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christopherjwinter · 3 years

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When a mind builds an expectation for an event, it struggles to realign its thoughts once reality proves those expectations incorrect. The more anticipated and longed for the event, often the more a mind may struggle with what feels like a profound wrongness of a situation. Such what my state when I finally made my way to Old Jack's cottage. Over the previous two months, I had essentially been held captive by my orphanage and the religious devotions of the church of Asmodeus. I dreamed of spending time with Jack once more. Of the simple joys that came from the hard labor of chopping wood, only to hear him spend hours telling me stories of the Lantern King while we shared a hearty supper. I fantasized of seeing his deeply lined face and the pleased grin that was offered as soon as I came bounding through the Chitterwood and offered a welcome. And though I knew it was impossible, I privately wished there would be a day when Old Jack gave a heavy sigh and asked me if I wanted to stay there with him. That he didn't want me to return to The Home for Lost Children. That he would take me in to look after as his own. I wanted that so badly, but I never dared to say this desire out loud least I risk any possibility it might come true.

It was an overcast sky, threatening to rain with distant rumbles that crept overhead when I made my slow passage and came to that familiar ramshackle building. Back aching from the still healing scars, I didn't care if I did a lick of work and in return earned no coin. I just wanted to see Old Jack again. I went to the front door and raised my hand to knock on the wooden frame. There was no response. I waited patiently, as I knew how advanced in years my friend had grown, and he sometimes rose from his chair with difficulty. When there wasn't even a sound to be heard save from the noises of the birds and bugs of the woods, I called out. "Hello, Jack!" I listened, and heard nothing. "It's Puck!" I was greeted only with another long, drawn out silence.

Moving around his property, I wondered perhaps in my two months of absence if he'd been forced to attend to the more physical chores on his own. That he was simply nearby and winded. Stepping about and brushing the dark hair of my bangs out of my eyes, it did seem that some things had changed. His weathered axe that I often used to chop wood was absent from the old stump, the dinged wheel barrel with the broken handle I was sometimes sent with to gather supplies in town was absent. I found these details curious, but continued hunting for signs of Old Jack. Coming to the rear door of his home, I knocked again ... and the door opened to the pressure of my hand. It had been left open. I didn't often enter my friend's home without his accompanying me, so my feet were locked in place while I made one final call. "Old Jack? Are you there?" Again, nothing. I reached my hand out, and pushed the door open further.

I was met with a troubling vacancy. Old Jack had learned to live simply, so I'd noticed on the few times he brought me inside that his home was sparse save for the cluttered belongings he kept in the basement. Except, looking into his home now, there was nothing save bare walls. No rocking chair, no broom in the corner, even the old stove was absent with simply a narrow hole in the roof. I stepped inside, and began to inspect further with the anxious feeling of treading through a crypt. Nothing. Moving to the small private room that I had never been invited to where I knew Jack slept, and all I found was an empty space. My mind slipped away from accepting what I was seeing, even as the first tattering taps of rain fell on the rooftop. It lasted for only a handful of seconds, then ceased. Still, I wasn't finished. I pulled up the latch that led to Jack's cellar, and started carefully down the crooked stone steps.

The times I'd been sent down here before, I had always wondered at the vast meandering collections that Old Jack had accumulated over the years. It seemed he had a habit of hording every little thing that wasn't tied down, and his basement was little more than piles of oddments with a winding path between them. A chill went through my spine as I saw for the first time the whole of the area without a single belonging. It felt somehow smaller than I remembered it this way, the caked dirt walls and the wooden floorboards above having shrunk in response to its lessened need. My arms clutched about myself, and before I was prepared, I felt moisture well in my eyes.

Had Old Jack left? Had he moved, in the time I was forced to remain part of that congregation? No. No, that wasn't something he could have managed on his own. Besides, that's the sort of action he would have certainly had to planned on. Even if it was an emergency, I knew he would have left me a note. Among the many other lessons I'd learned under Jack, he'd made sure I knew well enough how to read without stumbling and tripping over each word. Still, I darted back up the stairs and let my eyes race over the empty surfaces in hopes of finding a message. A single hint or sign. Still, there was an overwhelming presence of nothing. My heart was pounding so heavily that I was unable to ignore the sound of it against my ears.

Where was he? Did he leave me? I found myself reaching to squeeze against my own body again, even while I looked out through one of his shuttered windows. Still, my inner self wanted to reject what I was finding. Jack had to be there. He had to be. I had been wishing on being with Jack for so long, why wasn't he there? In my hopes of trying to comprehend it all, a terrible suspicion came to mind. Had Old Jack actually never been there?

