Mommy! Mommy! He was calling her over and over. She could hear him with a clarity that bordered on the bizarre, but she had no time to think about the oddity. She didn’t know how to reach him.
“Ame… Ame…!”
She crisscrossed the woods at random, crying out as she ran. Several times she lost her way as she ran back and forth to the stream. She could not find him. Time and her strength ebbed away. Before she knew it, a thick gray mantle had replaced the light clouds. As snow began drifting down, she finally caught sight of Ame. His naked body was far downstream, lying in the dry riverbed.
“…Ame!!” She shivered with terror. Beside herself now, she ran to him, grabbed his shoulders, and shook him roughly.
“Ame! Open your eyes! Ame!!”
No matter how she shook him, however, he remained silent. His skin was bluish white and as cold as a rock in the riverbed. But she didn’t give up.
“Ame… Ame… Ame!!”
Unable to endure it any longer, she hugged his body fiercely to her own.
Next to her, wolf Yuki—who, she guessed, had dived into the water and pulled Ame out—hung her head, panting and sopping wet.
Hana kept holding Ame’s body close. Was this their last good-bye? Could he no longer hear her voice? Would her magic spell never work again? Could she no longer wipe his tears? Would she never see his adorable smile again?
Would he become like another wolf, his wet fur exposed to the elements, still for eternity?
At that moment, Ame moaned faintly in Hana’s arms.
“…Mommy, I can’t breathe…”
“Ame!!!”
She raised her tear-soaked face and looked at him. He smiled weakly as his consciousness returned and whispered as if he were still dreaming.
“…Mommy, I found a kingfisher…a really neat one… I thought I could catch something, too…” As he talked, his skin steadily regained its usual pink hue. “…It was weird; I didn’t feel like usual… I wasn’t scared… All of a sudden, I felt like I could do anything.”
He sounded like a fairy-tale hero who had managed to return alive from his adventures.
“And, Mommy…oh!”
He widened his eyes, just then noticing the tears streaming down his mother’s face.
“…Why are you crying?”
Then he looked at Yuki and asked her confusedly, “…What are you doing here?”
Yuki, who had returned to a stark-naked human form, stared at him openmouthed.
Hana pulled both of them close to warm them up. Tears of relief flowed down her cheeks as she gave thanks for her good fortune to no one in particular.
A fine dust of snow whipped up in the wind and swirled around them.
3
As the long winter drew to a close and spring approached, Yuki turned six.
More than anything, Yuki wanted to go to elementary school like other children her age. She didn’t know exactly what kind of place elementary school was, but she imagined it was terrifically fun, and just thinking about it made her excited. She knew, however, that she would have to convince her mother to let her go, and so for a while, she was as good as could be. Her efforts proved successful, and it was decided she would attend school starting in April.
Hana went to the town hall and filled out the necessary papers, then lugged an old desk in from the barn and turned the room next to the bedroom into a study. Yuki was dancing deliriously with joy, but Hana told her she could go to school on one condition only: No matter what, she must never turn into a wolf.
“I know, I know!” Yuki said, fingering her brand-new backpack as she sat in bed in her pajamas the night before her first day of school. Still, Hana insisted on this point.
“Promise me.”
“I promise I’ll be good!”
“Well then, three presents, three octopuses.”
“What’s that?”
Hana smiled wryly as Yuki looked up at her. “Hee-hee-hee… It’s a spell to keep you human.”
“A spell?”
“You do it like this—three presents, three octopuses.”
As Hana chanted, she tapped her chest three times with her fist.
“Three…”
“Presents, three octopuses.”
Yuki thought it was such a strange combination of words that it had to work.
“Three presents, three octopuses! Three presents, three octopuses!”
She quickly memorized it and repeated it over and over as if it was the most important thing in the world.
The next morning, Yuki set out in high spirits with her new backpack, leaving behind the house still buried deep in snow. Hana followed in her good black suit, pulling a whining Ame along by the hand.
The closest bus stop was a fifteen-minute walk down the forestry road. Yuki skipped along swinging the cloth bag that held her indoor school slippers, shouting the spell her mother had taught her over and over. When they reached the bus stop, she swung from the rusted signpost, craning her neck to see if the bus was coming yet.
Once the empty bus was jostling them down the road, she squealed at the wild cherry blossom trees and bounced up and down on her seat. As they wound down the mountain, the snow on the ground gradually thinned so that by the time they reached the center of town, half an hour later, the world was in full spring bloom.
The elementary school occupied a two-story wooden building from the 1930s or so that everyone was quite proud of. Although it had once been full of children, the classes had steadily shrunk as the community aged, and now it was a small school with only ten or so children in each grade level.
The entrance ceremony took place next to the main building in a newer, steel-framed concrete gym. The place was abuzz with current students, teachers, guests, and parents, all focused on the nine new students sitting directly in front of the stage.
