A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

Betty gulped. Oh, why had she ever gotten mixed up in this? Why hadn’t she confessed her fears to Wolf or Virginia long before the full moon? Why had she listened to the fairy godmother?

She’d chosen wrong. That was the only answer. If she’d chosen right, if she’d have helped them hurt that little baby, then she’d be safe, just another person in the crowd. Just like the lady over there who’d run away when Littlebit came up to the mob. Just like the boy up that tree who hadn’t been able to keep up with the running and just threw rocks at her. Just like the terrible wolf who had caught up with her afterwards and threatened to do awful things to her if she didn’t accuse Mr. Wolf of doing what he hadn’t. The fairy godmother was nowhere to be seen, but that nasty wolf was right there, glaring with yellow eyes at her. He told her what he’d done to Auntie Edwina as he scrabbled at her window, and there was no doubt in Betty’s mind that he would do the same to her, only much more slowly, if she didn’t say what he’d told her to say.

She hid her face behind King Wendell’s handkerchief, starting to tremble. He’d come right into the house and murdered her great-aunt. She wasn’t safe from him, not anywhere!

The king and the queens were conferring in low voices. The Great Lady Cinderella nodded, then turned to her. “Child, I will ask the questions. Will it be better for you to be talking to a woman?”

Betty nodded, a corner of her eye still on the fierce wolf. He snorted.

“What is your name, child? Nobody has introduced us yet.”

“I’m Betty Pe -“ she turned it into a cough at the last second, making a show of clearing her throat and trying not to sob. “Betty Comfort.”

“You’re the daughter of Mrs. Comfort, former nursemaid to King Wendell?”

Betty nodded again, thankful that the mirror was covered up. Even so, she was going to do her best to avoid saying the fateful words “I’m telling the truth.” On account of she wasn’t.

“Did you have any trouble with Wolf and Virginia when you first came to work here?”

At last, a question she could answer honestly! “No, ma’am. They’ve been real nice and all.” The wolf in the audience scowled darkly. “Um, up until that night, I mean, your majesty.”

Cinderella nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

Um. What had happened was that she ran downstairs as soon as the dinner dishes were cleared, and Mr. Wolf was already upstairs doing... doing... well, everyone could hear how the bed squeaked! It was embarrassing!

But she couldn’t say that. She was such a mousy little thing compared to the beautiful Lady Virginia, and the bards all sang about Wolf’s devotion to his wife. Not even the fierce wolf in the audience could expect her to tell everyone that he’d chosen her when his wife was willing.

They say Lady Virginia doesn’t remember anything. I hope so... “The moon was rising and Lady Virginia took to her bed right after dinner.” Wolf and Virginia both nodded from their seats; she had taken the baby up as soon as they’d finished eating.

“Um, then Aun-, uh, mummy went down to the basement, and I went to follow, only Mr. Wolf was still right there. He said that he couldn’t do nothing with his wife, because, um, because of the baby being right there and all, and so he...” Uh oh. Every wolf in the crowd (except the one glaring holes in her) was starting to look puzzled, and Mr. Wolf was shaking his head.

Mr. Wolf had been nice to her. She couldn’t say it was as bad as she’d been told to say, no matter what the bad one ordered. Belatedly, Betty realized that no matter what she did there would be a big wolf mad at her-either Mr. Wolf, or the one in the crowd. It was too late to stop, so she tried to downplay the story. “Um, he didn’t touch me. Not like that. He just said he had needs and all, and undid his pants...”

“He said?” Lord Anthony asked dubiously. He turned to Wendell. “I’ve been through a lot of full moons with wolves, your majesty, and they’re not big on the conversation when they want something.”

Lady Virginia tossed her head. “Wendell, I have no idea what she’s talking about. Wolf came upstairs soon after me.”

King Wendell sighed. “I’m going to have to uncover the mirror, aren’t I?”

“Maybe not.” The dark-haired courtier who sat behind King Wendell leaned forward. “You say he dropped his pants?”

“Yessir.”

“Then you can describe what you saw.” The man sat back, pleased with himself. Mr. Wolf blushed. The king whispered something like “voyeur!” but the man shrugged it off.

Betty gulped. Oh, no, oh no, no, they’d said he wouldn’t know the truth without the mirror, that she could lie her way through this-but she couldn’t! She was only fourteen, she was a good girl, she’d never even seen a man with his pants off! Oh, Sally had, she was the bold kind of girl who peeked through the privy door, but what she described was too disgusting to be for real.

However, Mr. Wolf was a wolf, and there were plenty of wolves who walked around town with nothing but their fur on. Betty looked wildly around for one of them to take a look. There was that real big one, the wolf they called Great One, right by the corner of her platform. As if he could guess her intent, he sat down, curling a tail around himself-then laughed at her, the rotten fleabitten beast, with his tongue lolling out!

Here goes nothing! “Um, sir, he had all this dark fur down there. It was kinda hard to see...”

There were snorts of laughter throughout the crowd and Mr. Wolf started turning red. “Er, it came out of this sheath, like a dog’s, I mean, wolf’s, you know, because he’s a wolf and all...”

Wendell raised his eyebrows. The man behind him looked skeptical. Queen Cinderella looked interested, and Queen Red Riding Hood cocked her head to one side. Betty didn’t dare look at Mr. Wolf or his wife anymore.

“A sheath? While he was in human form?” Queen Red asked with a trace of scorn. Betty nodded and Queen Red frowned. She turned to say something to Wendell, who held up a restraining hand.

