Will you follow me? she asks, teeth dangerously close to my shoulder. Always?
I’ve been bitten by my sister. My step-sister. She gets rowdy at nighttime.
Hopegood! I call out to her, surveying the forest. She likes me to hunt her.
Hopegood, I tell the nearest birch tree. This is the last time, I swear. I have bite marks all over my arms.
Our parents were married last month. My sad mum and her wretched father.
I lean against the tree bark and assess my wounds. The leaves above me ruffle, and a rabid Hopegood falls to the ground, nearly flattening me.
I’ve got you, she says. It’s unclear who’s hunting who.
We walk home hand in hand, me her prisoner, her mine. Dried blood stains my blouse. Hopegood offers to lick it off and I tell her no thank you. Our house is empty. Parents away. They’re often away.
I get in my bed, and Hopegood gets in beside me. It’s no use trying to ward her off. We’re the same age, but it seems to me that Hopegood lost a few years out in those woods.
Will you follow me? she asks, teeth dangerously close to my shoulder. Always?
Sure, I tell her, staring out the window, at the clouds swallowing up the moon.
Promise? Hopegood puts her lips right up to my ear: They’re coming for me.
Who? I say, eyes closing.
The wolves.
I’ve always wanted a sister. Hopegood isn’t ideal. She’s eccentric, Mum says. Hopegood Helpless, her father calls her.
When I wake, she’s gone from my bed. Leaving behind an imprint and a sliver of drool. I go down to the kitchen and find her nose-deep in the dog bowl. A floorboard creaks and she looks up at me. She looks up at me and growls.
Good morning, I say. I go over to the pantry. No more cornflakes. Market’s too far to walk. Must wait for Mum to return.
Should we go to school? I ask Hopegood. Sometimes we go, mostly we don’t.
Hopegood crawls over to me and nibbles on my ankle.
I shake her off and go to the fridge.
The kitchen’s in bad condition. No one cleans it. A green mold coats the cabinets. There’s a foul smell coming from the oven. We don’t open the freezer.
Fridge has nothing. I close the door and Hopegood’s there, standing on two feet, eyes level with mine.
They’re coming for me tonight, she says.
Hopegood disappears for the rest of the day. I go into Mum’s room and sit at her vanity. I apply eye makeup, then lipstick. I look like Mum, almost. Need a touch more sadness and shorter hair.
I find tiny sewing kit scissors and saw off my braid. Won’t Mum be surprised! Won’t Mum laugh and tell me I’m a silly little thing. Hopegood’s father says my hair is my best quality. When he tells me this I spit at his feet and he calls me an animal.
I continue applying face paint until my face is lost beneath it.
Hopegood returns at twilight, missing a shoe, dragging a carcass behind her.
Squirrel? I ask, as she sloughs through the door. This isn’t the first animal she’s brought back, but it’s certainly the largest.
Rabbit, she tells me.
You killed it?
Already dead, she says. It’s an offering.
Her hair falls down her back in matted tendrils and I start to miss my own.
The wolves aren’t coming for you, I slam the door behind her. No one’s coming for you.
Hopegood says nothing and limps toward the staircase, whimpering a little, leaving the carcass in front of me.
It’s quiet in bed tonight. Hopegood sniffles beside me. She didn’t wash up after the woods. A feral smell wafts around us, like dirt and death.
This is the seventh night our parents have been gone.
Hopegood speaks for the first time in a while, her voice hoarse. I used to lie on the floor, she says. And Dad would tell me to get up, to GET UP NOW, and I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t get up. And then he would kick me, until I was rolling around howling.
Howling?
Howling to the moon, she says.
Did the moon hear you? I ask, resting my eyes.
No, she says. I wasn’t loud enough.
I wake and Hopegood’s gone. Leaving behind crumbles of dirt. I stretch my arms, my hollow stomach rumbling beneath them, and go to the window. There she is, out on the grass. It’s hardly dawn, the sky a deep pink. Hopegood’s stark naked, rolling her body around the greenery, like a dog trying to pick up a scent.
In her sleep she called out for her father.
I suppose he and Mum have gone into the city. Gone somewhere where the people are, where there’s sunshine, where there’s more. Mum didn’t say. She isn’t much for talking.
I spend the day scanning the house for edible morsels. I eat fruit from the garden, though it isn’t ripe, and makes my stomach feel emptier than before. I think about my times tables, about history and war and famine, about my father who I met as a baby, before he drowned or left or was lost. I circle the house, searching for the dog we haven’t seen in weeks. Martin, Marvin, Marfin.
I stare at a picture of Mum and me on the fireplace. She looks different than I remember. Are her eyes green gumdrops like mine? Or blue like berries? I squint my eyes but the closer I get the farther she goes. Her face dims or maybe that is the sky outside.
Hopegood’s footsteps get fainter and I step toward them, into the trees. Leaves lacerate my face. Twigs pelt me from the sky. I go on.
Hopegood returns at dusk.
She enters and collapses. With a coat I cover her, the scrapes on her arms, the mud on her legs.
What is it? I ask, plucking things out of her hair. Sticks, leaves, feathers, beetles.
Tired, she melts into me.
I leave her there on the ground, and contemplate dinner. I have an idea but it isn’t so brilliant.
