Once There Were Wolves

by Charlotte McConaghy

I don’t want this. I came here to be away from the rest of the world, to be safe from it.

‘Have we? I’m drowning.’

‘What kind of thing are you?’ he asks against my mouth and this time it is a question.

I make a very dark choice. Or it makes me.

‘I can’t, Duncan,’ I say. ‘I don’t have anything to give you.’ ‘Then take from me. I have more than enough.’

‘I’d like to visit that world you live in, my girl,’ Mum said. ‘It sounds kinder than this one.’