(A/N: Yes, it's another pokeshipping fairytale AU. I really like fairytales, in case you can't tell. This story was heavily inspired by the 2011 Red Riding Hood movie with Amanda Seyfried, but I hope I've managed to give it my own twist as well. It's also another translation, I originally wrote it in Italian in 2012.
WARNING for death of secondary characters, and some blood and violence and general creepiness.)
Red Riding Hood
"Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright."
1.
She's two years old the first time she's told about the danger. She won't remember, later, that this was the first time: they'll tell her over and over, every time the moon is round in the sky and often when it's not, too, and it will become one of those things you just know, you've known since forever, without questioning them.
Her papa takes her in his lap and opens the window. Only a crack, barely enough to see a small slice of the black night sky. "Can you see the moon?" he asks, and she nods: the moon is a perfect white circle against the black. "Look at it," he tells her. "See how round it is?"
He waits for her to nod again, then closes the window, so abruptly that Misty jumps a little. "You must never go out when the moon looks like that," he says. He takes her chin in his rough fingers to make her turn and looks at her in the eyes. "Never. Not even for a moment. Not even look out of the door, or the window. Do you understand?"
Confused, she shakes her head. "Why?" she wants to know.
"There are bad things out there, when the moon is round," he answers. Misty waits for a reassuring smile, a twitch of his lips under the thick blonde mustache, something to tell her that yes, there are bad things out there, but she has nothing to fear. But her papa doesn't smile. His face is tense and serious in the orange light from the fireplace, and it scares her a little. "It's all you need to know for now. Promise me you'll never go out when the moon looks like that."
"I promise," she whispers, shaken. He makes her promise again, then nods, apparently satisfied. He puts her down and ruffles her hair with his hand: "Go play with your sisters," he tells her. He's still not smiling, and for some reason that's what scares her the most. Because it's like he's scared too, and if her papa is scared, so tall and with hands so big that one of them could wrap around both of hers and still have some space left, it must mean that the things roaming about when the moon is round really are bad. That they could swallow a little thing like her whole, should they see her peering out of the window.
That night she'll have a nightmare, a vague dream of nameless and shapeless things with sharp teeth and claws trying to catch her. She'll wake up crying and screaming and her mama will run to hug her. As she'll walk up and down the room rocking her and trying to calm her she'll tell her husband: "You scared her". He'll shrug, and say something that will terrify Misty for years before she finally forgets about it: "Good".
She's told the same thing over and over, until she has no doubt that she should never step outside with a full moon. Sometimes she lies awake at night, eyes wide open in the dark, listening to her sleeping sisters' breathing or their whispers, and looks at the closed window with curiosity gnawing at her bones; but she never even goes as far as to push her blanket away and lay her feet on the wooden floor. "It'll be full soon," their father's been repeatng for the past few days, and when even that last small slice of moon finally took shape in the sky he locked the windows and said, "You remember what I always tell you about full moon nights, right?" and she or one of her sisters answered "that we must never go out". In the dark Misty listens to the wind howling around the house and thinks about her father's eyes, pleased but serious, and a shiver runs down her spine.
She's never told why she mustn't go out. When she asks, they answer that she shouldn't think about such things, and her father's frowning brow tells her it's better not to insist, but she hears some things anyway. People whisper worriedly around the village; they lower their voices and suddenly stop talking when she or some other kid walks by, but once in a while she catches a few words: they talk about an animal, a beast. Sometimes, when the moon disappears behind the horizon and the sun rises, there's screaming.
One morning, when she's eight years old, she hears screams coming from near the house. She recognizes the voice: it's a friend of her mother, and hearing it makes her blood run cold; but her sisters are asleep still, and no one is there to see her sneak out. She slips out of her bed and runs downstairs, bare-footed and still in her nightgown. It's cold, almost winter. The frost freezes her feet. There's a crowd near the pens, and Misty squeezes through it, pushing long heavy skirts out of her way. The thing they're all looking at, she finally sees it, is the carcass of a goat. Or a sheep, maybe, it's hard to tell. Clean white bones stick out of the flesh. On the frost-whitened ground the blood is bright red and frightening.