After much coaxing, I get Hopegood at the kitchen table beside me, civilized. Warm bowls steam in front of us. A medley of sink water and objects from Hopegood’s hair. The taste isn’t to my liking, but Hopegood doesn’t complain. We sip in silence. I cough up a beetle and stare at my step-sister. Her brows crease like her father’s. I finger my short hair like Mum’s. Perhaps we will replace them.
If we walk to the market, I grate a leaf with my teeth, we can be there in a day’s time.
No.
We need food, I say, plugging my nose and tipping the rest of the soup down my throat.
If they come back and we’re gone, she stares at me and her eyes spin like marbles, They’ll leave. They’ll leave again.
I’ll go alone, I volunteer, though I’m not too keen on this idea. Mum says I’m old enough to go out on my own, but I don’t like to. To look around and see strange faces.
No, Hopegood says, to my relief. Don’t leave me.
We’ll starve.
Together. She tips over her soup bowl, and we watch as the chunky liquid seeps across the table, dripping down onto our legs and in between our toes.
Out the window, the moon rises like a rocket, and suddenly Hopegood is on the ground, on all fours, lapping up the liquid with her tongue.
I’m bored of this, I tell her. I want a sister who is a girl and not a wolf.
She scratches at my ankles with nails sharp as claws, and I say nothing. I will not react. I will not encourage her.
Hopegood crawls between my legs, then out the doggy door, out into the night. The moon is no longer full.
In bed, after the hunt, Hopegood wraps her arms around me, squeezing just a little too hard. She’s sturdy, sturdier than I, her hands thick like potatoes. They cinch around my stomach easily. It has begun to concave. My ribs rub against the skin. I’m waning.
I wake at dawn to sounds of Hopegood creeping down the stairs. I wrap my robe around my nightgown, step into my slippers, and creep down behind her. Can’t bear another day of hunger. Will find Hopegood and put some sense into her.
I keep my distance. Hopegood sprints across the grass, like a cat having at a mouse. The trees part, just slightly, opening their arms, swallowing her. They aren’t as kind to me. The evergreens look down, scoffing, branches crossed, unyielding. Hopegood’s footsteps get fainter and I step toward them, into the trees. Leaves lacerate my face. Twigs pelt me from the sky. I go on.
I go on for hours, Hopegood pattering against the forest floor just ahead of me. The sun rises, beats against my skin. Sweat droplets drip down my face. I’m draining. Soon there will be nothing left of me. Feeling faint.
Once upon a time, I wanted to be an artist, like Mum. Mum painted. Landscapes and rain and old Victorian manors. Children and tentacles and teeter totters. Isn’t that the most wonderful feeling? I step on a twig. It plunges into my heel. The teeter totter taking you up, until you’re flying. Mum on the other end, holding you up. Wetness on my foot. Thick, clumping. Twig punctured skin. But Mum’s gone and now I’m falling.
I teeter down to the ground, a puddle of myself.
I wake and Hopegood’s above me, the setting sun behind her, illuminating her like an angel. She dribbles water from her palms onto my face.
My mouth opens to speak. Hopegood shushes me. I try to stand but she pushes me to the ground. She gets on all fours and gestures for me to follow.
We weave between trees, around ant-hills, over snake holes. Branches salute us as we pass. Hopegood howls every so often, and we keep on crawling. I pause to catch my breath, and Hopegood scuttles ahead. We come to a clearing that is clear of everything but wolves, two of them. Tall. Perched side by side like gargoyles.
Hopegood trots toward them, her girlish body less than half their size. They watch, their eyes orbiting around her like planets. Soon they will bear their canines and plunge them into her, her and me. I imagine my soul, released from my body, floating up like a balloon, snagging on a cloud, hovering there forever.
But there is no plunge. Hopegood nuzzles against the larger wolf, her head moving up and down against its fur. The smaller one stares at me, a hint of sadness in its animal eyes, like they might give up and tumble out of its head. Perhaps it’s a mother who’s lost her wolf cubs.
See? Hopegood whispers, eyes closed.
I see wolves, I say, inching closer.
Don’t be afraid, Hopegood’s voice grows stronger, they won’t hurt you.
They might, I say, reaching a hand out to pet the sad snout.
They won’t, Hopegood says.
Foggy with hunger and hopelessness, I trust her blindly, getting closer and closer until my wolf and I are touching. I lean against its fur, melting into it like a soft pillow. My eyes close and I’m off to dreamland.
When I wake, it’s nearly nighttime. My pillow is Hopegood. She stares at the stars, the little we can see of them.
The wolves?
They’re hunting, she says, petting my hair. Getting food, for us.
Food?
Yes, she says.
That would be nice.
They’ll be back soon, she says. They’ll always come for us.
A howl rises in the distance, and Hopegood howls back. I grab her hand and howl with her, the sound crawling up my throat, foreign at first, then natural, like it’s been there all along. A quarter moon looks down at us, slivered like a smile. I smile back.
Skyler Melnick is an MFA candidate at Columbia University. She writes about sisters playing catch with their grandfather’s skull, headless towns, and mildewing mothers. Her work has appeared in Vestal Review, Moon City, and Corvid Queen, and is forthcoming in The Pinch.
Original header photo by Melinda Nagy, courtesy Shutterstock.
