Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All

by Laura Ruby

As if the truth were a jewel you could unearth and hold in your hand, as if the truth wasn’t more like something you’d find under a rock, gray and faceless and squirming away from the light.

ONCE, I’D KNOWN A BOY like that. I haven’t taken a breath since.

How nice to be a man, to be free to read a monster book in public without anyone worried that you would turn into a monster yourself. Or that you picked the book because you were a monster.

“Nothing is funny about war,” Sister said. “But one must find reasons to laugh anyway, especially when nothing is funny. Sometimes joy is the only defense you have, and your only weapon. Remember that.”

The girl with the golden arm was a woman like every woman. Sooner or later, someone always tries to take what’s yours. She just got mad enough to do something about it.

Another door, I said. What? Doors can be dangerous. You never know what’s on the other side, what you’re letting in. True, she said. In stories, girls are always opening doors, always the wrong ones. Always crossing thresholds thinking they’re getting away free. Nothing is free.

It doesn’t matter which door you open, she said. Three or ten or thirteen doorways, there are wolves behind them all.

Why does the world demand girls be beautiful, but when they are, punish them for it? Why does it punish girls either way? Why does the world want girls to be sorry, some even more than others? Sorry, sorrier, sorriest.

“We only get scraps in this lousy life. Take what you can get, do you hear me?”

Even the cat deserves better.

No matter what you hoped for, hope could break your heart.

Girls were punished so hard for their love, so hard, hard enough to break them.

We are all our own devils, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde had said that.

The door to heaven didn’t open up for me, but not everyone was that kind of angel. Some had wings, others had claws.

But it is also a story about girls. Girls with ambitions, brains, desires, talents, hungers. It is a story about how the world likes to punish girls for their appetites, even for their love.