Yuki had never in her whole life been surrounded by so many people. Bewildered, she shrunk shyly in her seat. The happy excitement of just a few minutes earlier had completely vanished. The other new students, who had all gone to preschool together, were playing boisterously; Yuki’s was the only new face among them, and since no one talked to her, all she could do was stare at the floor and swallow nervously.
She didn’t hear a word of the principal’s kindly greeting or the guest speaker’s lengthy congratulatory address, and the welcoming choral number by the older students only made her legs turn to jelly from intimidation. She had wanted so badly to come, but now that she was here, she was consumed with worry over whether it would go all right. She glanced around hoping her mother would save her, and Hana smiled back encouragingly from the parent seating area. Nevertheless, the anxious feeling would not go away. The only thing that got her through it was silently repeating the spell over and over to herself.
But that was only at the very beginning. Once classes began, Yuki quickly returned to her usual cheerful self, largely thanks to her classmate and first friend, Shino, who took the bus with her every morning and talked kindly to her the whole way. As the only daughter of a large lumber dealer, Shino had inherited her father’s talent for gentle leadership and brought Yuki into the group of girls in their class.
As a result, Yuki was comfortable despite being a newcomer. During class, she always raised her hand and spoke up confidently, and at lunchtime, she ate with gusto. She raced down the halls and stairway so much that a teacher scolded her for being too wild. During races, she easily overtook the scrawny boys, grinning with satisfaction when the girls gathered round to shower her with surprised admiration. Before she knew it, she was relishing every day at school. Each night, she could hardly wait for the morning to come.
Hana felt confident sending Yuki off to school, watching her backpack sway as the little girl sprinted down the hill without a backward glance. As the mother of a wolf child, she was relieved nothing unusual had happened so far, and as an ordinary mother, she was happy to see her daughter so fulfilled.
She went to the city office and for the
first time applied for public assistance for the children. She wanted to make sure that Yuki was able to properly attend school. Money had been scarce before, too, and she probably could have received benefits sooner, but she had worried that the cost would be the children’s secret, and so she had stayed away. With Yuki “being good” in the public sphere of the school, though, Hana felt she had to do what was necessary, too.
The paperwork was finished so quickly it was almost anticlimactic.
“I’m back,” she said, returning to the spot where Ame was waiting.
“…Look.”
Ame, his cap pulled low over his eyes, was pointing to a bulletin board. On it was a poster advertising jobs at the Niikawa Nature Preserve. Mixed in with the photographs of birds and alpine plants at the bottom of the paper was a picture of a wolf in a cage.
A wolf.
Hana stared at the picture for a long time.
The Niikawa Nature Preserve was nestled among the hills not far from the town hall.
Starting in 1984, the environment ministry had encouraged the establishment of similar public centers for nature observation and environmental education throughout the country. The one that Hana and Ame found themselves at sat at the center of over 250 wooded acres.
Inside, large pictures showed all kinds of forests. The one labeled COUNTRYSIDE FLORA AND FAUNA was dotted with representative trees, flowers, animals, and insects so that visitors could easily understand the whole rural ecosystem.
As Hana gazed intently at the illustration, she heard someone calling her from behind.
“Sorry to make you wait. Shall we go?”
“Oh, yes!”
The voice belonged to Mr. Tendo, the middle-aged man who both oversaw the center and served as a conservationist. He invited Hana to observe him as he led a group of junior high students through the forest.
Mr. Tendo talked about the trees and birds as he led the students down trails running through the nature preserve, stopping to chat with volunteers doing maintenance work on a marsh and make friendly conversation with a visiting university research group. Hana tagged along, taking notes.
“Conservationists don’t just protect nature,” he told Hana after they had returned to the center. “We also do environmental education and field studies, and we help conserve wild animals and plants. Those are the three key parts of our work, and we do it with the help of volunteers. Our tasks are very diverse, so we have to be ready to do anything on top of our work as specialists. We’re looking to hire an assistant since we’re so busy. That being said…”
They were sitting in a drab meeting room lined with whiteboards. Mr. Tendo glanced over Hana’s resume.
“To be honest, the salary is very low. We only have the resources to provide something like a stipend for those who want to become conservationists themselves in the future. It’s less than what high school students get at part-time jobs.”
He looked up at Hana and smiled brightly before continuing.
“Still interested?”
Hana paused for a moment, then hesitantly asked a question of her own. “…Um, I heard you have a wolf here?”
In response, Mr. Tendo led Hana and Ame to the on-site animal house. The wolf was in a large, clean cage lit up with sunshine from the skylight overhead. It lay against one of the concrete walls, glancing nervously toward them. Its light brown fur was mottled here and there, maybe with dirt.
Mr. Tendo lowered his voice. “He’s an eastern timber wolf,” he said.
“…He’s calm, isn’t he?”
“That’s because he’s so old.”
A staff member stuck her head around the door and called to Mr. Tendo. “Uh, Director…”
“Excuse me for a minute,” he said, leaving the building.
Hana waited until the door closed after him, then squatted beside Ame and looked the wolf in the eye.
“Pleased to meet you. We’ve come because we want to ask you something,” she said by way of greeting. She felt as though she could understand his language.
