cruel belinda
Belinda had a box full of wolves. At night they cried and scratched at their wooden walls, scrabbling away with their sharp claws, pushing their cheeks into the wood to gnaw at it with the edges of their wicked teeth, bloodying their flesh on splinters. They howled sporadically. When they howled, Belinda would bang the top of the box with the flat of her hand, which startled the wolves into a momentary silence. Then they would resume their scrabbling, crying, beastly attempts at escape.
When it came to the full moon, Belinda carried the box of wolves into the deep forest, walking a path she had made herself, with her own feet, treading down the weeds and leaves, sticks and fungus, carving a deep black wedge in the green forest night.
While she walked, she sang. Her voice was full of blood and violence, the terrible warm soup of murder, and the wolves in the box quietened and strained to hear it. It seeped into the box and grew all around them, breathed into their lungs, sang out of their mouths. Belinda and the box of wolves sang of the first blood of the spring, the hot blood of a calf’s throat, the delicate entrails, the comforting fat. Other wolves, the forest wolves, came quietly near the path to hear Belinda’s song, to taste the bloody melody she trailed behind her.
At the end of the path was a clearing, a small circle of foot-flattened grass. Moonlight flooded into it, making a silver and diamond pond, where Belinda set the box of wolves afloat. The free wolves of the forest paced around the clearing, growing hungry and desperate on the meaty stink of the song. They longed to sink their teeth into it, rip out its heart. So Belinda began the vicious chorus, and opened the lid of the box.
The forest wolves leapt like sleek silver fish into the box, teeth and claws bared for the slaughter. But the song was no longer there, only the fetid stink of the starving wolves, and the bitter, resinous wood. Belinda slammed down the lid and fastened it tight, and carried her box of wolves back through the forest, and home. Cruel Belinda.
