Sorry it's been so long. I've had so much homework and now I'm on the tennis team so I don't have a lot of free time. But I'm back now! :) Thanks and enjoy.
Chapter Six
"Come out, come out, where ever you are!"
Red peered out her opened window into the deep, chilly night. The snow was thick and blanketed the entire village – the sky was dark and the moon was nearly at it's highest in the sky.
"Muffet!" She yowled just before the blonde released a snowball, aimed at Red's face. She took off her long, red cloak and ducked as it narrowly missed her head.
"Red, come out with me!" Little Miss Muffet pleaded. "Please? It'll be so much fun to play in the snow! Please, Red, I need to be with you."
"Aw, Muffet…I wish I could. But…my abuela would never let me out this late, the moon's almost at it's highest! I…I want to, more then anything…but I just can't – "
" – Red! Red?" Her grandmother's voice boomed from inside. "What was that? Are you here? Are you still in this house, Little Red?"
"Yes, Abuela," Red answered as calmly as she could. "I'm over by my window. I…" she stopped when she heard her grandmother's footsteps advancing, and shooed Muffet away. "I…was wondering if…can I go out into the snow? Please, Abuela, just look out there, and – "
" – Neita, please!" Her abuela snapped. "You will stay in this house during Wolf's Time, when the moon is full, you understand me? It's not safe out there – would you like to get eaten alive by such a monster?"
"No, Abuela…"
"And why isn't your cloak on?" The girl's grandmother handed the signature red hood back to her granddaughter and made her put it on quickly. "Red repels wolves."
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Abuela opened the door to find a bundle of about six or so men, wielding bows and arrows, swords, and some sort of chains.
"What is this?"
"A Hunting party," answered one of the men. "We want to track down the wolf and run it away from our village. Do you have any recruits?"
"No!" Abuela nearly yelled. "Now go away – go! And never come back here! Understand?"
"Wait, Abuela, let me go with them!" Red let out, and her grandma whipped around to face the girl.
"What?"
"Let me go with them! I could help, I could – "
" – Absolutely not! Red, what I have told you a million times? It's not safe!" She slammed the door shut on the Hunting party and turned back around. At her grandmother's next set of orders, Red trudged to her room. She got into bed with a sigh, and as a defiant remark, ripped off her cloak that her grandma wanted her to wear so much.
The next morning once the sun rose, Red had already heard the news that everyone in that Hunting party was killed by the wolf. Disturbed, she shook herself and got up, still deciding to leave her red hood behind. She went about her morning and planed to do her usual chores – including going out to the hen house to collect their eggs. She made it to the hen house but, in a flash of grand momentum and sort of thirst for something, she took off, full speed into the woods. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, her dark hair whipping her face and then her shoulders, the wind slashing across her body. The deep green of the conifer trees around her and the continuous cover of snow on the ground blurred into screaming colors of green and white, and Red saw nothing else at all – it was almost as if she were caught in a tunnel, not even seeing what was directly in front of her, all of her vision becoming only peripheral. And God, Red thought, it felt good. Instead of her legs aching from all of the running, the opposite happened – when Little Red let herself go like this, she felt a strange form of relief, her body giving over to something wonderful, but still she felt that sort of thirst and need for something…
"Red?"
She stopped, suddenly. Red hadn't realized that she had run all the way to the opposite edge of her village.
"Red? Oh, thank God!"
"Snow? Snow White?"
Snow White, her childhood friend, came to approach her now. She and Red were the same age – right now, fifteen – and had been good friends since they were both very young because of Abuela's volunteering at the kingdom. But why was Snow here now, all by herself? When Red asked she got this reply:
"You mean…you haven't heard what happened? With…with Shelby?"
"No, what do you mean?" Red asked.
"I can't tell you now," Snow responded. "It's not safe. But I need to get away. I…I just need to get away. What are you doing all the way on this side of the village? And without your cloak on?"
"I don't know," was Red's honest reply. "But it's not safe."
"Red, look!" Snow let out, looking at the ground. Around them, there were prints in the snow. The girls decided they'd better follow them – well, Red decided, anyway. The tracks looked normal, at first, but as the girls followed them, there was nothing normal about them at all.
