Chapter 14

Unfortunately, Charlie did not get much time to rest. From the shadows of the rocks on the opposite side of the river, the eagles and Charlie's family appeared. They spotted the unknown wolf first and helped him back on his feet. The wolf turned out to be an acquaintance of Charlie's father, who greeted him. 'Boris, long time no see. You look rather frazzled. What happened to you?'

Boris flashed a gaze towards the other riverbank and let out a growl. 'Fell into the river thanks to that crazy bastard over there. Is he your son?'

Now they all noticed the other bundle of wet grey fur lying on the rocks. The eagles shot towards Charlie while Charlie's siblings hooted and prepared to cross the river. With a firm stare, Gerard halted them. 'First I want to know what on Mother Earth happened here!'

Boris grimaced and started recounting Charlie's rescue mission, coughing and cursing more than once. As his tale progressed, Gerard's eyes grew wider and wider, and when Boris had finished, they were narrowed to slits.

'It's unnatural! A crime against nature itself, I'd say. That son of yours betrayed his own species!'

Gerard had nothing more to ask. His stare was so furious, it made Boris put his tail between his legs. Even the wolf children grew silent. Boris edged away from him and said, 'Um... I guess I'll be off now. This looks like family business.'

'Yes, it certainly is...' Gerard growled. He didn't say goodbye or even watch his old accomplice depart. Instead, he headed straight towards the other side of the river.

Meanwhile, Charlie had recomposed himself a bit. He shook himself dry and blinked a couple of times. When he opened his eyes after the third blink, a ring of wolves had formed around him, with his father and mother at the head. Gerard stood still like a mountain, rising up and casting a dark shadow over Charlie.

'How dare you...' he hissed between clenched teeth. 'Do you have any idea what you have done?'

The weight of his silently threatening voice pushed down on Charlie, making him feel as if he were carrying an ox on his shoulders. He wanted to answer, but the right words were stuck in his throat.

'Oh, you're in good trouble, Charlie,' one of his siblings said with a sneer.

'This is, like, the worst thing a wolf can do, you know?' said another one.

'There is no way in the world you can make this right,' said a third.

Gerard narrowed his bushy brows. His voice came out in a growl, as if he were a judge ready to sentence the accused to a terrible punishment. 'Indeed. By interfering with the hunt of Boris and his pack, you have broken the hunters' code. We wolves are honourable creatures and you know that. It's not only bad etiquette when you steal prey from another pack, but it brings shame to both yourself as well as your pack--or in this case, your very own family. Indeed, little Charlie. You have not only besmirched your own reputation as a big bad wolf, but you have condemned all of us as well.'

Suddenly, Chuck swooped in. 'But maybe Boris will hold his tongue. It sounded like you and him were old buddies, so maybe he wouldn't--'

'Silence!' Gerard shouted, cutting him off mid-sentence. 'This is wolf business. Go away, birds!' And to reinforce his words, he snapped his teeth at Chuck, who flapped his wings and flew away. His wife followed, but not before letting out a loud screech in protest.

A strange feeling arose in Charlie: shame. Of course he was ashamed of his father's behaviour, but he was also ashamed of something else. The right words were in the making, being forged in the flames of both shame and anger.

Some of the siblings grew restless. 'I know what's going to happen...' said one, wagging her tail.

'He will have failed the competition after all.'

'Failed? The competition is off! He has definitely messed it up.'

'Yes,' said Gerard. 'There is no hope for you to ever re-join this family again. You are no big bad wolf; you are a failure. A failure not just in my eyes, your mother's eyes, and the eyes of all your brothers and sisters, but because you chose to save the life of a prey animal instead of devouring it like you should have done, in the eyes of Mother Earth itself too.' He paused and cleared his throat. Then he bent over so his cold, hard eyes were level with Charlie's. 'I daresay, maybe you have even broken the law nature.'

'See? I told you all. Banished!' one of his siblings said with a smile.

'Boo!'

'Maybe you're not even a wolf anymore.'

'He's Charlie the Moose now!'

'Hey, I know! Let's gobble him up to set an ex--'

'AWOO!'

The howl did not come from Gerard, but from Charlie himself. It was the loudest howl he had ever howled. If one would have listened to it from a mile away, one would think it belonged to a wolf thrice the size of Charlie. It radiated such wild, angry, fiery energy the siblings were dumbstruck, and every single one of them did at least one step back. Even his father's stone-hard expression cracked and showed a hint of surprise. His mother actually took shelter behind her husband, struggling to keep her own look of disappointment on her muzzle.

The howl seemed to last an eternity. Charlie did not close his muzzle again until all the built-up frustration, rage, and many more feelings he could not even begin to name, were out. He did not succeed at that, for his breath ran out first. There was still plenty of fire left in his heart, ready to spill out over his tongue. He swallowed. His throat hurt. A deep breath. His voice low. 'Father--or whatever you want me to call you now--I have something to say.'

Charlie expected him to object, to ignore him, maybe even to turn away, but he didn't. Three seconds passed, then Charlie spoke.

'I'm not going to try to talk things right, because they already are. You're right, actually. The competitions are off. It's useless to try to earn my place back into my family again, because I would never gain what I really want. Neither you, Father, nor you, Mother, nor you all, my brothers or sisters, could give me that which I was looking for when I set out alone into the woods.'

'Of course not,' Gerard said, scoffing. 'Honour is something you can only earn by yourself. Only through proving yourself alone in the wilderness can you become a big bad wolf.'

Charlie stepped closer to him. Both wolves' eyes sparked. 'I wasn't talking about honour or becoming big and bad.'

