To Eat You With, My Dear

   Once I was told a story about a time when we weren’t afraid of the forest, a better world in which we could run far without getting lost. It was my Grandfather’s golden days of when he was a cub, his prideful youth spent under the canopy of evergreen treetops. Now it’s gray all over; in the skies and under foot. I am not as gray as the world seems.

There was a time once when I’d obey every rule of the Alpha and this rule above all not because it was what the pack had forbade me but for the fear of going in and none to come after me. Now this time I am going no matter what, no matter how big the dark of the wood is compared to my small grayness. My cub paw scratches the snaky damp grass as I stare at the great wall of looming trees.

I once had a Grandfather not long ago we had been near the forbidden woods when we heard a wolf calling out into the crisp air. It was not a call to the moon but a shrill dead-in-the-tracks howl for help.

“Grandfather, what should we do”, I cried.

My Grandfather looked around first before he said, “it sounds close. I’ll just go in to see if I can see anything”.

I protested but he assured me that he wouldn’t go far and would come back right away if he couldn’t get to the other wolf in time.

“If I don’t come back in five minutes send the others,'' he instructed.

I watched him bound off and disappear into the forest, the darkness swallowing him. The longest five minutes passed and I tried calling him but when there was no answer I had to leave to get the pack. Two volunteered to the rescue mission but they also were gobbled by the woods and it was decided that no more lives could be put in danger.

I was once a cub that would have whimpered helplessly in front of this forest instead of breaking the rule, of breaking through my own fear. I was once still but not this time, this time I moved quickly cutting through the wind with my teeth gritting with intention. The grass whipped across my tail and combed through my fur. My heart plummeted in the moment I passed the first tree.

I raced along the leaf ridden ground immediately picking up his scent and following it with such intense focus that I barely noticed the seconds ticking off in the world around me. Time itself seemed to both stop and fast forward. I followed the scent here and there, to this tree and that hole and then...then it seemed to be everywhere, all over and therefore nowhere. It was this meadow where I lost his scent; where at first his scent covered all the world and in this meadow the blue, yellow, and white wild flowers overpowered his scent with their own. I sniffed peaches and flowers; I sniffed again, what’s that sniff, sniff...meat. A thunder grumbled through my stomach after the crash of hunger lit up my gullet. It was there, the meat, crouched down putting it’s freshly picked flowers into her wicker basket that dangled over her elbow. She was a girl child, small to humans as I was to the Alpha. I couldn’t see much of her because she was wearing a long red cape with her hood drawn up on her head, the point of it sticking straight up in the air like the point of a spear. My mouth watered and I got down to the ground creeping towards the little girl in the red hood.

“Hello, my friend,'' she said.

Startled I didn’t know what to do but perhaps I could wait longer for a chance to catch my meal off guard. For now I’d better play along “ hello”, I said “ are you out in this forest. Do your parents not allow you to come here”?

“I live here,'' she laughed.

“But isn’t it dangerous”, I asked.

“Anything can be dangerous under the right circumstances,'' she replied and held out a flower to him,'' Do you see this flower? What do you think? Is it pretty?”

I got closer to it and my red hooded lunch “it is a bright color,'' I sniffed “ and it smells nice too”. 

The last remark was directed more towards my meal than the flower but she probably didn’t know that.

“Ay, it does,'' she said looking down on it. “But you shouldn’t eat it,'' she added.

“Why not” I asked and couldn’t help sounding offended.

“Because you’ll die, because it’s poison and if you eat it your blood will forget to let you breath”, she placed it back into her basket “because anything, even a pretty flower can be bad for you if you misuse it”.

She went back to picking her flowers and at first I thought to make my attack while her back was once again turned towards me but I wanted to know one very important thing.

“Have you seen other wolves around except bigger than me” I asked.

“Every once in awhile I do” she said “ in fact there’s a sick one back at my camp”.

“What does he look like? Is he okay” I asked feeling out of breath.

“He’s okay, just sick and can not be moved out of bed at this time” the girl explained.

“And what did he look like” I asked again “ did he have a white circle on his forehead right in between his eyes”?

The girl tilted her head to the side “oh yes I think so” she said “and he looked a bit old”.

‘I can eat later’, I thought.

“Can you take me to him please” I begged.

“Of course,” she said standing up “this way. Follow me”.

I felt like I had been pinned under a boulder for days and now finally the pressure was taken off of my heart.

I trotted along behind my skipped lunch deeper into the wood. We didn’t follow a path but she seemed to have a wolf sense of scent like me otherwise how she was to have known the way I know not. Above the trees, through the leaves and branches the sky was darkening, becoming pregnant with storms. The way before us opened out to a large encampment of several giant tents. There were many more red hooded morsels: little ones playing a game with pebbles and drawings in the dirt, mothers suckling their babes under the warmth of their red cloaks, and the others sharpening, and building, and thatching. This pack was all women and none of men, no Alpha...such a lucky feast we shall have. The girl stopped at a tent as red as their hoods and lifted the flap.

“He is in here,” she said and reigned me inward with a hither finger. She let the flap go and it fell with a loud swish behind me leaving me in the quiet darkness of the place save for one candle flame on its way out. The air inside was stale and smelled like wood rot. Far into the darkness of the tent in front of me I could make out a shape that appeared to be a pallet on the floor. Something rustled on it moving in between the mat and the blankets.

“Gr-Grandfather” I said.

There was a greater rustle before a scratchy voice sounded nothing like Grandfather’s voice answered, “my little Pup is that you”?

I saw some wolf ears illuminated by the flicker of the flame and my heart skipped when my eyes caught the white patch of fur.

“I’m so happy you are alive Grandfather I don’t know what I’d do if I had lost you! I’m sorry I came into the forest but I had to find you no matter what” I exclaimed.

Perhaps it was my imagination but I thought I heard a soft chuckle and then a cough.

“Are you okay Grandfather” I asked “they told me you were sick”.

“Oh I’ve never felt better Pup. Would you come closer to me so that I may hear you better my dear” he said.

I krept closer and when I stood directly in front I could see much clearer now the pallet and my Grandfather sitting up in bed in a very peculiar way; his legs seemed to lay flaccid and limp over the covers and he was staring wide eyed at me. I’ve ever seen his eyes so wide nor his body so flat.

“Grandfather, what big eyes you have” I stated.

“The better to see you with my dear” he casually explained.

I saw a glint of steel, sharp and pointy reveal itself from in between my Grandfather and the blankets.

“And what’s that for Grandfather” I asked.

My Grandfather got taller reaching far up above almost touching the top of the tent and under him standing up out of the covers was a red hooded woman smiling at him with her own razor teeth. On top of her head she wore my Grandfather who had no bones and lay as flat as a blanket himself.

“To kill and to eat you with my dear,” the woman said with a cackle.

Red hoods began to come in and line up in a circle chanting and throwing their arms up in a V towards the air. The woman who wore my Grandfather lifted up the dagger above me and that's the end I fear.