We rolled out the proverbial red carpet for our new arrival, but he wasn’t in the mood to thank us.
Really, I couldn’t blame him. A zoo in the eastern United States might have had all the comforts and securities nature did not, but it was no comparison to the beauty of Japan’s mountains — the happiness that you could find in climbing its peaks, or listening to the winter melt bubbling down the rocks.
Our temporary guest had been torn from all of that scenic peace. The mysterious Honshou wolves, a race of canine that should have been extinct since 1905, had recently been rediscovered in the mountains near Japan’s Mitsumine Shrine. With no space available in the zoos of his homeland, Ookami-no-Mikoto would be playing Japanese ambassador to the other denizens of our zoo for a full two months. The entire day had been spent celebrating his arrival, and now my friend and I would be introducing the wolf to his new home. Crowds and other employees weren’t welcome at this stage of Ookami’s visit. He was nervous enough.
“Ready, Sara?” June said. She was standing on a safety platform that extended inside Ookami’s enclosure, pole cocked to undo the latch on his transport cage. June could tussle with an animal three times her size, had almost been mauled by a bear and came out of the ordeal with little more than a fractured rib. Ookami, though, had been a different prospect from the start.
He was big for a Honshou wolf. Really big. Maybe too big. Right now, he paced beneath my friend of three years, growls matching the strides of his long legs. My Ookami was tired, irritable, and mostly hungry and it showed in the flattened ears and snarling curl to his lips.
If June came too close to those teeth, she would make a nice snack. Wolves aren’t vicious by nature, but starve a predator long enough and you’ll see a change in personality. I suppose the same can be said of humans.
“Well,” June shouted to me again, “are you ready or not?” She tossed some blonde hair out of her eyes. The evening was hot, and some wavy tendrils stuck to the sides of her neck.
“Yeah.” I sucked in a deep breath. This was going to be a real Kodak moment. The entire day I’d been dreaming about Ookami jumping out of his cage and into a recreation of the landscape near Saitama Prefecture. I’d taken this whole event to be more than coincidence from the start.
My grandparents in Japan had taken me to visit Mitsumine Shrine when I was seven years old. Together we offered prayers to the wolf god, begging him to protect us in the coming years, and especially the day I would be traveling with my mother to America. The wolves of the mountains, my grandfather had recounted for the hundredth time, had certainly protected him when he was a small boy. He’d been lost on a trail near Chichibu when a white wolf guided him back to town, only to disappear when he reached the village entrance. He believed that it was in gratitude for an act of kindness my ancestors performed a hundred years ago, the legend being that one of my father’s great-great-uncles had rescued a mountain wolf from a hunter’s snare.
A white wolf.
It was impossible, but I wanted to believe Ookami was that same animal. I’d begged the zoo director to let me name him. My Ookami-no-Mikoto, the Prince of Wolves.
I’d chosen the title well, apparently. He was liquid power in the shape of a canine; beautiful as the moon, that silver fur tinted at the edges with blue merle. Ookami was a star or a cloud brought to life, his species more rare than a diamond the size of an apple, his white coloring even more of a miracle. Now, he belonged to the world forever.
“Okay,” June undid the latch of Ookami’s cage, “here we go –”
He threw himself against the door’s bars even as they were sliding open. June cursed, then caught her balance on the platform again. The force of Ookami’s jump must have nearly knocked the pole from her hands.
“Jesus,” she said.
The wolf wriggled through the opening between the cage floor and the lower bars of the door. Another push of Ookami’s hind feet and he slipped free, bounding onto the nearest group of boulders. A pause to sniff the bushes, the stone beneath his feet, and then the sky.
His fur was magnificent, long and curled near the ruff of his neck and around each paw, the wisps fluffing like a cloud with every twitch of the muscles.
He was still angry, though, both ears pressed close to his skull. A few more paces and he turned his fierce eyes in my direction. Even from a good distance I could see that they were gold, the color of the sun. Why, he seemed to be asking, did you betray me? Why am I not free?
“You’ll be safe here,” I said, more to myself than to Ookami. Here hunters, poachers, and black market traders couldn’t lay a finger on him. Here he could live peacefully until a zoo in Japan called him home. The enclosure was so perfect in every way, a circle filled with mountain rocks and an artificial stream. Tall trees whispered in the breeze, their leaves blanketing two caves in the enclosure’s walls with shadow, speaking of respite from the mid-summer heat. Night was fast approaching. “You’ll be safe here,” I said again.
