Red Riding Hood

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

  “This way, men,” Henry heard the Reeve whisper as they reached the fork, nodding toward a tunnel that descended into a den of darkness. The Reeve had turned to face the huddle of followers, with Peter and Henry standing firm on either side like bookends. Even with the light given off by the torches, the men’s faces were cloudy in the inky black of the cave. The air smelled curdled, thick and sour.

  “Not safe,” muttered a leather worker without much conviction. “We can’t see what’s beyond the bend.”

  “We’ll take the other fork,” stated Peter, gesturing to his half of the group.

  Henry looked at his father. They didn’t want to admit it, but Peter was right. A group of twenty men was too many to maneuver in the dark cave. Henry wished he’d spoken up first.

  “Yes,” he said, just to have said something. “Some of us ought to split off.”

  “As you see fit,” the Reeve declared arrogantly, walking on alone as the other men weighed the options, chose their sides. A few, glad for the Reeve’s leadership, decided to follow. Peter, Henry, Adrien, those who wanted to lead rather than be led, were awkwardly left on their own. At least this way, Henry would be able to keep a close watch on Peter.

  Henry hoped his father would leave it up to him, but Adrien, eyeing the assembled group, assumed control. The woodcutters were with them, staying on like burrs—they would go where Peter went. Cesaire, lagging behind as he went for one last enervating sip of his leather-bound flask, reluctantly decided that he would follow the Reeve’s group and jogged to catch up.

  On their own now, Adrien, Henry, Peter, and the woodcutters crept forward. The woodcutters tried to keep their footsteps light, but they were big and gruff and had never done much tiptoeing.

  Henry sidled up next to Peter, startling him.

  “It could get dangerous down here.” He lit a match. “You’d better watch yourself.”

  “Watch yourself,” Peter said, motioning to the flame that had eaten its way down the length of the match. The threat his look held was evident even in the pitch dark.

  “Right,” Henry said, shaking his hand when the fire nicked him.

  Before the rivalry could escalate, the group reached yet another fork. One branch was more menacing than the other, all pitch-black.

  “We need to search every corner.” Peter made a show of directing the woodcutters to separate themselves again. “We’ll take the steep way.”

  “No,” Henry cut in, eager to disagree and to keep Peter from making yet another decision for them. “We should stay together now.”

  “Maybe you should go home and wait for Father Solomon,” Peter called over his shoulder, already on his way down the sloping path.

  At the boys’ clashing words, the woodsmen exchanged knowing glances. Did they want to entrust their lives to a prideful young boy? They looked back at Henry and Adrien silhouetted at the top, alone, indecisive, and hesitantly followed Peter. Peering after them, Henry felt his father’s eyes on him. Why had I not been the one to suggest it?

  Peter grinned broadly to himself, satisfied that he’d won. His group kept close behind him, the light from his torch roaming the walls and ground for any signs of movement.

  Inching through a narrower passageway, the woodcutters were afraid, placing one cautious foot in front of the other, waiting for the Wolf to spring upon them, waiting to fall into the blackness of death. A soft breeze blew; a restless evil seemed to be rustling through the darkness.

  A few moments later, a woodcutter, startled by a large protruding rock, dropped his bow. It echoed tinnily throughout the tunnels. The men were moved by mindless fears, but, luckily, Peter thought for them. Walk, he thought. Wait for the air to change, to sense that moment of stillness before a movement is made.

  The air changed in one crushing instant, a forceful gust of wind stinging through the cave, shuttling him and his men into the chaos of nothingness.

  Henry, far away, saw the walls disappear into a panic-filled cocoon of darkness as the gale of wind hit, stirring bits of earth and tossing grit into his eyes.

  All he heard were shouts. Screams. Running feet.

  His torch blew out.

  The Reeve saw it first. That triangular smudge, the half circle of four round blots, and, worst of all, the four tiny ticks above. The Wolf’s bloody print stamped into the dirt, spotlit by the Reeve’s torch. He bent down over the ground, his men gathering around him, when, from somewhere deeper in the cave, he heard a faraway cry.

