When Dreams Have Teeth
BY PIPPA LEWIS
As time passed and Red-Cap grew up, she thought very little about the two wolves she had killed; one with a belly full of stones, and the other drowned in a trough full of water, baited with the juices from her Grandma’s boiled sausages. Her life was so full of all the things a growing girl becomes concerned with, that she did not worry very much about the past.
Except that every so often …
On very dark nights, when the wind moaned wild and mournful, she dreamed of a cave of blood. The walls ran red, and tree roots pale as ribs broke through the flesh of the rock. When she woke, she had the taste of metal in her mouth, and salt on her lips.
Still, it happened rarely. For most of the time her brow wasn’t blighted with frowns, and her dark eyes gleamed with wit.
Once a week, as she had always done, she took the path to the forest, carrying treats to her Grandma. The old woman had become so thin and withered that she hardly had the strength to stand, or even leave her bed. Only Red-Cap’s visits cheered her, and she chuckled softly as she sucked on the cake and sipped the wine.
Then winter came. The air was sharp and white with frost, and ice crept over the windowpanes, stitching patterns lovely as lace. Snow fell. It piled against the trees, and on the roof of Grandma’s cottage, and when Red-Cap visited next, she found the old lady dead and cold.
The ground was too hard for digging. A fire was built for Grandma, and her ashes thrown to the wind. The will was read. And the little cottage passed to Red-Cap.
But with her Grandma gone, Red-Cap could find no rest in the forest. Always she listened for quiet footfalls on the path behind her, and whenever she looked between the trees, she was watching for shadows passing. Something searched for her, and she was afraid. Or so she supposed.
So, she packed up Grandma’s linen into trunks, blocked the holes where the mice got in, boarded up the windows and locked the cottage door behind her. Without a backward glance, she left.
Red-Cap went to the City. She gazed in awe at the buildings tall as trees and danced in the streets that glittered like starlight. She became an actress, trod the boards. She was the darling of the crowds. Many men desired her, and all tried to bed her. Some of them were old and rich, and brought her gifts; ruby rings, fine clarets, one hundred scarlet roses. Others were young and poor, and brought only poetry and songs of love. They knelt before her and pressed her hands to their lips. They lay their heads in her lap to feel her heat, turning their heads in hope of catching her scent.
Red-Cap wanted none of them. The more they cringed and cried, the cooler her heart became. When they sighed over her beauty, she felt a chill creep through her bones, and when they said they would die for her love, she felt herself grow colder still, frosting over from the inside out. She wrapped herself in furs, and still she shivered.
Only in sleep did the ice retreat when the dreams came every night. Always of the cave; the deep red cave, its walls running hot with iron, and pillars of pale bone encasing her. She put out her hand and touched the walls and found them warm and wet and firm. When she drew her fingers away, they were sticky. She lifted them to her mouth, and they tasted sweet and bitter. She pressed her sharp white teeth to the rock, and found it was flesh. In her dreams she bit down, felt the meat resist. At first. Then surrender. Fluid flooding her mouth, gushing over her lips, running down her chin. She tore at the pillars of bone, consuming them, crunching and gnawing as the marrow leaked out, pale in the blood red light of a moon that shone dull and steady, as she broke the cave apart and ate it all.
When she woke wide-eyed and sweating, she found her nightdress torn and her skin scratched. The sheets were damp, and her hands were between her thighs.
Red-Cap was ragged with exhaustion. Wherever she went in the City, people smiled and greeted her, and she wanted to snarl and tear out their throats. She longed to be alone, to be quiet, to hear the wind in the trees, to listen to dust settling. To sit with her hands in her lap and wait for him to come.
She told no one when she left. There was a train, and then a carriage. It was night when it stopped at the edge of the forest, and the driver asked if she was sure. Wouldn’t she be better coming back in the day? Red-Cap didn’t answer. She dropped coins into his open hand and set out along the path.
After walking for a little while, she heard a padding, soft footfalls, among the trees. Behind her. Before her. All around her. Red-Cap licked her lips.
When she came to the cottage, it was just as she had left it. Perhaps the door was more weathered, and the thatch on the roof more nibbled by mice. Inside, it was still and quiet. She lit a fire in the grate, then unpacked the linen and spread it over the bed. Trembling, she took off her clothes and slipped beneath the covers.
Soon after, there came a knock at the door. The wood shivered, and a claw scraped.
A voice that was wild and grey came softly growling. ‘Red-Cap, I am hungry. Will you let me in?’
Red-Cap closed her eyes. She was back in the cave. Red blood. White bone. Flesh and teeth. ‘The door is already open,’ she said.
