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

Chapter 19, Part C: Monsters in my Backyard (cont.)

Sorry guys - I meant to put this up at the same time but I have family in and out this week so I've been distracted. Will try to make sure the Wattpad and website don't get too out of synch next Monday!

And. Hope this blows up your brains xD 

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Now satisfied that all trouble had been dispelled, the woman shut the window and drew the curtains closed.

She did not need to relight the lamp --extinguished by the great burst of wind and magic that she had unleashed moments prior. Her eyes were quite sharp, or at least keen enough to see the metal object glittering ominously from the corner of the room.

The lady took the shawl off her back and used it to secure the wretched thing somewhere in the folds of her long, woolen night gown. She would not hold it willingly with bare hands. She -- who saw magic and unseen connections between beings and objects -- could see the aura of death and despair that surrounded the item.

Clearly something was missing from the item’s design and in its absence, it had tried to attach to and possess the young man. If it had not been for her hand cutting through that blackness and slapping him outright, he might have succumbed to the object and become something different, something monstrous.

“Edmund?” Ilva’s eyes fixed upon him, waiting for him to speak.

His eyes were far away, focused on something distant and unseen. No answer would be forthcoming.

She stretched out her hand towards that golden head of hair. As her fingers slid from the crown of his head, she let her fingers pause at the deep red mark she had left on his cheek.

“Edmund,” she repeated his name again experimentally as she stroked his face with a surprising amount of tenderness.

Her persistence was rewarded; his gaze shifted towards her.

“Do not fret,” she whispered in his ear. “Do not feel empty for now I am here,” she said once before pressing her lips to his cheek.

~o~

A white haze clung to the earth at dawn. From it, four lions emerged to seek out their master.

He was waiting for them under the frame of the wooden door that continued to change in subtle ways each passing day.

While they continued to have no news of magic artifacts, the lions had much to say of owls and birds. There were distressed by their presence for reasons they could not articulate.

They pawed at the earth. They paced the stair steps. And they pouted. But the only words they offered the Count were, “WE OUGHT TO BRING THEM HERE.”

Their lord found the insistent concern over the two young humans to be puzzling. “Did you perceive either Miss Redley or Mister Ormond to be in danger?”

The lions murmured in their own tongue for a moment as they discussed the question amongst themselves.

“NO,” Lambegus eventually concluded on their behalf.

Wolfram fingered the crook of his cane and tapped the bottom of it on the ground impatiently. They were demanding creatures who sometimes exhibited a frustrating lack of logic. “Then return to your positions and await further instructions.”

Reluctantly, they did so. They dragged their legs as they each walked to the bases from which they had initially sprung, alive and awake. He almost pitied them. They were wanting to converse and play, but he had little time to accommodate such trivialities.