A year passed with little change, then two. Erik understood the hopeless nature of his situation; his 'situation' had always seemed hopeless in one way or another. As the seasons passed he fell deeper into his mind and the music he found there. Death was frequently within reach; his reason for continuing to draw breath was that sacred music.

The beauty in his head helped him remain apart from and above the base crowds who howled and clamored around him. Sweet ballads blocked out the noise of the masses and allowed him to forget his physical miseries. When all had fallen silent, and his captor's heavy boots had staggered up his wagon steps for the final time, Erik would begin to sing to himself. Sometimes he sang old songs from his years with Hannah, sometimes he sang the folk songs the rough people at the fair sang. More and more often, though, the melodies were his own. His helplessness and rage, his sadness and despair all became a beautiful, wordless keening that softened the crisp air of night.

Leslie continued to visit him when she thought it safe. She would bring him leftover cakes, bits of her own dinner, and books when she could manage it. For the first year, she had stayed well outside his reach, fearful that he would suddenly become all the things the rumors said he was. She had heard it whispered that Herroux had found him wandering down the road with the blood of his own family dripping from his hands. Time proved these whispers wrong. He would tell her nothing of himself or where he came from, but there was no way the gentle boy who remained so under any treatment could ever have committed such a crime.

The second year, she would sit very close to his cage, telling him stories, laughing quietly with him. Were it not for the bars and the fear of discovery glinting in their eyes, they would have seemed very much like two normal children. Each had found a kindred spirit in the other.

Leslie's world had always been the fair; its people, noises, and smells were her world. The songs Erik sang and gentle manner he displayed woke in her mind the possibility of a very different world. His confinement taught her of her own liberty. She began exploring each city and town as the fair rolled through so that she could return to him with tales of life outside the fair. She turned to books for new stories. Her mind grew sharp instead of languishing in the mud of the fairgrounds.

While Erik gave Leslie music, Leslie gave Erik life. When the beatings were too bad, she found bandages and poultices to place on his wounds. When his ribs protruded too far beyond the cavern of his belly, she made sure to bring hot, nourishing food from her own table. She developed a skill in stealth that Erik very much admired. Herroux never found them out and Leslie's mother truly didn't care, as long as her daughter was careful.

In his third year, ticket sales began to slack off. Times were hard all over the country, and people no longer had money for amusement; they were struggling just to put food on the table. Each month that passed saw smaller and smaller crowds. Despite his vow, Erik began to contemplate singing or dancing; anything to draw a larger crowd to his tent and ward off the rage of his keeper.

Thanks to the diminishing crowds, Herroux had to start buying cheaper alcohol which left him with roaring hangovers and a roaring temper to match. Erik was an easy and helpless scapegoat for all the troubles Herroux felt were heaped unfairly on his shoulders. Leslie had to bring poultices more frequently, and often it was all Erik could do to crawl to the side of the cage where she could reach to apply them. While he waited for the girl's careful ministrations to ease the pain, Erik entertained wild fantasies of escape.

On the first night of Spring, Leslie came to visit bearing a freshly baked pastry. She and Erik continued Hannah's custom of celebrating his birthday. Leslie explained to Erik that this birthday was extra-special because he was now two numbers instead of only one. As usual, Leslie started off singing Happy Birthday, but as usual Erik shushed her after only a few notes. "No, no. You've got to pitch it lower so you can reach that high note without missing it." He began singing at a slightly lower pitch, to demonstrate. His impromptu voice lesson was interrupted as the rear flap snapped open.

Herroux thrust himself into the room, furious and drunk. The little freak could sing! Why hadn't he been singing this whole time? A singing freak would be sure to draw a huge crowd, no matter how tight times got.

"You little monster! You been lying to me, you been hiding things from me! ME, who feeds you and keeps you! You been stealing money from me! If you'd been singing this whole time, I wouldn't be trying to scrape up some money for Scotch." His eyes flicked to the girl frozen in fear beside the cage. "And now you've got women consorting with you! Well, this time I'll show you! I'll show you!"

