Wild Girl Running by Watts Regina

Author:Watts, Regina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Primitive Edwardian Romance
Publisher: Painted Blind Publishing
Published: 2020-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

ESTELLE’S PROGRESS ASTONISHED Ulysses more and more each day. She was smart as a whip, as Bonnie said. By the end of her first month she had developed enough of a vocabulary to respond to very simple sentences and come up with a few of her own. She had also begun to ask about specific things, terms like ‘window’ and ‘bed’ and ‘building’ joining her pre-existing mental dictionary as more and more items began to enter the field of her awareness.

Truly, it was fascinating. The girl was so accustomed to her wild life that she seemed to lack the frame of reference to fully perceive objects like buildings, trains, coaches until she had been around them for a few weeks and could consciously inquire. What she noticed before anything else in any environment was whatever was organic: women’s furs, the feathers of hats.

Most of all, living animals. Each new such thing she saw was subject to a giddy point of her finger and the instant question, “What?” Lifelong mysteries, missing definitions were explained to her. Birds, divided into pigeons and ravens and chickadees and many other types, were named and defined for her eager eyes. Cats made her squeal with delight just to look upon and the antics of squirrels dashing through the park made her laugh every day.

Dogs, however, were by far her favorite. She would tear away from him at a second’s notice to hurry over and pet a stray, often muddying her dress by hugging the animal and crying in grief when she had to be pulled off. The first time she saw such a creature, she had cried out with excitement.

“Wolf?”

“Close! No, not wolf. Dog, Estelle. That is a dog.”

“Dog?” She had repeated the word with great curiosity, frowning. Later that night, when they were once more in the suite, she pointed at the skull on the nightstand. “Dog?”

“No, Estelle, that is a wolf. Wolf hunts lamb and cow,” he added, trying to give her some idea of the chain of predator and prey. “Hunts for food, hunts for eating. Dog protects lamb and cow; Ulysses protects Estelle.”

“Oh,” she answered, looking thoughtfully at her trophy.

Ulysses did really wonder about that thing. As she was more articulate now, he tried asking her, “Did you hunt this wolf, Estelle?” She looked at him, trying to fully understand his question, and he repeated it more simply. “Estelle hunt wolf?”

“Ah—no, human hunt wolf when dark.” He did not understand her position on death, this notion she had developed of humans as death-spirits made visible. He took it to mean another human had literally hunted the wolf and Estelle had collected its skull and pelt until Estelle added with a sad expression, “Mother. Nice mother. Estelle love wolf.”

His understanding struck him through like an arrow that was second only to the pain caused by the sorrow in such a delightful girl’s expression. “Why—this wolf raised you? Your mother was this wolf?”

“Mother wolf,” answered the girl longingly, extending a hand to pet

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.