Red's Untold Tale (24 page)

“What you did was very heroic—and the bit about the pendant being enchanted with a love spell was particularly inspired.” He shook his head and grinned. I couldn't help
smiling as well. I
had
spun a dandy tale, and like the best stories, it had begun with a seed of truth. “But I know how much your mother's cross means to you,” he said,
much more somberly. “There has to be another way. I'll help you figure something out.”

“Thank you, Peter, but it's all right. What's done is done. Besides, I'm sure my mother would have wanted it this way.” Though I put on a brave face for him, I
truly wanted to cry. We started walking down Main Street, and as we passed the alleyway where we'd danced earlier that afternoon, I wished he would fold me into his arms and tell me over and
over again that everything was going to be all right.

But first, I knew I needed to tell Peter what had happened at market. I swallowed, mentally going over how exactly I was going to word the confession. I figured the best way was to tell the
whole truth, come what may. As I spoke, he listened in silence. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat when I got to the stealing portion of my confession, and a dark shadow filled his eyes
when I recounted the kiss part. “Do you hate me now?” I bit my lower lip while I waited for him to answer.

“I could never hate you, Red. Actually, I'm glad you finally told me,” he said, and then gave me the hug I'd been yearning for.

Resting my head on his shoulder, I let out a long stream of air. “Me too.” I couldn't believe how much better it felt to be honest with him. I pulled him closer and never
wanted to let go, but the sun was going down, and Peter had a nice stew to share with his family before joining his father and the other men on the wolf hunt. The thought of him up against the
deadly beasts made me want to open up even more. “Peter, I…”

When my words trailed off, he held me out at arm's length. His dark brown eyes widened as he waited for me to finish. But I couldn't. I couldn't tell him how I truly felt about
him. The thought of him standing before me with his mouth open, not knowing how to respond because he didn't want to hurt me, parched my mouth and sank my stomach. If he didn't feel the
same way about me, I'd be standing there like a heartbroken fool. Instead, I said, “I just want you to be careful tonight.”

After the slightest of hesitations, he let go of my shoulders and ran a hand through his hair. “You have nothing to worry about. We have the best hunters and weapons in the village. And
we'll be in groups.”

“But I do worry about you. I can't help it.”

“To be honest, I kind of like knowing that you care.”

I swallowed.
I
do
care about you, Peter. Very much.
“You'd better get home. You don't want to miss your family's big supper,” I said, though I
didn't really want him to go.

“All right. Well, I'll see you around.”

I waved good-bye as he turned around and started jogging back toward his house, none the wiser that I loved him.

My grandmother sat rigidly on the
corner chair in the kitchen, her apron skewed, staring dazedly at the stacks of food that covered every last inch of the
countertops. Knowing her, the excess of baked goods was her last-ditch effort at saving the cottage. Either that, or baking herself into a frenzy was her way of coping.

“I have good news, Granny. We aren't going to lose our cottage after all!”

She blinked twice and then turned to me as if just realizing I was there. “What in the land are you talking about, child?”

“The debt is gone. We're in the clear, at least for now.” I handed my grandmother the agreement. Her forehead furrowed as she adjusted her glasses and read the
PAID IN FULL
. “How?”

I loosened the cloak from my shoulders and touched my collarbone.

“Oh, Red. The cross.”

“It's all right, Granny,” I said, sitting next to her. “I know it was my mother's, but I know if she were here, she would have done the same thing.”

Granny opened her mouth and then shut it with a sigh. I guessed she was trying to thank me; she'd never been good at that. Finally, she said, “You're right. She would
have.”

“All right then,” I said with a nod, “you've obviously baked enough to feed the entire kingdom. Let me help you get this cleaned up.”

Granny frowned. “Hang on just a minute. There's something I need to get off my chest.”

“What is it?”

Taking a deep, ragged breath, she wrung her hands. “Listen, Red. I…I'm sorry I said those things earlier today.”

I bit my lower lip and tried not to look shocked as she studied my face. If she hardly ever thanked anyone, she even more seldom apologized. “I'm also sorry I brought your mother
into it. It's just that, I blame myself for what happened to Anita. I wanted to protect her, but I failed.”

“I'm sure you did everything you could,” I said.

“Not everything, I'm afraid.”

“It's not your fault my parents went out in the woods and a hunter accidentally shot them.”

“I'm not just talking about that,” she said. “You're a lot like your mother, you know.” She brushed my cheek with her fingertips and then promptly returned
her hand to her lap. “She had a wild side, you might say.” For a brief instant, her lips formed a small smile. “Sometimes, I sense that wild side in you, too, and to be honest, it
scares the dickens out of me. That's why I got you the hood. But that won't protect you from everything. It won't protect you from getting your heart broken.”

“Granny, what are you trying to say?”

“You see, I tried to spare you what really happened that night when your parents died.”

I leaned forward, wanting—and yet more than a bit nervous—to hear what had really happened. “You lied to me?”

She shifted in her chair. “I didn't lie, not really. I just left some things out.” She exhaled loudly, making her cheeks puff out. “That tragic night, before they ran
into the woods, they'd had a terrible fight. I came running into their room—your room now, as you know—and tried to break it up. Your father didn't lay a hand on her, not
that I saw anyway. But he did snap her necklace right off her neck, which infuriated your mother.”

“If that happened the night they died, then I'm guessing it somehow ended up under the bed, where I found it?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes, that's what I figured, too. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Your parents had had quite a few fights before, but this one was different somehow. It had the weight of
finality. One look at your mother's tearstained face, and I've never seen such anguish. I knew her heart had been broken. She tore off into the woods, and he followed her. I tried to
stop them, but…”

“The hunters got to them first,” I finished for her, and she nodded solemnly.

