Four-year old Morraine watched from her window as a father and son about her age moved in next door as inconspicuously as possible. They looked poor and carried very little besides a large spinning wheel, and no one noticed their arrival except her. The father seemed to want it that way — to go unnoticed by society; he refused to look anyone in the eye. But nothing ever escaped Morraine's notice, much to the neighborhood's chagrin.
She climbed down the ladder of her loft and wondered how she could meet them. Her eyes landed on the meat pie her mother had left cooling on the windowsill; perhaps that could be her ticket in.
She knocked on their front door, holding her excuse to say hello. The young boy answered. Morraine liked him instantly.
"Hi," she greeted shyly. "I'm Morraine. I live next door and ..." Her voice trailed off apprehensively. She held up the pie. "I, um, brought you some dinner."
Morraine noticed that the boy's upper lip had a pronounced divet which gave his mouth a pleasing bow shape, especially when he bit his lower lip like he was doing right now. He stared at her without saying a word. Morraine wiped her face, worrying that she must have something smeared on it, as her mother was always telling her. She fidgeted nervously, waiting for him to say something. Finally his father appeared at the door and introduced himself as Rumplestiltskin and the boy as Baelfire. Rumplestiltskin took the pie, thanked her for it and suggested that Baelfire join Morraine outside to play.
"Yes, Papa," Baelfire agreed, and Morraine was relieved to hear him speak. They started walking down the street in silence. Baelfire was an odd duck. Why wasn't he talking to her?
"How old are you?" she asked in an attempt to make conversation.
"Four." He held up four fingers proudly. "But I'll be five next month." He extended his thumb to show his exposed palm.
Morraine's eyes widened. "Me too. When is your birthday?"
"April 19."
"Mine is April 16, so I am …" she concentrated hard and counted on her fingers, "… three days older than you. That means I'm the more …" she scratched her head, trying to remember the big word her parents used with her. She carefully enunciated each syllable, "… re-spon-si-ble one."
He grinned in awe. "Wow, you can do math AND you know big words?"
She nodded. "Of course. But don't feel bad. It's because I'm older than you. You may know all that same stuff when you get to be my age."
They walked around the village and Morraine gave him the extended tour, taking a full two minutes. Baelfire gradually became more comfortable around her and her friendly manner. Afterwards they lay in the field behind their homes and picked the grass from the ground.
"Where's your Mama?" Morraine asked.
Baelfire looked at his feet. "Papa says she died when I was little."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Morraine answered uncomfortably. "Is it hard not to have a Mama?" she asked.
"I don't know," Baelfire shrugged. "I've never known what it's like to have one."
"Oh, they do all kinds of good stuff," Morraine attested. "They cook and they clean, they take care of you when you are sick and they kiss boo-boos better. They just gen-er-al-ly look out for you." Morraine liked showcasing her burgeoning vocabulary, but she especially liked doing it in front of this new boy.
"Papa does that all that for me," Baelfire confirmed. "But I don't need him to kiss boo-boos. That's a girl thing."
Morraine looked at him skeptically. Everybody needed boo-boos kissed from time to time. "Well, if you ever do get a boo-boo that needs kissing, I can do it for you. How's that?"
She expected him to scoff. But instead he smiled widely at her offer. "Okay."
When she arrived home, she was forced to go to bed without dinner for having given the family's meat pie away. She cried in her room, her head buried in her arms against the windowsill. When she looked up, she saw Baelfire's concerned face in his bedroom window. He opened his loft window and she opened hers, wiping the tears away from her face in embarrassment.
"Why are you crying?" he asked.
"Because I gave you our dinner when I wasn't supposed to and I'm being punished," she answered.
"Oh," he said. Then he closed the window and disappeared.
Morraine cried bitterly again until she heard a muffled voice through her window. She opened it and ducked out of the way as a bundle breezed by her head and landed on her floor with a thud. She rushed toward it and untied the cloth around it. She gasped and laughed.
Baelfire had thrown her bread, cheese and a piece of peppermint candy.
She popped her head back up to the windowsill. "Thank you."
He nodded and smiled.
Since that first day, they were inseparable. They spent their time in the field behind their homes playing pirates or pretending to fight trolls, and their nights conversing at the window when they should have been sleeping. If they had any money, they'd purchase candy from Mr. Carothers' cart. Occasionally Mr. Carothers featured toys for sale and one day when they were six years old, he offered a well-crafted leather ball.
"Man, I'd like to have something like that someday," Baelfire confessed.
"Why don't you buy it?" Morraine asked.
Baelfire shook his head sadly. "Papa has to save every penny. We didn't sell as much wool at Longbourne as we would have liked last season." He sighed. "Papa is too timid to be a very good salesman. Maybe if next season is better." He sadly shuffled away from the display.
Morraine stared at the ball and resolved to save her pennies to buy it for him. That meant no candy for however long that took. So the next week when they visited the cart and Baelfire spent the penny he got from the Tooth Fairy on candy, she steadfastly shook her head.
"Nothing for me today, thanks."
Baelfire looked at her skeptically. "What's going on? You love candy."
"I don't have any money," she lied.
