by John Bladek
John Bladek grew up in Washington State (named for a dead president, but unfortunately not haunted by him). He’s always been fascinated by scary stories. The first story he can remember reading on his own was called Spook’s Bones, a tale of two boys who grant a ghost’s last wish to have his bones properly buried, and then enjoy sandwiches in celebration. He also liked listening to ghost stories on the radio and sneaking into the basement on Friday nights to watch the scary TV show, Ghost Story, which his mom did not approve of. Every day on his way home from school in 3rd grade, he visited a haunted house. Since then, John has stopped hiding under his pillow when listening to spooky stories, but he still enjoys a good scare. To fuel his cravings, John earned a PhD in History, where all ghosts come from. He loves to play trivia and wonders why he doesn’t run into haunted houses anymore.
John’s other books include the humorous middle-grade adventure, Roll up the Streets! (Kane Miller, 2010) and the funny ghost story, Lost in Ghostville (Capstone, 2016). You can learn more about his writing at his blog, http://johnbladek.blogspot.com/
More from Author Davonna Juroe
Continue reading for the first three chapters and Author’s Note from Scarlette, a dark historical novel that retells “Little Red Riding Hood”.
What Readers Are Saying About Scarlette…
“Davonna Juroe’s Scarlette is a captivating retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood.” But it is much more than that. Folk tale, historical fiction, and gothic romance all blend harmoniously in this dark and suspenseful novel. The characters are compelling and complex. The plot will keep you guessing until the very end. The story is beautifully written. With all this in mind, I suspect that Davonna Juroe could be a long-lost Brontë sister.”
- Jeremy C. Shipp, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Cursed, Vacation, and Sheep and Wolves
“Well, I love a good mystery, and while Scarlette is a Paranormal Historical YA, it holds a fine mystery at its core! And while I’m quite good at guessing, there were twists I did not see coming at all. This novel, in fact, hit all its categories with punch and style. The paranormal kept me reading at night (even though I should have read it only during daylight hours!); it had a wonderful wealth of historical detail and richness; and it blossomed with the kind of romance completely appropriate for a YA audience.”
- Kathy Dunnehoff, Amazon best-selling author of The Do-Over
“This book is a page turner. As a playwright, I crave true action and drama. This novel has it!”
- Lavonne Mueller, playwright and author
“This is the best book I’ve read in a long time! …It’s been forever since I stayed up all night to finish a book. Davonna Juroe can write a mean story, one that I couldn’t put down….”
- Catherine Schmidt, library technician, Flathead County (Montana) Library
“Scarlette hooked me from the first sentence and kept me spellbound until La Fin…. Promising new author Davonna Juroe has created a living, breathing world with characters so real they could walk off the page….I devoured this must-read book in under twenty-four hours, and I will continue to suffer from symptoms of withdrawal until her next book is released.”
- Hurricane Tyler, fantasy author of “Requiem for a Steampunk Dream”
Becoming Little Red Riding Hood:
Author’s Note
“Little Red Riding Hood” is as old as the hills. We all know the story: girl in a red cloak goes into the forest to visit grandma’s house, girl is accosted by a wolf posing as Little Red’s grandma while hiding in her bed, woodcutter saves Ms. Hood and grandma by slaying the wolf.
What you just read is the widely recognized summary of the Brothers Grimm story printed in Germany in 1857. However, there are many different versions of the tale that predate the Grimms’. One rendition can even be traced all the way to Asia, in which a tiger replaces the villainous wolf.
What’s even less known is that many of these alternate versions are far darker than the Brothers’ rendering. In fact, the Grimms’ is a watered-down take on a parable-like story first printed at the end of the 17th century. Tales of Mother Goose, written by French aristocrat Charles Perrault, contains retellings of older folk tales such as “Cinderella,” “Blue Beard,” “Puss in Boots,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and of course “Little Red Riding Hood.”
I was surprised that Perrault’s work was not the tame Grimm story I’d grown up with. Told as a cautionary tale warning young women of men’s “wolfish” appetites, it was aimed at the promiscuous courtiers of the French Court. Modern readers are often shocked by Perrault’s tragic end for the heroine. There is no woodcutter to save Red Riding Hood. Instead, she undresses, climbs into bed, and is killed by the wolf who “devours” her. Interestingly, during Perrault’s time, the common euphemism for a woman who’d lost her virginity was that she “had been with the wolf.”
Perrault’s slant struck a chord with me, and I decided to adopt an overall similarly dark mood for Scarlette. However, I did not want to completely dismiss the Grimms’ elements. Many of their details, such as the woodcutter, found their way into the novel. These aspects were then blended with historical events to give the fairy tale an authentic realism.
The other feature I had hoped to capture was the naiveté and poor judgment of Little Red Riding Hood as a character. Some of Riding Hood’s decisions are almost comical. In one scene, she actually shows the sly wolf the way to her grandmother’s woodland house. Even more baffling, is her obliviousness to the dog-like qualities of her “sick” grandmother as the wolf. She remains frustratingly blind throughout both the Grimm and the Perrault versions.
