Red Riding Hood

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

The Captain shooed away a few gently pecking crows and lifted the handles to turn the wheelbarrow in her direction. Roxanne saw the load was covered with a blanket. As it was wheeled toward her, a hand fell free. Claude’s hand.

  Roxanne shook her head, backing away.

  The Captain stopped just in front of her and uncovered the body as Roxanne fell to her knees on the soggy ground.

  Claude’s skin was sheet white, met by the cold, and his freckles were stark in contrast. His skin had been blistered on his hands and feet, his face bruised and swollen.

  It hadn’t occurred to her that she might not find Claude alive; even though she’d sunk to depths she could never before have imagined, still something so horrible had not even crossed her mind.

  Earlier that week, floorboards had creaked. Cupboards had refused to latch closed. People were poor and food scarce. There was jealousy and meanness and vanity.

  Things hadn’t been perfect. But they had been bearable.

  Now, evil had descended upon Daggorhorn.

  24

  Just two days earlier, Valerie could not have imagined she would be here. Everyone she loved had turned against her, or else she had turned against them. Her sister had died. And tonight she would die, too.

  She had been thrown into a prison cell. It was damp and dark, as though she were already in her grave. It was normally used to hold animals, but the locked iron bars across the top would look at home in any jail. A few sparse candles cast sharp shadows onto the walls. The guards had at least provided some light.

  But what did it matter? She had no one. No one had spoken up in her defense.

  Except Henry, whose love she had crushed for the love of another. And that someone else had fled the room. Peter had not even stayed to stand up for her.

  Henry would find someone else to marry. He would come to love Rose or Prudence or a girl from a neighboring village. But she knew Peter would find no one, would think of her always, would hold her somewhere no one could reach. He would protect his memory of her as he had these past ten years, saving her for himself.

  She wished she hadn’t turned him away when he came to her door. If only she had gone with him.

  She heard a rustling from the dark and then saw her grandmother’s face peering in at her. So perhaps she wasn’t entirely alone.

  “Tell me, darling,” Grandmother asked, her voice sorrowful, “is there anything you need?”

  The elk-horn knife flashed in Valerie’s mind. She had tucked it into her boot while Cesaire was sleeping. She wished she could show her grandmother, but the guard’s eyes never roamed away for long.

  Valerie’s shoulders trembled as a chill rattled through her. Solomon had taken her red cloak, a violation somehow more brutal than the rest. She needed many things, but she knew it was pointless to ask. The guard would never let anything be passed down to her.

  “No.” She shook her head.

  Valerie hadn’t yet given up the hope that her grandmother had not spoken up in the courtroom because she had another plan, but she realized that, like everyone else, she was just afraid. Not of the Wolf but of a man. Solomon.

  “Listen.” Grandmother lowered her voice. “The Wolf never used to attack in the open like it did at the festival. Why show itself now?”

  “Maybe it’s this moon….”

  “It wants you. And it wanted your sister.” Grandmother tried to work through the logic out loud.

  My sister.

  “It might have killed randomly at the festival to hide the fact that the first killing wasn’t random at all,” Grandmother speculated.

  Valerie wasn’t sure what Grandmother was getting at.

  “No. The Wolf didn’t choose Lucie. She must have offered herself to the Wolf.” Valerie swallowed, forcing herself to say it aloud. “I didn’t know it then, but she was in love with Henry. Rose thinks she heard about my engagement, and the only option she saw left was to take her own life.” But even as she said it, the story didn’t ring true.

  “Lucie loved Henry….” Grandmother paused. “But that she would take her own life is inconceivable. Impossible. She wouldn’t do that.” Grandmother seemed to have developed another theory. She moved closer to the bars to speak further.

  But the clanking of keys came first, the guard moving to stand over her, a towering presence.

  “Visit’s up.”

