Red Riding Hood

by David Leslie Johnson; David Leslie Johnson; Catherine Hardwicke Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

  The dry scent of freshly cut wood stifled Valerie’s nostrils as she approached.

  The Reeve had assembled a group of well-trained men, and they were issuing heavy blows to the trees. He wasn’t one to waste the chance to hire cheap laborers when they were in town. The men worked as a group, making the same motions, wearing the same clothes. But Peter stood out. He had slung his black shirt over his shoulder, revealing taut, tanned muscles. Resting herself against a tree, she watched his beautiful body torquing with each swing of the axe. It felt illicit seeing him in this way. But right somehow, too—she already felt he was hers.

  Valerie was glad to see some remains of her mother’s lunch discarded on the ground. Suzette had already come and gone.

  “These acacias. They’re too thick-skinned,” Peter said to the Reeve, motioning to the thorny trees. He buried his axe in a nearby tree stump and left for a saw.

  Valerie, seeing his axe unattended, darted forward to grab it and rushed back to hide behind a tree.

  A nearby lumberjack had stopped his swing and balanced his axe on his shoulder. Leering down, he smiled at her and made a gesture of sealing his mouth shut.

  She backed away. But she saw then that someone else had neglected his duties: It was Cesaire, sagging against a tree, bottle in hand, his eyes hollow. He was haphazardly raising spoonfuls of stew to his mouth, often missing the mark.

  She looked away, as she always did. Her father was sloppy and helpless; he drank himself crippled. But he was also a woodsman, a hunter, strong and honest. It was hard to see him this way. Valerie felt conflicting emotions; he was a cause of both great pride and great shame for her.

  Waiting, she began to wonder what was taking Peter so long to notice the stolen axe. But then he reappeared and immediately looked over to her hiding place. Her blood quickened. He was glad to see her, she could tell, but as he approached, he was somber, not giving her quite the warm welcome she’d expected.

  Something was wrong. It couldn’t be that he was angry at her for taking the axe—that wasn’t like him.

  He drew her farther into the cover of foliage so as not to be seen or overheard. She reached out to him. In the colder air, his hair felt so dry, thick, that she thought she could count the strands.

  “Peter.”

  He shushed her, his finger grazing her lips. She misread his face and, for a moment, was annoyed; she didn’t take well to submission. But she was too happy; the feeling melted away, and she forgot her anger.

  “Why so sad?” She heard herself flirting, of all things. She couldn’t help it; her heart felt like it was ready to flower.

  “Give me the axe.”

  “What will you give me for it?” she replied.

  He stepped toward her, but she backed up to a pine tree. He moved very close, but not touching. Seeing how serious he was, she surrendered, pressing the axe gently to his chest, letting her fingers spread out across the warmth she found there.

  “Valerie…” Peter looked sad now. “They didn’t tell you.”

  “What?” Valerie smiled. He was handsome when he worried. She wondered whether she was being annoying, or whether she’d be annoyed if she could watch herself as an outsider.

  “Tell me what?” she asked impatiently.

  “I heard your mother talking to your father earlier,” Peter said, stalling. He fingered the torn shoulder of her light blue dress.

  “And?” she asked quickly, reaching to pull at the tear in the fabric. She’d never worried much about her clothes.

  “Valerie, Valerie.” He saw that he’d have to tell her. He pressed closer. “You’ve been betrothed.”

  Her hand dropped from the unruly seam at her shoulder. She stared straight ahead at his sun-touched skin.

  “To… Henry Lazar.” It wasn’t easy for him to say the name.

  Valerie felt something fall to the floor of her stomach like a wet rag.

  “No,” she said, not wanting to believe him. “No, no,” she told his chest.

  Peter stood mute, wishing he could tell her what she wanted to hear.

  “It’s not possible,” she said.

  “It is. I’m telling you, it’s done.”

  It’s done. She tried to think.

