Red Riding Hood Meets This Wolf
Part 3 of the Red Riding Hood Story
I am more than halfway to my grandmother’s house. My fear of entering the woods has faded a little, even with the dimming light around me as the sun gradually settles into the hills beyond. I am singing, sometimes skipping on the path, sometimes bending down to pick flowers for grandmother. I am enjoying my trip. My basket swings from my arm, my red coat is keeping me warm. Safe.
“Don’t eat any of the treats for grandmother,” my mother had said before I left. “I put in a meat pasty for you for lunch. And if you are still hungry, you can eat a roll from the basket, but the rest is for grandmother.”
I nodded yes. Food is scarce for us, mother and me, since my father died a year ago, from an accident. That is what my mother and others tell me, an accident. They don’t say anything more, so I know that it was not something simple, from tripping over a stool, it must have been something greater and more fearful. But I do not ask. Because I do not want to know. And because my mother is sad already and I do not want to make her sadder.
So I nodded. Yes, mother, I understand.
I am thinking of this as I am traveling through the trees and flowers, my stomach rumbling.
I am not close yet to grandmother’s, I tell my tummy. Just wait a little longer. It does not say anything after that, although it still complains with grumbles and gurgles.
I am tucking a handful of blueflowers into the basket — oh, how bright they are! — when I suddenly feel a presence in the woods. As I continue, I start to shiver. I draw my coat closer around me. It is my armor. But there is something out there, I can tell. A big something. A scary something. And although my father is dead, I am still his daughter, a daughter of a hunter and carpenter. So I know. There is a creature stalking me, following me, with its eyes on me. My ears pick up the sounds of pawsteps.
As I keep walking along the path, all I feel are eyes. Watching me.
I slow down. I look around me. I know I am in danger.
And through the increasing darkness, a wolf steps out of the woods in front of me. He is enormous, with dark rugged fur and blazing eyes. He is hungry, ravenous. I sense this. Because I know how the desire to eat something, hair and whiskers and tail and all, can consume you.
He blocks the entire path. I realize at that instant that he will not move, ever, until he gets what he wants.
“Hello,” he growls, “I am This Wolf.”