'Then what were you talking about?'

'I was talking about something a lot more valuable than things like honour, glory in the hunt, or survival skills. It is something you could never teach me, and something I could never have found all alone in the woods, no matter how hard I would train myself. Actually, it was the eagles, whom you scared away so rudely just yet, who showed me. They showed me and shared it with me freely, letting me experience it over and over again even though I had no eye for it at the time.'

Gerard sneezed and rubbed his nose. 'Just spit it out already.'

But Charlie did not spit it out. He took his time, letting the image of his two eagle guardians fill up his mind and open up his heart. His chest glowed. Then he breathed in deep, looked his father straight in the eyes and said, 'Love.'

A rustle of snickers went through the group of wolf siblings. Charlie's mother looked puzzled and his father raised an eyebrow as well. 'Love?'

Charlie nodded.

'But... are you saying your father and I did not give you love?!' said Charlie's mother, her stern expression changing into a softer, gentler one. 'That can't be true, right? Your father and I protected you from predators when you were pups, and hunted so much prey to feed you.'

'She's right,' said Gerard, 'we gave you everything you needed.'

'Then why are we standing opposite each other like this?' Charlie said. His chest was still aglow, but his voice gained an edge. 'I could have gained everything you thought I needed from you if I had been a big bad wolf. But I wasn't a big bad wolf, I was me. Apparently, that wasn't enough.'

Suddenly, Gerard stamped his paws on the ground. He had lost his patience, and it looked as if he was about to pounce upon his own son and bite him to death. 'That's nonsense! We didn't leave you because we hated you--it was a way of teaching you a lesson. Your mother and I discussed this for a long time and we both agreed that leaving you to fend for yourself in the wilderness was the best way to prepare you for your life as a big bad wolf!'

Charlie was silent. He still stood straight on his own four legs, refusing to be intimidated. Yet, in his heart a door slammed shut. There was no way to open it again. Not with force, not with cunning, not with wisdom. Charlie sighed a long sigh and said, 'If you think that being a big bad wolf is what life is about, we're talking about two different kinds of life. To me, life is not about doing great things or maintaining a position at the top of the food chain. It is about love, love in every way, shape, or form.'

But Charlie was speaking to his father's tail, for he had already turned around. 'This is preposterous. We're going in circles and the moon is already high in the sky.' He trotted away. His wife and all their children followed, hopping from stone to stone, crossing the river. Charlie watched them go. To his surprise, Gerard turned to him one more time and shouted from the opposite bank, 'We are going to hunt like the big bad wolves we are. What are you going to do now that you lost your own family, Charlie, Advocate of Love?'

Charlie did not have to answer, for Gerard had no right to an answer. He could have simply turned around as well, but he didn't. Charlie was a fighter. 'I'm going to stop chasing my tail and start chasing love!'

Gerard said nothing. No answer, wave, or call. He turned his back to Charlie once more, just as Charlie himself did the same. Both wolves disappeared into the nightly landscape simultaneously, as if they were nothing but reflections in a still pond.

Chapter 15

As night matured, the landscape became a labyrinth of shadows, cast by the rocks and the full moon high in the sky. Howls from other wolves resounded here and there, meant to communicate their locations to other wolf packs close by. If only eagles did the same, Charlie thought.

He wasn't worried his eagle guardians might have flown away, leaving him behind forever without a goodbye. Charlie knew better, and the eagles did too. They knew him. He was sure of that. They knew him even better than his own parents did. And now Charlie understood them better as well.

There weren't many thoughts inside his head. Charlie felt drained, even though he effortlessly navigated through the steepening terrain, hopping from rock to rock and rustling through the occasional heather shrubs. He did not have the energy to prepare a speech, a thank you, or maybe even an apology. His eyes were constantly flicking up at the sky, searching for two familiar shadows criss-crossing across the moon.

And he found them.

It was exactly the way he had imagined it. Charlie searched for a suitable landing spot for his feathered friends, settling on a broad, flat rock bathed in moonlight, and sat down.

With a little swoosh, Chuck and Hazel landed. They didn't make much sound otherwise. Neither did Charlie. Instead, he lay down so that his eyes were level with the eagles'. It looked as if he were bowing for them, as in an apology.

Then Chuck broke the silence with a loud, 'Jeez, Charlie! What happened back there?!'

Charlie couldn't keep help himself from chuckling awkwardly. He cleared his throat and said, 'I made a choice, the first choice I ever made in my entire life. That's what happened.'

'We were so worried!' Hazel exclaimed. 'That huge grey wolf, Gerard, looked scary.'

'He's huge alright, but not as strong as me,' said Charlie. He sighed. Once again, silence enveloped the three creatures more tightly than the moonlight.

'It's okay if you want to save the details for later, little dude,' said Chuck.

'Or maybe even keep everything to yourself,' Hazel added. 'That's fine too.'

Something stirred inside Charlie. A wave of emotion flowed from his chest to his throat. Two tears shimmered in the light of the moon. 'I just... I just want to hug you guys.'

He did not need to say more. Both eagles spread their wings and folded them around the grey wolf, just as they had done long ago, on that windy night in the nest. Now they could not completely envelop Charlie anymore, but that did not make the gesture any less powerful. They stood still for a long time, as if they had turned to stone and had become part of the hills themselves. They could stand like this forever. Neither of them had ever been so happy.

With that hug, Charlie's ordeal had finally come to an end. He lived with his eagle guardians--his eagle parents--for a long time still, and his days were filled with love and compassion. In the end, Charlie had finally found what he was looking for: a real family.