  At the other end of the village, Cesaire scooped out a chalky handful of corn and scattered the kernels in front of the chickens. Ordinarily, this was Suzette’s job, but she was still resting, afraid of risking infection. Cesaire was glad to be given a task, some way to make his body useful other than standing guard over his wife, whom he had ceased to love. His daughters were gone, and all he had left to do was care for a few thankless chickens.

  Everyone had gone home after the trial, wrecked from stress and fear. A few people were outside, women pounding laundry with big paddles, men moving logs. Routine helped. Death, it seemed, had not settled fully over the village, as life was still being lived. All was not over yet.

  Cesaire noticed Peter making his way toward him from down the street, pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with a wooden barrel. Cesaire continued pawing through the corn as he watched, coating his palm with a dusty white residue. The men stood apart as the wheels came to a creaking stop.

  “I’m going to save your daughter.” Peter spoke first, watching for Cesaire’s reaction. “And then I intend to marry her. I would like your blessing in this, but I can live without it.”

  There was a moment of silence. Peter had said what he needed to say and turned to go. But then Cesaire stepped forward and reached out to embrace him, both men heartened by the moment of human custom in the midst of unearthly chaos.

  25

  The wind blew open the door of the blacksmith shop, and Grandmother rushed in with it. The shop was in a state of cluttered disarray.

  “Hello, Henry.”

  Henry didn’t even bother to turn away from the flames. Not for a woman who wouldn’t speak up for her own granddaughter.

  “We’re closed.”

  “I want to thank you for speaking up today,” she said, ignoring his proclamation. “That was very brave.”

  “I only said what I felt.” Henry was forging something in the fire. The thing he brought out glowed bright white, like a fallen piece of the moon. Gripping it with a set of tongs, he began cranking a lever up and down and set it on a corner to shape it.

  “You are under no obligation to stand in Valerie’s defense.” Grandmother spoke to Henry’s back. “You’ve already broken off the engagement.”

  “She’s in love with someone else.” Henry gritted his teeth, resentful that she was making him say it. He had begun hammering the piece into a point. “That doesn’t mean I stopped caring about her.”

  “I imagine that’s the same way Lucie felt about you.”

  Henry shrugged, uneasy at the mention of her name. “I’ve been told she thought she was in love with me.”

  “Yes, Valerie just told me.”

  Henry finished splicing the ends off his creation. He didn’t have much time.

  “It seems Lucie would have done anything for you. She would even have met you on a Wolf night, if you’d asked her to.”

  He wiped his hands on his apron. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” he said shortly, trying to keep his voice civil.

  Just as he said it, though, he understood, his confusion morphing into anger. He finally looked at her. “You think I’m the Wolf.”

  Grandmother stood up straighter.

  “Do you realize what you are accusing me of? Murder!”

  “I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” she said, knowing otherwise. In the heat of the shop, Grandmother was wilting, her accusations losing their focus, their intensity. “I’m trying to find out the truth,” she continued anyway.

  As she said this, though, Henry’s face shifted. It emptied of anger, becoming soft again with wonder and then settling into
horror—but also with a certain delight that he could now accuse his accuser.

  There was a jarring clatter as Henry let his tool drop and stepped toward her, almost seductively.

  “It’s you,” he said, pointing at her, stabbing his finger into the air. “My God, it’s you. I can smell it on you now.”

  Grandmother became nervous, having exhausted her evidence against him. “What can you smell on me?” She stepped closer to the door.

  “The night my father died, I could smell the Wolf. A deep musk.” Henry moved even closer. “The same scent I smell on you at this exact moment.”

  Henry was standing very near now, his eyes burning. His breath was on her, and she felt faint with the heat from the fire, from his accusation.

  “What were you doing out there in that cabin? All by yourself?” Henry did not let up. “On the night your granddaughter was murdered?”

  In that moment, the smell flashed across Grandmother’s senses like a long-forgotten name. But that was enough. The young man was right. She felt the urgent need to defend herself.

