As I marched down the road, I squeezed the jug with all my might, giving it a punishing death grip. How could Peter have asked the meanest, vilest, most wretched girl in the village for the first dance at the Forget-Me-Not ball? Had I been only imagining it when he and I’d agreed to go to the swimming hole instead of the stupid, pretentious ball?

How could he have kissed her?

I thought he had more sense than that—as well as taste and dignity. I could go on and on about all the reasons Peter should stay away from Violet. I’d never told anybody about the red-hooded snow-girl in the forest, but I truly believed that Peter and I were on the same page about how Violet and her devoted duo might be fair on the outside, but were rotten on the inside, all the way to the core. I longed for the comfort my cross necklace brought me at times like this, when I felt so alone.

But then again, I didn’t feel alone. I couldn’t quite explain it, but I had the strong sensation that someone—or something—was watching me.

The sun had started its descent in the west, and a heavy fog had rolled in, blurring the forest into hazy, unfamiliar shapes. Though I fought against it, my mind wandered to the wolves.

A branch snapped. I stopped in my tracks and pricked up my ears, listening for anything out of the ordinary. My ears filled with the strangest sound of anything I could imagine for a bustling forest: silence. Not even a rodent scuttling, a bat’s wings flapping, or a leaf rustling in the wind. For an eerie moment, the world stood still.

I turned just a hair and spotted a pair of huge amber-colored eyes. They had to belong to a wolf, and suddenly, my blood ran cold. The eyes gleamed at me from the hollow between a towering spruce and a tangle of scrubs. Though I didn’t dare move a muscle, I closed my eyes and focused on my red riding hood. It will protect me always, I recited in my mind. Granny promised it would.

I waited, hearing only the pounding of my heart. The pounding grew louder, like someone was beating drums inside my ribs. Finally, questioning if what I thought I’d seen were eyes at all—or just a cruel joke my imagination was playing on me—I took a second look.

This time, there was nothing but a dark, empty shadow. It was probably just your imagination, I told myself. I concentrated on my breathing for what seemed like forever. When nothing out of the ordinary happened, I started walking home again, placing one scuffed boot in front of the other. The usual noises of the woods resumed. But the instant I started feeling safe, I heard something behind me—footsteps falling on the forest floor. They were faster than mine, and I could tell that each covered more ground.

My legs seemed to have a mind of their own, and before I knew it, I was running.

“You will never outrun it. Your only hope is to hide. Hide, child.” The words echoed in my mind, the voice all too familiar. But it wasn’t the voice I’d heard in my dreams. It was Granny’s.

The footsteps sounded close, too close. My time was up. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Granny,” I whispered, hoping the breeze would bring my last words to her. I owed Granny so many apologies, at least a thousand for each of the sixteen years she’d spent raising me.

On second thought, I wanted my final words to be something more poignant, something she could hold on to for the rest of her time. “I love you, Granny,” I whispered ever so softly. It occurred to me that I hadn’t said those words in a long while. Too long.

I whirled around, steeling myself to face my fate. I expected my frightened gaze to be trounced by a pair of wild, bloodthirsty eyes. I was ready to flinch, scream, collapse. Die.

But all I saw was forest. Endless acres of soaring trees. Leaves clinging to their branches as if for dear life, while others twirled down to the fern-covered floor with each breath of the evening wind. Bright green moss and lichens splotched the rocks and tree trunks. Ordinary, familiar, harmless.

Whatever was chasing me had to be invisible, or at least very well camouflaged. Perhaps it was nothing at all. Or maybe I was going mad, like so many people believed Granny was. But then I heard it again: thumping and bumping. Still, inexplicably, nothing emerged from the woods, not even a mouse.

I started running. Shielding my face with one arm and gripping the jug of milk with the other, I burst through a thicket. The prickly twigs clawed at my cloak. Roots tripped me like dozens of angry elves. I caught myself on a gigantic oak tree, but its moss-covered trunk buckled beneath my hand, and I dropped the jug. Before I could right it, the last drops of milk soaked into the thirsty earth.

