by IGMS
Evan's heart started to the beat of a song instead of pumping and he watched without looking straight on, trying to give them numbers in his head. He couldn't.
They got closer as the stars came out, and he could feel them in the buildings and the tents and all around him. He felt blurry and strong, like laughter. His steps slowed with their swarming, like he was sedated, or like time wasn't worth paying attention to anymore, and his feet tapped or arched instead of just stepping. A few worms raced in circles around the big pot of cider on the fire, and he wondered when that'd got there. Or when they'd lit the fire. It was dark now, really dark, almost black. He was sitting next to Carol, who was brooding. She was talking to him about the different kinds of apples and how cool they were; he'd been ignoring her. That was rude. Why'd he done that? He started slipping into the good feeling again. He wanted to wrestle, or dance around and shout, maybe Elbows would wrestle with him. Except he'd already hurt Carol, which was a bad thing. What was wrong with him?
He saw two sneaking little hobs playing hide and go behind the girls and wanted to join. No. Forced himself to focus. Breathe, don't fidget, breathe. He laid his thoughts out like a cross from the bishop-men 'dults, almost like a prayer. He was Evens, Evan, he didn't loose his cool over a few little hobs and sparklies. Or even more than a few. Steady like a rock, like a lock, like the tick to a tock. Good. This had happened before, he knew, near the river -- only not as bad. This was muddying him up, getting in his brain. He didn't like that. His head was his own, like it should be, no glow worms and fey creeps were gonna lose it for him. Evan started counting seconds, reaching for the pouch the bishop-man had given him to stop his ranting. He always kept it in his pocket.
Sal Sapientia, the 'dult said, wise salt. Wise salt for the Weirdo. Wise salt to keep bad faeries away, though only the 'dults thought they were bad. Evan liked them, he'd friended with the hobs hadn't he? His crabby guard. But just 'cause he liked them, didn't mean they'd take his head. Not even The Watcher of Shadows was up for that. No. Evan was himself. He pinched some salt between his fingers, braced himself for the taste, and dropped it on his tongue.
It hit him like a belly flop and a blast of wind at the same time, and would have made him shudder if it didn't make him smile with the sheer raucous joy of being himself. He let loose a crowing, a big ole rooster shout that startled his classmates, made Carol smile and made Sister Martha level one of her ruler-length frowns at him.
He tried to look repentant, as she settled into him for a long scolding about proper decorum, but felt afraid instead. Somewhere in the woods, a deep voice answered him with something almost like a rooster call, but more like a wolf's. It was not a good sound and Evan didn't mind going to bed early at all after hearing it. Except he knew himself, he wouldn't stay there very long.
The Bad Men were coming, and the wind smelt just a little like greed.
"I know what you're doing."
Carol's voice was loud against the sound of crickets and stars. Not that the stars sang here, or made noise at all. He heard them anyways, sometimes, like he heard the hobs whispering. Whispering all around him about the big bad men that could See, that kicked little Jecke-blue all the way to a creek where he hit his head and cried. Those bad men were walking this way, they whispered, whispered so loud he couldn't quiet it with salt, though it didn't muddy him like it had at first. He breathed it in, and felt quick.
"Oh?" Evan asked, not turning around at all but bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, twisting his neck just enough to see her from the corner of his eye. He'd left his sneakers in the tent, they'd be a nuisance. The ground was wonderful; all hard and soft, fuzzy and cutting in different places. He had to forget some of the rules for the more important ones. Don't be a Bad Man, be good. Those were the best rules, what all the other rules were about.
"Yeah, I mean. Yes. I do," she said. Which was just a way of saying that she didn't at all, except that he was sneaking him and she knew he would. She watched people too, especially Evan.
"You need to go inside, I, I --" he faltered, she waited. How to explain without sounding crazy? Most people didn't believe in the truly Bad Men, or that boys should be fighting them. Evan knew that was the way of it though, only a boy could fight the Bad Men and just 'cause he was found and growing now didn't mean he'd stop. The only thing he ever ran from had been the Watcher, and that's how it'd stay. That sound had been a dark sound, a Bad Man sound. They were coming, and nobody here could do anything but him. And because he could, he had to. You fought the Bad Men because they were Bad Men, with no good in them. That was the way of it.
