Childlore

We were children, she and I. And there was still mercy enough in the world to believe in false things.

There was an old, broken playground deep in the trees. She’d asked me to meet her there before sunset. I found her sitting up top, spindly legs dangling. She must not have heard the rumors that it was haunted, that a kid had fallen from the highest bar and broken his neck. The story explained why the counselors told us to stay away—or maybe it was just because of the rust.

She was twelve. I was eleven. It was summer: those beautiful, precious days of youth full-up with junebugs and frog pools. Magical camptimes when myths and ghosts and gods were all allowed to be real.

“What is it you wanted to tell me?” I asked her. I didn’t want to be kissed.

“You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“I promise.” My fingers were crossed behind my back.

“Okay, then come here.” She dropped down soundlessly. When I got close she pulled up her sleeves to reveal long red scars running up her forearms—or were they drawn in marker? “Before we came to this camp I lived with a family. But they weren’t my original family. I was part of a pack of wolves.”

“What do you mean?” I laughed, but she looked serious. “Like actual wolves? That’s weird.”

“It’s true. I don’t want the other boys to know. Just you. Will you keep it a secret for me?”

“I don’t believe you. We read The Jungle Book in Cubs. That stuff isn’t real.”

“Isn’t it?” She pulled herself back onto the ancient rusted structure, balancing on the monkey bars like a sitting dog, hands between her ankles. “I heard that you were a Boy Scout. Can you set up a tent? If we brought one to the forest we might hear my family howling at night.”

And then she howled loudly and earnestly, her chin pointed up to the sky. I almost expected her to be answered by a real wolf.

“Do you still not believe me?” she asked.

I didn’t. I don’t know why I even came to meet her in the woods. She was bullied and I wasn’t. I helped the boys bully her. She was pretty and blonde, but neither of us were old enough to understand what that meant.

“Why did you really ask me to come here?” I asked. “Is there something else?”

“What else would there be? I wanted to tell you my secret.” Her eyes were big and vulnerable.

“But we’re not friends,” I said.

“Maybe we should be. You seem like you’d make a good wolf, too.”

“I should go.”

“Wait!” She jumped to grab my wrist before I could leave, digging in her long nails. It hurt. “The counselors have some tents, I think. If I steal one, would you meet me here again after dark? It’s a full moon.”

---

It was two hours past dark when I was able to leave the bunkhouse. I had a little flashlight, but didn’t need it—the huge moon cast everything in silver and blue. We were at a camp for riding horses and so our lodgings had a facade like a frontier town. GENERAL STORE. WELLS FARGO. I was staying in the COUNTY JAIL. When everyone was asleep it seemed abandoned, save for the sound of ponies snoring in the stables. Though it had been a hot, active day of riding and climbing and swimming and singing, a breeze chilled the empty camp and I wished I had brought a sweater.

The forest stood across the field. And inside: that baleful steel wreck. She was there at the jungle gym like she’d promised, limbs thinner than the corroded rails. Her pilfered Canadian Tire tent sagged, huge in its bag.

“I knew you would come!” she grabbed my hand even though we had barely ever talked. “Did anyone hear you? I think I was almost caught.” Then looking out into the woods: “Let’s go in deeper. They don’t like it so close to the ranch—because of the farm dogs.”

“I have a flashlight.” I showed off its dim, alkaline beam. “So you won’t get scared.”

“I’m not scared of the dark.” She started to skip and swing my hand in hers. “Wolves are cre-pus-cu-lar. That means that they like twilight times: dusk and dawn. So I can see in the dark, pretty good. And plus, look at that moon!” She howled again.

This time, the wolves really did answer. They sounded far off, but not too far. Somewhere out in the forest. “I told you they would come tonight!”

“Hold on,” I said. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.” I had used up all my bravery sneaking past our sleeping teenage chaperones.

“Don’t worry, trust me.” She flashed me her canines with a big smile. “I’ve gone out at night here already. A few times.” Even in the moonlight I could see the bags under her eyes. Was that all I could see? “And it really isn’t so dark, is it? You can keep your light on, if you want.”

“Okay,” I didn’t want to be scared in front of a girl. We walked hand-in-hand into the woods.

