Red Riding Hood

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

  Since the Wolf had come…. Since Peter had come.

  “Hurry, Valerie.”

  She shook her mind clear, forced herself to say something, anything.

  “I can’t. My mother’s been hurt.”

  “How come I didn’t kill it when I had the chance?” Peter growled, stepping back to throw a rock into the street below, hard, as though it contained all of his regrets.

  And in that instant, while his hands were off the door, she darted forward, pushed it shut. Slid the bolt into place.

  His voice came back to the door. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”

  She leaned on the door, waiting to hear the sound of him leaving. Doubt sifted through her like the coldest, finest grains of sand. Had she made the right choice? Or had fear turned her against the person she loved the most?

  When she heard his footsteps withdrawing, she peered through the leaded panes of the window. She caught sight of something in his back pocket.

  A knife.

  Peter had stolen a knife. We were seven years old, and we’d caught a rabbit in a trap. We looked at each other darkly, a look I’ll never forget, one of a shared savage thrill, like young wolves taking down their first kill….

  A spill of blood issued from the rabbit’s neck, a quick red streak across pristine white fur, slow enough to be cruel. I hadn’t cut deep enough. Had I wanted to spare its life or prolong its misery? I’ve never wanted to know the answer.

  Was it Peter or I who pushed the other into killing?

  The Wolf knew I had killed before.

  The Wolf.

  Peter.

  Can it be?

  Her fears were confirmed. And yet…

  As the wind howled down the chimney, Valerie saw Grandmother leaning over a still-moaning Suzette, changing her bandages. The wavering firelight distorted the old lady’s shadow, changing it into something grotesque and monstrous dancing upon the wall. Valerie crept forward and gaped at the horrible claw marks on her mother’s face, then at Grandmother’s fingernails. Why hadn’t she ever noticed how long those nails were… how like claws they were?

  Valerie’s hand reached out to take hold of an elk-horn knife on the nightstand, slipping it into her cuff.

  Something clamped onto her leg like a shackle, stopping her breath. But it was only her poor mother remembering the moment the Wolf chiseled out her flesh with its razor-sharp claws.

  “Don’t leave me alone,” Suzette’s voice rattled.

  Cesaire had washed her face clean of the blood until it was striped pink and white, ridged like a seashell. Her fragile beauty had been taken from her. She was disfigured.

  Another eighth of an inch and it would have gotten her eye. Was the Wolf precise or inexact?

  Valerie’s frail, ruined mother lifted her cup of sleeping tea to her mouth with both hands. Grandmother helped her take a sip. Valerie watched her carefully. Odd how she’d never realized before that Grandmother’s sleeping teas were really just weak poisons. Poisons that left one helpless.

  Suzette’s eyelids flickered, then fell shut.

  “Rest, dear,” Grandmother instructed her, her voice like a lullaby as she motioned Valerie away from the bed.

  No one had been caring for the cottage since Lucie’s death, and a half-dozen plums were rotting in a bowl. Empty mugs and crumby plates cluttered the sink.

  Grandmother handed Valerie a crust of bread and then bustled around cleaning up. Grandmother was more attuned to Valerie, to her needs and wants, than she herself was. The bread was just out of the oven, and all she could taste was the heat. She ate it anyway, mindlessly. Bite, chew, swallow.

  “Something’s wrong. What is it, darling? Do you want to tell me?”

  Her grandmother was trying to find out information, to pry her open like a stubborn walnut shell, to know her inside and out. She wants to know everything. Why? She already knew all of Valerie’s secrets.

  Valerie looked at her grandmother. Her eyes. Dark brown. Burning. Compelling Valerie to answer.

  “The Wolf. It talked to me.”

  Disbelief flickered across Grandmother’s face. “And you understood it?” She leaned her body against the kitchen table, and behind her back, her hand searched secretly for something….

  “Just as clearly as I understand you.” Valerie heard a catch in her own voice, a challenge.

  Grandmother’s hand found what it was groping for—a pair of scissors.

