Story: The foolish girl

In a small village, there was a young girl. “Mom, I am just so tired. I can’t stand waking up in the mornings to work at the farm anymore. Why are we so poor?” she asked as she was picking out weed from their farm where they planted vegetables. Lily was the middle child out of 7. Her parents were not wealthy and had to work really hard just to get food on the table. Every morning they would go to their farm to plant crops and pick them if they were ripe.

One day Lily got angry with her parents because she did not want to go to the farm. She cried and walked down a path she had never gone on before. As she was walking, some one called out, “Hey what’s your name?” She turned around in shock thinking she was the only one there. He was handsome and very tall. She had never seen him before.

“My name is Lily,” she responded. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Joseph, I live right around the corner. What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I got angry with my parents so I decided to get some fresh air. I have a really big family and I am just tired of working every single day. Why can’t I be a normal girl and live freely?”

“Well you can come live with me” he responded quickly. “Well my parents will probably freak out so that’s probably not a good idea.”

“I promise if you marry me, you will never have to work a day in your life and neither will your family. I can provide food and shelter for all of you.”

As soon as Lily heard this, she turned around quickly with a smile on her face. “Really?” she asked.

“Yes” he answered.

Lily went back to her house and told her family that she was going to get married. They were all in shock and couldn’t believe her. She told them what Joseph said and that they could live in the house next door to Joseph’s. Trusting their daughter, they agreed. Lily got married and they all moved in.

“Has anyone seen Macy?” asked their mother. Macy was Lily’s younger sister. “I asked her to go down to the river to bring back some water but she hasn’t returned.”

“Oh don’t worry, she probably used another route home,” replied Lily.

Several days have gone by and another sister has gone missing. Lily was oblivious to all of this. Her response was always, “Maybe they went somewhere. They’ll return.” Lily was really into Joseph and believed everything he said.

Day by day, each family member went missing and Lily did not seem to notice.

One day, she finally noticed and asked Joseph if he had seen them. “How could they just go somewhere and not tell me.”

“Maybe they didn’t like living here so they moved,” Joseph suggested.

Lily soon became a little suspicious. She knew her family and they weren’t like that at all. She went around to look for her family one night and noticed something strange. She found pieces of clothing that she definitely recognized. She then proceeded to walk towards it. As she was walking she noticed something in the woods. She couldn’t tell if it was a human or a wolf. She rubbed her eyes and took another glance. It was Joseph, her husband, who has turned into a wolf. He was in the middle of a meal. He dropped what he had and started running towards Lily.

Lily finally put everything together and realized what happened to her family. With the feeling of guilt, Lily did not run. She let her wolf-husband eat her.

Joseph thought to himself, “everyone around here is so foolish” as he waits for another sad lonely girl walking down the same path Lily had walked.

(Wolf abstract: Pixabay)

Author’s note: I was inspired to write this story after reading “The Wolf-Aunt.” In the original story, a father was foolish and tricked into moving his whole family into his sister’s house. The sister was really just a wolf woman. I changed the character that was tricked by this werewolf. I thought it would be interesting to make this story about a foolish young girl who is so sprung on this man and doesn’t realize who he really is.

Bibliography: Persian tales, translated by D.L.R. Lorimer and E.O. Lorimer and illustrated by Hilda Roberts. Web source. The Wolf-Aunt