The boy she had saved was staring from the shadows.
"Why," he began, his voice hoarse and rasping from lack of use, "why did you…"
The young woman shushed him. "Not a sound, cheri. They're still looking, you know."
The boy fell silent, still staring.
His eyes, all she could see, and those barely, were like points of fiery ice through the burlap sack. The young woman shivered, unable to meet them.
She felt a hand on her sleeve….tentative. Oh, so tentative…
"Are we…" his voice quavered, was so very faint, angry, afraid, confused. "Are you…does this make us…'friends', now?.."
The word "friend" was unfamiliar, foreign, on his tongue, as if he knew such a word existed but had never had cause for its usage.
The young woman did not weep, although she dearly wanted to.
"Oh, cheri…" she whispered. "I suppose it does."
The thin, filthy fingers on her sleeve fell away, as he sat in contemplation.
The young woman suddenly had a thought. "Boy," she said, awkwardly, for she did not know his name, "how old are you?"
The boy, who in the darkness resembled nothing so much as a jumbled tangle of dirty, bony elbows and knees and wrists and ribs, was silent and still, for an eternal moment. And then the shoulders shrugged. He was so thin…painfully, unnaturally thin. Was he nine, ten? He could not be more than eleven—twelve perhaps, if credulity was stretched.
The young woman wanted to feed him, take him to a warm house with a bed and a fire…but she had none to give. The girls' dormitories were far from an ideal place for him to stay, obviously.
"Where will I go?" he rasped suddenly, as if he had read her mind, her body language.
The young woman jumped a little, and then contained herself. "I…" she searched desperately for an answer. "Oh, my dear. I'm afraid I just don't know…"
The bony, jutting shoulders sagged a little. His manner suddenly changed.
"That man."
The young woman shuddered, not wanting to think of it.
"I…killed him." The statement was sudden, abrupt, horrifyingly simplistic. His voice was not one of revulsion, regret, or horror, but rather of…what was it, exactly? Surprise?
"I……" his voice trailed off.
Suddenly, came back anew… "….killed him." His tone became even more infused with…whatever it was.
The young woman suddenly hit upon it.
It was knowledge.
Some primal, awful knowledge.
This boy, so young, so tender, had come to the realization that it was possible…to take human life.
And he felt as powerful as God.
The young woman could not contain her horrified, hissing intake of breath.
The boy's head whipped around, those awful fiery ice-points still more terrible with his newfound power. He looked at his hands, not horrified at their metaphoric bloodstains, but rather…morbidly fascinated.
The young woman bit back another gasp, a cry or scream. What monster had just been created from the primal, evil depths through that self-defensive, murderous act? What terrors would be unleashed because of one, solitary, terrifyingly simple happenstance brought on by another's cruelty and neglect?
"You mustn't!" she gasped, suddenly, and he looked at her oh, so slowly.
"You mustn't…think…it is all right…" she managed, painfully. "You mustn't ever do it again. Ever."
Suddenly he whipped the bag off his head and curled his soft, boyish lips into a snarl that made his face appear almost symmetrical, matching the bubbled flesh and the smooth skin into one unified, demonic grimace.
"What would you know about it?" he bit out, every word like a razor-sharp blade. "Beautiful girl."
As if it were an insult.
The young woman flinched backwards, tears springing to the corners of her eyes, hot and unbearably salty.
"Don't cry!" he snapped, biting out words in a voice that did not belong to a child. "Don't you dare cry, or I'll snap your neck like I strangled his! And I could do it!"
The silence fell with a thud, like the boom of a great church bell.
There were no words for what seemed an interminable eternity of mind and madness.
And then, slowly, slowly, she saw the tears forming uncontrollably in his own angelically crystal-clear blue-green eyes, a stark contrast to his twisted, hideously un-childish expression.
"Boy," she said softly. "Boy…." And then she forgot what she was going to say, because she realized she could not keep calling him "boy."
"Your name," she whispered. "Tell…tell me?"
