The Wolf Came on Christmas

Chapter 4

It broke my heart. It was… I don’t know, as sad as that scene where Simba tries to wake Mufasa after the wildebeest stampede. I didn’t want to burst into tears right there; everything was already crazy enough. My house stank horribly. I myself stank—I’d had to get close to that enormous being and carry him against my body, precariously, more than once. His odor had soaked into my entire coat.

I stood up, and the child stood with me immediately.

“…I’m going to look for something to treat him. If your dad’s been shot, I can’t take the bullet out because I’m not a doctor and I don’t want to do something that ends up killing him. But we’ll wait and see; it’s not like we can take him to a doctor anyway, right?” I said, hesitantly. “Because… I mean, does he have a human form? Or you? If you did, all of this would be easier, but we’d have to explain to the authorities what happened…”

The little creature followed me to the laundry room, whimpering softly, half-howling. I threw my foul-smelling coat into the washing machine and straightened the folds of my pajamas while I watched him; the child dragged the excessively long sleeves of the coat I’d put on him across the floor. He sniffed to hold back the mucus threatening to run from his nose and wiped his face with the back of his hand, head lowered.

“…my dad told me that if I meet someone new in this form, I can’t show them my human form; and if I meet them in my human form, I can’t show them this one.”

“That’s good advice,” I commented under my breath as I looked for cloths to wet. “It makes sense. So, no human form. 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 more.”

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. That’s what he sent me to find before he passed out.”

I stayed silent for a moment, thinking.

“…Just rest? And then you’ll go your own way?”

The wolf-child shrugged and then nodded quickly. He was so adorable—especially when one ear drooped and folded over itself while the other stayed upright. He came back with me to the kitchen, and I put water on to heat immediately.

“Will you help us?” he asked after a moment.

“I think I already am. What’s your name?”

“Andre.”

I’d never heard it before. It sounded foreign.

“All right, Andre. You’re going to be staying in my house for a few days; it’s only fair we introduce ourselves. My name is Johanna. May I know their names too?” I insisted, nodding toward the living room where the baby and the other being were.

“…my sister’s name is Sasha. And my dad’s name is Alexander.”

I was also surprised by how easy all of this felt. Talking so calmly with a wolf-child while I searched for the first-aid kit to clean his wolf-father’s wounds. Of course. Maybe I wasn’t curled up in a corner, traumatized, because part of me was too exhausted to deal with the fact that I was facing something that DID NOT EXIST—at least, not for most people. Someone was going to have to give me a few explanations when I woke up. There was also the possibility that I’d slipped in the shower, hit my head, and hallucinated everything.

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

There was also the possibility that it was my psychotic side reacting evasively to fear. Because, of course, part of me was terrified—utterly terrified—that that white monster, injured or not, might get up and tear my head off with a single swipe of its paw. That it might rip me apart completely with those terrible teeth. Oh yes, because at some point, somewhere between the pushing and the dragging, his head had fallen to the side and his jaws had opened, revealing enormous, razor-sharp fangs.

I tried not to think about it anymore. I went upstairs to the bathroom to get the first-aid kit, but this time the little boy didn’t follow me. Then I returned to the living room with the wolf-child and his family, and for the first time since that whole disaster had begun, I smiled at him. Slowly, with all the calm I could muster. I noticed it relaxed him, because the little one covered his stomach with his small hands over the coat. Even so, I could hear his insides growling.

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

“Well, it looks 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 offered, and the boy looked at me with those big blue eyes, unblinking. “Do you like eggs and bacon? I’ll make you some. First, please, give me a… hand with this.”

Apparently, he thought it was the greatest idea in the world.

The child got so happy that he started wagging his tail beneath the edge of the coat. No—really. He was wagging his tail. I asked him to help me, and his job consisted of rinsing the cloths stained with blood and mud and handing me strips of adhesive tape, but he did very well, considering he looked like a small wild animal and his hands were armed with little yellow claws. Another sign that they probably had another life as humans. Surprisingly, my hands didn’t shake as I slowly parted the white beast’s soft fur, searching for the holes. Was that exhaustion talking? I couldn’t say. One thing was certain: my eyes were closing, but I wasn’t going to leave that hungry child and that baby unattended.

My peaceful place was no longer quite so peaceful, and my world had just grown a little beyond my nearly impenetrable ring of trees.

When I found the wound, my stomach turned. They really were two holes, but in the semi-darkness of the night I hadn’t seen the pus or the depth of the gash; the smell was as strong as—or stronger than—that of the werewolf himself. I didn’t know what to do, once again. What if my attention made it worse? He couldn’t keep bleeding out on my living room floor either. With a somewhat distracted gesture, I wiped the rug with a cloth and waited for my stomach to settle before looking at the wound again. I moved the werewolf’s inert, heavy arm until it was stretched out crosswise from his body, and with a damp cloth I began to clean.

Instinctively, my gaze kept drifting to the beast’s face, perhaps expecting him to open his eyes and glare at me with fury or for his jaws to move, but there was no response. His fur glowed with an orange shimmer from the fireplace flames, and all that could be heard was the ticking of the wall clock and, from time to time, the child’s whimpers. The father only breathed, with a low snore that sounded deep in his chest. It must have hurt terribly. I didn’t have any strong painkillers to give him, so I decided to stop feeling sorry for him (pity, really?) and limit myself to cleaning and bandaging the wound as best I could, letting nature take its course. After all, it wasn’t my problem.

Several times, as I tried to secure the adhesive tape over the cleaned wounds on the giant wolf’s side (I should have shaved the fur, but it didn’t occur to me at the time), I wondered what the hell I was doing. I looked at the imposing, elegant lupine snout, the sharp teeth behind thin black lips, and his powerful chest rising and falling with labored but steady breaths, and honestly… I don’t know.

Could it get any crazier?

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