Tears for a Wolf
Morning dawned upon them, bathing the tiny village in golden, luxurious sunlight. Slowly, an array of sounds began to fill the streets. Curtains were drawn, doors opened tentatively. Yet there was one house, occupying the cul-de-sac at the end of the barren road, which remained closed and bolted. The secrets it held, so unfamiliar and disturbing to the inhabitants of this peaceful little village, remained veiled in darkness and shame.
A balding man with worried, drawn eyes sat downstairs, sipping a cup of coffee as he tried unsuccessfully to tune the radio to an interesting station. A woman, blonde and slightly younger than him, was silently preparing breakfast. Two children sat on the sofa; one of them was a young girl with long, messy hair. Her eyes, framed in large, round glasses fixed determinedly to the page of the book she had spread open on her lap. Beside her was a greasy haired boy, looking pale as he stared into space, biting his lip.
The silence was suddenly penetrated by a loud clang in the kitchen. The girl, alarmed, jumped in her seat, the book falling to the floor; the boy looked fearful, and the man slammed the radio down in exasperation. The woman stood in the kitchen, her eyes half closed, making no effort to pick up the plate she had dropped, which now lay shattered in pieces on the floor. She shook slightly as an eerie, almost inhuman sound penetrated the silence of the room; a howl.
“Oh, for-“the man started, his voice ridden with unconcealed disgust. He looked around the room helplessly. Finally, he headed upstairs to source the noise, muttering under his breath. “We should never have done this, I knew it wasn’t a good idea all along, charitable is one thing, but this is another…” The howl stopped as he reached the top landing, leaving a ringing, eerie silence which sent shivers down his spine.
The landing was perfectly clean and polished, but dim; the windows allowed little light into the house. All the doors were wide open now, revealing three spacey, dim bedrooms. At the end of the corridor, however, was one door which remained closed. It was a grand, wooden door, closed and bolted from the outside. As he reached it, his hand resting on the bolt, he heard a whimper from inside of it.
“What is it now?” he called, clearly, as he began to undo the bolt. “Honestly, the wretched girl…” he muttered as it came loose.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness; the windows were as carefully closed and bolted as the door, and the curtains were drawn. He marched over to them, blinking in the darkness, and pulled them apart, his face twitching as a girl was revealed. She was curled up there, wearing a ragged, torn dress which might once have been white. Her hair was crusty with dirt and grime, and there was a fresh wound on her leg, bleeding steadily. Her eyes, a startling green, were wide and fearful. There was no recognition in them at all, just a haunting emptiness which disturbed him more than he could bear to admit.
He edged closer to her, and she let out another whimper. Her call was that of an animal, not a human, but human was clearly what she was, even underneath the years of dirt and blood. She was thin and scrawny, underfed, the outline of her ribs clearly visible through the thin material of her dress.
“You did this to yourself?” He asked her, gesturing towards the wound. She stared at him, her eyes still wide.
“Disgusting,” he said. “Absolutely disgusting.”
“Now, come on, Sean, she can’t help it. How could she know otherwise?”
He turned to see the woman standing in the doorway. She held a bowl of clear liquid in one hand, a towel in the other. Her eyes were full of tears, and her voice shook as she spoke.
“It’s all she knows,” she repeated, in a quieter voice. “We’re meant to be helping her, Sean.”
Sean, quivering a little, stepped backwards from the girl to let the woman walk forward. “Maria, I don’t think that we should be doing this. She needs somewhere else- a mental hospital, an orphanage. Anywhere but here.”
“No,” she said, her eyes focused on the girl’s wound as she crouched down. “I think we owe her this. She’s not crazy, or sick. She deserves a chance.”
Sean watched in silence as she slowly drew closer to the girl, as if she was a frightened fawn she was scared to startle. With the cloth, dampened in the warm water of the bowl, she tried to get close enough to clean the girl’s wound- a bite, there was no mistake about it. Yet as she tried to do this, the girl kicked out, and let out another ear-piercing howl, revealing a set of cracked, filthy, but unmistakeably human teeth.
***
That night, when the door of the newly occupied bedroom was safely shut again- but not bolted, Maria was determined that it should remain unbolted- and the other children had gone to sleep, the living room was awake with the sound of a hushed argument between the two adults.