"You got some from the Tooth Fairy yesterday," Baelfire countered, "just like me."
"I just don't want any right now," she lied. It was torture for a six year old to go without candy with such a plethora in front of her. But she found it comforting staring at the ball. That was the end goal.
Baelfire distracted her by twirling a licorice whip in her line of vision. "So I guess if I offered you this, you wouldn't take it, huh?"
Morraine winced. "I…" She had to remain strong. She crossed her arms. "You're right, I wouldn't."
But Baelfire knew better. His toothless grin made Morraine's heart melt. "Even though I know they are your favorite?"
Morraine's eyes widened, impressed at his memory. "I think I'd …" But she couldn't lie to Baelfire. She sighed and took the proffered stick. "Maybe I'll take just one."
He smiled. Then he counted out the licorice sticks and presented half of them to her.
She stared at them with mouth agape. "But that candy is yours!"
He shrugged. "Papa says I eat too much anyway. You and I can split it from now on."
Morraine shook her head slowly in wonder. "But that's not fair if you're the one who is always paying and then only getting half of it!"
He smiled. "Mr. Petruvia says you know you're a man when half of your pay is going toward a woman." He puffed his six-year-old chest out proudly. "So I'll just be a man a little sooner than most."
After a month, she had finally saved enough for the ball. As soon as her father presented her with the last required penny for having scrubbed the floors in his wood shop, she ran to Mr. Carothers' cart without waiting for Baelfire, terrified that the ball was already sold. But the ball still rested in the same spot on the cart, and she paid for it proudly with her hard-earned pennies.
"Aye, is this why you haven't been buying from me?" Mr. Carothers asked, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded and hugged the ball to her chest. "It's a gift. For a friend."
"Mmhmm," Mr. Carothers answered with a knowing smile.
She arrived home just as Baelfire stepped out his front door. His eyes widened when he saw the ball she carried.
"Wow, you bought it! Good for you — that's a beaut."
Morraine was never at a loss for her words, but she certainly was this morning.
"I … I …" she stuttered.
"Do you think I could borrow it sometime?" he asked, admiring it in her hands.
"N… no, because…"
Baelfire's face fell. "Oh. Well, that's okay. I just …"
Morraine winced. She found her voice and sputtered a loud, nonsensical "You can't borrow it because I bought it for YOU!" The townspeople turned and looked at her oddly. She cringed.
Baelfire's mouth gaped. "It's … for me?"
She extended her hands and he took it, examining it in awe.
Finally he looked up at her, his eyes sparkling. "Is this why you haven't been buying candy?" he asked.
She looked at her feet demurely, unable to meet his intense gaze, and kicked the dirt. "Yes," she sheepishly admitted.
She bit her lip and waited for him to speak. He didn't say a word. She was reminded of their first meeting when he remained steadfastly silent.
She nervously met his gaze. Their eyes locked and she suddenly found herself swimming in his deep dark depths.
"Then it's not mine," he finally said. "It's ours."
A smile slowly crept across Morraine's face until she was practically beaming. There was something special and sacred in the word 'ours.' She replayed his words in her head and started to feel her knees go weak.
Baelfire exhaled and looked away, breaking the spell. He threw the ball into the air and caught it. "Come on, let's go play kickball." He turned and started running. "Last one to the field is a gooseberry!" he yelled behind him.
She chased after him, the strange sensation dissipating and soon forgotten; each running step returning her to childhood. Glimpses of feelings to come sprouted at odd times over the next few years, but Baelfire usually broke the reverie by punching Morraine in the arm.
"Why do you keep punching me?" she pouted, rubbing her bicep.
"I dunno," he answered with a shrug. "Just seems like the right thing to do."
Despite the occasional insensitivity, Baelfire sometimes surprised her with his thoughtfulness — like when he presented Morraine with a wool hat he made for her eighth birthday.
"I started it in December so I could be sure to have it finished in time. It was cold then." He scratched the back of his head anxiously. "Maybe you could wear it next winter?"
Morraine responded by wearing it proudly for the entire warm April day — and ignoring the children who taunted her for it. On her way home that evening, she heard Mrs. Petruvia talking to Mrs. Smithers.
"It's no coincidence they are named 'Fire and 'Rain. Elements of the gods. Those two were brought together for a reason."
"Yes," Mrs. Smithers agreed. "They are certainly destined for each other."
Morraine's stomach flip-flopped in pleasure and terror at their words.
Did Destiny care about her — enough to have a path planned for her involving Baelfire?
"Papa, how do you know what your destiny is?" she asked when she arrived home.
Her father laughed. "Well, the point of destiny is that you don't know. It just happens no matter what you do."
"But how do you know that what you're doing is destiny's way?"
"That's the thing about destiny. You don't know. You just do," he explained. "Destiny acts through you. You don't even think about it."
Morraine bit her lip as she assessed her father's words. So actions were the key cause. A lot of what she did with Baelfire was without thought. Like saving to buy the ball; she didn't really decide to do it — it was just a given that she would. Was destiny something like that?
As eight-year-old Morraine pondered the meaning of destiny, she didn't realize the detour it had in store.