  “I mean… what if… I don’t know if…” Valerie’s thoughts were incoherent, but each time she spoke, it was with a note of urgency, as if she had hit upon a way to untangle herself from Henry.

  “What do we do?” She leaned back against the tree.

  Peter paced back and forth, rebelliousness shading his expression.

  “Do you want to marry him?” Peter stopped in front of her, pressing close.

  “You know I don’t.”

  “Do I? Do we know each other anymore? It’s been a long time. I’m not the same person I was.”

  “You are,” she insisted. “I know who you are.” She knew it was ridiculous, to feel so strong so fast… but she did. It just felt like they belonged together. She took his hand and held it tight.

  His face softened. “All right, then. There may be one way….” he said out to the faint silver hue of the moors on the horizon.

  Valerie looked at him blankly, her mind racing off on its own.

  “We could run away,” he said, speaking her mind before she’d quite reached the thought. He came even closer, almost touching his forehead to hers.

  “Run away with me,” he repeated the words, smiling a real smile, full and dark, in that terrifying way he had, as though his actions were self-contained, as though there were no consequences. She wanted to be a part of his ripple-less world.

  “Where would we go?”

  His lips brushed her ear. “Anywhere you want,” he said. “The sea, the city, the mountains…”

  Anywhere. With him.

  He pulled back to look at her. “You’re afraid.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You’d leave your home? Your family? Your whole life?”

  “I-I think I would. Anything to be with you.” She heard herself saying it and realized it was true.

  “Anything?”

  Valerie pretended to think a moment, for show, to be able to tell herself she had.

  Then, almost meekly, “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Peter let it sink in. They heard the chuff of a horse and then spied a hitched wagon in the distance, unattended, ready to go. No one was in sight. It seemed like fate.

  “If we’re going to do it, we need to go now,” she said, thinking the same thought he was.

  “We’d be half a day’s ride away before anyone even knew we were gone,” he agreed, giving her his rakish smile.

  “Let’s go then.”

  “I’ll race you.” He took her hand, pulling her through the glittering afternoon to the waiting horse. Water sloshed to the ground as Valerie abandoned her pail.

  One day, she thought, I will live with Peter in a home for us two, and there will be an orchard and also a narrow flowing stream where we will both bathe and swim. The sun will sing in the afternoons, and at night birds will tuck their heads under their wings in wait.

  The image became clearer the faster she ran.

  Feeling the charge of freedom, she felt weightless, as though she were a dandelion seed being floated along in the air.

  It was about that time when Claude found what he was not looking for.

  Quiet Claude noticed things that no one else did. He noticed the way the tree branches flapped like wings, the way the grain waved like a storm at sea. He saw what was in the shadows and what was behind the shadows, too.

  He took mystery seriously, and he tried to understand. What was not fathomable was why there was so much to see, so much beauty that he was forced to neglect with every moment. He had trouble focusing because he was focused on everything.

  He carried a rawhide pouch into which he deposited those berries and petals whose pigments he found especially beautiful. He was a noticer and also a maker.

  Toda
y, he had constructed a tall scarecrow, clad in a floppy hat. The scarecrow was a skinny cross of bundled hay, its head bursting into a plume of wheat. Claude circled it, clapping, waiting for a response, an awakening into life. He was a magician, and he had faith in the magical.

  Claude pulled out his deck of tarot cards, which he’d painted himself with materials he’d snuck from the kitchen: dark vinegar and wine, beet juice, and stains from crushed carrots. He’d studied a deck brought to the town by a peddler. Despite the crude palette, the cards were colored with exact precision so that each character was vibrant and particular. He flicked a card from behind the scarecrow’s head, a sleight-of-hand trick he’d been practicing. Gazing at it, he realized the dull morning light had brightened already into early afternoon. Startled by how long he’d been out, Claude began ambling toward home, sorting through the deck as he walked.