Ookami stopped snarling, but continued to examine me with that indignant look. He shone like a jewel in the encroaching darkness, no more real than a dream.
“Hey.” A hand dropped on my shoulder. June’s. She wiped some sweat from her forehead. “What do you say we clock out for the night? Tom said he’d check up on our treasure here during the night watch.”
“Oh… sure.” I shrugged off her hand, trying to act nonchalant. “Tom, huh?”
“Yeah. Tom. What’s that tone all about?” June leaned against the concrete guardrail I had been resting my elbows on for a good half-hour. “He’s going to feed him in an hour, Sara. The wolf’s just fine.”
She knew me too well. “I don’t know,” I said, tipping my chin at Ookami. He had yet to budge, and stared at us with his eyes reflecting the light. “It’s weird, but — I get the feeling that he’s angry.”
“Animals don’t get angry with you. The poor thing’s hungry, and probably thinks you’d make a nice dinner. Maybe you should be flattered.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” I laughed, then examined the sky.
A flock of swallows careened overhead in the twilight, their wings like sickles. Ookami raised his nose into the air, one ear flicking to catch the screech of a marsh bittern. The night would be humid, heavy with the odor of the nearby buffalo pens, and probably with the freedom my silver wolf had lost. His teeth would never cut through the wire mesh surrounding the exhibit.
Still feeling guilty, I turned away before he could look at me again.
– – –
It wasn’t until a week or so had passed that we felt confidant enough to introduce Ookami to a friend. Desperate situations called for desperate solutions, and the wolf starving himself to death qualified as an emergency.
Not to say that the scenario was unexpected. Transporting a wild animal from one exhibit to the next can be traumatic enough, and Ookami was suffering far more than any of the other animals in our zoo. None of them had been in the cargo hold of a plane for nearly 24 hours, and very few had been ripped from a life of freedom in the wild. Now, the shock of Ookami’s journey was at last affecting his behavior.
I begged. I pleaded. I manipulated and I waited. Still, he refused to eat.
So, then, I tried feeding the wolf when the zoo had closed for the night. The evenings were a peaceful time for both of us. No sounds but the cry of ever present birds, no smells but the rich stink of grazing animals, and also no success. Wherever I happened to stand or sit near the exhibit fencing, Ookami chose the opposite portion of his pen. There he’d sprawl in the shade of the closest tree, his limbs stretched in front of his long body, those sharp eyes fixated on me. I was a curiosity to him, and nothing else.
June chided me again and again for my crazy imagination, but if I really didn’t know better, I’d have been certain that the wolf was spiting me. None of the meat I set in his enclosure seemed tempting enough, and by the time the decision was made to introduce him to Ranshu, I wanted to cry.
Ookami had come to our zoo for protection. His death would be a tragedy on both an international and diplomatic scale. He had to eat, and that was that.
Maybe if he saw Ranshu enjoying himself, the reasoning went, there would be a change of appetite. Putting two strange wolves together in the same exhibit wasn’t a normal procedure, but at this point there was no other solution in sight. Besides, Ranshu stood on the lowest rung of the pack ladder in our group of North American wolves. He’d never be missed.
“Would you look at that?” I said, shading my eyes from the setting sun.
Everyone had held their breath for the first moments of Ranshu and Ookami’s meeting. Ranshu might have been Ookami’s contrast in every way — black, lean, and a bit smaller — but sometimes, his temperament could be unpredictable. The wolf bit me twice: the first time, when I’d entered the American exhibit to help clean a wall, and the second when he was supposedly put under by our resident veterinarian. Already he’d stiffened with agitation while Ookami approached.
Hackles raised, the white wolf strided over to the rocks near the enclosure’s entrance.
Both wolves growled at one another and examined one another. Ranshu’s lips curled back, revealing the yellow teeth that had punctured my hand, and I was certain for a moment that he might lunge for Ookami’s throat. These struggles for pack dominance were normal.
A brief growl from Ookami changed everything. Ranshu crumpled to the ground as if he’d been struck, then flipped over to show his vulnerable belly, all the while giving some pitiful whines.
Ookami accepted the adoration like a king, then left the black wolf and returned to one of his chosen cave shelters. Ranshu rolled back onto his stomach but didn’t move for a long while. There was a glaze over his bright eyes.
“It’s almost disappointing,” June said. She slapped at a mosquito drifting near her cheek.