A hand seizes her arm, yanking her away. "Be thankful I saw you, and not your father," her mother says in an angry whisper, dragging her back home. "Never do anything like this again."
Later, she lies face down on her bed, pouting, her behind still hurting from the spanking. On the other side of the room Daisy, her older sister, brushes her blonde hair.
"Do you know what's out there at night?" Misty asks her. Daisy shrugs a little, without turning.
"Of course," she answers, like she asked if the sky is blue.
Misty props herself up on her hands. "What is it?" she wants to know.
Daisy keeps brushing her hair. She gathers it on a shoulder for a moment, then lets it fall back in a wheat-colored wave. "I shouldn't tell you," she says. "You're too young to know these things."
"I'm not too young," Misty protests. "Come on, tell me!"
Daisy sighs. She sets the brush down, after picking some hair away from it, then says: "A wolf".
"A wolf?" Misty repeats, puzzled. She's seen some wolves. Not up close, of course, because she knows they're dangerous, but she knows they live in the woods around the village. Sometimes she hears them howling at night. Once in a while the hunters bring one when they come back. She frowns, wondering why everyone would fear a wolf so much.
"Not a regular wolf, silly," Daisy says. "A werewolf."
She never heard that word before. "A what?"
"Werewolf," Daisy repeats. She turns, opening her eyes wide and lowering her voice: "One half man, the other half beast. When the moon is full the beast comes out. It's much bigger and much more ferocious than any normal wolf, it's got claws longer than your arms and teeth sharp as knives, and if it finds a living creature… yum! It tears it to pieces and devours it in a moment."
Misty jumps a little, drawing back without even realizing it. Daisy laughs at her reaction.
"I told you you're too young to talk about these things," she comments. "I bet you'll have nightmares tonight."
"I won't have nightmares," Misty retorts, but she thinks about the remains of the goat she saw this morning, the bones still red with blood, and she's not all that sure. "Is that true? What you said?"
"Of course it's true," Daisy says. "Want to see for yourself? Wait outside on the next full moon and you will. And it'll be the last thing you see."
She shudders. "You're making it up to scare me," she says, a little unsure.
Daisy shrugs and turns back. "Oh, if you think so. I'm sure on the next full moon the wolf will be happy to find a little girl instead of some meager little sheep."
—-
"Do you know about the wolf?"
Ash frowns, looking at the river. They met there for the first time: she was playing on the riverbank when she was maybe four or five while her mother washed some old sheets when all of a sudden she heard a wet thump, and she looked up just in time to see a black haired boy fall face first in the shallow water. She remembers laughing as he scrambled to sit, covered in mud and shaking water out of his hair like a wet puppy, and she remembers him shooting her the most offended look she'd ever seen.
"What wolf?"
"My sister told me," Misty explains. She sits next to him by the water, careful to adjust her skirt not to get dirt in it. "It comes out when there's a full moon. It's not a normal wolf, it's half wolf and half man, and if it finds you it tears you to pieces and eats you."
"And you believe her?" Ash asks. He piled a few pebbles next to himself, white and water-smooth. He throws one in the river, trying to make it bounce on the surface, but it's not a good throw: it bounces only once, and just barely, before sinking to the bottom.
"You're no good," she scoffs. "Give me that". She leans over to grab one of the pebbles and throws it, and together they watch it bounce three times before disappearing.
Misty draws her knees closer to her chest. "I don't know if I believe her," she says. "But there's something. I'm sure. Want to know something?"
"What?" he asks. He turns to look at her. He's got a faded-purple bruise on his cheek, yesterday he told her he fell.
"This morning I heard someone screaming," she tells him. She bites her lip a little, hesitating. "There was no one, so I went out to look."
