Little Red Riding Hood with a little less slut-shaming.
Once Upon a Time, a little girl named Ruby grew up on the edge of a forest. Ruby’s father was a war hero who died before she was born. When the queen came to offer condolences to her mother, who was pregnant with Ruby at the time, the queen wore a ruby ring on her finger that Ruby’s mother found so beautiful that she named her daughter after it.
Ruby’s mother was a fine seamstress and she loved to make clothes for her daughter, but since they lived in the country and never dressed up, she kept it practical. Mostly, she made warm and beautiful coats. For Ruby’s sixteenth birthday, she made her a long, graceful cape out of wool she had dyed deep red with berries from the forest, after Ruby’s namesake. When Ruby put the cape on for the first time and swirled around in it, her mother gasped in admiration. Then, realizing what her fatherless daughter would be up against in a world of men, she gave her a warning.
“Listen, Ruby. You’re growing up, and you’ve gotten beautiful. The cape doesn’t make you prettier than you already are, but it calls attention to you. Your beauty is like a fat purse. Some people will try to hurt you to take what’s inside. Some will pretend to be your friends so you will spend your wealth on them, but will disappear when you need them. And some will shun you out of jealousy and spite. You must guard against robbers and invest yourself wisely. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” Ruby said, although she wasn’t sure she did.
“Good,” said her mother. “Now go show Granny.”
Ruby’s granny lived on the other side of the village. The walk to her house was long by the road but short through the forest. Ruby loved the forest and always went the short way, which she made long again by stopping to admire frogs and turtles, talk to birds, or climb trees. Sometimes she also talked to Michael the woodcutter’s son, who was about her age, and whose house she passed along the way, but now that he was old enough to help his dad cut up the huge trees that blew over in storms, and cart the wood out to the village, he was rarely home anymore.
On that spring day, so many flowers were blooming that she decided to pick some for her granny.
“Are those flowers for me?” a voice asked behind her.
A strange man stood smiling at her. She didn’t care for the look of his toothy grin. She also didn’t care for his attempt to claim her flowers. A pretend friend, she thought to herself. The kind mother warned me about.
“No,” she said.
He kept grinning. “May I walk with you?” he asked. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“Suit yourself,” Ruby told him, “but I won’t change my mind.”
“You sure do look pretty,” the man told her. “Where did you get your cloak?” He reached out to touch the hem.
Ruby snatched the edge of her cloak out of reach. “My mother made it,” she told him.
“Look at this old thing,” the man said, spreading his arms. “Would your mother make a coat for me?”
His coat was dirty but sound. “No,” Ruby said.
She had been walking faster and faster, the man keeping up with her easily. Now she could see her grandmother’s house through the trees. “That’s where I’m going,” she told the man. “Goodbye.”
“Oh,” the man said, “I’ve walked so many hours today. Could I come in for a drink of water? Or some food?”
Or maybe he’s the kind who will hurt me, Ruby thought, starting to feel scared. “There’s sickness in the house,” she said, thinking fast. But just then, her granny came to the back door and called out cheerfully, “There’s the birthday girl!”
The man strode ahead and made a bow to Ruby’s granny. “Hello, ma’am, I’ve come to celebrate the birthday. Do you have an extra piece of cake for a hungry soldier?”
Ruby widened her eyes at her granny behind the man’s back. Granny, who had not lived for nearly seven decades without learning a few things, gave her a reassuring nod.
“Oh, no cake, I’m afraid,” she said, in a much creakier voice than she usually used. “We’re poor folk. Would you like a cup of herbal tea? I was just brewing some.” Ruby knew she was trying to depress the man, who did not look like a tea drinker.
“Can you add a shot of something to it?” the stranger asked.
Granny hesitated. “My whiskey is for medicine. It’s expensive and I’m almost out.”
“That’ll do,” the soldier said, and followed Granny into the house. Ruby quietly set down her flowers and picked up Granny’s hatchet from the chopping block beside the door, hiding it under her cloak as she went inside.
The cake that Granny had made sat in plain sight on the table, prettily decorated with violets. The soldier broke off half of it and seated himself in Granny’s rocker—her only chair—while he wolfed it down. Ruby noticed a knife handle in the top his boot, and thought a bulge under his coat might be a pistol. She watched Granny mixing herbs and whiskey in her one good cup, and recognized the sleeping draught she always made when Ruby had a cough so bad it kept her up at night. Ruby asked the soldier where he was from, trying to distract him.
The soldier drank, looked pleased when he tasted the whiskey, and told the two standing women gruesome stories about battles he had seen. Soon he started to yawn and nod. When his head fell back and he dropped the cup, Ruby caught it before it hit the floor. Granny pulled the knife out of the soldier’s boot and retrieved the pistol from his belt while the man snored.
“He’s good for a couple hours,” Granny told Ruby. “Put back that hatchet you’re hiding and I’ll watch him while you run get the sheriff.” She settled on the hearth with the pistol in her lap. She handled the thing like she knew how to use it, which didn't surprise Ruby, somehow.
The village was so small it didn’t need a full-time sheriff or a full-time blacksmith, so one man doubled as both. Ruby ran the whole way to the forge and found the sheriff hammering a horseshoe. She started to gasp out her story, but he kept hammering, forcing her to wait. When he finally stopped, she started over.
The sheriff looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her red cape, her curly hair, her flushed cheeks. “Please come quickly, before he wakes up,” Ruby urged him.
The sheriff didn’t move. “You’re telling me a hungry serviceman asked for food on his journey home and you and your granny drugged the man instead of giving him a bite to eat?”
Ruby stomped her foot. “It wasn’t like that,” she said. “No means nothing to him. He’s dangerous.”
“He’s a soldier,” the sheriff said, shrugging.
Ruby’s eyes welled. Were soldiers allowed to take anything they wanted because they had guns? What were laws and sheriffs for, then?
“Ruby,” said a voice behind her. She turned reluctantly, ashamed of her tears. It was Michael, her friend, the woodcutter’s son, with a wheelbarrow full of wood for the forge. She was surprised to realize he had become a grown-up, and a handsome one, since the last time she'd noticed. “I’ll go with you,” he said, and her tears overflowed.
“It’ll be thirty shillings,” Michael told the sheriff.
“That’s twice what I paid last time, son,” the sheriff said.
“Last time I didn’t have to do your job for you,” Michael said. “Do you want the wood or not?”
The smith shot a look at the woodpile, which was down to a few sticks, spat on the ground, and then counted out the coins. “You break the law playing the hero, kid, you’ll be hearing from me.”
Michael dumped out the wheelbarrow beside the forge and smiled at Ruby. “Come on,” he said, “Dad’s here with the wagon.”
Ruby, Michael, and Michael’s dad the woodcutter soon arrived at Granny’s house. Michael and his dad tied the still-sleeping soldier up with several lengths of rope and loaded him into the wagon bed. They drove him ten miles to the next town, untied him, and left him in the square, still very groggy and covered in sawdust, with a warning to that town’s sheriff to keep an eye on him. They sold his weapons, and split the money with Ruby’s granny.
Ruby and Michael started seeing each other much more often after that. Ruby kept wearing her red cloak, and kept paying attention to the kinds of attention she got while she was wearing it, but none of it pleased her better than Michael’s, so when the time was right, she married him. They had plenty of adventures, some of them happy and some of them not, but those belong to a different story.
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