. . . But God, or whatever is up there, even if it is just a hungry mouth. . .
These little hands are cold.
So whose hands are these, the little tar-baby sticky black hands in the witch's stomach? Are they the hands of the children, or the witch, or Little Red herself, pulling this new-and-unimproved Red into somewhere they can keep the world safe from her?
The world need protecting from new Red. Red knows this, and she does not care. What she knows is that she once needed protecting from the world, and it did nothing. So now she will do nothing, and see how the world likes being at her mercy.
And so, with a slash of metal, life returns, reborn from her third almost-womb, born once, killed once, released and reborn. Red will not rely on woodsmen anymore, woodsmen who come too late. Now Red relies on Red, who most of the time she thinks she can trust.
Most of the time. Except sometimes she betrays herself, with a word or a glance or anything that puts a crack in the shell. Most of the time, except for when children are devoured and she remembers Little Red, who was innocent and died and became Red, who is tough and cruel. Not who Little Red wanted to be, but Red survived. Most of the time, except for when atheism is not enough and she believes someone up there is out to get her, or eat her, or both.
So the witch's stomach yawns open, and Red is reborn into the light, cloak dyed fresh, bright, bloody red once again.
