The light above the door is red. The red of a colored light bulb, the inviting red of blood and meat, the inviting red of home. The inviting red of food and death, of womanhood and life.
The young woman with the grey tale is nothing to fear. Unless her eyes are red. For when they are red, she is full of life, is bursting with it. She will ensnare you, she will love you. She will try to, anyway. She will ask you to howl at the moon.
The young woman without the tale will capture her for you, capture that lady with the tail, but she will take her home. And life will be dull once more.
The path to the door is red, too. Red paper lanterns light the way, round ones and star-shaped. Roses grow on this path, too.
Follow this path, follow the red, and the women will greet you at the door, bathed in red light. They will take you to the kitchen and give you tea and cakes. And you will leave feeling warm, feeling fed, feeling red.
Spike her tea, and the one with the tail will tell you about her red heart. It beats, indeed, pushing sorrow through her veins, out of her veins, pushing love through them. Love for a family lost, for a family found. It beats and pushes red blood through those veins, the red of flames, the red of construction paper valentines. She is sad, but she is happy.
The one without the tail, well, she will tell you: All of her red is good, nothing bad. The blood that falls from a finger, an injured digit: it reveals life at work beneath the surface.
You will say, "Too much blood, and there is no life left."
She will say. She will not say anything. She will smile at the one with the tail.
These women howl at the moon, stare at it through red stained glass. They have stolen the red from the wolves in the forest.
The forest.
Oh, yes, the wolves in the forest.
They are large and grey, and they have tails like she does. And she loves them, both of the women do: they are related (though only one by blood). The villagers fear these wolves. These wolves catch you, and it is you who will be howling at the moon as your red blood spills onto the ground.
But the wolf-woman has stolen this red, and now it beckons people home, to life, to her, to her stories - and away from the wolves and their death.
She feels bad for the wolves, they must eat too.
Both women speak of bringing the pack into the fold, of the family joining the family.
We'll see.
But the light is on. Go in. Go on.
(You might also enjoy her novel The Wolf Now Roams Among Fearless Lambs, which features the same characters)