"Look at this," Red murmured, seeing one print in particular – it looked like an ordinary boot-print, but one stride farther and it was that of a wolf. "You don't think…Snow," she started. "Could the wolf be…a werewolf?"
"D-do they really exist?"
"I…I don't know."
They followed the now wolf-prints all through the forest to the point where they looked human again, and led to an unexpected place – Red's window.
"Who was at your window, Red?" Snow asked, gravely serious.
No. It couldn't be.
"But…but…"
"Who was at your window?" She repeated.
"Little Miss Muffet," Red answered. "The girl I'm in love with."
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
"Quinn Fabray," Rachel started, standing with the uneasy blonde in front of the choir room. "Welcome to the New Directions!"
Quinn tried her best to smile and not cringe. She hated being in front of crowds more then anything. She tried to look at everyone's faces, and hold them up to the descriptions Beth had given her about the different characters in her book. Not that it's real or anything, Quinn added mentally. It's impossible! She already knew some of them briefly from lunch just a few periods before, but now Quinn got a chance to really look at them. Rachel and Finn she already knew were a couple, but sitting there in the chairs before her were Mercedes Jones, who was very close by Sam Evans, Kurt Hummel, who was very close by Blaine Anderson, and Tina Cohen-Chang, who was very close by Mike Chang.
Puck, however, was alone.
"Sorry we're late, Mr. Schue!" In came a blonde girl and a Latina girl, both dressed in cheerleading uniforms. The teacher came over to them and asked:
"Do you two have late passes?"
"Yeah," said the Latina one, holding up two yellow slips. "We were helping Coach Sylvester. She signed 'em right here, see?"
"Yes, that's fine," the teacher collected the late slips. "Now go sit down. We've got a new member. This is Quinn."
"Uh, hi…" Quinn drawled, sitting down between Rachel and Puck.
"You know," Puck whispered in Quinn's ear. They forged those signatures – well, Santana did, anyway."
"Why would they do that?"
"So they can make out in the janitor's closet," Puck murmured back. "They do this kind of thing all the time." And after their lesson on types of duets, Santana and Brittany came up to the blonde girl.
"It's Quinn, right?" Santana questioned. "I'm Santana and this is Brittany. We met sort of briefly in the cafeteria today at lunch. Anyway," she started. "We're on the McKinley cheerleading team – "
" – We call it the Cheerios!" Brittany put in with a huge smile.
"Yeah," Santana added. "Now listen here, Quinn – it's our senior year and we really want to win our fourth National Title. And we need a new Head Cheerio…"
"And…you want me?" Quinn asked. "Why would you want me?"
"I don't know…" Brittany spoke again. "You're…you're special."
After school, Quinn waited outside on campus for Beth, who would get out of McKinley Elementary, which was right next door to the high school, at about the same time.
"Do you want me to wait with you?" Rachel asked.
"Oh…um…" Yes, yes, yes. "That's okay, go be with Finn, he's waiting for you. I'll catch up with you later."
"Alright," said the brunette. "See you later," and she walked over to her boyfriend's car.
"Quinn!" Beth called, running out of the school building, with a huge smile on her face. "Why are you here? Not that I'm not glad you are or anything!" She wrapped the older blonde in a big hug. As they walked back towards Beth and Rachel's house, Quinn started:
"So these two girls asked me to join the cheerleading team today."
"Really?" Beth asked. "You should do it!"
"You think?"
"It'll get you closer to them," she added. "Who asked you?"
"This girl Santana and this other girl Brittany," she answered. "Santana was Latina, and Brittany was a sort of ditzy blonde…" by this time, Beth had already taken the book out of her backpack.
"Little Red Riding Hood and Little Miss Muffet," Beth stated. "That's who they really are."
"Oh," Quinn said. "So they're just little girls."
"Um…that's not the story in the book, exactly…"
"What do you mean?" The older blonde asked.
"Uh…" Beth bit her lip, and the two of them stopped and sat on a near by bench, opening up the book on Quinn's lap. "Maybe you should read this chapter…"
Red didn't want to believe it. No – no. It just wasn't possible. How could someone so sweet and innocent and kind be a bloodthirsty monster? That night, she didn't care if her grandmother chastised her when she got back home, she didn't care about anything else at all – Red needed to find Muffet and warn her before it was too late.
