Page 1 of Little Etheldreda Riding Hood

Chapter One

In Which Our Protagonist Has to Rehash Wandering Dick

“Etheldreda, dear, could you hand me another skein of this same yarn?” Mrs. Whittaker says from her recliner, waving what’s left of the one she’s working with in the air.

I look up from my book on the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and bite my lip to keep from making the face I always make when someone calls me Etheldreda. Not even my mom called me that when she was alive, and she’s the one who bestowed me with that unfortunate family name.

But for Mrs. Whittaker, a person’s full name is sacred. It’s like she lives by the rules of commanding the fae. There are no nicknames, no abbreviations in her world–she won’t even shorten it and call me Ethel. Everyone else I know is perfectly fine not trying to sound out my name. They are more than happy to go with the nickname I’ve borne since I came out of the womb with a mane of unruly red hair– “Red.”

Mrs. Whittaker’s sister, Mrs. James, sits next to her in the other recliner, crocheting god only knows what. “While you’re up, Red, could you find me some stitch markers?” Mrs. James asks, not looking up from her own work. “I think they’re on the top shelf.”

I set my book down, push up from the couch, and head over to their yarn stash. There are shelves and shelves of it arranged by color and weight that I’ve painstakingly organized for the two ladies over the past few months that I’ve been their home health aid.

“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Whittaker says as I bring her the new skein. She ends her row on the baby blanket she’s crocheting and begins with the new skein, holding the tail against the completed row so it will get worked in with the rest. I open up a few of the stitch markers and lay them out on the end table where Mrs. James can reach them, then head back to my usual spot on the couch opposite them.

I pick up my book, but don’t bother to start reading. Instead, I sit quietly waiting for the question I know that’s about to come.

I don’t have to wait long.

“So, Etheldreda, when am I going to be making a baby blanket for you? Has that young man of yours pulled his head out of his ass and come crawling back yet?”

I sigh. Mrs. Whittaker is not one of my memory patients. She’s as mentally sound as me, probably even more so.

When hell freezes over…

“Now, Ophelia, don’t start that up again,” Mrs. James says.

I feign interest in my fingernails. “I wouldn’t know. I changed my number and have him blocked on everything still.”

“Pshaw, this is a small town. You have to live under a rock not to know what is going on with someone.”

She’s not wrong. In fact, I’ve taken a hiatus from most forms of social media so I don’t have to see pictures of my ex living his best life.

“Ophelia, leave that poor girl alone. God only knows she’s had to deal enough with that rejected Luna bullshit. As if she’s responsible because the Cox pack has a future Alpha with a wandering dick.”

I look down and bite my lip to stop myself from laughing at Mrs. James’s use of the phrase “wandering dick.”

“You know, future Alpha or not, that young man has a lot of growing up to do. He’ll come around Etheldreda. He’ll be knocking down your door before you know it. Give him some time. He’ll realize what he lost.”

Somehow I doubt that. It’s been almost six months since my fiancé, Morgan, left me one day out of the blue for the girl who got away—his high school sweetheart, Willa.

“Look, it’s just I’m going to be Alpha soon,” he’d said to me the night he announced he was leaving. As we spoke, his friends carried his things out the door of our apartment, their faces full of pity.

Morgan’s expression, on the other hand, had grown hard. He no longer had any of the softness I’d become used to. The Morgan I had known was gone. “I need…my pack needs a strong Luna who really knows me.”

“We’ve been together for four years, Morgan. You just proposed to me. I do really know you, I promise. I can be that Luna the Cox pack needs. Please stay. We had everything planned. There has to be something I can do–”

Even now I cringe when I think about the pleading I did to try and keep him there, tears streaming down my face.

He claimed he hadn’t seen Willa in years, but all of a sudden, one dinner with her to catch up on old times, and he knew she was the one. The four years we’d spent together were all for nothing. Gone. Like it never happened or even mattered. We'd been together so long at that point that everyone assumed I was his Luna. Now, I was a rejected Luna—a town pariah.

People I'd assumed were my friends disappeared overnight. Absolutely no one–even in unrelated packs in nearby towns–wants to be associated with a rejected Luna. It’s sexist and misogynistic, but old traditions die hard, especially in a town where wolves are the majority.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. For once, tears don’t fill my eyes.

Huh, that’s an improvement.

“I don’t think he’s coming back anytime soon, Mrs. Whitaker.” I say aloud.

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