---

The cool air smelled of pine and earth. It was full of creature-music: owl woodwinds and cricket percussion and amphibian brass.

“I think there’s a bullfrog somewhere along the creek,” I whispered. The beast’s complaints stood out from the rest of the forest song. My anxiety had burned off in the excitement of our nighttime adventure—it was my first time sneaking out. “It’s easier to catch it if we have two people. Though I’ve never tried in the dark.”

Carefully, we crept to either side of the water. Around us, fireflies blinked in and out of existence.

“Three… two… one!” she said and we splashed in together, missing the frog entirely and soaking our pant legs.

“It’s easier in the daytime,” I said. “And with smaller frogs.”

“You just jumped too early!” she laughed. “You need to learn teamwork for hunting. Otherwise, you won’t survive in my pack.”

“I play hockey. I know teamwork.” I shivered in the wind. “Man, we’re all wet. Are you warm?”

“My sweater is dry. Mostly. I’m okay.”

“Is this where we’re going to camp?”

“I found a special place the other night,” she said. “There’s a clearing, in a ways. That’s where the wolves like to hunt.”

“You really know a lot about wolves,” I said. “I’ve read a few books about them. Do you know Call of the Wild?” I didn’t mention that the novel was actually read to me by my mother when I was little.

 “I don’t really like reading. Though I wouldn’t mind if it was about wolves.” She grinned. “I like first-hand experience better.”

Then it was her turn to shiver. “Brrr! I guess I’m cold, too.”

I pulled out my Swiss Army knife and a little ferrocerium rod given to me by my uncle and scout leader. When I scraped the file across the rod it sent out a shower of sparks. The orange mixed with blue in her eyes. “This works even when it gets wet,” I said. “I think I can build a fire when we get there.”

“I knew I picked the right camper! Though wolves don’t really make fires. We sleep outside, but it’s not really camping.”

The wolves howled again. But now the noise was louder and it didn’t come from only one direction.

“C’mon.” She pulled me along. “It’s okay.”

---

When we got to the clearing I gathered dry tinder and dipped twigs in some pine resin so they’d catch a spark. She assigned herself the task of pitching the tent. Soon we had a tidy stick fire but no shelter.

“I don’t know how this works!” She threw down the twisted tent. “I’ve never used one of these before.”

“It’s easy,” I said, taking over. “Hasn’t your dad ever shown you how? The poles go through these sleeves. Like an ‘X’.”

“I told you, this is my first time camping. My dad doesn’t really like outdoors stuff. He never lets me see my real family. My pack.” She sat on the log next to the fire, and lifted her wet sneakers to steam in the heat. “He didn’t even want me to come to this camp. My grandma had to pay for me.”

I was already hammering in the tent’s big metal pegs with a rock.

“You’re good at this,” she said, admiring my work. “But we only need a tent for you, y’ know. When I sleep with the wolves, their fur keeps me warm all night. Wolves have a double coat. That’s how they can survive the winter.”

I joined her and added some bigger branches to the fire. It felt warm and safe and cozy. The bottom of her face glowed orange and the top was in shadow, save for a filtered moonbeam. I thought she looked like my mom telling us ghost stories with a flashlight pointed up under her chin. But she didn’t look scary.

“Why did you ever leave them?” I asked. “If I lived in the woods with wolves, I would stay forever.”

She was quiet, staring into the crackling flames. Too long. “I don’t really like talking about it,” she said finally.

We sat in awkward silence for a while. She had that habit: sometimes becoming still and thoughtful at random beats in the conversation and I didn’t know why.

“Why are your friends mean to me?” she asked. “I wanted to join your game yesterday and you all ran away.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But one of them said that he saw you do something with one of the older boys. That you were kissing.”

“That’s not true!” she cried. “That boy—we held hands, and that’s all. And I don’t even like him. Plus, I held hands with you, too, when you were scared earlier. Does that mean that they will hate you now?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “No one knows that I’m out here with you.”

I’m not sure if she could see how red my face turned.

“And I don’t want to kiss either!” I said.

She laughed so suddenly that she snorted. “Don’t worry. Wolves don’t kiss little boys.”

She made me feel comfortable again. As we sat by the fire, still close, I reflected on the fact that I had done something adult by agreeing to go out with her alone. The ‘illumination’ button on my watch told me it was already past midnight. Were we really going to sleep out here?

