Girl in the Red Hood (15 page)

"Now look what you've done, gone and scared
the poor girl with your stories." She waved her hand dismissively
at her friend. Liesel realized her mouth had fallen open in horror,
and tried quickly to pull herself back together.

"No, I understand that it is just a story
but," she paused, "does the Wolfsbane supposedly work?" Mrs. Thull
shrugged.

"Who knows? Most parents put it on their
porches now just to scare their children and keep them from
straying too far out into the woods. But it doesn't hurt, I
suppose. I'll tell you one thing, though. I've lived here all my
life, and every family that I have ever seen move to Ward has
stayed there. Not one has ever left. Not one. Ada!" She suddenly
called out to her small daughter. "Don't touch that!" And in a
moment, both Mrs. Thull and her friend were gone. The story weighed
on Liesel's mind, however, as she walked home. There was too much
to the legend that reminded her of Ward. They had laughed that it
was just a children's story, a legend to keep little ones home and
safe. And yet, it was somehow too familiar for comfort.

Liesel hurried home with her little basket
of apples, too lost in thought to acknowledge the people she met on
the street. As she reached to open the carved wooden door that
adorned the Beckes' home, she realized she'd been rubbing the scar
on her right hand. It tingled. Nonsense, she thought. The scar
hadn't hurt in years. It was just her imagination.

"Oh, there you are, Liesel," her mistress
greeted her with a mischievous grin. Despite the fact that her hair
was graying, it was easy to forget Ros's age when she was up to
some mischief. "Fridric was here again. He left you-"

"Flowers in the hall," Liesel rolled her
eyes and smiled, briefly forgetting the troublesome Wolfsbane.
Right on time, Fridric never missed a morning.

"You really should give him a chance," Ros
shook her head indulgently. "He truly does like you, unlike Benat."
Liesel gave an unladylike snort. Fridric was in fact a sweet young
man, if not a bit too obsessed with his horses. Very tall and so
lanky he appeared almost skeletal, he had approached Liesel the
first time she'd attended Holy Day with the Beckes, and there he
had declared himself in love with her on the spot. Despite her
assurances that she wasn't currently looking for a man to attach
herself to, he had persisted, certain that being the wife of a
horse breeder was what she desired in her heart of hearts. Liesel
had done her best to avoid him at first, but very quickly she'd
realized that meant not going anywhere at all. Fridric's parents
were good friends with the Beckes, and the families talked often.
In time, she had learned how to handle the kind, somewhat overly
sensitive man, especially when his imagination got the best of him.
If she was honest, it was rather akin to handling a very large
child.

Benat Hass was another story. An older, less
enthusiastic man, Ros reported that he had a bad habit of chasing
every unattached woman that came through Tag. Sure enough, as soon
as he'd noticed Fridric trailing about after Liesel, Benat had
simply followed suit. He was older than Fridric by at least ten
years. Old enough, according to Ros, to know better. He was even
taller than Fridric, but he was also broad. His mustache was thick
and bushy, but it was only as wide as his mouth. It reminded Liesel
of the caterpillars that used to crawl into her mother's garden
back in Weit. Rather than using his knowledge of horses to impress
Liesel, as Fridric did, however, Benat simply attempted to assert
himself as Liesel's protector wherever she went.

"I am quite safe with the Beckes," she had
assured him once, exasperated after he'd seated himself next to her
at the church on Holy Day and had spent the whole service resting
his arm on the bench behind her. It had unnerved Liesel so much at
one point that Ely had been forced to call on him and have a very
stern discussion about the appropriate way to treat a young woman
that was not his wife.

Fridric had somehow gotten wind of the
conversation, though it was meant to be private, and there had very
nearly been a fistfight in the town square, which Liesel knew would
not have ended well for Fridric. The only way she could think to
prevent the inevitable duel was by announcing to everyone that she
was saving money for the journey back to her grandparents' home in
Weit. It was a truth she had been hoping to keep to herself, as she
knew it would pain the Beckes, but it did at least stop the fight.
Since then, the two young men had backed off a little, but only
just. Fridric still picked wildflowers for her daily, and Benat
still made sure he had the seat next to her at every public event
she attended.

