Red Riding Hood

On this late autumn day, the darkness seemed to take hold even earlier than usual.  The sky was clear and the air bitterly cold.  The Harvest Moon was full and sat heavily on the horizon.  A young man not quite 18 with soft brown eyes and a lithely frame made his way through the silent woods, crossbow raised.  He was going to kill the wolf tonight.  It had taken another victim.  Its’ first victim had been his little cousin Ponette, who was the same age as he when she disappeared.  Only a strip of fabric from her red hooded cloak had been found.  One person each year had disappeared from his village for the last 4 years.  They had all walked into the woods and never returned. He felt he was now old enough and strong enough to do something.  Many had tried to find the wolf before; some even said they had seen it.  They claimed it had big green eyes and giant fangs for teeth and stood on two feet like a human.  Pasqual didn’t believe any of that.  It’s just an ordinary wolf, he thought to himself.  And I’m going to shoot it straight through the heart.  Fear had been growing in the little Alpine village and it made the people act in strange ways and begin to believe strange things.  Ponette’s mother, an unreasonable and superstitious woman was the head of the village.  She enforced strict curfew rules after Ponette’s disappearance.  She ceased all the normal holiday celebrations, forbade public laughter and merriment.  She required that every girl under 16 wear a red hooded cloak when she went out after dark, so they could be easily spotted.  If anyone was caught disobeying these laws, they could be banished into the forest.  In truth, she was going a bit mad from grief.  Everyone felt sorry for her and no one stood up to her.  In private Pasqual’s father had told him she hadn’t always been mad.  That she was happy before she lost both her husband and daughter.  Madame LeTrompe’s husband had unceremoniously left her for another woman some months before Ponette’s disappearance.  The double loss left her a shattered and bitter person. 

In the shadowy forest, Pasqual felt that maybe he was going in circles.  Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere?  Everything looked the same in the dark. Some distance ahead of him he thought he could see the moonlight illuminating a clearing in the trees.  Upon approach a tiny cottage appeared with a thatched roof and a stone chimney with smoke billowing slowly from the top, a vision from his childhood, a memory long forgotten, an unmistakable feeling of warmth, his Grandmother’s house.  People said it had been destroyed in a fire.  They had called her a witch.  They thought anyone who chose to live alone in a forest must have dark secrets, and deal with dark magic.  The memory of his Grandmother was faint now but he could still feel her soft hands stroking his head as he slept as a babe.  He had never believed the rumors.

With great trepidation he walked up to the small wooden door, he set his crossbow down on the uneven steps, his hands trembling as he reached for the doorknob turning it slowly.  Inside, the room was warm and there was a small fire going with a kettle of something puttering and spurting.  Suddenly he felt a pair of eyes watching him.  He turned and in the shadow of the bedroom he saw a figure.  “Grandmother?” he whispered.  “Yes it is I,” said the high voice.  “Grandmother, how tall you are, almost as tall as I am.”  The figure answered coyly, “All the better to meet you.”  The cloaked figure moved closer into the light and Pasqual could make out a pair of eyes.  “Your green eyes, how big they are!”  The shadow answered, “All the better to see you.”  Pasqual noticed the figure was holding a shiny dagger behind its’ back and he began to be afraid, “Grandmother…how…how sharp your dagger looks,” he stammered.  “All the better to eat you with,” the figure exclaimed and leapt at him putting the knife to his throat and pushing him to the ground. The voice barked, The cloak fell off exposing long blond hair and a beautiful girl of seventeen.

“Ponette! It’s me! Your cousin Pasqual.  Ponette! Where is Grandmother?”

“She’s dead!” Ponette screamed.  Ponette pushed the dagger closer to his throat. Pasqual shook in terror.  Seeing his own death mere moments away.  All of a sudden tears begin to well up in her big green eyes and she threw the dagger down.  Ponette eased off Pasqual who she had pinned to the floor, stood up and walked over to the window. “She died a few years back.  I buried her beyond the cottage in a grove of trees. She taught me how to live in the forest, how to survive.  Pasqual, if it wasn’t for grandmother…,”  Ponette’s voice trailed off.

 “But what about the others who disappeared?’ Pasqual asked.

Ponette turned to face him directly, “They didn’t disappear, they just left.  One left to find gold, another left to find love and one just couldn’t live in a world without any laughter.  They found the cottage so I told them they were never allowed to return to the village and speak of seeing Grandmother or me.  I told them that I was a witch and I made a deal with the wolf, and if I wanted to could send him after their children.”  Ponette threw her head back in a fit of laughter, “People are so easily fooled.”  Pasqual could hardly believe this cruel creature to be the sweet Ponette of his childhood.  Ponette could see the judgment on Pasqual’s face, “Pasqual don’t look at me that way.  I was only trying to protect myself.”  “Ponette,” Pasqual began to implore,  “The town is lost without you.  Your mother is lost.  She’s gone mad. You must come back with me.  This will never be finished until you do!”  Ponette growled, sat down and put her head in her hands.  Pasqual stood motionless for what seemed hours, relieved but also still wary of her potential aggression.  Ponette looked up with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes and said at last, “Fine. Ok I have a plan.” 

                  By the time Pasqual made it back to the village the sun was just coming up over the horizon.  The sky began to lighten into a light blue. There is innocence to the dawn, the earth reborn each morning.  The world already seemed softer, gentler and less menacing.  Alongside Pasqual he drug a small wagon covered in burlap and at his waist a blood-stained dagger. Right away villagers began to call out to each other, Pasqual had returned and he had killed something.  Everyone gathered together to hear from Pasqual.  Madame LeTrompe pushed others out of her way to get closer, to see the dead wolf for herself.  “Well, what happened? Did you kill that wretched creature?  Did you slice its’ throat?” she spat out.  Pasqual remained silent and slowly uncovered from the wagon a large gray wolf head and pelt still warm with blood, recently skinned.  Suddenly, the pelt was thrown off and Ponette who had been hiding underneath stood up tall.  She uncovered her head from the red cape and stared directly at her mother with her bright green eyes and smiled with all her teeth.   “No mother. I did,” Ponette answered. Everyone gasped in terror. Madame LeTrompe screamed and then fainted.  A smile grew on Pasqual’s normally serious face. Ponette began to laugh.  And she laughed the whole day and the whole night.  And eventually the village began to laugh again.

Le Fin.