  A man had been attacked.

  The Reeve was ready for it, knew from the first pitch of the piercing noise exactly where it had come from.

  “Run!” he shouted.

  Most of the men followed, but a few scattered, racing away from the cry, headed for the mouth of the cave. Their screams echoed through the mountain.

  Down the tunnel, down, down, the Reeve instructed himself. Too far now for the fork to be the closest way through. Must be another way. The ground is no good here, the silt too loose. Careful not to slide. Don’t trip over rocks on the edges of the path.

  His breath was loud and his feet louder. There’s some light. Run to the light, maybe something there. He could see it now. An opening, a chamber, up ahead!

  The Reeve stumbled into the space, his men trickling after him. Snow, painted red by the moonlight, swirled in from an opening in the rocks high overhead. Scanning the perimeter of the room, his eyes fell upon twisted, towering shapes.

  Rock formations?

  Inching closer, keeping a watchful eye out for movement, he went to them.

  And saw that they were not rocks at all.

  Bones, human bones. Piled as high as ten feet. They were so sharply white that they looked almost painted. The Reeve stood before the tower, chastened.

  He looked up. Where was the Wolf? It couldn’t have gotten out…. The empty eyes of the skulls stared him down, their mouths pulled into grins, mocking his plight but offering no answers.

  Scanning the room… he came to something else.

  Adrien. His body lay cold and lifeless, ripped up gruesomely by the Wolf.

  Something heaved in the Reeve’s chest. He felt the men’s stunned silence behind him. He would find the Wolf and make it pay. With a surge of aggression, he did not step carefully now. He delighted in taking up space, in treading with a heavy, echoing step. He would find it.

  Caught up in imagining the grandeur of his glory to come, the Reeve heard a noise behind him.

  A low snarl.

  He spun around and found himself face-to-face with a mouthful of angry fangs. Saliva gathering at the corners. Canines huge and gleaming.

  Without knowing how it had happened, the Reeve saw his own dagger in his hand before him. The hair on the beast’s neck bristled, and the noxious slaver from its horrible mouth dripped heavily onto the cave floor. Its eyes met his. Time stood still. And then the monster sprang, arcing toward its next victim.

  13

  Bang!

  Valerie awoke from a place deep in a nightmare, her sweaty hair matted to her head even though the room was cold. The first morning light was blue-gray, the color of slate.

  Valerie tried to orient herself. She wasn’t in her own bed; she was at Grandmother’s house—and her sister was dead. The noise had come from Grandmother’s room.

  “Grandmother?”

  Valerie stepped barefoot through the house, feeling the cool air breeze up between the floorboards.

  “Grandmother…?”

  She was still in bed, facing away from Valerie, the covers pulled tightly over her willowy body. The edges of the peachy silk coverlet around her fluttered in the breeze. A shutter slammed against its frame. A window had been left open to the wind.

  Or had someone come in?

  Valerie moved to close it. Outside, the forest looked stooped and sad, the trees hunched in the snow.

  She turned back to Grandmother, whose shape looked oddly elongated, stretched out, almost as if her limbs had been pulled from their sockets
.

  Valerie stepped closer. The figure stirred, then began to rise. Valerie shifted back, terrified, ready to run….

  But it was only Grandmother, the old woman offering a smile as she blinked awake.

  After swallowing a cold breakfast, Valerie hurried home through the woods wrapped in both her cloaks, old and new, to fend off the chilly air.

  “Mother?” Valerie asked as she stepped into the cottage.

  Suzette looked up. She was seated in a chair, her gaze fixed on the unlit fireplace. Desolate, grief-stricken.

  Valerie’s heart snagged. She should have stayed and waited with her.

  “Is Papa…?” She didn’t want to finish the question, because she didn’t want to know.

  “He’s fine,” Suzette said, looking at her hands. “The men have returned and are in the tavern.”

  Valerie nodded, unable to ask about Peter.

