Once There Were Wolves

by Charlotte McConaghy

Mirror-touch synesthesia. My brain re-creates the sensory experiences of living creatures, of all people and even sometimes animals; if I see it I feel it, and for just a moment I am them, we are one and their pain or pleasure is my own.

behave: the physiological response to witnessing someone’s pain is a cringe, a recoil, a wince. We are hardwired for empathy.

Once upon a time I took delight in feeling what others felt. Now the constant stream of sensory information exhausts me. Now I’d give anything to be cut free. This project isn’t going to work if I can’t create distance

The world is a dangerous place...

for a moment I am the wolf.

I speak more of the wolves because they are all I have left that isn’t rage.

This is how the trees speak with and care for each other. Their roots tangle together, dozens of trees with dozens more in a web that reaches on forever, and they whisper to each other through their roots. They warn of danger and they share sustenance. They’re like us, a family. Stronger together. Nothing gets through this life alone.” He smiled

It isn’t going to work. I’m sure of it. The world is not that kind; I am not so lucky. And then it does. Because really it has nothing to do with me and my luck.

what passes between them is only biology, nature, but then who said love does not exist in the nature of all things?

here in Scotland,” Evan says, “is an ecosystem in crisis. We urgently need to rewild.

since wolves were hunted to extinction. Killing the wolves was a massive blunder on our part. Ecosystems need apex predators because they elicit dynamic ecological changes that ripple down the food chain, and these are known as ‘trophic cascades.’ With their return the landscape will change for the better—more habitats for wildlife will be created, soil health increased, flood waters reduced, carbon emissions captured. Animals of all shapes and sizes will return to these lands.”

Trees can grow again, creating the air we breathe. When an ecosystem is varied, it is healthy, and everything benefits from a healthy natural ecosystem.”

I can assure you that societies cope economically with both wolves and farming, we see it all over the world.”

“If you truly think wolves are the blood spillers, then you’re blind,” I say. “We do that. We are the people killers, the children killers. We’re the monsters.”

The stables are lit from within, glowing eyes under the shadow of the mountain.

“You want to buy an unusable horse?” “Yes.” “Why?” Because fuck all of you, that’s why.

But on this I would not be broken. I had a magic power that wasn’t magic. I felt what other people felt, and I knew what lived in those touches and how it was mostly sweetness. You didn’t touch sweetly unless you were good.

I knew that even though Mum acted like nothing mattered to her she still had feelings, she still got hurt. She still spent her whole life trying to help people.

Dad used to tell me that my greatest gift was that I could get inside the skin of another human. That I could feel what nobody else could, the life of another, really feel it and roll around in it.

He also taught us that compassion was the most important thing we could learn. If someone hurt us, we needed only empathy, and forgiveness would be easy.

This is how the world dies, he said, with laziness.

it seemed to me that what was once the wisdom of a man courageous enough to see another path was now turning slowly toward madness.

About as rare as they come.” “A wolf?” A thrill ran through

she likes holding on to our old twin language, likes the thought of returning us to our little universe.

Cause soon enough it’ll be murder and mayhem that rule this place.”

“Wolves out there,” Duncan warns. I nod.

Will he let the wolf in?

I want him to see them the way I do.

“The wolves are free.”

monoliths of the Cairngorms range, are still snow covered.

Even Mary, Queen of Scots came up here to hunt wolves for sport.

An entire nation out for their blood. The beasts had no chance.

“There’s all kinds of stories about the last wolf of Scotland.

That hope trailed behind us like a rattling tin can for a while until I cut it loose for good.

My father used to say the world turned wrong when we started separating ourselves from the wild, when we stopped being one with the rest of nature, and sat apart. He said we might survive this mistake if we found a way to rewild ourselves. But I don’t know how to do that when our existence frightens the creatures we must reconnect with.

for wolves being alone makes them vulnerable, while for humans it keeps us safe.”

Never assume anything with a wolf, she will always surprise you.

remember how it feels to be good at this. To be as wolf-like as I’m ever going to be. As animal.

And yet I have never been able to pull the trigger. I have always needed my sister for that part.

“They’re more dangerous than we are.” “Are they?” I ask. “They are wilder, certainly.” “Isn’t it the same?”

This future comes to me in an instant, and I could weep right here,

I feel only fury at him for being here, only terror for my wolves.

“Shouldn’t we all be? How many women have to get killed before we get angry?” My voice breaks. “Why aren’t we all angry? Why aren’t we furious, Duncan?”

never a disease to be treated or a problem to be solved, but simply a different way of existing.

I felt a wild creature stuffed into the body of a human.

Wolves don’t wander. They move with purpose, and they teach their pups how to do the same.

They can share the mental images with each other.” “How do they do that?” “By howling. Their voices paint pictures.”

some memories are so deep they can live in the body instead of only in the mind.”

“I think I will go mad with the wildness.”

Trauma can create new patterns.