I thought this weekend would be just like any other weekend spent at Grandmama's house.
I loved going to Grandmama's. She lived in a little wooden cottage way back in the woods, at the end of a long and twisting path worn down through the trees by years of feet plodding it. Her father had built it when she was a little girl and she had lived there ever since. And I had been visiting her on certain weekends ever since Papa died. The cottage was always warm and cozy and smelled like woodsmoke. Sometimes there would be fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies cooling on the windowsill, or an apple pie in the fall. There were handmade quilts and blankets lying everywhere, in bright primary colors. You could hear the birds singing and the nearby river gurgling. Sometimes, when I spent the night tucked under my favorite quilt and heard the occasional owl calling or a bat swooping overhead, I could even forget that I was in a cottage at all.
When Papa was ill, he had given me a red cloak. "You must wear this when you visit your Grandmama," he told me, the first lucid words he had spoken for a week. "It will keep you safe." I had taken the cloak, nodded, and kissed his forehead. He'd died the next day. He had never explained what the cloak did to protect me, but I listened to him and I wore it every single time I went to see her. Most often I carried a basket with me, full of things she might need: vegetables, more fabric and thread for her quilts, whetstones for sharpening knives. No one had ever explained to me why she couldn't get these things herself; I'd always assumed she just didn't like leaving the cottage very much, and town was so very far away from the woods. Along with the cloak, Papa had left me a very old flat slate of wood with a makeshift calendar marked on it. Two weekends were marked with a crescent moon. These were the weekends that I was to go and check on Grandmama.
Except two weeks ago, the calendar got lost. I didn't care what Mama said, I blamed my little brother, who was always in my room and messing with my things no matter how many methods I tried of keeping him out.
I lost track of what weekend it was, and when to go visit Grandmama. I was pretty sure it was this weekend, so I packed up my basket with potatoes and seeds to plant and some new needles and thread. I donned the red cloak and set off through the woods.
Something was a little different about the woods that day. The birds weren't quite so noisy, their songs a little more subdued. The small creatures who had grown accustomed to me were more skittish, as though they'd never seen the girl in the red cloak before. I didn't think anything of the subtle differences until I came across a man I had never seen before, felling small trees with a large axe. I raised my hand in greeting and was prepared to simply continue on my way, but the man stopped me. "Where are you going?" he asked me. His face was stern and his mouth set.
"To my Grandmama's. She lives in the woods." I tried to shake his hand from my arm. The way he stared at me made me nervous.
"You cannot go any deeper. There is a terror that haunts these woods. It is near dusk; the monster will emerge soon. You must go."
I stared at him in disbelief. "If there is a monster roaming, then I must go all the more. Grandmama is old and cannot protect herself. Please, let me go so that I can help her."
The man shook his head. "This is not possible. You must leave, child."
I stared longer. "I cannot leave her alone." My voice was small, pleading. He stared back at me, still stern. Finally he sighed.
"I will follow you. I could not live with myself if I knowingly allowed you to put yourself in harm's way with no one to defend you." He shouldered his big axe and gestured for me to lead the way.
I gulped and squared my shoulders before setting off.
It got darker as we walked, the trees and small creatures disappearing into blurred shadows. The daytime sounds of birds singing and small animals rustling were gradually replaced by the sounds of night--soft owl wings whooshing through the air, flappings of bats darting about for their nightly feast of insects, the trees sighing and leaves rustling. My heart became more unsettled the closer we drew to Grandmama's house. Something was not right, I could feel it.
I stopped about twenty yards away when I saw the door of the cottage hanging off its hinges. There were no lights in the windows, no cookies or pies cooling in the windowsills. No smoke curls from the chimney. The place looks cold and derelict, unoccupied for at least a week.
Another night sound suddenly split the cool air: a long, lonely howling.
I approached. There were thick, deep claw marks on the doorframe. Inside, I could see the kitchen table had been flipped over, the red checkered tablecloth crumpled on the floor, the old crockware dishes scattered and broken across the creaky floor. The man behind me lowered his axe from his shoulder and held it ready in his hands, his eyes wary and searching.
I slowly moved deeper into the house. Instinct kept my voice quiet; I didn't dare call out for Grandmama. More signs of destruction--portraits torn from the walls and slashed viciously, the wallpaper hanging in tatters. There were only two rooms in Grandmama's house--the kitchen, where we prepared and ate food, and the bedroom. The door to the bedroom was hanging by one hinge, nearly broken in half. I could see the quilt from Grandmama's bed, batting leaking from it like blood from a gaping wound. Feathers from her pillows dusted everything, a snow of fluffy down.
As my eyes followed the familiar outline of the room and landed on the big bed, I heard the man with the axe gasp. It was all I could do not to do the same.
There it was--the monster.
Crouching on Grandmama's bed, hackles raised and mouth open in a hideous snarl. Its fur was rough and unhealthy-looking, thick in some places and hardly there in others. The pointed ears were tucked close to its big head as it growled, the bushy tail held low and swishing back and forth. The long teeth were the same shade of yellow as its eyes. As I stood there and stared at it in shock, it lifted its big head and let loose another howl, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
My stomach dropped.
Around its neck was the beaded necklace I had given to Grandmama for her birthday earlier that year.
But--that couldn't be.
Could it?
As its cry ended, the eyes locked onto the man behind me and it crouched low, preparing to spring. It looked right over me without seeming to see me. With a war cry, the man hurled the axe before I could open my mouth to protest. With a movement to quick to follow, the creature sprang at the man before the weapon left his hand. I ducked just as the wolf landed on him and the pair of them rolled into the hallway, scuffling. I darted for the axe and huddled in the corner of the room near the door, preparing myself to strike if it came back into the bedroom.
Only it never did.
I stayed in the corner of the bedroom for the remainder of the night, arms trembling from the weight of the axe. When the sun peeked through the trees and slowly melted its way into the little bedroom, warming my face in its beam, I woke with a start, not realizing I had fallen asleep. Cautiously I poked my head around the doorway, preparing myself for the scenes of gore and bloodshed.
On the floor in the doorway lay the beaded necklace.
After that night, there were no more stories of a monster. The woodsman disappeared. And, just to make sure, I make the entire town wear red cloaks if they must go out into the forest at night.
