Annie and the Wolves by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Author:Andromeda Romano-Lax
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2020-12-20T21:39:05+00:00

25

Annie

1905, 1869

Annie opens her eyes and sees the rutted track leading past trampled grass to the old house and knows she has arrived. This is the right place and the right time. Autumn of a familiar year. The oak tree shades the western side of the house. There is no swing hanging yet from its thickest, blackest branch. The white paint on the old house is fresh. A dog barks once and then yelps, silenced inside the house by an unkind hand. The oak’s leaves are red and curling: October, maybe. The baby was born in summer. He’ll be three months old now.

Annie creeps carefully, head low, rifle tucked close to her chest, stalking. She half-expects to see her own figure coming around the side of the house, carrying firewood or peeking out of the kitchen window. But that makes no sense. She’s never collided with herself before. The wagon is gone, but a thin spiral of smoke curls above the chimney.

It’s like dreaming all night of thirst and then waking and tipping a pitcher into a cold, clean bowl and preparing to dip one’s hands into that beautiful, fresh water. That moment of intense thirst will soon be quenched, need and satisfaction just a hair’s breadth apart. Is that what she’d always loved about hunting? The promise of satisfaction, as close as the pull of a trigger? Or did she simply love that it was something that she was good at, that put food on the table, that made her feel safe and strong and like everything would turn out fine? But it didn’t turn out fine, even with a gun. Even with the talent she had, even with her confidence in herself, which this man—this beast—had almost managed to destroy.

But what does she plan to do now? Try as she might, she hasn’t been able to face the thought squarely. Her body is telling her: walk softly, don’t be seen. Rifle ready. Resolve firm. She brings the gun even closer, presses it hard into her flat chest. From inside, she feels so much like a woman—a woman of some forty years—that she keeps forgetting this is the body of a girl: arms thin, ankles narrow, long brown hair in a single braid almost to her waist.

For a moment, the recognition of her own bodily youth scares her. But there’s no reason for fear. She’s never been weak, even as a girl of nine or ten. She’s just been confused and unaware. For years, she blamed herself for not standing up to him. It sickens her to remember him moaning and pressing into her, whispering in a hoarse, oddly high-pitched voice that she liked his attentions, that he wouldn’t keep coming back except that she was such a little tramp. He accused her even as his dribble ran down her trembling, pinned leg and into her skirts. He claimed that she liked it more than he did. In time, he became even more bold, asking the question out loud.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.