Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold

by Paula Guran

  A sharp pain stabs between me ribs. “He didn’t wanna be me Pa?”

  “He didn’t wanna be a man,” me Mam says. “There be a world of difference in those two things, though you too young to see it. He did love you, girl, and he might’ve stayed if I pressed him to it, but it would’ve been a misery to us both. I never took to the fur so much; he were a lost thing without it.”

  “But might he still be living?” I ask. “And might I meet him, as a wolf?”

  Me Mam looks to me aunt, who shakes her head. “He don’t run in our woods no more, not for years, nor any we keep treaty with. Might be dead, might be living, but you ain’t ever likely to find out, Little Red.”

  I don’t know why I feel so sunk. I ain’t had a father growing up and this only means I still ain’t got one, and there should be no difference in it, and yet, and yet. Seems it be one thing to think me Pa dead all me life, and another to know he shot off and left me behind. I wonder if he ever come back some moonlit nights to take a peek through the window at me sleeping, furless face.

  If he ever wishes he could wind back time and make his choice over again.

  “You go with Rachel tonight,” me Mam says, and I jolt forward, realising she been talking a whole bunch more besides. “She might not have all your Granmama’s stories down perfect, but she got more’n enough to guide you through your change.”

  “Tonight?”

  “The last rising of the full Moon,” me aunt says, sounding impatient. “You gonna run with me and mine this month, we see how you take to four paws.”

  It all be rushing on me so fast, I ain’t got no way to keep up. “But Mam, I thought you would—”

  “It been so long, I probably forgot how to change meself, let alone show you how to go about it.”

  “Don’t listen to your mother,” me aunt says. “Once you learn the trick of it, ain’t nothing you ever gonna leave aside—no matter how motheaten and raggedy your fur be getting.”

  “Maybe so,” me Mam says with a frown that don’t quite manage to hide the smile underneath it. “But I can’t be leaving our little Jacob behind now, can I?”

  As I look at me baby brother, asleep on her breast with his golden curls all aglow in the sun, there come this great hot seething from deep in me guts, a rolling and a roiling heat like I never know before. If not for him, we could all three of us leave this stupid shack, me Mam and me aunt and me; we could wear our finest fur and moon-sharp fangs and chase each other’s tails through the trees. If not for this mewling brat, this pathetic creature so soft and pink and helpless I could rip open its belly with less effort than it be to—

  Me aunt slaps me cheek and I round on her, snarling—

  And she slaps me again, harder, and then she has me by the jaw, her fingers digging into me flesh like they not gonna stop till they find bone. “Never,” she growls. “Jacob may not be wolf, but he still your brother and we never turn on kin. Never. You bare teeth at that child again, you gonna have more’n a slap or two coming for you.”

  She lets me go and I can’t help it, I start sobbing worse’n me baby brother ever done in his life. And I try to tell me Mam how sorry I am, how I didn’t mean it, how I don’t even know where it sprung from, that murderous heat so sudden and fierce, but she just shushes me and squeezes me hand. “You have to go with Rachel,” she says. “This be your change coming on you, and it ain’t good for none us to be holding it back longer’n we already done. You can be any kinda wolf you choose but you need to learn the ways of it first, and me sister be your best teacher for that.”

  I nod, staring down at the tabletop. I don’t wanna look at me aunt, don’t want her to see the shame in me eyes, don’t wanna face the disappointment in hers. “Now then, Little Red,” she says, ruffling me hair. “Wolves don’t sulk, we—”

  As she turns her head towards the cottage door, I hear it, the tread of boots up the front path, their heavy scrape on the stoop. Then the door opens and me stepfather come inside, axe still in hand, mouth falling open with no small measure of surprise.

  “How long you been here?” he shouts at me. “I been out in the woods all morning, searching. Your Mam worried herself sick when she see your empty bed.”

  Before I can find a lie to pin to me tongue, me Mam pushes herself up from her chair. “Only thing I worry about now, Stefan, be your great hullaballoo waking your son, just as I coax him to sleeping.” She makes her careful way over to the crib to lay me baby brother down, touching her husband’s cheek as she passes. “Girl took herself off for a early walk, but she home now, and safe, and that be all that matters.”