  “You look beautiful,” Suzette said, noticing the red cloak with tears in her eyes.

  As Valerie turned to climb to the loft, her mother stood and grabbed her arm.

  “Valerie, what’s that on your wrist?” she asked, angling to see.

  “It’s nothing. A present from Henry.” Valerie tried to conceal it, finding that she was embarrassed. She didn’t want to be considered a woman yet, wasn’t ready to be a recipient of jewelry from men. Nor did she want it to be noticed that she was wearing Henry’s offering.

  But it was almost more embarrassing to be embarrassed, and so she showed it. Her mother studied it for a long time.

  “Valerie,” Suzette said after a moment, “listen to me. Wear this bracelet. Don’t take it off. You are a promised woman now.”

  Valerie nodded uneasily and climbed the loft ladder. In the safety of her own space, she changed her clothes. She marveled at her new red cloak, amazed again by its vibrant beauty.

  Most cloaks were staid and wooly and made of stiff tweed. This cloak, however, was not starchy or scratchy. It was impossibly thin and almost fluid, as if it were a fabric of rose petals. It felt cool to the touch.

  Feeling it against her bare arms and between her fingers, Valerie felt more powerful than ever before. There was something too natural about it, like another skin that had belonged to her all along. She felt strong and stealthy, and the cloak made her want to jump down from her loft into a panther crouch and run swiftly through the village, past the forest where it rained, into the fields where it didn’t.

  Stealing quietly past her mother, Valerie headed back out to the tavern.

  The men, having returned from Mount Grimmoor without stopping home first, smelled spicy, like earth and sweat. Valerie could see the energy still pounding through their bodies. She walked around the edge of the crowd and leaned against a wall to listen.

  As always at gatherings like these, Valerie sat apart, separate. A few of the villagers noticed her—the red cloak stood out, but she liked that. She felt safe in her red; from now on, she would always wear it.

  The tavern was an archaeological site, containing the history of the village in its grime. Men had carved into the tavern walls since the day they’d been nailed together—initials, of course, but also spirals and faces and arrows and rabbits, serpents, clovers, interlocking circles, radiating crosses. The cushions in the booths were dirty, having provided comfort to so many different men. Massive beeswax candles oozed massive drops of wax onto the tables, cooling into hardened clots of butternut lava that often remained for months until some anxious drinker chanced to chip away at them with grimy nails. The deer skulls that hung along the far wall seemed to be smiling in death, as though they had taken a tantalizing secret with them.

  Valerie scanned the room, saw her father and then Peter, beautiful in his heroic return, even though he didn’t lift his head. Relief washed over her, and then anger. She hated that she cared so much, that she could still love someone who would not love her back….

  But then she realized Henry was missing.

  The Reeve was seated at the head of the table, surrounded by admirers, the Wolf’s head skewered on a pike beside him. The men who had been in the caves—even the many who had fled—felt they had a right to share in his glory, that they had been necessary in his success. The Reeve was relaying the whole story, reenacting his tiptoe, then slamming down his mug at the climactic moment. Women gushed in admiration as the frothy beer dribbled down into his thick beard. Seeing his self-satisfied smile, Valerie was filled with contempt. The women hung on to his neck, praising him for his selflessness, for avenging that poor girl’s death, when, really, that had nothing to do with it.

  The tavern owner, a bald man with a crease running from ear to ear at the back of his naked head, listened with rapt attention. His wife tended the bar as he sat, entranced. She had become large with child once and never recovered. The tavern owner himself, though, had no such excuse.

  The Reeve finished his performance by bemoaning the loss they suffered, revealing the truth that was hanging in the air just out of Valerie’s grasp…. Adrien had died for this glory. Valerie closed her eyes. She understood now why Henry wasn’t here. There was some relief that it was the father, but also sympathy for the son who was now an orphan.

  She looked over at Peter again, but he was still looking at the floor.

