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  GIRL IN THE RED HOOD

  A Retelling of Little Red Riding Hood

  *

  A Classical Kingdoms Collection Piece: Book 4

  Brittany Fichter

  GIRL IN THE RED HOOD

  Copyright 2015 by Brittany Fichter for Smashwords

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is available in print from other online retailers.

  Cover design by Armin Numanovic

  Edited by Julia Byers from byersediting.wordpress.com

  BrittanyFichterFiction.com

  To my mommy, for all the hours you let me hide in my room and write. You encouraged me to explore. You taught me to love the library and to hoard new notebooks and pens. And most of all, you believed in me.

  Thank you.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Grandmother’s Warning

  2. Mark of the Wolf

  3. Finding the Sun

  4. Forgotten Daughter

  5. Rumors

  6. A Boy’s Promise

  7. My Friend’s Keepe

  8. Stay

  9. Don’t Look Back

  10. Wolfsbane

  11. Pure Blood

  13. On One Condition

  14. Escape

  15. To Grandmother's House We Go

  16. Bad Blood

  17. Fair

  18. Grandfather

  19. Dissonance

  20. Morning Glory

  21. Choices

  22. The Wedding

  Epilogue

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  Also by Brittany Fichter

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  1. GRANDMOTHER’S WARNING

  "You don't understand!" Liesel watched in alarm as her grandmother ran after her father and grasped his arm. She'd never seen her grandmother so upset. "People that go to that town...they never leave! You can't take Liesel and Amala there!"

  "And why not, Old Woman?" Warin demanded gruffly. He tossed another sack into the wooden cart before turning to face his wife's mother. The burly man crossed his arms across his chest defiantly. "Once and for all, if it's so dangerous, surely you're willin' to share those secrets you guard so closely, if only to keep your daughter and granddaughter near." Liesel didn't know what secrets her father spoke of, but she wished her grandmother would tell him. The idea of moving to a village her grandmother hated terrified her. Despite her wishes, however, her grandmother just stared up at him desperately, her mouth open and her jaw trembling. But no words fell from her lips; just a silent fear that Liesel could feel from where she stood. A strange pain that the girl had never seen before filled her grandmother's hazel eyes. Warin watched the older woman as well, nodding impatiently when she failed to answer.

  "That's what I thought. Liesel, make sure your mother's comfortable. We're goin’!" Liesel hurried to the back of the cart to make sure Amala was well tucked in beneath the blankets she and her father had piled upon her. As she did, Liesel could hear her father muttering about superstitious foolishness under his breath as he stalked back inside for another bag. "Just an old woman making up stories to keep her children near." He threw a disgusted look at his mother-in-law as she paced back and forth in the darkness of the early morning.

  Liesel wished it wasn't so early. She would have liked to see the large cabin once more in the glow of the morning sun, rather than the flicker of torchlight. This darkness felt alien to her.

  "I know why you're leaving now!" Ilsa suddenly stopped pacing and yelled, so angry her voice shook. "My husband is gone hunting, so you think you can sneak out of here like a thief in the night!"

  "A thief?" Liesel's father stormed over to where Ilsa stood and glowered down at her. "We finally hear of a healer that could cure your daughter, and when I try to take her there, you call me a thief?" His face was red, even in the light of the flame, and each angry word cut Liesel's heart like a knife. She wanted so much to plead for him to stop, to wait until her grandfather came home. He knew much more about the forest than her father did. Shouldn't they ask him if he knew about this village in the great forest before they left for it? But she knew from experience that her pleas would only make her father angrier.

  "Liesel!" Warin barked, still holding Ilsa's glare. "We're leavin’!" With that, he threw the last bundle into their rickety cart, jumped in, and clicked at the horse. Liesel stood frozen in terror behind it as it began to roll away. Without a word, Ilsa turned and ran inside the house.

  "Grandmother!" Liesel shrieked, unable to move her feet. She could hear the cart stop behind her, but she didn't care. She couldn't leave her grandmother. Not like this. As the shriek left her lips, Ilsa sprinted back out of the house clutching a large, colorful, bound leather book to her chest. She shoved it into Liesel's arms.

  "Whatever you do," she sobbed fiercely to her granddaughter, "You must escape those woods!" Warin's large arms closed around Liesel's waist before lifting her and roughly dropping her into the back of the cart. Ilsa still cried out. "Come back to me, no matter what!"

  Tears streamed down the girl's face as she watched her grandmother fall to her knees, wailing as she grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

  2. MARK OF THE WOLF

  By the time the sun rose, Liesel knew the fields they passed were not her grandfather's. They were flat, unlike the rolling hills of her grandparents' land that lay at the foot of the mountain. Her mountain. She watched sadly as its sharp crags softened into blurs, and her eyes strained to see them as their cart rolled along. The dark blue shadows became less pronounced, and the green tree line turned gray. Green rows of vineyards gave way to golden wheat and barley as the land slowly dipped down, and soon the trees came into view.

  The trees were nothing like Liesel had ever seen. Her grandparents' vineyard had small clusters of wooded land here and there on their property, large enough for her grandfather to find some game in, but they were nothing compared to these.

