***
The pair made their way up yet another hill, Ryan falling to all fours and motioning for Boelik to get down as well. Once he did, Ryan led the rest of the way up. At the top, they peered down and saw a small, scattered herd of deer. Ryan lay on his belly on Boelik’s left, his gaze fixed on them.
“All right Ryan,” Boelik said softly. “Thank you.”
“Will you hunt them?” Ryan asked, tearing his gaze away from the herd to stare at Boelik, who nodded.
“Yes. You think I should not?”
Ryan shrugged. “I think you should hunt little.”
“You want to leave some, do you?”
Ryan nodded, his gaze swiveling back to the deer. “The families are peaceful. It would be… sad, to see them all dead.”
“I understand. I planned to only take three, anyhow. Do you see three good ones to hunt?” Boelik asked. Ryan seemed to stretch a little further toward the deer, his black eye ticking all over as he scanned the herd for what he thought was good prey. Boelik examined his face, glancing between it and the deer to see if he could discern where the boy was looking.
After a moment, Ryan pointed to three deer on the edge of the herd by the bottom of the hill, two young bucks and an older doe. “Those three.”
Boelik looked out to the three. “Why do you say that?”
“The doe is old and slow. That buck, with the smaller antlers, he has a lame leg. The other buck’s eye is ruined; it looks like it got caught on another’s antlers.” Boelik tried to see what Ryan was talking about, straining his vision to try and notice such details. He saw how sluggish the doe was, of course, but the smaller things were invisible to him.
“You have extraordinary vision. Is that all due to your eye?”
Ryan nodded. “My right eye can see like a hawk’s.”
“Well, do you want to see what I can do, now?”
Ryan gave him a quizzical look.
In a flash, Boelik was gone. Ryan turned his head as he noticed the doe go down, its throat torn. The two bucks followed suit. All the while, he could only see a blur around them. The others panicked and bolted, away from the dead and away from the hill.
Boelik was beside him again then, and showed him his claws. Blood stained his silver fur, and he patiently awaited Ryan’s verdict.
“That’s amazing,” he whispered.
“We don’t have to whisper anymore. Only the dead can hear us now,” Boelik said, putting his hand back under his cloak. “Anyway, I’ll take the carcasses to town and see if the butcher and skinner will give me much money for two of the deer.”
“You… don’t seem to be from around here,” Ryan ventured. “Do you know where the town is?”
“I have a general idea. South.”
Ryan shook his head. “I’ll show you the way there, too.
“Thank you,” Boelik said. He was gone for a moment and returned carrying the doe and older buck over his shoulders. “Can you get the last one?”
Ryan looked at him, eyes wide in disbelief. “You expect me to carry that?” He pointed to the remaining buck carcass at the foot of the hill.
“You can’t do it?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”
“Now’s your chance, then. Go on.” Ryan sighed as he stared down at the carcass and started to run to fetch it.
“Wait,” Boelik said. Ryan turned around, blinking. “Unclasp my cloak and put it on for now. I don’t think I can stand seeing you bare much longer.”
Once Ryan slid the cloak out from underneath of the carcasses, he donned it and began down the hill once more. Soon he was back with the deer over his shoulders, grinning. “It’s lighter than I thought.”
“There you are,” Boelik said with a smirk. “You never know how much you can take until you try.” Pausing, he asked, “Is your shoulder okay?” Ryan nodded. “Come on then, let’s hurry up. How fast can you go?” Ryan blinked at Boelik then looked down at his own feet.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, start running!” Boelik cried, starting off without him.
“Wait! I can’t lead you if I’m behind you!” Ryan shouted, stumbling to a start.
“Then you’d better hurry up!”
Within a moment Boelik was eating his words and Ryan was ahead of him. “Don’t fall behind,” Ryan taunted. Boelik snorted in a laugh, accelerating to catch up. As it turned out, Ryan also had extraordinary speed, though it didn’t quite match Boelik’s. And he wasn’t particularly durable.
Boelik’s endurance would have let him run the route in one shot even with the two deer, but Ryan wasn’t used to exerting himself so much so the two had to stop periodically to rest. They would break and drink from Boelik’s flask or from a stream where they would also refill the often-empty container.
