***
One day, Bo headed into the town. What used to be a quiet little hamlet with horse-drawn carriages was now a bustling place with loud things called cars and artificial lights everywhere. He sold some game, bought new clothes, and asked someone to tell him the date—the whole date.
“May seventeenth, nineteen eighty-five,” he muttered to himself as he trekked home. He looked up at the ancient branches above. “It’s been a long time.”
Bo began to open the door to his cabin when he heard something coming from deeper in the woods. He peered around and saw nothing, so he put his belongings in the cabin and cautiously walked in the direction of the constant noise.
It was in the area where Bo and Ryan once trained together that Bo found a little boy, looking to be about eight years old. The boy was sobbing into his arms, sitting curled up on the ground. His short, fluffy, dirty-blonde hair was tousled by the breeze in the forest. Bo walked closer to him and knelt beside him. “Hello,” he said.
The boy, startled, lifted his face from his arms and stared with puffy eyes at Bo, who held up his right hand in submission. “It’s all right, I won’t hurt you. What’s your name? I’m Boelik—Bo for short.”
“Kian,” the little boy responded.
“What’s your last name, Kian?”
“Quirke.”
“I see,” Bo said. One of Colette’s. “Well, Kian, what are you doing out here?” The boy bit his lip. “You can tell me.”
“I ran away.”
“You ran away? Well, what for?”
“My Da got mad at me.” Kian sniffled.
“Oh, I see. And you got lost and want to go back, don’t you?”
Kian shook his head. “I just want to stay here.”
Bo looked at him pityingly. “Kian, I’m sure this wasn’t your father’s intention. He was probably scared for you. People get angry when they get scared sometimes. Your parents care for you very much, I’m sure. And what about your mother? Do you want her to cry because her little boy ran away?”
Kian sniffled again. “I don’t want Ma to cry.”
“There you are. Are you hungry at all, Kian? Do you want to eat before you go back home?”
Kian shook his head and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Okay,” Bo said, standing and holding out his hand. “Get up, then. I’ll take you home. But no more tears, all right?”
“Mm-hm,” Kian said, wiping his away. Then he stood and took Bo’s hand.
“That’s a boy. You’ll be home soon.” Bo walked Kian back home, to the edge of the little town that had evolved from the one he’d once known. Cars rolled down the streets, and the homes of supposedly better quality loomed over the paved streets. Bo glanced down at Kian. “Can you get home from here?”
“Uh-huh,” Kian said with a nod, releasing Bo’s hand. “Thank you for taking me home.”
Bo waved him off. “Just don’t get lost again, all right?”
“Okay,” Kian said, starting toward his home. Bo watched him go for a moment, waving to him as the boy turned and waved before running to his house. He leapt into his mother and father’s arms as they saw him from their porch. Bo turned away and walked back to his cabin for another night alone.
The next morning Bo awakened and ate breakfast. When he finished, he sat back and stared at the old gray hat on the chair across from him. He shook his head. “It was almost easier to burn the house and everything in it,” Bo remarked to no one in particular, “than to live and see something of the people I loved every day.” Staring at the hat, he continued, “It’s been almost two hundred years since then. Maybe my own time is going to run out soon. Wouldn’t that be nice?” Then he stood and put on his cloak, clasping it over his right shoulder, letting it fall over his left side.
Bo meandered out to the field where Ryan was buried in an unmarked grave. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he said to the grass beneath his feet, to the body somewhere beneath that. “I hope that I can join you wherever you are when I finally die, decrepit old man that I am.” An image of his wife and Ryan waiting flickered through his mind.
“Boelik!” someone called from behind him.
“Hm?” Bo turned, and at the head of the path from the woods came Kian, running up to him. “Kian? What are you doing here? Did you run away again?”
Kian shook his head and gazed up at him with his big brown eyes. “No, I didn’t. I came out for a walk with my Da.” He pointed back to the path, bringing Bo’s attention to a man coming upon them, taller even than himself.