"Are you crazy?" Ash interrupts her. "It could've been dangerous!"
"There were a lot of people around, and it was day already, the moon was gone," she retorts. "It wasn't dangerous. Shut up and listen. I went out and there were all these people looking at something, so I squeezed in to see, and they were all looking at a dead goat. But not just dead, it was all torn to pieces. There was blood everywhere and the bones sticking out."
She shivers a little thinking about it, and hugs her knees tighter. Ash looks at her without saying anything.
"A normal animal wouldn't have done a mess like that," she finishes.
"And you think it was this half-man wolf?" Ash wants to know. Misty shrugs.
"I don't know. But it was something."
Ash thinks about it, turning back to the river with his brow in a frown. She waits a couple moments, then adds: "Don't you ever want to find out what's out there? At night, I mean… don't you ever think about opening a window, or the door, even just for a minute, and looking out?"
"I did it once," Ash answers. Misty was not expecting it. She's taken aback for a moment, then opens her eyes wide.
"Are you kidding?"
He shakes his head. "Uh-uh. Most of the time I sleep and don't think about it at all, but that time I couldn't sleep and then I heard this… something like a growl, right next to the window. So I got out of bed and opened it a tiny bit. I was more scared to wake my father than of anything that could be out there, really."
"Did you see something?" she wants to know. Ash shrugs a little. He takes a pebble from the pile and holds it in his hand.
"I don't know, it was dark."
"You must have seen something!" she insists.
"I did, but I don't know what." Ash says. "It just… looked like there was something black, and big, but maybe I'm wrong because it was dark and it was just a shadow, but… for a moment I thought it was looking right at me. I don't know why, I couldn't see any eyes or anything, I just had this feeling, y'know? And I slammed the window shut. I forgot I was trying to not make noise. The next morning my father said he heard me closing it and he was furious."
Misty stares at him. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He shrugs again. "I thought you'd get scared—ouch!" he cries out, as her hand slams against the back of his head.
"I'm not a wimp," she states. She crosses her arms, trying to hold a grudge, but only manages to for a minute. "Do you think it was the wolf?"
"Maybe," Ash says. He throws the pebble in the river. This time it doesn't bounce at all, it just sinks.
"You're no good," Misty repeats.
"I'm good, you're distracting me," he retorts. He tries again. The pebble plunges in the water one more time.
"That's not how you do it!" she insists. "Watch this."
She grabs another of his pebbles and again she manages to get it to draw three arches on the surface of the river, and hint at a fourth, too, a moment before sinking. Ash puffs his cheeks, pouting.
"See," she gloats.
He sighs, rolling his eyes. "I have to go home, anyway," he says. "I have to help my father with the wood, he'll get mad if I'm late."
He stands and scatters the pebbles with his foot. "You coming?" he asks.
"Mh", she nods. She pulls herself up, brushing dirt away from her dress.
As they walk back to the village for a moment she thinks of taking his hand, not quite knowing why. Maybe it's because she's thinking about the wolf, that could have oh-so-easily jumped inside his window and eaten him, if Daisy's story is true. But she thinks he'd pull back, puzzled or embarrassed; she hides hers in the creases of her skirt.
—-
"Where have you been?" her mother asks, when she walks in.
"I was down at the river with Ash," Misty answers. She closes the door behind her back, leaning on it for a moment.
Her mother sighs slightly. She's busying herself around something, her dark red hair in a long braid falling between her shoulder blades. "You know I don't like it too much, you spending all this time alone with him, right?" she reminds her. "His father is a bad lot. Come here."
"But Ash isn't," she retorts, walking closer.
Her mother turns to her. She's holding a bundle of red fabric; on the table next to her are thread reels and red clippings. She lays the fabric on her shoulders, draping it with care.
"It'll be winter soon," she says. The cape, warm and heavy, falls down to her calves. Her mother observes the length, adjusts it a little around her. She gathers her hair in her hand and pulls the hood up. She looks at her for a few moments, silent, then lays her hands on her face.
