Raised by Wolves

Chapter 69

CHAPTER 69

LOOK, I USED to believe the fairy tale, too. We’d heard it so many times. It was as familiar to us as air. As the sun. As the wild green woods themselves.

But one day I found myself thinking: Really? That’s really how it went down? With the winter and the wolves?

Because I knew that on a winter night, the cold is truly lethal. And to a starving wolf, anything is prey.

But I never asked Wendy. And I told myself that it didn’t matter where we came from; it only mattered where we’d ended up. We lived with Wendy, and we loved her; she loved us fiercely and protectively back. And wasn’t that a lot more than some people could say about their real parents?

“It’s time, Wendy,” Agent Dunham says. “Tell the children what you know.”

Wendy closes her eyes. Moans again. When she finally speaks, her voice sounds so small. “I found them in the woods. They were utterly alone.”

Holo reaches for my hand. “See?” he whispers.

“And?” Rollins says. “Go on.”

“It was winter, wasn’t it?” Holo asks stubbornly.

Wendy shakes her head. “It was early fall. The days were still warm, but the nights were getting colder and longer. I’d gone out to look for elderberries in the foothills. I was a couple of miles from my cabin when I saw a tiny shoe sticking out from underneath a bush. I couldn’t believe it. There’d never been anyone in this remote part of the forest—especially not a child. I honestly thought the shoe had fallen out of an airplane or something. So I went over to pick it up. And that’s when I realized that it was still attached to a foot.” Wendy’s voice cracks, and she begins to cry again. “They were huddled together in the bush. They were all alone and so, so tiny. They didn’t have coats. Their lips were blue. They were on the brink of death.”

That’s us she’s talking about. I feel sort of queasy.

“What do you estimate was the age of the children when you found them?” Agent Dunham asks.

Wendy sniffles and wipes her eyes. “Maybe two and five. Somewhere around there. I mean—Holo had on a diaper. A filthy diaper.”

“And what did you do after you found the children?” Dunham asks.

“I told you, they were nearly dead. I yelled for help. I screamed at the top of my lungs. I thought their parents must be nearby. But no one answered. There was no one, anywhere , in that whole huge forest. No one but me and those poor little lost babies.” She breaks down again. She’s crying so hard you’d think we’d actually died.

“And so what did you do?” Rollins asks.

When her sobs subside, Wendy says, “I carried them back to my cabin.” She tenderly brushes Holo’s hair back from his forehead. “I wrapped them in blankets. I bandaged their cuts and I fed them good food and I nursed them back to health. They were beautiful children. I was so happy I found them. They were a gift from the forest. It was just like my father said—” She stops and gives her head a hard shake. “It was just like I’d been taught: ‘nature will provide.’”

Dunham rubs his grizzled chin again, looking puzzled. “And it never occurred to you to come out of the woods—to seek actual medical care for these children? To find the people they’d been separated from? The people they belonged to?”

But Wendy just stares straight ahead, like she can see straight back into the past. She doesn’t seem to hear him. “I taught them the ways of the forest. Taught them to watch and listen, and to hunt and gather. I taught them how to read and write, too. I taught them everything I know, and they’re smarter than any of you. Smarter than all of you put together. I saved their lives! And I raised them up like they were my own children.” A sob catches in her throat. “They are my children. I found them, and I saved them. They’re mine.”

“You saved them, yes,” Dunham agrees. “No one’s going to argue with you about that. But you know as well as I do that these kids weren’t yours to keep.”

Wendy opens her mouth to protest, but I cut her off. “She isn’t going to say anything more,” I say. “Not without a lawyer.”

Dunham looks at me in surprise. Rollins scowls.

“But I—” Wendy begins.

“You aren’t going to say anything more,” I repeat.

Wendy crumples even smaller. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

What’s she sorry about? Saving us from dying of cold and starvation? For telling us a fairy tale instead of what really happened? I can’t see even why it matters—not when the truth will just be duller and uglier than the lie.