Red

Red

It is said that the grandmother who lives in the deep forest knew medicine that could save a woman’s reputation, her very life. Emilia Hawthorne understood these things. She herself was a witch. At eleven she was old enough to get married and know she needed help.

It was late, dinner was hours past being cleaned up. The candles were snuffed and the family she served slept. She could feel the energy of all of them, the father, mother, their twins, and the other servant who slept in the kitchen. The father was awake, but he was always awake.

Em opened the window in the attic, boosted herself up to the window sill, then up and out. She made it to the roof, bare feet running along the still warm thatching. The thin cloak covering her shoulders had been her mother’s, then her older sister’s, but now it was hers. In the day it was a deep red, very stylish, so much so that the mother in the house where she served tried to take it, as it was too good for a servant, but at night it was the kind of dark that most people just could not see.

There was an old oak tree at the north end of the house and she used it to climb down. There had been a time before she was a servant where she had been a daughter and she needed advice. She did not want to stay being a servant!

What was worse, she had the feeling that something hunted her.

The forest had always been the better place. The town was full of false promises and work.

At the edge of the forest she froze, crouching down and listening. There were two things to keep her attention now. One was like a shadow, hungry, slippery. The other was something of nature, but not. Em ran, bare feet finding safe spots to land because the forest was familiar, more family than any humans in the town. There was a warmth to the new thing following her and she tried to shield her own life force from it.

She ran deep into the darkness. Shielding was too late. The forest thing followed her. Unlike the dark ghost, this thing was physical, crashing through the forest, hot breath so close she thought she could feel it on the back of her neck.

She knew this forest though and was keeping ahead of it well enough. If she could get to Granny’s cottage, then Granny’s warding would keep them both safe.

She crested the last hill where the forest let out onto the dirt road. Confident, she turned to look back down the road and into the forest the way she had come.

The wolf was huge. Golden eyes, soft brown fur with white along the lower jaw and it looked just like a normal wolf, but twice the size. Dark black clots hung to the right of its head, just behind the eye. Dried blood was never a good sign.

Em screamed and ran.

It gave an awooo like a normal wolf and ran after her. The great paws ripped forest floor as it dug for traction.

Em did not think that being eaten would be a good way to die, better than burned alive, but maybe not by much. Chest burning from how hard she was running there was still time for her life to dance through her thoughts. If she had become Christian, accepted baptism, maybe she would not be being chased by Fenrir in the forest! If she were Christian perhaps angels would watch over her! The worries of the wolf so consumed her that she forgot all about the dark spirit also chasing her.

Granny held open the cottage door without stepping over the threshold. She was a withered flower of a woman, but the flower was a rose and time did not soften thorns. The wolf was on her then, it’s great jaws on her shoulder and then she was lifted and thrown through the door into the cottage. Head spinning, she puked on Granny’s clean scrubbed floor.

She got her breath back just in time to watch out the open door as the wolf also caught the dark spirit in its mouth.

The spirit became her step father before abruptly becoming compost. Granny shut the door, reached to touch a carved run in the door post and dragged Em off to the bed. Under the covers they were warm and the forest outside the cottage also slept.

Sunlight fractured against the thick class in Granny’s windows and it was Granny who opened the door first, with Em behind her just peeking around. The great big wolf lay there next to the herb garden, chewing a rather long shin bone.

“He can stay,” Granny pronounced.