Red Riding Hood

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

  “W-w-why does the Wolf hate us?” Claude finally asked, and for once people quieted as he spoke.

  A simple question. And yet no one could answer.

  Roxanne coughed, the polite little noise filling the room.

  A knock at the door dispelled the tension.

  “It’s the Lazars!” Valerie vaguely heard her mother say. All the other girls looked up as the three generations of the family entered—Madame Lazar; her son, Adrien, the widower; and his son, Henry. Rose offered a thin-lipped smile at the youngest, but Henry searched only for Valerie. When her eyes didn’t even flicker in his direction, when she shrank back from him, he bowed respectfully and didn’t try to approach her.

  He knew that Valerie kept things to herself.

  Sensing Henry there, and her mother’s displeasure with how she’d treated him, Valerie wanted to resent him but found she didn’t. She knew, though, that mixed up in his affection for her was the problem of pity. She looked to her father, who nodded, before she retreated up into the loft bed she had shared with Lucie.

  She gently touched the cornflowers Lucie, a lover of beauty, had hung to decorate her side of the bed. The grief made Valerie feel like her skin was stretched too thin. Like she couldn’t get enough breath in, as if her lungs had grown shallow.

  Madame Lazar lifted a hand to pat her gray hair as she assessed the cottage with a mask of disapproval. She was an old woman who had forgotten how to be around groups of people—which was all right, because her fixed gaze made most uncomfortable. They did not like, either, the way she smelled. Like starch and garlic.

  “I am so sorry for your loss,” she said to a broken and stunned Suzette.

  Adrien followed, moving to shake Cesaire’s hand. Adrien was still ruggedly handsome, his face slightly lined in that masculine way.

  “Lucie was a good girl,” he said.

  The past tense came as a shock. Cesaire was not ready for it. He had a habit of swishing his drink around in his mouth when he didn’t like something. Suzette shook her head from across the room, and Cesaire knew what it meant: Put down his cup.

  Claude, either wanting to include her or else feeling mischievous, performed his disappearing and reappearing tarot card trick behind Madame Lazar’s ear. She fanned him away.

  Out flicked a card.

  Trying a different tactic, she held her teacup high and tried to pretend he didn’t exist.

  Turning from the scene below into her bed, Valerie smelled Lucie, the scent of oats, of warm milk, of someone she could trust. She knew the scent would fade, that she would lose even that. Valerie pulled aside a knot of wood to reveal a secret hiding place dug into the ceiling and removed a sprig of velvet-wrapped lavender.

  Valerie remembered when her mother used to take her and Lucie for long walks. They would pass the grain field, where the thin stalks swayed with the easy rhythm of the wind. The three of them would then reach a clearing that was bright with lavender. The girls would gather the flowers, Lucie carrying them in her skirt, until their fingers were raw and they had to go crying to their mother, and Suzette would always have remembered to bring the salve.

  Removed from the scene, Valerie looked down again at the main room of the house. She felt comfortable in her usual position as watcher, up above, separate. Voices moved with fluidity in and out of focus. Faces came and went. She stared through people, finding it hard to believe they were real. The villagers talked over one another, but no one was saying anything. Valerie sank into the drone, letting the tide of voices wash over her.

  Her sister’s body below lay still, like a piece of furniture. All the people put in the obligatory visit, hovering around it, feeling they ought to look at the body but feeling like voyeurs when they did, then trying to move away before too long.

  Suzette was seated on a low stool near the fire. Valerie saw her looking for a long time at Henry. Her mother was nervous around him; it almost seemed she wanted him more for herself than for Valerie.

  Valerie lay down on her side, and sleep swept her up like a wave, held her in its buoyancy, and carried her.

  She woke up, remembering a time long ago when Lucie had been walking home around dusk. Valerie had pretended to be the Wolf, sneaking up behind her, snarling and then pouncing. What to their parents was a matter of life and death had been just a game to two little girls. Although she comforted her weeping sister, Valerie had realized then that there was something destructive, even predatory, inside herself. After witnessing Flora’s sacrifice, though, she never scared her sister again.

