Path of Needles

by Alison Littlewood

  Everything felt dreamlike, as if she had stepped into the pages of some story, and not one of her choosing. The policeman gave her white overalls to put on and took her name and details and added them to a register. Seeing it being written down made it worse somehow, as if this must really be happening.

  She took the unfamiliar clothing in her arms and the strange fabric rustled and slid under her fingers. The policeman gestured impatiently and she started to pull it on over her clothes. She found two smaller pieces among the material; she didn’t know what to do with them until she saw the policeman pulling similar items over his shoes. She did the same, relieved she didn’t have to ask.

  She heard voices and looked up to see two people in identical white suits coming towards them through the trees. Oddly, being dressed the same way made her feel more out of place. The newcomers stopped to exchange a few words with the policeman she was with and ignored Alice. She caught the words ‘something in her mouth’.

  PC Nicholls shot a glance towards her. ‘Now, please,’ he said, his voice pinched, and led her uphill. Alice looked at her feet, saw the clinical white overalls brushing past bursts of red campion and clusters of woodruff. She thought back to the morning she’d opened her eyes to the sound of birdsong; the way she had known, deep inside, that springtime had come. Then the wood opened out into an odd place, where the trees grew behind fences and the ground was scattered with old wood.

  The policeman led the way towards a group of people in the centre of the clearing. There was a bad smell, nothing she could identify; her mind didn’t want to register what might be the cause. The officer stood back to let her see.

  There was a body lying on the ground. It was at once real and unreal, a figure she knew as well as her own face: a girl in a blood-red cape lying next to the basket she was carrying to her grandmother.

  Alice closed her eyes and shook the image away. Instead, she caught another glimpse of that springtime morning when she’d awakened and known that something new was about to begin; the blue bird flying at her with its wings outstretched.

  She blinked. One of the white figures stepped towards her and with a start, Alice recognised Cate. She didn’t say anything, and when Alice glanced about, she noticed the other people dotted around the figure on the ground were all watching her, waiting for a reaction, for her to do or say something that would make everything begin again. But how could she make sense of something that didn’t make any sense?

  Alice didn’t want to see their eyes on her any longer, so she looked back at the girl on the ground. The cloak was so bright it was violent against the dull greens and browns of the earth, like an illustration from a book, everything a little too clear, too vivid. And it was all a little too right. Even the basket by the girl’s side was exactly as it should be, the arch of the handle, the checked cloth covering the contents. Now Alice had begun to notice the detail, she couldn’t take her eyes from it. She edged closer; the smell grew worse and she made a choking sound in the back of her throat and stepped away again.

  ‘Take your time,’ said Cate.

  Alice just stood there, her hand over her mouth. Nobody moved and nobody spoke; there was silence, save for the silvery sound of foliage stirring in the breeze.

  Surely Alice had nothing to give; this scene must be obvious to anyone. There didn’t appear to be any hidden signs, nothing obscure like in the photographs of Snow White. No one could possibly mistake it for anything else. Red in tooth and claw, she thought. She had said it before, many times, but had she really believed it? She forced herself to look at the body again, suddenly glad she couldn’t see the dead girl’s eyes. She could see her arms, though, and when she looked at them, really looked at them, it sent a shock through her.

  ‘They’re pins,’ Cate said, and Alice realised she was standing at her shoulder.

  ‘No,’ Alice said slowly, ‘I don’t think they are.’ Despite her reluctance she leaned closer, wanting to be sure. ‘No, they’re not pins. They’re needles.’ Each silver point was tipped by a narrow eye.

  ‘She chose a path,’ said Alice, backing away, ‘in the story. Little Red was sent into the woods by her mother, taking some food – it varies from version to version, sometimes it’s a pot of butter or bread and milk, in others cake and wine. Instead, she encounters the wolf. He asks which way she’s going to the grandmother’s house and he makes sure he gets there first. Little Red has to choose from the path of pins or the path of needles.’