"There are people coming, like Bradley kind of people. Mean and bad and nasty, without even a little love in their hearts. I need to make them go away, run away, be gone and get. Understand that Carol? I know it's odd, everyone thinks I'm strange. But it's very important that I make them go away, away, away cause I'm the only one that can right now. None of the rest of you was Lost, and I don't want you hurting, not at all." It was the most he'd spoken in months; his voice ran the words together into something that wasn't quite a whisper but was just as quiet. It felt like carrying rocks up a hill, like hard work. There was a little bit of sparkle to it.
"I, you've never said my name before. You know that? I didn't know you knew it. I mean I know your name, you're Evan and you're brave and I know lots of things about, but oh . . . that's creepy. No I don't mean it that way! I just watch you sometimes, I mean. No! That's not what I mean --" She was getting flustered, louder, and even in the dark he could tell she was blushing. He made a shhhing motion with one finger and his lips. She stared straight at it, stopped. They both stayed like that for a little, her bright red against the night, him smiling out of nowhere.
"Of course I know you, you're Carol. You stay quiet 'cause you don't wanna be teased, but you're clever and you watch people, places, things. You watch so hard sometimes you fall down, and whenever you're thinking you play, tug, tease at your hair. And I like how you did done up the little just one braid in it 'cause it's just like you and you shouldn't ever cut it 'cause it's pretty!"
The last bits came out all rushed together and would have been a shout if he wasn't whispering. Even so, all the hobs and the worms around them turned and looked. They stared straight through him like he'd dropped a pebble in their pond, then looked away. He was out of breath, body tense like he'd been running, and heart going on like a big fat drum - boom boom.
"You think I'm pretty?"
That question was as dangerous as a crocodile, or a mermaid's song or a bullet in the air. Even a little boy knew that, but it was okay. He knew the right answer. It was in him, for some reason.
"There's nobody prettier, Carol. Now please, please go back inside? I don't want you hurt by the bad men. Please?"
"Promise you'll be safe?"
That was ridiculous. How could he promise a thing like that if he was going in to battle and there were Bad Men and he was just one boy against who knew how many? He didn't even have a knife. Just the buttery one from supper. Safe? Evan was hoping for alive. Except he wasn't the only one depending on him now, not even just Carol. If he wasn't safe, if they got him and stuck him and bled him and killed him, would they hurt everyone else too? These were Bad Men, or what would pass for Bad Men here. He wasn't sure, but he didn't have a choice.
"I promise."
One of his hands squeezed the spare change in his pocket. Hob-gold would always be spare, sparse as it was in the hands of boys.
The hobs whispered him, the sounds of their gossip pushing him through the grass, over and under branches into the forest and away from the clearest spaces. By the oak, by the creek, by the pebble, it's a stream, by the twig, by the old book, by the penny gleams, where the moon hits, is where the Bad Men go, towards the moon's tilt, where cider brews. Towards him, Apple Hill. They were almost there, said the hobs, and he could tell it by the way they scattered. Those that hadn't gone to the Hill, did now, running out of the woods and packing the
mselves in closer to tents and under buildings, betwixt trash. Evan kept walking, tree jumping.
He found himself clambered up into one of the big old trees, with branches going out that could support his weight. Like a goblin, or a lost boy, he slid one foot off the branch and leaned forward -- letting himself fall. His hands caught wood and bark, supported him. He twisted his body and swung, kicking legs up and hooking them on something higher, stretching up so he could pull onto another branch and shift his weight. Evan was good at hiding like this, between branches. Readying himself with his knife, with her knife.
Carol'd given Evan her pocket knife, before going back to the tents. It wasn't a fancy one with lots of gadgets, just a blade. It wasn't a big knife either, only three or four inches with a pink and metal hilt, but it was a good knife. It'd cut. Having it in his hands made him feel less indistinct about what he'd do once he found them, hob kickers and wolf howlers that they were. He'd knife them in the neck, in the throat, in the groin, in the ankles. Anywhere he could. You didn't wait to see what Bad Men did, you stopped them first.