Leslie scrambled, whimpering, out of the huge man's way to one side of the tent. She had never seen him in a drunken rage before, though she had heard legendary tales. She had seen the whip wheals and the bruises on Erik's arms and legs, but never imagined the scenes that put them there. Erik certainly never told her those stories.

Horrified, she watched as he grabbed the whip and wrestled his key into the lock. Once in the cage he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. Erik tried to curl up to protect himself, but Herroux' rage was too great. A rain of kicks and whiplashes rained down on every unprotected part of his body. Incoherent shouts and grunts accompanied each kick or strike. Leslie screamed for him to stop, stop for the love of all that's good, but Herroux was beyond hearing and beyond reason.

Erik heard her, from that twilight place where consciousness had not ebbed away completely. He struggled to the side of the cage near her. He grasped the bars, thrust one hand towards her and managed to say, "Help me, please," before Herroux dragged him away. Leslie fled.

Before Leslie, Erik would have allowed Herroux to kill him without complaint and possibly with the quietest murmur of thanks. Now, he suddenly rallied, not really hoping to save himself, but unwilling to die so easily. He heard the whistle of air over the whip and threw his arm up. The whip wrapped around his wrist, snapping against the soft flesh of his forearm. Instead of crying out in pain, Erik heard himself cry out in fury. This had been his birthday party!

He caught onto the coils with his free hand. When Herroux yanked the whip back, Erik ignored the wave of pain that rolled up from his dislocated wrist and allowed his body to follow the arc of the thong, wrapping it deftly around Herroux' fat neck. The huge man was too drunk to realize his peril. He only growled angrily and began beating the boy with his fists and feet, spluttering and trying to gasp as his air ran out. Erik felt his grip on the leather slipping. He grunted with frustration, wrapping both his hands in the coils as gauzy gray dropped over his eyes. The last thing he saw between his fluttering eyelids was Herroux' face, dusky purple and swollen.

Leslie's mother was a good woman who loved her daughter. She knew that Leslie had befriended the ugly little boy in the freak tent, and was glad. That ugly little freak apparently knew something about schooling and inspired her daughter to read and learn, a feat no amount of pleading or threatening had ever been able to accomplish. So when her daughter came running into the house at four in the morning, wild-eyedand gasping with sobs, she tried to collect her thoughts quickly.

"Mama. Mama, please…come… He's killing him! He's going to kill him if you don't come right now!" Leslie was pulling frantically at her mother's hand, dragging the sleep fuddled woman out the door and through the avenues.

They arrived at the freak-tent, which was eerily quiet. They walked in through the door and made their way back to Erik's room, Leslie hardly daring to look, afraid of what she'd see. The sight that greeted them was pitiful and frightening enough to bring warm tears into Leslie's mother's eyes and a little moan of shock to her throat. Erik lay in the bottom of his cage, so battered and bloody it was hard to tell which parts weren't wounded. The door had been padlocked. Herroux lay nearby, the whip twisted around his throat. Erik's now limp hand was draped over the tails of the whip. He had fallen unconscious even as he strangled his attacker. Herroux had the key in his pocket still; neither Leslie nor her mother could reach the dead man's pants. Leslie leaned as close to her friend as she could. He was still breathing. Shallowly, raspingly, but still breathing. She laid a hand on his outstretched arm and squeezed gently.

"I'm here, Erik, I'm here. Don't die, please don't. Mama and I are going to get you out. I'm going to help you, Erik." She babbled on for a moment, and then turned to her mother, pleading.

"Mama, get him out. Please." Leslie's eyes were wet with tears. She had never begged her mother for anything before.

"Honey, I don't…" She trailed off, not knowing what to tell her daughter.

"Please, he'll die...don't let him die..."

The goodhearted woman cast her eyes around the tent. Her eyes lit on the tent-hooks used for putting up and taking down the canvas between towns. Together, she and her daughter maneuvered the dead man's body until Leslie's skinny arm could snake between the bars to reach his pocket. The images would haunt both women for the rest of their lives.