  Her eyes narrowed. The girl looked so thin – it made her look so vulnerable. She was glad the cloak was covering much of her body, keeping her face half hidden. But her arms – the needles had caught her attention first, masking what lay beneath. Was the skin there bruised from what had been done to her, or was it more than that?

  She took a breath and held it, moved closer to the girl and bent down so she could see her face. She told herself it wasn’t so bad, but she had to steal a small breath, and that was bad.

  The girl’s skin had paled in death – at least, she thought it was that – but wasn’t there a faint bruise underlying the shadow of her cheekbone? This girl didn’t look like some fairy-tale princess, she wasn’t like the first: someone’s daughter or granddaughter who had been cherished. She hadn’t been crowned, hadn’t been honoured, she wasn’t the queen of anything.

  She glanced back at the track marks on her arms before stepping away. It looked as if this girl had chosen the path of needles long ago.

  *

  Cate stood at her side and prompted Alice with questions as they stood at the edge of the clearing. Alice kept her eyes fixed on the trees; she didn’t want to see that body any more, or watch what they did to her, what indignities she still had to suffer. She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t real, any of it, but Cate’s questions intruded, making her realise that it was. Her sense of dislocation remained. She wanted to go home, to turn her back on this and pretend she’d never seen it.

  ‘The way she’s been left looks more obvious this time,’ Cate said. ‘No one would take it for anything else. Anyone can see it’s a fairy tale.’

  Alice drew a deep breath. ‘You know, you’re right. I’m really not sure you need me any more.’

  ‘There must be things he’s done that could give us some indication of what he’s thinking – don’t forget, we don’t know these stories like you do. We might miss even obvious things that you would see at once. And this has all been done deliberately, the placing of each little thing. That took forethought, planning.’

  Alice remained silent.

  ‘The thing about the pins – what did you say it meant?’

  ‘They aren’t pins,’ said Alice. Her voice was faint. ‘They’re needles.’

  It was Cate’s turn to be silent. Someone standing nearby shuffled their feet and Alice realised a man was watching them. She felt Cate’s hand on her arm and she took a deep breath. The air was mercifully clean.

  ‘The path of needles and the path of pins,’ she started. ‘When Little Red Riding Hood meets the wolf – or the bzou, the werewolf – he wants to race her to the grandmother’s house. She can choose which path to take. There’s a lot of disagreement about what the path of needles or the path of pins signifies, or even if it means anything at all.’ She paused. ‘There is one interesting interpretation, though.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Some people think it can be seen as a choice between sexual maturity and innocence.’ Alice took another deep breath. ‘The story was shaped by retellings throughout rural France before Perrault wrote it down in the late seventeenth century. Oral storytelling was a female tradition, and female work – sewing, spinning, weaving – often cropped up in the imagery.

  ‘Back then, girls who reached puberty were often sent to spend a winter with the seamstress, though not just to learn sewing skills; it was about learning refinement, kind of a finishing school. They called this “gathering pins”. When they had finished, they could accept a sweetheart, who would often give
pins as gifts.

  ‘On the other hand, threading the eye of a needle was seen as a sexual symbol. In some regions, prostitutes even wore needles on their sleeves as a way of advertising themselves.’

  Cate shifted her feet. ‘So this girl—?’

  ‘She could be a prostitute. I suppose that part’s up to you. Of course, the red of the cloak can be seen as a symbol of sin or sexuality. Little Red is an innocent who chooses the wrong path, or leaves it altogether.’

  Both of them fell silent.

  ‘He didn’t kill her with the needles.’ The voice was loud, intruding on Alice’s thoughts, and she turned to see the man who’d been watching them earlier.

  ‘This is the senior investigating officer,’ said Cate, ‘Detective Superintendent Heath.’

  He nodded at Alice. ‘So what did she die of, in these stories of yours?’