“How, er, big was it?” the king asked.

Betty thought back to Sally’s lies, but she didn’t dare exaggerate like her sister. No way a man could be... I mean, ouch! Biting her lip, she held her hands about five inches apart.

Literal howls of scornful laughter rose from the crowd, almost drowning out the one of outrage. King Wendell had a hand in front of his mouth, but from the way his shoulders bounced, he must have been giggling. He took his hand away just long enough to ask, “Are you sure?”

Well, of course she wasn’t sure! Obviously Sally had really been lying! “Maybe it was more like...” Betty moved her hands a few inches towards each other.

The laughter grew louder as everyone turned to stare at Mr. Wolf and Lady Virginia. Wolf snarled. Virginia tossed her head, raising a disdainful eyebrow as she turned to King Wendell. “She’s certainly not describing my husband!” she said archly.

“Good,” cackled Queen Cinderella. “I was wondering if I should offer condolences.”

Lady Virginia sniffed. “Offer them to whatever poor soul she’s thinking of. It’s certainly not Wolf!”

The crowd was lost its merriment now. Some of the furry wolves were on their backs, rolling in the dirt as they laughed. The only one not at least chuckling were those too young to understand and the nasty wolf, who was snarling at her with yellow eyes.

Her ears started buzzing as she looked into those glowing eyes; the crowd faded away until there was nothing but him. Terrified as never before, Betty squinched her eyes shut and turned away from him until the unsettling feeling stopped.

King Wendell coughed a few times behind his white glove before finally asking with a certain amount of gentleness, “If I uncover the mirror and ask you to tell the truth, will it show me any of what you have just told us?”

Betty hung her head. “No.” Suddenly inspired, she looked back up, pointing into the crowd. “He told me to say it! That one, right there! He told me to say it or I’d end up like Dell and Edwina! He’s one of the people you’re looking for!”

The bad wolf snarled and tried to disappear, but the crowd didn’t help him. Bigger wolves and humans held him at bay while the guards went to fetch him.

King Wendell must have been very confident; he didn’t even turn around to watch the capture. Betty was so fascinated and relieved at watching the wolf go down under the blows of the guardsmen that she almost missed the next question. “Who’s Edwina?”

“Your old nursemaid,” Mr. Wolf said. “The servant you sent us. She had the royal letter of introduction and everything.”

King Wendell, his dark-haired courtier, and Queen Red Riding Hood were frowning mightily. “My old nursemaid was named Jemima Comfort,” the king said.

The look he turned on Betty was no longer amused or sympathetic. “Guard, take the cover off the mirror while this little one tells me everything she knows.”

Oh my poor Wendell! Cinderella leaned back in her knobby pseudo-throne, taking a much-needed rest as Wendell used the mirror to try to untangle the mess made of his kingdom. So much intrigue for you to have to solve! To think I was once so young and innocent that I thought the world would come to an end if I didn’t get to a mere dance!

Her fairy godmother had been right. History was about to change. She could feel it in the air, in the tension singing from the crowd. There were always intrigues around kingdoms; thrones attracted plots like pumpkin pies attracted flies. But so many great, terrible things were happening to Wendell-what he was going through made the love stories of herself and his grandmother pale into insignificance. I have lived to raise myself up from being a nameless servant to immortality as one of the Five Great Women Who Changed History. Perhaps I will even live long enough to see our long-past golden age forgotten in whatever it is that Wendell and his friends unleash upon our world. She had never been particular friends with Snow White; it was impossible for two women to be labeled the fairest of them all and not compete with each other. A secret part of her heart had rejoiced when Snow had gained all that weight, turning her from stunning to merely pretty. Still, she had been a great, wise ruler. Snow, be with our grandchild now. I’m doing what I can, but I can’t see the future he is leading us to. Whatever he is creating, let it be good for all the Nine Kingdoms!

The story the servant girl had to tell was a short one, corroborated by the mirror. She didn’t know what had happened to the real Comforts, but feared it might be bad. Still, she loved her mother, and started to cry when Wendell sent an order along the wolf network for the arrest of Mrs. Peep. The mirror proved that the poor little girl had no real grasp of the treachery that had swirled around her until it was too late. Just another innocent caught in the conspiracy, in her own way as blameless and as wronged as the babe himself. The appearance of her fairy godmother was proof enough to Cinderella that the girl wasn’t evil, just as the wolf girl hadn’t been.

Still, wrenching as it had been, the questioning of the child brought them their first break in the case. The mirror obediently showed the faces of the crowd Betty had found tormenting the baby-proof there had been a wide human anti-wolf conspiracy. Many of the people shown had died under the wolf woman’s claws-defense, not murder after all!-and the crowd turned on any of the others who were foolish enough to be in attendance.

Wendell was flushed with triumph as a small group of captives was gathered to one side of the witness platform. “Now justice will be served! Let us start with the first accused-bring forth the conspirator Betty Peep pointed to in the crowd!”

The guards hauled up a struggling, snarling fair-haired man-no, wolf! His tail worked free as he tried to escape, shouting imprecations at everyone and trying to bite like a rabid animal.

There was a strangled gasp and a thud to one side, and Cinderella rolled her eyes. Had Red Riding Hood’s overly sensitive secretary lost it again? Honestly, she should hire help who had a little spine to ‘em. She turned to suggest that perhaps Red send her assistant elsewhere until the trial was over.

The queen herself was unconscious on the floor of the podium in a crumple of red fabric.