E-Written: Red and the Wolfe

"Malachai Alcott is two years older and you remember four years back when he asked me to the Beltine dance? What him and his friends did to me?"

"I remember what you and Malcolm did to him three years ago!"

"Payback! They are awful, the lot of them. Anyway. Is Melany done in the kitchen? I need to frost my cake.

"Are you gonna get dressed? How did your hair get so wild? Are those... leaves?"

I blushed, flustered. "Yeah, just go on and let me get ready!" I breathed, hurrying to the kitchen. Melany was still in there, but she was standing and talking to our mom quietly. About Malcolm, I was sure when they both went quiet and looked at me like I was intruding. "I need to frost my cake," I said, looking down.

I was my father's favorite, but as far as my mother was concerned, I was low on her list of favorite people. I lacked grace, femininity, beauty. I was wild and boyish and hated all of the womanly things a woman should love. Not only that, I had inherited none of her arcana. I was a complete null. Top that off with wild, red, curly hair that couldn't be tamed into a bun that was smaller than a cooking pot, I was pretty much the bane of her existence.

"Is it burned?" my mom asked, her eyebrows furrowing.

"No, I watched it carefully."

"Mixed correctly?"

"Yes, mother, I am not going to embarrass you," I said almost angrily.

"The next part is all that matters anyway," Melany said lightly. "It matters how good it looks. If it tastes bad no one will know but whoever bought it. If it looks bad, no one will bid on it."

"That's what I am worried about! A Wildes has won the baking prize for the past nine years and she is going against Clarrissa Alcott! How embarrassing is it going to be when no one even bids on her cake?"

"Mother!" Melany said softly, blushing. "Anyway, I am entering my tarts!"

"You already said Malcolm would bid on those but you know he has no coin! And once he bids, none of his friends will because they will know!"

"Can I just decorate my cake so I can go get ready?" I asked, trying to control my temper.

"Why don't you let me?" My mom said, perking up. "You go get dressed! All that matters is you cooked it."

"No! You said I had to do this this year and if I am putting my name on it, it will be all mine," I said through gritted teeth.

My mother threw up her hands and rolled her eyes as if I were being unreasonable, then stormed out of the kitchen. Melany gave me a baleful, 'I'm sorry' look, then followed her.

I decorated my cake carefully, then boxed it before anyone could come back in and see it.

Getting ready took longer than it ever had in my life. Normally, I wouldn't care at all, but today... today I wanted to look nice for once. I tried everything with my hair, braiding it, rolling it, wrapping it. Nothing worked. It was Linley who saved me, coming in and helping me braid and roll the sides into a crown and letting the back fall free in curls. She smiled and looked up at me as she tucked and tamed curls.

"So this boy, the one from earlier? He the reason for this?" she asked quietly.

I rolled a shoulder in a shrug as I looked at the far wall. "I just thought I would try for once. Maybe our mother will be less angry tonight if I look like a daughter and not a wild redcap mushroom."

"Papa thinks you are perfection incarnate."

"Only because I look like his mother. Thanks for the help, this is as good as it's going to get, isn't it?" I asked with a forced smile.

I stood and she adjusted the dress on me. "Dark blue is so lovely on you, against your pale skin."

"Surprised our mother allowed me a color this year, even if it is blue."

Linley hugged me close, looking beautiful in her pale pink dress. She represented young love, blooming and new. She had been courted by Gerrid Hass, the blacksmith's son, since we were 15. Now that we were 18, they were going to be married in spring. Melany was 19 and she had originally been courted by Ancel Alcott, the middle Alcott boy, but once our mother became enemies, that had ended two years ago. Now it was looking like Malcolm and Melany might be courting soon. She did not have a professed love, so her dress was a bright yellow of happiness and open hearts. My own dark blue was usually a color reserved for a son and it meant that I was not focused on love, but a profession. It was my mother's way of making sure people did not question why no man was asking after me. What it really meant was that this fabric was on sale and if she put me in white again, people would wonder if I were a lover of women.

We went out together and our mother looked at me in surprise. Pleasant surprise. I ignored her and hugged my father and walked on his arm to the feast as she hung back to walk with Melany and talk to her. Melany was more shy than Linley and after what happened with Ancel, she was in need of a lot of coaching. So they thought. I wanted to tell them Malcolm didn't care about their games and their ways to flirt, all he needed was a clear signal. He would ask for her hand tonight if he knew that was what she was angling it. It was her games and coy flirting that was throwing him off and confusing him. It made me feel good to know that my mother wasn't nearly as smart as she thought she was.

