Boelik

Amy Lehigh

Published by JLB Creatives Publishing at
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Copyright 2016 Amy Lehigh

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A breeze rippled through the forest and made
the trees whisper, the dancing shadows that they created seen only
by one person. Boelik sat on a mossy rock beside a burbling creek,
staring at his reflection in the stream. The water from the soft
moss soaked into his trousers and navy cloak, and his hand squeezed
some of the dampness out as he pressed against the stone. On the
soft breeze his sharp ears heard the distant sounds of the little
village nearby celebrating something. He had no urge to visit.

He continued to sit in silence with his navy
cloak draped about his shoulders, covering his left arm completely.
He lifted his arm out from under his cloak to inspect the only
thing anyone would ever be able to see when they thought of him.
“Mother, why did you leave me with this?” he muttered, not for the
first time, staring at the silver fur that covered his arm and at
the claws that extended from his fingertips.

Boelik then turned his gaze to his reflection
in the creek to spy his human hazel eyes, his human face, his human
brown hair that fell to his shoulders; all of it said human. His
heart said he was human, too. But every time someone saw the arm
that his demon mother had cursed him with, he was pinned as a demon
himself, no matter what he had done. No matter the truth.

He closed his eyes and slashed the wavering
reflection in the creek to rid himself of the memories that
threatened to surface. Boelik hid his silver arm back under his
cloak as he got up and stalked back through the emerald forest. He
stopped at a little grove with a little shed and, next to it, a
little house. He remembered building it when he first came here,
getting materials from the village over the course of a few weeks
so as not to arouse suspicion. He had slept on the ground in the
cold nights while he worked on it.

As a finished product, the house hardly
reached a hand’s width above his head, but he didn’t mind. After
all, he was also quite tall—any man he’d ever met had stood at
least half a head shorter than he. In addition, the house was full
of cracks and holes, and the door was a series of branches tied
together and placed in the doorway. Not to mention a singular room.
“Not the worst first attempt,” he said as he stared at it.

The shed was added as an afterthought; Boelik
liked the idea of being able to store ‘extra’ things, even though
he had none. Instead, he used it for food storage, all of it spiced
and preserved to last as long as possible. The shed, too, was quite
poorly crafted.

Moving the slat that was the door, Boelik
sighed at the few morsels of meat left. This, of course, meant that
he had to hunt. Boelik had at least managed to make deals with the
butcher and tanner in town for these occasions; he would come in
with two deer, give the hides to the tanner and one deer to the
butcher for some money and so that the butcher would dry and salt
the other for him for free. It was how he managed to make this
meager life work.

So, grabbing his carving knife from the house
to whittle while he waited, he climbed a tree to lie in wait for
his quarry. Stars shone in the heavens by the time Boelik managed
to get his two deer. He hefted one over each shoulder and carried
them back to the shed to string them up for the night. He yawned,
exhausted, as he trudged back to his home. As he trod past his cold
fire ring, he tossed in the fox that he’d carved.

In the morning, Boelik was awakened by
sunlight streaming through one of the cracks of his house onto his
face. He stretched and yawned, sitting up from his bed of deer
hides. After casting a glance at the door, he picked up his beige
cloak from beside the hides and, standing, put it over his navy
one. He doubled the normal little brass clasp over the golden fox
one that held his navy cloak.

Boelik walked out and grabbed the deer from
the shed and put them onto a makeshift sled of branches, hefting
the rope over his right shoulder, careful to only use his human
arm. As far as the villagers knew, he didn’t even have his left
anymore. “And into the kettle once more,” he said to himself as he
trekked, his baritone voice resonating in the still air.

In the village, Boelik avoided the people who
milled around as much as possible, keeping his head low. He first
went to the tanner, who doubled as the skinner. Once the deer were
skinned and the hides turned over as equal exchange, he headed
toward the butcher’s shop. On his way, a young woman danced by him,
oblivious, her golden-brown hair flitting in her wake. She
accidentally danced over his foot as she did, causing him to stifle
a grunt as pain shot through him.

“
Oh, I’m so sorry!” she
apologized swiftly, stopping. Her brown eyes shone with guilt as
she faced him. “Are you all right?”

“
I’m fine,” Boelik replied
in a soft voice, trying to stifle the groan of pain in his
throat.

“
Are you sure?”

“
It was just my foot. I’m
fine.”