The town was in view by evening, and the two slowed to a stop. There were lanterns up already, shining in the dying light. A shallow ditch ran along the dirt path leading up to the settlement.
“Okay,” Boelik said, turning to Ryan. “I’ll need my cloak back. You go hide out in that ditch there, away from the town.”
“What about the deer?” Ryan asked as he set his down and unclasped the cloak.
Boelik set his own deer down and took his cloak from Ryan’s outstretched hand, putting it on and adjusting it to hide his left arm. “Well, I can’t carry more than one at a time. The whole point of this,” he said, gesturing to his covered arm, “is to make them think I only have one arm. You think you can put the other two over in the ditch with you?”
“All right,” Ryan said, picking his deer back up. Boelik dropped the other buck in the ditch with him, and Ryan pressed himself to the ground.
“Now don’t come out until I come and get you.”
“I won’t.”
Boelik picked up his carcass and hefted it over his shoulder, walking to the town. In the streets, he quickly got directions to the skinner and the butcher. “Hello,” the skinner greeted as he entered. “What can I do for ya?” he asked, leaning on the counter towards Boelik.
“I have three deer. How much would it cost to skin them?”
“Oh, about five coin each.”
“If I gave you a skin?”
“Hm,” the man said, looking Boelik up and down. “Four coin total. One free, one mine, discount on the last.”
“Would you charge me yours?”
“Nah.”
“Deal,” Boelik agreed. “Here, I’ll leave you to this one. You can decide when you’re finished which one you’d prefer.”
Boelik brought in the two deer and went to bargain with the butcher. The butcher gave him a better deal on the meat; he’d take one, buy one and a half, and leave Boelik with the rest. When Boelik was done and waited for the skinner to do his job, he went to talk with Ryan.
“How are you faring?” he asked, taking a seat in the ditch next to the boy.
Ryan shrugged, staring off at the sky as the sun painted the clouds bright, burning colors. “I’m not dying.”
Boelik winced a little at the phrase. “Right. I’ll buy you some clothes, something with a hood, and then we’ll both go back to the cottage. All right?”
“All right.”
The sun gradually went down, turning the sky from a burning canvas to a cool one. Stars soon began winking into existence, watching the two in silence. At last, Boelik went back and got his skinned deer, transferring them to the butcher’s. He took his money and only waited for his half a deer before dropping the food off with Ryan. “Watch that,” he ordered. And back in he went.
At the clothing store, Boelik bought some trousers, one pair for Ryan and the other for him, a couple of shirts, a pair of shoes, and a hooded cloak. He was about to head out when he noticed a gray farmer’s hat with a string to reach under the chin. He bought that, too, and then bought salt for the meat. And a jar of honey, which he put in a pouch with the salt.
Back with Ryan, Boelik tossed him the clothes. “That pair of trouser
s on top is yours. The shirts, cloak, and hat are yours too.”
“Thank you,” Ryan said, holding the bundle. He stared blankly at it, as if he wasn’t sure it was really in his hands.
“Well, put it on,” Boelik said. Ryan started.
“Right, sorry.” He set the bundle down and then pulled the shirt over his head and got it stuck, arms askew and his head only halfway through the hole.
Boelik sighed. “Never put on a shirt before, have you?”
“No, not really,” Ryan replied, his voice muffled by the fabric. Boelik sighed again, helped him out of it, and then demonstrated how to properly put it on. Soon the shirt and cloak were on, but the trousers…
“Boelik?” Ryan asked, holding the pants in front of him and looking lost.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know how to…”
“Well, that makes sense. Just put your feet through the holes, there. There. Now lift one leg and… Oh, never mind. Jumping works too.” Eventually Ryan was clothed like a decent human being in a light, simple shirt, shoes, a brown cloak and some brown trousers. “And there we are. Here,” Boelik said, handing him the hat.
Ryan took it and stared at it, then up at Boelik. “A hat?”
Boelik nodded. “Put it on. In busy places you can pull it down over the right side of your face—I made sure to get a decent rim for a reason.”
