“That’s the short way. Take the long path. The bluebells are late this year.”

The frame is soft, overgrown. Wild blackberries have swallowed the stone marker where Red’s mother used to pray. In the foreground, Red’s hand—calloused, nails clean for once—rests on the axe handle. Not her mother’s axe. The woodcutter’s. The woman who taught her to skin a rabbit, to read a wolf’s scat, to love the silence after a kill.

“The better to say your real name,” the wolf replies.

“What big hands you have.”

“What a big mouth you have,” Red whispers.