The idea caused my to snap up and my plum colored eyes to shoot wide. Weirder stories were known to happen. I was Fey after all, and weren't my folk supposed to be notorious for this nature of trickery? An idea came to mind, and I started to look about. There was the patch in his roof that he'd instructed me to take care of in the first few visits I had ever managed, claiming he didn't trust himself to climb up on the rooftop. Looking outside the back door, I recognized several split logs that I had personally spent hours with blistering hands chopping. No, Jack had been here. It all hadn't only been some sort of phantasm.

My mind was dizzy, so I settled down onto the splintered floorboards and tried to think. After several more minutes, the rain returned. Hard this time, a pounding of drops on the roof that rose a clatter which made me cringe in response to. I worked at the problem of where Jack had gone off to, and a tiny voice in my head spoke a sad truth. Old Jack was, by his very moniker, old. Well matured even before we crossed paths, and I had been coming around for years. I had been doing so very much for him, because he simply found so many tasks too challenging. Had Jack passed in the two months I was gone? He spoke of family who rarely visited, though we'd never crossed paths. Had they come out to Old Jack's cottage, and salvaged all of his belongings?

The worry that Jack was dead filled me with a sharp pain, and the tears that had been threatening to spill came out in a torrent. My chest hurt with the sobs that claimed me, ugly and untamed in the way only the worst losses can affect a body. Jack was gone. I would never seen him again. I had so little, this single void nearly ruined me. After the first wave of crashing rain, the storm had settled into a lingering drizzle all around me. I denied the deprivation of Old Jack from my life, but the truth was too loud to be refuted. He was gone, and he would never come back. My insides churned and clutched. A pressure pushed against my heart.

After about an hour, I decided that no good would be gained by remaining. Though my feet had grown numb from how I sat, I pushed myself to standing and shuffled back through the door. Closing it proper as I exited, unlike how I left it. In a stupor, I move through the trickle of rain back towards Gillamoor as I wondered at the new shape of my life.

I don't even recall the distance traveled. All I knew was that the next moment the rain was easing to the verge of not falling at all, and I was in site of the Gillamoor Home for Lost Children. There was the aged stone wall that I'd helped construct forty years prior, now starting to spill apart where other sections were consumed by moss. I looked over at the small horse stall us children had built just a dozen years ago, when Norwell's predecessor had needed one built for the horse he'd acquired. Seven years after that, he'd been bucked out of the saddle to split his skull, and the new Herrod had taken over in his place. I felt the weight of time weighing on my shoulders. I wasn't young, and I wasn't old. I was this singular individual removed from the spinning of the seasons, creeping through the years with the pace matched only by the trees.

Norwell was primping himself in the reflection of a glass window when I stepped inside, before generously offering one of his many well manicured scowls in my direction. I knew how pathetic I looked, some half starved orphan soaked and with a hole in his life too big to ever fill. I didn't even say a curse under my breath before I turned and went off to the shared sleeping hall. There was nothing to me anymore. I was a shade, a counterfeit version of Puck that would wilt away once brought out into the sun. I was soul sore. Unsure of what else to do, I curled up on my cot and closed my eyes. Though the sun was still overhead behind the blanket of clouds, I slept almost immediately.

Lìse woke me with a hand running through my hair. I roused with the awareness that she'd been saying my name several times. "Puck? He's not well, Tanner. Puck?" I opened one eye, and saw relief pass over the deeply freckled face of Lìse. "Sweet merciful heavens, Puck, you had me worried."

In my pain, I lashed out. "Piss off." I emphasized this with a narrowing of my gaze, before rolling over to face the opposite way. I felt a hand come once more into my hair, and I yelped as it instead of offering gentle strokes had came to clutch at its length and give a sharp tug. I began to turn back around with my mouth open in complaint, only to be met with the fiercer eyes of Lìse Ó Broin.

"Puck, you arse, I can see something’s wrong. But just 'cause you're hurt doesn't make it right to hurt those caring after you." This little girl spoke with the confidence of a goddess, and her compassion for me was not tempered in the least by my breach of proper behavior. Still, I was suffering from what felt to be a mortal wound of the heart, and I glared at her in return for a long stillness. One of our other orphans who hadn't been chosen by the Hell Knights, Tanner, took a step away as though he might be injured in this battle of wills and rubbed his nose against the sleeve of his shirt.

