Red on a Cold Day

In the bleary darkness of a winter’s morning, each step was an unforgiving tick on the clock of life and death. The forest slumbered, buried by the frost.

Beneath paws numb from the cold, the snow crunched faintly as the wolf sniffed hopelessly in search of salvation.

A shape moved ahead, hobbling upright on the path that split the trees. The wolf froze still, unnerved by the memory of that two-legged gait.

The human wore a cloak of red – not like that of a poppy or a tulip. It was a crimson, deep and dark, much like the warm puddle that had pooled beneath the wolf’s mother when he was a pup.

He remembered the glint of a metal rod that had caught his eye, then the deafening thunder-like crack that tore through the woods. She had fallen before him in that same instant. Frozen, then as he was now, he’d watched her final breath as the two-step tremors of the approaching creature grew closer. It towered over him, cloaked in green, and he was lucky to escape the grasping paw that reached for him.

The wolf had grown to resent the two-legged monsters. He’d seen their ruthless madness, the way they proudly adorned their furless bodies with the skins of his kind.

The red-cloaked one before him now was small, and from one of its pale paws hung a rounded contortion of woven branches. Hunger gnawed at the wolf’s senses relentlessly. Driven by the delirium of starvation and hypnotised by the swaying of her back, he found himself following the trail of her too-wrong paw prints.

As he trudged on, growing closer and closer, an alluring scent emanated from the tangle of branches the girl was carrying. The edges of his vision were darkening from exhaustion, so the wolf took his chance while he could. Catching the human off-guard, he lunged forward and closed the distance between them.

Jaws snapped shut and between his teeth, the handle creaked. With a startled yelp, the girl had fallen back and landed awkwardly, dropping the basket. Warm patches of red brightened her otherwise pale face as she stared wide-eyed.

He watched the girl closely as he frantically buried his nose in the basket. There he found his first meal in days. Without realising, he’d closed his eyes while lost in the relief of food. The sticky sauce and flaky layers were unlike anything he’d tasted before. It was sweet and safe and warm, like a mother’s love.

His eyes snapped open suddenly. The human girl had touched his face. He backed away, shaken by his own lack of awareness. Muscles tense and heart pounding, everything in him screamed to run, to lash and bite. She would hurt him, just as the hunter had hurt his mother. He was sure of this, and he was ready to bolt, but something felt different about this human’s presence. She didn’t hurt him, and in her eyes he saw an unassuming innocence.

The furless paw reached out toward him again, slow and calm. There was no apparent threat, it seemed, but nonetheless the wolf felt betrayed by his body when it allowed the touch. The strange, warming food must have dulled his judgement, he thought.

It was a caring, gentle touch. As the girl stroked his head, the comforting memory of his mother’s warm fur came to mind. He’d nestled beside her under a bush on a cold winter’s day not unlike this one, and not long before she was taken from him. That day, his mother had rescued him after he’d fallen through the ice and plunged deep into cold waters. She’d yanked him out by the scruff, and washed and warmed him as the orange sky above had darkened into night.

He felt himself soften, leaning into the touch and allowing his eyes to close gently, just for a moment. For the first time in so long, he wasn’t hungry or alone. Like the gentle licks of his mother’s tongue, the repeating motion of the girl’s stroking hand soothed the wolf’s aching muscles and stilled the quiver in his bones.

“Red!” a voice shouted, gruff and bone marrow deep. The wolf flinched back, eyes wide and heart pounding again as he caught sight of the much bigger human lumbering towards them. The momentary truce was broken when cold, harsh reality came crashing back. That unmistakable glint of steel, the green cloak that hung from the man’s shoulders – it was the same monster who’d left him abandoned in this world.

The girl stood up, looking just as panicked as the terrified wolf. Before he could muster a growl, she started to shriek at him. It made no sense. ‘Why would she do this?’ he thought, hesitantly stepping towards her, seeking the comfort she’d given him just moments before. But that moment was long gone, replaced by her stomping and shouting. As her paws flailed above her head, the wolf lowered his ears. It seemed she was rejecting and threatening him, as he should’ve known these upright creatures would.

“Red, get away from that beast!” the rumbling shout was much closer now. In a final effort, the girl grabbed and threw her basket at the wolf. He yelped and sprang away, running into the treeline. Only for a brief moment did he look back as the girl stomped again.

That thunder-like crack, which rippled through all living things and took life and breath away, whipped through the air as the wolf felt a whizzing sharpness rush through the bushes near him.

He ran, and ran, until his paws burned from cold and his scrawny shoulders ached. Panting and glancing around frantically for signs of danger, he cursed himself for straying foolishly into the human path. It was their domain – he was well aware.

As his breathing slowed, the wolf thought back to the small, red-cloaked human child. It dawned on him that her erratic flailing might have been a warning, so easily mistaken for a threat. The sudden change of pace had startled all of his senses, but his thoughts were clearer now in the silence of solitude.

The sky had brightened into a gentle gradient of morning sun, and a cautious hope lightened the wolf’s heart as he remembered the caress of kindness. Perhaps not all of the two-legged beasts were the forest’s bane.