One thing was certain. Mathieu was not going to move in with another family.
He already had a family. He may not have been there for long, and they may have rejected him in the end, but they were still his family. Family is never something temporary. Once two or more people become related in that intimate of a way, nothing and no one can ever disconnect them, for better or for worse.
But living in the harsh wilderness of New France had been miserable. It hadn't killed him, and he realized now that it couldn't have, but it still had been an unpleasant experience. One he did not wish to repeat.
So he went to an orphanage. And then another one. And another.
He never stayed too long. He couldn't bear it if someone caught on again and hurt him like that. The longer you stayed somewhere, the more people felt entitled to information about yourself. So Mathieu moved on before anyone got too curious.
He was adopted several times. He was a cute kid; friendly, well-behaved, good manners. Couples' hearts melted over him like sugar in water.
The thing is, people don't ask kids at orphanages if they want to be adopted. Of course an orphan would want a family. It's not like they have any other prospect; otherwise, they wouldn't be in an orphanage.
Staying with those couples, even for a second, made Mathieu feel lower than dirt. His silence was a lie. He was dangerous, not the perfect child they thought he was. And he could never tell them the truth. In this culture, in this time, the truth could get him killed. The Belleroses had actually been immeasurably merciful in letting him get away. The more time he spent out in the world, hearing people talk, hearing their opinions, the more he realized how much they hated and feared the inexplicable.
He realized his father, Mr. Bellerose, had really only acted in everyone's best interests. If their neighbors had found out about Mathieu's powers, they might have formed a mob. Tarred and feathered him. Maybe even lynched him. His staying there put the entire household in danger—they would have all been deemed "infected" or thought to have willfully harbored him, this unclean, unnatural, unhuman thing. And then they would have suffered the exact same fate as him. Except they couldn't come back from dead.
Mathieu saw his father's reasoning. It was logical. Smart. He could almost forgive him. But he didn't. Not after seeing how Colette was really treated; kept in her place by her mother because of the decisions of her father.
Every "family" he had insisted on changing his last name. Mathieu De La Fuente. Mathieu Sauveterre. Mathieu Descoteaux. Mathieu Villeneuve. He started keeping a list, written on a folded up slip of parchment tucked into his shoe.
He wasn't sure what happens on the days after he gets adopted, when the couple wakes up and realizes their "son" is gone. It couldn't be good. But then, they had only known him for one day, or just part of one day, so how attached could they have gotten? Besides, they could just go back to the orphanage and adopt a different kid, one who truly wanted to be adopted. Maybe Mathieu leaving was changing lives and giving some kids a dream come true and a happy family.
He was painfully aware of how unlikely that was. He knew full well that he had broken some would-be parents' hearts, and it might have turned them off the idea of adopting altogether. They might think all children in orphanages were ungrateful runaways. Every interaction he had with all those people would form lasting first impressions. He felt like he was walking on eggshells those days. It was miserable.
He knew the list in his shoe was really of the homes he'd broken. He was wandering aimlessly and wrecking lives in the process. Whenever he thought about it, it became that much more obvious that the worst-case scenario was the real-life scenario.
All those poor people. They had been so overjoyed to finally have a kid. One they really liked.
If you break a heart, you have no right to forget that person and the pain you caused them, no matter how innocently. So Mathieu kept adding to the list. He was determined to never forget.
He tried to do nothing that would compel anyone to adopt him. He learned to be quiet, to look weak. People wanted a vibrant, lively child with a bright and interesting personality. They wanted a subdued, quiet child who wouldn't start fights or cause trouble. They wanted a boy who would grow into a strong young man to help around the house and take care of them in their old age. They wanted someone who would be independent and self-sufficient as an adult so as not to burden them. They wanted a meek and obedient child who wouldn't question authority.
It seems that a perfect child cannot possibly exist without being one long list of contradictions. Mathieu couldn't possibly be the opposite of all those things. And he drew the line at being purposefully rude or hurtful to people who had done nothing wrong. So he was quiet, refusing to speak unless spoken to. Uninteresting, not worth their time. Most didn't care and kept trying to coax conversation out of him anyway. Then he would feign lethargy, yawning and blinking sleepily, maybe throwing in a good fake cough or two. That scared them right off.
"Hey, you look really familiar, have you been here before? Yeah, now I remember, a while back we had a kid in here, looked just like you, maybe just a little bit younger," one of the workers nodded enthusiastically.
Great. He had been here before. He really needed to start keeping track of this stuff.
"Uh, yeah. I… have a younger brother. That was him."
"Don't you mean older? It was ten years ago."
Mathieu laughed nervously. "Slip of the tongue."
"How come you weren't with your brother? In my experience, siblings will fight tooth and nail to stick together. If you knew where he was, like you said, then why didn't you come join him?" the worker asked. She gave him a once-over and thought better of it, adding, "Or were you not alive then? You look young; what, seven, maybe eight years old?"
"Seven and a half," Mathieu grinned. "Umm… My brother… Our parents were poor, and they gave him up so he could have a better life. They told me about him though, and that's how come I know. That's why I'm here too. So's I could have a better life."
"Oh," the worker said. "That must have been awful; being abandoned like that. Your next family won't do that. I promise."
"I don't care," he replied without thinking. He cringed as soon as he said it.
"You don't care? Don't you want to be adopted?" she said with bemused shock, not thinking he was serious.
All he had to do was lie. He had done it before. Just lie. So easy. "No…"
The woman sputtered. "Whyever not?!"
