"Just... refreshing the stuffing!" Arthur chirped, sensing the gaze.
"The room is upstairs," Arthur whispered, his eyes never quite meeting Elias’s. "Rules are simple: No guests. No loud music. And never, under any circumstances, touch 'The Captain.'" "The Captain?" Elias asked.
The ad was simple, tucked between a listing for a "vintage" beanbag and a used lawnmower:
He met Arthur at a dilapidated Victorian on the edge of town. Arthur was thin, wore a moth-eaten cardigan in eighty-degree weather, and smelled faintly of formaldehyde and old library books.
Arthur pointed to the corner of the living room. A six-foot-tall grizzly bear stood on its hind legs, its glass eyes gleaming with an unnerving, lifelike malice. It was wearing a tiny sailor’s hat. "He’s sensitive," Arthur added.