  And Valerie’s hand clenched something inside her cuff—the elk-horn knife.

  They stood facing each other, the poisoned silence winding its way around them, choking them.

  “Whom have you told about this?” Grandmother’s lips twitched at the corner.

  Their bodies were tense with what was unspoken between them.

  “No one knows but Roxanne. She won’t tell anyone. She won’t even talk to me about it.”

  “The Wolf chose not to kill you….”

  Hearing the timbre of her voice, Valerie suddenly felt sure. It wasn’t her mother, it wasn’t Peter. It was her. Valerie could feel it. The Wolf was there, in the room, in the body of her grandmother.

  “… Because it certainly could have,” Grandmother reminded her in an even tone.

  “I think it wants me alive.”

  Valerie felt the air leave the room. Feeling smothered, she cautiously moved to open the shutters.

  The purple morning poured into the room, mingled with a breeze carrying the familiar scent of pine, changing everything. Both women realized how wrong they had been. Grandmother’s hand let go of the scissors behind her back, and she wiped the offending hand on the front of her apron, as though trying to wipe away her guilt. Valerie, too, felt ashamed of doubting this woman she had always loved. They both relaxed.

  “But why you, Valerie?”

  “I don’t know. But it says if I don’t go with it, it will kill everyone I love. It’s already killed Lucie….”

  Her neck hurt from the tension, and she made the decision to rest her head on Grandmother’s shoulder. She let it hang there, feeling the weight of her head. Something cracked in her spine, fitting back into place.

  Valerie felt Grandmother’s hand reach for hers. Thinking about what she had been driven to, suspecting everyone around her, Valerie felt she had gone mad.

  “It’s coming for me,” Valerie whispered. “Before the blood moon wanes.”

  Grandmother pulled away, deeply troubled. Looking for something to do, she decided on making tea. The handle of the kettle shook as her unsteady hands took it from the hearth.

  “What happened to Lucie is my fault,” Valerie stated. “The Wolf is here because of me.”

  Grandmother was silent, and Valerie understood that Grandmother could not deny it.

  Valerie had to get out. She emerged from the cottage, amazed at the simple act of being able to walk away, like a hermit crab that had stepped out of its molted shell, feeling no pull, the weight of what it’d abandoned only a ghost of what once was. The chill hit her like a slap in the face, waking her from her stupor. Valerie walked quickly but aimlessly.

  Picking her way to the well, she came across Roxanne and her mother retrieving water. Behind them, soldiers were ransacking a cottage, tossing aside the family’s meager possessions.

  “Has Claude come home?” she asked.

  Roxanne moved past carrying a bucket in each hand. She acted as though she hadn’t seen or heard Valerie.

  “Nobody’s seen him,” Marguerite answered before moving on.

  Valerie was stung. Roxanne knew that Valerie cared for Claude—she was the only other person who looked out for him when no one else would. Why had she brushed off Valerie’s concern? Valerie scanned her memory as she peered into the blank depths of the well. Was it that Roxanne was ashamed of how fearful she’d acted in front of her?

  Or was it because the Wolf had not chosen her? Valerie felt a wicked thrill from deep down inside herself. Maybe Roxanne was
jealous. Maybe all the girls were jealous because of her betrothal.

  The dog belonging to the visiting woodcutter ran up, and Valerie bent down to pet it, holding out her hand. It was what she needed most in the world right then, for an innocent to come to her, to offer up its back for a stroke, to be trusted, told that she was good. But the dog looked at Valerie fearfully, refusing to come near her. Valerie stayed crouched, waiting, hoping, but the dog edged away, snapping its head back as it gave a few barks, and then turned and bounded off, tail between its legs. Like she was a threat.

  Valerie was not who she had been. She felt parts of herself softly crumbling off, like a cliff falling into the sea.

  She was still kneeling at the well, pulling at the old pump, when a dark shape passed over the water. Her stomach dipped.

  It was Henry, different than she’d ever seen him. His eyes were dark and vacant, like empty rooms.

