Chapter 3

My peaceful place was no longer that peaceful, and my world had just grown a little beyond my fence of almost impenetrable trees.

When I found the wound, my stomach turned. In fact, there were two holes, but in the semi-darkness of the night I had not seen the pus or the depth of the sore; the smell was also as important, or more important, than that of the werewolf himself. I didn’t know what to do, again. What if my attention hurt him more? He couldn’t continue bleeding to death in my living room either.

With a somewhat absent-minded gesture, I went over the carpet with a rag and waited for my stomach to settle before returning my eyes to the wound. I moved the werewolf’s limp, heavy arm until it was stretched out in a cross with respect to his body, and with a wet cloth I began to clean.

Instinctively, my gaze fell on the beast’s face, perhaps waiting for it to open its eyes and glare at me or for its jaws to move, but there was no response. His fur shone in an orange glow from the flames of the fireplace, and you could barely hear the ticking of the wall clock and, from time to time, the moans of the child. The father was only breathing, with a low snore that sounded deep in his chest.

It must have hurt a lot. I didn’t have any strong painkillers to give him, so I resolved to stop feeling sorry for him—pity, really?—and just clean and dress the wound as best I could, letting nature take its course. That wasn’t my problem, after all.

Several times, as I tried to secure the adhesive cloth over the clean wounds on the giant wolf’s side (I should have shaved off his fur, but it didn’t occur to me at the time), I wondered what the hell I was doing. I looked at the prodigious, elegant wolfish snout, at the sharp teeth between the thin black lips, and at his powerful chest rising and falling in difficult but rhythmic breathing, and the truth is—I don’t know.

Could it get crazier?

Well, I was going to find out when those children’s father woke up. If he didn’t want to rip my head off before explaining, of course.

***

The next priority was the girl. Once I had done everything I could for her father, I returned to her and gently lifted her off the couch. She didn’t seem to reject me, but instead looked at me with eyes just as big and blue as her brother’s. I don’t know if she was studying me or scared of me, but I was grateful that she didn’t cry. It filled me with fear to realize that her facial skin was cold and she didn’t exactly smell like roses either; the boy had only taken away the wet blanket he was carrying before to replace it with mine. I took her to the laundry room, and Mirko followed me.

I suspect he wasn’t too happy about a stranger manipulating his baby sister, but neither of them had any other options.

“Will you wait for me a moment while I take care of her? I promise we’ll eat once your sister is clean,” I told him, with a conciliatory tone.

He nodded and leaned on the edge of the washing machine, where I had placed the girl on a towel so I could work. While I was unraveling the knot of rags in which the girl was wrapped, I realized that they were the remains of a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt. Due to the size, adult clothing.

A chill ran through my body, and again I wondered what had happened to them. What situation does a father have to be in to be forced to wear a diaper shirt for his daughter? I could not imagine. Just as I couldn’t imagine that werewolf changing a diaper. When I removed all the rags from the girl, in addition to the mess that creature had made of herself (it left me in no doubt that, at least, she was being fed relatively abundantly), I noticed that the skin on her buttocks was irritated—to the point that the baby started crying the moment I touched her with a damp cloth.

Beside me, Mirko whimpered in his canine language and stretched out his arm toward her.

I gulped when I saw little Sasha’s chubby little hand cling to those slender, yellow-haired fingers.

The contrast between the two left me breathless, disoriented, but the gesture served to calm her, because she stopped crying little by little. After washing her as best I could in a basin of warm water, I tried to apply some menthol ointment to the irritated area (she was moving her little legs with incredible energy; she was upset and letting me know—obviously she didn’t want me to continue touching where it hurt), and the next problem arose: I didn’t have diapers to put her in. I needed to figure that out if I was going to keep her at home for at least a few more hours. I had no choice but to sacrifice an old towel; after all, I wasn’t going to miss it. I ended up wrapping the whole baby in another towel and then in the colorful blanket.

The little girl didn’t reject me either when I placed her in my arms, close to my chest, or when I touched her cheek, now free of all dirt. What’s more, she sheltered her face against one of my breasts, perhaps seeking my warmth. An impossible warmth ran down my spine and tugged at a muscle in my face that made me smile, unconsciously. She might not yet smell as good as a normal baby, but her new situation was an obvious improvement for the girl: if she was clean, then she would remain healthy. She didn’t look like she was sick or malnourished. I didn’t know much about babies at that time, but I thought I was capable enough to take care of her and her brother for a couple of hours. That certainty filled me with pride and also with fear.

I looked at Sasha’s face for a moment; she, in turn, looked at me, although perhaps she was very small and could only see me as a blur in front of her eyes. But I’m sure she knew I was there and knew she was safe; maybe that’s why she accepted me calmly instead of crying at the top of her lungs. My ears and my tiredness were grateful for the calm.

Then Mirko’s stomach rumbled again, and I decided we’d put off his needs long enough.

Once I threw all the dirty rags in the trash, we returned to the kitchen and I turned on the stove. I took out the ingredients, left the girl in her brother’s arms for a moment to take care of everything, and while the pan was heating up, I looked back into the room. I confirmed that the werewolf was asleep, and once again I was relieved to see that he was.

I bit my lower lip, unsure, and walked into the living room, circling the couch. I don’t know what I was looking for there, but I didn’t feel like getting too close to him at all, even though he seemed almost harmless when asleep. I still didn’t believe he was there, that a creature like that existed. When he moved a paw spasmodically, perhaps in a dream, I jumped, and although I didn’t scream, I tripped over the chair and fell into a sitting position. My foot hit that lump made of a knotted shirt. I noticed the jingling of the objects inside and slowly bent down to undo the knot, nervously, without taking my eyes off the sleeping figure of the werewolf.

Inside the package was a clean baby bottle, some coins, a box of painkillers with a few pills, a bag with a yellowish powder that smelled like milk, a nearly empty container of wet wipes, and a broken rattle. The rattle was no longer repairable; it could only rescue the painkillers and the bottle, maybe even the milk.

I didn’t realize how much my hands were shaking until I found myself back in the laundry room, after throwing the bundle with everything disposable into the trash. I stood there for a moment, with the coins clenched in my fist. They didn’t amount to more than four dollars. Again, all kinds of doubts assailed me. Where was he planning to go on foot, injured, with the children, at the beginning of winter and with only a few coins? Or with that thick coat of fur and that unusual snout planted on his face? He didn’t explain it to me. And it scared me, but I was so tired that I didn’t know what to think.

I also didn’t notice that Mirko was watching me until I heard him say,

“Are you okay, Mrs. Johanna?”

I turned to look at him. The boy was at the door; his sister was sucking her fist again. They were both hungry, and I was there fooling around.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” I stated, clearing my throat. I smoothed my hair with a careless gesture; I already had the braid undone, and surely my appearance was not the most presentable at that hour, but it was not the priority. “It’s okay. It looks like your dad is sleeping and will stay that way for a while. Come, let’s make breakfast.”

While the bacon and eggs were frying, I warmed some water in the microwave and dissolved a couple of tablespoons of the formula from the bag to prepare the little one’s bottle. I didn’t know how to measure it, so I only prepared a quarter of the bottle and figured that if she got hungry again right away, I could feed her again. I also didn’t want to feed her a lot at once or give her a stomachache that would make her cry nonstop. I calculated that the little formula in the bag would last me to prepare another quarter of a bottle, and that would be it. I had apples in the fridge; I could make some fruit purée, but I wasn’t sure about anything.

I was not prepared to have a baby in the house, nor those strange beings.

The main drawback was that I was still not clear about the true magnitude of the problem I was getting into.