Granny needed her bread and pastries. Not to mention the other items that had run out. The pantry was bare after last night’s supper, not even a crum left in sight, so someone would be tasked with fetching more groceries. Red’s mother, with her curly locks of blonde hair and matching name, was tending to the garden, which still had a long while before ripening. Granny, with gray hair and round spectacles, planned to spend the day mending the blankets and clothes left in a large pile by her rocking chair. This left Red, wearing a faded blue dress, with the task of fetching the groceries. She wrapped her warm red cloak around her shoulders and pulled the hood over her light blonde hair, half pulled back from her face by a single hair pin, before she left the house with a small coin purse tucked in her pocket and a reed basket on her arm.
She walked into the surrounding forest without hesitation. At only five years old, she knew the way to the Gingerbread House by heart. “Just follow the path through the trees,” her mother had told her long ago. “Once you know the way you will never be lost.”
Red followed the path through the trees for a short while before she came across a shaggy gray wolf that growled at her upon sight. The wolf was missing a paw, only a stump just above the ankle, and was favoring his opposite side. The wolf’s shoulder above the stump was scratched bloody, drying but not fully scabbed over. The wolf growled at Red as she attempted to approach. She needed to get around the wolf, but leaving too far off the path might make her lost. She tried to walk around the wolf at a close enough distance to the path, but he would not let her.
Red pouted for a moment at the wolf. The wolf was neither impressed nor helpful. Red sat down on the path a few feet away from the wolf and stared at it. After some silence between them, the wolf hobbled a little closer. Red watched him with only a slight hitch in her own breathing. She let the wolf get close enough to smell her slowly outstretched hand, watching carefully for any sudden movements. The wolf seemed to be doing the same as he slowly sniffed her hand and looked up at her.
After a few moments of staring, Red reached her hand out toward the wolf’s bloody shoulder to check the damage. The wolf growled at her, so she unhooked her cloak from her shoulders and threw it on top of the wolf. The wolf stilled under the cloak and suddenly began shifting under the cloak, morphing into a grown man with dark gray hair and dressed only in tattered rags. He clung the cloak closer to himself with his single hand and stared at Red with wide eyes, who blinked at him in return.
“How did you change me back?” He asked in a gruff-sounding voice. “I haven’t been able to shift back in so long…”
Red shrugged. “You’re wearing wearing my cloak so you won’t growl or bite me,” she told him.
He blinked at her and nodded twice. Red reached her hand out toward his shoulder once more, and other than a flinch, he did not respond. The bleeding had mostly stopped and was drying, but the cut still looked bad. Red huffed and reached to the hem of her cloak, which the man tugged away quickly with wide eyes, making Red glare at him.
“You need a bandage,” she told him and snatched the bottom of her cloak before he could move, tearing pieces of it off and pouting at him any time he tried to move away from her hands.
Eventually, she managed to wrap the strips of her cloak into a makeshift bandage around his shoulder. Once she was done, she stood up and placed her hands on her hips. The two stared at each other for a while before Red told the man, “I want my cloak back when we’re done.”
“Done with what?” He asked, clutching the cloak closer to himself.
“I need to get food from the Gingerbread House. You can come with me, but you need to bring my cloak. No growling or biting.”
The man only nodded at her, blinking rapidly. He stood up with her help, his one good hand, keeping the cloak on himself. Red nodded to herself once he was up and led him down the forest path to the Gingerbread House. Not long later, they found themselves in a small clearing with only a single building in the center. The building was none other than a house made of gingerbread. It was a large building, adorned with frosting and giant candy for decorations. The windows were made of smooth rock candy. Gumdrops were lined up to form a path towards the front door, which was made of chocolate bars. The shingles of the roof were candy corn. The chimney was licorice and was not smoking for once.
Approaching the building further, Red could see no light emitting from the windows. The sign on the front door read “Closed” for some reason. Red had never seen the bakery closed before. The owners must be away, she decided. Peering at the shelves through the windows, Red could clearly see all the usual groceries Granny and her mother had her fetch. All she needed was to get inside and she could get what she needed. Red tried to open the door but found it locked.
Red huffed and crossed her arms, glaring at the door. The door did not open on it’s own so she tugged out the hair pin holding back her hair and attempted to pick the lock. The man behind her just watched her. Eventually, she heard the lock click, cheered to herself, and managed to tug the door open. The man waited outside as Red entered the bakery, hurting to the bread and sweets she knew to get. She added eggs and a small bag of flour to her basket as well. There was only so much she could carry on on her own. Satisfied she had everything in her basket, Red pulled out her coin purse and set a few coins on the counter. Finished, she placed the purse back into her pocket and exited the building. After closing the door, she used her hair pin to re-lock the door. After finally hearing the lock click into place, Red heaved a relieved sigh.
