Red's Untold Tale

Copyright
Once Upon a Time
© 2015 ABC Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Published by Kingswell, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

For information address Kingswell, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.

Editorial Director: Wendy Lefkon
Executive Editor: Laura Hopper
Cover designed by Julie Stephens

ISBN 978-1-4847-3012-6

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Contents

1. Title Page
   
2. Copyright
   
3. Dedication
   
4. One
   
5. Two
   
6. Three
   
7. Four
   
8. Five
   
9. Six
   
10. Seven
    
11. Eight
    
12. Nine
    
13. Ten
    
14. Eleven
    
15. Twelve
    
16. Thirteen
    
17. Fourteen
    
18. Fifteen
    
19. Sixteen
    
20. Seventeen
    
21. Eighteen
    
22. Nineteen
    
23. Twenty
    
24. Twenty-One
    
25. Twenty-Two
    

This book is dedicated to the fans of
Once Upon a Time

I'm not afraid because I sense that
I'm not alone. I don't see anyone, but I hear a familiar voice.
Though it sounds like it's coming from far, far away, being carried by the wind, I hear it clearly. The voice reminds me to breathe. I inhale, and the darkness enters my lungs, spreading throughout my body, filling me with energy.

Power.

Hunger.

With outstretched arms, I reach higher and higher. Between the
shadows, splinters of light glisten just out of my grasp—morphing
into thousands of fireflies caught in
a tornado. I kick and claw my
way up, through layers of dirt, roots, grasses, tree trunks, branches,
twigs, leaves.

Then—nothing but air.

The wind blows through my hair as I throw my head back and
blink in the sudden brightness. The full moon illuminates the land,
and I'm filled with reverence and
warmth.

Saturday, May 12

I woke up in a sweat and kicked off my covers. The quilts and fur pelts tumbled to the floor, landing in a heap. Warm sunlight poured through my bedroom window, and outside, the rooster crowed
hoarsely. Blinking and stretching away my drowsiness, I realized I'd had one of my dreams last night, and that meant Wolfstime was coming.

Three and a half years ago, when I turned thirteen, I started having the Wolfstime dreams. Though each was different, they always began in complete darkness. It wasn't ordinary
darkness—say, a night without moon or stars, or the deepest cave, or how I imagined it looked at the very bottom of a well. It was much, much darker than that. Like I was completely submerged
in a sea of tar.

I never told anybody about my dreams—not Vicar Clemmons, not my friend Peter, not the girls at school, and most certainly not Granny. I knew that the dreams were strange, which meant
I
was strange, and that was the last thing I wanted people to think. Besides, my dreams felt sacred, like they were a secret part of me—and it was up to me to put the pieces together
and somehow make sense of the bizarre images, sounds, and emotions.

Before my grandmother could poke her nose in and scold me for having slept in nothing but my undergarments again, I wiggled into my blouse, bodice, and skirt and ventured through the living room
into the kitchen.

“Hello? Granny, where are you?”

To get a head start on the day's baking, my grandmother usually awakened well before me and even before the rooster—which was a good thing because I hated to imagine how grumpy she
was before getting a couple cups of coffee in her. Not bothering to cover my yawn, I filled the pot with water and lit a fire below it.

Granny's snores thundered through the cottage, and I shook my head. She said it was unladylike to sleep in nothing but one's undergarments, yet I couldn't think of anything
more unladylike than snoring. Well, maybe scratching oneself in public. Or growing a beard. Still, it sounded like a mean ole grizzly was hibernating in Granny's bedroom.

I pondered waking her up but decided against it. Tonight was Peter's birthday party, and I wanted to bake a cake for him—and having the kitchen all to myself was a rare and beautiful
thing. Just think: I could put whatever I pleased in a bowl and mix it all up without having her breathing down my neck. Besides, the little kitchen didn't seem nearly as crammed without
Granny.

The bowls, plates, and cups were stacked neatly in the pale yellow cabinets. A pitcher and a skillet sat on the countertop where they'd dried overnight, and behind them, jars of spices,
flour, and sugar were lined up against the wall. Sunlight shone through the window, already warming up the room.

