Calm

• Kelly McKie, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

Shadow Wolf had already accepted it.
She had accepted that her brother would hate her for all of eternity, that everything was her fault, that she was the reason her sister was dead.
She had accepted it and was ready to move on.
She practically glided through the fog. Her littermate, Ebony Wolf, turned her sad green gaze upon her sister. “Hello,” she sighed.
Shadow Wolf dipped her head in greeting. “Hello.”
Ebony Wolf was sitting beside the place where they had buried their older sister’s body when they had found it. It had been a macabre sight, but at least they had been able to give her a proper burial.
Shadow Wolf sat down beside her. She was very calm and collected, not nearly as obviously-upset as Ebony Wolf.
Shadow Wolf could see right through her sister. She could tell that Ebony Wolf was trying not to cry.
Shadow Wolf took a deep breath. She was calm. She was collected. She was peaceful and serene.
She stood. “Goodbye,” she said to her sister.
How strange, she thought. We used to be so close.
Of course, it was Shadow Wolf’s fault. She had driven this rift between the sisters because of her dreadful, horrific mistakes that had cost their older sister her life.
Her older brother, Dark Wolf, loomed out of the fog, teeth bared. His eyes shimmered with pain.
Of course. Today was the one-year anniversary of her death.
“Get away,” he snarled. “Get away and don’t come back. You have no place here.”
Shadow Wolf was used to this, of course. Her older sister, Starless Wolf, had been Dark Wolf’s littermate and best friend. Her death had sent him into a deep, dark depression.
Shadow Wolf ducked away and continued walking. She was still perfectly calm and collected. She had accepted the death of Starless Wolf and accepted full blame for her death.
She bent to drink from a trickling stream.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply once more.
I am calm. I have accepted her death. I understand that it’s my fault.
A single tear trickled down her snout.
I am calm, she repeated to herself. I accept her death. I accept that she’s not coming back.
She tried to choke back her sobs.
She’s not coming back.
The sentence rolled around and around and around in Shadow Wolf’s head.
It was my fault.
She’s not coming back.
I did this.
My mistakes killed her.
It was my fault.
My mistakes killed her.
She’s not coming back.
She’s not coming back.
That was the hardest part. Her smiling, wonderful, happy sister was dead because of Shadow Wolf. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead and she was dead forever. Shadow Wolf would never ever see her ever again until death, when she joined her in the stars.
She would forever bear this burden on her shoulders. She would forever walk with the knowledge that her idiocy had cost her sister her life.
My fault.