“Hide,” Granny’s voice repeated in my aching head.

A hole appeared in the tree, swallowing me into its hollow haven. Like magic, a curtain of dried-up vines swung over the opening. As they swished back into place, they whispered, Shhhh.

It was the perfect hiding place, and I thanked my lucky stars to have fallen into it, even if I’d spilled the milk getting there. But I knew better than to assume myself safe. Safer, yes. But completely safe, never.

I wrapped the cloak snugly around my body and adjusted the hood so it shrouded my face. I shrank into its red, velvety folds, believing in its power. It seemed the more I told myself to trust in it, the more questions threatened my faith. What if the cloak wasn’t magic at all, like the feather in that story Granny used to tell to me about the elephant with the big ears? What if it was just a hoax, like the tale about the emperor who was conned into thinking that he was decked in the finest clothes in the land, only to discover that he’d been parading around completely naked?

What if, when faced with razor-sharp teeth and a thirst for human blood, the cloak was just a cover for a trembling, insecure girl without a hope?

If it wanted me, all it needed to do was track me down. My boot prints and my scent would give me away as sure as the moon would be full that night.

It was so close; I heard its every breath: inhale, exhale, inhale.

This cannot be how it ends. I haven’t had my happy ending. I haven’t even had my first kiss!

“Red? Red! Where are you?”

Peter?

I swept the curtain of vines aside and peered out. Grayish-green fog curled into the haven, billowing at my feet and flanking my skirts. Beyond the bushes, I spotted something, and with the shifting of shadows and mist, I could just make out his silhouette.

It was Peter! Relief flooded each and every part of my body.

“Peter!” On wobbly legs, I stepped out of the tree.

“Red! There you are. You scared me.”

“I scared you?” I countered, and then thought twice about confessing that he’d frightened me to the point where I’d imagined my grandmother talking to me and said my final words to her. “Why are you chasing me?”

“I have something of yours.” He reached in his pocket and placed something small and cold in my palm. It was my gold cross! “I was just over yonder at our pond and found it. Then I happened to see you—well, your red cloak, anyhow—walking through the woods.”

“Oh, Peter. Thank you!” I said, brimming with gratefulness. Letting the chain dangle through my fingers, I ran my thumb over the familiar smoothness of the golden cross. As my finger and thumb framed the pendant, it seemed to beam at me, glad to be back where it belonged.

“Oh, it was nothin’. But you gave me an impressive chase, I must admit.” He chuckled, despite himself. “I thought I’d never catch you.”

I said, “Had I known it was you, I would never have allowed such a thing,” and Peter just grinned and kicked a pebble. When our eyes met, I saw something foreign and exciting—yet also familiar and true—in his big brown eyes. I felt like I had when I’d jumped off the rock at the swimming hole. The strange and wonderful desire to kiss Peter hit me full force. Would it be so awful? I wondered what it would feel like, and silently cursed Violet for knowing.

I was sick of Violet ruining everything for me. I won’t allow her to steal this moment. I stepped closer to Peter until the tips of our boots touched. “Will you be so kind as to put it on for me?” I handed him my mother’s necklace and then twirled around. Moving the hood of my cloak to the side, I lifted my long, dark hair.

As he latched the necklace, his breath tickled the back of my neck. It felt warm against my skin, and yet it gave me goose bumps.

“Here, let’s see how it looks.” He twirled me back around, and his eyes rose from the cross up to my face. I had to be blushing something awful; it felt like there was an invisible torch between us. “Beautiful,” he said softly.

I cleared my throat. “Um, thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“I’m sorry I left your party so early,” I blurted into the silence that followed. “I had to get home.”

“I was worried. But I went home by way of your cottage. The candles in your bedroom were lit, and I could see your silhouette.”

“Oh,” I said, not sure what to think. On one hand, I was happy to know he cared about my welfare. On the other, I hoped he hadn’t seen me clearly, because I hadn’t worn a nightgown for an entire week! With the mere thought of Peter seeing me undressed, I was sure I blushed the hue of my riding hood. I’ll never sleep in only my underthings again, I vowed.

