Ladle Rat Rotten Hut (15 page)

Stand up, Ladle. You know you’re stronger
than that.

It seemed like there was another Ladle in my head, talking
to me. One that was much stronger and determined. I liked her better than I
liked myself, and gave in to her calling. Standing up, I walked to the scythe
and picked it up, noticing that there were many scythes buried beneath the snow.

Was that where Death stored its weapons?

I didn’t care. I came here to complete a task my mother
asked of me. Whether she was Death or not, I wasn't going to let her down. And
I wasn't going to let my granma down. I will find her house, and I will bring
her the basket of wine and cakes.

“You hear that?” I talked to a squirrel on a tree. “I can
do this. It’s just a basket of cake and wine.” I told it, holding the basket in
my hand, and the scythe in the other, looking determined and powerful.

The squirrel looked up from a nut in its hands, and nodded.
“You can do it. I know you can,” It squeaked. “Good luck. Now hit the road, and
stop making noises. We want to sleep.”

And I did.

I walked with the basket, white hood, and the scythe,
looking for the way to granma’s house. It was a little too easy how I suddenly
found a trail of breadcrumbs, and followed it.

Step by step, I reached my granma’s house, and what a lovely
house that was.

The house was made of Gingerbread and cakes with
windowpanes of clear sugar. It shone like a crystal in the middle of the snow.
It varied in color from pink, yellow, and brown, making me want to celebrate
something. How was such a beautiful house so far away into the woods?

My mouth melted. I wanted to eat the house.

Stop it, Ladle. You’re a polite, girl. These
are only manners of wolves, and you’re no wolf.

“But if my granma’s house is made of cakes, why am I
sending her
cakes?”
I muttered to myself at the doorstep.

It wasn’t important. I was sure if I give her the basket,
she would let me nibble on the house a little. It’s not like it will fall apart
from a little nibbling.

“Knock. Knock. Knock.” I said, instead of actually
knocking.

“Who's there?” A thick voice asked.

“It’s your granddaughter, granma,” I said proudly. “I
brought you cake and wine, sent from my mother.”

“My granddaughter?” She asked behind the door.

“Yeah, granma. It’s me. Don’t you remember me?”

“Of course, I remember you darling,” Granma coughed. Her
voice was strange as if she just swallowed a crow. “Come in, for I am ill my
bed. The door is open.”

Oh. Grnama was ill. That must be why the Tree of Life told
us to bring her cakes and wine. I pushed the door open.

There was this loud voice of an oven boiling somewhere in
the house, but that wasn’t important. Granma’s bed was right in front of me. I
saw her tucked in it, covering most of her head with a blanket like I did when
I was alone the house. She must have been scared of the wolves like me. I
wanted to tell her that all she had to do was to soak her blanket in wine, but
maybe later.

Discreetly, I put the scythe aside so I didn’t scare her,
and I approached the bed. I couldn’t see her features from under the blanket,
but I wondered why her hands were hairy and brownish. She must’ve been really
ill.

“Why is your voice so strange, granma?” I asked, reluctant
to approach.

“The illness, darling. It got the best of me.”

“And why do you have hairy hands?”

“It’s a symptom of aging. When you grow old like me, you’ll
know.” She said.

“Hmm.” I sighed, annoyed by the sound of the boiling oven.
Where did that come from? It sounded like the old oven she had left behind in
our house many years ago.

Approaching, I saw her eyes lookin bigger than ususal. I
started suspecting that this was not my granma.

“Why are your eyes so big and yellow?”

“It’s also the illness. I am sorry for that.” She coughed.

“And your teeth,” I said. “They look awful and sharp.”
Maybe that was the way she looked like, but I didn’t remember.

“You silly girl. Come into my arms.”

“I will, but I left my basket at the door,” I took a step
back, knowing that this wasn’t my granma. “I brought you lovely cakes.”

As I walked back to pick up the scythe, I knew it was the
wolf. I knew that he had eaten my poor granma, pretending to be her, lying on
the bed. I picked up the scythe and hurried back at him.

“You bastard,” I screamed. “You ate my granma!”

The wolf looked appalled, shivering again to the sight of
the scythe, but he didn’t run. What kept him in place?

“Please, don’t kill me.” He pleaded, showing me his paws.

“If you don’t run away, I will kill you.” I said, holding
the scythe up, fear creeping up his eyes.

“I can’t.” He said, pointing at the blanket.

Pulling it away, I saw the wolf was bound with barbwire to
the bed. It was bleeding, and it couldn’t move.

“Who did that to you?”

“It’s her.” He whispered.

“Her?” I asked. “Do you mean—“

“It’s your grandmother,” The wolf said. “You should leave,
before she wakes up.” He pointed behind me, toward the sound of the boiling
oven.

I turned around and stepped forward with the scythe my
hand. There was an old, ugly woman snoring on a rocking chair next to a boiling
pot. She wore black, and had a long curving nose like a hawk. Her eyelids were
puffy and wrinkled. Her stomach was big as if she had just eaten an elephant. When
she rocked the chair, it squeaked in pain underneath her weight.

It was my granma.

Suddenly, I started remembering how awful she was when I
was a kid, and how evil she was. Everyone hated her. She was a malevolent
witch. I remember now, seeing her when I was ten, walking around our house.
That’s why she was banned to live alone in the forest.

“She just ate two children alive,” The wolf warned me. “She
wanted to cook them, but then she decided to just eat them alive.”

My witch granma opened her eyes to the wolf’s voice. When
she saw me, she looked appalled, the same as me. It seemed as if we were both
afraid of each other. I did know why I was afraid of her. But why was she
afraid of me?

“What brings you here you—“ She stood up, a little dizzy
from the big meal she had.

