Chapter 2

The boy half barked, half howled, and gathered up the sleeves of his coat as he ran toward the north, or what I assumed was the north. I had no choice but to go after him; the desperate noise of that crying made me regain my energy instantly. The boy almost disappeared from my sight for a moment, but I found him when I came down from the rock, in a palisade of fallen pine trees covered in snow. He was spinning around something, agitated, and the sound of that baby was louder than ever.

Before I could reach him, I saw him crawl over the snowy logs and pull something, a bundle that he then hid in his arms. We were very close to the Berkeley sawmill; that was one of their cutting sites. I could tell by the number of stacked logs and stumps hidden in the snow—dangerous stumps. If I wasn’t careful, I could trip and break my neck. The clearing was not natural. I frowned and went down the embankment.

Were they trapped under the logs, whoever they were? No.

At that moment I didn’t see it, even though it was huge. I didn’t see it because it was whitish in color and couldn’t be distinguished from the snow piled on the logs, but it was there.

A big, burly man.

Or should I say, a wolf?

White, yes; his fur was profuse like wool, in places stained with red and mud. A warm, violent puddle soaked the snow beneath him. Apparently, the blood was coming from his side. The moonlight made the color seem even more intense and visceral. Again, the mental image came to my mind for no reason, but perhaps it happened because it was the easiest way to explain to myself what I was seeing: a photo of a man whose face had been covered with another photo of a wolf’s head, and wearing a very tight and warm coat of top-quality fur. Even so, I feel that it was a collage too imperfect to describe the natural perfection and harmony of that being.

Whose smell of carrion was also quite important, by the way.

I stepped back a little, instinctively. I realized that my steps had brought me to the side of this very large white creature, which was lying face down on the trunks and dripping blood on the snowy ground. The baby that the wolf-child was holding began to cry again, and he tried to swing her a little in his small arms. I turned to the boy. The baby was pale with cold, wrapped in blankets stained red and also wet from the snow.

“Who are they?” I had to ask, very slowly.

The cub looked at the larger wolf, who was not moving, and at a trail of blood coming from the opposite side of that small clearing. I saw impatience and fear in his eyes, which looked crystal clear and blue under the big, bright moon.

“M-My family,” he stammered. He lowered his ears, and his voice broke into tears again. “Please, my dad is badly hurt, I beg you, ma’am! You have to help us!”

More children crying. For the love of—what was all that?

I gritted my teeth, and the first thing I did was point toward the house, with one arm outstretched:

“It’s freezing here! Look how you breathe steam through your mouth! Go back to my cabin and close the door, take those wet blankets off your sister, and wrap her in the comforter on my couch. Quick, before she gets sick!” I said to the wolf-boy.

Maybe my voice startled him, because he jumped and whimpered.

“What about my dad?” he asked, plaintive and disarming.

“I’m going to see what I can do for him. He’s still breathing and moving his ears. I think it’s not so bad, maybe. Go to the cabin, do me a favor! And you spend some time by the fireplace! But you wash that blood off first, go ahead!”

I couldn’t stand the sight of that dirty-faced puppy looking into my face with those huge, tear-filled eyes. The blue of that glassy look destroyed me as much or more than his crying. And the baby’s condition definitely didn’t help me feel better. I pointed again toward the house emphatically, and the wolf-child stumbled away, carrying his baby sister in his arms.

And what was I going to do alone with the father of those children?

I didn’t know if I could even move him. Again, what was I thinking? That werewolf weighed at least three hundred pounds, compared to my meager one hundred and thirty! Seriously, there was a pretty big pool of blood under him; maybe he wasn’t even going to survive.

I wondered what had happened to him, but it wasn’t hard to find the wound: when I moved his heavy, hair-covered left arm, I found two holes between his ribs, at the level of his lungs. I’d seen enough bullet wounds to recognize one when it was in front of me, but they could also have been knife marks; he could have been stabbed with anything. He looked quite serious; his breathing was very deep and like a snore, but it also sounded somewhat irregular.

I took his pulse, looking for an artery in his neck. It was difficult; his hair was thick and the smell repelled me. And it was quite… normal?

What was not at all normal, without a doubt, was the force with which that vein beat against my fingers, as if it had the heart of a bull. Powerful and invincible. The entire creature exuded power, even though he was unconscious. I found that he had something hanging from his shoulder like a crossbody bag, but it wasn’t a bag exactly; rather, it looked like a knotted shirt with things stuffed inside. I didn’t dare touch it, just in case.

I didn’t know whether to let him die there or try to save him. I didn’t know anything about medicine. And that being was not human. He could hurt me. Or not, if the boy had proven to be civil enough to ask me “please” to help him. I couldn’t decide what to do. I suppose I wouldn’t have been so benevolent if I hadn’t been so mindful of the little ones.

Children. The little creatures were his children.

No. I couldn’t allow that werewolf to die and abandon them. What was I going to do with two wolf children?

***

Even though it seemed like an impossible task at first, I managed to drag the werewolf as best I could with my meager strength, and it took me a long time—at least an hour. I was already soaked with sweat when I managed to get him into the house, through pushing and the useless help of the boy, who tried to do everything around me.

I placed the enormous canine being on his back on the rug, near the fireplace, and slowly lowered myself onto the sofa, with that strange bag—which had turned out to be a knotted shirt, as I suspected—on the floor next to my feet.