Finally, I dropped my eyes and spoke under my breath. "I'm sorry, Lìse."

"There," she said imperiously. "That's better. Thank you. Now, tell me what's wrong." Without being asked, the rusty haired girl started to push me up so that she might sit on my cot with me. Tanner, seeing there would be no further metaphorical knives drawn, crept back closer and plopped onto the floor besides Lìse. He almost never spoke, and followed her around with his owlishly wide eyes like a pet. I looked at Tanner, and even though he often retreated from the slightest touch, he reached up his tiny child's hand and gave me a pair of pats on my knee. I looked at proud Lìse's expression, easing as it was clear I had accepted my fate and would confide in them.

It all spilled out. My history with Old Jack, how I had kept him secret from the rest of The Home. I expressed sincerely how guilty I had felt in keeping him a secret, especially to Lìse. There was no judgment in her face, only understanding. I was surprised that while sharing my experiences with Jack hurt like rubbing at a skinned elbow, it did not bring me to tears as it had. I wanted others to know of him. Of how wonderful he was. How Jack was the source of all those stories of the Lantern King that I sometimes shared with the other orphans. That when I came back to The Home, it was from his campfire that I brought extra food to share with Lìse. I didn't share each experience I had with that wonderful elder, but enough. They could see how much I cared for him.

They absorbed my story in quiet as some of the other children started to return from whatever efforts they had spent trying to find a copper to pay for our stay. Our lips were sealed shut, each of us looking into one another's eyes. Then Tanner rose up to his feet, and leaning over the lip of the cot gave me an awkward hug. The simple act of sweetness from a boy half Lìse's age had a choke rise to my throat, but he let me go before I did something awkward. Then he was walking off to his own bedding, leaving Lìse and myself alone. Another long silence was shared between us, and from the crease between her brows, it was clear that she had a thought to share.

I didn't know it, but this moment was a pivot on which the entire course of my life would change. The theory that Lìse was prepared to share with me would forever alter me as a person, and give me a suspicion to wonder at through the remainder of my years. It was only after she bit at the corner of her lip at a section of dry skin that a question was risked. "Puck ... I'm thinking about something." A hand reached up to tug at a curl of hair, hoping to conceal the fold of her ear. Lìse took a deep breath, and continued to speak in a soft voice that left the conversation to be shared only between the two of us. "it's ... it's wild and fantastic, but it also makes sense to me. Only, you would know better than I."

Lìse put a hand on my shoulder, and leaned close enough that I could feel her breath against my cheek. When she spoke, she both whispered and said her concept loudly enough that I didn't mistake a word. I shot her a look of such surprise as the implications rebounded inside my skull, I don't doubt that I looked the idiot.

"Puck ... what if Old Jack was the Lantern King?"

#Puck #Lìse #Lìse Ó Broin #The Lantern King #Lantern King #Writing #Writer #Author #Fantasy #Magic

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christopherjwinter · 3 years

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My last decade residing in the Gillamoor Home for Lost Children felt as though it was the most active. A young member of the Herrod family, Norwell Herrod had taken up the mantle of guardianship of the orphans as well as attending the monetary matters. Whereas other guardians had previously tolerated or suffered the presence of the children under their charge, Norwell actively hated us. He didn't unfurl his whip as often as some, but he was quick to push a boot at a backside or smack a child upside the head. As glowers go, he had an exceptionally developed one. Norwell could express more with his glowers with subtle shifts of his brows and downward turns of his mouth than most poets could with a thousand words and an inspiring subject.

I of course also made my every attempt to visit Old Jack as well in those final ten years of my residence. I learned more from his visits than I might have ever expected. Jack was a source of so much information, with a cluttered basement that held a treasure trove of worthless junk. Even if Old Jack didn't have precisely what I was looking for, he had something that was good enough to get me by. He worked me hard, that was certain. He also fed me better than I had ever known in all my years. I learned a thousand and one stories of the Lantern King, and so much more. When Jack heard that I neither knew how to hold a sword or use a bow, he felt a great personal offense and set with a will to amend the situation. While neither were given to me as a gift or anything so generous as that, at different times Old Jack found a blunted and chipped sword in his cellar for me to learn the basics of swordplay. Or, he found a cracked bow that was still good enough for me to learn how to sight a target and let fly an arrow. While still more of a boy than grown, I started to fill out and no longer resemble a twig with a small bit of gristle here and there.