  He stares at me, eyes all dark and narrow as they take in the nightgown I still be wearing, before turning his sneer on me aunt. “And who might this fine lady be, gracing our humble home with her presence so unexpected?”

  “You ain’t never met me sister, Rachel,” me Mam says, hurrying back to stand by his side. Me aunt got a face on her like she ready to open his throat with her teeth.

  “Your sister,” he says. “Rachel.” He put his arm round me Mam’s waist.

  “She gonna take our girl off our hands for a bit. Give us some time to ourselves.”

  “Who gonna help you round here then, you and the wee one?”

  Me Mam laughs, slaps him gentle on the shoulder. “She only be gone for a month; I been on me own with a babe longer’n that before your grumpy self even come into the picture. Now sit and I’ll put your lunch out.”

  He grunts and slips his arm from her waist, hefts his axe in both hands. “Ain’t got time for sitting, what with half the day gone chasing after girls what never been lost in the first place.” And so, while me Mam rushes about fixing bread and meat and his favourite red onion relish, putting it all in a sack along with a bottle of scrumpy, he just stands there, running a thumbnail over his blade and glancing up every now and then at me aunt who don’t offer up even a single word by way of conversation.

  Only after he leaves, does she get to her feet and stalk over to me Mam. “You’ll keep that man in your house, knowing the blood he got on his hands?”

  “It be his house and, I told you, this ain’t the time for talking on it.”

  Me aunt don’t say nothing to that, but the muscles in her jaw tighten and twitch like it be all they can do to keep her mouth shut. Me Mam, she quiet now too but when I go over and take her hand, she lace her fingers through mine so hard it hurts.

  “Wolves never turn on kin,” I says to me aunt, me voice sounding stronger’n I feel.

  She tilts her head, her lips twisting to a grim smile before she turns her back on the both of us. “You just make sure’n get to your Granmama’s by sundown, Little Red,” she says, pausing at the cottage door. “Us wolves, we got business with the Moon tonight.”

  I wrap both hands round the mug of water me aunt gives me and gulp the whole of it down in three hard swallows.

  “Gonna be thirsty after,” she says. “Specially the first time. Your mother, she don’t tell you nothing about this?”

  I shrug. “She says, better I come here with an empty head than one full of second-best shadows.”

  “Me sister still got some wolf-sense left to her, then.”

  It be cold in me Granmama’s house without the fire burning, so even though me aunt strips down to her goosepimpled skin, she lets me keep me cloak draped over me bare shoulders, long as the hood be down and collar unbuttoned so me wolf self be able to slip out under it. Anything else just gonna tangle or tear the seams, she tells me, and me Mam got better to do with her days than stitch up after me.

  “This gonna come natural, I promise.” Me aunt crouches on the floor beside me. “You made for this, Little Red; you be wolf as much as you be woman.” She smiles. “Now, you tell it back to me, the story of the Moon, in words of your own so I know you got it fixed in your noggin.”

  “Long as the Moon be full,” I says, “she let us choose our shape, be it fur or skin. And time, that don’t matter none, only that day-shifting be
harder, so for now I best to call on her when she riding through the sky, not when she moving down ‘neath the earth. Which means three nights each month and, later, when I be better at the ways of me changing, the two days between them, and that be all.”

  “Cause what gonna happen when the Moon starts to wane?”

  “Whatever shape I be, fur or skin, that be the shape I keep till her belly swell up round again.”

  Her long fingers ruffle me hair. “Good little wolf. Now we ready.”

  At that, me throat cinches tight, and I croak out the one question I been too scared to ask till now. “Will it hurt?”

  “Not enough to make trouble,” me aunts says, and then she tells me to shut me eyes and think again on how it be last night, running barefoot through the woods, not knowing where I be headed, or even why, but running all the same, cause there be something dragging on me, something calling on me, and the crimson thread, I whisper, and yes, she whisper back, find it, it belong to you, and so I think on that, and remember the tug of it on me ribcage, and I reach into meself and there be the thread already laying over me palms, sliding through me fingers, the Moon thrumming through it and thrumming through me, and I pull on it and let it pull on me and feel the loose and stretch of me limbs

  as the crimson knot unravels

  and me body unravels

  and rebuilds

  and knows itself a Wolf.