Clara was excited to separate from the family table and go to the Maidens table with her friends and I was nervous as I sat next to papa, looking around. I finally spotted him, his family at least, the other Wolfe's, and the other families in their clan. I tried to find him, but he didn't seem to be with them.

I finally spotted him behind the table with the baked goods to be auctioned after dinner. They were all still boxed in the boxes provided by the contest. All exactly the same so that no one could know whose was whose. I smiled as he looked over the table in confusion.

"Hsst! Red!" Malcolm called from behind me.

I turned and got up, hurrying to him. He looked positively sick. "Mal? What's wrong?"

"There are four different apple tarts! How do I know which are hers?"

I deflated and rolled my eyes.

"It isn't funny! I can't bid on all of them! You know I just spent every copper I had on that little plot near the woods!"

"Calm down. I will do you a favor if you do me one."

"Name it!"

"Her apple tarts are made with green apples, so she garnished them with a slight green and yellow filigree icing."

"Oh, thank the gods!"

"How did you know how many tarts?"

"It's on the list, my gram is on the committee."

"How many spice cakes?"

"3."

"See Jeremiah over there looking at the boxes? Go explain to him how they will be unboxed when bidding starts. And tell him he will know, there will be no doubt."

"Uhhh.. ok? Something I should know?"

"No. I did you a favor, now go do mine. Oh! Also... if you get a chance, Mel is really hoping you will finally kiss her tonight."

"Really?!? She wants me to? Are you messing with me?"

"No. not like you messed with Jeremiah by the way."

He grinned as he turned and left. When I sat down, Melany and mother were both looking at me in alarm. I smiled at them and looked away, but turned back that way quickly to watch Malcolm talk to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah looked dubious, as if he thought he were being tricked again, but he finally gave Malcolm a slight nod and left the table, going to stand with his family. When he looked in my direction, I quickly looked away as if I hadn't been watching him.

I wasn't sure I liked this feeling, or this game. I never thought I would be one of those girls who would be all flustered and unsure of herself if I were to ever meet a man. I had wanted to think I would be confident and able to just flow into it naturally. Nothing felt natural about this, I felt so... inept. I hated this feeling.

I looked back to his table and our eyes locked as he was looking right at me. My lips parted slightly as I stared back at him, then I blushed and looked down quickly.

No. I did not like this feeling at all. My grandmother's words came back to me. Be careful of the black wolf. Did she mean Jeremiah? Why did I have to be careful?

The three elders stood and with them the women dressed as effigies of the three goddesses, The Maiden, The Witch and The Mother. They announced the beginning of the feast and the three women in costume began wandering the large hall. After the auction, three women would be chosen to honor and stand on the dais to perform the Yule ceremony and next year they would wear the costumes and choose three more women.

The music began and the feasting, along with the dancing. We were all served mead, even at the girls at the maiden table. Everyone over 13. It was always a fun celebration, but this year it felt different for some reason. I watched with a smile as Malcolm pulled Melany out to dance with him. Last year he and I had danced like wild things, having snuck into the mead as soon as the races were over.

Mother had been so angry.

A hand lighted on my shoulder and I turned and looked up with a pleased smile, expecting to see Jeremiah. Not Ancel Alcott. My smile slipped. "What do YOU want?" I snapped.

He shied back. "I wished to dance," he said softly, blushing.

"Go dance with yourself, you uppity shit!"

He blanched back and my mother covered her mouth in horror. "Red! You CANNOT speak to anyone that way!"

"Leave off, Sasha," Papa said, chuckling. "That ass deserved worse after what he did to our Melany."

Another hand touched me and I turned, looking up at Lewis Caine. "Yeah?"

"Come on and dance, Red," he laughed, pulling me up.

I let him. He and I weren't as close as Malcolm and I were, but we were good friends. I stopped hanging out with him a few months earlier when he had tried to kiss me under the bridge.

"I haven't seen you down fishing as much this year," he said, spinning me.

"No. I have steered clear of that whole length of the creek," I replied. "Some idiot who lives near there had to go and ruin our friendship by trying to go and kiss me."