Last but far from least, the Home of Lost Children welcomed Lìse Ó Broin. For many of us, it is almost easiest that we have no memory of family or a life before the Home. Lìse’s mother simply could not care for her alone, and tearfully parted ways. Norwell had immediately grown upset at dealing with the bawling girl of perhaps four years, and shoved her towards me. "Make yourself useful 'ere, Puck. Teach this 'un the ways of the Home."

In many aspects, I had taken on the role that Kenneally had held when I first arrived so many years prior. I helped the infants and the sick, and I knew the patterns of the Home perhaps better than many of the caretakers. However, I was perhaps the first member of the Fey that Lìse had seen, and I remember clearly how she looked up at me with those wide brown eyes that ran over like a fountain with her tears. Lip trembling, before she tried to run back outside to her retreating mother. I could never tell if Norwell was attempting to kick her as he did, or if he simply mistimed his efforts to put his foot in her path. Either way, his booted heel struck Lìse in the side of the head and she went sprawling to the floor. Norwell Herrod made a sound that wasn't anything resembling an apology, and started to walk away.

I stepped in swiftly, and started to talk softly while looking over the young girl's state carefully. "It's all right, it's all right. Puck is here, I'll help you out." Norwell had managed to catch the little girl right in the ear, so there was a small trickle of blood and the freckled skin started to swell almost before my sight. Poor Lìse was bewildered and confused, her bleary eyes searching around for something familiar and comforting but finding naught. She pulled away from me, and looked to the torn skin of her elbow that also showed the faintest hints of blood prickling at the raw flesh. Another look at me, then off towards the door.

"Mother," she mewled. Then louder, she shouted. "Mother! Mother! I want my Mother!" I cringed, looked in the direction that Master Herrod had exited, and did my best to shush her gently while kneeling to her height. The scarlet flush of her face made each ginger colored freckle stand out sharply as her voice resounded off the walls.

With a grimace, I worked hard with my mind at a ways to appease Lìse that I knew would never be enough. With some patience, I tried to wait until her wails subsided though she had a shout loud enough to rival a town crier. When these showed no sign of easing, with regret I put my hand over her mouth. Lìse didn't even hesitate, she brought down her mouth and bit at me. With a yelp, I pulled my hand away, but spoke in a hurried whisper. "I'm sorry, but if you keep that up Norwell is going to come and smack you around until you lose your senses!"

This, at least, seemed to bring Lìse aware enough of her circumstances while a hand rose to her injured ear. My own hand ached, but I'd had far worse happen to me, so I offered my best effort to smile at her. She reached out with a hand and patted my chest. "Puck?" I nodded. Then, she lifted her chin and spoke with the sort of pride only kings and little children can muster. "My name is Lìse Ó Broin."

After a fashion, I consider my mentorship of Lìse the universe equaling the scales for the hardships I brought so many others. She was a little terror. The transfer from being a child cared after by a single parent to being one of fifty children in The Home for Lost Children was not one she cared for, and with a will she pushed back at reality itself for this indignity. Which is not to say she was unkind or selfish towards others. It was simply that when she started to grow out of the clothes she had arrived with and we were forced to make due with new attire, Lìse did not hold her tongue to point out how unacceptable an option this was. When there was no meat, bean, or even vegetables for our nightly stew provided by Master Herrod, Lìse told him directly to his face how bad the food was.

Naturally, Norwell Herrod thought her willfulness was mostly a presence of my own problematic nature manifesting through Lìse . The both of us were soon his least favorite charges, and I quickly honed my natural talent for blending into dark corners and staying so still that I was rarely noticed when I wished to be absent. I thought at the time that this was simply a skill I had sharpened, a mixture of my own alertness mixed with learning the trick of stepping more quietly than most. It also helped that as one of the Fey, my eyes were very sharp regardless of how dim or bright the illumination might be. So, I began to discover the value of holding my tongue and walking with gentle footfalls through half-lit rooms. After seeing how many small accomplishments I could manage in this fashion, Lìse learned the trick of it and the two of us were a pair of thieves at times, skulking through the shadows.

I had considered at great length the idea of introducing Lìse to Old Jack over the years. However, as a child with very little that was my own, I found myself jealous of sharing the one wonder and joy that I could claim to. I supposed I was quite selfish in that way. However, I was afraid that if I started to bring other children with me, what patience Jack showed me would evaporate twice as quickly. I managed my best to assuage my guilt by bringing back a skewer of grilled venison or a collection of wild carrots from time to time. It was so very small in looking back, but at the time I felt that this was all the sharing of that special time Old Jack and myself of which I could part with.