"I wish the poor man would spend his time
and flowers on another girl," Liesel shook her head. "I have told
him a hundred times that I am not staying here." Ros sighed.

"I know. I just wish you would reconsider.
We will miss you terribly when you're gone." Liesel drew the older
woman up in a hug. She still missed Amala every day, but Ely and
Ros Becke had been the healing her soul had needed after the brutal
and abrupt deaths of her parents. Though she was technically the
hired help, there was nothing the Beckes would not have done for
her. It pained her to think about leaving them. Her only comfort
was that the journey back to Weit was quite expensive, so saving up
for it was taking a long time. Going back through the forest would
have been more economical by far, but Liesel knew better than to
even consider that route. Instead, she would take the long way home
that went around the woods completely. For such a journey, she
would need to save for at least another year. But thanks to the
Beckes, that was just fine.

In a desperate attempt to distract her
mistress from the sad conversation they seemed to have every day
after Fridric's flowers arrived, she held up her basket of apples.
Ros smiled as she pulled one out and felt it.

"Perfect for my pie! Let us begin, shall
we?"

It wasn't until that evening that Liesel
remembered the Wolfsbane conversation. Supper had been served. The
pie was baked and sitting out to cool. Ely was sitting in his
favorite chair making notes about a new herb he'd purchased from a
foreign peddler. Ros, looking neat and proper as ever in her blue
day dress, was sewing, and Liesel was seated on the floor between
them using a mortar and pestle to crush dried herbs for Ely. She
balked at asking about something as silly as a legend, but as much
as she wanted to forget her past, the cries of the wolf she'd heard
last night were too real for her to ignore.

"I have a question," she blurted out, not
sure how else to begin such an assuredly awkward conversation. Ely
looked over his spectacles and raised one eye.

"Yes?"

"I was at the market today, and I heard...I
heard two women discussing Wolfsbane." Liesel didn't miss the
exchange of glances between Ros and Ely as she spoke. She tried to
make her voice sound jovial. "I know it's all just a legend, but
they said it was time to put the Wolfsbane out when the wolves
cried. If the people here believe it's just a legend, why do they
still put it in front of their doors?" She laughed nervously. "I
know it's just a story, of course. I'm just curious." Her
trepidation grew, however, when Ros put her sewing down, and Ely
removed his spectacles.

"Part of it is superstition," Ros began
cautiously.

"But?"

"It's not entirely false, either." Liesel
shivered, and it wasn't from the cold. "The Wolfsbane part is
legend," Ros continued. "Wolves will enter any place they like,
Wolfsbane or none. If a wolf wants something, the only way likely
to stop him is through an arrow to the heart."

"How do you know that?" Liesel hoped her
voice didn't sound as terrified as she felt, her heart beating
faster than it had in a long time.

"From time to time, people move to a small
town called Ward in the center of the forest," Ely said. "We've
known several families who have made the move. But once they are in
Ward, they never leave."

"But I've heard that visitors and peddlers
like Gil travel through there often. Why are they allowed to leave
while others can't?" Liesel knew the answer, but the Beckes didn't
know that.

"There is a difference between stopping at
an inn for the night and choosing a place like Ward to raise your
family in." Ely shook his head, disgusted. "The fools ignore the
warnings every time."

"None of them escape?" Liesel struggled to
keep her voice even. "I mean, after moving there?"

"Not one has ever returned," he answered
solemnly.

"I had a friend once who disappeared the
last time they howled like this." Ros picked up her sewing again,
but frowned at it now as she worked. "We were just young women
then, a bit younger than you are now. Her mother had always loved
the forest, but her father wanted to leave Tag. He was a restless
sort of man. When a gentleman came to Tag to see if any of the men
were interested in working in the mill, they left with him.