  One orphan card, though, The Moon, escaped from the rest, flipping and spinning in the wind. Chasing it, scrunching his nose against the sun, Claude came upon an area of wheat that had been flattened.

  It was stained with blood.

  Claude could taste in the unsettled air that something evil had been there, and that he had arrived too late.

  He followed the card hesitantly to something terrible, something that stopped him dead in his tracks. He stumbled to a halt.

  What he saw was too awful.

  Torn flesh, and the dirty hem of a yellow dress. The tarot card lay faceup near a still hand.

  He hovered a moment, his body rigid with fear, and then he sprinted for the village, tripping over the knobs of obtrusive roots and ridges along the way. The scarecrow nodded behind him in the wind, seeing everything and nothing.

  Running toward the wagon, Valerie felt impossibly free. She felt she was visible but unseen, like a blossom nestled into the brush that no one seems to notice.

  The world was hers, and the beauty was everywhere. In Peter’s tousled hair, in the rough wood under her hand as she vaulted into the seat, in the way the oiled leather reins caught the sunlight.

  Dong.

  Dong.

  Dong.

  The third toll of the church bells hovered in the air, and everything became still. Someone in the village had died. Valerie froze.

  Dong.

  A fourth toll shattered the silence. The world split open, exposing a raw inside.

  Valerie and Peter looked at each other first in confusion, then in awful understanding.

  The fourth bell meant only one thing: Wolf attack.

  She had never heard the fourth bell, except for the time she and Peter had rung it themselves.

  With those bells, Valerie knew.

  Life would never be the same.

  Part Two

  8

  Claude stood out of breath at the stairs to the boisterous tavern, knowing that he was not allowed to go in. Through the window, he saw huge pillars holding up candles the size of logs. He saw the tables, held together by wooden pegs, their surfaces scarred by decades of mug-pounding abuse. He could see, too, the light filtered through the hanging jars of wine, casting round red disks on the tables underneath. Deep red.

  He saw it all, but he found he could not speak a word. He stepped just inside the doorway and waited.

  Claude and Roxanne’s mother, Marguerite, was working hard, carrying two trays on each arm, dodging rowdy drunks. She paused for only a moment as she passed her son.

  “I’m working.” She left him hovering at the door, looking repelled.

  The noise of the tavern was deafening. Not knowing what else to do, afraid no one would listen, Claude yelled. Claude had the face of a much older man, deep creases stretching from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. His skin was blemished, and people didn’t like that, feeling it was the outward mark of an imperfect soul. And no one wanted to listen.

  Marguerite came bustling out toward the noise.

  “How dare you?” she asked cruelly, cutting through the silence.

  Claude fell mute, breathing heavily, feeling a red flush break across his freckled face. Feeling sure he would not cause any more trouble, Marguerite turned to go inside.

  But Claude yanked roughly at a fold of her dress.

  “Cursed child,” she muttered.

  The tavern quieted, taken aback; he’d been too violent with her. Claude stood, paralyzed, shocked at his own actions, feeling exposed.

  Someone snickered, though, tearing apart the quiet, prompting a raucous laughing fest. Behind their laughter, Claude knew, was fear. His own mother was suspicious of him and saw him as a foreigner. She did not understand where he had come from.

  He wondered whether the Wolf would have been afraid of him in the way that the other villagers were.

  Now both he and Marguerite were embarrassed. He shrank back to retreat.

  The effort had exhausted him. He started to leave but burst back around. What he wanted to say was, “Lucie is lying in the wheat field mauled to death.”

  Stammering, though, all he could say was “W-w-wolf.”

  Finally, they listened.

  It wasn’t long before the bell began to sound.

  The bell clanged louder, four tolls at a time, the closer Valerie got to the trail of villagers. She ran through the fields, dodging yesterday’s haystacks.

  “Don’t believe the boy,” someone was saying.

  “Of course not. We all know very well that it’s been twenty years and that the Wolf has never broken the peace,” another called out over the clamor, bustling through the wrecked fields. “He probably just saw a wild dog and got confused.”