Lìse was not like some of those orphans who clung to the notion that her mother would return some day, and that was something. The Home for Lost Children had left its mark on her, literally. That first act of Norwell Herrod had damaged her ear so that as she grew, her right ear began to grow in such a way as the top half of it curled forwards and folded over itself. That auburn haired child lamented how it looked on her, and many times through the years she grumbled and cursed at how it appeared. I did my best to assure her that at least she didn't have a pair of ears like mine. Tried to make a joke out of it, claiming that they were the result of an earlier Master Herrod who had pinched me by my ears and lifted me off the ground. This lie made her laugh a bit, though Lìse always preferred to try to keep her hair worn long as she grew.

Then, one morning, Master Herrod made an announcement before the Home and all its orphans that surprised us all. A congregation of Hell Knights and Sisters of the Golden Erinyes were soon to arrive outside of Gillamoor, and they wished to look on the children under Master Herrod's charge. By this time in my ninety or so years with The Home, I had never known of such an event. There had been previously a more or less annual visit from these Asmodeus following zealots, and each year they chose two or three children for which they would indoctrinate into their fellowships and teach in their ways. By this time, I had long allowed my dislike for all matters Chelaxian to boil and bubble away inside of me, and never was I considered a candidate for their apprenticeships. While several of the children saw being chosen by one of these two organizations as a strike of good fortune, I was somewhat more suspicious myself.

"The good Sir Hector and Sister Edmunda wish ta' see the whole of you children. Scrub yourselves up well in the creek, mind yer betters, and perhaps you'll be taken away from this rotten scab of a town." In the wide dining hall that held the rows of us orphans, Master Herrod made this announcement with both thumbs tucked into the belt that kept his trousers bound over his growing belly. There is something to be said when the guardian of children is growing plump but his wards all suffer from malnutrition. With the confidence I would not be chosen and my disrespect for my Chelaxian overseers, I stuck my tongue between my teeth and gave out a resounding raspberry. Whether the other children wished to be removed from The Home or not, they still tittered a laugh at my antics. Norwell shot me a harsh look from his blue eyes, thick golden brows knitting together in a display of his mirrored displeasure. "Don't worry none, Puck. You're such a worthless sack 'a manure, I doubt they'll even dirty their blades to cut you down. The rest of ya'... know that we're likely to spend the night at the tabernacle. There will be many questions, and I have it on good authority they're likely to pick up more than a handful this year 'round. If I'm lucky, they'll swoop up the whole lot of ya."

Lìse often sat at my side, and by this time she and I had taken to murmuring with one another frequently at mealtimes. "I won't let 'em take me," she mumbled with a scowl as a cold spoon of porridge was shoveled into her mouth. "I'll run off into the Chitterwoods myself, let the goblins have me." I won't lie, I grinned a wide smile of satisfaction at those sentiments.

"Goblins are probably better mannered than those Chelaxians." I nodded with agreement, and grimaced at my own tasteless spoonful of gruel. "Likely smell better, too." Lìse began to snigger, which shot Norwell's look in our direction again. We avoided his eye, and mechanically pulled the worthless meal into our mouths to swallow.

After a while, Lìse hazarded a glance back at me, and bumped me with her shoulder. "You heading into the woods yourself today, Puck?"

I shook my head to the negative, and ran my tongue against the interior of my mouth. I hated the film that porridge left on everything in your mouth, and tried to urge it away in vain. "I went off yesterday, and... it's not good to go there too frequently." I didn't want to mention Old Jack even then, and slid away from his presence as well as I could. "People see me heading off there enough as it is."

"Because you're Fey," she finished out loud. "You're Fey, so that's why you look so much better after going off to the woods. And you can make deals with other Fey when you're out there, and... and bring back things for me to eat." The last was said as covertly as she could manage, so none of the other children might eavesdrop. Food was always scarce, and those small extra morsels I returned with were like a feast to Lìse . The meal had gotten to the loudest part, where there was simply the scrapping of wooden spoons on wooden bowls to collect what last bite could be salvaged. Lìse unapologetically brought the bowl up to her face, and started to lick the interior clean. As she finished, a hand went up in an unconscious gesture and tried to tug at the tawny hair that she'd trained to fall over her folded ear. "Do you want to join me at market today, then? See what we can swipe?"

