'Into the Woods' by Jackie Morris

Wolf

A guy’s got to make a living, right? I have a long-standing arrangement with the broad- can’t call her a babe anymore, maybe once- in the woods, and I’m on my way when I see this kid - not quite a kid, but not quite a woman either - she’s got the biggest, bluest eyes and my heart catches, she reminds me of — nevermind— and I give her a flower to make those eyes glow and she leans in and I almost — but I don’t, because I know how this one ends, so I wave her goodbye and hightail it out of there and I figure after all maybe I’m learning, maybe I can look myself in the mirror after today, maybe today’s the beginning of a whole new story …

Grandma

Every Wednesday you leave the cottage door unlatched and three fresh banknotes on the hallway dresser. You drape yourself in honeymoon lace, yellowing and sagging in places it once held firm, and swoon onto the bed where your children slithered from you and your husband death-rattled. 

As per the arrangement you wait, ice-maiden still. Birds scrabble in the thatch. A distant axe hacks a steady beat in the forest.  

Pit Pat on terracotta tiles. The bed creaks. Hot breath on your thigh. His feral scent. The nip—always the nip—and the lick and the threat and the thrill. 

Little Red

‘Well, hey,’ His voice is almost a growl. He lopes alongside me, then stoops to tuck a late primrose behind my ear. I know he’s trouble - everyone says Marcia Edwards came out of the woods bluebell-stained and ripe-bellied and Michelle Robertson carved hollow hearts into her arm for weeks and never kissed a boy again - but still I hold my breath, ready for a kiss.

‘I’ve got a bit of business,’ he says. ‘Catch you later.’ 

I trip along the path. He’s not so big or bad, I think, just misunderstood but at Grandma’s house I peep through the lattice window and see—I see—

Her axe lies by the woodpile. I smash the window, rush inside.