Girl in the Red Hood (9 page)

"Leave the woods?" He shook his head, his
golden-brown eyes sorrowful. "Liesel, I can't. My father will need
me to help with the family."

"Your brother can help!" Liesel was
desperate. She had seen this imagined future so clearly, as if the
fairies had crafted a vision made just for her of Kurt walking
beside her as they left the forest behind, their faces pointed
towards the sea. And although it had existed for just a moment,
Liesel clung to the scene like the air she needed to breathe. For
in a way, it was her air. She couldn't bear to live trapped in this
existence, forever in this wood haunted by secrets. Liesel needed
hope. And, she realized, she needed Kurt as well. He filled the
void she hadn't known was there until that moment.

"You deserve more than this," Liesel
whispered up to him, suddenly very aware that his breathing has
sped up as well. After an eternity of staring into her eyes, he
finally have her a small lop-sided smile.

"Very well," he said softly. "I
promise."

Liesel sat back and wiped her forehead on
her sleeve. For a forest without sun, it could get strangely hot.
Nevertheless, her garden looked wonderful, and Liesel was proud of
her work. The plot was small compared to the one she had shared
with her mother back in the city, but it would keep them fed
through the next winter.

Liesel wished again that Kurt's father would
let him visit her garden. She didn't get to see him as much as she
had the year before, now that she had her garden to tend and his
father kept him busy with the family. Still, she would have liked
for him to see it. After all, it would not have been there at all
if it hadn't been for Kurt. Liesel and her father wouldn't have
made it through the winter if it hadn't been for Kurt, either.

The winter had been a hard one, and it had
come without warning. The supply wagons that always brought in
grain had been unable to make it through the ice storms with any
regularity. Though the forest ceiling was too thick to allow much
light through, it certainly let the ice in uncontested. Everyone in
the town was assigned rationed amounts of grain, but Warin was
often in the tavern on the days it arrived. And by the time he made
it over for their share, it was all but gone.

For Warin, it was simply an inconvenience.
The tavern keeper had stored much ale, but that didn't help Liesel
any. When the first ice storm had finished, she'd wandered outside
breathless at its beauty. The icicles had hung from every branch,
roof, and window like ornaments of crystal, gleaming white and blue
in their glory. But as the ice came again and again, and the food
came through less and less, Liesel found her will to leave the
cottage slipping away. The constant ache in her belly and the
fatigue of her muscles had made her lethargic and unable to travel
far from the cottage. She'd spent most of her days leaving her
mattress only to do what she must, making the bread, on days they
had enough grain to make any, and warming weak tea on the fire. The
cottage, she soon discovered, was riddled with cracks and holes,
and though she tried to stuff them with rags and mud, they
continued to blow cold air all through the house.

Warin had spent more time than ever in the
warm tavern, and only ever seemed home when it was dark and
difficult to see. The only exception was on holy days, through
which he slept, and Liesel lacked the strength to wake him. It was
on those days that Liesel missed Kurt the most. He couldn't enter
the village, and she couldn't make it into the woods to meet him.
She missed reading her stories with him, and she missed planning
their adventures. She wanted so much for him to take her by the
wrist and drag her through the woods once again, and she longed to
see her mountain. Oh, she missed her mountain.

It was two months after the first snowfall
that Liesel saw Kurt again. The fire was dying, so Liesel had
roused herself enough to put on her cloak and venture out to the
village edge to gather sticks for the fire. As she bent down to add
another to her bundle, she was startled by a voice.

"Where have you been? I've been looking all
over for you!" When she looked up at him, however, Kurt stopped
talking and just stared. Only then did Liesel realize what he must
be seeing. Her hours in the cottage had made her drawn and pale.
And weak. The last time Liesel had dared to look in her mother's
small hand mirror, it wasn't her face that had looked back. It had
been a thin, sickly girl with dry yellow hair that fell limply down
her back. There were dark hollows beneath her eyes that looked like
bruises against her white skin. She bent back down and began
picking up sticks again, her face burning with shame. To her
surprise, however, he took her by the shoulders and stood her back
up so he could study her more. "What happened to you?" His voice
was kinder this time, but it didn't lessen Liesel's
embarrassment.

"The ice has kept the supply wagons out of
the forest," she spoke to the ground, not willing to look him in
the eye.