  Wolf got no words for being wolf, they useless as cloth and knife when we got fur and fang to keep us warm, keep us fed. Wolf live in the sight and sound of the world, thick in the smell of it. Our tongue be for tasting blood of the hare, flesh of the deer. For licking up the mouth of other wolf, to show we be of the pack and honour it.

  I honour me aunt and I honour her mate, for they be top wolf.

  Her mate what give me a rabbit, let me tear open the soft fur so the guts steam on the snow, so I know I be of the pack and always welcome.

  Wolf time be hunting and sleeping and wrestling with the cubs of me aunt and the other cubs of the pack. It be feasting when we run down our prey and hunger when none be found. It be nosing out scents and knowing what passed here, and when, and if it come back or go on its way. It be casting our howl to the wind and catching some other song thrown back from over the woods.

  Wolf watch the men work, watch them stalk with their gun and lay their trap, too lazy to hunt with tooth and claw of their own. Wolf watch and wolf see, and wolf slip back into the trees quiet as the shadow.

  Man never know what wolf know, that always be the way of it.

  Heart beating, blood rushing, breath frosting.

  Earth below to feed us. Moon above to bless us.

  And now the Moon grow big again, me aunt nuzzles me snout and nips me haunch. I turn me shoulder, cause I be wolf, and won’t be girl not ever again, but she growl and snap and fix me with her yellow eye to remind me of the promise I make.

  And a great shame come over me, worse’n not sharing a kill, and I follow me aunt with tail tucked tight all the way back to the den of me grandmama.

  Where be the woman-scent of me own Mam, come and gone this very day, and the crimson thread, it tug on me, and me aunt growls again, her clever paw on the latch, and she push us inside before the unravelling truly begin.

  Panting and sore, I roll over to find me aunt still in her wolf shape. Though it be dark inside, and I ain’t got the sight no more for nighttime, there be enough moonlight shining in the windows to get by. “You ain’t changing?” I ask me aunt and she cocks her head in that way I come to understand means it be a stupid question ’neath her dignity to answer. I get to me feet, rub me bare arms. Sweat be turning to frost on me skin, and I feel more naked than ever in me life.

  I feel like me fur been stolen from me.

  Me aunt makes a sharp, rough bark—look here; look close—and I see me cloak folded up neat on the table and, sitting beside it, a basket.

  Me useless girl-nose has lost the scent of me Mam, but I know this be her handiwork. There be bread and eggs already boiled in their shells, thick slices of smoked pork, and scrumpy that I gulp straight from its little jug once me aunt turns her nose up at it. Under the cloak, a fresh-washed smock I be quick to throw on, as well as a kirtle and the wool len tights I tore on the fence nail, climbing over when I should’ve gone round, darned so fine I can barely see the stitches.

  I picture me Mam trekking all the way out here in the snow, me baby brother hitched on one hip maybe, just so there be fresh food and warm clothes waiting for when I be done with me change, and I remember how I nearly didn’t come back this night at all, how me aunt had to snarl and take me by the scruff, how I didn’t spare me Mam no mind when I be wolf.

  I think on these things, and they settle in me stomach like stones.

  Me aunt, she pads across to the door, nudges it open with her snout.

  “Don’t leave,” I beg. “I ain’t ready for you to leave.”

  She looks back at me and makes a sound something like a bark, something like a whine, before loping off into the night. This ain’t goodbye for good, I know that—we be kin, and I always be welcome to run in her pack, whether it be the very next moon, or any number from now—but she be wolf, not some tame hound to slaver at me furless heels, and I should know better’n to ask it.

  Not one of us be more important’n any other, and me aunt always gonna put the needs of her pack first.

  That be the way of it with wolves.

