Mikhail licked muskrat bones and paid him no mind.
“Change back,” Wiktor repeated. “You’re not a wolf. Change back.”
Mikhail grasped the small skull, burst it open between his jaws, and ate the brains.
“Renati wants you to change back, too,” Wiktor told him. “Hear her? She’s speaking to you.”
Mikhail heard the wind, and the voice of an insane man. He finished his meal and licked his paws.
“My God,” Wiktor said softly. “I’m going crazy as hell.” He stood up, peering down into the chasm. “But I’m not crazy enough to think I’m really a wolf. I’m a man. You are, too, Mikhail. Change back. Please.”
Mikhail didn’t. He lay on his belly, watching crows circle overhead, and he wished he could have a bite of one. He didn’t care for Wiktor’s odor; it reminded him too much of shadowy shapes with rifles.
Wiktor sighed, his head bowed. He slowly and carefully began to climb down the rocks, his body creaking at the joints. Mikhail got up, and followed him to keep him from falling. “I don’t need your help!” Wiktor shouted. “I’m a man, I don’t need your help!” He continued down the rocks to the cave, crawled into it, and lay curled up, staring at nothing. Mikhail crouched on the ledge in front of the cave, the breeze ruffling his fur. He watched the crows circling around like black kites, and his mouth watered.
The springtime sun made the forest bloom. Wiktor did not return to his wolf form, and Mikhail did not return to human flesh. Wiktor grew more feeble. On chilly nights, Mikhail entered the cave and lay next to him, warming the old man with his body heat, but Wiktor’s sleep was fragile. He was constantly tormented by nightmares, and he sat up shouting for Renati, or Nikita, or another of the lost ones. On warm days he perched up on the rocks above the chasm and stared toward the hazy western horizon.
“You should go to England,” Wiktor told the black wolf. “That’s right. England.” He nodded. “They’re civilized in England. They don’t kill their children.” He shivered; even on the warmest day, his flesh was as cold as parchment. “Do you hear me, Mikhail?” he asked, and the wolf lifted his head and stared at him but did not answer.
“Renati?” Wiktor spoke to the air. “I was wrong. We lived as wolves, but we’re not wolves. We were human beings, and we belonged to that world. I was wrong to keep us here. Wrong. And every time I look at him”-he motioned toward the black wolf-“I know I was wrong. It’s too late for me. But it isn’t for him. He could go, if he wanted to. He should go.” He worked his skinny fingers together, as if tying and then untangling a problem. “I was afraid of the human world. I was afraid of pain. You were, too, weren’t you, Renati? I think we all were. We could have gone, if we’d chosen. We could have learned to survive in that wilderness.” He lifted his hand toward the west, toward the unseen villages and towns and cities beyond the horizon. “Oh, that’s a terrible place,” he said softly. “But it’s where Mikhail belongs. Not here. Not anymore.” He looked at the black wolf. “Renati says you have to go.”
Mikhail didn’t budge; he dozed in the heat, but he could hear what Wiktor was saying. His tall twitched a fly away, an involuntary reaction.
“I don’t need you,” Wiktor said, irritation in his voice. “Do you think you’re keeping me alive? Ha! I can catch with my bare hands what your jaws would miss a hundred times over! You think this is loyalty? It’s stupidity! Change back. Son, do you hear me?”
The black wolf’s green eyes opened, then drifted shut again.
“You’re an idiot,” Wiktor decided. “I wasted my time on an idiot. Oh, Renati, why did you bring him into the fold? He has a life before him, and he wants to throw away the miracle. I was wrong… so very wrong.” He stood up, still muttering, and began to climb down to the cave again. At once Mikhail was up and following him, watching the old man’s footing. Wiktor railed at him, as he always did, but Mikhail went with him anyway.
The days passed. Summer was on the rise. Almost every day Wiktor went up to the rocks and talked to Renati, and Mikhail lay nearby, half listening, half dozing. On one of those days the sound of a distant train whistle drifted to them. Mikhail lifted his head and listened. The train’s engineer was trying to scare an animal off the tracks. It might be worth a trip there tonight, to see if the train had hit anything. He laid his head back down, the sun warm on his spine.
“I have another lesson for you, Mikhail,” Wiktor said softly, after the train’s whistle had faded. “Maybe the most important lesson. Live free. That’s all. Live free, even if your body is chained. Live free, here.” He touched his skull, with a palsied hand. “This is the place where no man can chain you. This is the place where there are no walls. And maybe that’s the hardest lesson to learn, Mikhail. All freedom has its price, but freedom of the mind is priceless.” He squinted up at the sun, and Mikhail lifted his head and watched him. There was something different in Wiktor’s voice. Something final. It frightened him, as he’d not been frightened since the soldiers had come. “You have to leave here,” Wiktor said. “You’re a human being, and you belong in that world. Renati agrees with me. You’re staying here because of an old man who talks to ghosts.” He turned his head toward the black wolf, and Wiktor’s amber eyes glinted. “I don’t want you to stay here, Mikhail. Your life is waiting for you, out there. Do you understand?”
Mikhail didn’t move.
“I want you to go,” Wiktor said. “Today. I want you to go into that world as a man. As a miracle.” He stood up, and immediately Mikhail did, too. “If you don’t go into that world… of what use were the things I taught you?” White hair rippled over his shoulders, over his chest, stomach, and arms. His beard twined around his throat, and his face began to change. “I was a good teacher, wasn’t I?” he asked, his voice deepening toward a growl. “I love you, son,” he said. “Don’t fail me.”
His spine contorted. He came down on all fours, the white hairs scurrying over his frail body, and he blinked at the sun. His hind legs tensed, and Mikhail realized what he was about to do.
Mikhail leaped forward.
And so did the white wolf.
Wiktor went into the air, still changing. He fell, his body slowly twisting, toward the rocks at the chasm’s bottom.
Mikhail tried to shout; it came out as a high, anguished yelp, but what he’d tried to shout was: “Father!”
Wiktor made no sound. Mikhail looked away, his eyes squeezed shut, and did not see the white wolf reach the rocks.
A full moon rose. Mikhail crouched above the chasm and stared fixedly at it. Every so often he shivered, though the air was sultry. He tried to sing, but nothing would come out. The forest was a silent place, and Mikhail was alone.
Hunger, a beast that knew no sorrow, gnawed at his belly. The train tracks, he thought; his brain was sluggish, unused to thinking. The train tracks. The train might have hit something today. There might be meat on the rails.
He went through the forest to the ravine, down through the weeds and dense vines to the tracks. Dazedly he began to search along them but there was no scent of blood. He would go back to the cave, he decided; that was his home now. Maybe he could find a mouse or a rabbit on the way.