She put her hair pin back into her hair to keep her vision clear and turned to look at the man who just blinked at her. Red reached into her basket, pulled out a small roll, and shoved it into the man’s face. He blinked at the roll before biting into it from her hand. She left him until he finished it, still clutching her cloak when thunder rolled overhead. Both looked up at the sky to see the clouds had darkened and moved overhead.
“That’s not good” Red decided.
“Just a bit of rain,” the man replied with a one-shoulder shrug using his good shoulder.
Red looked down at her basket, worrying her bottom lip at the thought of the bread getting wet. She had come all this way for the bread, and now it would be ruined. She glanced over at the man and her eyes slipped to her cloak, which he was still clutching to himself like a lifeline. Her cloak protected her from rain and was designed specifically to keep her warm and dry. Wrapped in her cloak, the bread would be safe.
She reached for her cloak, but the man jumped away, his eyes wide. “What are you doing?” He demanded.
“I need my cloak back now,” she told him. “To keep the food dry.”
The man shook his head. “This thing is the only thing keeping me in human form right now.”
“Well too bad,” she replied with a huff and her hands on her hips, the basket of goodies now set on the ground. “I need it back.”
“No!” He yelped as she reached for it again, moving further away.
She chased him around the clearing until she managed to snatch it off of him. Within moments, the man was once again a dark gray wolf, with the makeshift bandage still wrapped around his shoulder, and snarled at her. Red stuck her tongue at him and hurried back to her basket; the wolf following her and nipping at the cloak. Red pushed the wolf’s head away and lifted her basket, wrapping her cloak around it as the wolf attempted to nip the cloak once more, lifting his paws and scratching her legs slightly as he did. Red pushed him away again and began running back through the trees, following the path home with the wrapped basket close to her chest. The wolf remained on her heels and occasionally scratched those heels all the way as the rain began to fall.
Her dress soaked through, Red was grateful she had wrapped the basket up as she caught sight of home. The wolf was growling and snarling close behind. Red ran up to the front door and knocked on the door using her shoulder, her arms full of the basket as she tried to use a foot to push the enraged wolf away. The door opened and she managed to slip inside before shoving the door closed with her weight before the wolf could follow her inside. The wolf was still growling on the other side of the door as Granny and Goldie wrapped Red up in one of the mended blankets, trying to dry her off. Goldie took the basket from Red’s hands and began putting away the groceries as Granny looked over Red’s wounds. The scratches were not bad, so Red decided the wolf had not been trying to hurt her. She listened to the growling outside with the rain as her mother began cooking and Granny bandaged her small wounds.
Eventually, Goldie brought Red’s cloak back over to her and wrapped it over the blanket, helping Red warm further as the growling quieted and eventually stopped. Intrigued, Red approached the window and opened it slightly, peering out into the rain to see the gray wolf turned toward a white wolf that was approaching him. The gray wolf let the white wolf approach him and nuzzled his fur for a moment before suddenly he was morphing back into human form. The white wolf morphed into a pale human woman with long white hair and clothed in a thin white dress. Red watched as the woman in white reached out her hand to the man, and taking it, led him back into the woods.
“Oh! That’s Artemis and James!” Granny cried, peering over Red’s shoulder and making her jump.
Granny pulled Red away from the window as she mused, “Haven’t seen those two in a while. Wonder why James was growling so much, though. He could have just knocked on the door and I would have let him in. This is no weather to be out in.”
“He didn’t transform unless he was wearing my cloak,” Red told Granny. “Or until that lady showed up.”
“That’s odd,” Granny decided, sitting Red down at the dining table. “James can normally transform into any animal he chooses and change back without trouble. I wonder why he was stuck.”
Red shrugged. “Who were they?” She asked as Granny sat beside her.
“My siblings,” Granny replied with a huff of laughter. “I guess it is high time I tell you about them, my parents, and where we come from.”
“Are you sure she’s old enough, mom?” Goldie called over her shoulder. “I don’t think she’s old enough to learn about the island, yet.”
“Oh, she can handle it,” Granny insisted, sharing a conspiratorial wink with Red. “I’ll only tell her the important bits if you’re so worried.”
“If you’re sure,” Goldie replied.
Red listened intently to the stories Granny began to tell.