Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All

by Laura Ruby

Bible verses tingled on my tongue: His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies. Except his eyes weren’t like doves at all, not pale like that, not soft. They were as black as his hair, black as the wings of crows wet with rain. And didn’t smile the way that other boys, other men had smiled at me, the way they would have smiled at a girl so damp and disheveled, wrecked and wretched. He didn’t smile at all. He was almost . . . frowning. As if I had disturbed him somehow. As if I were threatening. When I reached him, when I said hello, all he did was nod to acknowledge it. I asked him if the package was for Mr. Brownlow, he nodded again, holding the parcel out to me with one hand, but the way you’d hold out a scrap of meat to an animal, perhaps wanting to feed it but still afraid it will bite. I thought, Please don’t be scared of me, why are you scared of me, you’ve never met me before, you don’t even know me, and, at the same time, That’s right, be scared of me, be terrified. So, said Mad Maureen Kelly. Who was the wolf?