Chapter 4

Mirko was a fairly well-educated child, which made my suspicion more certain that, in fact, he and his father had a human life elsewhere. He used the fork and knife to eat, with the clumsiness of an infant his age and all; but although he put the pieces of bacon in that animal mouth, with small fangs and sharp teeth, and licked the fork with that long, flexible tongue, I did not feel rejection toward him. Because he didn’t make noise when swallowing or lap up the juice, or eat straight from the plate. He was strangely “normal,” even in his unusual appearance.

I don’t know, it made me curious and made me want to protect him.

Him and his little sister, the girl who was human in appearance. I had already noticed that Sasha was like all ordinary babies, with a round face and plump fists, very white and pristine skin, somewhat rough from poor care. Nothing abnormal about her. And she was beautiful, for lack of another word. Just a baby. After the initial shock and once the food was on the table, the boy didn’t have to ask me for anything; somehow I knew what I had to do for both of them while his father recovered.

I felt it, deep inside. The doubt eventually dissipated.

In the end, I made myself a cup of coffee in silence, while holding the baby with one arm close to my chest. She was very comfortable with her face resting against my breast, spying on me with just one little eye. I think I saw her make a grimace similar to a smile. What baby stays so casual with a stranger and smiles at her? Children had never been very kind to me, but I had never held so many babies in my life to be sure.

I sat on the other side of the round white kitchen table and sipped my cup, expectantly. I must also admit that I watched Mirko with great curiosity as he gobbled down his third plate of eggs and bacon, and I was impressed. It wasn’t every day you could see a sight like that, such a strange creature having breakfast at your own table. He didn’t seem worried that I was staring at him so intently, and he put his full attention on the food until he was satisfied.

I thought he was going to lick the plate to get rid of the leftover egg and bacon grease, but instead of doing what I expected, he did what any well-behaved child would do: he took a slice of bread and used it to go over the dishes until they were impeccable.

I couldn’t help but smile when I saw it; it was a reflex action.

“Wow, what a polite child. Do you want more?” I asked.

“I’m full,” he responded, lowering his ears a little. “It was very delicious, thank you.”

I smiled a little more, pleased.

“You know how to use cutlery very well. How old are you?”

He raised his eyes and looked at me with some joy.

“Seven. I’m seven years old,” he answered me, with a proud tone. “I’ll be eight in May.”

I shouldn’t have been so impressed, since I had already partially assumed that he wasn’t a little furry being all along. Of course he knew how to count, he ate alone, and he was a polite child. That made me wonder what kind of person their father was, and what life they would have in their real home. Who were they? Were they from the surrounding area? What did they look like in their human form? Who had led them to end up where I found them, and why?

And most importantly, whoever had done that to them—were they still looking for them?

I think that at that time of the morning I still didn’t realize what was happening, and that’s why I didn’t react coherently to it. Or perhaps I was accepting it much better than my subconscious expected.

“Seven?” I repeated, somewhat confused. “Well, at first glance I would have sworn that you were a couple of years younger.”

“It’s just that I’m short for my age. But my dad says that when I get older I’ll make a big growth spurt and be as tall as him.”

He spoke with so much pride. That time, I smiled out of pure tenderness, because his little eyes lit up in a very beautiful way and his voice became happier when he spoke about his father in such good terms. It did me good to think that a change was working in the child, that he no longer shivered with fear or cold and was not hungry. He wasn’t sad, nor was he crying. A small part of me swelled with satisfaction seeing him so happy, because I was doing something right.

I continued to be surprised by how easy it was to talk to him.

What I had left was to get some clothes for him to wear; the poor guy couldn’t stay in that heavy and uncomfortable coat all day. Which immediately made me think of the baby as well. I had to buy diapers for her, formula, accessories for her care, and warm clothes to dress her in. She would come back to demand food from me soon, but for the moment the little girl was very still and looked at me all the time, intently. And I didn’t have anything ready; I wasn’t exactly thinking about having a baby in Wyoming.

I decided to go down to the city urgently. I didn’t want to delay any longer.

What face would they look at me with in stores when they saw me buying baby items? Maybe none. I had faith that almost no one knew me beyond sight, and hardly anyone knew my name. Advantage of living so far away and going to the city for groceries only once a month. It wouldn’t be suspicious.

“Would you stay here with your sister for a while, Mirko?” I asked him calmly. “I need to go down to the city soon for some things; it won’t take me long.”

I got up, leaving the coffee half drunk, and put the little girl in her brother’s arms again. The baby made a disgusted face and seemed about to burst into tears, but Mirko silenced her with a coo.

Then he looked at me uneasily, his ears erect and attentive.

“Are you going to look for the police?” he asked, his voice trembling.

The tone forced me to soften; maybe I had been too harsh.

“No. I need diapers and food for Sasha,” I explained patiently.

He seemed to understand and sighed with relief, I realized. He carried his little sister better in his arms and got out of the chair, followed me as I went toward the stairs to go up to my room to change my clothes and put on some deodorant (to see if that could alleviate a little bit of the dirty animal smell that I had on me until I could take a bath). When I came back down, Mirko was sitting with the girl on the couch and watched me the entire time while I wrapped myself in my going-out jacket, put on my scarf and gloves. He was nervous, like he didn’t trust me.

