I brushed down the creases of the dress and adjusted the ruffles, then put the rest of the stuff back in, careful not to make any small tears. It was kind of cute, sure. The bear looked excited for me to dress it up, the smile making its face glitter. I searched further in to see if I had missed anything, and under a couple more dresses was some sort of unnamed spray in what looked like a fancy perfume bottle and a few sanitary wipes that smelled like lavender. I wasn’t sure if that was for the bear itself or the outfits, but I found my answer on a vague pamphlet thing at the very bottom. Most of it was how to wash the clothes, but it also said you could wash the bear off with soap and water. I’m not sure how that wouldn’t ruin it, but it said it on the instructions in cursive, so it must be true. I decided I’d do that at some other point.

I got a big stretch in and checked to see if it wanted anything. It appeared perfectly content to me. I guess taking care of this bear was my life now. But after considering all that I’ve been doing, it was awkward still referring to this thing as ‘the bear’ ‘teddy bear’ ‘stuffed animal’ or ‘the toy’. A dumb name would probably suffice and qualify as ‘giving it care’. I thought about just giving it a stupid name like Steve or something because I suck at naming things, but I still scanned around the room for something random else to call it as a way to put in a minimal amount of effort. To pretend I cared at all. But I have to say, names like ‘faucet’ and ‘fridge’ weren’t exactly hitting. 

I looked down to find my fingers were tugging at one of the satin ribbons of the dress. Lots of the dresses were very fluffy and frilly, so… Frill it was then, I guess. I probably was not going to say that out loud outside of one time. I didn’t really feel like sitting here and taking my sweet time thinking over all this, I had another nap to take. 

“Okay, I’m calling you Frill… I guess.” I said, to utter silence. I had to make the blood contract work somehow. As I looked at it, still unsure about what I was trying to accomplish, it was as if it were reassuring me. The smiling thing was freaky, as the mouth stayed in the same position all the time I’d had it, so it was more of a... vibe or spirit. I wasn’t sure whether to be freaked out or not by all this. But really, what had been the problem so far? I was being unnecessarily suspicious. Hopefully. At the end of the day, this thing was saving me. 

I took it with me to the couch like usual, propped it up next to me and fell back asleep. Tomorrow was a work day, and I wasn’t excited.

I drove my way to work the very next morning after feeding him some more food. I was trying to remember when exactly he had come to my house before, but I couldn’t recall at all, although time often slipped my mind. Probably wasn’t paying much attention. It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, I guess, although it was somewhat odd. At work, I constantly thought about the comfort waiting for me at home. It was all I wanted to come back to, and I’d never had anything to look forward to before all this. The rounds and rounds of work were a complete slog, and I was almost tearing my hair out listening to the awful, ear splitting noise of people around me. Every drag I took was a pain and didn’t make me feel the slightest bit relieved.

As I got home once again, I decided to see how far away the magic worked and approximately how long. This wasn’t necessary information, but I was curious. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but Frill was making me more motivated. It didn’t function when I was at work, but that’s miles and miles away. At that rate, it’d spread to the whole neighborhood, and then I’d be in a much stranger situation. 

I tried it from random lengths of space, slowly backing further and further away by one ruler’s distance as I waded back through clothes and wrappers strewn about. He gave me an incredulous stare the whole time, and that definitely wasn’t something I could help him with. I could tell the magic was wearing off when I started to get nauseous and my gag reflex was way more sensitive. But it lasted for a few minutes after each time with him, so it took a bit to figure out. Apparently, it didn’t work at around 10 feet away. I was surprised it was even that much.

Now that I was aware of this entirely pointless information, I laid back on the couch and twirled my hair around as I held him to my chest. I was probably just trying to cope with the fact I knew nothing else about him. There was nothing to accomplish after that, so I just took a long nap. As soon as I woke up at around 12:00 at night, his aura told me he was craving something to eat, and my heart dropped thinking about my negligence. I hoped that these bears weren’t equipped with guns or something. To be fair, I wasn’t feeding him before, so it was probably fine. I was hoping that maybe I could see him eat in front of me this time.