Then I remembered: “How did you get those marks on your arms?” I asked. “Aren’t those from your wolf family?”

She frowned again. “Those are… from the wolves, yeah,” she said.

“Why don’t you want to talk about them?” I said, getting frustrated. “You showed them to me earlier. Isn’t the entire purpose of us being out here to see–”

I stopped when I saw two circles catch the firelight over her shoulder. Floating closer.

They were eyes, huge, creeping up on us without making a noise. And then, on the other side of the fire, I saw another pair. And then another.

We were surrounded by the wolf pack. Or, they were already on us. There was no distance for them to close, no moment for me to yell.

My blood was frozen.

And then, so naturally, she leaned into the closest wolf and nuzzled it. She wrapped her arms around its neck and it licked her.

“I’m so glad you all came back,” she told the wolf. “This time I brought a friend.”

---

Their forms around the campfire cast huge stooping shadows on the encircling pines. There were five of them. One stood out from the others for its paler eyes and its mane more silver. “I’m the sixth!” the girl beamed. “We’re a full hunting pack. You didn’t believe me, but look, they’re real! I should tell them to eat you for ever doubting me.”

The silver-maned one beside her snarled, and I jumped. But it was only making a face because of the way the girl was scritching its chest, getting a good spot. “Don’t worry. They know you’re my friend. They won’t hurt you.”

I wasn’t convinced.

“Come on, they’re just dogs, really.” She laughed. “You’re not scared of dogs, are you?”

“I have two. Back home,” I mustered. My dogs were a lot smaller than these. “What are their names?”

“Hmm… okay, maybe they aren’t dogs. They don’t really have names. But this one is their mama.” She hung off the shoulders of the silver-maned wolf.

“So the others are her cubs?”

“That’s right. She’s the leader. Now come, say hello.”

The wolf yawned wide, revealing incisors and fangs and rows of ridgelike molars. The anxious gesture spread among the others.

“They’re still suspicious of you. You need to show her respect. Like this.” The girl flopped onto her back in front of the wolf. Her shirt rode up, and the wolf bent over to tickle her belly button with its whiskers.

“This way she’ll know that you’re nice. Not scary.”

“They think I’m scary?”

“Well, of course.” She gestured to my open pocket knife laying close, gleaming in the firelight. “Humans kill wolves. They have a lot more reason to be afraid of you. Trust me.”

I thought of fairy tales and scary stories. One of the other campers had told me that his cat had been killed by coyotes.

I needed to fight every rumor and instinct as I lowered myself supine before the beast. I didn’t dare breathe.

She came close and sniffed at my belly cautiously. But then she was satisfied, and everything was okay. The other wolves pushed past each other to smell me. One started licking my face, and I laughed.

I was at the bottom of a pile of gigantic, playful puppies. I forgot all about being scared.

“You’re cut out for this.” The girl helped me back up. “I don’t think any of the other boys would have been so brave.”

“They’re amazing,” I said. “No one will believe me.”

“You promised! You have to keep this a secret. The others won’t understand.” The wolves’ ears pricked up in response to the seriousness of her tone.

“I will.” I lifted my hand, pinky up, to seal the promise. This time I meant it.

“Let’s go,” she said. “You’re one of us now. The pack has something to show us.”

---

The wolves ran through the forest like fish swimming downstream. They flowed between trunks and floated over boulders. When they circled back so that I could catch up, they looked just like eddies coming off the current.

The girl had no trouble keeping pace with them. She shared in their confidence and grace, dashing along on all fours. Her fingers and toes pushed off the ground with such a light touch that she made no sound. Her lupine impression was perfect; whenever she turned to wait for me, I thought she might scratch herself behind her ear with a foot.

I jogged behind the pack pitifully, heavy breaths showing in the cool night air. The undergrowth seemed to give way to them as if by magic, every gap widening just enough to grant their passage. It was as if secret veins ran through the woods and some hidden heart was pumping them along. I could only follow clumsily, scratching myself on bushes and tripping over logs.

Despite my slowness, running with the wolves provided a feeling of freedom I had never before experienced, neither awake nor in a dream.

When we reached a break in the brush, the girl yelled, “Come on! We’re almost there.”

