A Parent's Love

She stood over the little babe of hers who was now half hidden amongst the tree trunks. The little one had made quite a journey for someone barely an year old. So far away from the cottage, and so deep in the woods all by himself.

Her husband had commanded her to forget the child, for it had been taken by the forest and now was to become a meal for the wolves that roamed the lands. Yet she couldn't do it, and while her husband snored in his bed, she gently lifted herself out of his embrace so as not to wake him up, and taking a lamp, she went out quivering in her night robes.

Walking in the cold and chilly winds, with fear in her heart, she looked about for hours on end until she found her young. She picked him up as gently as she could, but the child was a restless one, and began to cry, as soon as he was touched.

She tried to shush him, cooing at him as best as she could in her shaking voice, but he only got louder as the moments passed and the sleep began to leave his eyes.

She began trying to retread the path she had taken, continuously trying to calm the child down, but to no avail. At last, the cries had drawn the attention of the residents of the woods, and she could now hear howling and growling getting closer to her by the moment.

Moment by moment, the howls getting closer, she lost her resolve, and lost to panic, she found herself screaming at her babe to quieten, with a ferociousness seem only in a cornered animal, not realising that her voice was now far louder than the child's screams had ever been.

The child now picking up on the infectious fear let out his own scream, which transitioned into a roar that gave the wolves pause. The wolves would have turned tail if it were not for a winter that had left them starved, and at last they couldn't resist the temptation of fresh meat and they found themselves at the spot where the roaring had been.

There now only was blood and bones spilled across the ground with the child covered in the gore, his belly jutting out in its fullness, playing with an eyeball, grabbing it by the nerves and shaking it about like a rattling toy.

The child had been claimed by the forest, and the mother should have left him in the forest as her husband commanded, but alas, sometimes a parent's love did lead to acts of madness.