Peggy Herring - Anna, Like Thunder

I’m so exhausted I fall asleep right away. But mosquitoes wake me—and I decide to check the sky, but it’s even worse—so I crawl back under the log. I bend a bough toward me and wedge it into place, thinking it might deter some mosquitoes and maybe even keep my burrow warm. I don’t fall asleep again.

In the early morning, I decide there’s no sense staying. Even if I don’t know exactly where I’m heading, at least walking will keep me warm, and eventually I will find another stream. If I’m lucky, the sky will clear and tonight I will have the stars to guide me once again.

I stop to eat a few berries, but otherwise, I walk and walk, for a long time and a short time. Then I hear water. I follow the sound until I come across a slow-moving, murky creek. I walk downstream, along its mucky banks, until it widens, and the water is clear enough to drink. I gulp handfuls of it and head back into the forest.

On a hump of land in a clearing, I find some leaves that I recognize. They’re pale green pliant bowls that grow low to the ground, each no bigger than a fingertip, and each one with a speck of a white flower in its centre. I pick the leaves as the koliuzhi taught me, pinching them from their stems so the roots remain intact, and when I have a handful, I eat them.

I walk on. For a while I think the clouds are lifting. A few minutes later, I look again and find the grey as thick as yesterday.

I’m far from water. Hours have passed since the murky stream and while it’s been muddy in places along my route, I’ve seen no other flowing water. The land starts to flatten; ahead, the forest canopy is a little lighter. I walk in that direction, pushing branches aside. And then I find the devastating sight of the log under which I spent last night and the bough I bent to close off my burrow. “What have I done now?” I whisper and hold my head in my hands. I’ve been walking all day, and here I am, back where I started.

What is the sense of this? What foolishness made me think I could find my husband in this wilderness? I’m so lost, I couldn’t even go back.

Then I hear the crunch of a rotten branch that’s been stepped on.

They can’t have seen me—otherwise they’d be calling out. I lean into the fallen tree beside me. I put my hands on its moss-covered bark and creep down until I’m on my knees. Slowly, I lie down.

When I’m as low as I can go, I try to look around. I keep my movements slow and slight. I listen so hard my head roars.

Then a dry branch cracks right behind me. I leap up and turn around.

It’s a wolf.

Its eyes lock onto mine. Its nostrils flare, and its sides quiver. Its sharp ears point forward.

Should I run? If I do, it will chase. Its legs are long, its paws huge saucers. It knows this place and I don’t. I wait for it to move. If it attacks, I’ll stand no chance. Go away , I urge the beast. There’s nothing here for you. I’m a girl looking for a trail to the sea. I mean you no harm.

Its eyes are impossible to read.

Let me go , I urge. Please. I just want to find my husband.

It breaks off its stare. It turns its head and trots away.

I exhale. I don’t move. I’ll wait until there’s enough distance between us. And then I must move far, far away from here. Any direction will do.

When the wolf is only nine or ten paces away, it stops. It looks back.

Keep going, I again urge. You have to keep going. Somewhere far from here you have unfinished wolf duties.

It turns around and faces me again. It tilts its head and watches. Like it’s listening.

Like Zhuchka.

I nearly laugh. She held her head at exactly that angle when she wanted something. When she wanted me to follow.

But that’s lunacy. This is not Zhuchka—it’s a wolf. I can’t follow a wolf into a forest. The old stories tell me everything I need to know about allowing a wolf to lead me into the forest. Those who have been foolish enough to follow wolves were eaten or doomed to another painful fate. Go away. I have no business with you.

But it doesn’t go anywhere.

So, I take a hesitant step forward. And when I do, the beast turns, and steps ahead. Should I run now? The wolf turns back and, again, watches me.

What do you want? What do you want, my Madame Zhuchka?

The wolf tilts its head.

Warily, I step toward it. The wolf turns and also advances one step.

I can hardly stop myself from fleeing but I’m equally scared to not follow. So, I decide to go against the old stories, to do what this Zhuchka seems to want, praying this creature is more Zhuchka and less wolf. Leaving a safe distance between us, I follow.

The beast leads me through the imposing trees. It finds ways that are clear of the thorniest brush and the spongiest bog. It leads me along ridges, circumventing rocky, uneven ground. When we must cross a stream, the wolf finds a place where it’s shallow and calm. This is its land, and the creature knows it well. It never gets so far ahead that we become separated. When I fall behind, it waits patiently.

As night reveals its face again, I’m exhausted and terrified. We’ve made unbelievable progress—much more than I ever could have made on my own. I’ve put so much trust in this wolf, but I still don’t really know what it wants. As the shadows grew, I began to wonder if I was making the biggest mistake of my life. Was this wolf leading me to its den? What other motive could it have?

My mother’s friend Yelizaveta recounted a story told by a strange man at a party. A few years before, he’d attended a wedding and even though the host had properly assembled the requisite twelve-member wedding party, still some ritual had not been carried out properly, and the entire party was transformed into wolves. “The sources of human vice are idleness and superstition!” my father had cried. “You’re excelling at both.” He left the room. My mother quietly asked Yelizaveta to continue. The transformed wolves ran with the real wolves for seven years and over that time, one by one, they were killed and eaten because the real wolves could tell by their scent that they were really human. One man survived—the man Yelizaveta met. He’d always lie downwind from the pack so they could never smell his humanness. And after the seventh year, he returned to his village. The villagers were terrified and threw rocks and sticks to drive him away. But he persisted. Finally, somebody in his family thought it could be him and that he might have been enchanted. So, they left a heel of bread out for him. He ate it. And every night afterward, they left more bread, and every night he ate it all, until he’d eaten so much bread, his pelt opened like a cloak and fell from his shoulders and he transformed back into a person. All that remained of his years as a wolf was a long tuft of grey hair that grew on his chest and never went away.

Yelizaveta swore the tale was true. At a dinner party, he’d told his story, then boldly unfastened his jacket and his shirt. He showed everyone in the room the tuft of grey hair. Until that moment, Yelizaveta herself had doubted.

I was ten years old, and I didn’t believe her. My mother’s friend tended to embellish, and, besides, I agreed with my father. Her story was impossible. It was exactly the type of superstitious nattering that spread among the peasants, which the Tsar was so anxious to purge from our society. It had only been a couple of years since my illness and that strange blindess that had afflicted me. The visions of that night were still fresh. And my mother listened so earnestly I could tell that in her heart, she believed Yelizaveta.