  These woods towered so high they looked from a distance like a great dark cloud hovering over the ground. Their depths seemed measureless, and they stood blacker than anything she'd ever seen before. There were no smaller trees leading up to the giant trunks. The grass simply ended at the bases of the ancient sentinels that guarded the entrance to their wood.

  A chill moved down Liesel's back as they turned right off the main road onto a smaller one that led into the dark domain, leaving the sunlight behind them. There were no flowers growing beneath the trees. Liesel could only imagine that the lack of light choked the life out of anything that might begin to sprout here beneath the twisted canopy. By the time they'd been in the forest an hour, no sunlight reached the forest floor, just the shadows of branches, which entwined themselves with a surprising thickness.

  As her courage thinned, Liesel tried to remind herself why they were venturing into such a strange place to begin with. Her mother didn't stir as Liesel gently tucked a stray piece of hair behind her pale ear. She hadn't stirred in a long time. After watching her for a moment more, Liesel sighed and pulled out her grandmother's book.

  It had shocked Liesel when her grandmother had pressed it into her arms. The book was Ilsa's most guarded possession.

  "Reading is a privilege, Liesel," her grandmother had sternly told her when she was a young child, protesting the reading lessons Ilsa insisted on giving her. "Most people do not have such a privilege. But believe me, in all the places I've been, in all the disasters and miracles I've seen, reading has been the key to unlocking the most wonderful of secrets." Opening the book to a random page, Li
esel began reading to distract herself from the increasing darkness they continued to ride into. Written in her grandmother's own hand, with pictures drawn by her grandfather, Liesel marveled again at all the places they had ventured to to record such wonderful adventures. If she tried very hard, it was possible sometimes to pretend the path her family journeyed was an adventure in her book. But then, some strange sound from the trees would startle Liesel, and she would have to start trying to pretend all over again.

  When night fell, or Liesel guessed it had fallen, as it was darker than she had ever known possible, Liesel's father stopped the cart horse and started a fire, cursing quietly into the night as he fumbled with the tinder. When the fire was finally of a decent size, he began to roast some salted fish they'd brought with them, and Liesel once again checked on her mother.

  What had become a year of endless sleep for her mother had begun more abruptly than Liesel could have imagined possible. When it had happened, they'd been working in their herb garden together, a task both Liesel and Amala enjoyed. The garden was small and neat, nothing compared to the size of her grandmother's garden out on the vineyard, but decently sized for a garden in the city.

  "Keep working on that mugwort, will you?" Amala had slowly risen and begun to walk back to the house. "I'm feeling a bit overheated. I think I'll go lie down for a few moments."

  "Are you sure, Mother?" Liesel had begun to rise to follow her mother inside, but Amala had waved her back down, her brown eyes smiling warmly at her daughter. "Thank you, no. I'll be fine. I just need a bit of rest, that's all." That was the last smile her mother had given. A moment later, Liesel heard a thump and the sound of pottery breaking. Running in, she found her mother unconscious on the floor. She'd feared the worst at first, thinking her mother dead, but then she saw the shaky, shallow breaths Amala stilled forced in and out. Sprinting into the street, Liesel had screamed for someone to let the town healer. Women had gathered to do what they could, but upon the healer's arrival, nearly all hope was lost. A slumber malady, the healer had called it, a sickness without a cure. Liesel had felt as though she might pass out as she stared down at her mother on the bed, white as the Holy Man's robes and as still as glass.

  Upon the their friends' urging, Warin and Liesel had moved out of their city cottage and into Amala's parents' home on their vineyard at the foot of Liesel's beloved mountain. From there, Liesel's father and grandparents had sent word to towns near and far, begging the healers to come up and examine her mother. And many had come, although Liesel sensed it was generally in hope of the reward promised by her grandparents to the one that could cure Amala, as opposed to a common sense of integrity. Despite the generous reward, however, soon there were no more healers, just a woman clinging to life with little more than the ability to swallow and breathe. There had been little hope.

  "We've seen this before, Warin," Liesel had once heard her grandmother whisper softly to her father.

  "Yes, yes," her father had brusquely replied. From the corner that she’d hidden in to eavesdrop, Liesel could imagine him rolling his eyes. "And the fairy of the land healed the fair maiden and they lived happily ever after." His voice was thick with mockery, but Liesel knew too well it was how he hid the pain.

  "But it's true!" her grandfather had insisted. "If you would only be willing to go to them and ask for the fairy-".

  "I'll not be runnin' about the land, chasin' after a daydream while my wife draws her last breaths!" Warin had bellowed. "We've been through this before! There is no magic!" The stubborn outburst was no shock to Liesel, who’d heard Warin's countless rants before. That was why it had surprised Liesel so much though, when her father had listened to the stranger instead.