"You know I love you very much, right?" she asks, and Misty nods without hesitation.
"If something happened to you, it would kill me," her mother says. "Try not to make me worry anymore, can you do that?"
Misty looks down. "I'm sorry 'bout this morning," she whispers. She bites her lip. "But… I like spending time with Ash."
Her mother sighs again. "Stay away from his father," she tells her. "Believe me, he's not a good man."
"Why?" Misty wants to know. Her mother shakes her head a bit.
"You don't need to know that," she says. Misty thinks she does, but doesn't say it out loud. "Promise me you'll stay away from him."
"I promise," she replies. Her mother smiles, but a shadow clouds her eyes and for a moments her face looks older, the lines around her mouth darker, her skin grey in the light from the fireplace. She lays a kiss on her forehead, then takes the cape back.
"Here, I need to finish it. It'll be good for many winters."
The kitchen smells of bread and spices. Misty sits in front of the fire, trying to shake off the cold of the autumn nearing its end that crept inside her clothes. She's holding one of Ash's pebbles in her hand, she picked it up as she stood. She closes her fingers around it, clutching it against her palm.
—-
One day in December she finds him sitting on the stone steps in front of his house with a rag pressed to his nose. The rag is bloody, and Ash keeps his head tilted back. Misty runs to him, stumbling a little because of the fresh snow and her too-long cape, and sits next to him abandoning the basket of vegetables she bought at the market.
"What happened?"
Ash removes the rag from his face to answer, but his nose is still bleeding and he has to put it back. "I hit my face against the wood pile," he mumbles through the cloth. "I was running and I tripped."
Misty arches one eyebrow. "What a clod," she comments, then leans over. "Here, let me see."
She takes his hands to get them away from his face and he fights a little and then lets her, reluctant. His nose is swollen and red, almost purple, but it doesn't look broken. "Does it hurt?" she asks, and he shrugs and presses the rag against it again.
"No," he replies. He looks down and some blood drips on the snow, between his knees.
"Liar," she retorts. Ash doesn't say anything, and suddenly she realizes he's shivering. He's sitting on the steps wearing only a shirt, snowflakes stuck in his hair.
"Why don't you go back inside?" she asks, frowning. "You'll get cold out here."
Ash shakes his head. He does it quickly, before she's even done saying "you'll get cold", but it takes him a while longer to answer. "My father… got mad, because I'm always distracted and don't watch my steps," he tells her hesitating a little, the cloth smothering his voice. "Better if I stay here until he cools off."
"But he won't want you to catch a pneumonia sitting in the snow," she insists. He shakes his head again.
"I'm fine," he says. He dares to take the rag off again, realizes he's still bleeding and grumbles a "damn it" pressing it back on. Misty watches him tremble, a little puzzled. Then sighs and sits closer, covering his shoulders with a corner of her red cape.
Ash looks at her. "Go away, you'll get blood stains on your dress," he says. She shrugs.
"Doesn't matter. I don't want you to die of pneumonia."
"I'm not dying of pneumonia!" Ash retorts. He does nothing to draw back, though, and curls up a little, pulling his knees closer to his chest.
Misty says nothing. The sky is white; the snow is thickening. Flakes fall on her shoes and Ash's, and on her basket, all tilted to one side and about to tip over. She tries to hook it up with her foot and only manages to push it farther. She puffs her cheeks, but doesn't stand to retrieve it.
Against her shoulder Ash is still trembling a little. She wraps her cape around him a little tighter. In a pocket her mother sewed on the inside she still has his pebble, she feels it press against her side when she moves and lays one hand on it, tracing the round shape through the fabric.
"How romantic."
She looks up. Gary is staring at them, hands on his hips and his lips curled in a smirk.
She glares back. "Very funny," she retorts.
Gary looks at Ash. "What happened?" he asks, his voice more taunting than worried. "Someone noticed how pathetic your face looks and tried to fix it?"