Ryan put the hat on and pulled the rim over the right side of his face and turned to Boelik. “Is it good?” His bright blue eye was wide with hope.
“It’s perfect. The only thing now is your legs. If you were a girl and had a skirt this would be easy, but as it is… Well, only walking around towns in the dark or standing behind something that covers your lower half in front of people should do fine.”
“All right,” Ryan said, nodding. “Now, back home?”
“Sure. I’ll race you,” Boelik said, picking up the deer meat and bag of goods.
“Ah, no. I don’t think so,” Ryan said, both his gaze and his voice flat.
Boelik laughed. “All right, but let’s hurry nonetheless. Dark’s already here, and I don’t know about you, but running empties my stomach like nothing else.”
The pair was back at the cottage, exhausted, just before dawn. “So,” Boelik said as he walked in, moving aside the pieces of broken door with his feet, “hungry?”
“Starving,” Ryan replied, flopping onto his bed. “Also, exhausted.”
“Eating in the morning then, are we?” Boelik spread salt over the meat as he asked.
“I am.”
“All right then. Eating a large breakfast.” Boelik put the deer on the workshop bench, glancing out the window at the full moon. Then he laid the pieces of the door back over the opening. Looking at it again, it appeared that the door had been somewhat rotted anyway, making it that much more fragile. He moved his attention around the cottage to see if it was worth staying in.
The wood was grayed and dry, and the interior was a mess. Not just from the intruder the other day, either, by the looks of it. But taking Ryan into account, Boelik figured they could at least stay for a little while. At least to get the boy used to having him as a housemate first, before trying to change too much at once. Sighing as Ryan’s light, whistling snore filled the cottage, Boelik lay down in his spot on the floor and passed out.
The next day, both woke up around noon with rumbling stomachs. Boelik looked to the hearth on the back wall and found a small stock of wood next to it. He put some in the fireplace to get it started, taking flint and steel from his boot and crossing his fingers in hopes it was old enough and dry enough to light without tinder.
Once a fire was started, he put the flint and steel back in his boot and removed his dagger. He moved to the deer and sliced some meat for two. Ryan watched his movements intently, interest evident on his face.
Boelik rooted around for a pan anywhere, but ended up settling on two metal rods probably meant for a clothesline and spearing the meat to cook it that way. He set the rods to poke the top-back of the hearth and stabilized them with a piece of wood for an anchor.
When it was finished, Boelik motioned for Ryan to sit by him in front of the fire. He moved the wood and removed the rods, testing the heat of the metal by the venison with his hand. “Ow,” he growled, tearing his hand back. “That was stupid of me. Don’t touch hot metal,” he warned Ryan, taking out his flask and pouring half of the water onto the rods, cooling them. “We’ll need more water,” he sighed.
As they sat around the hearth and ate, Boelik asked, “So, how did that man from the other day find you?”
Ryan swallowed a bite. “Well, I think he saw me watching his flock. Actually, I was watching the dog work. He shouted and ran away to his house, and I just ran. He probably tracked me.”
“Have you been chased much?”
“Not really. My first, um, ten years, I think, I lived with my da. I remember he killed my ma when I was little. He kept me inside and treated me like dirt, but I guess he never had the heart to kill me. He was the only one left who even knew I existed then.”
“After that?”
“He died,” Ryan said with a shrug. “I took the chance to run away then, and I ended up on the step of a blind old woman.”
“What did she do?”
Ryan’s mouth twitched into a smile. “She thought I was the stray dog she’d been feeding at first, I think. She was out in her chair by the door and went to pet my head. It was pretty quick after I began eating the dog food that was put out she actually got to petting me, and she said, ‘Oh, you’re a boy?’ And when I didn’t answer she said, ‘Come now, talk to me.’”
“I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ My da never took less than sir, and he pounded that and ma’am into my head. She and I talked for a while, though I couldn’t really talk all that well. She managed to make me admit that I was alone. Then she let me live with her.”
“Let you live with her?”
Ryan nodded, staring into the crackling fire. The orange light brightened his face, glinting in his black eye. “Yeah. And whenever her daughter came by I always hid and stayed quiet while she brought in supplies and talked with her ma. She taught me how to talk properly, too: my da only ever taught me the simple things.”
