Twist.
Susan Sowerby
With great trepidation she edged out into the cold dusk. It couldn't have come at a worse time. She knew he would throw her out, but why just now, with night falling and nowhere to go?
In the hazy distance, the town's gas lamps flared to life, reminding her of fairy lights, but the dark glowering forest stood between their invitation and the closed doors of Weatherford Hall.
The cry of a wolf sounded somewhere and the toll of the church's Evensong bell rang out. A callous sun abandoned the earth to darkness. Cold night air carried cheerful wafts of families cooking over the top of the dense trees. A test of courage seemed to rise with the mist from the very pores of the ground. There was nowhere to go but forward.
She wondered what sort of life awaited her. What could this world offer? Who would take pity? Pity! Her mother had bought her up not to indulge in pity, though now tears silently flooded her cheeks. She carried a burden within and without, though the cloth that held her few belongings was by far the lighter. Since the death of her mother, the Manse had been her home, her life, her protector. She'd heard frightening stories of the outside world. Fear of being expelled into it had forced her to allow favours which, in the end had caused fear to become reality.
The wolf howled again as she remembered her mother, the one person from whom she had learned real love, and was comforted by the nursery rhymes she had taught her. What did it matter if the wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood when her life had already been consumed by a wolf? Even the prospect of being eaten seemed far better than the narrow option before her. Hollow eyed women of the streets stared from every shadowed corner of her imagination.
As Agnes turned her face from Weatherford Hall, the factory that churned out such women, and stumbled toward the dark trees, she thought she caught a glimpse of a shadowy form close behind. Was it fear or reality? She walked a little faster, thinking about the curse of beauty. A plain maid would be left alone to work her way into calm and respectable old age.
As she walked, rage boiled. She thought about life forcing her into positions, of men forcing her into positions for the rest of her life. Who would take her in when she arrived at the village late at night? Had poisoned tongues from 'The Hall' already contaminated their ears, hardened their hearts? A chill shivered through her as she remembered how the rich protected their reputations by ruining those of the poor. She'd heard them at it, behind closed doors.
As her feet carried her into the forest's maw, she chanted an angry nursery rhyme to quell the hideous fear.
'Duke of Weatherford, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row,
a row, and pretty maids all in a row!'
As she walked, disgust at her own compliance mauled her. A wolf seemed to rise up within as she stood in the darkest part of the forest. It was a choking, hairy ball lodged in her throat. The silent stalker closed in for the kill.
Suddenly, her snarled, knotted emotions burst up and out as something inside her struggled to free it's self. The cry that issued from her throat was not human. It could have been a crazed were-wolf.
The black shadow - vanished.