"But your family is supposed to get ration,
isn't it?" Liesel shrugged.

"I tried. I couldn't carry the grain back to
the cabin."

"But your father can get it, can't he?"
Liesel didn't answer. Kurt's voice hardened a bit. "Liesel, why
won't your father get it?"

"He might remember if he wasn't so busy at
the tavern!" Her words were sharper than she'd meant them to be,
but the bitterness in her heart was too great to hide any longer.
How she had wanted to keep her father's habit a secret from her
friend. It was one thing to have an absent-minded father, but it
was another to have one who thoughtlessly forgot all else in his
quest for comfort.

"He doesn't hunt either, does he?" Liesel
shook her head and finally gathered the courage to look at her
friend directly. His expression was as judgmental as she had
expected, but his appearance overall took her a bit by surprise.
Despite the uneven stubble on his face, and the fact that his pants
were even shorter on him than usual, Kurt looked fine. The constant
want that was painted on her and on all of the villagers' faces the
few times she'd seen them was nowhere to be seen on Kurt. He was
healthier than ever, and had easily grown an inch in the months
since she'd seen him.

"No," she said. "The mayor told him hunting
is outlawed in these parts." Except for Kurt's family, of
course.

"I forgot about that," he muttered,
scratching his head.

"Well," Liesel began to stand up. "I hate to
go, but-" Kurt's eyes opened wide as he looked around again.

"It's cold out here," he exclaimed. "You'd
better go back inside." Sadly, Liesel nodded. Leaving Kurt was the
last thing she wanted to do, but her toes were beginning to lose
their feeling. "I wish I could..." Kurt frowned in frustration at
the cottage just outside the woods.

"I don't want you to get into trouble with
your father," Liesel said. As she turned to go home, he called her
name out once more. She looked back again.

"I'm glad you kept your new cloak red," his
eyes were still sad, but he wore a lopsided grin. "I'll be able to
find you next time you get lost." Liesel smiled in spite of
herself. She could feel his eyes on her back as she went inside.
She set the sticks down by the sputtering fire so they could dry.
It would be a quite a while before they were ready to burn. She
hoped she had enough dry tinder to last until then. She plopped
down in a chair that was drawn as close to the hearth as she could
get it and wrapped herself more tightly in her cloak.

Her father's booming voice woke her up
several hours later.

"Liesel, what's this now?" Liesel tried to
blink the sleep from her eyes as she stumbled groggily towards the
door. When she opened it, she saw her father holding up a dead
rabbit and a bundle of small log bits, wrapped in a cloth. "Where
did you get these?" he demanded.

"I...don't know," Liesel stuttered, although
she had a pretty good idea as to their origins. "They weren't there
when I last went out." The more she thought about it though, the
more she had to keep the smile from her face. Warin, however, was
not amused in the slightest. "You know huntin' is illegal is these
woods," he held up the rabbit and shook it at her. "I don't want
them to be thinkin' I'm breaking the rules now!"

"I think it might be from my friend, Kurt,"
Liesel had hastened to explain, afraid he might throw it away. "His
family owns the land, remember?" Warin had given her a long, hard
look. Finally, he handed it to her. "Fine, cook it up. I suppose it
won't hurt anythin', as it's dead already. Besides," he followed
her inside and began removing his muddy boots. "The dried meat stew
they serve in the tavern is gettin' mighty old." Liesel mashed her
lips together so the words on her tongue stayed there. So he'd been
eating at the tavern, too. What kind of rations had
they
received? Liesel hadn't tasted meat since the winter had begun.

The soup Liesel made that night was the most
delicious she had ever tasted. And every night after that, a small
piece of game had showed up on her doorstep, as well as a dry
bundle of wood. Liesel felt herself begin to grow stronger again,
and when spring finally came, she was as healthy as she had been
before. When they met up again for the first time, nothing was said
about the food or wood, but Liesel could see the satisfaction in
Kurt's eyes when he saw her walking steadily towards him.

Though they still met from time, both Kurt
and Liesel found themselves busier that spring than the one before.
Kurt's father had decided it was time he begin shouldering the
responsibilities of the family. Liesel, though grateful for all
Kurt had done, was determined never to be so dependent upon others
for food again. As soon as the ground was thawed, she had begged
Kurt to teach her how to garden in a place without sun. If the
village healer's garden was any indication, trying to garden the
way she had outside the forest wasn't going to work.

