Title: Little Red
By: Athena Goddess of the Wise
Summary: "I love you, Grandma." She whispers. And if she closes her eyes and imagines real hard, she can almost hear her grandmother call out, "I love you too, little red."
Rating: T for talk of death.
The coffee tastes bitter in her mouth, and she puckers her lips in disgust. This was not one of the best restaurants she's visited, and she's visited many. She considers not drinking this coffee but quickly throws the idea out of her mind. Though the sludge disguised as a drink was terrible, she knows this is the only diner in the small town, which hadn't changed a bit in all the years.
It's sort of ironic, she thinks as she takes another sip out of the black liquid.
Sort of ironic that after fourteen years, she'd end up right back here. She always knew she would come back sometime, but she's never exactly planned where she goes. She just buys random tickets – bus tickets, plane tickets, boat tickets – and goes wherever. It is all just an…an impulse. And so it was sort of ironic, (more than ironic), that she'd end up in her old home town on the twentieth anniversary of that horrid day.
No one recognized her. She'd long threw away that old red coat (not that it would fit her anymore, as she was only seven at the time) and really, when was she known by anything more that red here? She wasn't the grocers' daughter, or the girl with the golden curls, or anything but red.
The color of blood.
She downs the last few sips of the coffee and walks out of the diner, surveying those around her. She barely remembers the place – she left when she was thirteen, when the people from the orphanage came for her - and yet it's all so familiar, almost burned into her mind. She's tried so hard over the years to loose these memories, and so she's surprised that she actually remembers some things.
The Petersons' bookstore is now run by someone else entirely, and it's no longer Mr. White who owns the only clothing store in town. The ice cream shop is gone altogether.
Finally, she comes to a place she knows better than any. It's re-opened, and she assumes it's because people need a grocery shop. It's no longer called Ruber's Grocery and Convenience Store, but she can still make out the imprint of the words on the brick, the brick that was protected over the years from storms by the neon lighted sign.
She pushes open the glass doors and hears the familiar tinkle of the bells greet her. An overly energetic teenager walks up to her and says, "Anything I can help you with, ma'am?" with a fake smile. She waves him off and walks father into the store.
It's funny how similar the place is from when she worked – lived – here. Everything seems to be set up differently, and yet it's all the same produce and companies, and the walls are still painted the same creamy yellow.
She stands there a while, overwhelmed with memories, until she notices that people are staring. She quickly grabs something – Wonderbread, she realizes under closer scrutiny – and checks out. She hands the cashier the money she's made from working odd jobs here and there. He's still staring at her, as though wondering why she's just buying bread after having been in the store for nearly an hour, but she just smiles and leaves, the jingle of bells saying good-bye to her as she opens the door.
Finally, she works up the courage and goes towards the woods bordering the town. Finding the path is harder than she expects, after years of it not being used, but eventually she finds it, and walks into the woods.
Eventually (because she was taking much longer than necessary, stalling and dawdling) she comes up to a little cottage. It's got a sign on it, that says in big letters, Condemned. She almost laughs, because it wasn't like the towns people even needed a reason not to come here.
She walks over to the rotting door, which swings open with barely any force. She walks right into the kitchen. It's obvious that animals have been in here, taking all the food. It's so dusty she's overcome by a fit of sneezing, and when she finally stops, she marvels at just how run down the home looks.
The used-to-be-cheery living room is gray, and the TV has been stolen. There are moth holes in the curtains, and animal feces' covers the furniture. As she walks through the house, all the rooms are in the same condition. Finally, she comes to the last room, and opens the door.
With slow, uncertain steps, she enters the bedroom.
No animal had come in here. Besides the dust, everything looks exactly as before. There are still her grandmother's flowered blankets, and the hardwood floor, and the dressers, and the curtains –
And on the rug, a giant maroon stain.
Tears prick in her eyes as memories from the night that stain had come upon the floor washed over her. Her grandmother, sick. The basket of groceries her mother sent her with. And the wolf. Watching the wolf eat her grandmother, before running out, screaming. The wolf came after her, but the old woodchopper, the one from Germany, Herr Jakob, killied the wolf before he could reach her. The police, the questions, everything came flooding back.
And then her mother dying of cancer six years later leaving her parentless, and her running away, with a cash register full of money, a backpack full of clothes, and all the food she could manage.
She almost leaves right then, but she looks around her grandmothers' room. She hasn't been here for twenty years. She hadn't visited since she had seen her grandmother mauled, and eaten. She knew there wasn't much left in the house. Her mother had taken most of the possessions, leaving only furniture and food. But she still opened all of the dresser drawers, the closet doors, anything where something could be stored in the tiny bedroom.
She found nothing.
Finally she walked back to the kitchen. Pulling the bag of Wonderbread out of the plastic grocery bag, she places it on the counter. It's a familiar action, as she always brought her grandmother groceries (really, what was her mother thinking when she was so young?). She pulls of the twist tie, just to make it easier for the animals she knows will eat the bread.
As she's leaving, she stops at the threshold and turns around once more to face the empty home.
"I love you, Grandma." She whispers, the same thing she had always whispered when she left her grandmothers' in the evening. And if she closes her eyes and imagines real hard, Kataniya Ruber can almost pretend she was seven years old again, and can almost hear her grandmother call out, "I love you too, little red."
A/N: the name Kataniya means small in some language, and Ruber means red in Latin, and thus her name means "small red" or "little red".