Belt and Bear

by Ann Wuehler

I shivered inside my human skin. My mother fell to the floor, my father bending over her, his belt in his fist. She took several blows, hiding her face, quiet, not even grunting as my father would strike harder if she whimpered.

My face grew a snout. My body bent, locked into place. Fur sprouted from my skin. My teeth grew long, my fingernails became claws. My mother told me to stop, but the bear in me attacked my father, killed him and partially devoured him.

She screamed, her grief a strange mystery to the daughter who had saved her.

Ann Wuehler

Ann Wuehler has written five novels: Aftermath: Boise, Idaho, Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, the House on Clark Boulevard, Oregon Gothic, the Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus. “The Blackburne Lighthouse” appears in Brigid Gate’s Crimson Bones anthology. “Invisible Greta” appears in the Whistle Pig, Volume 15.