For the Wolf

inside me.
Later that night, I lie in bed and even though it’s Shabbat I reach out to the fire that now burns freely within me. I play with it on the inside—not daring to light up the room I share with my sisters, and arguing in my head that I’m not really breaking Shabbat if I’m only playing with a fire I already lit. I stare out the window above Levana’s bed and I wonder what she saw. If she felt the layer of wrongness like I did when I hugged Nagmama—something infected and rotten curling at the edges of everything bright.
I must fall asleep at some point because the next thing I know, I’m dreaming of darkness. There is a black mist winding its way through the trees, creeping along the earth. Everything it touches turns black as tar and then withers, shrinking in upon itself. The mist creeps its way from the edge of the forest, down the stone-strewn muddy streets of town, up the street that runs through the Jewish quarter of Trnava, and through the cracks in the wall of our house. It feels like the darkness is coming for me.
As it starts to drift its way through the window, I sit up in bed and conjure a flame. I’m awake now and fully conscious of the fact that it’s Shabbat and I’ve set fire to my bed. I frantically try to put it out, but before I manage to smother it with a blanket, it rises up and takes the thin shape of a serpent, then slithers up from my bed and out the window. It chases the mist, which shrinks back into itself and goes away. I get up and look out the window— but there’s nothing there. I rub my eyes and keep staring, looking for the light snake and wondering if it was only a dream.

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