Wild Child
I n the heart of the Green Cloak Forest lived two elderly sisters, Penelope and Isabelle Berry, better known as Miss Bunch and Miss Bay, and collectively, the Berry sisters.
Their stately stone and timber manor house, Seven Chimneys, boasted nine chimneys, though a couple leaned askew, as well as three masts, a bowsprit, and the stern of a pirate ship that had materialized within it.
Fortunately the house had largely repaired itself, merging the ship into its structure.
After a most satisfying Feast of Vendane supper consisting of roast piglet, breaded and fried grouse, root vegetables and squash, a veritable heap of mushrooms swimming in butter, cranberry relish, pork pie, mince pie, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and an assortment of tarts all prepared by their invisible servant, Letitia, the sisters decided to take a turn around their estate to assist with the delicate process of digestion.
As the sun set, Miss Bay, tall and seemingly frail, pointed out wrinkled rose hips with her cane, and yellow roses still in bloom, the Seven Chimneys Rose, which would bloom almost year-round. Winterberry shrubs with their bright red berries proliferated around the edges of their pond.
“It is so quiet this time of year,” said Miss Bunch, who was plump and preferred the burnt orange color for her attire that was much like that of the berries of her namesake flora, bunchberry. “No birds squabbling, no frogs jumping into the pond. Just the wind in the pines.”
“Alas, we’ll not have a tweet or warble until spring,” Miss Bay replied.
The two wended their slow way along the path that circumnavigated the pond.
At the far end stood an imposing tower, a garden folly built by their father, the late Professor Erasmus Norwood Berry.
It leaned aslant due to a marauding nightmare brought to life during the use of one of their father’s arcane relics, a draugmkelder, or “dream gatherer.”
The tower’s reflection rippled as a breeze flowed across the pond’s surface in the dusk of evening. They approached the structure’s doorway, a large, gaping maw of shadows.
“Farnham still has not fixed the door,” Miss Bay complained.
“I think he gets testy when we use father’s old things and they cause breakage, but it’s hard to tell.” Indeed, hard to know when one’s servant was invisible and silent.
As they drew abreast of the tower’s entry, Miss Bunch paused. “Bay, did you hear that?”
“Hear what? Your stomach complaining after all the mince pie you ate?”
“That was not my stomach.” She whispered, “Something is in the tower and it’s growling.”
“Are you absolutely sure it is not your stomach?”
“Quite sure.”
“Then we should away lest some fearsome beast eat us.”
They hobbled back to the house as quickly as they could and calmed their nerves with additional slabs of pie and cups of tea. Thus fortified, curiosity overcame common sense and they set out again, this time armed with a lantern and a broomstick.
As they once again approached the tower entrance, Miss Bunch hesitated. “Perhaps we ought to wait till daylight.”
“Scared, eh? Just whack whatever it is with that broomstick.”
They stood near the open door and there came the high-pitched growl.
“Hmm,” said Miss Bay. “Definitely not your stomach.”
“I told you so.”
“Hmmph.” Miss Bay raised the lantern and peered into the tower. The growling intensified.
“Bay!” Miss Bunch fretted.
Miss Bay clucked and walked inside. “Here now, you stop that growling at once. It is quite impolite.”
Miss Bunch, nervously clutching her broomstick, rushed in to defend her foolish sister against whatever monster threatened them.
However, revealed in the light of the lantern was a pup, or rather a wolf cub, curled up beside a small, grimy creature covered in a cloak of indeterminate color. The small creature slept.
“What is it?” Miss Bunch asked.
“A wolf cub, I believe.”
“Not that, which I can see with my own eyes. The other.”
“If I had to guess,” Miss Bay said, “some sort of child. A wild child.”
· · ·
They woke the wild child and brought it back to the house, only to discern it was a girl of about eleven or twelve.
That was their best guess, at any rate, considering the amount of dirt clinging to her.
In a rare instance of impropriety, they did not insist their guest bathe first for they deemed her state of hunger more imperative.
They sat her in the kitchen and put before her the remains of their Feast of Vendane supper.
The girl ate as greedily as any wild creature, as greedily as the wolf cub that gulped down roast pig trimmings from a pan on the floor.
“Do you suppose they have fleas?” Miss Bay asked.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Miss Bunch replied.