“Hello there,” the man said, his eyes calmly meeting Bo’s. He had brown hair as well, and the resemblance to Colette reminded Bo of how long it had been since he’d seen her alive. Though one definite difference stood out—his eyes were of two different colors, the right being green and the left a bright blue similar to Ryan’s. “I’m Mr. Quirke. I take it you’re the Boelik who helped my boy?”
Bo nodded, holding out his hand to Kian’s father. “Boelik. You can call me Bo.”
“Well, Bo, thank you very much for bringing our boy back to us,” Mr. Quirke replied, taking the hand.
“You’re welcome. I was just heading home when I heard him in the woods, to be honest.”
“Where do you live?” Mr. Quirke asked, releasing his grip and letting his hand fall back to his side. “I haven’t seen you in town.”
“I’m not in town. I live in a cabin in the woods.”
“Really? My parents told me a story of a strange man who lived in the woods. A magical being, I think they called him.”
“Well, I assure you, I’m no delusional hermit. I’ve just lived there for a long time. It’s far more peaceful that way. Birds make better company than cars.”
Mr. Quirke nodded. “I understand the sentiment. It’s why my boy and I like to go for walks like this. I didn’t expect to find the man who helped us, though.”
Bo shrugged. “Fate can be kind or cruel,” he remarked, glancing at the dirt below his feet. “It seems as though it were kind to you today.”
“Very,” Mr. Quirke replied.
Silence followed for a moment. “Well,” Bo said. “I suppose I should head back home now.”
“Oh? Well, all…” Mr. Quirke began to say until Kian interrupted.
“Wait,” he said. “Won’t you walk with us?”
Bo looked at the young boy, his big brown eyes staring into Bo’s hazel ones pleadingly. “Well?”
Bo sighed.
“Please,” Mr. Quirke added, picking up on his son. Bo held up his hand in surrender. “All right. But don’t expect me to come to dinner with you afterwards. I have my limits.”
The three walked back into the woods, strolling along the dirt paths that wound around the old alders. They talked about various things, Bo continuing to be vague and distant with his answers. However, the Quirkes didn’t seem to mind at all. It seemed as though they understood his want of privacy and didn’t prod for answers. Bo returned the favor.
At the edge of the forest that looked over the town, Bo said, “This is where I break away.”
“All right,” Mr. Quirke said. “We’ll be coming out again tomorrow. Would you like to meet us here again?”
Bo shuffled his feet and glanced back at the woods, the wind whispering through the branches. After a quick peek at Kian he sighed and said, “Well, I don’t see why not.”
Around the same time the next day, Bo met Kian at the edge of the woods. “Where’s your father?”
“He said he had some work that just came up and had to be done,” Kian replied. “But I said that I’d still go with you.”
“Well that’s good of you,” Bo said. Kian grinned, and they began to walk through the forest. They were around the bridge when Bo noticed that Kian kept staring up at him as they walked. Bo peered down at him. “What is it?”
“Why is your hair so long?” Kian asked.
“Hm?” Bo wondered, holding up some of his shoulder-length hair. He cut it regularly so it would
n’t get longer, so it had stayed a pretty steady length over the centuries. At least he hadn’t ever grown facial hair. “Isn’t this the normal length?”
Kian shook his head. Bo thought back and realized that men seemed mostly to wear their hair short now. Oops.
“My Ma cuts mine all the time. Do you want me to ask her to do yours, too?” Kian asked.
Bo gave an awkward smile. “No, thanks. I’ll figure something out.”
They continued to walk for some time, though Kian didn’t ask about much else. Bo eventually took him home before returning home himself. He found his knife in its ‘new’ sheath by the bed and took it to the river so that he could cut his hair. It wouldn’t do to stand out quite so much.
It was evening by the time he was satisfied. The short cut reminded him of a boy’s hair, but he shrugged it off. Fashion was something he never understood, even after all this time. Bo soon returned to his home, thinking of the next day’s walk as he fell asleep.