Once There Were Wolves

by Charlotte McConaghy

“They free yet?” “Not yet. But they will be.” “I’ll alert the villagers to lock up their wives and daughters. The big bad wolves are coming.” I meet his eyes. “If I were you I’d be more worried about the wives and daughters going out to run with the wolves.” He gazes at me, taken aback.

“I’ll buy her,” I say. “What’s that, love?” “How much do you want for her?” “You want to buy an unusable horse?” “Yes.” “Why?” Because fuck all of you, that’s why.

I shook my head. “Why would he do that?” “Because he’s sick, darlin’,” Jim said. “No he’s not,” Mum said. “Don’t teach her that. He’s a cunt, that’s why.”

“You don’t care much for us,” Aggie said. Mum’s body went stiff. Aggie had no filter. I wanted to catch the words and stuff them back in her mouth because 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.

Aggie scared me by letting out a furious yell, a sound flung up to the sky, one filled with all the grief in my chest. That we should be so powerless. That this was the end of our forest family, that it was gone now. For the first time I lifted my voice and yelled with her.

“I have a question, Dad,” I said as I sat beside him. “I hope you have more than one, always.”

I make a very dark choice. Or it makes me. I bury his body.

You won’t win this fight.” “You think this is a fight?” I smile as I head for the door. “When I start fighting, Red, you’ll know.”

And I realize it might be this, most of all, that I can’t forgive: his inaction.

She opens her eyes. And looks at me. I am halved and doubled at once.