Once There Were Wolves

by Charlotte McConaghy

The days are growing longer and twilight brings an unearthly glow to the light.

I lean against the twisted trunk of a juniper, my favorite tree in the area, and watch the gentle movement of the forest. Sunlight in shafts through the canopy. A rustling in one of the hip-high ferns.

Trauma can create new patterns. I’m no stranger to this.

As we staggered to the top of an incline I held my breath, knowing the view that waited. A world of autumn color. A feast. One sloping hill covered in deciduous larch, aspen, and black cottonwood trees, all having turned so yellow they hurt to look upon, and some among them a fiery orange. There were paper birches with bright red leaves, and dotted throughout were the evergreen spruces. On the other side of the lake the landscape was more like tundra, treeless hills covered in cherry pink and red shrubs that ran down to embrace the edges of Lake Wonder, shimmering lilac now under the streaky gold and purple sunset. And looming over it all was the snow-covered peak of Mount Denali, crisp and white and staggering in its enormity.

All creatures know love, Dad used to say. All creatures.

He cares deeply; it is the fabric of his life here. I think he must be a good man. But nobody is only one thing.

The rain has left its scent behind, a scent like no other, and glittering droplets on the end of every leaf.

She gasps, tilting my chin, and we both look up to see what the sky does, how it dances green and purple and blue, the colors too brilliant to be in Werner’s, and I am crying still but now it is for the beauty of the world, and for its gentle pull, for the mystery of it and its timing,

Cutting off noses to spite faces.