother, baby? Lauren asked, frighteningly looking around for the bear.
Are you all alone? The bear cub yawned, jumped up to the bench, and crawled under it. Soon, the girl heard him sniffling. The bear cub fell asleep.
After sitting a while longer, she took some more sugar out of the gatehouse, put it next to the bear cub, and went home. The meeting with the little forest host brightened Lauren’s soul a little, and the quarrels and disagreements with her aunt seemed to her petty, worthless. The bear cub turned out to be a she-bear, which Lauren later named Maggie.
By the end of the summer, Maggie had grown a bit, but she was still living near the gatehouse, and the girl used to go there to make food for the bear. By then, Aunt Gabriella was no longer so strict with her. At the beginning of August, she had a heart attack, and now, she tried to avoid all kinds of quarrels so as not to disturb her sick heart.
Lauren’s life was gradually getting better, and the girl believed that the reason for this was the help she had provided to Maggie the bear. Lauren believed that the boomerang of kindness had returned to her, and every time she looked at the bear, it seemed to her that the bear was thanking her, and Maggie the bear was indeed grateful to her rescuer. Whenever Lauren appeared at the gatehouse, she would come out of the woods and walk toward her, then lie down at her feet and blissfully close her eyes, and after a rich meal Lauren had prepared for her, Maggie would sit down beside her and lick her hands with her soft and smooth tongue, thus thanking her savior, and then the bear would rise and waddle away, only to return later.
But one day, when Lauren went to check on Maggie, for some reason, she didn’t come out to see her. The girl looked anxiously into the thicket and called out the bear’s name, but Maggie didn’t appear. When she looked around and didn’t find her, Maggie was seriously worried.
Suddenly, her memory flashed back to the hunters she’d seen in the store the day before. Deciding that Maggie was in trouble, Lauren ran to the gatehouse, threw a raincoat over her shoulders, and went in search of her forest friend. After fruitlessly exploring the familiar patch of woods that surrounded the hut, Lauren was about to head back, when she suddenly heard a gunshot and a muffled roar that followed it.
Rushing to the source of these sounds, the girl made her way through the dense thicket of junipers, rolled down a gentle slope, almost breaking her arm, and found herself on the shore of a small lake. And turning her head, Lauren saw a strange and mesmerizing picture. A man was standing by the water, arms outstretched and frozen, while Maggie was ducking her head to the ground against him.