“Do you know where they’re taking us?”

“We’re following a scent. Our noses aren’t as good as theirs, but if you lower your face right to the ground, you might catch a whiff. Try with me.”

I got down on my knees between her and one of the wolf cubs. All three of us bent low and breathed in deep, welcoming in every mote of magic dust.

“Coins,” I said. “I smell metal.”

“Blood,” she corrected, lifting a finger stained dark. “They must have made a kill.”

---

Until that point, I had only ever watched one creature die. When I was seven, our first dog, old and well-loved, waited for me to get home from hockey practice before finally letting go. I still remember my father wrapping her body in a towel, and lifting her into the trunk of our car. She had lived a good life.

The fawn was different. It was still young. Tiny. The wolves had torn out its throat and left it to bleed out, alone. But somehow it was still alive when they returned. It was fighting to stay. To grow up. Or maybe it was waiting for her and me.

By then it was too weak to move or attempt to call out. Ragged breaths bubbled and steamed out of its ruined airway. It didn’t have much time left.

Tears came to my eyes, seeing it like that. Innocent and new and already over. It felt as if all the other miracles I had experienced that night were only tricks. They all came at a cost I couldn’t understand.

“Why did they do this?” I asked the girl. She wasn’t crying. She sat in silence with the others, watching the dying fawn. The silver-maned mother looked stern and decisive, like a queen.

“We’re wolves,” the girl said honestly. “We eat deers. And rabbits and frogs and birds. That’s how it works.”

I could see in her eyes some unfamiliar sort of knowing. Something adult. How did she have it? Wasn’t this all just a game?

“Hold on,” she said. “I’ll help it.” She bent down close and stroked the fawn’s head gently and whispered to it. It shuddered at her touch before becoming calm and still. There was something like trust and permission. She ended things with a crack.

She leaned back in that circle of blood-black earth and howled at the moon mournfully. And all the other wolves joined her. I could do nothing but stare at them crying out together in the magic light.

Then a warmth, or a mist, still deer-shaped, leaked out of the fawn’s open mouth and drifted out of the ring of howling wolves. It rose up into the cloudless sky.

Something released in me. I let it all be a painting. A story. I let myself believe in it.

The fawn’s soul went up and up towards the moon until it shrunk out of sight.

The wolves moved in to eat.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said, between tearing out mouthfuls of offal. “I know the first time can be hard.”

---

In the many years since, I’ve often thought about what would have happened if I had agreed to sneak out with the girl raised by wolves.

If she had told me, fawn blood dripping down her chin, that she wasn’t going to come back to camp with me, how would she have chosen to say goodbye?

Would she have come so close to my face that I could smell the gore on her breath? Would she have looked me deep in my child-eyes? Would she have pushed her forehead into mine and held it there? That’s how wolves say ‘I love you’; they rub their faces together.

Is that as far as she would have gone? Or would she have pushed her mouth closer and given me one more adult thing?

I’ll never know. I don’t deserve to know. Not after how I betrayed her.

Because in truth, I answered that girl ‘no’.

I never snuck out to meet her. That nighttime adventure in the woods didn’t happen.

Instead, I rejected her invitation and I went and told everyone her secret. We continued bullying her. We all laughed and howled at her and called her ‘wolf girl’ for the remaining weeks of camp. On the night of the dance, I found her crying. Even then, I never apologized, though I might have wanted to. I never saw her again.

I’ve wished so many times that I could go back and change things. That I could have been kinder and better than I really was. Because it was more than just bullying. That girl had chosen me out of all the other kids to join her game—I think even then I understood what that meant. She was trying to escape from something. It was a cry for help. And for whatever reason, she had trusted me to help her.

That’s why it keeps me up at night. It’s why even twenty years later I still can’t forgive myself.

The closest thing I can do is to tell the story the way it should have happened. Her truth. That’s what I’ve tried to lay out here.

If I could ever give her one, I think that her happy ending would be staying out there with the wolves. Never coming back to camp. Search parties never finding her. Her scars fading. Becoming just another camptime legend (minus all the details I’d agreed to keep secret).

I hope she found a life like that.

---

To the girl raised by wolves–
If somehow you ever read this–
I’m sorry.