He blushed and looked away with an embarrassed smile. "Do you blame me? Once Malcolm started mooning after Melany, I realized you and him weren't a thing. Everyone thought you were. I thought I had a chance."

"You didn't. And you didn't ask or give me any clue, you just grabbed me out of nowhere and slobbered on me."

He laughed then. "Well, I hadn't had much practice."

"Now you have. I heard about you and Opal."

"I learned to kiss anyway," he said with a shrug. Heard you were seen with one of the trappers, coming out of the woods alone."

"Who told you that?"

"Don't know. Heard it more than once though."

"I was coming back from grandmother's, we happened to be coming the same way is all."

"Yeah? So he wasn't at your house talking to you before that like Mal said?"

"Mal said that?"

"Said you looked pleased as punch about it too."

"Mal's an idiot. Don't go shooting your mouth off either."

"You know me, I hear something, I ask at the source. Like now?"

"Yes, but..."

"Kinley?" Jeremiah said sharply, taking my arm and interrupting our dance. "You said this was not a dance? If you did not wish to come with me, then..."

"Jeremiah, it isn't. Not like that. It's a feast, and you come with your family, but there is dancing. If you want to dance, you only need to ask, but you can't just grab me away from another. Ok?"

"Then I am asking you not to dance with another."

"So... I am guessing this is him?" Lewis asked.

"Yeah, this is him. Lewis, Jeremiah Wolfe. Jeremiah, Lewis Caine."

Lewis held a hand out to shake Jeremiah's hand, but Jeremiah ignored Lewis and his hand. "You spoke of me to him?" he demanded.

"Sort of. You remember I said everyone would gossip if they saw us walking? Well they did and he heard them. He was asking. I want to finish my dance, if you will excuse us."

"I don't want you to dance with him. Or any other man."

I tried not to smile at his blunt naivete. It was refreshing though.

"So... guessing you don't want to walk out under the bridge then?" Lewis asked, grinning like a kid, teasing me.

"What is the bridge?" Jeremiah demanded, sensing the joke and fearing he was the butt of it.

"The kissing bridge," Lewis volunteered.

Jeremiah paused, looking down at me in concern. "Tell him no. You will not kiss him."

"He already knows I won't," I answered calmly. "I already told him no in more ways than one, that's why he said it. We are friends and he was teasing me."

"Then say you will show me this bridge later, after I have bought the cake."

A laugh bubbled up, I couldn't help it and he stood up straight, offended. "I won't tell you I will kiss you," I said with a smile. "A girl can't say such a forward thing. But I won't tell you I won't let you either."

I turned and left both men standing there, smiling to myself over how refreshingly uncouth Jeremiah was.

"What was that?" my mother snapped in a hiss.

"We were talking," I said, then pulled my father out to dance.

I avoided any man but my father and Malcolm, saying no to everyone else. Jeremiah did not ask me to dance, but he did stand back and watch me as I danced with Papa and Malcolm both. He seemed fascinated with the maidens dance, where all the single girls went out and pressed hands, turning slow circles to the music and switching as we made larger circles around the dance floor. My eyes met his every pass and I knew suddenly, what the word serene meant. It was how I felt when I looked at him watching me.

Finally, the music stopped and the dessert auction was announced. Now I felt sick again as I took a seat in one of the chairs near the front with the other single girls who were of age who baked a dessert. Melany sat close to me and squeezed my hand. She was as nervous as I was! Clarrissa Alcott was smirking at us as she sat with her back straight and chin up, giving Dane Anders a smirk.

Ugh.

I sat through three mystery desserts before a box was opened and Melany clinched my hand. I looked at Malcolm and gave him the slightest nod.

He immediately bid and mother was right. As soon as he bid, all of his friends put their hands behind their backs, signalling they would not bid. Malcolm grinned as Melany hopped up to bring her dessert to his table.

The next two were tarts and cookies, described in detail by the announcer and I tried to keep my expression poised and settle my stomach as I waited. There were four boxes left and Clarrissa Alcott's pie was opened next. The real bidding war started and it was obviously a setup. Dane and his best friend bid back and forth with no one else interrupting, then smirked at each other and shook hands before Dane led Clarrissa and her awful looking pie away.

I looked up and around at the men left and Jeremiah was staring at me again.