“My mother sent me to bring you cake and wine,” I began but
couldn’t finish my sentence.

“No,” The witch screamed, and the candy house started shaking,
cakes falling down from it. “It’s not my time yet.”

Holding the scythe up high, I was puzzled. What did she
mean?

“That damn Tree of Life!” She screamed.

“What?” I said, trying to keep balance on the shaking
floor. “What do you know about the Tree of Life?”

“I know everything, and I will not let you kill me.”

“Ladle?” Granma estranged. “That’s not her name. Her name
is—“

The house shook harder to her spell. Its walls started to
come closer. I didn’t know if I should fear being squeezed between walls made
of cake, but I was worried.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that my granma
knew my real name. The one I hated, but it seemed the time had come to live
with it.

“Her name is Death,” My granma yelled. “Her mother is
Death. The whole family is Death. They answer to a Tree of Life that produces a
fortune cookie with a name everyday. Her mother’s job was to kill the one
person with that name because his time has come.”

“So it’s her mother who is Death. Not her, right?” The wolf
asked, shaking in his bed.

“On Christmas Eve, when her daughter turns sixteen, she
takes over. It’s the prophecy.”

I raised the scythe and chopped the witch’s head off.

Chop. Chop. Chop. I liked the sound of that.

Her blood spattered all over my white hood. It was a
fountain of blood, one of those gory scenes your mind can’t comprehend.

Wiping the blood from my face, I went to free the wolf. He
was shivering again as I did.

“I am not going to hurt you,” I said. “I am not a bad
person. I am just Death. It’s a job.” It was funny how I had to explain myself
to a wolf who was bad and mean to others. “Come on. We have to save the kids.”
I said.

I went back to my headless granma and sliced her huge
stomach open. Two kids, a boy and girl, came out of her, chocking, removing the
sticky insides of the witch off their faces. Yuck.

“Thank you,” The girl came running to me. “We owe you our lives.
We were lured by the candy house, and my brother, Hansel, kept nibbling on it.
She invited us to eat more candy inside. We didn’t know she wanted to cook us
in this hot boiling oven.”

As I hugged her back, I discovered she was the sweet giggly
girl I met in the market with her brother. But before I could remind her, I saw
her brother standing appalled, staring at me.

“Come back here, Gretel,” He pulled his sister away. “Can’t
you see who she is?”

The coward wolf joined them, and stood next to them.

“She is Death.” Hansel said.

“Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.” The wolf mumbled, having now turned
back into a boy.

“Little Red Riding Hood.” I said softly, still checking
myself out in the mirror. It was my destiny; to kill those whose name came out
of the fortune cookie. My mother sent me into the woods to discover who I
really was, to learn about my destiny, and to take over. Nothing strange about
that. We live in the Kingdom of Sorrow, where strange was just about the norm.

“I don’t care what she does,” Gretel said, running back to
me. “She saved us.”

“She did.” The wolf-boy, or boy-wolf, agreed.

“She is actually our friend.” Gretel declared, and I was so
happy. All I wanted was friends.

“I guess she is,” Hansel said reluctantly. “As long as she
doesn’t chop off our heads.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I only do it if your name shows in
the fortune cookie.”

“And how do we know our names won’t show up.” Hansel asked.

“Because you’re twelve years old. The fortune cookie is not
that fond of young ones.” I said.

Suddenly, I knew why older people in the market avoided me.
They knew I was Death, and they knew that their names were more likely to show
up in the fortune cookie. Younger people didn’t fear me like they did.
“Besides, you two are immortal,” I added, not knowing how I knew this. Since I
surrendered to the fact that I was Death, I felt like a portal opening in my brain,
looking into the unknown. “You will do some great things when you grow up.
You’ll be part of the Lost Seven.”

“The lost seven?” Gretel wondered.

“We’re certainly
lost
,” Hansel interrupted. “We have
to find our way back to our parents.”

“Not before we bury the body of my granma a proper burial,
and leave the basket of cake and wine on the grave. It’s tradition, and have to
follow it.”

“Oh,” The wolf said. “That’s why Death walks around with a
basket of cakes and wine, to place it on the grave like the Roman ritual, to
pay respect to the dead.”

“You got that right,” I said. “But you better not eat the
cakes,” I hesitated for a moment before saying, “And I will have to fill the
empty wine bottle with granma’s blood.”

“Why?” Asked the wolf.

“To feed the Tree of Life. It’s the only way it gets
watered. I have to follow my mom’s footsteps.”

After we buried the body, Hansel and Gretel took some cakes
with them and left, following the trail of breadcrumbs back home. We agreed we
will meet tomorrow in the market and play Anguish Language together.

I opened the door and walked back to the forest, wearing my
red hood and scythe. There was no point in hiding who I was anymore.

“Let’s go, Little Riding Hood,” I talked to myself. “We got
a lot of work to do.”

“Wait,” The wolf said. “Can I come with you?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well,” He scratched his head. “I could teach you Anguish Language.”
He looked embarrassed, not saying what he really wanted.

“Why would you do that?”

“You see,” He started fidgeting. “The truth is…I… like
you.”

I blushed when he said that. “You do?”

“I do. Very much.” He smiled.

“But you’re not trustable. You tried to eat me. I only saved
you because you told me about the kids.”

“Well. It’s true you can’t trust me, but that’s because I
get hungry. And it’s not like I want to hurt somebody. I just want to eat them.
It's my nature, the same way it's your nature to kill people.”

“What kind of excuse is that?”

“It’s not an excuse. I promise I will not eat anyone.
Please. I really, really want to be with you. Consider me a friend...for
now...later, I wish we'de be more than that. Besides, you’re Death. I can’t eat
you. You will punish me.”