Next to me and in the corner of the sofa, the baby looked at me with huge, curious eyes, silently, wrapped in my comforter and protected by two pillows, probably placed there by her older brother. She sucked her fist with relish.

She was a beautiful baby, with hair like fluff on her head, blonde and white skin.

I looked at her with doubt. She was very small, very tiny. A baby like that doesn’t survive a freezing night for who knows how many hours. I figured her father’s (say) heritage had a lot to do with it.

I closed my eyes for a moment; I was very tired. I opened them again when I heard that low, high-pitched moan again, which hurt the ears. The yelp, like a whimper. The wolf-child was kneeling next to his father, his hands and chest already clean of traces of blood, but his muzzle covered with yellowish weeds and tears, which would not leave his face so easily. I was so sad to see him. He lay down next to his father’s muscular, hairy arm and rested his nose on his shoulder, sniffing him anxiously. Blood dripped onto my carpet, and the smell of dirt was suddenly very pervasive in the room.

How my heart broke. It was—I don’t know—as sad as that scene where Simba tries to revive Mufasa after the wildebeest stampede. I didn’t want to start crying right there; that was all crazy enough. My house stank of lightning. I stank myself. I had had to approach that enormous being and carry him against my body, precariously, on more than one occasion. His smell had permeated my entire coat.

I got up, and the boy stood up with me, quickly.

“I’m going to look for something to cure him. If your dad has been shot, I can’t remove the bullet because I’m not a doctor and I don’t want to do something that ends up killing him. But let’s wait and see; it’s not like we can take him to a doctor, can we?” I commented, a little doubtful. “Because—I mean—does he have a human form, or do you? If you had it, all this would be easier, but we would have to explain to the authorities what happened.”

The little creature followed me to the laundry room, yelping, howling softly. I threw my smelly coat into the washing machine, and I adjusted the folds of my pajamas while I watched the boy dragging the long sleeves of the coat I’d put him in along the floor. He sniffed to contain the snot that was threatening to come out and wiped his face with his hand, head down.

“My dad told me that if I meet someone new in this form, I can’t show my human form; and if I know him in my human form, I cannot show him this form.”

“It’s good advice,” I commented through clenched teeth while looking for rags to wet. “It makes sense. So, nothing human. In that case, all I can do for your dad is put a bandage on him and wait for him to get better, because I’m not going to operate on him. Do you understand? I don’t want to hurt him anymore.”

And I didn’t want to have to touch him too much either; he smelled like a horse!

“My dad said he just needed a place to rest. It’s what he sent me to look for before he fainted.”

I was silent for a moment, thinking.

“Only rest? And then they will go their own way?”

The wolf-boy shrugged, then nodded quickly. It was so adorable! Especially when one ear fell, folding in on itself, and the other remained straight. He came back with me to the kitchen; I started heating water right away.

“Are you going to help us?” he asked me after a moment.

“I think I’m already doing it. What is your name?”

“Mirko.”

I had never heard it. It sounded foreign.

“Well, Mirko, you’re going to be at my house for a few days. It’s only fair that we introduce ourselves; my name is Johanna. Can I know their names too?” I insisted, pointing with my head toward the living room, where the baby and the other being were.

“My sister’s name is Aleksandra, but we call her Sasha. And my dad’s name is Ivan.”

“I see. Sasha. And Ivan.”

I was also amazed at how easy it was for me. Chatting so calmly with a wolf-child while looking for the first aid kit to clean his wolf-father’s wounds. Maybe I wasn’t still curled up in a corner, traumatized, because a part of me was too tired to deal with the fact that I was faced with something that did not exist, at least not for the average person. Someone was going to have to give me a couple of explanations when I woke up. There was also the possibility that I had hit myself in the shower and hallucinated everything.

What a disappointment if it all turned out to be a hallucination.

There was also the possibility that it was my psychotic side reacting evasively to fear. Because, of course, a part of me was scared to death. I was terrified that that white monster, badly injured and all, would get up and rip my head off. That it would destroy me entirely with those terrible teeth. Oh yes, because at some point between the pushing and dragging, his head fell to the side and his jaws opened, revealing gigantic, very sharp fangs.

I tried not to think about it anymore. I went up to the bathroom to get the first aid kit, but that time the little boy didn’t follow me. Then I returned to the living room with the wolf-boy and his family, and for the first time since all that disaster began, I smiled at him. Slowly, with all the tranquility I could show. That relaxed him, I realized, because the little boy covered his stomach with his small hands over his coat. I could still hear the roar of his insides.

I raised my eyebrows and watched him curl in on himself, embarrassed.

“Well, it seems like someone is very hungry! It’s early, but we can have breakfast. If you help me with your dad, I’ll make you something to eat,” I proposed, and the boy looked at me with those big blue eyes, undaunted. “Do you like eggs and bacon? I’ll make you some. First, please give me a hand with this.”

He thought it was the coolest idea in the world, apparently.

The boy was so happy that he started wagging his tail under the edge of his coat. No, no—it’s true. He was wagging his tail. I asked him to help me, and his job consisted of rinsing the cloths dirty with blood and mud and passing me pieces of adhesive cloth, but he did it very well, considering that he looked like a small wild animal and his hands were armed with small yellow nails. Yet another indication that they were likely to have another life as humans. Surprisingly, my hands didn’t shake as I slowly opened the soft fur of the white beast, searching for the holes. Was that fatigue talking? I could not tell.

One thing was certain: my eyes were closing, but I was not going to leave that hungry child and that baby unattended.