"We managed to send letters back and forth
for a while by paying the grain masters, but I never saw her
again." Ros's brown eyes grew more and more troubled as she spoke.
"She wrote repeatedly that the village was strange. No one smiled
at her, and only a few would even talk with her. Her mother died
without warning. Just slipped away in her sleep one night. Her
father died a year later in an accident while chopping firewood."
Ros shook her head. "I remember the night of the last howling. It
was much like last night. I had gotten my last letter from her a
month before. She was planning on returning to Tag. Her uncle lived
here, and she'd wanted to return to him. The poor man nearly went
mad with grief when his sister died. When his niece never returned,
he set off to Ward to find her. That was the last we ever saw of
him." Liesel's mistress paused, pain etched into her handsome face.
It was the closest to despair Liesel had ever seen her. "It would
have been easier to lose her if I could have known she had at least
one soul to turn to there."

Liesel felt as though her blood had turned
to ice. It took all of her willpower not to tremble. Memories she
had long ago buried were resurfacing faster than she could count
them. She swallowed to steady her voice.

"But why are the grain masters, peddlers,
and travelers allowed in and out of Ward if no one else can leave?"
she asked again. "And how long has this been going on?"

"I asked a grain master once," Ros said. "He
only said, 'People in Ward need grain and cloth like everyone
else.' But that's all he would say, no matter how I pleaded to
know." Liesel was about to ask another question, but Ely
interrupted her, his lean face stoic.

"Liesel, we've been careful not to ask too
much about where you came from. It was easy to see that you'd had
trouble, and we didn't want to hurt you. But I am going to ask you
something now, and you'd better tell us the truth. Did you come
from Ward?" Liesel stared at him. For four years, she had hardly
been able to utter the name of that wretched village. Finally,
someone knew. Still unable to simply affirm his guess with a yes or
no, she whispered,

"How did you know?"

"That night I found you pleading with Gil
Gaspar in the Tavern, Gil had just come from Ward. I heard him tell
one of his friends over the ale before we left." Liesel stared at
Ely, unable to utter a word as he continued to unravel her secrets
all by himself. "And to this day, Gil refuses to even look at you."
Though she was still unable to speak it, Liesel felt relief well up
within her as she stared at Ely. No one had ever guessed she'd come
from Ward. Gil wouldn't talk about it, and she hadn't been able to
bring herself to discuss it with anyone else. She had always
wondered why none of the other townspeople had ever guessed she had
come from Ward. Now that she knew its history, however, perhaps it
was because no one ever had escaped Ward. She was the first.

"Liesel, what exactly happened there?" Ely's
face was severe, but after living with the healer and his wife for
four years, Liesel knew he was concerned for her, rather than
angry. Liesel wet her lips and tried to tell them. Oh, she tried!
But no matter how much she tried, no words would form in her mouth.
She could only stare at them miserably.

"What about that scar?" Liesel looked down
to see that she was rubbing the back of her hand again. And again,
it was tingling.

"I wish I could tell you," she whimpered. It
was a long moment as Ely and Ros studied her intensely. And as much
as she wanted to tell them what they desired to know, her lips
seemed to be sewn shut. Without warning, Ely stood up and stalked
out of the room. A moment later, he returned with a small coin
purse, one he kept hidden under a loose board in the staircase for
times of need.

"How much do you have saved?" He asked.
That, she could answer.

"Six hundred," she replied. Again, she
reflected on how it would have been much cheaper to pay for a ride
back through the forest, rather than around it. But she had decided
long ago, that there was no way she was chancing a fortuitous
meeting with a character from her past just to save some money.
Without warning, the whole bag was shoved into her hands. Liesel
gasped, but Ely shook his head.

"There should be enough in there to pay the
rest of your way." Liesel began to protest, but Ros interrupted
her.

"You know we would love nothing more than to
keep you. But Ely is right. You cannot stay here. I don't know what
happens in that awful place, but it reeks of evil." Her voice
hitched at the end, and she suddenly remembered something she
needed to do in the kitchen.

"You are leaving on the next caravan out.
That should be in two days. Until then, you are not to leave the
house at night. In fact, I want you to stay here as much as
possible. You are only to leave if it is absolutely necessary."