  She tortured herself with this memory awhile, opening the wound the way she would pinch her skin together after a scrape to make the blood come more quickly. Valerie peered out over the edge of her loft. The Lazars still lingered and her friends dozed on stools, their red, black, and brown hair bobbing in sleep. She saw her mother seated at the table alone, looking up meekly, bathed in the eerie light of a single candle. Seeing her daughter awake, Suzette moved to the loft.

  “There is good news in the midst of this difficult time, Valerie,” she said, ascending the ladder to bring herself to Valerie’s level.

  “I have already been told that I am to marry Henry Lazar. Just tell me whether it’s true,” Valerie whispered back.

  Startled, Suzette recovered her composure.

  “Yes, Valerie,” she said in a put-on voice, rolling her wedding ring between her thumb and first two fingers, with a veneer of joy. “Yes, it is true.”

  Valerie felt the life being torn out of her. In this grief-filled moment she realized how strong her feelings were for Peter, whom she had lost in the commotion of the day. She longed for him but felt guilty for thinking that way under the circumstances.

  “Mother, it feels wrong to talk of this now.”

  “You’re right,” Suzette admitted sadly. “Now is not the time. There will be time for all this later.”

  She stroked Valerie’s hair. The sound of Suzette’s voice was somehow both nerve-racking and comforting. “But it’s true that Henry is your fiancé now,” she added. “You should let him offer his condolences.”

  Valerie looked at Henry down below, seeing the concern marking his kind, handsome face. “I barely even know him.”

  “You’ll learn to. That’s what marriage is.”

  Valerie would not, she could not. “Not now, Mother.”

  Suzette made the decision to try a little harder. “You should know something…. I didn’t love your father when we were married. I was in love with someone else.”

  Valerie stared at her mother, in all her complexity.

  “His mother wouldn’t allow us to be together. But I grew to love your father, instead. And he gave me two beautiful daughters. Now go down there. Please.”

  “I said no,” Valerie snapped, swallowing her unasked questions.

  Suzette knew this side of her daughter’s character and knew better than to fight it. She slunk back down the ladder, plastering on a composed face, as Valerie had never been able to do.

  Henry, meanwhile, had witnessed the tense scene. He turned to Cesaire.

  “Come with us to the tavern.” He put a steadying hand on the older man’s shoulder. “We will let the women grieve in their own way,” he said with his characteristic grace.

  Cesaire nodded, glad to leave.

  Adrien, too, looked grateful for an escape from the overbearing atmosphere of the cottage. Kind as he may be, he had never been a man who was particularly open with his emotions. Valerie knew that he had always been good to Lucie and that her death must have brought up memories of his wife’s passing. It could not be easy for him.

  Henry gave the sleeping loft a gentle nod as he shook on his long leather coat before following his father out of the cottage.

  “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  Valerie finally descended the ladder to where Lucie’s body lay. She had no tears left, only a vast emptiness.

  Suzette packed up the food that had been brought, each dish nudged at by a
knife or two; no one was hungry now. The other girls still sat around Valerie but didn’t say much. Needing something, anything, to do with themselves, they touched whatever was around. It kept them from feeling useless.

  Roxanne sadly fingered Lucie’s long woolen dresses. Prudence secretly coveted Lucie’s sheepskin cloak and petted its fleece possessively, hoping someone might suddenly offer it to her.

  “How is it that nobody saw anything last night?” Madame Lazar blinked, breaking the silence. She turned to Valerie. “Weren’t you with her?”

  Valerie began tying ribbons into her sister’s hair and gave no answer. She thought of the pieces of paper she’d found in Lucie’s grasp, but the pieces didn’t fit together and the dew had dissolved whatever message had once been written there. It must have been a note, but what did it say? Was it an invitation out to the fields? From whom?