“Please, let’s discuss this sensibly,” Maria was pleading.
Sean looked furious. Draining his glass of wine in one gulp, he retorted, “No! I will not have that child in my house any longer!”
“We owe her this, Sean.”
“No, we don’t! I will not take responsibility for the actions of your sister.”
Maria, looking slightly sick, sat back in her chair, her face fierce yet tainted by worry. “This is your niece we’re talking about,” she hissed at him. “And we’re not having her taken to an asylum, or put down like a dog, or any-or any of those things!”
“We can’t cope with this. Look at the children- frightened out of their skins.”
“I don’t think you’ve noticed, Sean, but if you cared to look closely enough, you might notice that she is a child. She deserves more than this.”
“I don’t doubt that she does,” he said, more calmly. “But we simply cannot cope with this ourselves.”
“She’s so scared, Sean!” Tears were now pouring down Maria’s stricken face. Sean seemed to soften at her tears. They sat in silence for a moment, Sean clearly thinking deeply.
“Alright,” he said, finally. We will give it a few months, and see where it goes. But if we don’t make any progress, she will have to go.”
That night, while she lay on top of her bed, chewing gently at the corner of her covers, a tear appeared in the corner of the girl’s eye. She was now washed, and her wound was cleaned and bandaged, despite the struggle she had put up against Maria’s caring hands. There was no denying that she was weak, through years of neglect, and now more alone than ever.
***
She remembered the wolves. She remembered their rough, shaggy fur against her bare skin, their comforting howls. She remembered the understanding their amber eyes held, and the comfort they had provided for her.
Then she had been taken away. These tall creatures, standing on only two feet while she crouched warily on the ground, held none of that understanding. Their eyes were harsh and looking at her with clear disgust. They alienated her, when the wolves had accepted her so readily.
***
One year later, she sat on the bench in the garden. Lucy was what they called her. They had given her such a meaningless word for a name. It held no emotion, no truth in it.
Next to her sat the girl with glasses and long, messy hair, gazing at her in a mixture of fear and fascination.
“Do you remember your mother? She was my aunt, you know.”
“Yes,” breathed Lucy. Her voice was rough, yet it had astounded her foster family that she had acquired the ability to speak at all. “She had beautiful fur…And amber eyes. She never hated me for what I am,” she said defiantly, to the girl, whose name was Cornella.
“But,” said Cornella. “Lucy, I don’t think you understand. I mean your real mother. Your human mother.”
“I don’t think you understand,” said Lucy. “My real mother wasn’t human. She was a wolf.”
“Luce, you know that wolves can’t give birth to a human. It doesn’t make sense. I thought we taught you that.”
Lucy glared at her. Her long hair was un-brushed today, a long fringe covering her face and her eyes barely visible through it.
“That’s not what makes a mother,” she said, to Cornella, incomprehensibly.
But Cornella had lost interest. Giving Lucy only a fleeting glance, she stood up, her long hair billowing behind her in the wind, and ran to join the other children.
***
Winter was approaching. Snowflakes littered the ground, melting as fast as they landed. Yet they were slowly starting to fall more swiftly, in larger quantities. Lucy’s eyes were wide and astonished; joy coursed through her as she whirled around and around on the spot in the meadow.
“Don’t go near the woods,” they had told her. “It’s dangerous. Those wolves won’t always protect you. They’ll smell other humans on you; they won’t like it.”
And she understood every word they had said, but had chosen not to take heed. She stood on two feet, now, but, remembering her old ways and instincts, delightedly dropped to all fours as she trotted towards the forest.
None of her foster family had yet awoken. They would not notice for hours that she was gone.
No, all that mattered was the wonder of the snowflakes, so small, so insignificant, building up to something amazing… And it seemed that the past few years did not matter at all. She wanted to be free, to move freely again. She had been imprisoned in the dusty grey building they called a house for too long.
She heard a howl from the woods, a howl which echoed within her very soul. It sent something familiar, something warm flowing through her.
It was happiness.
***
They sat in a huddle in the living room, the telephone in between them all, positioned in the centre of the dining table. Maria was shivering; there was a look of irrevocable guilt on Sean’s face. The children looked shell-shocked and tearful.
