Basket in hand, she crept through the twilight-darkened forest. It surprised her little that the sun lay to rest before she did; she had made this journey often enough in the past to know that departure at dawn did not ensure arrival by dusk. She hated the journey; the enitre day the only thoughts that filled her head were anger-hardend and directed at that woman who met her every time she reached her destination. The old woman who fain bothered to thank her when she arrived with food for the week, whose mouth opened only to criticise, and whose right hand had an amazing affinity for the girl's head.

Eighteen years. Eighteen years she'd made this journey, ever since she was five years old and deemed old enough to pass through the woods alone to her grandmother's house. Those first years, those years when she believed the stories of beasties in the woods, they had been hell on the girl; gripped with fear she fled through the woods, collapsing on her grandmother's doorstep a panting, quivering mess. One week, when she was seven, she thought she heard a twig snap behind her, and so overcome with terror was she that no bird pursued by the hawk flew faster than she. It happened that in her flight she did not pay as careful attention to the ground as she should have, and a malicious root caught the poor girl's ankle, sendng her sprawling across the forest floor. Fear allowed her no space for thought; she merely stood up and continued on her way. Her grandmother cared less for the blood pouring from the girl's knee than she did for the three eggs broken in the fall.

By the time she turned eleven, spirits and baddies were childish folly, and to prove her fearlessness she forced herself to walk the path through the woods. Her legs may have quaked every step, her eyes may have darted to the shadows between every tree, her palms may have sweated so fiercely that she fain could hold the heavy basket, but she walked the entire path.

She first felt the eyes in her back when she was fifteen. Before then, she had either been so terrified by the stories her mother told her of evil beings in the forest that any sense of something following her caused immediate flight, or concentrating so hard on repressing the insinct that due caution was ignored for the sake of pride. But at fifteen she no longer needed to consider the terror; he mind thought clearly enough to -recognise the discomfort that had frightened her so severely in her earlier years. Something followed her. She whipped around to face the whatever-it-was that had tracked her so far and so long, but nothing greeted her except empty path. Sometimes she walked backwards, in case the whatever-it-was revealed itself only when she moved, but still she saw nothing. It had always been a mere feeling, an inkling that something was behind her, following her, watching her. But the day that she heard footsteps behind her she ran as she had not run since she was ten years old, ran to escape the whatever-it-was without a thought to pride or curiosity. After that day she never again heard the footsteps. But still whatever-it-was followed.

Three years later, she wandered along the path. Her mother's scolding floated through her mind; the girl always walked in a green tunic and dark brown trousers (an inattention to her female physique that her grandmother commented on several times per visit), and for that was by her mother thus berated: "Child, look at you, more tree than girl! Mark me, Ane, should you continue to travel thus attired to see your grandmother, a hunter will mistake you for his quarry!" As she had every week since her fifth birthday, she resigned herself to the acceptance of the proffered red cape, and as she had every week since her fifth birthday, sought the cluster of pine trees surrounding an outcropping of rock, and stuffed the cape beneath part of the rock. The you're-being-followed-hey-stupid-look-behind-you-this-could-be-dangerous feeling had mellowed over the years to the point where she accepted it as a part of her journey as normal as the trees and faint smell of magnolia and honeysuckle, even in the autumn (the attempt to figure out the tendencies of the flora of the forest she had long since goven up; it seemed governed by laws which superceded those of nature). When a twig snapped to her left, she did not bother to raise her head to it; anticipation of her reception kept a fair weight upon it. When the arrow flew between her legs, however, she shrieked and jumped high enough to hit that bird fleeing its fate as dinner. The hunter raced to her, as shocked as she to see another living being in the woods. Ane assumed that the whatever-it-was would leave her in the presence of a tangible human, but it did not, if anything it intensified and grew more oppresive. The hunter apologised for his rudeness (Ane thought it more carelessness than rudeness that would prompt one person to accidentally shoot another, but she let it go), and offered to accompany her the rest of the way. She was very please by the offer, but her acceptance was greeted by a sharp twinge from her whatever-it-was (when had it become hers?).

Following that meeting, the hunter guided her regularly through the woods. With every meeting, her whatever-it-was gave a stronger twinge; usually she ignored it, for the hunter was charming company. He offered to carry the basket for her (she refused), and always insisted on taking her arm or supporting her back (where was this man when I was five? Ane thought) as they walked together. The hunter slowed her considerably, something that Ane was certain would annoy her grandmother to no end, and truth to tell she might even have been glad of an excuse not to walk with him quite so often. But her grandmother was more than pleased to learn the cause of Ane's delay, and from that point on seemed disappointed when the girl arrived to well on schedule. While Ane's grandmother looked forward to a well-attended wedding, her mother's eyes darkened whenever the idea crossed her mind; should Ane not be able to complete the weekly journeys, she would once again be forced to take up the torch, and her visits were no more pleasant that those of her daughter. The daughter tried simply not to think on it; she supposed it was no bad thing to have a man so close to engaged, yet with every visit he grew more possessive, and with every meeting her whatever-it-was gave a stronger twinge. One morning Ane nearly fell over when the twinge hit, and when she anticipated a reception from cool, welcoming earth she found herself instead wrapped up in arms that could fain hold her wieight, and she not the heaviest of women. His face too close, he asked after her health; she responded with the truth: she was fine, just hit by a feeling of unexpected severity. He sighed, rested his head on hers, said he loved her too, and kissed her soundly. The terror that gathered in her body rivaled that of the six-year-old who had fled whatever-it-was; at that moment she would gladly have fled the hunter to face her whatever-it-was.

This morning she walked from her front door, basket in hand, red riding-hood about her soulders, and into the forest. Glancing quickly about her, she stole from the path into the grove to her rock. Ane tugged at the cord at her throat, and let the cape gently fall to the ground. She knelt to stuff it under the rock when something caught her eye that made her stop. A single rose, its petals a deep crimson that put her cape to shame, rested in the place where her cape usually hid. Carefully she picked it up and held it to her nose: the scent was like nothing she had ever smelt before; it was velvet, it was an addiction, it drew her in deeper than any flower had any right to- but then again, this was not any flower. This was a rose- her rose.

She said nothing of the rose when the hunter accosted her that morning. By that time the dew was gone from the leaves, and the stench of his sweat far outpowered the gentle green perfume of the spring-drenched trees. Ane thought wistfully of the rose in her basket, and wished to assail herself with its beauty again, but she feared a misinterpreted and overzealous reaction from her companion. He chatted on companionably as they walked, about his hunting, about her, about how much he loved her, about their wedding, about their house near her sweet old grandmother (only a strong conscious effort prevented Ane from shuddering at the thought). She listened to about every fifth word, and in one of the gaps a sound caught her ear, a sound which she had not heard for years. She stopped.

He appeared somewhat surprised by her sudden halt, and ask if everything was alright. She ignored him completely, only stared into the forest. There- she heard it again. Faint, but the footfall was still there. Now the hunter had heard it also; he released her to ready his bow in case any creature should leap from the forest to attack his future bride. She caught a glimpse of silver, and when his back was turned stepped slightly to the left to peer around the tree that blocked her view. The wolf held her eye for but a moment before it turned and disappeared through the forest. Without thinking she stepped gingerly off the path, and gave chase.

Her feet made barely a sound as she ran, not in flight but herself following. The only sounds, which she ignored entirely, were the crashing of a hunter's boots and the plaintive cry of "ANE!"