  Everyone had come to the tavern because no one had wanted to go home. As the Reeve recounted his triumph, the town felt like rejoicing. A husband and wife were sharing a drink from the same huge cup. Two villagers sat together on a low bench next to the fire, enjoying the comfort of heat.

  Someone was gutting the Wolf out in front of the tavern. Children looked on with horrified glee, shocked at their good fortune; their parents felt too complacent to remind them to stand back.

  The sun rose high and shone brightly even as snow flurries continued to waft down, and the deaths, Adrien’s and Lucie’s, seemed almost justified for the freedom the villagers felt now. It didn’t seem such an unfair trade, only two villagers over the last twenty years and now no more sacrifices. It was validating to think that they could eat their fattest chicken themselves, that they could work outside well into dark, that nothing was off-limits, and that they could own their lives again.

  They were glad to know, too, that money did not mean exemption, the richest man having been the one to go. They had been spared, and maybe it was because they’d deserved to be.

  It seemed a small price to pay, those two deaths.

  But the price was not small, Valerie thought.

  Claude appeared at the window, fogging the blue glass as he made a funny face. He became blurry, though, as Valerie saw past him to something that was being wheeled by.

  Adrien, his dead body lying atop the undertaker’s cart.

  Only his head was exposed, eyes closed in eternal sleep, never to open again. Blood had seeped slowly out of his body like syrup and become a blotch on the cloth.

  Madame Lazar trailed behind, wailing her grief. Her eyes looked through the window to see Valerie, and they held her gaze until she’d passed the frame.

  Men reached up with filthy hands, bringing their hats to their chests in respect as the body passed.

  “To Adrien.” Cesaire raised his glass, realizing that perhaps their carousing was in poor taste. “For his sacrifice.”

  “To Adrien!” The rest of the villagers raised their glasses.

  Looking up first to see if Peter would notice, Valerie slipped out of the tavern. Henry had offered his condolences, and now she would, too. She didn’t know what she would say, but she knew where he would be.

  She stepped into the blacksmith shop. The door to the forge was open, a fiery cave, and its innards glowed red through the smoke. For a long while, Henry, his body half-bare as he threw vicious sparks, did not realize she was there. Valerie felt wretched that the pale, powerful torso reminded her of Peter’s bare chest from the day before, and how warm it had been.

  Valerie thought of the betrothal Suzette had arranged. She was even more trapped than she
’d been before; there was no way she could run away now, abandoning Henry in his grief. She felt guilty, then, too, for even thinking of it.

  Valerie knew that Adrien’s body had been carried in, that it must have been lying cold in the loft above. She did not look up.

  “Henry… your father was a brave man.”

  He continued attacking the metal with a sledgehammer, brutally hacking at the anvil. She wasn’t sure he had heard her. Then he stopped short, the hammer hanging heavy in the air, the fire snapping in front of him.

  “I was close enough to smell it,” he seethed, not turning. “But I was afraid. I hid from it.”

  Clang!

  “I should have done something.”

  Clang!

  “I should have saved him.”

  Valerie saw that he was destroying all of their half-finished projects. They would remain that way forever.

  “I’ve lost someone, too, Henry—I know how it is. Please, come away from the fire.”

  He didn’t.

  Clang!

  “Henry, please.”

  One of the fiery specks spat out of the forge and landed on Henry’s arm, searing his flesh. Punishing himself, he did not stop to remove it until finally, with one quick motion, he gestured violently toward the door, shaking it off.

  “Valerie, leave,” he snarled. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

  Knowing what it was like to want to be alone, she left, but she was unable to dispel the image of him, blackened with soot and angry in the red light of the forge.

  Exiting the smithy, Valerie was surprised to find her mother sitting on a log. Bleary-eyed, Suzette was staring at the upper level of the shop, where Adrien’s shrouded body lay. Valerie unnerved her by coming up from the side to take her hand. It was then that she saw that Suzette was holding something half-hidden, something that glinted in the light.

  A beautiful hammered bracelet…

  Identical to the one Henry had made for Valerie.