She was shaking, she realized. Her hands would not stop their frenzied, jerking spasms.
It felt so much colder than it had a moment ago…
He gritted his teeth. "I…have…no…name." he whispered.
He was lying.
She indulged him. "Shall I give you one?" she asked quietly.
"No!" he snapped. "I'm no-one's pet!"
The tears burned, hot and unshed, in his glimmering blue-green eyes. He refused to cry. He would not cry.
He blinked, and the tears vanished.
"You tell me your name, beautiful girl."
Again, as though it were an insult.
The young woman quivered under the accusatory tone, and said softly, "My name is Antoinette, cheri."
"Don't call me that."
His voice was sullen.
"You don't mean it. Any more than you meant to rescue me. You only ran with me, hid me, because you knew you'd get caught if you didn't. And then wouldn't you catch it! You'd get hanged, just like…"
His voice broke off. He had been about to say "just like me," but being hanged was such a horrible thought that he went no further.
Antoinette stumbled. "I…I wanted to help you!"
"Then why didn't you before I…" Suddenly even the act that made him feel powerful seemed too horrible to verbally express.
"Boy, I have no money, nothing to bribe with or pay. I could not have gotten you away on my own power, though I dearly wanted to."
Her voice broke a little. "When I saw you…"
"Don't." His voice shook. "Don't talk about it. Ever."
"Then, cheri," she said, "I won't."
There was silence for such a very long time.
"How old are you, Antoinette?" he asked impertinently, using her name almost mockingly.
"Never ask a woman her age," she said, smiling faintly.
"You?" he hooted. "You're not a woman."
"Oh?" she snapped in annoyance, and then thought for a moment. "No, I suppose not…I am only just sixteen this May."
He sat there. "Well. You're old. But you're not a woman."
"I'm not old."
"Sixteen is much older than…"
"What?"
He sagged again. "I'm not sure. I think I'm…twelve."
"Only four years' difference, cheri. That's not so very much."
"It is when you're twelve."
They fell silent again.
"Maybe I'm thirteen. I can never remember…" he said softly.
"You're not thirteen," she said, almost scoffing.
"Might be."
"You aren't."
"You don't know anything."
"I know more than you, cheri."
"Stop calling me that."
"Why? It's better than 'boy'."
"You say."
Antoinette stared at him. "Must you always have the last word?"
He stared back, defiantly. "Going to tell me otherwise?" he whispered tauntingly.
His hands shifted, fingers dancing to where a stray piece of rope had been discarded from a set piece.
Antoinette suddenly found it hard to breathe. "You wouldn't…"
"Ha!" he barked. "Wouldn't I?" He grinned, impishly. But there was something almost terrifyingly demonic in that grin, as if the imp were actually a devil.
Antoinette shuddered.
"Afraid of me?" he bit, no longer half-playful. "Everyone is. Even my mother…"
His eyes snapped wide open suddenly, and his mouth clamped shut, the teeth making the horrible, grating noise of bone hitting bone.
He fell back, turning into a heap of skin and bones again, feeling around for the burlap sack to jam it back on his head, but he could not find it anywhere.
Antoinette began to cry. She could not help it. She fell to her knees and began to weep uncontrollably.
"Stop it," he said, his voice becoming strangled, high-pitched. "Don't you cry. Don't you…"
His voice broke, suddenly and the tears that had been unshed, burning beneath his sleepless lids, gushed forth in a torrent.
And then he screamed.
Antoinette covered her ears. It was not human, that scream. It was that of a tortured, dying animal caught in a trap, some horrible, raw, dirge-like wail ripping forth from the throat and cutting the very atmosphere, the earth itself, with its scraping, bleeding, knife-like horror and despair.
"Stop!" she screamed. "Stop, stop, stop!"
And then, the inhuman sound was cut off, as the blowing out of a candle into utter darkness.
She heard the sounds of his weeping even as her own began to cease. And in the darkness, she put her arms around the boy and they wept together, in the silence and the solitude of the unforgiving night….