  “Henry, I read until I fell asleep.” Confused, she clung to her alibi.

  “And then what?”

  Grandmother was quiet. The scent rose off her clothes like fog off a river. It was bitter and penetrating.

  “You don’t know, do you?” he pressed her.

  She had to get out of there. She had to get home and check something. She had to know for sure. How had her suspicions been echoed back at her so easily?

  She edged out the open door, letting it slam shut behind her.

  26

  In the twilight, the three men worked together in the same way that young children play, beside one another but without interacting. They didn’t want to attract attention.

  Peter glanced up from his work. He was glad to see Cesaire pushing the wheelbarrow around the square, Henry busy at work in the blacksmith shop. The plan was in action.

  As Cesaire pushed, the wheelbarrow dripped translucent lamp oil into the dirty snow. He paused briefly to have a taste of his flask, taking the moment to look around. He noted, wincing, that the Captain was keeping watch across the square. Maintaining an easy expression, Cesaire casually continued pushing along. But the Captain was headed for him anyway, with two soldiers in tow.

  Cesaire’s body made the decision for him. Run.

  Slogging through the muddy slush, he knocked aside a few pheasant crates and leapt over a dough trough.

  The Captain pulled out a long whip and snapped it at the fleeing Cesaire. The whip only licked him, but down he went, face-first into a snowdrift. He attempted to crawl away but made it only a few uneven steps before he was tackled and seized by faceless, gripping hands.

  “A precaution,” a soldier spat out. “We don’t want any trouble from the witch’s family.”

  There were footsteps, and then Father Solomon’s voice emerged from the darkness.

  “Put on your harlot’s robe.” His voice was hoarse as he waited while the hatch was opened, and then he tossed Valerie her crimson cloak.

  She draped the beautiful fabric over herself; it felt soft and smooth. A soldier appeared and clamped her into iron manacles; they twirled loose around her thin wrists. Then Valerie saw that someone else was approaching. It was her father, forced to stoop under the low ceiling.

  “Valerie.” He stopped in front of her. “I tried to protect you. You and Lucie…”

  Lucie. She seemed imaginary now, almost mythical. Made-up.

  “It’s all right, Papa,” she said, choking on the words. “You taught us to be strong.”

  Valerie realized how lonely he would be when she was dead.

  “You’re my good girl. Stay strong.”

  She felt that hand on her, that grip as tight as it ever was, and knew that she was feeling it for the last time.

  Valerie could feel her heart rising up her throat. What could she say? She was almost grateful when the soldier slammed Cesaire aside and nudged her toward where Solomon was waiting.

  The mask was made of such heavy iron that it was almost impossible to keep one’s head up while wearing it. It had only small openings for eyes. Its conelike snout was unmistakably that of a wolf’s. The muzzle was a toothy grin made of sharpened inlaid ivory. Designed to maximize public humiliation, the wolf mask was a tour de force of human cruelty, and Valerie could see the satisfaction in Father Solomon’s face as the Captain fitted it over her head.

  Then all she saw was darkness, and all she felt was the weight of metal, jerked around as it was secured with buckles and snaps.

  At first, she had struggled against the cruel embrace of the manacle chain, pulling away from it, but it bit fast into her wrists. So Valerie staggered more quickly down the village street, blindly pulled along by the horse, unwilling to give the villagers the satisfaction of seeing her fall.

  It was hot inside the mask, and Valerie’s forehead was slick where it met the metal. The mask slid and wobbled as she moved falteringly through the slush on the ground.

  In the fading light, villagers had assembled to gape at the macabre parade, unable to turn away as it plodded slowly down the street. The last night of the blood moon approached.

  A bystander or two muttered just audibly, “Witch.” Others moved their hands absentmindedly to make the sign of the cross against themselves.

  A voice that she recognized as Madame Lazar’s called out, “Not so pretty now, is she?” A moment later, Rose’s voice came, calling her a witch and worse things, assuring Madame Lazar that her grandson would find a suitable wife. She sounded as though she’d never known Valerie at all.