When I reached for Granny's cookbook, which she kept on the top shelf, a tiny midnight blue jar came tumbling down. I screamed a little and caught it a mere inch before it crashed on the
floor.
POPPY DUST
,
JUST A PINCH DOES THE TRICK
, the label read. “So it does,” I said out loud. Last night, Granny had complained that her
arm ached. She probably used a little poppy dust to help her sleep when it was particularly painful. As I returned the jar to its hideaway on the shelf, I hoped Granny would sleep at least another
hour, even if it meant having to bear her terrible snoring.

I leafed through the yellowed pages of the cookbook—each recipe recorded in small, neat script—until I found
BIRTHDAY CAKE
. Donning Granny's favorite
apron, I mixed the ingredients and poured the creamy batter into three round pans. “Now bake up nice and pretty like the ones Granny makes,” I said as I slid the pans into the
sweltering oven. Oh, how I wanted to be finished! But there was still frosting to be made, so with a sigh, I flipped through the cookbook again.

These recipes had been passed down from mother to daughter for three generations. My mother, Anita, would have been next in line to inherit the cookbook—if she were still alive. Thinking
of her with a sudden wave of sadness, I touched the cross pendant that hung around my neck. The smooth gold felt warm against my fingertips. On its reverse side was an engraving barely visible to
the naked eye. It appeared to be a sliver of a moon, with a tiny dot in its middle. The cross had been my mother's, and I wore it always. It helped me feel closer to her. Sometimes it even
made me feel more like her, especially when I desperately needed to be brave.

I had no memories of my mother, and Granny told me very little about her—yet somehow I couldn't picture her baking day in and day out, like Granny, or delivering baked goods all over
the village, like I do. From what I'd gleaned over the years, my mother had been a strong, wildly beautiful woman. She'd had an endless supply of the most fascinating friends and a new
adventure waiting around every bend.

In other words, the very opposite of me.

I peeked in the oven and almost squealed out loud. Each layer had turned a lovely golden color with a slightly rounded top. I could have admired my sweet-smelling cake layers all morning, but I
didn't want to risk burning them. After removing them from the oven, I set them on racks by the window to cool. Though it had been sunny earlier that morning, clouds had rolled in, no doubt
brewing up a May shower.

Then it was back to conquering the frosting. I'd followed the recipe and beat and whipped it with all of my might for at least half an hour, so why wasn't it smooth and fluffy, like
Granny's? When I fetched the cake pans from the window, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was as if someone had thrown a rock into the center of each layer. To make matters worse, when I
tried to empty the first layer from its pan, it stuck. I jabbed it with a knife, but when it finally came out, it was bumpy. And the other two didn't come out any better.

“What's going on in here?” Granny asked as she shuffled into the kitchen. With her dimples, wire-rimmed glasses, and gray hair swept into a bun, she looked like a
sweet-as-molasses grandma out of a storybook. But I knew a different character, one whose whole purpose in life was to make her sixteen-year-old granddaughter as miserable as possible.

I couldn't even count to ten before the first gibe left her mouth. “You're doing it all wrong.”

Biting my lip, I turned my back to her as I continued smearing globs of frosting onto the horrendously misshapen cake.

“Looks to me that you might have forgotten to test it,” she said, pointing at the corn-husk broom that hung from a hook behind the oven.

Part of me wanted to ask for help. I loved the idea of presenting Peter with a cake so beautiful and scrumptious it would be the talk of the whole village. If anyone could accomplish making a
cake so grand, it was my grandmother. But the other part of me was much too proud to ask Granny for so much as a halfpenny, let alone admit to her that I hadn't remembered to stick a straw
from the little broom into the cake to test that it was done. I couldn't bake worth a bag of beans.

Speaking of beans, “I made coffee,” I said. “You should have some.” Hopefully it wouldn't be long before the rich black liquid worked its magic on her mood.

“Don't you remember a blasted thing I taught you?” Granny reached for the knife, but I held it out of her reach. “Don't spread it so close to the edges.”

“It's for Peter, and he won't care if it isn't perfect.” I truly believed this. Peter was the one who taught me that with a bit of hard work, anything could be made
beautiful. He did it every day, turning a bucketful of scrap metal into something wonderful.

“If it's in your power to make it perfect, you should never settle for anything less.” Granny helped herself to a cup of coffee. “Even if it's for that
blacksmith's fool of a son,” she added under her breath.