Page 2 of The Teddy Bear's Prize

Not gonna lie, I’m tempted to choose the dragon, but I keep going back to the teddy bear. I can almost imagine him sitting beside me on the couch whenever I watch TV. He’ll also fit with my decor.

“I’ll take the bear,” I point.

“A bear for the beautiful lady.” The attendee coos, grabbing a long wooden dowel from the underside of thestall and nudging the bear until it falls into their arms, hard enough that they huff out a breath. They set the dowel aside and offer me the bear, his furry arms outstretched.

It is much larger up close, if I had to guess, he’s around three feet tall from head to toe. He didn’t look that big when he was sitting up on the shelf. I’m already beginning to have reservations, what will people think?

I adjust my purse and take a step forward, the attendant immediately drapes the bear’s arms over my shoulders. He’s a lot heavier than I expected, there seems to be weights in his hands and feet, like he’s giving me a big hug.

I might be more touch-starved than I thought because this feels good. Something is comforting and familiar about it all. I close my eyes and inhale; he smells like the forest after a storm with a hint of spice.

“What are you doing?” Jeff laughs.

When I open my eyes, he’s staring at me again, his brow lifted and his lips slightly pulled back into a smile. But it’s not just him, the attendant is equally interested in my bear sniffing activities. At least from what I can tell, they’re viewing it as more of a quirk than a defect. I squeeze the bear close to my chest and laugh like I’m in on the joke.

“He smells like cinnamon,” I say with a smile.

TWO

Mia

It’sa twenty-minute drive back to my house and Jeff has been on the phone with a colleague from work, arguing about an upcoming update to the servers for the last ten. I’m not completely detached from the project, my small team is going to be heading up the structural changes to the website, but I’m not sure I should be listening in.

“The servers are down?” Jeff asks, pausing, “You aren’t supposed to push the updates to the test server just yet, that’s why you have the sandbox environment.”

His knuckles flash white as he grips the steering wheel, so I busy myself and fish out my phone.

Opening up the photo app, I scroll through the handful of pictures I took of the carnival landing on the batch that I shot at the ring toss. I don’t recognize most of the shapes, aside from the odd pentagram and pentacle. They vaguely look like alchemical circles mixed with King Solomon’s seals used to ward off evil spirits, but wrong.

The hair on the back of my neck prickles as I flip through the photos and I sense I’m being watched. I lookin the passenger’s side mirror, but the road is clear behind us.

Jeff doesn’t seem to feel it, he’s still engrossed in the call, explaining how they should ping someone else to restart the test servers because he's on a 'fucking date'.

I can't shake it. The sensation builds until it resonates like a physical touch on my shoulder. In the rear-view mirror, I catch the sight of two furry gray ears. Shifting, I glance at the teddy bear propped in the back seat, his face bathed in the glow of the red traffic light.

“Fuck.” Jeff growls, pulling out his earbud and tossing it to the cupholder, “I’m sorry, Mia.”

“It’s okay. I know how it is.” I turn around.

He nods to my phone, “What is that?”

“Just some photos from the carnival. There were these weird symbols painted on the side of the stalls. I’m wondering if they were leftover from some kind of film shoot or?—“

The light turns green.

“It’s probably some teenagers screwing around,” He turns his attention to the road, his eyes flitting to the rearview mirror, “According to the news articles I found when I was researching it for our date, the place gets vandalized at every stop. They just expect it at this point.”

I settle back into my seat, “You might be right, but this isn’t normal graffiti.”

“Looks like that witchy shit that you always have on your desk. My bet is still on the teenagers."

Thatwitchy shitis a small page-a-day calendar that shows the zodiac and lunar cycle. Jeff walked by one day, pointing to the calendar and announcing it’s almost Leo season.

Beside me, he fidgets, eyes going to the rearviewmirror again.

“What is it?” I ask, turning around. The road is still clear.

“Nothing,” he grips the steering wheel, “I could have sworn that bear just moved.”

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