I do not own Red Riding Hood. I only invented a few characters.

Chapter 3 – Old/new acquaintances

The next morning my foster-father went out early with the other woodcutters, but my foster-mother and I stayed at home, cooking for the men. I was an awful cook, especially in the kitchen. Our orphan-aunts, how we called them, only taught us cooking once, and I was really really bad at it.

Suddenly in the morning someone knocked on the door. My foster-mother opened the door and I could hear a young man speaking to her.

'I'm here to welcome your foster-daughter,' he sounded really nice and handsome. According to his scent he was a blacksmith.

'Vanessa?'

I walked to the entrance door and stepped to see a handsome young man, also probably in his thirties in front of the door. My foster-mum already went into the kitchen again to look for the cookies. When he spotted me, he nearly screamed.

'Who-, who-, who are you?'

'I'm the new foster-child,' I answered normally.

'You don't know your parents, do you?'

'No...,' I was really confused about how the people here acted when they saw me.

'You look exactly like someone I met before. Someone I have bad memories about, but never mind, welcome in Daggorhorn. I hope you like it here so far.'

'Yes, thank you,' I forced a smile, but that my foster-father and he now looked so crazy when they saw me didn't let me go. I still thought about it.

'I'm Henry. The town's govner. I'm sorry that I couldn't come yesterday, but I was very sick. I feel better now,' he smiled also at me and carried on, 'If you don't feel well or something is wrong, you can always come to me to the smithy.'

I thanked Henry and wanted to close the door again, but suddenly a scream from the market place filled my ears. Henry had heard it too and we both ran to look for the cause.

'What happened?' Henry asked as we approached to a mob of people.

'My husband, is he dead?' a woman asked whining on the ground.

Henry made himself a path through the people, but I stayed behind the mob, not seeing anything.

'He's still alive, get the doctor!' Henry screamed from the inside of the mob. A few people ran off into several directions, not entirely sure where the doctor was right now.

What was going on there? What happened?

'What happened?' I asked a woman who was standing in the back rows of the crowd.

'A wolf attack, I knew this would come, why didn't I see it coming?'

'Excuse me, but what do you mean?' I looked at the woman and she just eyed me as if I was crazy or something. 'You look familiar,' she whispered. I didn't care to answer that again. Why did everybody see me familiar? I was here for the first time in my thirteen years!

'I haven't seen your face around here before, are you new?' she finally asked.

'Yes, I'm the new foster-child.'

'I was told that you were thirteen years old?'

'I am.'

Suddenly someone grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the other woman.

'Why did you just leave? I was worried about you,' it was my foster-mother.

'I'm sorry,' was everything I managed to say.

We went back to the house and my foster-mum locked the door.

'What did the woman mean when she said a wolf attack?' I had to ask her. I felt such a strong confidence around here and that I could ask her just everything.

'A wolf attack?' foster-mum dropped something from the kitchen, but hurried quickly to get it again.

'Yes.'

She stayed silent. Neither did she move. After some time I guessed she didn't want to answer me and was on my way upstairs.

'Wait. You have to know it, if you're staying here now,' she said and turned to face me again. In her eyes I could see a sea of fear and sorrow.

'Our village has been harassed by a werewolf since we can remember,' she made a small pause, 'until thirteen years ago.'

Another dramatic pause. Was she making a fool of me?

'We always served the werewolf well, until one day he attacked one of our villagers in a Blood Moon week. Our child claimed she could hear the werewolf speak and that he only asked for one thing: her. So a crazy werewolf-killer came to our village and wanted to sacrifice our daughter. They were bloody nights back then and we lost our daughter. She was only seventeen. Since then the wolf vanished and we had no fear until now again. In a Blood Moon week,' she took a deep breath and carried hysterical on, 'They surely will blame you for all this. You came and a wolf attack followed. I have to do something about it,' she went crazy up and down the kitchen, but then calmed herself again.

Was this all true or was she really making a fool of me? Somehow I just couldn't believe the story she put so much effort into. Maybe she was right after all. Maybe all the villagers will blame me. But I didn't even know Daggorhorn's faith until I came here. I couldn't have brought the werewolf back again, could I?

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