Rather than just replying that he fell and hit his face on the woodpile like he just did, Ash looks down and grumbles "Shut up, Gary". Misty looks at him puzzled for a moment, then stands and walks in front of him, spreading her arms.
"Leave him alone."
Gary blinks, then starts laughing. "He should protect you, carrot top, not the other way around."
"How did you call me?!" she growls. Gary keeps cackling.
"But actually yeah, I think this role suits him better," he comments. Misty balls her fist.
"Stop it!"
"Or what?" Gary teases her. "That pansy of your little beau will run to cry in his mother's skirt?"
A moment later Misty's charged him and punched him straight in the face.
Gary staggers backwards a little, his eyes wide. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth and stares bewildered at the blood from his split lip.
"You're crazy!" he cries out. For a second he looks ready to hit her back and she raises her chin, fearless.
"Want another one?" she growls. He looks at her and shakes his head.
"You're crazy," he repeats. He takes a step back, raises a hand to his mouth again. "I'll tell everyone you're crazy."
He takes a couple more steps back, then turns and walks away, muttering to himself and looking at his hand. Misty turns back to Ash. He stares at her for a couple moments, then starts laughing into the bloody rag.
"What's so— " she starts, but catches herself snickering as well. She lowers her head, hiding her mouth with her hand, trying to stop.
She walks back to him with her lips still attempting to curl into a smile. She takes his hands, gently, pulling the rag from his nose again. "It's not bleeding anymore, I think," she says, after observing it for a moment. "Does it still hurt?"
"A bit," he admits, looking away. Misty holds his hands in hers for another moment and then lets go.
"I have to go now," she says. "I'll be late."
"See you then," Ash replies. She nods and stoops down to pick up her basket, now a bit wet, and tries to brush the snow away from it.
"There's a full moon tonight," she reminds him. She doesn't need to add: be careful.
—-
The wind blows around the house, it sounds like voices. Sometimes she's afraid it'll tear the walls from the ground. The wood creaks, the roof groans under the weight of the snow. The last cracks from the dying fire, the brittle crunch of her straw mattress every time she moves. The pebbles they threw in the river and the day she tried to teach Ash how to do it, taking his wrist in her fingers and guiding his hand. Ash's eyes. He never learned how to throw those pebbles. The moon, round, a perfect circle, white on pitch-black. Big footprints on the fresh snow, she saw them once, someone had tried to wipe them away with some branches but you could still see them a little. She laid her foot on one and they were three times as big. The round pebble in her pocket like a lucky charm. The bones of the goat on the white ground, her red cape on the snow.
It's still dark when she wakes up. She emerges slowly from her sleep, lingering in it for a while. It takes her some time to notice the sound.
It's a breath. Heavy and low, a growl almost. It comes from outside. Misty looks at the closed window and holds hers, still under her blankets with her heart racing in her chest, not daring to move a muscle.
She listens for what feels like hours, barely daring to breathe. The sound is cavernous and hoarse, she pictures it coming from enormous lungs inside an enormous chest. She pictures the thing Ash once saw or believed he saw, huge and black, crouching outside his house like a patient predator; and she can't take her eyes off the window.
It's almost dawn when the breath finally grows dim and stops. Misty lies still for a little longer, eyes wide open in the dark now barely brightened by a hint of pale sunlight, then grasps the blanket and pulls it over her head, curling up in a tight ball.
—-
She wears the red cape for five more winters. On the sixth she takes it off with trembling hands and throws it across the room, thinking she'll never be able to look at it again. She'll pick it up again hours later, smooth the creases with her hands and bury her face in the fabric. She'll curl up on her bed holding it and hoping to cry until she'll wear herself out and fall asleep, but she'll only manage to lose her voice and feel her chest tear into pieces, hurting so badly she'll think she can't possibly take it anymore. The fabric is warm, a little worn out, rough but comforting against her cheek. She strokes it, feeling it soaked with her tears.