Little Red Riding Hood

Into the woods

Today was a chilly day, winter is coming and my mother said to go visit grandmother. She lives deep into the woods, but I‘ve gone into the woods to check on granny since I was about 8 years old. My mother could never leave the house, she is a baker and always has to run the oven so that we may afford a living. And we weren't the only ones with a bakery in this growing village, especially not as our house is close to the town square and the "main street".                                                                            It may have seemed crazy to let an 8 year old child walk into the woods, but my mother grew up there and gave me some certain rules to follow: Do not delay, do not stray. Otherwise you'll lose your way. "As long as you follow these, there is nothing to fear." She had repeated to me during my childhood years.

As I got to the outskirts the mud pools started appearing, but luckily, it was so cold that they were frozen. And I would not have to fear to get all dirty, get stuck or slip. At least not today.

And then, I finally got to the one and only path that led to my grandmother's cottage. I remembered my mother's words and repeated them to myself "Do not delay, do not stray. Otherwise you'll lose your way." It was kind of like my own chanting, for good luck in the woods. Because the rumors were true, people did disappear in the woods.

I stepped on the leafy and muddy path, which was now frozen. The walk usually took an hour, 50 minutes if there were nothing in the way, like fallen trees, new small ponds and so on.

As fast as I entered the forest I could feel the atmosphere changing, I have always known that something is wrong with these woods. The birds kept singing only a hundred meters into the woods, then it's just death silence. There is nothing except my own footsteps and the sound of leaves in the wind. I wouldn't ever admit that I was scared, I just always felt that something was wrong. On some days more wrong than others, but today it didn't feel that wrong. Probably because the sun was out. But I was still on my guard, as I walked into the silent wood.

I never understood why my granny had to live in the woods, I heard she met my grandfather there and they built the house there as a mark. She refused to leave the house under any circumstances. But when my mother was still young, grandfather disappeared in the woods. That's when my mother decided to leave the woods and go to the village when she came of age.                                                                                                                                                                                       When she came to town, she was so excited and didn't watch where she was going.                               So she bumped in to the son of a baker, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. "And they immediately fell in love" is what my mother says but I don't believe in love at first sight. How can you love someone you've just met? Anyways that baker later became my father, but he passed away when I was 7 due to a terrible flu. I miss him a lot. The cape, I had gotten from him. We were quite fortunate back then, when the village was still a "village".                                                                           Mum always told me how much I look like my father lately. She keeps nagging about our faces and hair. Then again, it's true. I have an upside-down egg-shaped face, like my father had. And I have his dark brown hair, but my blue-brownish eyes I've got from my mother. The kind of resemble mud pools, with splashes of dark blue water.                                                                                                               My eyes were always the reasons the many different men had for their marriage proposals, and if it weren't the eyes it was my hair or my "smile". But I never really smiled, I only had a single friend and we weren't the kind of happy-go-lucky friends. His name is Nathan, the son of the priest.                                                                                                                                                                                           We usually just talk and work together or discuss biblical matters together. His father was the one who taught me to read, making me an "exceptional young lady". That was what the priest said, he had his hopes for Nathan and me. But the love I had for Nathan wasn't quite ‘it'.