Tell The Wolves I'm Home

by Carol Rifka Brunt

You could try to believe what you wanted, but it never worked. Your brain and your heart decided what you were going to believe and that was that. Whether you liked it or not.

but the thing is, if you close your eyes when you sing in Latin, and if you stand right at the back so you can keep one hand against the cold stone wall of the church, you can pretend you’re in the Middle Ages. That’s why I did it. That’s what I was in it for.

I touched my fingertip to the top button. The paint was thicker than it was anywhere else, and somehow that made me sad.

Then we left, just me running with my sister, the wolves at our backs. It was like we were a story, us two. A real story, not just one I made up.

Proof that there are worlds and worlds and worlds on top of worlds, if you want them to be there.

“It’s the moment right before you slip away into the rest of your life.”

“Being a romantic means you always see what’s beautiful. What’s good. You don’t want to see the gritty truth of things. You believe everything will turn out right.”

The unfairness of what we’d heard had turned us all mute. My fists closed on the couch fabric. Finn had just missed it. Another few months and …

ow

I stared hard, trying to find a pattern. Thinking if I kept looking hard enough, maybe the pieces of the world would fit back together into something I could understand.

I could tell she was there. She was right back there in that pink sky summer with Finn.

“One day at a time, June. One day at a time.”

If you always make sure you’re exactly the person you hoped to be, if you always make sure you know only the very best people, then you won’t care if you die tomorrow.”

I like the word clandestine. It feels medieval. Sometimes I think of words as being alive. If clandestine were alive, it would be a pale little girl with hair the color of fall leaves and a dress as white as the moon.

love this description

“It’s just us now, isn’t it?” I said. But even as the words were coming out, I knew it wasn’t really true. Finn was always there. Finn would always be there.

I couldn’t even remember the last time we laughed together like that, and I knew that it meant my sister was starting to come back. That somehow Toby had gone out into the woods and brought back Greta for me. He’d brought me back my sister.

We could see the way it made us look like the closest of sisters. Girls made of exactly the same stuff.

Maybe all I wanted was for Toby to hear the wolves that lived in the dark forest of my heart. And maybe that’s what it meant. Tell the Wolves I’m Home. Maybe Finn understood everything, as usual. You may as well tell them where you live, because they’ll find you anyway. They always do.

“Because maybe I don’t want to leave the planet invisible.

This is what love looks like, I thought. Then I squeezed his hand back.