The wolf rose slowly to his feet, and Hana put her arm around Ame’s shoulders as if to present him to the wolf.
“This boy is a wolf child. His father was a wolf, too, but he passed away. I’m his mother, but I don’t know how to raise wolf children. How did you grow up?”
“—”
The wolf stared at them through the bars of the cage. Hana leaned toward him.
“Please, can you tell us how you were raised in the forest?”
“—”
The wolf continued to stare at them with his nervous eyes, as if he was sizing Ame up. But a moment later, he suddenly turned away, folded his legs beneath him, and laid down against the wall, as if he had decided they were too tiresome to bother with. He apparently wasn’t going to tell them anything.
“—”
After that, no matter how many questions Hana asked, he would not answer. Now and then, he groaned softly, but that seemed to be more a complaint about his poor health than anything else.
“…”
Discouraged, Hana stood up. When Mr. Tendo returned from his errand, he gently explained the wolf’s story.
“…A wealthy individual received special permission to keep him as a pet, but no one wanted him when she passed away. Finally, someone brought him here. I hear he was born at a zoo in Moscow.”
“…So he’s not wild?”
“It’s rare for a zoo to have a wild wolf, I think. When wolves breed in captivity, the cubs are usually sent away to be fostered.”
He went on to explain that injured wild birds, racoon dogs, and other animals were also brought to the center, where they were nursed back to health before being returned to their homes.
The whole time the two adults were talking, Ame stared piercingly at the wolf.
By the time they left the center, the hills were dark.
They bounced and jostled toward home on the empty bus. Hana had decided to take the job. She might be able to teach the children how to live as humans, but she didn’t trust herself to teach them to live as wolves. She was grateful for a job that would allow her to learn about wild animals while she worked.
The bluish-white fluorescent lights of the bus shone down coldly on her and Ame. As rice paddies streamed by outside the windows, he stared silently at the lights in the houses on the far side.
“…I’ll be going to work at the center from now on. You don’t mind coming with, do you?” Hana asked.
He nodded silently, still looking out the window.
“I’ll learn all about the mountains and nature while I work, and then I can teach you.”
“…He was the first real one I ever saw.”
“The wolf?”
“Was Daddy like that?”
“No, not at all.”
“I’m glad.”
“Why?”
“He seemed kind of lonely.” Ame scooted closer to Hana, still looking out the window. “I wish I could’ve met Daddy,” he murmured.
Hana scooted closer to Ame.
“I wish I could see him again, too,” she replied softly.
Around that time, things changed for Yuki at school.
She learned girls were supposed to love wildflowers and make flower crowns and search for four-leaf clovers. Girls had jewelry boxes handed down from their mothers or fancy cases they’d begged for as birthday presents, and they took turns showing one another the colorful buttons and glass disks for playing ohajiki that they kept inside.
These hard truths came as a shock to Yuki. She was the only girl who enjoyed catching rat snakes and waving them around or wrapping them on her arm. She was the only one whose treasure chest was an aluminum can filled with the bones of small mammals and the dry skins of reptiles. The moment Yuki realized no one else did these things, she was terribly embarrassed. She nearly fled school that day clutching her little can.
She had made up her mind: From now on, she would act as ladylike and feminine as she could.
/> Hana tried very hard to keep from laughing out loud when she heard Yuki announce her decision. “Tee-hee-hee-hee…”
“…What?”
Yuki glared at her mother, her chin cupped in her hands. “Don’t laugh! It’s important!”
“Why don’t you just keep doing what you like to do?”
“I hate it when everyone looks at me weird!”
She didn’t cheer up in the least when Hana told her she needn’t worry because everyone would be friends again soon.
“Well, I guess I don’t have a choice, then,” Hana said.
“Huh?”
She announced she was going to make Yuki a new outfit.
Yuki watched over her shoulder as she skillfully stitched away on the old foot-pedal sewing machine they’d discovered in the barn. Now and then, Yuki asked timidly if Hana wouldn’t mind making it a little girlier. It took two nights to finish the sleeveless dark blue dress with snowflakes around the hem.
Yuki wore it to school the very next day. She felt self-conscious, not quite herself, nervous to see how everyone would react.
When the other girls spotted her as she walked up to the school, the compliments came pouring in. Ooh, that’s a pretty dress! I like the style! It looks so good on you! I want one!
This had nothing to do with the quality of the dress itself; it was their way of validating Yuki as one who shared their feminine values. In other words, it was a rite of passage in which they agreed to treat Yuki as an equal.
Yuki felt a tremendous sense of relief at their reaction. She was sure she wouldn’t feel out of place anymore, and now she could enjoy her time at school. She silently thanked her new dress and the one who’d sewn it for her.
Soon, it was spring again.
Hana was promoted from a part-timer to a full-time permanent staff member. The family became more financially stable, and Hana started paying back her student loans. The trade-off was that, in her downtime, she was swamped with classes and studying for her conservationist’s certification.
Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki Page 8