“Do you think your fear is rational?” the psych asks. I imagine her sitting, legs crossed, in a swivel chair, with a pen poised over her notebook. I know it’s a swivel chair because of the swish and squeak as she pivots her body back and forth. The notebook smells leatherbound, but it’s not cow leather, it’s something vegan. Kelp, maybe.
Nine days blind and already my senses are enhanced. More refined.
“Is it fear?” I ask.
“You said ‘I don’t want to open my eyes,’” the psych replies. I imagine she read that back from the scratches she made in her notebook earlier. She’s a good listener.
All the better to hear you with, my dear. I flinch at the memory and scrunch my eyelids tighter over my eyes. All I see is red. I find the window with my face and the red becomes lighter.
It was dark in the belly of the wolf. Too dark to see.
The sounds. Gurgling all around. The pulsing thump of the wolf’s heart, so close, closer than anyone should be to a man-eating beast.
The smell. A rancid acid that burned the back of my nose. The reek of old flesh and decaying organs of things half-consumed.
The touch. The part I’ll not forget. Thick slime engulfed my bare legs, slurped whenever I kicked. My favourite cloak sloppy with digestive fluids. The slick stomach wall pressing my face. The feeble fingers of Grandma’s hand gripping mine in the darkness. Her skin already breaking apart, the sinews slooping off her bones.
“What is it you’re afraid you will see?” The psych’s voice is gentle. It sounds closer, as though she is leaning towards me.
All the better to smell you with, my dear. My jaw clenches.
“You’re not wearing wool, are you? I told your receptionist on the phone—”
“No,” the psych says.
“I used to love knitting.” The psych waits for me to keep talking, to explain myself. “It’s the lanolin. The smell of sheep attracts wolves. I am afraid of wolves. That’s not irrational.”
“Not all wolves attack humans,” the psych says. “And that wolf is dead.”
Three days I stewed in the belly of the wolf. I held Grandma out of the gastric juices for as long as my arms had strength, my feet braced on the cartilaginous narrows of the stomach against the force of peristalsis. Amazing how these period 3 Biology terms came back to me in context. Mrs. Matthews would be proud. I told Grandma about the pastries I had baked for her. The wild strawberries picked on the long way to her house in the woods. She said they sounded delicious, and she couldn’t wait to taste them. Grandma was optimistic right to the end.
Human sounds penetrated the wolf’s furry pelt. I screamed, raked my nails. Clawing, biting, hoping to make the wolf cry in pain. The woodsman’s axe tore a gash through the darkness, the sudden sunlight so piercing bright I closed my eyes. All I could see was red. It’s all I’ve allowed myself to see ever since.
“It’s not about the wolf,” I say.
“Then why don’t you open your eyes?”
“Exactly!” I’m shouting. I’m swinging my arms and punching the soft cotton couch and throwing cushions and I can’t stop myself. “Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I see?” My vision is flashes of ears and eyes and teeth and red. So much red. It was so obviously a wolf in Grandma’s bed.
When I’ve worn myself out, I hug my knees to my chest and suck shuddering breaths into my forever-damaged lungs.
The psych gives me time. I hear her measured breaths, and my breathing slows to match.
“When you’re ready,” she says, “there’s a box of tissues in front of your left hand.”
I must look a sight. My face a wet mess. The lesions on my tender skin burn, and brittle hair sticks to sallow cheeks.
“Help me understand,” the psych says. Her voice is confident, soothing. All the better to prompt me with.
“What’s the point of opening my eyes,” I say, “if I don’t trust myself to believe what I see?”
“Good,” the psych says.
“Is it?” I ask.
“Progress is good.” I hear the smile as she speaks. “We’ll take it together one step at a time. No shortcuts. Why are you here? What do you want? Revenge?”
I shrug.
“Can I tell you what I think?” the psych asks.
I nod.
“I think you’re a brave young woman who went through something nobody should have to go through,” she says. “I think you blame yourself for what the wolf did to you. And I think you’re wrong. I think,” she continues, “that you deserve to forgive yourself.”
I sob.
“I forgive you,” the psych says. It strikes me an odd thing to say, but it feels good, and it makes the tears flow down my cheeks.
“It’s okay to open your eyes,” she says. “If you want to.”
I wipe my face with my sleeve. The soft ridges on my cuff soft against my cheek. Mum says my new cloak is even brighter than my old one, the one that Grandma made. Mum bought it to cheer me up. Keeps saying she just wants to see me smile again. What a big smile I used to have! Why don’t I take a look in the mirror? She doesn’t understand. But she’s trying.
“Do you want to?” the psych asks.
“Yes,” I say. “But what if there’s another wolf?”
“You’re safe here,” the psych says, and I hear something in her voice I can’t identify. I’d know it if I saw her face. “You’re safe with me. What do you say?”
I take a deep, fortifying breath.
I steel myself and let the light in.
I blink while my irises adjust. Still blind though my eyelids are wide.
The psych’s eyes are big and kind and familiar.
All the better to see me with.
I falter. The psych reaches out, her arms lean and strong and silky.
All the better to catch me with.
XX
Pete Lead is an Australian speculative fiction author who lives in Naarm/Melbourne. He was a finalist in the Mike Resnick Memorial Award for best new author, and has been published in The Dread Machine. Learn more about Pete’s writing, audio narration, and improv workshops for authors, at petelead.com
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This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.
No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.
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