"Your mother had a lovely garden," Liesel
had recalled from her quick glimpse of his house. "Perhaps she
could-"

"Absolutely not!" Kurt's voice was so sharp
it startled her. "You are going nowhere near there."

"But how else will I learn?" Liesel had
whined. They were sitting up on the waterfall's ledge for the first
time since the snow had thawed. Liesel knew he was trying to
protect her, but she was desperate to know. "You don't know what
it's like to have nothing in the cupboard to eat."

"Nothing?" Kurt had given her a hard
look.

"You know what I mean."

"Look, I'll bring some seeds and teach you
what I know."

"
You
know how to garden?" Liesel had
raised her eyebrows. Kurt seemed too wild, too antsy to have ever
grown much of anything. He rolled his eyes.

"When I disobeyed my parents as a child, my
punishment was working with my mother instead of playing."

"Is it still?" Liesel couldn't keep the
small smile off her lips. For some reason, the picture of
adventurous Kurt being forced to garden was funny. He wiggled his
eyebrows mischievously at her.

"I just make sure not to get caught." True
to his word, Kurt had come with an assortment of plant bits and
seeds the next day. He'd explained how to bury and water them, and
when they would ready to harvest. And in return, Liesel had worked
faithfully all summer, and now that the warm days were growing old,
she was proud of all she'd done. If only Kurt could see it.

"Liesel!" Her father's voice interrupted her
thoughts.

"You're home early," she said as she stood
and wiped her hands on her apron. Whatever he wanted must be
important for him to skip the tavern for the day.

"I'm here to take you to buy your
ribbon!"

"My ribbon?" Liesel stared at him
blankly.

"Yes, girl! For the festival! The one that
got snowed out last year. It will be here soon, and you're old
enough to dance this time!" Despite her hesitancy to attend the
dance, Liesel had to smile. Warin really had felt guilty about
missing her birthday the year before. Oddly enough, once summer had
arrived, it was as if the winter had never happened, and Warin had
happily stepped back into being a father. He'd taken to
accompanying her to town over the summer. Sure that her reluctance
to go into Ward stemmed from shyness, he attempted to get everyone
he saw to have a conversation with Liesel. When they greeted her,
upon prompting from him, he was pleased, sure he'd made her a new
friend. She didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise.

"That's thoughtful of you," Liesel gathered
up her garden tools, "but I doubt that any of the boys will be very
keen on dancing with me."

"Nonsense," Warin followed her as she put
the tools away. "You're turnin' out just as pretty as your
mum."

"Father, they won't even talk to me. I
hardly think dancing is something they really want." Especially if
they thought she was marked for evil. But every time she'd tried to
bring it up, Warin would hear nothing of it.

"That's because you haven't given the
foolish rascals a chance," her father continued to follow her as
she went inside and began to slice the bread for supper. "You spend
all your time in the woods with that friend of yours. Might do him
some good to see he's got some competition." Liesel felt the blush
rise to her cheeks.

"Kurt is just a friend." As she said the
words, however, she felt their inadequacy. It was hardly mere
friendship that moved one person to keep another fed all winter. A
friend wasn't really what Liesel would call Kurt. But if not her
friend, what was he?

"Daughter." Her father finally took the
knife from her hand and put his hands on her shoulders to face him.
His eyes were full of guilt. "Come here." He went over to the
wooden chest in the corner and knelt beside it, taking a small
brass key from his pocket. Liesel felt her throat tighten as he
did. The chest had once been painted in bright colors, paint from
the Western Shores, her mother had said. Liesel's grandfather had
made it himself when Amala was a baby. He'd carved the shapes into
the wood, and her grandmother had painted it. Its colors were
duller now than they'd once been, but Amala had loved that chest.
No one had touched it since they'd taken it out of their little
cart. "I was noticin' the other day that your dresses are too short
again," Warin reverently pulled something out of the chest and held
it lovingly in his lap. He swallowed hard. "I think you're tall
enough to wear your mum's dresses now." Liesel didn't move. After
allowing her to nearly starve the winter before as he drank away
his pain, her father had somehow managed to notice her height.