The Hounding

We went out when we weren’t supposed to, we were too free, and this—all of this—is our punishment. It has nothing to do with the idea of us becoming dogs, and everything to do with the fact of us being girls.

Girls—normal human girls—people could contend with; they were weak and small. And dogs too could be trained. But girls who became dogs, or who let the world believe they were dogs, were either powerful or mad: both monstrous possibilities.

Lies could be told with such liberating ease—they tasted better on the tongue than hard facts.

Some of them were God-fearing, but their main god, the one at whose temple they worshipped most frequently, was violence. When they weren’t committing violent acts—brawling in the alehouse or beating their wives—violence seeped into their lives in other ways. It inflected their language. They often spoke of wounding and punishing, even killing. They wore their strength proudly, thumping fists on tables and slapping each other on the back.

Happiness was frail and flimsy: a petal, a whisper. Hardship was constant. It was muscular and loud. Only fools forgot this vital fact, her face explained. Only fools failed to let it guide their every waking thought and deed.

little tasks were the foot soldiers in the ongoing battle against despair.

thought. They turned a strong man weak. They made a good man penitent.

The looks the girls exchanged, the way they measured the distance to the bank with their eyes, was fortifying to him. He fed on it like a large meal. He deserved it, after the odd feeling they had given him, after they’d treated his polite enquiries with such contempt. He relished their fear. For a brief moment—no time at all, really—they were within his control.

It was for the six pregnant girls whom they made carry the coffin

Perhaps all the happier because he knew the feeling couldn’t last. It was a blooming flower at the height of summer: its time was now. Soon, it would wilt and shed and die, but for a brief moment it was beautiful.

That was what had frightened him the most: they were not mere doltish dogs, they were girls with teeth and claws. Girls had crazy whims and grudges—these ones especially. He didn’t trust them. They made him afraid.

All he wanted was some sign from them that they acknowledged him. That they saw him for what he knew himself to be: a man

They were angry. Perhaps not only about the sisters or the murdered man’s fate. They were angry about the weather and their failing crops and shallow wells

They were angry about the weather and their failing crops and shallow wells

The old thought returned to him, that he’d rather they were dogs than damaged girls. He’d rather they were free than confined by him.

She thought about what they all went through each day: the great, gruelling trial of being a woman in a world governed by men. How painful it was, and how humiliating. To be forced to hold your dead friend aloft because it was thought that you, in your smallness and stupidity, might not realise that this could be your fate. It made her tense and pale with rage.

In the shallow water, circling thick lily-pads, he found eyes and fidgeting forms - tadpoles turning into frogs. Some had stubby tails, others were dappled brown and green, caught in the border between different bodies.

For a moment, she wanted nothing but to think quietly about these women, and the many other women like them, and those unlike them too. She thought about what they went through each day: the great, gruelling trial of being a woman in a world governed by men. How painful it was, and how humiliating . To be forced to hold your dead friend aloft because it was thought that you, in your smallness and stupidity, might not realise that this could be your fate. It made her tense and pale with rage.

We went out when we weren't supposed to, we were too free, and this—all of this—is our punishment. It has nothing to do with the idea of us becoming dogs, and everything to do with the fact of us being girls. Girls—normal human girls—people could contend with; they were weak and small.

Girls — normal human girls — people could contend with; they were weak and small. And dogs too could be trained. But girls who became dogs, or who let the world believe they were dogs, were either powerful or mad: both monstrous possibilities.

The feeling was of triumph, and brilliance, and total, blissful possession. It felt like ruling and serving simultaneously.