  “I’m breaking off the engagement.” His voice was ragged around the edges.

  “Breaking it off?” Valerie didn’t know how to feel.

  “Yes,” he said, blinking his eyes slowly as he said it, as though that might help the decision he’d made to sink in. “I saw you with Peter.”

  “Saw us?”

  “In the granary.”

  The words seeped into her, soaking her through with awful understanding. She saw Henry’s thoughts storming behind his eyes.

  What a cruel joke to be played on him, she thought, waking up to the fullness of his feelings for her. To have loved a girl for so long, to have stood by without pressuring her, respecting her need for independence, and then to see that love shattered by Peter in an instant—by someone who swept in after being gone for years and then took what he wanted without a thought for her happiness.

  She felt how much it must hurt to have his hope trampled on by the one Henry blamed for his most painful loss. If only Lucie were here, if only he had loved her instead of me.

  “I’m not going to force you to marry me,” Henry went on, not requiring her to respond, a gentleman to the end.

  Somehow, her heart broke watching his do the same. Again, she thought of burying herself in his chest, of the safety he offered her. She’d had enough of danger, of trauma and passion. She was angry with herself; why couldn’t she love Henry?

  “I know you don’t want to be with me.”

  His honesty was a shock.

  Because it was all she could think to do, Valerie fumbled to unclasp her bracelet and, at last succeeding, gave it back to him.

  “I’m so sorry.” She heard herself saying the empty words, something she’d tried never to do. Having nothing else, she used them anyway, knowing they were a pathetic offering.

  He was gone in an instant, the only noise now the afternoon crawl of the muddy stream. Standing under the silent sun of mid-morning, she was left to weigh Henry’s words. She couldn’t think about it too long, though, because if she did, there came a shameful rush of fire, flames flicking and blazing behind her ribs.

  Valerie had just shaken the snow from her red cloak and slipped it back on when she heard shouts from the direction of the granary. She followed the growing crowd there, relieved that the focus was on something besides herself.

  The granary was a different place by day. Sunlight splintered between the slats, illuminating the cobwebs that lurked between beams and buttresses. Father Auguste was standing with Solomon and his soldiers, who had weapons at the ready. She followed his gaze upward… and she saw Claude.

  He was alive. But perched on a rafter, cowering, shaking like he was covered with invisible insects or crabs, he seemed utterly traumatized. Or possessed. One of Solomon’s archers raised his bow.

  There was a scream as Roxanne came running and threw herself at the archer, only to be snatched back by the soldiers.

  “Ne conjugare nobiscum,” intoned the archer.

  Valerie pushed her own way through the crowd and stood beside Roxanne. “I saw him at the festival,” Valerie said, trying to catch Solomon’s gaze. “It wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been. He’s not the Wolf.”

  “I want him interrogated,” Solomon said to his soldiers, ignoring Valerie. “Look at him, the way he’s crouched there….”

  Solomon had a point. Claude looked small from where they stood, but he didn’t look innocent. He looked wild, like a fledgling vulture left to fend for itself in an abandoned nest of twigs and human hair.

  But, Valerie wondered, what would be an appropriate reaction? He was responding the way they all should have been. Why were they complacent in the face of the tragedy and brutality that had descended on them? What mechanism allowed these things to be glossed over?

  But even his own mother would not stand up for him. Marguerite sat below on a stack of hay, dazed. She could not look up, could only gaze at her own hands and wonder what would become of her sweet, strange boy. She had never known what to do with him, had never asked for him, and so absolved herself of any blame.

  “His speech is twisted,” Solomon pronounced. “He communes with demons. He practices the dark arts. He’s a conjurer.”

  The great Father Solomon, Valerie realized, had only a schoolboy’s simplistic understanding of humanity. He thought of people as predator and prey, good and evil. He couldn’t allow room for ambiguity. That which was not pure must be impure.

  But she had given in to such simpleminded idiocy just today—suspecting her grandmother, suspecting Peter. Her cheeks burned with shame.

