Tales of the Big Bad Wolf: The Red Riding Hood Arc (A Fairy Tale)

Chapter 18, Part D: Evenfall (conclusion)

I am a very evil author :)

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Had it been anyone else promising knowledge and gifts, Edmund might have turned away in suspicion and marched straight home.   However, the cleric was not just anyone.  There was too much history between them -- too many kindnesses paid to him in the past to not give the man the audience he desired at this time.  If the man had something to say – his words would be both true and important.  Unlike most of the town residents who were so willing to shade rumor as truth and recite silly gossip as news, the friar was a person of deep integrity.    

As such, the friar’s declaration had stirred up both excitement and anxiety in the youth. Edmund could barely speak as he followed the elderly man back to the town hall that served as the temporary residence to all wandering clergy.  He barely heard the snow making sharp noises under his moving feet or the horse grumbling with hunger behind him.  His movements were automatic as he tethered his horse to a post and shook the snow off his shoes before wandering inside.

The fair young man was in agony as he sat on a wooden bench and waited for the friar to resume their conversation.   “Father,” Edmund’s patience failed him as he observed his elder compulsively opening and closing the stove door. “Your novice will be returning soon.”

“Yes, yes,” Lorrence gave the contents of the stove one last hard poke before shutting the stove’s metal door and taking his seat on the stool across from Edmund.  With one last look around, he started speaking again.  “Do you remember how you came to be here in Winchester?”

The question, as pedestrian as it was, struck Edmund speechless. His silvery eyes dropped to his hands as he tried to collect his thoughts -- something of a habit he had retained from childhood.  “As much as I’ve tried, I do not recall much.  When I think back, I can smell the woods. I can see small things like a toy or glimpses of faces that I loved.” He had only rare fragments of memories, enough to tell him that there had been a life before he had arrived here, but not much else.  “But I don’t recall much of the journey here except waking up one day in a noisy house with many children staring at me from the foot of the bed.”

“Your first day in the Ormond home,” the friar nodded. 

He had been barely two or so when he arrived in their household, according to Mrs. Ormond.  His older brothers often toyed with him after he arrived, teasing him about his sometimes strange mannerisms and talents.   They joked to him that he had been plucked off a tree, found under a rock, or found amongst a pack of wolves, and other colorful nonsense. They had not meant to hurt him nor did they know they had done so; he only cried when he was alone.   “My brothers filled my head with odd ideas about where I came from, ridiculous things actually.” 

The friar observed the sharp tone of that last statement.  The elderly man had wondered why there was such distance between Edmund and the older Ormond siblings. He had assumed it had something to do with being the one left to fend for his parents while the rest of them ran off to pursue their fortunes.  It had not occurred to him that Edmund may have been unhappy long before that.    “What I told them was that you were from Capestown and were abandoned at a parish. If they did not reveal that to you, perhaps their stories were meant to be kind in a backhanded way.”

Edmund inhaled, a painful shuddering sound of distress  as he realized what his brothers were trying to hide from him.  “I was thrown away?”

“No,” the man interjected suddenly.  “I should have told you sooner.” Father Lorrence twisted his hands in his lap.  “I had not realized what you were dealing with. How you saw things as impossible for you.”