had her for supper for all I care. Nothing would have come of it anyway, that old beam hain’t lit in years of waiting.”
The man looked down at him. “Still,” he said, “it’s a position that needs filling.”
“Fine, then you take him up there and you look after him while he waits.”
“I can’t go up there anymore. You know that. If they saw me…”
“Yeah, I know all about that, now, don’t I? You got two daughters and a wife now what don’t know nothin’ about your life before. If she knew, would she let you near them girls anymore?” She smirked at his discomfort. “You’re gonna tell me you’ve changed, hain’t you? Well, don’t bother. Matters nothing to me whether you have or not.” She glanced down at the boy, and her fingers curled like vines around his chin. “Your troubles don’t make a case for this sad bit of drool.”
The man stood awhile in silence, whether in contemplation or anger, the boy couldn’t have told; but finally he reached over and drew her hand away from the boy. She hadn’t expected his touch and jumped at the contact. The man held her hand from underneath, her fingers still curled as if cupping the boy’s chin. He placed his free hand on top of it. The boy saw something shiny slip from the man’s fingers into hers; then he let go with both, but her hand remained there, hovering just in front of the boy’s eyes. She uncurled her fist and contemplated its fresh contents. “All right, then,” she said, and glanced his way askance. “I’ll take him to fill a vacancy. But if he’s rewarded, his gift is mine. I don’t share.”
“A fair enough bargain,” the man agreed. He didn’t expect the mindless boy to do anything other than starve out on that beam, as countless others had done before him and would do again; but the important thing was, it would not be his problem. He would never have to see it happen, which meant that so far as he was concerned, it never did. A million cruelties occurred each day, but out of sight and out of mind.
He knelt and told the boy, “Now, you stay here with Mother Kestrel and she’ll provide for you. Whatever she says, you do it for her, just like she’s your own mother. Do that and everything will work out for you.”
The boy stared back at him the way a fish might have, and the man doubted that anything he said had penetrated. In fact, the boy was visiting his mother again, under the sea. He had always obeyed her, and still she had left him.
The man roughed the boy’s hair as he stood again. He gave the woman one more look that might have been a warning or resignation. Then he walked away, climbed down the ladder, and was gone.
“Well, come in, then,” said the woman, and she grabbed him by the hair and dragged him beside her.
The woman did feed him that day. More than a dozen children were crammed into her dwelling. They approached him, sniffing around him, trying to figure out what he might be, and whether or not his presence meant trouble for them. He’d never been near so many other children before and shied away from them, behavior that only got him into trouble, as it made him an easy target for the bullies in the group. He had no defenses. Soon enough most of the others had allied against him behind the bullies and teased him, plucked at his ragged clothes, called him names, told him he smelled awful, laughed at him. They might as well have taunted a toadstool. He cowered against the wall until the woman came and drove off the attackers. She kept him away from them the rest of the day, even feeding him separately. He got a larger portion than the others and they resented him for that, too, even though their own tyranny was the cause. They swore among themselves that the next day he would be made to pay.
The boy dozed fitfully that night, exhausted by constant fear but on guard against a concerted assault. Some hours before dawn, the woman woke him and led him out of the house. She gave him a crust to gnaw on while they traveled, and a small pack that he was to carry. They went up and down ladders, across makeshift bridges until they reached a ledge carved out of