After maybe two minutes of waiting, or maybe five, the whispers died and Evan was left listening to the muteness of the stars and the growing pains of trees. It left him taut, pulled like a bownstring with his tiny pink knife notched as an arrow in his fist, but it didn't leave him nervous. He'd once waited for Watcher to come and kill him, even if killing wasn't how it went. What were Bad Man, even in the after, compared to that? He crouched between branches, watching patiently until the rustling began.
Anybody but a lost one would have thought it was the wind, or a deer, or maybe only a rabbit who'd had a bit too much for sup, but it wasn't any of those. It was three men moving silent as you could in a place you didn't know, and because they snuck like lost boys and moved in a three like the wood-weavers and not fives or sixes like Bad Men might -- he almost relaxed. And then, just before he could see them, he smelled them. They didn't smell of dirt so much as greed and sweat, old liquor and meanness. It set his teeth in a snarl.
They entered his vision all of a sudden and gradually at the same time, so well that it took him a whole second to realize they were there, in patchwork jeans and tattered green ponchos that matched like a uniform. Bad Men. Hungerers. Hobkickers. He wanted to hoot and scream, swing down with his knife and paint the ground bloody with them for daring so close to Carol and Sister Martha and even the whole class. But he didn't. As soon as he saw them, they stopped. They looked around and took the air in deep, nostrils flaring and ears twitching. He froze.
His eyes weren't as good as theirs, he thought; theirs caught the moon just like a faerie glow and you could see it in the way they stepped, like it was bright out, when he had to squint just a little to be safe. They were older and taller, into the first one or two of their man years, which was twenty, but might as well have been thirty for all the difference in size. They each had a long cutlass you could see poking out of their ponchos just a little, and two of them carried little heaps of plastic and metal that looked like crossbows but were probably some sort of gun. Of them with the guns, one had a smudge of blue on his boot from something he kicked, and the other had red hair so bright Evan thought he might be a candle. He called them Kicker and Gunless and Red.
Red's eyes were brightest, so that when he looked straight up they almost matched his hair instead of being brown, and after looking at every tree, even the one Evan was in, he nodded and shook his head at the same time, looking to Gunless in the way a little boy looks at a big when he doesn't know what to do.
"I smell him Bose, but the lil prick's fresh good on the hide. Can't see him, figure he hears pretty fine though."
So Gunless was Bose, but might as well be Gunless. Evan liked it better and the lean of his face was far too clever and a bit too scary when seen on a man named Bose. So Gunless he'd stay, which was safe. Evan flicked his tongue quietly over the blade of his knife, sprinkling a little salt along its edge after every lick. He was extra cautious, because they were right down beneath him and might see a loose grain of salt if it fell, but none did.
"Can you hear us then, boyo? Very clever to hide, but I'm a glimmer-man. Know what that means? No, you wouldn't, would ya? Still new found." Gunless's teeth looked like they should have been crooked and his mouth bloody from ugly gums, but they weren't and it wasn't and his smile was just like Dose's, full of laze and might have been charm. Not just like, the same. The same smile. Evan's heart thumped loudly twice. Boom boom.
They were found boys, found men, and Bad Men at the same time, or now that they were after. Or something. It didn't make sense. But that was Dose, and it wasn't. He was Gunless now, and Bose, and a man with a cutlass. It was all confusing.
This, this strangeness made Evan angry. The man kept talking as he stewed, smiling in a way that didn't belong to him. Or didn't anymore. Evan would take it from him, for the boy that had been Dose. For what was a friend. Seeing Dose was Bose was Gunless didn't make him soft like it might make some, it made him sharp like a knife, angry like steel.
"A glimmer man finds you, feels out the other-ness like tappin' for hollows in a wall. And let me tell you, you don't have much kid, not like us, It's quiet all around you like it has to work to remember what it was. Now," he held his hands out like a peaceman or a dog catcher, quieting the quarry, something so much more threatening than when it came from the Sisters or a bishop-man. "I won't lie, I'm no liar, and with the way you feel -- you'd see me lying anyways." Dose never had been either, and Evan probably could.