The other employees were already resuming their previous chores, and soon we were alone again in an atmosphere heavy with tension. We both knew, somehow, that Ookami still wouldn’t eat.
“Not disappointing,” I said. “Weird. Ranshu didn’t even try.”
“Or maybe he just fell in love at first sight like you.” June slapped my shoulder, but a shout interrupted the friendly moment. “I have to go feed the deer now.” She leaned in closer. “Why don’t you give it a try again tomorrow? Feeding him, I mean.”
I nodded with both hands covering my face. The day had been exhausting. I needed sleep and some time to myself — but that would never happen until I gave Ookami another chance. The suspense would kill me.
When June left, I once again dropped an offering of meat into the enclosure. Ranshu gave me an irritable growl, but Ookami simply stared from the inner sanctum of his cave, imperious as ever.
“Dozo,” I said to him in Japanese. Please. Accept this and eat. The cement of the safety zone around the exhibit hurt my knees as I knelt. For a second, I was a little girl again, kneeling next to my grandparents at Mistumine Shrine, praying to the wolf kami.
My change in language had no effect on Ookami, even though those white ears pricked a little as I spoke. After a half-hour my knees were in agony.
The zoo was closing anyway, and night had darkened the sky. Time to say my goodbyes for the day. “Konbanwa,” I said. Good evening.
No answer, of course. Not even a snarl from Ranshu.
After rising to my feet, I left the wolves to the twilight. Another loss.
– – –
Many people think that once dusk settles, and the stars are twinkling high in the night sky, that a zoo shuts down completely. The reality couldn’t be further from that expectation. Many animals spend their days sleeping, which leaves sunrise, sunset, and nighttime as the busiest hours in their schedules. This is doubly true for predators.
No wonder human ‘monsters’ always exist in the dark, under beds or in cavelike closets. We still have our ancestors’ mindsets, instinctively knowing that death lurks in the shadows. The idea of a nearby, but unseen, hunter is hard to ignore, even if you’re separated from one by wire mesh and concrete.
Whispers were following me through the zoo: the rustles of birds hopping from branch to branch, small rodents scurrying across my path and into the bushes. I heard the faint snorting of some large herbivore mixed with my own footsteps, thudding and even.
I’d volunteered for a night shift, eager to use it as an excuse to spend some time observing Ookami. The weather had promised to be pleasant, cool with the glory of a full moon in a clear sky. Its silvery glow frosted the vegetation lining the walkway to his enclosure. Careful not to make too much noise, I slipped around to the front of the exhibit where I could get a better view of the wolf.
Strange. He was nowhere in sight, though I seriously doubted Ookami and Ranshu would be resting in their shelters at such an early hour. The night was still young.
Still tiptoeing, I crept closer to the mesh of the enclosure. Tree leaves scraped against each other in the breeze, their shadows flickering on the rocks near the exhibit entrance. Then a glint of white to the left caught my attention.
It was a young man paced near one of the taller trees, his tresses swinging with every step. At a distance, his long bleached hair took on the appearance of a cloud. For a long moment I couldn’t speak, and simply continued to watch as he tugged hard on a portion of wire mesh.
He wanted out, of course. How this idiot had entered the zoo, I had no idea, and how he entered Ookami’s exhibit would also be a mystery unless I got him out alive. Any time now and Ranshu would spring for the guy’s bare throat. He’d become a walking midnight snack.
“Hey,” I said. “Hey! Over here!”
He stopped tugging on the mesh and began to turn around.
“Yeah, that’s right, buddy.” This was ridiculous. Hopefully I’d get the moron to stand still until help arrived. I wasn’t stupid enough to rescue him alone. “Before you get eaten alive, why don’t you tell me who you are, and –”
A pair of blazing eyes burned my next words to ashes, and their remnants coated my tongue with an evil taste. I’d never seen a face so chiseled, or so cold. Human and yet inhuman. Civilized and somehow feral. Then he was marching in my direction, a blur with his hair streaming behind like a river of ice. A silver fog seemed to billow about him with every step, covering some nakedness that I barely registered because I had locked on his face — and the furry ruff ringing his neck.
Before I understood what was happening we were a foot apart, he with his clawed fingers pressed against the mesh and me with my heart hammering at a million miles an hour. There was a part of me that cried for the whole scenario to be a dream, but deep in my heart I knew the truth. Ookami was showing his true face at last, and in the light of the full moon.
The little girl who had bowed to the wolf god at Mitsumine bowed again. This time, though, I shook like a leaf.