Well, who said he had to trust? The poor thing.

We both watched his sleeping father briefly as I finished dressing.

“You have children?” Mirko asked me suddenly.

I adjusted my scarf over my lips before answering.

“No, I do not. I live alone.” I stopped for a moment, and my eyes fell once again on the sleeping silhouette of the gigantic wolf. Surely while I was upstairs, Mirko had taken the comforter from the other sofa and put it on top of his father, because I didn’t remember covering him with anything. “That’s why I have to go down to town, to get something to feed the children—your little sister. I only have things for myself. And we’re going to need clothes for you, and for her too. They can’t be like this, wrapped in blankets.”

“You are very good. My dad is going to congratulate me.”

I stopped in the act of zipping up my jacket and frowned worriedly.

“What do you mean by ‘he’s going to congratulate you’?”

“My dad told me, when my sister was born, that one day I would have to take care of her and see that she was safe. I think that with you we will be safe, because you are a kind and good person. She’s not scared, she’s not screaming. I made a good decision.”

I giggled a little, although something hurt deep inside.

I thought I was “good.” I liked that, and it made me feel sad at the same time. Part of me still wanted to run and disappear into the woods, or call the police, the rangers, animal control, the National Guard, the military, Dr. Dolittle—anyway. I shook my head and opened the door, ready to leave.

“Thank you.” The boy’s voice caught me off guard. “My dad is going to pay you very well, I swear.”

I went out to the porch, and from there I watched him again.

I can’t tell you how many times I thought that was the wildest dream I’d ever had in my life, but I was getting tired of the idea. I went back to look for the jeep keys, because I didn’t realize I had left them hanging next to my coats, and I went back out. Putting the key in the ignition, I took one last look at my window, and there was Mirko again, looking at me through the glass. From the outside, anyone would think that the family puppy was very anxious, watching his mistress leave. It was hard enough not to think of these beings as simple animals.

I tried not to continue doing it; it was an insult to the little boy’s intelligence.

***

I reached the urban area and stopped the jeep in front of the store, where hopefully I could find everything I needed to get by. No store there was big enough or stocked enough, and if you wanted to buy several things in different branches, you usually had to search half the city. I tried not to make a big deal out of it. After all, how long was I going to have those strange beings in my house? No idea.

I carried my wallet in my jacket pocket, thinking about the credit card limit, but in the end I didn’t get out of the vehicle.

No, I just stayed there for a couple of minutes.

A terrible fatigue and an unknown heaviness ran down my arms and legs. I felt weak, sleepy. A little dizzy, too. I hadn’t eaten anything solid since dinner the night before, and I hadn’t tried to rest either because my nerves wouldn’t have allowed me to take a nap. The only thing I had in my stomach was some very sugary coffee, but even that wasn’t having any effect. I hadn’t slept so as not to lose sight of Mirko or the baby, or his father. Without a doubt, finding myself in a constant state of tension did not help my mental health at all.

I opened my eyes wide when I caught a glimpse of my hands trembling on the steering wheel. I took off the gloves with my teeth quickly and stared impassively at my fingers. It wasn’t because of the cold.

Fear? Was I really that scared?

Maybe it was tiredness; I didn’t feel bad or on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

I knew well what a crisis felt like; I would have realized it. I don’t like remembering that either. I got out of the jeep right away and went into the store. I didn’t take long; with a cart, I picked up some cartons of milk, baby formula (I bought three different brands, just in case), several packaged baby foods, some boxes of cereal, some fruit yogurt, and some packages of diapers (also of three different brands). All of that, like I was floating on a cloud or something. I can’t describe it, but although I know I was inside the store for a long time, I don’t remember the moment I bought that can of Red Bull until I found myself back in the cabin of the jeep, drinking it.

Okay, maybe I needed to sleep. Urgently.

Sleep, without thinking about what I was going to do next.

I went to two other stores and bought wet wipes, irritation ointment, and some baby clothes, calculating the size by eye so that the clothes would be too big for Sasha. I even thought about buying a portable crib, one of those that can be placed on a table. They were at a reasonable price, and I saw immediate use for them. In another store I got some sweaters, T-shirts, underwear, and some sports pants for the child, socks, and some adjustable sneakers, in case I couldn’t guess his shoe size; and I was faced with the difficult decision of whether or not I should buy clothes for the man. I mean, I was going to have to, because I didn’t have any of Paul’s clothes.

And judging by the size of this guy, he would never have fit into Paul’s clothes.

I decided to just take a few shirts, a couple of T-shirts, oversized sweatshirts, and some jeans. It had to be enough. The hard part was thinking about underwear. I hadn’t thought much about men in the last two years, and I was very embarrassed to have to search through the neatly arranged boxes in the store until I found something that might or might not serve the purpose. Same with shoes; it was a struggle. In itself, it was difficult to choose anything—first, because I was nervous, and second, because I had no idea what the sizes of any of them were. Thank God that trucker didn’t notice that I was standing behind him, measuring shirts against the width of his shoulders, or I would have been even more embarrassed to explain.