Page 44 of Little Red Riding Hood (The GriMM Tales #1)

Nineteen

R ed stepped through the doorway, every muscle coiled tight. The interior struck him as impossibly vast for such a small cottage, stretching back into darkness that his eyes couldn’t penetrate. He fumbled for Wim’s hand, gripping it tight.

“Get that bow ready,” Wim hissed in his ear. “You know, that fancy golden arrow of yours?”

Ah.

With hands that were only slightly trembling, Red rooted through his quiver to load the golden arrow. After so long waiting to use it, the act felt surreal, as if he had stepped into a dream.

A massive stone hearth dominated the left wall, its flames casting wild shadows across rough-hewn wooden beams. The air held an odd sweetness—like rotting fruit mixed with burning herbs—and Red fought the urge to cover his nose.

Dried plants hung from the ceiling in dense clusters, their shapes unfamiliar and twisted.

Scattered around the room stood wooden tables laden with glass jars containing things that made Red’s stomach turn: eyeballs floating in murky liquid, what looked like human teeth, and writhing shadows that seemed alive.

Wim leaned in to whisper, “Stay close,” his breath warm against Red’s ear.

A creaking sound drew their attention to the far corner. There, barely visible in the flickering firelight, a rocking chair swayed back and forth. Red could make out a figure seated in it, but darkness clung to them like a second skin, refusing to reveal more than a vague outline.

He couldn’t shoot that—he had no idea of where the heart lay.

The floorboards beneath their feet gave soft groans of protest with each step. As they drew closer, the sweet-rot smell grew stronger.

The figure in the chair continued its gentle rocking, paying them no mind. Yet Red felt watched—studied—as if countless invisible eyes tracked their every movement.

“Come closer, my dears.” The voice slithered through the air like oil on water.

Red’s fingers tightened on his bow as he took another step forward, the golden arrow trained steady. His palms felt slick with sweat, but the countless hours of practice would keep his aim true.

A cackle burst from the rocking chair—a sound that raised every hair on Red’s body. It pierced his ears like broken glass, echoing off the cottage walls until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The figure sprang up with unnatural speed, and Red’s breath caught in his throat.

She stood before them, a woman whose age seemed to shift with each blink.

Her grey hair writhed like living smoke around a face that appeared both ancient and ageless.

Her skin reminded Red of old parchment—thin and yellowed—with strange symbols that seemed to move beneath its surface.

But it was her eyes that made his blood run cold.

One was completely white, like fresh snow, yet somehow fixed directly on him.

Those unseeing eyes studied him with an intensity that made his skin crawl. Her head tilted at an impossible angle, a predatory bird examining its prey.

This is it. The moment he’d travelled so far for. The Queen’s words echoed in his mind… “Straight through the heart.”

Red drew back his bowstring. No hesitation. No doubt. The golden arrow gleamed in the firelight as he aimed directly at her heart.

Now, Red !

Old Oma threw back her head and erupted into hysterical laughter. The sound bounced off the walls, not the malicious cackle of an evil witch, but the sound of someone who’d found something very, very funny.

But Red steadied his aim, finger tensing on the bowstring. The golden arrow yearned to fly, its metal surface catching the firelight in mesmerising patterns.

“Wait!” Wim’s hand shot out, pushing Red’s bow toward the ground.

Red spun to face him, rage bubbling up. “What are you doing?” Had Wim changed his mind? Did he want to eat her heart after all?

“Wait!” Wim’s eyes were wide, darting between Red and the witch. “Look at her eyes.”

“What?” Red blinked, confusion replacing his anger. “What do you mean, her eyes?”

But even as he protested, Red found himself taking a step closer to Old Oma.

He saw it, then—her mismatched eyes.

One as white as snow, the pupil bleached to nothing, like looking into a frozen lake.

The other, a deep, hazelnut brown, flecked with the smallest hints of amber.

The pair of them fixed on him with an intensity that made his breath catch. The longer he stared, the more familiar that brown eye seemed, like looking into a mirror that showed only half his face.

Old Oma’s laughter grew more hysterical, her entire body shaking with it. She wheezed, clutching her sides, tears streaming down her weathered cheeks. The sound filled every corner of the cottage, bouncing off walls and echoing in Red’s skull until he could barely think.

Without warning, she lunged forward. Red’s bow slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor as her bony fingers clamped around both his arms. She shook him hard enough to make his teeth rattle, her face inches from his own .