  Her world was reeling around her, and she couldn’t focus on Madame Lazar’s face—everyone was passing in front of her like wagon wheels spinning by.

  “The beast lured her away.” A distraught Suzette jumped in, uncomfortable with the subject.

  “She was with you.” Roxanne turned to Prudence. “I know I saw her in your boat.”

  “She was in my boat, and then she said she was meeting you.”

  “I just don’t understand why she would say that. It isn’t true.” Roxanne shook her head.

  “Maybe she went to meet a boy,” Prudence suggested in a snaky voice.

  “My daughter had no interest in boys,” Suzette said quickly.

  “She was very taken with my grandson,” Madame Lazar announced. She had a way of speaking so that her words crept into the mind as though they had been there all along. “She used to come by and follow him around like a puppy. If she had just found out that Henry was engaged to her sister…”

  The girls froze and then looked at each other to see if anyone had known this huge secret. Valerie looked down at her lap and shook her head. She wished she could have told her friends herself. She knew they all dreamed of themselves on Henry’s arm.

  Rose huffed for a moment but shrugged it off, thinking, Henry’s eyes could still wander. Prudence glowered but knew she couldn’t say anything here. Roxanne turned her thoughts back to Lucie—she knew Henry had never been meant for her.

  “It must have broken Lucie’s heart,” Roxanne finally said in a rapt whisper.

  “Maybe she chose to die rather than live without Henry,” Rose added dreamily. “She went out seeking the Wolf.”

  “No,” Suzette amended sternly. “It’s unthinkable.”

  “She never told me how she felt,” Valerie thought aloud, feeling the betrayal in her gut. How had she been so blind? Her sister had loved Henry silently. Did she know about the engagement? Did she overhear our parents planning? Valerie supposed it was possible, but it seemed unlikely since they were always together. Would it have broken her heart?

  “Don’t worry, you poor child,” Madame Lazar said, seeming almost disinterested in the subject of Lucie’s death. “I know you’re worried about your sister, but Henry always had his eye on you. You are—were always the pretty one.” She reached out to stroke Valerie’s cheek, moving like a spider.

  Suzette was thinking she’d rather the visitors begin to leave, but hearing steps ascending the ladder, she still opened the door, moving onto the porch in anticipation and closing the door behind her against the snow. But when she saw the dark head of hair come into view, she wished she hadn’t. She recognized him even after all these years.

  “For Lucie,” Peter said quietly, the flame of a gilded saint’s candle fluttering in his hand.

  “Leave.”

  Peter had anticipated this reaction and was prepared. He cleared his throat. “I’m paying my respects,” he said, still trying to be polite. The woman was grieving for her daughter.

  “I can guess the reason you’re here. I’ve just lost one daughter,” she said, her hand on the door. “I won’t lose another.”

  “Wait.”

  “She’s all I have left,” she said. “And you have nothing to offer her.”

  Peter knew that she was right, that Valerie deserved better. But he could not give her up.

  “I have a trade. The same trade as your husband.”

  “I know exactly what a woodcutter earns.”

  Peter began to protest, but Suzette stopped him. “Henry Lazar is her only hope for a better life.”

  Peter looked into Suzette’s anguished eyes, her words hitting him somewhere deep. It sank in: He could not give Valerie a good life.

  “If you really love her,” Suzette said, her voice cracking, “you’ll leave her alone.”

  They stared at each other, eyes sparking with conflicting emotions. Peter broke first, backing away, angry at her dismissal and at himself for understanding.

  She went inside and shut the door, resting her back against it. She would tell the room that it had just been a laborer paying his respects.

  Climbing back down the ladder, Peter realized that, filtered through and behind the agony, there was something about the letting go that felt good.

  He was someone who had a conviction, who believed in the value of something and held it as sacred.

  It was just that nothing had ever held such value for him before.

  10

  Peter walked through the quiet town, hushed by the snowfall, grief hanging in its very air. The men were in the tavern, the women still home mourning. The town was unified, even beautiful, in its broad stillness.