  Valerie felt someone tugging at her hair and tried not to scream as he or she yanked at her. A moment later, her blond locks were jerked free by a soldier who was impatient to keep the train of shame moving forward.

  Chained now to a post, kneeling on the sacrificial altar, Valerie heard Father Auguste’s voice above her, blessing her, rustling pages in his Bible. A moment later, there came a familiar voice in an unfamiliar strangled cry.

  “That’s my baby!”

  With some effort, Valerie lifted the iron weight of her head. Through the tiny eyes of the mask, Valerie saw her mother, barefoot, fluttering in a frenzy like a dying moth. Her streaked face, raised into welts wherever there wasn’t an open sore, looked like it was smeared with jam. It had healed in places but hadn’t in others. It was lumpy, the wounds deep.

  She stopped in front of Solomon.

  “Let her go, you bastard!”

  Suzette’s hair was in clumps, and she smelled sour. “Let her go!” she ranted. She reached up to strike Solomon, but he effortlessly caught her wrist.

  The village was speechless. They didn’t like to see her like this, out of control, a madwoman. Another casualty. Even Father Solomon did not say anything for a few moments, letting her rage.

  Valerie couldn’t look anymore and rested the iron muzzle against her chest.

  “You should go home,” she heard Solomon say, like a disappointed father. “You should all go home.”

  Frightened villagers reached out to Valerie’s sagging mother, pulling her back. Suzette covered her face with her hands as they steered her toward home. It was too much to bear.

  Hours passed. Darkness fell.

  Valerie looked up at the blood moon. It was the final night. She had heard the village doors lock and shutters slam shut. Light-headed now, she wished she could lie down and sleep away the hours, but the chains held her upright.

  A dark shape loomed over her. She gasped, a hollow sound in the echoing metal mask. She closed her eyes and waited for the end to come.

  “Valerie,” said a girl’s voice.

  She opened her eyes, angling to see out of the eyeholes.

  The shape leaned into view.

  “Prudence?”

  “Roxanne wanted you to know that she’s sorry. She only said those things to save her brother,” Prudence whispered.

  “I know that.” Valerie
shook with a chill that rattled her chains. “Will you tell her that I forgive her?”

  “Of course. But I wanted to say… I don’t know what to say.”

  There was an uneven cadence in Prudence’s tone.

  “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “No, I want to.”

  Valerie tried to lean forward, her chains going taut with the effort. Prudence bent from her upright posture, hinged forward. Her brown hair fell around her face like a curtain.

  “I want you to know that you may have fooled Roxanne, but you don’t fool me,” she said, her words hissing like fire. “You always thought you were better than us; too good even for Henry! Your loss is our gain. Now you’re going to get what you deserve.”

  “Prudence.” Suddenly, Valerie could not recall what it had been like when Prudence was her friend. She tried to be strong. “I think you’d better go.” Her eyes felt dry, like peeled fruit that had been left out overnight.

  Prudence looked up. The clouds had pulled apart, revealing the crimson moon again. “Yes. You’re right. It won’t be long now. The Wolf is coming for you.”

  Valerie was almost grateful for her mask then, as it betrayed nothing of what she felt to her tormentor. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, Prudence was gone.

  A winter wind howled, and Valerie’s shivers rattled her chains.

  There was nothing to do but wait. The Wolf would come for her.

  But then what?

  27

  Across the square, Solomon was standing atop the granary tower, surrounded by weapons, ropes, and quivers. Below, soldiers were hiding in alleys, guarding the horses, sharpening silver-tipped arrows, waiting in windows.

  All was set and ready. Nothing left to do but clean his fingernails with the tip of a knife and flick the unclean specks to the floor. His skin, healed slightly, was tearing at its seams like a baked apple. Father Auguste joined him at his side.