A deep growl ripped through the cottage. “Take your filthy hands off him!” Wim thundered, the words echoing off the walls.

But Old Oma paid him no mind. She released Red’s arms only to grasp the edges of his cloak, running the fabric between her fingers with a reverence that made his stomach twist. Her weathered face transformed as wonder bloomed in her eyes.

“My son! My son!” She pressed the red fabric to her face, inhaling deeply. “My baby!”

Her expression shifted again, joy crumbling into something raw and wounded. Tears spilled down her wrinkled cheeks as grief crashed over her features. Her hands trembled against the fabric.

“All this time…” she whispered, her voice breaking between elation and accusation. “My son!”

Red’s legs gave out. The rough floorboards rushed up to meet him as his knees buckled. The cottage walls spun, and black spots danced at the edges of his vision.

This wasn’t real.

This must be the fault of the spores of those poisonous toadstools they’d seen earlier in the Dark Forest. This was nothing but a fever dream—some twisted hallucination where a witch claimed to be his mother.

His mother.

The same mother who’d abandoned him on the palace steps. The same mother… he’d been sent to kill?

Red’s chest constricted. Each breath came shorter than the last, his lungs refusing to expand properly. His vision tunnelled until all he could see was Old Oma’s face, those mismatched eyes— his hazelnut eye—staring down at him.

Strong hands gripped his shoulders. Wim’s face swam into view as he kneeled in front of Red, blocking out the witch.

“Red, eyes on me. Listen to my voice.” Wim’s hands moved to cup Red’s face. “Match my breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth. ”

Red tried to follow Wim’s exaggerated breathing, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. His heart hammered against his ribs as if trying to escape.

“That’s it. One more.” Wim pressed their foreheads together. “Just like that. Keep going.”

“Let’s go, Wim. Now!” Red cried. “Get me out of here!”

Because he’d waited all his life to meet his mother, and he refused to let it be this mad old witch.

He’d prefer to stay orphaned.

Red’s vision continued to swim as his brain fought to process what was happening. Wim’s solid presence beside him was the only thing keeping him from completely losing his grip on reality.

“Explain, now!” Wim barked.

Old Oma backed away, her earlier manic energy fading into something softer as she gazed at Red. “ Red . Is that your name? I can’t believe you’ve come back to me!”

“He was sent to kill you,” Wim’s voice cut through the air. “By the Queen. With that arrow. The Queen said you were the one causing the famine, and that if Red killed you, he’d fix everything.”

A bitter laugh escaped Old Oma’s lips, sharp and cold as winter frost. “What a brilliant tale. All lies, I’m afraid.

” Her eyes—one white, one creepily familiar—narrowed.

“She always did enjoy her games. But this one… keeping my son alive for twenty-four winters, just so she could send him to kill me?”

Red’s mouth went dry. The words scraped past his lips: “You… know Queen Schon?”

“ Know her?” Old Oma’s face twisted into something ugly. “She’s my sister!”

Red tried to breathe, he really did, but his efforts were futile. The sweet-rot smell of the cottage pressed in around him, and the firelight from the massive hearth seemed to spin, casting wild shadows.

“No.” The word came out small, his usual cutting tone failing him. “You’re lying.”

“My son!” She reached towards him with one bony hand .

“Don’t!” Red’s hand flew up, warding her off. His fingers caught the edge of his red riding hood—his mother’s hood, the one thing she’d supposedly left him with—and he yanked it closer, as if it could shield him from this truth. “She sent me to… She wanted me to…”

Old Oma took another step towards him. “My boy—”

“I’m not your boy!” The words tore from his throat, raw and ragged.

They echoed off the cottage walls, bouncing back at him from between the hanging dried herbs and grotesque jars.

“I was abandoned. Left on the palace steps like—like rubbish!” But even as he said it, twenty-four winters of confusion started sliding into horrible clarity.

The Queen’s particular brand of cruelty.

The way she’d always looked at him with such calculating eyes.

How she’d nurtured his hatred of imperfection, of his own eyes, while keeping him close enough to use.

My whole quest was a lie. My whole life was a lie.

“She knew,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the crackling hearth. “This whole time, she knew.”

The Queen was his aunt. She was his fucking aunt .

She’d known exactly who he was all along.

A soft cry escaped Red’s lips, and he pressed his fist to his mouth.