I sat him on the table and gave him some cheese and lettuce because I couldn’t think of what else to put down for the guy. I kind of wondered what would happen when giving him a beer, but he probably just wouldn’t drink it at all. And if he really wanted something else, he could just get it out of the fridge himself. My stomach grumbled softly to tell me to eat, so I grabbed some leftover noodles and sat back at the table. It was a bit awkward, eating with a toy bear, now that I thought of it.

“So, uh, how come you don’t wanna eat in front of me?”

He looked at me with the same relaxed face. I wasn’t sure what the point of asking was, considering there was no answer every time. Unsurprising, really, but I can’t deny that I was hoping maybe there was some voice function or something. Actually, now that I think of it, maybe not. I would’ve lost my shit. Not visibly, of course.

This somewhat reminded me of when I tried the noodles with him the first time. That felt so long ago, but I wasn’t so sure it was. It was cloudy and distant, not unlike most of my memories. I poked and prodded through my brain to try and remember, but it wasn’t coming to me. Something in me wanted to be frustrated, but it wasn’t winning me over. I ate in peaceful silence and finished up, but still nothing had happened the whole time, even though I watched intently. It probably freaked the dude out. I even turned my head away for a minute or two and then back, but nothing had happened. I guess this one was really self conscious.

Whatever, I’m just going to bed.

I got more good sleep and woke up in the morning to see he had eaten overnight, then I left for work yet again. Nothing of note happened as usual, and I was back in my house. I fed Frill and went digging through the box again to look at the dresses. They were strangely nice to look at, and I snapped some photos of them on my phone. But I was reminded of the cleaning instructions for the bear as my eyes caught sight of the pamphlet I’d tossed back in without a thought. Maybe it was about time to wash him? If there was any scent off of him, my nose was too burnt out to know. And it was most likely cigarettes, which would be impossible to rub out.

I went to the couch and picked up my bear again, who had chomped down all the food in the time I was lollygagging in the kitchen. Frill had gotten multiple larger dirt stains that were much more noticeable than before. His once pristine fur was turning musty and brown. There were also some sections that were greasy and sticky from food I had eaten. Wouldn’t be surprised if he had a lot of germs from me drooling in my sleep, too. He got grimy so fast that it alarmed me and sent sweaty shivers throughout my system- it was so sudden. Maybe it would be better to wash him now. The instructions were a bit vague, but I guess anything went for soap. If this couldn’t clean him, then… Not sure what I’d do at that point. Hopefully I wasn’t being misled, but the bear's fur was beautiful before I fucked it up and polluted his skin with my disgusting hands. I tried not to spiral into thoughts of how fucking irresponsible I was and took a long breath, forcing reassuring thoughts into my mind of how this wasn’t easy to notice, about how it was an accident. I could only hope he wouldn’t despise me for this. The soap couldn’t do much worse to the condition his fur was in now.

I brought him to the sink and sat him next to it right after I moved the dirty dishes out of the way. I turned on the water after removing his clothes, splashed his face with a bit on a certain greasy spot, and rubbed some soap in to see what would happen. Froths of bubbles started to spawn, and they slid right down with the small stream from the faucet. The fur began to turn light grey, but nothing amazing appeared to be happening with it, no magic shenanigans. It got damp, which was mind blowing. But the fact that it didn’t make it a pure white again made me worry. As I set him down to prevent drowning the poor man, there was a text that lit up my phone, which was kept on silent since text sounds gave me a heart attack. It appeared to be from Lux, who I didn’t talk to a lot. I would consider her more of an acquaintance if anything. She had sent a text asking if she could call me. I was kind of surprised that she didn’t just… do it, like most people. The only time I ever saw being forced into a phone call as necessary was if someone was literally about to kill over. She must’ve been smart enough to know, or maybe it irritated her as much as me. 