"Red!" Muffet called, when she found her in the snow. "Red, you came!"
"Of course I came," Red breathed. "I don't care if it's not safe." She saw the blonde shiver and added: "Are you cold? Here – take my cloak." The girl untied her red hood and wrapped it around the blonde, making her smile. "But I came here to warn you about something, Muffet. You know how every Wolf's Time, the wolf comes back and attacks the village?"
"Yes…"
"Well…I don't think it's just a wolf. I think it's a werewolf. And…and I found tracks this morning…part human, part wolf tracks…" Red cut herself off. It pained her to say this.
"And?"
"And…they led to my window."
"Oh…Red…you don't think – "
" – I don't know," Red interrupted. "But I'll stay here with you. I'll stay here with you, all night long. So…so if anything does happen…I'll stop you. I'll protect you." Red's heart fluttered as Muffet embraced her. "I'll never let anything happen to you."
Both girls tried to stay up that entire night, but they both ended up falling asleep under the stars; under the full moon. A loud sort of sound woke Little Miss Muffet and caused her to stagger to her feet, blinking her eyes.
"Red? Red!"
In Red's place was a snarling, howling wolf.
"Red – please! It's me! It's me!"
The wolf lunged and a howl floated gravely into the dark night.
Abuela woke up with a start at the sound of a wolf's loud howl. Quickly, she ran into her granddaughter's bedroom, relieved to see tasseled dark hair spread across her pillow, the rest of her body and face hidden by the covers. Perhaps she had just imagined it.
"Red…Little Red, get up," she shook her, and rolled her over not to find Red at all, but Snow White instead. "Ahi! You stupid, insolent, girl!" Snow got up and tried to reason with her:
"Please, listen to me – Red wanted to warn Little Miss Muffet about the wolf. We traced these tracks, and – "
"You don't think I know about the tracks?" Red's grandmother yelled.
"You knew Muffet was the wolf this whole time?" Snow gasped.
"Muffet?" Abuela questioned. "No, no – why do you think the tracks came back to Red's window? Muffet's not the wolf – Red is the wolf!"
"What?" Snow was taken aback. "You knew that…Red is the wolf? How could you not tell her?"
"It's in her blood," she sighed. "And that cloak I gave it – it's enchanted. If she wears it, it'll prevent her from changing. Come with me, Princess," she grabbed a crossbow from the other room. "A silver-tipped arrow will do it."
"You're going to…to kill Red?"
"It won't kill her," Abuela spoke as they traced Red's path through the snow. "Only injure her – that is, if it doesn't hit her straight in the heart. Only then would it kill it."
Snow gulped.
"Red! Red!" Muffet yelled from the other side of a tree as Red stalked towards her. "Please, Red, look at me! It's me, Red – I love you!"
Red lunged again.
The silver-tipped arrow was shot at just the right time from somewhere in the near by trees, and connected with Little Red's shoulder. She let out a whimper just like a puppy would let out if someone stepped on it's tail.
"The cloak!" Abuela yowled as she and Snow got closer to the scene. Muffet threw it off herself and draped it over Red, making her human again. She moaned deeply and her eyes were dilated as if she were intoxicated, but did not bleed at all. Suddenly in the distance, flashes of what looked like torches could be seen, and brief 'rah-rah-rah's were yelled out.
"A Hunting party…Red!" Her grandmother shook her. "You need to go! Now!" Red could barely stand, but Snow helped her get to her feet.
"Wh…what happened? The-the w-wolf – "
" – I wasn't the wolf, Red," Muffet murmured.
"But…but if you weren't th-the w-wolf…th-then…?" A strange, almost grief-stricken look appeared on Little Red Riding Hood's face. "N-no!"
"Red, come with me," Snow said as calmly as she could. "We both need to get away now. We can get away together."
"Get…away…?"
"Go now," Abuela added. "It's not safe."
Red's face twisted again and she sobbed and sobbed as she and Snow White ran into the dark horizon. She would never see her village again. She would never see Abuela again. She would never see Little Miss Muffet again.
It was not safe.
So…do you want more fairy-tale stories, or more real-world? Tell me what you think. This chapter followed the OUAT episode called Red-Handed. Review?