“What was the woman’s name?”
“Nora.”
“She didn’t find it strange that you hid?”
“O’ course she did. I ended up telling her that I was afraid of strangers.”
“She didn’t notice the lie?”
“Well, it wasn’t a lie, but she did know something was off. Actually, that’s probably why she let me be.”
“I see,” Boelik said, taking another bite of deer. “Why aren’t you still living with her?”
Ryan’s eating slowed visibly at the question, and it took him a minute before he swallowed. “She, uh… she died, too.”
“Long ago?”
“The middle of spring.”
Boelik nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“What about you?” Ryan asked, turning his gaze from the fire and shaking off his melancholy mood. “Where did you live before?”
“Well, I lived in England until recently.”
“Before that?”
“I think it was…Germany, maybe?”
“And before that?” Ryan continued to stare at Boelik expectantly, and he sighed.
“I should start at the beginning, I think. That’s where all of the important things are.” He took a deep breath and sighed again, looking despondently at his meat. Alas, story time would have to interrupt eating time.
“Well, to start, I was born in a land called Nippon—Japan to you—to a demon fox and a Russian man. My father died after giving me this,” he said, raising the fox clasp on his cloak more to the light, the gold reflecting onto the walls.
“My mother had him make this cloak with some of her fur and had him dye it, so I’d always have something to carry around and hide under.” And always it has be
en, he thought, glancing at the old thing, covered in blood and dirt. It was a good thing his mother’s fur was difficult to destroy.
“Later, I was careless and went into a nearby village to play with another child. Needless to say, other villagers found me an abomination and chased me back to my mother. She had to wipe out the entire village.”
Ryan glanced down at himself.
“I left a few years after that and sailed overseas to…I don’t even know where. But I found a little village there and grew accustomed to living in the forest nearby. I even grew to be happy there, eventually.” Boelik turned his own gaze to the fire, memories flooding his vision. He closed his eyes and tried to drown them out so he didn’t fall into a place he didn’t want to be as he remembered the next part of the tale.
“But that did not last as long as I had hoped. And after that, I started living as a sort of nomad. Which is what brought me here.” He opened his eyes to look at Ryan once more.
“A nomad?” Ryan asked, lifting his gaze.
“Someone who travels a lot, to put it simply. They don’t really stick to one place,” Boelik explained as he tore into his meat, his story finished. It was getting cold already.
The two were silent for a while. As the meal was almost finished, Ryan ventured to say something. “Hey, um, Boelik?”
“Ryan?”
“If those townspeople saw me, and came after me, would you have to kill them?”
Boelik shook his head. “No. We could both outrun them in a heartbeat. My mother just knew that those people would have set the forest ablaze had we run, and she had to protect it. But that doesn’t mean to be careless,” he added, seeing Ryan slump a little in relief.
“I know that. But I wanted to know ‘what if’.”
Boelik nodded and put his clean rod down. “It’s good to know ‘what if’. But it’s best to just be careful. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, and they certainly don’t understand us. At least, the majority don’t.”
“There are some who do?”
“Of course,” Boelik exhaled as he rose, putting his rod on the table. “There are those who would mate with demons, so naturally there are those who would tolerate us.”
Ryan stared at the empty rod in his head. “Boelik?”
“Another question?” Boelik asked, turning his head. Ryan glanced at Boelik for a moment before turning his gaze away again.
“Is that okay?”
Boelik shrugged. “I don’t know unless you ask me.”
“Do nomads leave their friends behind?” Ryan kept his gaze on his rod. Boelik walked over and put his right hand on Ryan’s head and took the rod with his other.
“No; normally they take them along.”
The two spent the rest of the day talking. Ryan wanted to know more about what Japan was like—Boelik indulged him, though he was four hundred years out of date. Boelik wanted to know more about prey animals (and if there were any forests in this country—and there were, much to his pleasure).
In the end, they both found themselves more comfortable in each other’s company. When they were ready to go to bed, Ryan gestured over to his bed of grass-filled potato sacks. “You can sleep here,” he offered, and the two shared the bed for the night.