Part IV–

World's End

Oh my – we've been running for even longer than I'd thought!  This forest seems to have no end!  But rest assured; at long last, we've come to a clearing of sorts.  There: do you see it up ahead?  Come – follow me right around this bend in the path…and oh, do have a care, there's a bit of a stream here and you'll not want to fall in (as it's rather cold, believe me).  Here's my hand…good, just keep following…do you see it now?  It seems we have finally come upon our destination—

Grandmother's house.

Let's see – what will be happening right about now?  Ah, yes…

When Little Red Riding Hood reached her grandmother's cottage, she was surprised to find the door wide open.

(Dear me, Red – that ought to have tipped you off right there.)

She poked her head in and looked around.

"Good morning, Grandmother!" she called.  But there was no answer.  Feeling a little frightened—

(And well she might!  This is the Big Bad Wolf we are dealing with here – the original master of villainy in all the old tales!)

Little Red Riding Hood went to her grandmother's room.

Here: if we are quiet enough about it, we may now approach the door to Grandmother's cottage – it is indeed open!  But shh!  Make no noise!  These fairy-tale creatures get remarkably testy when they find they're being eavesdropped on, and we don't want to get a wandering sorcerer's curse dropped like a fifty-pound weight on our heads, now do we?  Listen: you can here them speaking inside…

"Oh, Grandmother, what big ears you have!"

"The better to hear you with."

"But, Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"

"All the better to see you with."

"But, Grandmother!  What big teeth you have!"

"The better to eat you with!"

And at this point, things should have gotten ugly – but they won't, for we, my friend, have stumbled upon what appears to be a far more bizarre fairy-tale than has yet ever been told.  Or, at least, it ranks up there as one of The Few Highly Unpredictable Tales.  Right along with that one penned by my knock-about compatriots, Jacob and Wilhelm – the tale about the little boy whose stepmother killed him and then…oh, there I go again on a tangent.  It's a surprise we got here at all.  Now where was I?

Oh yes!  From what we all know of fairy-tales of this caliber, the Wolf ought to have – by all means and rights – "sprang out of the bed and gobbled up poor Little Red Riding Hood in a single swallow" and then "lay back down on the bed and (fallen) into a heavy sleep".  But I believe that I told you before…this is no ordinary Wolf, and our Little Red Riding Hood is certainly not a wide-eyed and ingenuous child.  If you think that either of them are so, I suggest that perhaps you should backtrack a bit. 

(Or maybe my storytelling abilities just need a bit of tweaking.  Oh horrors.  Three hundred plus pages of this, and to have such a thought…  I shudder, my friend.  I shudder.)

At any rate, we are not now to head to the thrilling conclusion of the Wolf's inevitable demise and Red and her grandmother's rescue at the hands of the audacious woodsman.  No indeed.  In this tale, the Wolf just so happens to form an alliance with Red – one that could not easily be trusted, at first, and Red turns out to be more than a match for him, in cunning as well as intellect.  We must give her some credit, mustn't we? 

Anyways. 

So now the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood are off on a new adventure of their own: off to save the world, in fact, and look who is coming down the path towards us now!  (Quick!  Hide!  Don't let them see us – behind this tree, duck!)  If you will look, you will perceive that a whole company of the most renowned fairy-tale characters has now made their appearance.  And what can such a sight possibly mean but one thing…

Something momentous – more than momentous – is soon to happen.

Of course, you probably already knew that as well as I did.  What else could the alliance of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf mean?

Now let us sit back and watch the action.

(But be careful – a random, stray shot of magic can have disastrous results upon one's physical person, and you really don't want to be turned into a frog…)