Raised by Wolves

Chapter 65

CHAPTER 65

WENDY WHO ? I think. She only has one name. Same with me and my brother. Same with the wolves and the bears and everyone else.

Wendy looks at the agent in confusion.

Agent Dunham says, “The name doesn’t ring a bell?”

“I’ve never heard it before.”

“Huh. All right,” Dunham says. “That’s okay.” He rubs his grizzled chin. “So you’ve lived in those woods since—”

“Since always,” Wendy says. “As long as I can remember.”

“But you weren’t always alone, were you?”

“I had Kai and Holo.” She glances over at me. Her voice sounds strong, but her eyes have become darting and afraid.

“Before that,” the agent says. “When you were younger. When you were a child. Were you alone then?”

Wendy shakes her head. “I lived with my father. He was a woodsman.”

“A woodsman?” Rollins repeats. “Is that a lumberjack or something?”

Wendy ignores him. “He’d been a professor, but he’d been fired when I was a baby. ‘They didn’t support my research,’ he told me. I didn’t know what that meant, or what he researched, but I didn’t ask. Father didn’t like it when I asked questions. He wanted me to listen. To absorb. To obey.”

This is more than Wendy has ever told us about her past. And there’s something about the way she talks about her father that sends a cold, strange shiver up my spine.

“So he educated you, out there in the forest?” Dunham prods.

“Of course. He knew everything about everything, it seemed like. I tried to take it all in. History, poetry, water catchment, trapping skills. I could forage for mushrooms before I could read.” She smiles proudly. Defiantly. “I learned to skin and gut a deer and recite Wordsworth and Keats. Father taught me about the Roman Empire and the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, and he taught me how to catch fish with my bare hands.”

“Did you ever leave the woods?” Dunham asks.

“We never left the woods, and I never knew any other children. We spent our days keeping ourselves alive and our nights reading books.”

“Was it a good childhood?” Dunham wants to know.

Wendy laughs nervously. “I have nothing to compare it to. But whether I liked it or not back then wasn’t even something I could consider. It would not have been… permitted.” She presses her lips together in a thin line. It’s obvious she wants them to stop asking her questions. But they won’t—not yet.

“What happened to your father?” Rollins asks.

Wendy doesn’t answer right away. When she does, her voice comes out flat and emotionless. “He died.”

“How old were you?”

“We never celebrated birthdays. But I’d guess I was probably a year or two younger than Holo.”

“How did he die?”

Wendy twists her hands in her lap. “I don’t know. He didn’t come home from his hunt one night. The next day I went looking for him. I found his body by the stream where we fished, halfway into the water. Part of his leg was gone. But I think that happened after he died. There wasn’t enough blood for that to be what killed him.”

The words are bone-chilling. But Wendy recounts the memory as calmly as she might recall the weather.

“So what did you do then?” Dunham asks.

Wendy takes a deep breath. “He was a big man, too big to move. I had no choice. I left him where he was. The scavengers took what they wanted, and then I buried what was left. It wasn’t much by then.”

“Lovely,” Rollins mutters.

“Then it was just me and a .270 Winchester bolt-action rifle,” Wendy goes on. “And everything Father had taught me. I barely survived the winter.”

“Why didn’t you try to find help?” Holo blurts.

Wendy looks at him like this is a strange question. “Father had told me all about other people and how dangerous they were. He said that the world was corrupt and evil, that the only good people in the world were the two of us. Keeping to the forest, taking only what we needed, living like animals. Living like an animal was a good thing, you understand. It was honorable. It meant that you took only what you needed, you raised your young to the best of your ability, and you trusted the earth to provide what you needed.”

“You make it sound mighty poetic,” Dunham says.

“It was what it was.” Wendy bows her head. “Like I said, I didn’t know anything different.”

“Then what happened?” Dunham presses.

“I was all alone for years—how many, I don’t even know. Until one day I found a young, injured wolf.” She smiles at me and Holo. “That was Beast’s grandmother, and she was the first friend I ever had.” Then she folds her arms across her chest and says, “But that’s enough for now. I can’t talk anymore. I need to rest.”

Dunham leans forward and lowers his voice. “You can rest soon. But first I think it’s time for me to tell you what I know about your life,” he says.

Wendy looks up at him, startled. “But I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before. How do y—”

“That man wasn’t your father, Wendy,” Dunham interrupts. “He was your kidnapper . He stole you from your parents’ yard when you were three years old, and he took you into the woods. From that day until the moment he died, he kept you hidden from everything you knew and everyone who loved you.”

A black hole seems to open in my stomach. Wendy was kidnapped ? Stolen? I can’t believe it. I see the way the news hits Wendy—not quickly, like a blow, but like a weight slowly pressing down, harder and harder, until it threatens to crush her.

“That isn’t true,” she gasps. “It can’t be.”

“You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you,” Dunham says. “I wasn’t the only one, either. For years it seemed like the whole world was looking for little Wendy. They could never find you. And then, eventually, they gave up. They forgot about you.” He stands up again. Crosses his arms across his barrel chest. “But not me,” he says. “ I never did. ”