The Wolf Who Read

The wolf had read the story.

He knew how it ended. He knew his part. The cottage, the nightgown, the teeth. The woodcutter with the axe. Everyone who had come before him had played it the same way, because the story was the story, and wolves who went off-script tended not to appear in later editions.

So when the girl in the red hood came walking through the forest with a basket, he did what wolves did. He stepped out from behind a tree. He smiled in the way the story required.

"Good afternoon, little girl," he said.

She looked up from the path. She had a round face and serious eyes and a basket of bread and wine for her grandmother, the story had explained, though the wolf noticed now that there was also a book in the basket. The story hadn't mentioned the book.

"Good afternoon," she said.

"Where are you going?"

"To my grandmother's."

"Where does she live?"

The girl looked at him for a long moment. Then she said: "You're the wolf."

"Yes."

"I've read the story."

The wolf blinked.

"Oh," he said.

They stood there on the path. A bird sang somewhere. Neither of them moved.

"So you know what happens," she said.

"Yes."

"Do you want to do it?"

The wolf thought about this. He had wanted to do it, before she asked. It was what wolves did. It was what he was. He had rehearsed the teeth part.

But now she had asked. And something about being asked made the whole thing feel different. Like the story wasn't a track he was on but a suggestion he was free to ignore.

"Not especially," he said, surprising himself.

"Then don't."

"But then there's no story."

"There's a different story."

The wolf sat down on the path. This was not in the original. Wolves didn't sit down mid-plot. But he sat anyway.

"What's in the book?" he asked.

She showed him. It was a book of stories. She was taking it to her grandmother, who had read every book the village had and was beginning to repeat herself.

"My grandmother would like you," the girl said thoughtfully. "She likes people who read."

"Wolves don't read."

"This one does. You just told me you'd read the story."

The wolf considered this. She was right. He had read the story. He had, in fact, read many stories, which was part of why being in this particular one had always felt slightly embarrassing. He preferred the ones where characters had interiority.

"May I come with you?" he asked. "To your grandmother's?"

"Are you going to eat her?"

"No."

"Are you going to eat me?"

"No."

"Then yes."

They walked together. He carried the basket, because it seemed polite. She told him about the book she was reading before this one, which was about a fox who wanted to be a scholar and had taught himself Latin from overheard sermons. The wolf thought the fox sounded insufferable but kept this to himself.

The grandmother was reading by the window when they arrived. She looked up. She looked at the wolf. She looked at her granddaughter.

"Is that a wolf?" she said.

"Yes, grandmother."

"Is he going to eat us?"

"No, grandmother. He reads."

The grandmother put down her book. She had lived a long life and had learned that most things were stranger than they first appeared, and that the strange things, if you let them in, often turned out to be the only interesting part.

"Come in," she said. "Sit down. Tell me what you've read."

The wolf sat down.

He stayed for dinner. He stayed for the night — sleeping politely on the rug, because the bed was for the grandmother. He stayed the whole week, actually, because the grandmother had opinions about everything he had ever read and the girl kept finding new books to give him.

The woodcutter, when he finally came by to check on the grandmother, found the three of them arguing about whether the fox in the Latin story had been a genuine scholar or a pretentious social climber. The woodcutter stood in the doorway with his axe for a while, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do.

"You're late," said the grandmother. "Come in. We're having tea."

The woodcutter came in. He put down the axe. He joined the conversation, which by then had moved on to whether a wolf who reads is still, technically, a wolf.

The wolf said he didn't know. He had stopped being sure of most things since he stepped off the path.

The girl said that was probably a good sign.

The grandmother said it was certainly a sign, though whether good or bad would depend on what he did with it.

The woodcutter, who had been quiet, said that in his experience, you became whatever you read enough of.

The wolf thought about this for the rest of his life.

Eventually he went home. He lived on in the forest for many years. He never ate another person. He read everything he could find. When cubs were born to him — and they were, eventually, to a wolf who understood him — he read to them in the evenings, which was a thing wolves had not done before but which caught on slowly, over generations, until wolves in that part of the world became known for a peculiar interior quietness that their cousins elsewhere did not share.

The story, the original one, stopped being told in that village. The girl grew up and became a librarian. The grandmother lived another twelve years, which was longer than anyone expected. The woodcutter took up reading, badly at first, then well.

And if you went deep into that forest now, you might still hear it — the sound of a wolf, somewhere far off, turning a page.

— Whet