The Wolfless Forest

For nine hundred years, the wolves of the Eastern Forest had patrolled the woods around the village of Witten. They had killed an occasional sheep. They had eaten an occasional dog. They had also kept the deer down, which had kept the saplings up, which had kept the forest healthy.

The villagers had never loved the wolves. The villagers had survived alongside them.

This spring, the wolves were leaving.

The forester had reported it first. Then the shepherd. Then a hunter from the next village over. The wolves were moving north. There were now only — it was thought — three or four left in the entire forest, where there had been thirty.

Most villagers were pleased. The mayor declared a small celebration.

Anya was eleven. She read too much. She had read about ecosystems. She had read about old folktales. She had read about what happened to forests when their predators left. The book on her bedroom shelf about the history of the Carpathian wolves had been her favourite for four years.

Anya was not pleased.

She wrote a careful letter to her teacher. The teacher, a thoughtful woman called Mrs Tannen, read the letter at home that evening, and the next day she said to Anya, very quietly: "You're right to worry. Would you like to do something about it?"

"Yes."

"What did you have in mind?"

"I want to find out why they're leaving. Most things have reasons."

Mrs Tannen thoughtabout this. She said: "Then you should find a way to talk to a wolf."

Anya looked at her.

"Talk?"

"Yes," said Mrs Tannen. "Not all stories about talking animals are stories. Some are reports."

Anya did not know whether her teacher was joking.

But that evening, Anya took her notebook and her warm coat and she walked to the edge of the forest. She walked along the ride that led north. She sat on a stump near a clearing where, the forester had said, there were sometimes still tracks.

She waited until dusk.

Just as she was about to give up, a grey wolf — old, thin, eyes very steady — came out of the trees on the opposite side of the clearing.

It saw her. It did not run. It looked.

Anya, who could have been more frightened, was not. The wolf was very tired.

She said, very carefully: "Hello. I came to ask you a question."