The Hounding

by Xenobe Purvis

Happiness was frail and flimsy: a petal, a whisper. Hardship was constant. It was muscular and loud.

Some of them were God-fearing, but their main god, the one at whose temple they worshipped most frequently, was violence.

Death was too frequent a visitor in Little Nettlebed; it couldn’t keep their attention long.

Girls—normal human girls—people could contend with; they were weak and small. And dogs too could be trained. But girls who became dogs, or who let the world believe they were dogs, were either powerful or mad: both monstrous possibilities.

“We went out when we weren’t supposed to, we were too free, and this—all of this—is our punishment. It has nothing to do with the idea of us becoming dogs, and everything to do with the fact of us being girls.”

The old thought returned to him, that he’d rather they were dogs than damaged girls. He’d rather they were free than confined by him.