ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize
Jolley Prize 2012 (Shortlist): 'Tended by Foxes' by Ngiare Elliot
by Ngiare Elliot •
My sister watched the river drink me, and offered not a finger to pull me free. She was a colder creature than the water on my skin, and I should have known there was no turning her once her words were thinned, and her eyes dusk-rimmed. She watched me bob and nod to the river, her skirts clotted in her fists, and I don’t think she cared if I became wood or stone, or if the scraps of me lay beneath the swagger and curtsy of crow, as long as the river washed me gone and ever from her sight. She wanted no sketch of sister left on wind or water.
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