The reader will find nods to this baffling gullibility throughout Scarlette. However, as guileless as Scarlette’s character seems at times, she is not a completely ignorant nineteen-year-old. Taught by her grandmother to read at a young age, Scarlette takes advantage of a rare educational opportunity that was almost unheard of in Old Regime France.
It was a tough world all around for a peasant in that era. The novel depicts some of the harsh realities such as poverty and hunger within the Gévaudan province. Scarlette also revolves around the infamous and horrific Beast of Gévaudan attacks of the 1760s. Fittingly, the Beast provided a convincing substitute for the wolf from “Little Red Riding Hood.”
One historical component not portrayed in Scarlette, however, is the language of the era. While little writing by peasants still exists, a middle-class 18th century journeyman named Jacques-Louis Ménétra wrote a journal. I familiarized myself with his writing but decided early on that I didn’t want to utilize his style or precise language. Rather, I wanted the novel to remain accessible to a modern audience unfamiliar with 18th century French, even in translation. So the common language of today functions as a stand-in for the common language of yesteryear.
Some historical fiction buffs may consider this a risky move. One wants to be as historically accurate as possible, but I believe that, after consulting author and history Ph.D. John Bladek, he accurately describes the historical fiction dilemma:
The noun in the phrase ‘historical fiction’ is fiction. Historical is an adjective describing it, but in no way does that make ‘fiction’ into ‘history’.
Is there any real difference between writing something about the present that’s made-up versus writing something about the past that’s made-up? Time is relative.
Putting a more formal version of English into the mouths of French peasants from the 18th century is no more historical than having Romeo and Juliet—two Italian teens—speak via Shakespeare in the finest English poetry ever written. It may feel authentic, but that comes from the mistaken impression by many that formal language always portrays the past in a more authentic manner. There is little justification for this belief.
There are no sound recordings from the 18th century, so we simply do not know how people spoke. And there is scant justification for putting the more formal writing of the period into the mouths of peasants.
Having French peasants speak like educated Englishmen is a bit far-fetched as well. And considering that Scarlette is a contemporary young adult novel, the answer as to what language was appropriate for the readership seemed obvious.
Other “modernized” historical fiction has followed these ideas, including Suzannah Dunn’s The Sixth Wife, which is set during the reign of England’s Edward VI. A Knight’s Tale, while a film, is also another clear example of modern language used in a period piece.
Blending contemporary language, Gothic Romance elements, history, and fairy tale into Scarlette was no easy task. I made thousands of executive storytelling decisions to fit the novel’s demands. What you are about to read is a new historical reimagining of “Little Red Riding Hood.” One that is my contribution to the evolution of the fairy tale and an homage to the girl behind the red cloak.
“Love is blind; therefore, it loves the dark.”
~Tadeusz Gicgier
Margaride Mountains, Gévaudan Province, France
June 1767
Fear. Panic. Anxiety.
Mother was like a bloodhound. Smelling the air, she could sense my feelings, and any whiff of unease set her at my throat.
If I didn’t stop having these painful emotions around her, I would surely lose my freedom.
We were like the moon and the sun, she and I. We could never be close, but I had no idea our lives were about to collide.
Chapter One
One Month Earlier
I glanced over my shoulder at the black forest. The knots in my stomach loosened when I saw that the boulder-lined road snaking westward towards the misted woods was empty.
I faced forward, breathing easier, but still couldn’t shake the fear. Our limestone cottage came into view, nestled between the granite ravines under the rock-columned cliffs. No smoke wafted from the chimney, and the sheep pen was empty. Mother wasn’t back from the pastures yet, and we needed to get home before her.
I put my arm around Grandma’s shoulders to steady her. Her leg seemed worse than usual, and she ambled more slowly than she had on our way out to gather roots and berries.
“Don’t worry, Scarlette. We’ll be there soon,” Grandma said, as wisps of her breath puffed from her lips.
I wrapped my shawl tighter, fighting the chill, and tried to smile. But Grandma’s words couldn’t keep me from worrying about Mother, or about being this close to the forest.
Peasants and villagers alike were told not to venture beyond the tree line. It wasn’t safe. The townspeople were leaving their houses less and less. Even traveling merchants stopped visiting our province.
Many of us couldn’t afford necessities anymore. Some even remained in bed because they didn’t have money for clothing. We were all trapped by the surrounding forest, and the town was becoming a wasteland of graves.
So many people had been found buried in the underbrush with their throats shredded. Other horrifying tales flew around the village. But it was these grisly stories that gained so much attention, and it was becoming impossible to separate truth from superstition.
Grandma and I were sure the attacks were only a wolf’s doing. There were no such things as supernatural creatures. But many villagers insisted it was the loup-garou, a werewolf. Perhaps most sinister was that almost everyone suspected one another. Many spent their days seeking signs that their neighbor could be transforming into a wolf.