  Children were straining at their mothers’ arms, hurrying them along. They wanted to see what all the upset was about. They were afraid they’d missed something, though they weren’t sure what.

  Valerie ran ahead of them, anticipating their destination. Reaching the center of the fields, she saw that some villagers were already there, divided into clumps. Seeing her, they quieted and held back, respectful. A woman could be heard at the back of the crowd sniffing up her tears. Valerie couldn’t see past the clusters of mottled gray and brown cloaks, but she found Roxanne, Prudence, and Rose tangled in an embrace, each holding up the other two.

  “Who is it?” Valerie demanded.

  They turned toward her without breaking their knot.

  No one could say it.

  The crowd backed away so that Valerie could see her mother and father standing alone, their faces drawn in horror. She knew even before Roxanne whispered it.

  “Your sister.”

  Valerie ran and fell before Lucie’s lifeless body, clutching desperately at shreds of hay. She couldn’t bring herself to touch her sister yet.

  Lucie was in her finest dress, but the fabric was tattered and barely served to confine her body anymore. Her hair, a formal four-strand braid, plaited so carefully the night before, had loosened into matted strands.

  The crown of weeds was still clinging to her hair. Valerie pulled off her own shawl and covered Lucie. Then she lifted her sister’s hand to her cheek and felt a few shreds of paper in the cool palm, handing her one final secret. They looked like the remains of a note, but the writing was impossible to make out. Valerie shoved the pieces into her pocket.

  The hand felt clammy with dew and gummy with clotting blood. She finally gave in to the exhilaration of grief, allowing it to bury her like a blanket of snow, so that everything seemed muffled and far away.

  Soon Valerie felt anonymous hands intruding on her within the presence of her dead sister. She could not let go, because she didn’t know whether her sister was gone from the body yet; she was not sure how fast the leaving happened. She had to be pried from the site, her knees stained dusty brown with blood and winter soil, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  As she was dragged away, the first snow of the season began to fall.

  Winter was early.

  9

  Within an hour, the cottage was so full of villagers that there was no air lef
t to breathe. Valerie felt scooped out like an empty gourd.

  The family was grieving separately, stunned. It felt as though the entire world were different, even though their surroundings were, impossibly, the same. Aside from one of them being gone, everything else was as it had always been. A string stretched across the room, drooping under the weight of the family’s laundry. The biscuits were drying on the rack. Everything was as they’d left it.

  Suzette had taken up a position by the door, watching the outside because she couldn’t bear what was inside. The sparkle of snow just coming down made it look like glass. Valerie wondered if her mother was disappointed with what she had left, now that the more beautiful, the more loving, the more obedient of her daughters was gone.

  Across the room, Cesaire tossed back his head, going for a sip of his flask. He was tormented and stoic, refusing comfort even from Suzette. Valerie wished he could be less hard on himself. It seemed as if he felt responsible for Lucie’s death, for not protecting his daughter.

  Mourners milled about, aimless, in shock. They were bland in their sympathy, saying those empty things that all people say to grieving families.

  “She’s in a better place now.”

  “Good thing you have Valerie.”

  “You could always have another….”

  Claude and the girls were dressing Lucie’s body, washing it tenderly, her face, her hands, but they felt sick lifting her too-heavy limbs. Swaddling Lucie, feeling her body, making it beautiful with flowers, seemed obscene.

  Valerie stood beside them but did not move or speak. Her friends wanted to support her but didn’t know how. Almost afraid of the rigid intensity of her grief, they left her alone.

  Villagers felt they should be speaking of Lucie, but what to say? They were thinking of her, and perhaps that was enough. They sat in corners, conversing in guilty whispers, unable to focus wholly on grieving, as they were fretful about the coming night. The blood moon would rise for a second time tonight, that much the elders were able to agree on. Men looked at their own daughters and wondered who might be next.