Page 21 of Ravaging Red
Eventually everything went quiet, but as the days went by, I realized my hearing wasn’t the only thing that was affected. At dusk, I found I could read by moonlight. Colors sharpened in the dark. I slept less and dreamt more. I dreamt of teeth sinking into flesh, of fur sweeping across my body. My thighs ached, my cunt tightened at the memory, and every inch of me begged in wanting. A want hewn from terror and marked by pleasure.
I wasn’t fully human anymore.
But I couldn’t admit that, especially not to my mother. Instead, I went to the only other person who would understand me, my Nana. The Alzheimer’s was eating away at her memory, but for some reason, she was more lucid at night.
“Nana,” I began, my voice shaking as I knelt beside her, taking her hand in mine.
It took her a moment before she tore her eyes from the window and looked down at me. Her eyes seemed clear for a moment, and she smiled. “Red?”
“Hi, Nana,” I quickly took the opportunity because who knew how long it lasted.
“I need your help, Nana. Something’s wrong with me and I don’t know what to do.”
She slowly blinked at me, then scrunched her brow. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“I don’t know, Nana. I feel different.” I chewed on my bottom lip.
“How different?” She asked, her voice turning serious.
“Nana, I know you know more than you let on. I need you to tell me what happened to the girls who vanished into the Woods?”
She looked up and toward the window, a longing in her eyes. Then she started to hum that same haunting lullaby she’d sung my whole life. I knew I was losing her again. These lucid moments were few and far between now.
“No. Nana?” I pressed, squeezing her hand. “Nana, please answer me. Do they disappear? Are they trapped? Do … Will they come back?”
Her shoulders trembled as she placed a frail hand on mine. Tilting her head, her eyes half-lidded, as the humming melody swelled in the room again, louder than before, echoing off the walls.
“Nana,” I whisper, tightening my grip on her thin fingers. “Please, remember. I need you to remember.”
She doesn’t look at me right away. She just stared at the space between us, then her eyes flickered, like a match sparking, and something inside her sharpened as she stopped singing.
“His teeth are older than the trees,” she said softly, her words slipping from her lips like a dream half-remembered. “And his need… his need is not a gentle thing.”
I stilled. “Who? Rael?”
She smiled as if remembering something in her past.
“You shouldn’t fight the pull, sweet girl. Not when it’s blood deep. Not when it’s been written.”
My breath caught. “Nana, what do you mean by that? Written?”
She was slipping again; I could tell by how her gaze floated off toward the corner of the room. She began to hum again,rocking softly as she murmured, “The marked ones always go back. They will always belong to the darkness. They think they can run, but the moon knows their names. The Blood Moon always calls them home.”
I lean in, desperate to know more. “What happened to them, Nana? What happened to the girls?”
Her lips twitched, and for one terrifying moment, she laughed, a soft and strange sound I’d never heard before.
“Some were loved too hard. Some never wanted to leave. And those who stayed… oh, they changed, darling. They bloomed.”
“Were you one of those girls, Nana?”
She smiled and closed her eyes, the humming continued before she replied. “Yes.”
“How did you get away?”
“He died,” she whispered.
Tears blurred my vision. “And me? What about me, Nana?”