Once in the cage, Leslie's mother lifted the boy, marveling at how light he was in her arms. How had such a small creature overcome such a huge opponent? By Leslie's accounting, he was ten years old, but he seemed to weigh barely fifty pounds. She carried him to her wagon where she did her best to dress his grievous injuries. She bound his back and chest to stop the bleeding from the whip wheals. She put poultices on his numerous bruises. There were almost certainly broken ribs, but there was nothing she could do for that but bind them tightly. She slipped the sack off the boy's head, flinched at what she saw, then went about putting cold cloths on his swollen eye and split lip. Once she had done the best she could for the boy, she turned to her daughter with a look that said she would brook no arguments.

"He can't stay here, Leslie. I'm sorry, honey, but what we just did amounts to theft, and what he just did amounts to murder."

"But Mama! You didn't see it! Herroux was going to kill him! He…"

"It doesn't matter that he was saving his own life, or your life. A face like that, who's going to listen to his side? If they find him here, we're all through, him and you and me." Leslie's mother didn't mourn the passing of the brutish man. Everyone would be better off for his death, but she was a realist, and this boy was now a danger to her family.

Leslie sat beside her friend, stroking his hand, carefully avoiding the sight of his face. "It's alright, Mama, I know where he should go, and I know how to get him there."

Erik remained unconscious for two hours. When he woke, he woke with a scream, throwing a hand up to protect his face. The motion tortured every inch of his body. He felt the pain first, then registered that someone had treated his wounds. Soft hands covered his, and a soft voice crooned to him, "Erik, Erik, it's Leslie. I'm here. Don't worry. No one is going to hurt you anymore."

He realized that his burlap sack was gone - Leslie could see at his face.

"Don't look at me, please," he murmured, trying to cover his whole face with his one functioning hand. She covered that hand with hers, but didn't try to move it. In truth, the one time she had seen his face, it had given her nightmares. She could hold his hand, though, and try to comfort him. "I'm a murderer. I killed him, I know it." His voice was shaking, his visible green eye haunted and dark.

Leslie's eyes flashed in anger. "What were you supposed to do? Let him beat you to death? Erik, we have to get you out of here. If they find you here, they'll probably just kill you, and there's no telling what will happen to Mama and me."

"Where will I go? How will I live?"

Leslie's answered confidently. "You like music, right? And singing?" He nodded slowly, amazed to see that she was actually smiling at him. "I found a place in this city where you can go.. I can take you there on Mama's horse, if she'll let me. It's a...uh…an Opera house. All they do there is sing and play music. I met one of the dancing girls who lives there. She says lots of people live there. They showed me where you can get in, and everything. Maybe you can steal food from the kitchens - the gods know they have more than enough to spare."

Erik stared at her in disbelief. A house where people did nothing but sing and play music? It sounded like an impossibly sweet dream. Even with his face, he could maybe become someone in such a place. Half an hour later, he was balanced painfully, precariously, on the back of a horse, Leslie sitting behind him, her arms holding the reins - and him - steady. A weather-beaten hat covered his head. He wore Leslie's cast off work clothes. His had been too torn and bloodied to even count as rags anymore. Leslie's mother had given him a bit of bread and cheese wrapped in oilcloth.

Leslie pulled the horse to a stop beside a sluggish stream of water. It flowed into a small grate in the side of a huge, ornate building. Erik stared up at the place. Even his mother's mansion had not been half so fine. Of course, he thought, it is only just beautiful enough if it is the house of music Leslie described.

"There's where you get in."

She helped him down, and supported him as he limped slowly towards the grate. He lowered himself into the frigid water, relieved to find that it was only waist deep - he had learned to dog paddle one good summer, but never to swim. He saw that he could duck under the gate and float into whatever came next. He didn't fear the unknown; whatever it was, it had to be better than the torment and humiliation he was leaving behind.

He took in a deep breath, ready to duck under, when he heard Leslie calling him.

"Erik. Erik? Don't forget me, and I won't forget you."

Erik locked his eyes on hers and smiled. "I could never forget you, Leslie."

The water was numbing his aching body, so he ducked under, and allowed the current to carry him to the other side.