Grandma was a liar. We all knew, having heard it said since we were children. Her tall tales were family folklore. Do you remember when Granny said she’d won a race with a wolf? When she said her comb, iridescent with pearls, was a gift from the sea wife? When she whispered to me one storm-scudding night that I was a changeling,
gifted?
We were taught to laugh and tut at her fancies. I would watch from my corner as her cheeks flushed into pink peonies and knew the mockery hurt. I took to sitting with her, capturing her stories in yarn and silks.
On the day she breathed her last a wolf howled in the woods like an inconsolable lover. The sea rose up, a woman shaking out voluminous skirts, petticoats frothing over the harbour wall. I packed our tapestries, opened the door and finally unfurled my wings.
Jane won Beaconlit Festival’s 2019 flash fiction prize. Her stories have been published in a variety of magazines, and online by FreeFlashFiction and Reflex Fiction. She’s been a LISP and Edinburgh Flash Fiction Award finalist and had pieces shortlisted by Retreat West, Writing Magazine and Flash500. She tweets @janeb323.
This story was shortlisted in the March 24 Monthly Micro Competition