A Wolf's Call (complete)

Chapter 10

Gail looked down at the large folder, which now sat before her. It had been three months since she had first approached Shilo, and since Shilo had approached her. She had been working on finally joining the recognition that Shilo had made to objects by sight with the ability for her to pronounce the words. It had been a tough start and Gail could still remember the awkward whimpered sounds that Shilo had produced whilst trying to say ‘Hello’.

It had surprised Gail how quickly Shilo had learnt to speak. Although her knowledge of words and pronunciation was still rather primitive, she had helped Gail in her studies of feral children. She glanced over at the cupboard, which held the videotapes of Shilo in the sessions where she had learnt to speak. Everything since Shilo had come to the institution was there on the tapes. Gail suspected that Shilo hadn’t been away from society from a young age. She suspected that perhaps Shilo had joined the pack at around 5 to 6 years old. Speaking is really like riding a bike, you never forget, and it appeared that this theory applied quite accurately to Shilo.  Hopefully now that Shilo could speak Gail would be able to find the answers to the questions that had been bothering her since the first time she had met her. Shilo had been cautious of her and it had taken a while for her to trust Holly again. The distrust that had gripped Shilo had only gone to support Gail’s theory that she was unpredictable and that they would have to be especially careful around her.

Picking up the file Gail made her way out of her office. It was around the time for Shilo’s session. She would have three sessions a day that varied between speech and pronunciation to how human society worked. This session however would be different, because in this session the Doctor. was going to introduce Shilo to a recording. Not only would the impossibility of sound coming from nowhere be a surprise to Shilo but also the recording that Gail planned to play. She had decided that today she would play the sound of wolves calling to each other to see how connected Shilo still felt to her previous life.

The tape recorder in hand, Gail opened Shilo’s door preparing for a very interesting reaction. As she entered she saw the girl whose hair still reached down her back. The girl looked healthier since she had been put on a more nutritional diet.

‘Hello Shilo, how are you doing today?’ asked Gail pulling a chair from the corner.

Shilo was sitting on the bed and had turned her gaze to watch the doctor as she set up. She seemed to think slightly before responding, as though the words she spoke were still foreign and felt as though she wasn’t built to speak it.

‘Hello. I am fine, how are you…?’ responded Shilo grammatically correct although without the smoothness that most would speak.

‘I’m very well, thank you for asking,’ answered Gail smiling happily at Shilo’s courtesy although it didn’t last.

‘What is that?’ she asked looking at the tape recorder in Doctor Brooks’ hands.

‘This,’ said Gail holding up the tape recorder, ‘is a recorder; it can take sound from one place and play it again if I press this button.’

Gail signalled to the buttons that scattered along the sides which Shilo peered at from her place on the bed.

‘It makes sound… like you or me?’ she asked curiously. ‘What sound does it want to make?’

Gail sighed. Shilo had kept referring to inanimate objects as though they were real. ‘Yes like you and I, but it doesn’t want, it will record whatever humans want it to. We have created… made it.’

Shilo seemed confused and looked at the recorder for a few seconds. ‘How do you know it does not want?’

Gail was shocked at the question and knew no way of explaining. ‘It is an object, it can’t want. We made it, that’s how we know.’