The Wolf Came on Christmas

Chapter 3

The child half barked, half howled, and pulled up the sleeves of his coat as he ran north—or what I assumed was north. I had no choice but to follow him. The desperate sound of that crying gave me instant energy. The boy almost vanished from my sight for a moment, but I found him again as I climbed down from the rocky outcrop, in a barricade of fallen pine trees covered in snow. He was circling something in agitation, and the sound of the baby was louder than ever.

Before I could reach him, I saw him crawl over the snow-covered trunks and pull at something—a bundle that he then hid in his arms. We were very close to the Berkeley sawmill; that was one of their logging areas. I realized it by the number of stacked logs and stumps hidden beneath the snow—dangerous stumps. If I wasn’t careful, I could trip and break my neck. The clearing wasn’t natural. I frowned and made my way down the embankment…

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

At that moment I DIDN’T SEE HIM, even though he was enormous. I didn’t see him because he was whitish in color and couldn’t be distinguished from the snow piled on the logs—but he was there.

A large, massive man.

Or should I say… a wolf?

White, yes; his fur was thick, wool-like, in places stained with red and mud. A warm, violent pool soaked the snow beneath him. The blood seemed to be coming from his side. The moonlight made the color look even more intense and visceral. Once again, the mental image came to my mind for no clear reason, but perhaps it happened because it was the simplest way to explain to myself what I was seeing: the photograph of a man whose face had been covered with another photograph of a wolf’s head, dressed in a very tight, warm coat made of top-quality furs. Even so, it felt like a collage far too imperfect to describe the natural perfection and harmony of that being…

Whose stench of carrion, by the way, was also quite significant.

I stepped back a little, instinctively. I realized my steps had brought me right beside that enormous white creature, which lay face down across the logs, dripping blood onto the snow-covered ground. The baby the wolf-child was holding began to cry again, and he tried to rock it gently in his small arms. I turned toward the child. The baby was pale with cold, wrapped in blankets stained red and also soaked with snow.

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

The cub looked at the larger wolf, who did not move, and at a trail of blood that came from the opposite side of that small clearing. I saw impatience and fear in his eyes, which looked glassy and blue beneath the large, bright moon.

“…my family,” he stammered quickly. He flattened 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 this?

I clenched my teeth, and the first thing I did was point toward the house with my arm fully extended.

“It’s freezing out here! Look at the steam coming out of your mouth! Go back to my cabin and close the door, take those wet blankets off your sibling and wrap her in the quilt on my couch—quickly, before she gets sick!” I told the wolf-child.

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

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

“I’m going to see what I can do for him… he’s still breathing, and he’s moving his… ears. I don’t think he’s that bad, maybe… Go to the cabin, please! And sit by the fireplace for a while! But wash that blood off first, go on!”

I couldn’t stand the sight of that cub’s dirty face looking at me with those huge, tear-filled eyes. The blue of that glassy gaze shattered me, as much as—or more than—his crying. And the baby’s condition certainly didn’t help me feel any better. I pointed toward the house again with emphasis, and the wolf-child took off stumbling, carrying his baby sibling in his arms.

And what was I supposed to do alone with their father?

I didn’t even know if I could move him. Again—what was I thinking? That werewolf must have weighed at least three hundred pounds, compared to my barely one hundred and thirty! There really was a rather large pool of blood beneath him; maybe he wouldn’t even survive. I wondered what had happened to him, but it wasn’t hard to find the wound: when I moved his heavy, fur-covered left arm, I found two holes between his ribs, at lung height. I’d seen enough gunshot wounds to recognize one when it was right in front of me, but they could also have been stab wounds—he could have been stabbed with anything. He looked quite serious; his breathing was very deep, like snoring, but it also sounded irregular.

I took his pulse, searching for an artery in his neck—it took effort, his fur was thick and the smell repelled me—and it was fairly… normal? What was absolutely not normal, without a doubt, was the force with which that vein throbbed against my fingers, as if he had the heart of a bull. Powerful. Invincible. The entire creature exuded power, even unconscious. I found that he was carrying something slung over his shoulder like a bag, but it wasn’t a bag exactly; it looked more like a shirt tied into a knot with things stuffed inside. I didn’t dare touch it, just in case.

I didn’t know whether to leave him there to die or try to save him. I knew nothing about medicine. And that being wasn’t human. He could hurt me. Or maybe not, considering the child had been civilized 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 acutely aware of the children.

The children. The small creatures were his children.

No. I couldn’t allow that werewolf to die and abandon them. What would I 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 limited strength, and it took a long time. At least an hour. I was drenched in sweat by the time I managed to get him inside the house, by sheer pushing and the useless help of the child, who tried to do everything around me. I laid the enormous canine being on his back on the rug near the fireplace and slowly let myself fall onto the couch, with that strange bag—which turned out to be a knotted shirt, just as I’d suspected—on the floor by my feet. Beside me, in the corner of the couch, the baby looked at me with huge, curious eyes, silent, wrapped in my quilt and protected by two pillows, probably placed there by her older sibling. She sucked eagerly on her fist.

She was a beautiful baby, with hair like fine fluff on her head, blond and white-skinned.

I looked at her with doubt. She was very small, so tiny. A baby like that wouldn’t survive a freezing night for who knows how many hours. I imagined that her father’s inheritance—so to speak—had a lot to do with that.

I closed my eyes for a moment. I was very tired. I opened them again when I heard that low, sharp whimper once more, a sound that hurt the ears. The whining, like sobbing. The wolf-child was kneeling beside his father, his hands and chest now clean of blood, but his snout was covered in yellowish eye gunk and tears that wouldn’t leave his little face so easily. I felt such pity seeing him. He lay down beside his father’s muscular, fur-covered arm and rested his snout on his shoulder, sniffing him anxiously. Blood dripped onto my rug, and the smell of filth suddenly became very strong in the room.