“Kudasai.” His voice had the power of a distant storm cloud. When I dared to straighten myself, Ookami tipped his chin at the enclosure’s main entrance. “Kudasai,” he said again, but with the hint of a growl. Please.
Please what? Let him out of the exhibit? I couldn’t really say ‘no’ to a kami, but then again, I could have also been hallucinating. Dreams, though, lack logical consequences. That must have been why I did the unthinkable and prepared to unlatch the outer gate.
Ookami didn’t budge from his spot near the upper fencing but he watched me all the while, those bright eyes like a clamp on my soul. Disobey, he was whispering to my heart, and you’ll pray for death. His breath warmed my neck even from a distance.
A jangle as I undid the lock. Then I was inside the small safety cage separating my skin from Ookami’s claws. My fingers slipped on the last lock dividing us from one another, and I almost cried as the gate swung outward and exposed me to my doom.
Instead of rending me to pieces, Ookami beckoned me inside. My spirit had no choice again but to obey, and then we were a foot apart without the barrier of a mesh fence. I took in the wonder of the fur tufting at his ankles and wrists, the shimmering light that swirled with his body as he moved. Ookami no Mikoto, the Prince of Wolves.
He must have read the adoration in my heart. The fire behind his eyes dimmed a bit, and he turned his head aside as if embarrassed at the little human’s worship. Out of respect I bowed again. This was what he wanted before leaving. I was certain of it.
Fear had left me for a short while, and my heart swelled with a strange gratefulness. “Domo arigato gozaimasu –”
A great weight smashed into my chest, knocking me to the ground.
The breath was punched from my lungs, and I feared every bone in my body might be broken. My head smacked hard into the grass and stars of pain dotted the nightmare pressing me into the earth. I had a brief vision of another face like Ookami’s, except black, cruel, and lean.
I sensed teeth an inch from my throat before I was free to breathe again. A furious snarl from the left connected with the evil sitting on top of me and threw it onto the grass.
I coughed, reached up to make sure my neck hadn’t been punctured, and, certain at last that there was no blood, struggled back to my feet. Ookami rolled through the grass with my attacker and they snapped for one another’s throats. Fur flew into the air. Crimson spattered onto the rocks near my feet.
I’d forgotten about Ranshu. In the full moon’s light he’d become a kami as well, and whereas Ookami had a feral majesty, Ranshu had the same face as when he’d bitten my hand. Savage. Malicious and opportunistic.
They were fighting for my life.
Water sprayed through the air in a shower of diamonds. Ranshu was already forced backward into the stream, but he kept glancing over at me between his snarls at Ookami. When the white wolf bounded for his neck, Ranshu broke away and made a mad dash to pounce on me again.
There was nowhere for me to hide, and I’d long since frozen like a sighted mouse. A man in black, sable hair streaming from his head, hungry eyes fixated on me, was sprinting to tear my chest open. Ranshu smiled, his yellow teeth hiding the rest of the world. He was absolutely triumphant until Ookami tugged on his hair from behind and yanked them both back onto the ground.
An agonized howl, a soft whimper, and then the battle was over. Ranshu lay dead, his neck bent in the spot where Ookami had torn it open. The black wolf seemed less dangerous now. Frightened, actually, and almost regretful. Blood matted the grass near his head, clumping portions of the fur on his human ears.
Ookami observed the corpse for a short while, and perhaps satisfied that Ranshu wouldn’t move again, he turned to me. Scarlet stained the wolf’s white lips, had dribbled down onto the pristine fur near his collarbone. Somehow, he was more beautiful than ever.
“Wakarimasu ka?” he said. Do you understand?
I jumped at the sound of his voice. The silence had seemed too sacred to interrupt.
“Wakarimasu ka?”
He’d know if I was lying, and I wasn’t about to take the chance. Besides, the answer was no. I didn’t understand at all. “Naze —” I choked on my words. “Naze desu ka?”
Why? Why did he help me at all? Ookami could have easily allowed Ranshu to rip me in half, and then both of them could have run to freedom after feasting on my flesh. Instead, I’d been saved from death, and part of me prayed that it wasn’t because Ookami wanted this snack all to himself. I bowed again, deeply, and waited for an answer.
Silence. I straightened again to find Ookami standing beside the enclosure’s open gates. He was staring up at the moon, an almost wistful expression on his face.