But I couldn’t help but wonder what she would even want. Like I said, we didn’t talk much. Most of the time we ran into each other by pure coincidence. But she was pretty chill the majority of times I’d talked to her, it wasn’t ever overwhelming or annoying. So I decided, why not. I had absolutely nothing to do right now.

I sent her a text that it was alright after drying my hands and waited, watching the phone for a few seconds. The generic ringtone music went off, making my stomach drop despite the fact I was expecting it. I clicked accept, brushing off any sudden inhibitions to abandon the call and held the phone up.

“Hey man, what’s up?” She said, her gruff voice scratching from the quality of my speaker.

“Hey. Nothing. Why did you want to talk to me?” My voice made me twitch, hearing how dry it was.

“I don’t know, something weird happened. But I called you since I didn’t want to mention it to someone else… well, besides Cerise. I got this crazy bear dude in my house. Not like, an actual guy, I mean a stuffed animal. Probably shoulda been more specific.” She laughed lightly. “But it’s weird because it’s like, magic or some shit.”

“I… That’s weird, I have one too. Right here.” I replied, coughing right after to try and get rid of the hoarseness in my voice. I noticed that the fur part I had washed had somehow already dried and was glowing with a pure white sheen. Thank God.

“WHAT? Crazy!” She said, chuckling. “Has it been doing the same thing for you? Magic healing stuff? I felt great since I got it. Could actually sleep, finally. Shit’s long overdue, haha.”

“Uh… yeah. I guess so.”

“Wow, wow. So strange, huh? And so, as you can imagine, I was confused. I wanted to see where it was from, but I saw it said ‘Sister’s Heart’ on the tag. I looked it up, nada. Weird, aye? But I asked Cerise, since she’s into all the weird shit. I mean that in a joking way, heh. But she went looking for it. Wanna hear some of the stuff she found? I don’t wanna go on if you’re not interested.” Her deep voice sounded somewhat strained, but I tried not to ask about it. 

I perked up at the information. As much as my demeanor could manage, anyway. I wasn’t expecting an answer any time soon. 

“Yeah, totally.”

“Great! So basically… She obviously couldn’t find a lot a lot, but she has a lotta crazy books in her library. Turns out this brand was made way back when in like, the early 1800’s. That’s probably why the outfits are crazy. Apparently, it was originally just dress-up teddy bears for kids, and there were playsets and all that to accompany it. The clothes and the bear were all handmade individually. But the maker of it apparently wanted to sell them mainly for kids from abusive families and used the funds from the bear purchases to donate to charity. Apparently she and her sister got fucked up really bad by her parents. The maker made it out alive when she got out of her shitty home as an 18 year old, but her sister didn’t, mainly for medical reasons, so that’s probably the reason for the name. But she said she felt she needed a short term solution for abuse, that charities weren’t doing enough or even being discriminatory, or that CPS was dogshit at their job, and was frustrated. So she basically made it for kids that were in her position to comfort them. After that, it’s just kinda vague. There were theories on how they became magic, but they make literally no sense to me. Even Cerise was confuseddd as hell. It really seems like all the magic shit happened way after she already stopped making it. The small company apparently disbanded about 2 years after it was made, due to a lack of sales and being unable to upkeep development. Apparently around 110 bears and 200 different outfits and accessories were sold, along with 50 playsets with cups and spoons and stuff like that. Somehow they’re still being dished out. It must just be under a different name now, although I’m not sure why the tags are the same. So uh, yeah. Kinda cool, although I’m not really sure what to do now with this information. Doesn’t exactly explain how it got into my house.”

I played with my hair as I tried to get over how weird this all was. She was right, it was a fun little history fact, but it didn’t explain anything I needed to know. I guess that part was just up to the imagination. But I kind of felt shitty. Was I keeping this too far away from a kid that actually deserved it, needed it? Was I being selfish? Not that I didn’t assume that already, it being a literal teddy bear and all, but with the whole message of the original brand, unease was creeping up on me, like I was treading on some ground I wasn’t invited to.