Believing Is Seeing

My horror—caught from the wolves to some extent—was beyond thought and out into a dreamlike state, where I simply knew that Eggs was right when he said I would be safe with him, and so I said what the dream seemed to require. “Eggs,” I said, “tell me their names.”

Eggs was quite unperturbed. His hand left his mouth and pointed at the brindled wolf in front. “That one is Hugh, Lady. Theo is the one beside him. She standing at the back is A

So now I knew what had torn redheaded Petra’s throat out. And what kind of woman was she, I wondered, who must have had Eggs as servant and a roomful of strange devices, and on top of this gave three wild beasts these silly names? My main thought was that I did not want my throat torn out, too. And I had been called here as a vet after all. It took quite an effort to look those three creatures over professionally, but I did so. Ribs showed under the curly brownish coat of Theo. Hugh’s haunches stuck out like knives. As for A

Eggs smiled at me. “There is food in the forest for them, Lady.”

I stared at him, but he seemed to have no idea what he was saying. It was to the wolves’ credit that they did not seem to regard dead Petra as food, but from the look of them it would not be long before they did so. “Eggs,” I said, “these three are starving. You and I must go back into the house and find food for them.”

Eggs seemed much struck by this idea. “Clever,” he said. “I am only the fool, Lady.” And as I turned, gently, not to alarm the wolves, he stretched out his hands placatingly—at least it looked placating, but it was quite near to an attempt to take hold of me, a sketch of it, as it were. That alarmed me, but I dared not show it here. The wolves’ ears pricked a little as we moved off up the garden, but they did not move, to my great relief.

Back through the house Eggs led me in his lurching, puppet’s gait, around the edges of the room with the devices, where the humming filled the air and still seemed to drag at me in a way I did not care for at all, to another brightly lit, windowless room on the other side. It was a kitchen place, furnished in what seemed to be glass. Here Eggs ca

Eggs looked down at his great hands, planted in encircling vapor on top of the glass table. “I don’t not know, Lady.”

I could have shaken him. Instead, I clawed at the edges of the cupboard. Nothing happened. There it was, warmish, piled with a good fifty kilograms of meat, while three starving wolves prowled outside, and nothing I could do seemed to have any effect on the smooth edge of the glass front. At length I pried my fingernails under the top edge and pulled, thinking it moved slightly.

Eggs’s huge hand knocked against mine, nudging me awkwardly away. “No, no, Lady. That way you’ll get hurt. It is under stass-spell, see.” For a moment he fumbled doubtfully at the top rim of the glass door, but, when I made a movement to come back and help, his hands suddenly moved, smoothly and surely. The thing clicked. The glass slid open downward, and the smell of meat rolled out into the kitchen.

So you do know how to do it! I thought. And I knew you did! There was some hint he had given me, I knew, as I reached for the nearest joint, which I could not quite see now.

“No, no, Lady!” This time Eggs pushed me aside hard. He was really distressed. “Never put hand into stass-spell. It will die on you. You do this.” He took up a long, shiny pair of tongs, which I had not noticed because they were nested into the top of the cupboard, and grasped the nearest joint with them. “This, Lady?”

“And two more,” I said. “And when did you last eat, Eggs?” He shrugged and looked at me, baffled. “Then get out those two steaks, too,” I said. Eggs seemed quite puzzled, but he fetched out the meat. “Now we must find water for them as well,” I said.

“But there is juice here in this corner!” Eggs objected. “See.” He went to one of the mysterious fixtures and shortly came back with a sort of cardboard cup swaying in one hand, which he handed me to taste, staring eagerly while I did. “Good?” he asked.

It was some form of alcohol. “Very good,” I said, “but not for wolves.” It took me half an hour of patient work to persuade Eggs to fetch out a large lightweight bowl and then to manipulate a queer faucet to fill it with water. He could not see the point of it at all. I was precious near to hitting him before long. I was quite glad when he stayed behind in the kitchen to shut the cabinets and finish his cup of “juice.”

The wolves had advanced down the garden. I could see their pricked ears and their eyes above the veranda boards, but they did not move when I stepped out onto the veranda. I had to make myself move with a calmness and slowness I was far from feeling. Deliberately I dropped each joint, one by one, with a sticky thump onto the strange surface. From the size and the coarse grain of the meat, it seemed to be venison—at least I hoped it was. Then I carefully lowered the bowl to stand at the far end of the veranda, looking all the time through my hair at the wolves. They did not move, but the open jaws of the big wolf, A

The bowl down, I backed away into the living room, where I just had to sit down on the nearest blue block. My knees gave.

They did not move for long seconds. Then all three disappeared below the veranda, and I thought they must have slunk away. But the two smaller ones reappeared, suddenly, silentiy, as if they had materialized, at the end of the veranda beside the bowl. Tails trailing, shaking all over, they crept toward it. Both stuck their muzzles in and drank avidly. I could hear their frantic lapping. And when they raised their heads, which they both did shortly, neatly and disdainfully, I realized that one of the joints of meat had gone. The great wolf, A

Her speed must have reassured Theo and Hugh. Both sniffed the air, then fumed and trotted toward the remaining joints. Each nosed a joint. Each picked it up neatly in his jaws. Theo seemed about to jump down into the garden with his. But Hugh, to my astonishment, came straight toward the open window, evidently intending to eat on the carpet as dogs do.

He never got a chance. Theo dropped his joint and sprang at him with a snarl. There was the heavy squeak of clawed paws. Hugh sprang around, hackles rising the length of his lean, sloping back, and snarled back without dropping his portion. It was, he seemed to be saying, his own business where he went to eat. Theo, crouching, advancing on him with lowered head and white teeth showing, was clearly denying him this right. I braced myself for the fight. But at that moment A

I went back to the glassy kitchen, where I spent the next few hours getting Eggs to eat, too. He did not seem to regard anything in the kitchen as edible. It took me a good hour to persuade him to open a vegetable cabinet and quite as long to persuade him to show me how to cook the food. If I became insistent, he said, “I don’t not know, Lady,” lost interest, and shuffled off to the windowless room to play with the pretty lights. That alarmed me. Every time I fetched him back, the humming chime from the glass apparatus seemed to drag at me more intensely. I tried pleading. “Eggs, I’m going to cut these yams, but I can’t find a knife somehow.” That worked better. Eggs would come over obligingly and find me a thing like a prong and then wander off to his “juice” again. There were times when I thought we were going to have to eat everything raw.