  Just a few days before their secret escape, Liesel had been chasing a runaway chicken in front of her grandparents' house. Out of the corner of her eye, she'd been watching a man walk up the long road from town. Considering the vineyard was the last piece of land before reaching the mountain, she knew he could only have been heading for them. He'd stopped for a moment before starting up the path to their door, studying her for an unusual length of time. Hesitantly, Liesel had waved, which gave him the courage, or audacity, as Warin had put it, to come up to the house and talk to the girl as if she was of age. Liesel had found it quite enjoyable though, despite her father’s later grumbling. Thirteen was a strange age to be. She was expected to do the work of a woman, but was ordered around as the babies were. And this man seemed to read her mind.

  "You're a little old to be chasing chickens, aren't you?" He'd smiled easily as he walked up the dirt path to the house. Liesel felt herself blushing as she returned the smile,

  "Yes, but if I don't, no one will."

  "Well, that's a good way to think of it if nothing else," he'd laughed. His clothes were simple, but clean. In fact, their detail suggested a bit of authority, someone with more influence than a simple tradesman. He spoke clearly and smiled pleasantly, but Liesel hadn't missed how his eyes traveled up and down her the way her grandfather eyed a horse he might purchase. "Is your father nearby, perhaps?" Liesel had fetched her father from the field, wondering the whole time what the stranger could want. He answered her question when he introduced himself to Warin.

  "Good morning, sir! My name is Izaak," he'd greeted her father enthusiastically. "What a lovely vineyard! And your name is?" Liesel nearly let out a giggle. Whatever he wanted, this man was not off to a good start.

  "Warin," her father had grunted. "What do you want?" Izaak looked slightly taken aback by Warin's brusqueness, but recovered his smile quickly.

  "I'm not familiar with this countryside, I must admit. I've never seen anything quite like your land-"

  "It's not mine," Liesel's father had turned and started walking back to the fields. The thin stranger followed.

  "So, you aren't a farmer?"

  "Blacksmith."

  "And you're out here because...?" Warin turned sharply to face the man.

  "Look, I'm busy. What do you want?"

  "I must confess," Izaak finally lost his smile and sighed. "My village suffered a great sickness last winter. Many died, and there are few to take their places. I'm looking for strong men who could move out to work in our village." Liesel felt the first ripple of unease when she saw her father's eyes light up at the mention of moving. While Warin had agreed to live at the vineyard, everyone knew he hated living with his wife's parents. Then disappointment settled into his face.

  "Interestin' as that sounds, my wife is ill. We've had healers from all over to see her, but none could help." The man's eyes brightened again.

  "Ah, but since the sickness, we have a new healer! She came to us from the Far East with herbs and salves few around here have seen! And I know she hasn't been to see your wife yet because she refuses to leave the village." The moment he mentioned the new healer, Liesel knew they were going. It wasn't long before all of the details of the move were settled between the two men.

  "Liesel," her father had called to her as the thin stranger left. "Don't tell your grandparents quite yet. I'll tell 'em when it's the right time." The right time came two nights later, apparently, when her grandfather was gone hunting, and her grandmother was powerless to stop him. And now they were in the middle of a forest without light.

  "We're almost there," Liesel whispered to her mother before laying a goodnight kiss on her cold cheek. Leaving the vineyard was the last thing Liesel had wanted to do. As she stared into the fire her father had built, however, Liesel decided that maybe it was worth a try. She would do anything to have Amala back.

  They rose early again the next morning and continued along the road. The further they traveled, however, the more uncomfortable Liesel felt. These woods felt sick. Though no direct sunshine had penetrated the trees the first day they'd entered the great forest, it had still been light enough. But on the second day, even the brightest spots made the forest appear the way the sky had during the darkest storms back on the vineyard. Liesel looked down at her bright r
ed cloak, suddenly glad for the vivid color in such a dull place.

  They arrived at the town late that afternoon, or what Liesel guessed to be afternoon at least. Glad to see signs of life after their strange, solitary ride, Liesel smiled at the first passersby she saw. Men, women, and children came out of their thatch roofed cottages to stare at the newcomers, but oddly enough, no one returned her smile. Further into town, a small child raised her hand to wave, but her mother pushed it down and hurried her out of the street. Soon the houses grew closer together, and shops, stalls, and larger buildings all blended together until they could see what looked like a town square up ahead.

  "Father," Liesel called in a low voice. "It doesn't look like there was an illness here recently."

  "What do you mean?"

  "All these people...the shops are full, and people are everywhere."

  "Bets are they're like us," Warin said with a shrug. His nonchalant attitude didn't fool Liesel, though. She could see him looking at the people as well, a small frown furrowing his brow.

  When they reached the well in the center of the town square, Warin pulled the horse to a halt and instructed Liesel to stay with her mother. He was on his way up to the steps of the largest building Liesel had seen yet, when a rather rotund man walked purposefully towards them, Izaak trailing nervously after him.

  "You must be our new blacksmith!"

  "Which is odd, considerin' I just passed one up back there," Warin frowned at Izaak, his lilting accent making his displeasure even more obvious. "You said there had been an illness that wiped out the village." Izaak paled a bit, but the other man, unfazed, stepped forward with an overly friendly smile.

  "We can always use another blacksmith, especially as ours is getting along in years."

  "And you are?"