The growing paranoia led to all sorts of awful practices. The worst being to scatter hunks of meat sprinkled with wolfsbane throughout our lands in the hope of warding off the predator. I didn’t know if this herb’s “magical” abilities could stop werewolves, but the poisonous leaves had killed many of the poor scavenging for scraps. After two years of early frosts killing our crops, I couldn’t blame them for looking. But it had been three years of attacks, and the strewn meat bits obviously weren’t working. It was a waste of good food, and that was all the more reason for me to despise superstition. It was responsible for too many unnecessary deaths.
I felt better knowing that the attacks never happened during the day. But even when there was daylight, we never knew if the darkness of the woods hid the wolf among the brush, masking its next move.
Although Mother had forbidden us from ever going near the forest, Grandma, Mother, and I needed food. Even if it meant skirting the woods. One crust of bread couldn’t last us for the rest of the month. Grandma and I picked whatever roots and scant berries we could find a short distance from the tree line. But even being only close to the forest was enough to keep me on pins and needles. We had our bladed staffs, but I wished the law hadn’t forbade peasants from bearing arms. Blades didn’t offer the protection a pistol could.
Grandma mentioned we should gather the flowers today. But we both knew this was unthinkable. Even though it was our favorite tradition, and one small thread of joy we could share in this dark shrouded life, we couldn’t take the risk.
I loved the poppy bouquets Grandma made for my birthday. Although I knew I was getting too old for them, they made a beautiful crown. But three years ago Mother found out about us gathering flowers in our favorite clearing, and I didn’t want to have a repeat of that miserable day. I could almost feel Mother’s nails scraping my skin again.
Somehow Grandma was able to calm Mother’s violent temper that afternoon. Luckily I never had any physical contact with Mother after that horrid day. But from then on, my name permanently changed from “You” to “Wretch.” Sometimes I really think if it weren’t for Grandma, I wouldn’t know my real name.
Mother’s fits became worse after she “christened” me. And her favorite activity seemed to be chasing me down into a gauntlet of torment. Many times I caught her spitting in my soup. Another time I saw her put filth in my bed like I was some pig sleeping in a pen. Grandma never saw any of this. I knew I could tell her anything, but I didn’t want to burden her with all of my woes. Instead I would save my secrets and tears for my trips to the village well. Whenever I lowered the water bucket down the shaft, I would wish that somehow we could all be a happy family. Where the smiles outnumbered the frowns. I didn’t understand why Mother couldn’t love Grandma or me.
My wishes never came true and, more and more, I realized I couldn’t defend Grandma or myself. Mother seemed determined to provoke me. But I couldn’t take her bait and rouse her anger, or the authorities would be at our door. I wasn’t sure how she got the lettres de catchet, as peasants rarely possessed them. These documents—authorized by the King—let families lock up “unruly” relatives. It would take just one word and Grandma and I would be separated forever.
I had to bear everything.
Alone.
But somehow Grandma caught on to Mother’s secret cruelties. She said nothing at first, but I noticed she would clean my bed or sweep around it. She smiled her crescent-moon grin, and said she was just “tidying up.” I knew better. “Tidying up” meant “You’re not alone.”
That day, I promised Grandma I would never leave her alone either.
I was pulled from my thoughts when I heard Grandma’s breathing become more labored. “Must…rest.” She stopped and leaned against a granite boulder, laid down her bladed oak staff, and hunched over her knees.
“Grandma, please. We’re almost there,” I said, my voice rising. “If I don’t start supper before Mother…”
She looked up at me. Her eyes, blueberry in color, were serene, hypnotic. So many times I’d thought nothing would ever be right again. But with that one gaze, my frosty blizzards melted into balmy midsummer afternoons.
She reached up and put her calloused hands on my cheeks. Her touch could calm a condemned man standing at the gallows. Star-white stray locks fell from her tattered cream cap over her forehead, caressing her soft wrinkled face. “I’ll be fine. Go on. I have this. See?” She picked up her staff and brandished it like a knight about to slay a dragon.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’ll be right behind you. These old legs just can�
�t rush anymore.”
“No, let me just help you.”
I moved forward to steady her, but she winced as she hobbled on her bad leg. She shook her head. “I need rest. Don’t worry. I can see the cottage from here, and I’ll see your mother on the road if she comes. When I spot the sheep, I’ll duck down behind one of the boulders so she won’t see me. Then I’ll tell her a story about going to the well.” She patted my hand. “If you don’t leave now, she’ll find out, and then where will we be?”
My mind split. I didn’t feel good about leaving her, but I could see our cottage door. It was still daylight. Grandma wouldn’t have far to go.
“Trust me,” she said.
“All right.” I sighed. “I hate you having to lie.”
Grandma smiled, kissed me on my nose, and winked. “Sometimes we need to lie to protect our happiness.”
I took her wrinkled hand and squeezed it.
She brushed some dust off her frayed white dress and apron. As she handed me her basket of berries and roots, she said, “Try to relax. If your mother asks where we got these, we can tell her that Jeanne picked them.”
I smiled, thanking God for Jeanne. She was the only friend I could turn to for help. And she was good at keeping secrets.
Secrets. Would I never be rid of them?