Red
"I'm your problem now." Did I arrive on your doorstep? It's time to play.
Discovery Notes
Blackwood Forest, Bavaria, late 1700s
Warning Issued
If you choose to keep her, do not separate her from her cloak. Keep a small basket beside her, lined with cloth and containing bread, salt, and a sprig of wolfsbane. She must always have an offering—otherwise, she hunts for one. Never leave open doors or windows at night; she attracts what hunts in shadows. On the first full moon of each season, cover her eyes with her hood and whisper: “No wolves tonight, child. Only dreams.” If you ever find her hood missing by morning, leave her where she sits. She’s already chosen a new path through the woods—and she never walks it alone.
Last Known Account
📖 What Mercy Hears
The doll was discovered in 1892, buried at the edge of the Blackwood Forest—the same region said to have inspired the Brothers Grimm. She was wrapped in a small crimson cloak, the fabric preserved far too well for its age, and her porcelain feet were red, as if she had been running.
Local legend tells of a girl in a red cloak who vanished along the old trade road that cut through the forest. The tale was retold as children’s folklore—Rotkäppchen, or Little Red Riding Hood—but older villagers insist the real story was darker. They say the girl had carried a doll to comfort her on the long walk to her grandmother’s cottage, a gift from her mother “to keep her company in the woods.”
When searchers found the girl’s basket days later, the bread had gone stale, the wine frozen—but the doll sat untouched. Her glass eyes were no longer brown but deep blue, reflecting the pieces of sky through the forest canopy. The child’s red cloak had been draped over her shoulders, though it had never fit her before.
Hunters who brought the doll back claimed to hear growling at night outside their windows. One woke to find paw prints in ash around his bed. Another was found dead at the forest’s edge, his throat torn open—but there were no wolves in the area that winter.
The last owner to document her described hearing faint singing from inside her cabinet: an old nursery rhyme in German. The refrain roughly translates to:
“The path was long, the woods were deep,
The doll you carry learns to keep.”