  Shivering, I close the door. I be exhausted, tired down to me very bones as me Mam would say it, but if I gonna rest here then I need to light a fire, get some heat into this empty house before the winter chill seeps right into me chest, right into me heart. The cloak me Granmama made be no match for this kinda cold, and I ain’t got me cousins to curl up with no more, ain’t got their thick wolfish pelts to nuzzle into, let alone a pelt of me own.

  Twice, me clumsy fingers drop the tinderbox before I get a spark to take and coax some hopeful flames to dancing, but then, as I push more twigs in between the bigger logs, there come a sly creaking from behind and I swivel round to see the door swinging open once again.

  “Thought wild beasts be scared of fire,” me stepfather says. He holds his axe in his right hand; the blade glimmers as he steps towards me.

  I scrabble to me feet, almost tripping on the hem of me smock. “You got no place to be here,” I tell him, edging sideways and trying to get the table between us.

  “Saw me the strangest thing while I be out there in the night, waiting and watching. Two wolves come into this house, but only one wolf leave. And now you be here, all on your own.” He moves to his left and I dodge in the other direction, but he only be feinting and he grabs me by the arm as I hurtle past, throws me so hard against the wall, me breath gets knocked from me lungs. “Little wolf-girl,” he says, pressing himself to me, pushing the head of his axe up under me chin. “That what you be?”

  Me eyes blur with tears, and me heart beats so fast I think it gonna burst itself right through me ribcage, but I ain’t got it in me to change again so soon, not so drained as I be right now, and so terrified. I bare me teeth at him instead; it be all I can do.

  He laughs, a nastier sound as ever I heard. “Think you scare me, little wolf-girl? Already sent one of your kind on her sinful way, reckon I can deal with the grand-pup she made.” Lowering the axe, he takes a step back then punches me full in the guts. I slide down the wall to the floor, feeling like I’m gonna vomit. “Not hard to puzzle out, your Granmama gone after I kill that wolf right here in her house, then you off with that filthy woman, night o’ the full moon. Your mama always been so protective of the wolves and no wonder, her own mama being one, for how long only the good Lord be knowing, and now her daughter. What I gonna find, little wolf-girl, I slit open your belly? Rabbit fur, chicken feathers? Bones of little children snatched from their beds?”

  I start to crawl towards the open door, but he kicks me twice in the side and so I just lie where I be, matching his hateful
sneer with a glare of me own.

  “Your mama too soft, sending you away with them monsters rather’n do right by her people.” His axe swings like a pendulum, counting off the seconds left to me. “But you ain’t gonna pollute me family no more, not you nor any like you. Come morning I gonna round up some good men, and we gonna clean them woods of wolves. Have ourselves a righteous burning. But first, I gotta clean me own house.”

  He spits in me face, his disgust slipping slimy as frogspawn down me cheek and over me lips, but I ain’t about to look away. If he gonna kill me, he gonna do it with me eyes full upon him. For I still be wolf, and ain’t no man foul as this gonna make me cower.

  The axe lifts, and time swells, and I suck me last breath from the Moon-blessed world—

  —as barrelling through the door there come a great growling fury what knocks me stepfather to the ground like he be nothing more’n a scarecrow. Powerful jaws snap the bones in his wrist even as he tries to swing the axe, and his screaming barely starts before it trickles to gasping and gurgling from a throat torn crimson by sharp and bloody fangs.

  This wolf be a stranger to me. It not of me aunt’s pack and so, when it starts towards me, I shake me head and plead to be left alone. “You got more’n enough meat already,” I tell it.

  But then it looks at me, then she looks at me, and those pale blue eyes shine so fierce and sorrowful that I flush with shame not to have seen straight off, not to have known. She licks the tears from me cheeks with her pink wolf tongue, and I put me arms round her neck and bury me face in her fur and breathe her in deep as I can.

  She smells like wolf, and she smells like me Mam, and there ain’t no telling where one nor the other begins.

  The Moon be set and the sun not far off rising by the time we done with cleaning and tidying away.

  “Jacob gonna wake before we get home, we don’t hurry,” me Mam says, pulling on me Granmama’s winter boots. “He be frightened half to death, no one be there for him.” Still, she spares a moment to frown at her fingernails, even though she already scrubbed them twice, and makes me check her face again.