The next box was more cookies and I looked down as the announcer talked about them. Of course my dessert was going to be the last dessert. I would have to sit here and look stupid the entire time!

The next box was opened and the announcer paused. I peeked, then smiled, because I knew why she had paused.

"This one is a cake, smells like a spice cake? And there is a very pretty design in the icing of a black wolf howling at the moon? It smells wonderful and there's enough here to feed a whole family..." she went on, but I stopped listening and peeked at Jeremiah. He looked... amused, his eyes sparkling.

He interrupted the announcers' detailing by bidding.

To my shock, Lewis countered immediately, and then Ancel Alcott. Jeremiah bid again, and then again and again. I was in stunned shock as I sat there watching the three men go round and back and forth. Finally, Lewis dropped out, but by now my cake had passed Clarrissas and she looked furious.

Ancel moved closer to Jeremiah, as if he meant to stare him down, but Jeremiah stood up straight and looked down his nose dangerously at the shorter man. Ancel looked away, but he kept bidding.

They kept bidding.

Neither of them were going to back down, and I felt sick to my stomach over the amount of money being bid on the stupid cake.

The announcer paused finally, looking wary. "I hate to ask this young man, but you understand you have to pay this money to get the cake and her company? Right now? You have the money?" she asked Jeremiah. No one questioned Ancel, everyone knew he had the money.

Jeremiah turned to glare at the woman.

"Enough of this!" I said, standing. "Ancel, I wouldn't eat with you if you were the last man on earth! Leave me alone. I am calling this in favor of Jeremiah Wolfe for half of that ridiculously testosterone filled bidding war."

There were some nervous chuckles, but Mr Alcott stood up. "The hell you will. You don't get to decide and you don't get to talk to my son that way! The bid stands until someone wins and if Ancel wins, you will do as you swore when you entered the contest and eat with whomever wins."

The announcer nodded. "It is custom, and all the money raised here goes to the village for needs. We left off at..."

I sat back down, wilting as I looked over at my papa. He looked concerned for me, but my mother was beaming and sitting in her chair all puffed up.

Ugh. I never should have entered. This was worse than no one bidding at all.

Finally, the announcer began jumping numbers, going in fives, and then tens.

I stood up angrily. "I withdraw!" I yelled, then yanked my cake away and dumped it on the ground. I stormed away, out of the hall and when I heard someone come out after me, I took off at a run. Whoever it was, didn't keep up so I knew it wasn't Jeremiah.

I shot into the woods and went straight to the creek, to my favored spot that only three people knew about. A pine had fallen, and another and another and when we were younger, Malcolm, Lewis and another friend and I had carved ourselves out a little cubby inside the burrow. We had made it bigger and bigger and bigger over the years until we had outgrown it, but I came back sometimes when I needed to be alone. It was quiet and peaceful and even on cold and snowy nights, it was dry and warm.

I crawled in in the dim light, into the pitch blackness of the familiar space. Only when I was alone and hidden, did I let myself cry. I curled up and sobbed into my arms, wondering where and how things had gone all wrong.

Mother was going to be so angry!

I half laughed at that. She had looked so proud, I could hear her now. 'I knew you would find a way to ruin everything!'

I did laugh then.

"Red?" Malcolm called at the opening.

I sat up quickly and scrubbed my eyes, though there was no way he could see me. "What? Are you alone?"

"Yeah? You ok?"

"Fine."

"You left a mess back there," he said, crawling in.

"How angry was my mom?"

"No idea, I took off after you about the time Mrs Alcott was getting in her face. Ancel threw a punch at Jeremiah and Jeremiah put him down quick. He came after you too, but I didn't let him see me or follow me. Is Lewis here?"

"No?"

"He followed you out as soon as you left."

"I outran him, I don't think he's been back here since we were twelve."

"So... that was super crazy, huh? Melany was pretty upset too, she could see how distressed you were. Not to mention Ancel going after you that way. Guess she still has a thing for him?"

"No. I mean, he did hurt her."

"Yeah. Just so you know, yeah, his folks made him back off Melany, but he stood up to them after. It was too late, but him going after you? He wasn't messing with you. Not like his brother was. He was going against his folks to do it because he actually likes you. He always did but never thought you might give him a chance. He settled for Melany. That's why he wasn't very upset when his folks said no. As soon as I asked after Melany, he asked if that meant you and I weren't a thing and asked if he could talk to you."