  Stepping through the tavern’s back door, he saw that a full candelabrum was dripping wax into the same corner it had dripped into for years, collecting into a towering castle on the ground. No one bothered to clean it up, least of all Marguerite, who had enough on her hands as it was.

  Seeing the barrel kegs banded with rusted metal, he recalled a long afternoon once spent in the body of an empty keg with Valerie. He wondered whether she remembered.

  As he slid along the back wall, Peter heard Father Auguste say, “I’ve summoned help.” The local priest was tall and anxious. Like a daisy stem, he was upright and purposeful, but still fragile and thin.

  The Reeve eyed the priest and waited to hear more. He bit into an onion he’d been peeling.

  “From someone closer to God,” the holy man went on. Father Auguste wore on a chain a simple ampule that held holy water and protected him from evil. He held it in his hand now, as if it would bring him closer to his idol. “Father Solomon.”

  The room quieted. Father Solomon. He was legendary, a priest and a renowned werewolf hunter who had destroyed beasts throughout the kingdom. He was resourceful, brave, and cunning and would stop at nothing to eradicate evil. It was said by itinerant merchants that he traveled with a small army, warriors hailing from Spain, North Africa, the Far East.

  “Who gave you the authority to do that?” The Reeve stepped in front of him.

  “God. The highest authority.”

  “You can plan for the next life,” the Reeve growled, rolling up his sleeves. “I will plan for this one.”

  “But the Lord—”

  Adrien pushed his chair back and stood up.

  “This is a village matter,” he said decisively. “We will kill it ourselves.”

  The Reeve chewed on his onion, nodding.

  Cesaire breathed in a slight whistle, as if cooling the roof of his mouth after sipping something that was too hot. The villagers turned to him. It had been his daughter killed. He nodded his approbation of Adrien’s words.

  “Father Solomon would rob us of our vengeance,” Cesaire said.

  “She was your child, but—” Father Auguste looked at Cesaire pleadingly.

  “We are here,” Adrien persisted, “to right a wrong. Today, we must stand united to say that we will fight not only to avenge our past but also to renew our future. To show the beast that we refuse to live in fear.” He strode behind the empty bar and rested his weight against the counter.

&
nbsp; “Maybe Father Auguste is right,” Henry started thoughtfully, rising from a bench. “Maybe we should wait.”

  From the back of the tavern, Peter stifled a burst of laughter. Henry gripped the edge of the table.

  Adrien turned to Henry with a withering glare.

  “Maybe, my son,” Adrien said quietly, “you should find your courage.”

  Henry took a labored breath.

  “You want to hunt the Wolf?” He narrowed his eyes, spurned. “All right, then. Let’s hunt it.”

  The Reeve, wide and stout with hands the size of iron pots, pounded his mug on the table aggressively.

  “We’ve let this go on too long. We are here to win back our freedom!” he cried, rallying the men. He pulled the silver dagger from his pants waist and stabbed it into the table.

  The men shook their fists in the air in approval.

  “Let’s kill that goddamn Wolf!” he shouted.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Cesaire said, downing what remained in his cup. It was early evening now, and the group realized they’d better get on with it. They began to file out the door to prepare for the hunt.

  Father Auguste teetered. “Wait! We should wait for Father Solomon!”

  But his hysterical voice was lost in the chorus of deep voices and clanking mugs.

  Cesaire stopped to refill his cup, and, on the way out, he dumped the whole of it on Father Auguste’s head, putting a stop to his protestations.

  The men rushed out of the tavern into the gray light. They were rowdy while crunching through the new snow, throwing their hats into the air and swinging their jackets over their heads. They felt bigger than themselves, swelled with purpose.

  Their wives heard the clamor and chased after them, running back for packs of food and warm scarves. The snowfall was getting heavier, bringing true winter earlier than usual.

  It will be me, each man thought. I’ll be the one to do it. They barely saw their women or their children, and made a point not to notice their troubled faces.