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During the most recent ice age, the seas dropped and the glaciers rose. Now everything is being reversed. Animals follow the water down the mountains into the valleys. They track rivers across state lines.

 

One day she finds a black bear in her front yard. Makwa, she says, you are hundreds of miles from home. Slightly shorter than she is, it outweighs her by at least thirty pounds.

 

When night falls, the bear is still there in the yard, marking the tree with claws and teeth. She brings it a basket of berries and sits on the porch watching through the darkness as the bear devours them. When the bear is done, it climbs the tree and wraps its thick body around the sturdiest branch.

 

She places a blanket and pillow in the boat and makes a bed of it. She can hear the bear snoring, a husky vibration that lulls her to sleep.

 

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