They were wrong about us. Me and my Diablo Pata. They said he followed me into the woods. Hunted me. Hounded me. They said he raped me. Killed my grandmother. Fed her to me in pieces, but they were wrong about us.
When i was little i lost my way in the cotton oak wood. He was little too, back then. They both were. He and his brother. They called him Diablo Pata because of his mischievous nature and they called his brother little Velvet Ears. They were playing as cubs do when they came upon me, crying in the cotton oak. Cautious and curious they sneaked up on me.
What's wrong with it? :i heard one ask the other.
I think it's hungry. :the other said.
I turned to face them in their shabby hiding place behind the fern.
I'm not an it. :i said, stern through my tears: I'm a little girl. And i'm lost.
The little one shrunk back immediately upon discovery, but the other held his ground.
What's a little girl? :he asked, stepping forward: You smell like men, but not.
I'm not a man!... A girl is what one is before she is a woman.
A woman?
Yes.
What's a woman?
What's lost? :the other one had stealthily followed the first up to the clearing in which i sat upon a fallen tree.
I don't know how to get home. :i said.
Why don't you follow your scent back?
I don't know how.
It's easy. You sniff like this until you smell where you came from.
The bigger one rose up slightly on his haunches, my little Diablo Pata.
There! :he said: I think i found your trail.
You did? :i asked excitedly: Can you show me the way back?
He and his brother walked beside me all the way back to my village, and to this day i am convinced i never would have found my way home without him.
A few days later i saw them at the wood's edge. They became my favourite playmates, but always in secret as tensions rose between our clans each time cattle or sheep went missing, and every time some creature was found mutilated in the fields. As i grew older, so did they, and while Diablo grew strong and brave, the sweetness once seen in little Velvet gave way to a more sinister passivity.
One day i was a young woman walking through the wood i now knew like the back of my hand, and i came upon Velvet Ears in the clearing, disemboweling a rabbit. It was not an uncommon thing and i did not shrink back from the sight or sound of it, but i noticed how he toyed with it. Tortured it. Tearing it open before leaving it in pieces in the grass. It was not normal for the Wolves to play with their food in this way, as they were known for being more compassionate than we. I told Diablo Pata what i had seen and his silence confirmed my concerns.
We had a spot in the wood, Diablo and i. We met on full moons. We met on new moons. Half moons. Gibbous. A time came when even one night apart felt like too many. But in the shadows lurking, Velvet was always there.
No one knew about Diablo and me. No one but my grandmother. Like me, she had always been different. She could feel the phases of the moon on the back of her neck. She could taste the coming rain in the air a day beforehand. She too had once known a Wolf. And he too had been a secret, before he was brought down. Since then she lived deep in the woods, past the cotton oak and fern, where no man dared to go.
On my way to see her, i thought i heard Diablo in the wood come to walk with me. But it wasn't him.
Going to grandma's? :asked Velvet Ears.
Yes... :i said: Where's your brother?
Where's my brother? :he repeated: Where's my brother... Well wouldn't you know i was about to ask you the same thing. You wouldn't have any idea where he might be, would you?
If i did i wouldn't have asked you.
No, probably not...
He stalked me in a strange overly visible way, crossing the path behind me and before me, encircling me as if herding a lamb.
But then one never knows what you might be hiding. :he added.
I'm not hiding anything. :i said.
No? :he asked, his voice tinged with excitement: Maybe i'll ask my brother. If only i can find him...
I stopped for a moment. I had that feeling then. That dark feeling. Like a pit. But i kept going. I said nothing.
A pretty girl like you shouldn't be walking in the woods alone, you know. :he said after a time.
I know these woods just as well as you do. I'm fine, thank you. In fact, i prefer walking alone if you don't mind.
Oh ho! :he laughed: The girl has spirit! Alright, alright then...i can take a hint. Just thought i would offer my company while my dear brother is indisposed. But if you insist on walking this lonely path on your own...
I do.
Then as you wish. :he grinned a toothy grin and tipped his hat before disappearing into the trees.
Despite watching him run off ahead of me, i could never escape the feeling of being followed. I never heard or saw or smelled anything, but i had the idea that he was hunting me, herding me in ever wider circles so spacious that i could never know for sure that he was there at all. Quickening my pace, i longed for the company of Diablo, and hurried to reach my grandmother.
They say here that i was fooled. And they will tell you it was my Diablo that did it. They will tell you that he dressed in my grandmother's clothing and i was deceived by this visage; that he bottled my grandmother's blood and hair and teeth and tricked me into eating them.
What they will not tell you is that after being ambushed by his brother, Diablo Pata sought shelter in the house of my grandmother. They will not tell you that when Velvet Ears ran ahead he broke down the door and tore my family apart. They will not tell you that my grandmother was a witch, and so was i, and that i willingly ate from the flesh of my loved ones to raise them from the dead. And they will not tell you that they call me Red Riding Hood because i rode home that day beside both my grandmother and my lover, cloaked in the blood soaked hide of his brother, and hooded with his skull.