  “He’s not evil. I know him!” she cried out, indicting herself even as she challenged Solomon.

  “Better than I knew my own wife?” Solomon finally turned to face her.

  And Valerie had no answer to that.

  Solomon held out a battered tarot card: The Fool, a barefooted beggar.

  “Look. This was found near the body of your dead sister.”

  “He performed magic,” Madame Lazar stepped in, materializing from the crowd. “I knew it was the Devil’s work!”

  Valerie looked incredulously at Madame Lazar. If there ever was a witch…

  “He’s different,” Valerie said, looking up at the boy in question. His eyes shimmered like water. “That doesn’t make him guilty.”

  “Innocent people don’t run. He must be running from something,” the old witch replied.

  “If the innocent are unjust, I’d rather be counted among the guilty.”

  Madame Lazar turned and scowled, suddenly mistrustful of Valerie.

  Solomon looked to the masked bowman. “Get him down from there.”

  Roxanne launched herself again at Solomon, but the masked bowman swatted her away like a fly.

  Two soldiers turned down the hinged spurs on their boots and pulled out their hand scythes. They hooked their fingers between the slats, ascending like insects.

  “Don’t startle him!” Roxanne cried out. It was a long drop.

  Seeing them coming, Claude ducked under the grain chute. It seemed for a moment that he would fall, but he righted his posture only to find himself cornered on the top platform.

  As the soldiers took hold of him, Roxanne caught Father Auguste by the arm. He looked nervously indecisive, like a young child who’d been offered too many choices. He did not know anymore whose side he was on.

  “Do something, please,” Roxanne tried.

  But Father Auguste just stared ahead and did not respond. He stood aside to allow the soldiers to pass by, dragging a wriggling Claude between them. It seemed he had chosen his side.

  Roxanne collapsed on the ground, sobbing.

  Valerie felt something she hadn’t felt since she was seven years old.

  Utter helplessness.

  21

  The soldiers dragged Claude into a ruined barn behind the granary and then dropped his limp body to the ground. His glittering graphite eyes opened to see a grotesque, majestic shape looming over him. The metal elephant.

  Claude cried out, for the sake of the cries themselves, knowing they would effect no cha
nge. Frantically, he tried to scuttle away from the torture device. Anything but that. He made it to the far wall and huddled in the corner, mumbling hurriedly to himself in a wet whisper.

  Solomon, who had been trailing behind, doubting that Claude could actually be the Wolf, entered the barn. Still, he couldn’t show weakness. Father Auguste had followed him in.

  “Do not touch him”—his eyes were small like pebbles as he finished the sentence—“until I order you to.”

  Claude’s chanting sped up.

  “Now…” Solomon continued, breaking into a grim smile. He raised one arm so that his robes hung down like a black velvet wing, and pointed one sharpened finger toward the brazen elephant. “You may touch him.”

  The soldiers could make out Claude’s rhyme through his sobs: “There was a boy, his name was Claude, different and alone, but close to God.”

  “Silence, monster,” a soldier barked, clopping him on the back of his head. Petrified, Claude held his fist to his mouth. His eyes darted around, but there was nowhere to go. He set his weight into his heels and his heels against the ground. But it was not enough. He was seized by huge, gripping hands and dragged toward the torture chamber.

  Father Solomon came closer and gazed down at him.

  “Tell me the name of the Wolf.”

  Claude simply shook, too terrified to understand what he was being asked.

  Solomon nodded, and the soldiers shoved Claude toward the hulking torture chamber.

  But something was stuck, and the men could not turn the crank that opened the door in the side of the elephant.

  “Can’t get it,” one of the soldiers said, moving aside to let the other try his luck with the handle. It gave.

  As the door was cranked open, the two soldiers picked up Claude by the arms and legs and heaved him in. Then they cranked the door shut again.

  “Tell me the name,” Solomon spoke at the brazen beast. No reply.

  “What are you doing?” One soldier turned to the other, who was already lighting a fire below the elephant.