  ‘It varies. In some versions, particularly the earliest, she doesn’t die at all but uses her own wiles to escape. In the better-known ones, though, she gets to the grandmother’s house and the wolf is waiting for her. He’s eaten the old woman and now he wants to eat the girl. He gets her to take off her clothes and burn them in the fire, since she won’t be needing them again.’

  ‘And then he eats her,’ said Cate.

  Alice sighed. ‘Mostly, yes, the wolf gets her in the end.’

  ‘He certainly got her this time,’ said Heath, and then added, more quietly, ‘There’s no need for you to see that.’

  Alice grimaced. ‘You know, some would suggest that her death is her punishment for leaving the path, for being disobedient.’ She frowned. ‘Some of the stories stressed that as their moral. I wonder why she was left out here, though? Little Red has to go through the forest, the deep dark of the trees. It’s odd that she wasn’t left further in the woods. But then, I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense – the fallen woman among the fallen trees.’

  Heath let out a breath. ‘On the other hand, it may just have been because he wanted the body to be found. This place is a work in progress – there must be wardens about most days, although they didn’t spot her until now.’ He gestured around the clearing. ‘That could mean he has local knowledge. The first dump site – that might have been someone driving around, trying to find somewhere quiet. This time he’s thought about it, been more organised.’ He paused. ‘Thank you, Ms Hyland. Cate, if there’s nothing else, we need to get this screened off properly before the press descend. And we need to organise a search of the rest of the clearing.’

  Alice didn’t move. ‘Didn’t someone say there was something in her mouth?’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ Heath snapped. He glared at Cate, and Alice realised someone had spoken out of turn: like the bottle stoppered with a girl’s toe, it was another of those details meant to be withheld. She opened her mouth to say it hadn’t been Cate who’d told her; closed it again when she saw his expression. There was something in his eyes that didn’t brook being questioned.

  ‘If your theories hold true,’ Heath said, ‘perhaps you could tell us what it was.’ He shot a glance at Cate. ‘If no one’s told you already.’

  Alice noticed that Cate too opened her mouth to speak, but she didn’t say anything either.

  ‘I don’t know what it could be,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing left in her mouth in the story. She’s the one who’s eaten, in fact, by the wolf. She does sometimes eat what the wolf leaves for her, though, when she arrives at her grandmother’s.’ She paused to collect her thoughts.

  ‘All right: first of all, the wolf beats Little Red to the cottage. He eats the grandmother, but he doesn’t eat all of her; he saves a little of her flesh and puts it in the pantry, and he drains some of her blood into a bottle—’

  She broke off and they stared at each other.

  ‘When he’s done that and the girl arrives, the wolf tells her to eat, so she finds the things he’s left for her, and eats part of her grandmother – a cannibalistic meal. In some variants he fries the grandmother’s ears and pretends they’re fritters. That’s the Italian version again, I think. Always interesting, the Italian versions.’

  Heath gestured for her to continue.

  ‘The other thing she’s given in that version is the grandmother’s teeth. He boils them in a pot and pretends they’re beans. I never really understood that – it’d be pretty hard to fool anyone beyond the first mouthful.’ She saw the expression on Heath’s face. ‘Ah. Well, that’s odd. I wonder where he got the teeth from?’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ said Heath.

  Alice knew he wasn’t dismissing her words; this man took in everything, even when giving the impression it was beneath his notice.

  Cate was focused on Heath, her look purposeful. He motioned her aside and started to talk in low tones, words Alice couldn’t catch. They moved further away; they appeared to have forgotten her. She kept looking into the trees. She didn’t want to turn and walk across the clearing again, to see the body that was lying there. If she did, would the policeman who’d brought her here even still be around, let alone be prepared to drive her home again? She looked about, keeping her gaze away from the patch of red. Other officers were closing in and she watched as they resumed their work. One of them looked up and narrowed his eyes, staring at her as if wondering why she was still there. Alice looked away.