"We're looking for blood, but only yours. You're brave right? We were brave when we were young, and you still like feel it. Like you have the caring in you. You wouldn't want anyone else to get hurt, now would you? 'Cause, that could happen. The people out there could get hurt real bad. You wouldn't like that, would you?" Gunless' voice was slimy, and he wore a sneer. As if a boy couldn't tell a sneer from a smile, or like he was stupid for caring. It made Evan arch his back like a cat and want to spit.
There were three of them, and they were stronger. He had a knife, some salt, some coins, a belt. They had guns, swords, height, everything. But he had his mind, he was Evens and he was Weirdo, he had his head. They must be muddled and fancied with all the fey here. They looked it in the way they twitched a little with the swaying of the trees, at that not-quite-here sound just behind the Red's voice. Easily excitable. Maybe stupid, but quick and stupid is still quick.
"I --" He let his voice warble and squeak, it was easy, though he wasn't quite afraid. He would die or he would not die, but he didn't see the point in worrying. There were plans and sometimes they didn't work, but sometimes they did. "I'm coming down. Please don't hurt anybody, I messed my ankle up, gimme a minute? And, and tell me why? Why me?"
Whys were important. He took three of the coins from his pocket, setting them precariously on the bark in different places, having to stretch a little for one of them. He gripped his belt, which was a little too long for him anyways, and wrapped it around the branch one lower than himself. Using the belt like a rope, salt bag pressed flat between the leather and his palm, he dropped to the ground on just one foot, and did his best to seem pitiful. He did not put the knife away, looking middling at their chins to exaggerate his fear and puffing his chest out to exaggerate his bravery. He could tell they were cocky, because even though he was close, none of them moved. Kicker sniggered, coughed a little, and grimaced. He was ugly, but only in the eyes.
"It's us, not you. You get the bad luck got caught by our glimmer-man's nose. Wanna get back, can't be boys. But Bad Men . . . You wouldn't get it. Still new found. But why we need your blood? Bad Men kill little boys, lost ones. You're still close nuff to count," said Kicker, greed on his voice like butter on toast. Gunless was looking at Evan strangely, head almost tilted and lips a little apart like he was thinking. Like he might remember something.
Maybe it was that that made him move, or maybe it was how their naked greed made him afraid and with just one twitc
h fooled himself into moving, but move he did -- like a snap dragon or a crocodile or a sword coming down. Red was closest to him, not Kicker, though Evan would have liked the second better.
So it was Red that caught his belt in the face when he let it go and the branch snapped up, with the little bit of salt still on it burning his cheek as it slapped. Then Evan was on him with the knife, grabbing his gun, pointing it away, and stabbing in the chest and the lungs and the gut -- ripping him up and stepping on his shadow in case it moved.
Kicker would have fired then, because his gun was up quicker than Evan, but there were coins falling; each sounding like three or four as it hit the ground, slowing him a fraction of second as he figured what they were. He pulled the trigger once, squeeze and release, but there was Red in the way and staggering. The bullet tore through his chest, and Evan was gone -- but no.
The boy leaped from the ground on all fours, using the falling man like a shield, letting his bag loose in a spray of salt directed vaguely at Gunless and hitting Kicker in the knees with his shoulder. Tendons screeched as they were cut with a little pink knife, they fell together, and Evan nearly buckled as the butt of the gun came down twice on his back. He felt bones creak, and a feralness took him. He screamed.
"Hob-killer! Pirate! Thief! Bad Man!"
Evan couldn't follow his own arm as the knife traveled up the pirate's shape, ripping and tearing and feasting like a living thing on flesh. But Kicker was one of the found men, older and meaner than any feral boy could ever be, and he spit up the pain almost enough to fight back. That almost broke Evan's left arm with an elbow and cracked a rib at six stabs, at ten it gave him a bloody forehead and bruised eye, at fifteen the found man was shaking-weak, then still.