"'Cause… Because they won't be my real family," he said more strongly. "If some strangers adopt me, I'm just gonna run away. I don't wanna live with strangers."
"They won't be strangers. They'll be your real family, just as much as your old one was. You just have to get to know them."
Mathieu said nothing, and the worker saw her words were having no effect at all. She studied him, for real this time, before continuing.
"Maybe you could be an apprentice," she said. "We usually try to get much older children apprenticeships, but some start this young. Even younger in some towns. Would that be something you would like? Instead of being adopted?"
"What would I being doing?"
"Learning a trade, being taught by a master worker and helping them out with their work," she said. "Let's see, in town I think there are eight master workers right now? Only a few are looking to take on a new apprentice. There's the blacksmith, the stable owner, the doctor… I think that might be it. So those are your three options, kid, what do you want to be?"
"A doctor," he said instantly.
The woman chuckled. "That was fast. Alright, I'll put in a good word for you. Hopefully we can work something out."
A doctor. He had never thought of it before, what he wanted to do with his life. Mostly he had just been living. Getting from one day to the next, his loftiest goal being a warm bed and a good meal for that night. The idea of a career had never entered his head, and he certainly hadn't considered choosing any specific one.
But hearing it said aloud, it made all the sense in the world. Of course he would be a doctor. Even if he had had the choice of every job in the world, he realized now that he would still choose doctor. He could help so many people. With his long lifespan, he could learn everything there was to learn and improve so many lives. Who knows? He might even save someone.
For the first time in decades, Mathieu was thinking more than one day into the future. And he was looking forward to it.
Three weeks later, Mathieu hopped from one foot to the other on the doorstep of an isolated house out in the country. The wind pressed his coat flush against him and sent stinging snowflakes onto his hands and face, where they melted instantly into icy drops.
The door opened—finally—in reply to his knock. Yellow light and warmth spilled out onto the step and onto Mathieu. A tall, elderly man was standing in the doorframe.
"Ms. Andersson sent me," he said as way of introduction.
"Oh, you must be Mathieu! Come in, come in, it's far too cold outside," the doctor ushered him in. His house was in the dirty, messy state of someone who had been single for far too long. Papers, books, even clothes and dirty dishes were scattered everywhere. The entire house seemed to be an obstacle course or maze of sorts that only made sense to the old man.
"Ah, sorry for the mess. I've been meaning to clean up around here a bit. Can't seem to get around to it," the doctor said. "Anyway, you're to be staying here while you're my apprentice, correct? Best show you to your room then."
Mathieu's room was a perfect bedroom for a boy a few years older than him. In appearance, anyways. The bed was a little big and a little tall, things were built for almost adult-size hands, everything was just slightly out of reach. And covered in dust. Despite being remarkably neater than the other rooms, this one was definitely dustier. It was like no one had been in here in years, much less cleaned the place.
The doctor must have had a son once upon a time.
Mathieu shrugged and pulled a stiff nightgown out of a drawer. So what if it had been someone else's room before? It was his now. He wasn't going to feel guilty about it. He had no intention of being anyone's second-best replacement for a son. That was not going to happen.
He said his prayers, shook out the disused pillow to fluff it up, turned out the lantern, and went to sleep in the creaky old bed. He wasn't even going to think about it.
He fell into the routine of his new life with ease. He stood on the sidelines when Dr. McCarthy performed surgeries, passing tools and watching the techniques. He held people's hands in their final moments if they had no one else to do so. The doctor would explain what he was checking for and how to identify diseases when diagnosing people. Mathieu listened, learning the different diseases and their symptoms and treatments by watching firsthand.
Dr. McCarthy also welcomed him to read any medical textbook he owned. The remedial reading skills he had picked up around the orphanage simply weren't enough for the complex medical jargon. But Dr. McCarthy was understanding and helped him with any words he had trouble with, which was almost all of them. He eventually just took to reading the books aloud and running his finger along under the words while Mathieu sat on his lap. It would almost have been familial, like a grandfather teaching his grandson to read, except the books were about plagues instead of fairytales.
The old doctor had all but completely stopped doing housework. If Mathieu was brutally honest, he lived like a caveman. He just didn't seem to see the point in taking of things, or himself.
So it was Mathieu who did the laundry and the dishes and the cleaning and stitched up clothes that tore. Dr. McCarthy did all the outdoor work and cooked all the meals, but Mathieu knew the chores he now did had just been outright neglected beforehand. He couldn't help but think he was living with the world's most useless adult.
Except when it came to his work. Then it was like he became an entirely different person. The doctor was calm, rational, logical. He was the most level-headed and knowledgeable person you could ever hope to have treating you. He cared when it mattered.
Maybe that was why so many people showed up to his funeral. He had helped so many people, and had been so kind while doing it. The whole village mourned. They had no way of contacting the doctor's son in time for the burial, but he did show up a few months later and claimed his inheritance.
He insisted the medical textbooks go to Mathieu. He wouldn't have gotten any use out of them any way, and anyone who wanted to be a doctor should always have the opportunity to study their field.
Everyone said how the old doctor had viewed him as a grandson. He chided himself. He knew better than to let a—a normal person get attached to him. It only led to broken hearts. And who knew what effect it would have on the doctor's son—living in a place where some long-gone stranger was considered a more real family, a better child and companion, than his biological heir?
He wrote 'McCarthy' on the parchment in his shoe.
Within four months of Dr. McCarthy's death, Mathieu was on another doctor's doorstep, a heavy suitcase on each side.