Peter tugged his ear and dropped his gaze to the ground. “I’m not a Peeping Tom or anything, I just wanted to make sure you were home. I was glad to see that you were safe.” A few seconds later, his eyes met mine. “Though I must admit,” he continued, “I felt slighted when I heard you’d brought me a birthday cake, and I never got even a bite of it.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll make one for your next birthday.” Better yet, I’ll ask Granny to.

“So, where are you off to in such a rush, anyway?” he asked, kicking rocks again.

“My grandmother asked me to fetch some milk for her, but it hasn’t exactly gone as planned…” I retrieved the jug and held it upside down to show it was completely dry. “She needs it for her baking.”

“And so she shall have it,” Peter said, swooping up the jug. “Lucky for you, I can fill this empty vessel with milk. All it takes is a little magic. Come on!”

Peter took me to his house and made me wait in the stable. He took the jug and disappeared, only to return with it a few minutes later. “And with a snap of my fingers, the milk your granny needs will appear in the jug!” he said with gusto that rivaled the puppeteer at market.

“Like magic?” I played along.

“Not like magic, Red. It is magic.” Peter snapped his fingers.

On cue, I peered into the “magically” filled jug. “Oh, Peter, thank you. I could just kiss you!” Even before the squeaking, smacking “kissing” noises wafted down to us from the loft, my cheeks burned with embarrassment. “But not really,” I amended, while our audience of pint-sized boys carried on. “I would never actually kiss you.”

“Whew, that’s a relief,” Peter said, loud enough for his brothers to hear.

They sniggered even louder when Peter hoisted me up onto his white-and-gray horse and accidentally—or perhaps not accidentally?—touched my bottom. My face blazed even as the mare broke into a gallop, leaving the rascals far behind.

At first, I sat rigidly behind Peter, holding on to him only tight enough to keep from falling or dropping the milk jug. It occurred to me that Peter had given me what was likely a whole day’s ration for his family, and his generosity and goodness warmed my soul.

“Let’s go faster,” I said once we’d made it to the road. Peter gave his horse a kick and she broke into a run. I knew he probably thought I needed to get home as quickly as possible—and that much was true. But the main reason I wanted to pick up speed was so I’d have an excuse to hug myself tightly against his body.

I breathed in the scent of him: leather, wood, metal, and soap. I never tired of that smell, and I doubted I ever would.

If he had kissed Violet—and I wished with all my might that he hadn’t—she didn’t deserve him. “Don’t take me all the way home,” I warned him when I realized we were almost to the cottage. “Granny will come unraveled if she knows I’ve been out and about with you…” He probably knew, but I felt bad telling him outright that Granny didn’t trust him—or any teenaged boy, for that matter—so I added, “when I have so much work to do.”

“And it’s less than an hour before sunset,” Peter said with a nod. “The whole village knows how serious your grandmother is about Wolfstime.” He tugged the reins, and after his horse came to a stop, he held the jug for me until I hopped down.

I reached up for the milk, but before letting go, he said, “Careful now. I hear you have a dreadful milk-spilling problem.”

I gave him a courtesy chuckle, and after we said our good-byes, he rode away, disappearing over the hill. As I walked up the path to the cottage, I hoped it wouldn’t be long until I got to see Peter again.

The door swung open before I’d even reached the porch. Granny stood in the entry, her hands on her hips, glaring at me over the rim of her glasses. I immediately wiped the smile off my mug. “Where have you been?” she demanded. “Can’t you see it’s almost dark?”

“Sorry, Granny. I know you’ve been waiting for the milk.”

“I don’t give a turkey gizzard about the damned milk. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“A wolf killed Farmer Thompson’s cow last night, so I had to fetch milk over at the Roberts’s place. I’m sorry I made you worry. It just took longer than expected.”

She looked over my shoulder, into the ever-darkening woods, and visibly shuddered. “Get your tail feathers in this house and help me get ready for Wolfstime.”