The girl’s hair was a knotted rat’s nest with twigs and leaves and who-knew-what stuck in it. No doubt a good deal of pine pitch. Her face was a mask of dirt, and her clothing, with all its rips and frays, looked as though it could stand on its own.
“The way they’re at it,” Miss Bay said, “they’re both going to regurgitate.” She crinkled her already wrinkly face in a frown. “Letitia will not be pleased.”
“I’ll warrant she’s already displeased by having a wolf in the house. Do you suppose the child was being raised by wolves?”
“Difficult to say,” Miss Bay replied. “She has yet to speak. If she howls, then we’ll know.”
“Perhaps we can ask her. Child, have you been raised by wolves?”
The girl looked up at the sisters, her mouth full of pie. She shook her head.
“She’s a stray,” Miss Bunch whispered to Miss Bay. “Can we keep her?”
“Don’t be silly, Bunch. We do not keep stray children.”
Miss Bunch pouted.
When the girl finally could consume no more, Miss Bay said, “Child, it is time we put you in a bath. Do you know what a bath is?”
The girl nodded.
“Ah,” Miss Bunch said, “she is not entirely uncivilized.”
“Come this way, then,” Miss Bay instructed the child.
The girl nodded and followed them out of the kitchen. When Miss Bunch closed the door on the wolf cub, he howled plaintive puppy howls.
“You will get your turn,” Miss Bunch reassured him through the door. The cub howled unappeased.
“Where are your people?” Miss Bay asked the girl.
She shrugged.
“Have you a mother and father?”
She shook her head. Then, speaking for the first time, she said, “I had my grandmum.”
“You’ve a very sweet voice,” Miss Bay observed, exchanging a significant glance with her sister. “What happened to your grandmama.”
The girl’s expression darkened under the dirt. “The Greenie killed her.”
The sisters exchanged another look, and led the girl into the bathing room.
“Here we are, child,” Miss Bay said. “Letitia has filled the tub with nice hot water. Mind that you remember to scrub behind your ears.”
The girl nodded.
The sisters paused in the doorway, exchanged yet another look, and Miss Bunch said, “Child, we are very sorry you have lost your grandmama. It must be very hard.”
The girl cast her gaze to the floor and tears began to fall down her cheeks leaving runnels in the dirt. Bunch tsked, tsked, and applied a handkerchief to her cheeks. It came away filthy.
“It is very hard to lose the ones we love,” Miss Bunch said, “and our hearts ache for you.”
“I’m gonna kill the Greenie,” the girl replied.
“No doubt that is on your agenda,” Miss Bay replied, “but first you must wash up.”
“Do you have a name, child?” Miss Bunch asked.
“Lala. And my pup’s name is Wolfie.”
“Well, then, Lala,” Miss Bay told her, “we will see you when you’re done. Letitia will lay out a nightgown for you and tonight you’ll sleep in a nice warm feather bed.”
The girl sniffed and wiped away the last of her tears. “Thank you.”
“You are quite welcome.”
The sisters closed the door and repaired to the kitchen. Wolfie jumped up against their legs almost knocking them over.
“Enough of that, pup,” Miss Bay said in a sharp voice. “You are an impolite beast.”
“Perhaps we must needs take him out to do the necessary,” Miss Bunch said, “before he does it on the floor.”
“I quite agree.”
They took their lantern and stepped outside with Wolfie, who dashed about sniffing and urinating on everything.
“Oh, dear,” said Miss Bay. “I do hope our dahlias come back next spring after that dousing.”
They watched the pup sniff around the kitchen yard. Presently Miss Bunch said, “The child’s voice is very familiar.”
“Indeed it is,” Miss Bay replied, “and we’ve heard the story from the new Fiori.”
“I think we should keep her.”
“Bunch—”
“Bay, please, Bay?”
“What do we know of raising a wild child? It could be a rather hazardous endeavor. Very hazardous, I believe. Perhaps we should discuss her intentions with her. I’d prefer she not hare off to kill Green Riders, but I also prefer we not be on her list of vengeance.”
“Kindness can change hearts,” Miss Bunch said. “You know it as well as I. And surely you can see she is no ordinary child.”
“I see it very well, hence my concern. But it is not all I see.” Miss Bay pointed her cane at the sky.
“Oh, dear,” Miss Bunch said as she took in the glimmering new constellation. “The passing of a god—it is a sign.”
“A sign of what,” Miss Bay replied quietly, “is what I wonder.”