  It looked as if Cate and Heath had come to some kind of decision; they headed off towards the far side of the clearing, leaving Alice alone. The trees weren’t far away; there was a narrow path leading roughly towards the lake. It wasn’t the way she’d come, but at least it would take her away from here, and from the things she’d seen – the things she’d smelled. It would take her home. She longed suddenly for her cottage, its safety, its warmth. If she was there, she could forget; everything would be all right.

  In the next moment she was walking away and into the trees, entering their shade. She felt better at once. She did not look back, nor did she wait for anyone to notice that she was leaving.

  *

  When Alice was halfway down the hill, her legs began to shake. She stopped walking and leaned against a tree, then stood there, staring at her arm. She was still wearing the white overalls the policeman had given her. She didn’t know why it had come as a shock to realise it now; she only knew that even though she’d been able to see it all the time, had heard the rustle of it, she somehow hadn’t taken it in. She started to peel the stuff off, pulling free of it, until she was just Alice once more. When she saw it lying bright and artificial against the green she realised she couldn’t just leave it there. If the police found it, it could lead to all kinds of mistaken suspicions, couldn’t it? She should give it back, to Cate maybe, not one of those others who had stared at her. She gathered it up, wadding it into a tight ball, carrying it with her.

  She caught a glimpse of water somewhere below, the light striking silver from the flat grey surface. She was completely alone now, and for the first time she realised she might be out in the woods with a killer: someone who knew this place, who had walked the same paths she had. Strangely, though, she didn’t feel afraid. It was all so unreal. She felt like a character from one of her books, straying from the path, but safe in the knowledge that all of this was nothing but a story. The real Alice was no doubt far away, wrapped in a blanket in her favourite chair, drinking something warming, enclosed within the walls of her own home. She couldn’t possibly be here, having walked away from the police like that. She couldn’t possibly have seen the things she’d seen.

  Alice closed her eyes. Was that how someone had done this to that girl in the clearing? – by not seeing her as real, only a character, to be torn and broken? That must be how they had taken her, pushed needles into her skin. And then what? She didn’t want to think of it any more. It made her wonder how the girl had died, and how badly.

  He didn’t kill her with the needles.

  Alice shivered and went on. She was almost at the lakeside path – she could see the sandy
gravel through the trees – when she saw the bird.

  Once she had seen it, she wondered how she had failed to notice it before. It was the only bright thing amid the trees. It sat on a low branch, and it was looking at her. She recognised its small shining eyes, the brilliant blue feathers. It did not take fright and fly away, or even move; it simply sat and watched her, as though waiting for something. Alice wasn’t sure she liked it – but of course it would see her as a threat; it was only natural that it should stare at her like that.

  The bird rose from its perch, spread its bright wings and flew. It landed a short distance away and began to sing.

  Alice didn’t even think about what she was doing: she followed.

  The trees closed in around her. Tall beech had given way to silver birch, the spindly trunks scabbed and surrounded by whip-like branches. Somewhere the breeze sighed, causing the trees’ limbs to tremble. Alice kept her eyes on the bird, which fluttered onwards, always keeping a little way ahead. It was heading around the hillside, not down towards the lake or up towards the clearing. It was becoming harder to push through the branches now, and the bird was getting away from her. Alice could see it only in brief splashes of colour, but its intense, pure song drew her on. The wood was quiet and dark and Alice was alone, and it was strangely peaceful, being away from everything and everyone. This place was unreal, a place where no one could hurt her or force her to see things she didn’t want to look at. It felt as if the wood belonged to her and her alone.

  Belying her reverie, a dog’s loud bark cut into the day. Alice jumped and put a hand to her chest; told herself it was only a dog, nothing out of the ordinary. The harsh bark came again and Alice realised that it was somewhere close, and that its body must be big, to make such a sound. Then she saw it pushing through the undergrowth, a solid black creature, its tongue lolling from its jaws. A voice followed it through the trees, an ordinary man’s voice, calling, ‘Here, boy!’