Member-only story
The Authentic Eclectic
Wolf in the Hayloft
She and hers are buried in a low plot beyond the border…
She and hers are buried in a low plot beyond the border of our land where the pheasants flutter in summertime with a vast array of pomp.
I have often been ashamed of the way that the water strikes me when the mood is low, when the rapids slow to an easy crawl and the salamanders are buried soundly in the mud and the bovine moon dips its head for a drink. It twangs my veins.
She came to us on the run and from what we never learned, with one parcel per, and those personages were herself, her small son, and a stray cousin-girl. The cousin-girl would often unnerve you by sticking the tip of a finger just inside her nose and staring slantwise at the ground, and you’d keep glancing at her while the conversation went on until she finally dropped her arm and you heaved an internal sigh of relief. The son was either pale and freckled with red hair, or deep black and brown-eyed. She grasped my father’s wrist and just squeezed and flopped out some words with a glub-glub manner, and I never knew him to do a lick of kindness for anyone in this world, but he said to her, “Alright,” and that was that. She stayed.
I was a teenager at that time, so the children were too young to be of any…
