Red Flags

Rosa left the house she had grown up in early in the morning to a chorus of shouting, cooler bag in hand and her favourite red coat draped around her shoulders.

Mummy had sent her to drop a basket off at Abuela’s house, which was at least twenty minutes of walking if you followed the footpaths, but just over five if you used the small hiking trail through the nature reserve over the back fence. Rosa was often sent off to her Abuela’s house when there was shouting at home. These days, it was usually about politics, and how Daddy had changed into someone Mummy didn't recognize.

Last night, which seemed to be the argument that continued into this morning, it was about how the country had been great in Rosa's lifetime, but it wasn't Daddy and the Hatepricot he worshipped who made it that way. Rosa was young, and neither of her parents would explain it to her, so Rosa focused on what she could do something about.

Taking the hiking trail meant shoving your way through a few feet of dense bush, and keeping an eye out for spiderwebs.

It also meant that Rosa would be there and back in time to catch the school bus, and she wouldn't have to chase after it while the other children hung out the windows to point and laugh at her.

Mummy had warned her that little girls shouldn't walk alone, not in secluded spaces where there were no witnesses or security cameras. Rosa usually did as she was told, but it was only a few minutes, and not very far. What harm was there in taking a shortcut?

It had been cold last night, and some of that chill still lingered in the early morning air, so the spiderwebs were made visible by dewdrops or the fading hint of frost. Likewise, any creepy-crawleys that might have been sheltering in the bush were doing so in cozy burrows. Wrapping her red jacket more tightly around her, Rosa stepped onto her path, checked her basket to make sure she hadn't dropped anything, and stopped dead. Standing in the middle of the narrow path, with no way around them, was a stranger dressed in army cameo, without any battalion insignias. Their face mostly covered by a deep hood, casting their features into shadow that was not helped by the light dappling through the trees.

They'd planted themselves between a large boulder on one side, and a very big tree on the other. There was no way past without going back into the undergrowth, and Rosa's Mummy had told her to stay on the path. Mummy had also said not to talk to strangers, but Rosa didn't see what choice she had.

She walked up to the stranger. "Let me pass, please. My Grandmother is expecting me."

Mummy said to call her Abuela her Nana or Grandmother when she spoke to strangers. It was ‘safer’ for some reason. The stranger didn't move. "It's a free path."

Rosa frowned. "It is a free path, and you're blocking it. Let me by."

The stranger smiled, enjoying her discomfort. "Just walking. No harm in that, is there?"

There was every harm, but the stranger didn't seem like the type to care about nuance. "But you weren't walking. you were just standing there."

Her personal blockade shrugged. "Is waiting for company a crime now?"

If Rosa were bigger and stronger, she might have punched them, and damn the consequences. "Technically yes, if that company doesn't want your company and you keep following them anyway."

The strnager sneered, and the face friendliness vanished from their voice. "Clever little girl. Better make sure that smart mouth doesn't get you into trouble."

Rosa shoved past the stranger and kept walking, a trifle faster than she normally did. They'd forced her to waste several minutes arguing with them, after all. Nana would be wondering what was keeping her.

When she glanced back over her shoulder to make sure the stranger wasn't following, there was no one there.

Next time she was sent to Abuela’s, Rosa swore, she was taking the spacious, very visible and populated street route.

She was still a few minutes from her Abuela’s house, and the narrow trail was being blocked again by another stranger! Or perhaps it was the first, who had somehow made it ahead of her; they were dressed very similarly, and with their faces mostly covered, it was hard to tell them apart.

Frowning, Rosa adjusted her grip on the basket, ready to swing it if she needed to bludgeon someone. "Mind letting me pass?"

The stranger shrugged and smirked. "Maybe I want to see what's in your basket."

Rosa scowled and tried to edge around them. "None of your business."

The stranger shifted to block her again. "No harm in being friendly"

There was a stone ear the strangers foot that would knock them off-balance. "Yes there is, when you're blocking my way and not beint friendly at all."

Rosa moved again, and so did the stranger, stepping on the rock and flailing as they lost their balance. Rosa darted past them, and ran all the way to her Abuela’s house.

The door to her Abuela’s house was ajar, like it had never been since Abuela’s stories of like in the 70s. The curtains were drawn, when the first thing Abuela did in the morning was open them. Something was very, very wrong.

Rosa slowed her pace, and approached cautiously, listening for any voices inside. There were no sounds from the house, which was even more suspicious. Abuela loved music, and if there wasn't something playing, she'd be singing, or talking on the phone with one of their many relatives.

On the street behind her, an unmarked van drove slowly past.

Hearing nothing, Rosa ventured inside. She could use the phone to call her parents. Mummy would want to know if something had happened.

Inside, chairs were knocked over and ornaments strewn about. The shrine for Dias de los Muertos lay on the floor, broken. Abuela was nowhere to be seen. Rosa ran for the telephone.

Mummy burst into tears when Rosa told her, before Daddy snatched the phone and told Rosa to stay where she was, he was on his way.

Near the door, someone moved. The stranger from the woods, or someone very like them, in the same uniform and face covering, was standing there. Rosa gasped. "Mummy, there's someone in a uniform at the door."

Mummy gasped over the phone and said a number of words that Rosa wasn't supposed to repeat. "Don't tell them anything, mija, no matter what they say you have to do! Don't go with them!"

The stranger approached, and Rosa dropped the phone to run behind the couch, crouching down and covering her ears, peeking through the holes in a crocheted throw. The stranger started to follow, then Daddy was bursting through the door, "No, she's a citizen through me! I have her papers!"

The stranger stepped back. "My apologies, sir. You're free to leave with your daughter; we've sent agents to pick up the old lady's family. Thank you for calling in the tip. You're an upstanding member of society."

Daddy shrugged, "Cheaper than Divorce Court; she can't sue me from a Detention Centre, and I can file on grounds of Abandonment."

The stranger touched his forehead in something like a casual salute. "Much obliged, Sir. Be sure to let us know if you have anyone else to report."

Rosa didn't know what was happening, she just knew that Abuela was gone and Daddy was here and she wanted her Mummy to hold her and say that everything would be all right.

She didn't know if anything would be all right ever again.

Not my usual sort of twisted fairytale, but with everything going on at the moment, it was one that needed to be told.