Martin Allison Booth The Wolf In the Woods

The rusting passenger ship shoulders its way through the scrambled seas; beyond the outer harbour and off into the night. The fourth row of portholes, the lowest, dips itself into the restive sea; sometimes below the waterline, sometimes reaching out as if gasping for air. There, in a squalid little cabin, Leena, her ten-year-old daughter and her six-year-old son share one of six bunks. Little Maret wipes the filth from the single porthole with her elbow. She only succeeds in smearing the grease further. Peering into the night, her breath blossoms on the glass. She tries to catch a final glimpse of the lights of her home. She can see nothing but the sea; a giant's chest heaving and falling. A few hours later, failing to sleep, Maret whispers two questions into her mother's ear. The two questions that will echo in her mind and her heart every waking moment from that night onward: When are we going home? Where's Father?