WOLVES DON'T TALK

Chapter 8. WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW

Pythia and the wolf raced for the nearest tree and disappeared around its far side, clearly electing to hide from the oncoming disaster. I tumbled to the ground in panic and sprawled out flat on my stomach. For a terrible second, I knew I had time to get up and run but didn't. Instead, I fell back on my friend Ashley's favorite philosophy.

"What you don't know can't hurt you. What you don't know can't hurt you. What you don't know can't hurt you," I kept repeating over and over, just as fast as I could squeeze the words out.

I circled my arms around my head, shut my eyes tight, and shoved my face into the dirt as I attempted to talk myself into safety. I was depending heavily on Ashley's philosophy to save me. And for a few seconds, it worked – until something crunched down on my fingertips and then bounced back off again. I screamed as a streak of sharp pain shot through my left hand. My fingers felt like they'd been slammed in a locker door. I reacted by jumping up and screaming incoherently at the departing back of the thing that had trampled me.

"Rabbits!" exclaimed the wolf, prancing out from its hiding place behind the tree, pointing excitedly at a gigantic white rabbit (one the size of a horse and a whole lot heavier) and a herd of somewhat smaller, but still huge bunnies, trailing in its wake.

"Hey, you, stop!" the wolf barked at the leader of the pack, then raced off in pursuit when it didn't heed his command but just kept on hopping down the weedy old logging road, making the landscape tremble with each thump of its fat rabbit legs.

Pythia and I stared at each other, too dumbfounded to speak. After a moment, she took my damaged fingers in one of her cool hands.

"What you don't know can hurt you," she said.

I nodded, feeling stupid. Ashley couldn't have been more wrong and I shouldn't have been stupid enough to test out her theory. My left thumb throbbed furiously and several of my other fingers on the same hand were scratched and bleeding.

"I think you'll be all right," Pythia offered after carefully examining my injuries. I choked back some tears and tried to look brave.

"Yeah, Ill be okay," I replied, clenching my teeth hard in a poor attempt to fight the pain.

"Let's sit down for a while," the oracle suggested, "and wait for our friend to come back."

We plopped down next to a tree by the side of the cliff. Pythia held my sore hand in hers and it stopped hurting as she caressed and rubbed it with her smooth palms.

We watched the sun set and the moon rise. The stars came out and filled the sky with their sparkling majesty. A cool breeze whistled through the trees.

Pythia wrapped her arm around me and I felt warm and safe and grateful. I knew this lady was my true friend. I felt glad that I'd agreed to help her and I would help her. Just the thought led to action. I carefully slid from her grasp, stood up, and strolled away from the lady, who sat quietly, stone still, watching me go.

I stalked back and forth across the logging road we'd followed up the cliff. Something important was there. I could feel it but didn't know what it was or where to find it. I circled around and around looking for the unknown – until I stopped and reached down in the exact same spot where I had been trampled by the rabbit and my sore fingers settled on a smooth round object. I picked it up.

"I've found it!" I hollered jubilantly, not knowing why I'd shouted or what I'd found.

Pythia rushed to my side almost immediately, grabbing the treasure from my injured fingers.

"You found it, Carmen. You found it!" she repeated breathlessly.

"Found what," I asked, feeling like a fool for not understanding my own accomplishment.

"The first part of the key," she replied, tossing my discovery gently between her palms.

I bent anxiously toward her, trying to figure out what it was, but it was too dark to make out. Finally, Pythia controlled her ecstasy and held the object up for my inspection. A thin ray of moonlight glanced off its shiny surface and I saw a golden coin and felt an immediate surge of disappointment at the sight. It didn't look like any key I'd ever seen, but the oracle was clearly ecstatic.

"Look, see, here it is," she said, shifting the coin in the slender ray of moonlight for me to examine. "Look, look," she insisted.

I stared and stared until I made out the letter W stamped into the gold, and that was all there was.