Scribblings from the Asylum Walls

Wolves by Rebekah_Hakeberr

This story is inspired by fairy tales and the twisted things they truly are. 

There were wolves under Stacy’s bed. They spoke to her in the night, whispering stories about their forest home, where the trees sparkled gold and the ground was made of silk. She listened with rapt attention, dreaming of the day when she could walk down the sunlit paths, to the worlds beyond, where castles grew from pods and fairies wove dresses out of spider silk. She only ever saw the wolves eyes, grape sized balls of glowing gold that danced up and down when they laughed.

The wolves told her she was special and that no other person was graced with their presence. Stacy wasn’t sure if that was true. Her friends talked about creatures under their bed, though most of those were monsters and not friendly wolves. So, one day, she decided to ask her mother, since Mommies knew everything.

 “Mommy, do you have wolves under your bed?”

Stacy watched her mother put down her coffee cup and smile gently at her. “No honey,” she said. “But I had bears under my bed when I was your age.”

“Maybe your bears can play with my wolves!” Stacy reached over and grabbed her special bunny cup. Her mother just smiled and ruffled her hair.

The wolves didn’t like Stacy telling her mother about them.  We are for you only, they said, their eyes glowing brighter as the spoke. You must never speak of us to anyone. That will make you a bad girl and you don’t want to know what wolves do to bad little girls.

She never spoke of them again, to anyone. They became her little secret, story tellers who filled her head with magical worlds that went beyond their forest. They told her of the land of shadow, where people only spoke in whispers and never went to bed, and the world under her feet, filled with hungry gnomes who ate any dreams that happened to trickle down the ears of sleeping children.

One day, her father brought in a tiny puppy, that he had found in their front yard. Stacy was sure it was one of her wolves children, lost and unable to find its way back under the bed.

“Daddy,” she said, careful not to mention anything about her wolf friends. “Did you find the puppy near my window?”

“No sweetheart,” he said. “I found it near the gate.” He looked confused at her question and Stacy didn’t press further.

“It’s a pretty puppy,” she said. “I hope its Mommy and Daddy aren’t worried.”

“That’s why we’re going to find out who its Mommy and Daddy are,” her father said. “So he can go home.”

That night, Stacy snuck the puppy out of her parents room and brought it under her bed. “My Daddy found a puppy,” she said. “Is it yours?” A paw reached out and pulled the puppy towards the shadows, causing it to yelp. The yelping continued for a few more seconds and then stopped, leaving the room in silence.

Thank you, the wolves said. He wasn’t ours, but he will be much happier here than he was in your world.

“Why was he crying?” Stacy peered into the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of the puppy.

He was afraid, the shadows replied. Most creatures fear the unknown. But he’s happy now. Can you hear him laughing?

She strained her ears and thought she could hear a tiny little laugh. She smiled and pushed her head further under the bed. “When can I go in your world?”

Soon, little one.

***

Stacy didn’t like the wolves’ stories anymore. They never spoke of castles or gnomes any longer. They spoke of blood and twisted things that she didn’t understand, nor wanted to. Stacy learned of people who cut up the bodies of their neighbors and hid them in swamps, of little children who starved to death in basements and closets, and fields of bodies where whole families were left to rot. They told her how one day her mother and father would rot from the inside out and slowly start to fall apart, how her parents would leave her and become one of the bodies left to rot, only stuffed underground in the dark.  And one day, she too would join them.