Chapter 1
Little Red‑Cap narrates her childhood ending at the edge of a wood, where she first sees a wolf standing in a clearing. The wolf reads poetry aloud in a “wolfy drawl,” holding a paperback and drinking red wine. He notices her, a sixteen‑year‑old “sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif,” and buys her a drink. She follows him into the forest, her red blazer ripped and her stockings shredded; she loses both shoes as she reaches the wolf’s lair. The wolf’s lair is described as a crimson and gold‑glowing wall of books, where words feel alive. She observes the wolf’s habits: he eats a dove she offers, he sleeps, and she sneaks in. Over the next ten years she learns the forest’s dark logic—a mushroom can seal a dead body’s mouth, birds represent tree thoughts, the grey wolf repeats the same song at the moon each season. She experiments with violence: chopping an axe into a willow to see it weep, an axe into a salmon to watch it leap, and finally an axe into the sleeping wolf, cutting his throat. In the wolf’s belly she sees the white, virgin bones of her grandmother. She fills the wolf’s empty stomach with stones, stitches his wound, and then leaves the forest carrying flowers, singing alone.