“Are you sure it was her they saw?” whispered Maria.
“It couldn’t have been anyone else.”
“Oh God. I hope they catch her.”
“She’s been missing for two weeks now, Maria. You know what this means.”
She drew herself to his eye level, her expression fierce. “No, I don’t.”
“Even if they catch her, Maria…and they will…”
“I’ll talk to her. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“You can’t do that, Maria! We’ll have to take her somewhere el-“
“No! Sean,” she said, through her tears, “Sean, I love her. I love her like my own child. How can you not?”
He flinched at this statement, but only very slightly. He suddenly looked older, and very weary. “We’re going to have to hand her over. They’ll take her somewhere where she cannot escape.”
Maria, her eyes full of fresh tears to replace the ones streaming down her cheeks, opened her mouth to retort, but soon closed it again when the room was filled with a loud, piercing noise; the phone was ringing.
Sean made to take it, but Maria glared at him and he dropped back. Instead she picked it up, and said in a shaky voice, “Hello?”
It began to snow then, more heavily than it had done a week ago. As Maria’s expression turned more horrified yet, oversized, deformed snowflakes began to plummet to the ground.
***
The pack was on high alert. Lucy- although she had long ago disposed of that useless name- was shivering among them, dirty and blood-streaked once again. Yet although there was fear in her green eyes, mirroring the caution in her mother wolf’s, deep beneath that was something she had not felt for years.
She was content here, kept warm by the vibrant fur of her protector wolf. The wolves, she knew, would never mistreat her. They would never lock her out of her own home and leave her to fend for herself, a small, defenceless cub.
Although she had told them otherwise, the truth was, she remembered. She remembered the cruelty of the one they had dared to call her real mother. She remembered her instability, and how, too young to understand it, she had felt the emotion she had allowed to cloud her life for all of these years- to be unwanted was the worst thing of all.
Here, with the wolves, she was not a burden. Here she was not unwanted.
However, the wolves were on high alert, their eyes wide and cautious. For there were footsteps coming towards them, rustling through the leaves on the ground. They were nearing.
And suddenly they were all breaking apart from each other, the wolves scattering in blind terror. She quickly followed the mother wolf, struggling to keep up on her scrawny human arms and legs. Something sharp had pierced the palm of her hand, but they had no time to tend to it now.
Then the mother wolf paused, frozen in fear. Lucy let out a small whimper, but it was of no use. Instead, she hid behind the wolf, her eyes wide and watchful.
The footsteps, she realised, were coming even nearer.
They came closer and closer until she could see his face. He stood on two legs, and his eyes were fixed on the mother wolf.
“OI!” He shouted, roughly, through the trees, as the wolf cowered. “We’ve got some dangerous ones here!”
“Shoot them!” a voice shouted back. Lucy began to shake in fear. Gently, she pushed at the mother wolf, willing her to understand. Move, she thought- but it was of no use.
The man, a human police-man, had fired up his revolver and was pointing it straight at the wolf. His finger was inches away from the trigger.
She didn’t know what she was doing; only that she could not allow her beloved wolf to stand still any longer. “No!” she screamed, and stood up suddenly. The police man’s eyes widened, but it was too late- he had already pressed the trigger, although the gun in his hand had jolted upwards alarmingly as he stood up fast to see where Lucy was.
Her green eyes stared forward in disbelief at the bullet soaring towards her.
***
Sean had his arm around her, gathering her in closer, but she struggled to get away.
“Maria,” he said, quietly. “Maria, she’s gone. I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do.”
Grief-stricken tears were pouring down her face. She was so shocked that she could barely stand up by herself.
“She was like our own child, Sean, our own child…” she was sobbing into his chest, finally giving up the struggle.
“That’s right, sweetheart. Look away. You shouldn’t have to see this,” he muttered darkly, staring at the scene which had unfolded in front of him.
He was quite right; no one should have had to been exposed to the fragile scene that now lay in front of them.
For in a white bed of snow, her hair spread around her, matted and greasy, and her face pale and streaked with dirt and blood, lay the girl Maria had come to regard as her daughter.
Her green eyes were wide in disbelief, her arms spread at a painfully jarring angle. And the snow around her was stained with the purest red; the haunting scarlet of an innocent child’s suffering.
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