“You were only a baby, but somehow, you must have sensed that something tragic had happened to them. You cried the whole night, clear through to breakfast. I swore to you that come hell or
high water, I'd keep you safe. You're all I've got, child.”

I'd been so enraptured by Granny's story that I just then realized the sun was going down. Granny must have noticed at the same time, because after glancing out the window, she
jumped up. “Well, enough chin-wag. It's almost dusk, and it looks like another spring shower's coming in, too. Go fetch the clothes off the line, and don't tarry.”

The instant I stepped out the back door, a gale blew my hair into my eyes and inflated my cloak like the sails of a ship, making it tough to see and walk. But I made it to the clothesline and
hurriedly began piling the linens in my basket, until something caught my eye and made my heart skip a beat: giant wolf tracks, in the soft dirt behind the old oak tree. They were fresh enough that
I guessed they'd been made last night. I followed them and gasped when I saw how they skirted the cottage and continued past the chicken coop, to the stream. Luckily, the wolf had left the
chickens alone, but who was to say the fowl would survive tonight, or the night after, for that matter?

Leaving my chore unfinished, I hurried back inside. While Granny made the Wolfstime rounds in our bedrooms and the living room, I slipped into the kitchen to lock it down and start making the
cider. The whole while, I couldn't stop thinking about the wolves. I'd always been deathly afraid of them; but now, I hated them.

I hated them for plaguing our village with horror an entire week of every month. I hated them for killing our neighbors' cow and sheep and our chickens. I hated them for killing my
great-uncles and grandfather in cold blood. I hated how they killed them before my grandmother's terrified eyes—a living nightmare that compelled her to speak out against those who
believed they could somehow defeat the monsters, or those who weren't sufficiently fearful of them—and how her fervor marked her as the laughingstock of the village, then as well as
now. I hated them for putting my parents in death's way and forcing our menfolk into a seemingly everlasting and futile chase. I hated them for making me worry about Peter and his first night
with the hunters and for leaving menacing tracks just outside our cottage walls.

How I would love to be the one to finally kill the wolves and save the village from their reign of terror!

As these thoughts built up inside of me, I scrubbed the bowls, pans, and spoons harder and harder. I rummaged under the sink for a dish towel, and that was when it came to me. Dogs loved my
biscuits, and like Violet had said the night of the bonfire, a wolf was essentially an overgrown mongrel.

If I lace biscuits with rat poison and scatter them along the tracks the wolf left last night, perhaps I can be the one who finally kills the wolves!

I took out the rat poison that we kept under the sink and sprinkled it on the cookies, putting my plan in motion. I almost told Granny my idea, but when I spied her leaning against the living
room wall and holding her aching arm, I felt like she was going through enough. “Looks like I left a few towels up on the line, Granny. I'll be right back in,” I called. Then I
slipped out the back door and scattered the poisoned dog biscuits alongside the wolf prints.

With the storm blowing in, the sky was darkening at a rapid rate, and yet the clouds could not contest the moon. Tipping back my head, I let the moon's light embrace me. Once I was back
inside, I boarded up the back door, slowly breathing in and out. It was as if the moon's glow had somehow gotten inside of me, and I held on to the sensation as best I could as Granny and I
wrapped up the final minutes of the day and I ducked into my room for the night.

I shed my clothes on the floor, hung my hood on the bedpost, and flopped onto my bed. Gazing at the shapes the candlelight created on the canopy, I felt a sudden rush of feverish heat. If Granny
happened to stick her head in to check on me, she would come unglued—not only since I hadn't bothered to put on a nightgown, but because I'd unlocked and wedged open my shutters,
just to get some fresh, cool air.

Standing before the window in my undergarments, with the glow of candles behind me and the vast dangers of Wolfstime in front of me, I felt an odd mixture of power and vulnerability. Although I
knew I should lock my room back up and get into bed, I found myself pondering Peter's whereabouts at that very moment. Had the hunters, armed with torches, weapons, and a sense of
invincibility, marched through the park and into the graveyard? Had they gathered in the village center or at the schoolhouse? Or had they trooped straight down Main Street and into the forest?

I leaned closer to the open window, wondering if they would come within view of our cottage. Clouds veiled the enormous moon like puffs of silvery-gray gauze. The wind stirred the leaves, and
squirrels chattered off and on in the trees. There were no hunters, though.

With a little imagination, I was able to trick myself into seeing them pass by the cottage—all but Peter, who spied me standing in my window wearing next to nothing. In my mind, he stopped
in the shadows while the other hunters carried on without him. I wasn't sure what to do next, because he didn't realize I knew he was there, and I didn't want this little game to
end quite yet. So I began brushing my hair for him. I took special care in each and every stroke, starting at the root and running the bristles seamlessly to the ends. The wind entered my room,
caressing my face, neck, and shoulders. Peter stepped out from the shadows into the luminous moonlight, and I drank in the approval and appreciation written all over his handsome face.

I wasn't sure exactly when the rain had begun but, suddenly, raindrops were coming into my bedroom. Blinking, I closed and locked the window. I tried to keep the best parts of my fantasy
about Peter alive as I fluffed my pillow and slipped into bed. But then, as I was wont to touch my neck as I drifted off to sleep, the pendant's absence made me start. It would be my first
slumber in over three years without my mother's cross—and not only that, but it would be my first night knowing it to be enchanted.