Little Red Wishes on Wild Things

Beneath a hooded cloak, I gaze up at all the things on fire in the sky, searching for shooting stars. The sky is as vast and deep as the ocean, as dark and sinister as the forest; it upholds all of its chaos, displaying its trauma, as if to say: “You should know better than to trust in me.” I distract myself, looking for constellations while I wait for morning, hopeful that a glowing streak of light might seize my wish and free me of this burden.

Release me of those devil’s eyes, my heart yearns.

When a cloud emerges from my lips, I pull my cloak tighter around my chest, grateful mother had sewn one so thick, though none would ever be thick enough to shield me from the cold and dark events I’d just encountered. The image of my grandmother writhing and stretching – screaming – from inside that beastly creature’s stomach is one not even a grown adult would have easily taken in. How had I been so foolish? How, for one second, had I believed that thing to resemble my sweetest and most tender grandmother?

The moment replays in my head as I know it will forever: my grandmother’s pink bonnet, a little frumpier than usual; her back turned away from me as she beckoned me to her from her bed, her voice much deeper and hoarse than I’d ever heard it before. There’d been a pot left on the stove, all its contents boiled to nothing but steam when I’d arrived, which I thought unusual, as Grandmother was always so masterful in the kitchen. I suppose, my youthful mind had thought she was ill, remembering the worry that festered in me when she did not immediately come to greet me at the door. She’d asked me to come closer so she could see me better, but her vision had never once given her trouble. My concern for her unwonted state had drawn me to her, and with every verbalized remark about her appearance, Grandmother – whom now I know was that wretched beast – had a reassuring response, pulling me closer and closer to her side, until…

“There!” I shout into the lonely night, my finger latched onto the flying star’s tail. Just between Orion and the North, I see the streak of a meteor on fire in the sky. I’m about to close my eyes and send my wish away with it before it can sizzle out when I notice something strange about it.

It’s not sizzling out. It’s flying across the sky unlike any shooting star I’d ever seen. I follow its trail with my eyes, enamored by its continued existence. That’s when I realize it’s not a shooting star.

It’s a boat.

A large paper sailboat is flying across the ocean sky, and in it is a young boy wearing a wolf costume. Next to him, a large headed monster with giant, gnashing teeth is hollering and whooping and howling at the moon.

When the boy sees me – how he sees me from way up there, I am not sure – he points at me and flails his arms up high, trying to capture my already undivided attention. “Little Red, Little Red, come with us!” he shouts.

Who? Little Red? Me? I am speechless.

“Come on an adventure with us!” the wolf-boy yells again before joining the monster beside him in a howl towards the moon.

For a moment, I look around, half-expecting myself to wake from a dream. But still, my grandmother’s empty, unlit house is behind me, its broken windows a reminder of the horrific battle I’d survived earlier. Cool, crisp air runs sharp across my cheeks. A sinister forest pretends to sleep just beyond her cottage’s edges, taunting me with its wicked captivity. I can’t leave here, fearful of what other demons these wild woods can produce. I can’t go back inside to that slain beast, my grandmother decaying in his stomach. I cannot go home, for how would I explain it all to my parents? They’d sent me to check on Grandmother, to bring her flowers and fresh bread, how could I explain all that had happened?

The beast and the boy sail above me, more beautiful than any ball of fire I’ve seen in the sky. I hear them hollering louder and louder. I hear them snarling and growling into the night like wild things, and it sounds like freedom.

Mother always taught me to be cautious of strangers… I consider her disapproval for a breath.

“Well, are you coming?” the boy asks, a humor around the edges of his words, as if my moment of consideration is something to be mocked, as if my answer should come immediately. The question ripples across the glade like a wave, echoing through my body. The impossibility of the request is perhaps the most exciting thing about it. How would I even get up there? And to go where? For a moment, I feel as if I am the one in the boat, leaning over the edge and inviting a stranger to join me on an unknown excursion into the abyss. It is tempting… I had been such a good little girl my entire life, and look where it got me? Face-to-face with a devil who’d swallowed Grandmother whole and tried to rip me to pieces. It was time to defy the rules the way the rules had defied me.

There’s no where else to go, but up, I tell myself, and immediately, my impulsive surrender fills me with an exhilaration that is almost an exact contrast to my earlier state of shock.

I look up at the hovering boat in the sky and nod before I can change my mind. Almost instantly, the boy is hooting and whistling. His monster pumps his clawed fists into the air beside him.

“There,” the boy commands, pointing towards the side of my grandmother’s cottage. “Climb up the side and jump! We’ll come down and catch you.”

Without a word, I sprint towards the side of her home, fighting through thorns from her rose garden, careful not to step in shattered glass. The stone face of her house is easy to grip and before I know it, I am halfway to the rooftop. With each stride upwards, the moonlight’s glow casts a wider net, illuminating my path. I only look down once, granting a final goodbye to Grandmother. I see my shadow cast below me, my cloak like a freedom flag across the ground. As my heart runs its own race inside my chest, I feel my doubts drown out; the beast’s eyes fade away; the memory of tonight’s unspeakable tragedy diminishes. Perhaps, this was the answer to my wish all along. Perhaps, this was the shooting star I had been searching for, come to grant me freedom from my darkest hour.

It takes all of my strength to cast my legs up and over onto the roof, and if not for the adrenaline and excitement of the adventure ahead of me, I might be completely breathless. I spring to my feet, expecting the boy and his boat to be right there waiting; but when I straighten, there is only a horizon of treetops. I scan the empty sky, searching once again for my ball of fire in the vast violet empyrean. My search is almost fruitless, and I feel my heart sputtering against the panic, until a flash finally catches my eye. I catch sight of them, but they are not where they should be. They are far, far away, a distance that seems further than when I had been on the ground. I have to squint to make certain that it’s them, and then it becomes all too certain…

Like a cookie cutter pressed into the moon’s surface, a silhouette of a sailboat soars across its vibrant halo. The beast is snarling, as evil and grim as the one I’d met earlier, while the boy in his animal suit sends maniacal laughter through his splicing lips.

“You should have known to never trust a wolf,” the boy scolds. And then as quick as a shooting star darting across the sky, he sails away, leaving me and my wish behind.