I gave a subdued chuckle myself, and nodded in agreement. Lìse may have been my student at the subtle art of moving sneakily, but she had a divine gift for lifting. Her young fingers were deft and quick, with an uncanny sense for precisely when a folk was looking away. Those few instances a street vendor gave us the stare down because we clearly didn't have a copper to our names, I could do my best friendly smile and wave in innocent greeting. Lìse had a way of smiling that half shut her eyes and could melt the heart of a devil.

We supplemented our diet with a trio of pears and a single raw onion that day. The last we ate in tiny bites, and laughed at one another in the wickedness it gave to our breath. Lìse also showed me a simple yarn and wooden bracelet she'd swiped, and proudly wore it on one darkly freckled wrist. "You best watch out, Lìse . If anyone asks where you got it from, there's no good answer you can give."

Holding her arm out wide and admiring that most basic of jewelry, the young girl simply shrugged. "Doesn't matter, Puck." I saw a dark mood pass over her face, one that too often lingered on the features of each of the orphans. Myself, included. Those large brown eyes looked over at the clouds above, and she sighed in a way that no child of ten ever should. "We're all gonna die. You. Me. We're gonna have sad lives and we're gonna die and no one will miss us." I had nothing to say to that, because I knew she was right. This wasn't simply the morose fancy of a world weary child, but those very sentiments were said by all the Master Herrods I had known through the decades. We walked back to The Home in silence, the bitter tang of raw onion even stronger than the film left by that morning's breakfast soup.

The next day, the mad crowd of poor orphans was herded off to the tented congregation at the outskirts of Gillamoor. The Hell Knights presented themselves in their intimidating armor of dark iron, which was shaped to include thick metal thorns and spikes. I saw a few that sported the likeness of horns sprouting from their helmets, though in the heat of summer this pageantry was abandoned before the lunchtime meal. As potential candidates for initiation, we orphans sat on the dirt before the pulpit as Sister Edmunda spoke about the great honor it was to follow the Church of Asmodeus. A handful of local residents were also present, though I suspected they were mostly visiting in hopes of being the recipients of some manner of charity than of true devote interest. For the most part, I turned off my mind and wished for it to simply be over. Master Herrod had been wise enough to place Lìse and myself at opposite ends of our group, and so there was no mischief to distract either of us.

Had I paid better attention, I might have seen the transactions between Norwell and Sir Hector. I would have wondered at how the attendees of the congregation gave us water to wash ourselves again with rags, and new clothing that resembled that worn by the other parishioners. We had been told that we were to stay the evening, and the members of the Church were to select members of the orphanage afterwards. What I had missed was that Master Herrod had made arrangements with the Church of Asmodeus to lease the entirety of the orphanage as servants through their proceedings for the length of their stay outside of Gillamoor. For two entire months.

To many of the other members of the orphanage, they were the gentlest two months of their residence. We ate better than we ever had with the Church, which was not to say we ate well. But a dried up apple core and day old meat was still better than the orphanage might get most nights. It was that the Church was exceedingly organized, and at no time in those two months were any of us unsupervised except to visit the latrine. I chafed at their stifling control. I longed to run off, run into the woods.

On the second week, I snapped as Master Herrod gave me a shove to hurry and sit through yet another of the mindless sermons officiated by Sister Edmunda. I spoke very, very poorly. "Sorry, Norwell. It's tough to motivate myself simply so you can show how far up your own ass you can crawl." He cuffed me on the side of the head, and this time when I was whipped two of the strong armed Hell Knights held me firm with arms outstretched. Those are the worst scars, four solid lashes that weren't given in haste or that I wasn't allowed to turn from. Members of the Church themselves tended to my wounds, but I was not stitched. I realized quickly that Norwell could ask members of this faith to hold me firm while he pulled my eye teeth, and they would.

The Church took over a full third of the orphans. Seventeen of us were kept, with thirty-four walking back into Gillamoor and the Home for Lost Children. My back was still covered in jagged, healing scars, but that night all I could think of was running off to see Old Jack. I wanted to see his lined face so much. I wanted to cry to him. I wanted to be gone from The Home. Lìse had squeezed my hand hard before she went to her own cot, knowing fully well that she wouldn't see me the next day.

I wanted to run off into the Chitterwood, though my pace was somewhat impeded by the sharp tugging at my skin. It was just before the noon hour that I finally came to Old Jack's cottage. I was left in shock with what I found.

#Puck #Lìse #Lìse Ó Broin #Writing #Writer #Author #Fantasy #Magic

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