That was why he’d saved me. Because I had dared to open those gates and free him. Because I had in a sense saved Ookami again, and his act of rescue had been the repayment of that debt. In so many ways, this exhibit was the same to him as a hunter’s snare. Like my ancestor, I’d freed the white wolf and had in turn been protected as a reward.
“Hai,” I said. “Wakarimasu.”
Ookami regarded me again, his golden eyes flashing in the moonlight. This time, instead of trembling, I smiled. Yes, I’d said. I understand. I understand that you’ve been merciful to me, and I will be forever grateful.
His fingers stroked the wires on the upper half of the gate. Once more, he was gazing up at the stars, head tilted to catch the whispers of the animals in the zoo. Perhaps in their own way, they were saying goodbye to the Prince. “Anata-no namae wa?” Ookami’s voice tugged at my soul.
My name. He wanted to know my name? “Watashi… watashi no namae wa Sara desu.”
“Sara?”
“Hai.”
Wind ruffled Ookami’s hair and the blood-spattered fur ringing his neck. The light surrounding his body started to disintegrate. Sparks drifted up into the air, the pinpricks already mixing with the stars. He was disappearing, as if no more real than a dream, becoming one with the clouds. “Sayonara.” The wolf smiled, his stained teeth a stripe on such a white face.
I didn’t get a chance to reply. Like a streaking comet, Ookami raced out of the enclosure. I had only sunk to my knees when his body blurred into a fog, and he soared into the night sky, a ghost with the morning mist beneath his feet, a kami returning to the mountains near Chichibu.
Tomorrow, I would have a lot of explaining to do.
– – –
Cherry blossoms spiraled down from the trees, layering the sidewalk with a pink snow as I entered the grounds of Mitsumine Shrine. The peace, the beauty of spring lifted my heart for a moment. I had purposely chosen this time of year to visit, eager to see how the petals would festoon the twin wolf statues flanking the gates. How small those figurines seemed – -much smaller than Ookami — and so gray, so weathered by years of mountain rain.
Still, the gates hadn’t lost a bit of their magic. No matter how beaten by the elements, they had always stood on this same pathway, welcoming visitors to the world of the kami.
A breeze, fragrant with the scent of pine, kissed my cheeks. The trees swayed, sighing under the coolness of the morning.
For a moment I was back at the zoo in America, standing in Ookami’s enclosure and bowing to him beneath a full moon. That night haunted me in a thousand different ways, the least of them being the effect on my job. When the media frenzy died down, zoo management allowed me a month’s leave. Well, they requested it, actually, and I was grateful for the offer.
Security found me at the crack of dawn, unconscious in Ookami’s exhibit, my body a mess of dirt and scratches, Ranshu lying dead only a short distance away. Ookami, of course, had disappeared.
My explanation of what had happened was poor and inconsistent, but it was also typical of someone in a state of shock. Black market thieves, I’d said, had somehow entered the zoo and were attempting to steal Ookami when I happened to walk by the exhibit. They had already killed Ranshu, and before I could protect Ookami any further they’d knocked me unconscious. I’d had no time, I’d explained, to radio for back-up.
To my great relief, every lie that came out of my mouth was regarded as fact. Those events explained my own bruises, the nasty bump on my head and the lack of paw prints from Ookami if he’d exited through the enclosure’s open entryway. Ranshu’s injuries were the work of a large dog in the service of the robbers, and nothing more.
I’d arrived in Japan when I received the sad call from June. During the autopsy of Ranshu’s corpse, it was discovered that he’d been suffering from a rare brain disease, undetectable through blood work. There was the reason, I told myself, for his unnatural, vicious behavior. Poor thing. We tend to forget that animals can suffer like humans. They too know what it is to fear, to be in pain, to want to run free.
A long howl interrupted my thoughts.
I turned to the right, just in time to catch a glimpse of a white wolf dashing up the hills. The biggest, most beautiful wolf in the world.
“Ookami?” I said.
Wind. The aroma of spring. The taste of pollen in the air. No other answers than those, but they were more than enough.
The kami, you see, are everywhere.
author
Sabrina Naples is a lover of all things speculative, who just so happens to reside in the rather mundane state of Pennsylvania. Though Japanese anime and manga are Sabrina’s passion, she believes her own stories are equally entertaining. Perhaps you will too.
illustrator
Elizabeth Seelye is a Grand Valley State University graduate with a BFA in illustration. She lives a quiet life at home drawing, surrounding herself with books, and pampering a cat who seems to think she is the Queen of All Things.
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