“
All right,” she said,
looking at him with doubt beside her guilt. “Farewell then. Good
day!” And with that, she waved as she stepped back, turned around,
and started off again.

“
Good day,” he called after
her. “Though I don’t know how you can manage stepping on a
stranger’s foot so easily,” he muttered.

Boelik soon made it to the butcher’s without
another mishap, had his meat cleaned and salted, and returned home
with enough to last him a good while. To make it last longer, he’d
mix it with the berries and fruit he foraged and the vegetables he
grew in his small garden, for which he used the money from his
hunts to get the seeds. For his meager dinner, he started a small
fire and ate some of the new meat, listening to the birds singing
in the forest. “It’s peaceful here, isn’t it?” he said to a little
sparrow that was in the branches nearby, and it give a small
chirrup
in reply. “Lonely, are you?”
Chirp. “I suppose I am, too.” Chirp, chirp. “Would you care to join
me?”

Silence.

Boelik sighed. “I suppose not, then. I’m not
surprised. To you, after all, I am simply some monster who happens
to be talking to you. I would wager that you could sense what I am,
too. You don’t even understand how I could exist, a monster like
me, hm?” He heaved another sigh in the silence that answered. “Yes,
I thought so.” He stood and snuffed out the fire.

The familiar creek burbled as Boelik came
closer. His blue cloak was tossed about by the wind, only kept in
place by the fox clasp his father had given to him not long before
Boelik had lost him forever. Boelik fingered the clasp, his tall
frame pushing easily against the wind despite its eager endeavors.
He sat on his rock and stared at his reflection in the creek,
watching as little fish swam by, the spring-green moss tickling his
hand when he placed it on the rock. Boelik pulled a carving knife
from his boot and accompanied it with a small log he’d taken from
his fire-pile. Time passed by without him as he was lost in tedium,
and it was night before he finished.

“
Well, it’s nice to see a
familiar face,” Boelik said to the little wooden fox in his hand
once he was finished, its small face staring back at him blankly.
“Mildly familiar, I suppose. Mother had a bit more emotion to her.”
He sighed. “How long has it been since I had a true conversation?
…I don’t know.” Staring at the little fox, he said, “Well, you
wouldn’t know, would you? You were just born.”

Boelik rose and trudged back to his small
grove, dogged by the shadows of the forest and his loneliness. As
he passed the dead fire, he instinctively threw the small carving
into the pit. He entered his pathetic home and moved the ‘door’
back behind him and soon fell asleep on his bed of deer hides.

As dawn’s light began its sweep through the
forest, Boelik stretched out of bed. “What does the morning bring
me,” he yawned. “Little birds again today, or shall I find some
large game by chance?” Boelik walked out of his home, finally able
to stretch his arms all of the way without the low roof. He made
himself a breakfast of meat and berries near a small fire. When
finished, he put his fire out once more and began to head for the
heart of the forest, opposite the traveler’s path to the village.
But no further than a few steps from his grove, Boelik heard a
young woman’s scream come from the path.

Whipping around, his cloak fluttering
absentmindedly behind him, he wondered if he truly heard what he
thought he did. But while he hesitated, another scream assaulted
his ears. Boelik dashed for the path, speed beyond any human’s
causing him to be no more than a blur in the forest. He stopped
just short of the path to crouch in the bushes and assess the
situation.

The young woman who had bumped into Boelik in
town the previous day screamed again, eyes wide with terror. In
front of her lithe frame, sprawled back on the ground and gaping in
fear, was a large brown-black wolf. The beast snapped at her, and
she beat its muzzle back with what seemed to be the only thing on
her: a basket of apples. The fruits rolled across the ground as the
wolf stumbled back for an instant, toward Boelik’s hiding place. He
took the chance to leap onto the wolf’s back, hooking his arm
around its neck and locking his long legs around its waist. It
snarled in reply and was quick to retaliate.

Air whooshed out of Boelik’s lungs as the
wolf used its weight to crush him and make him release its throat.
The maiden stared in fear as the two then stood and glared at one
another. As Boelik glanced over to check on her, the wolf charged,
eyes glinting with hunger as it bit into his human arm. Screaming
as teeth dug into his flesh, Boelik twisted so that the woman would
not see his furred arm flash out from beneath the cloak to punch
the wolf between the eyes. When he was not released, he cried out
and put his claws in the soft part between its chin and throat. The
wolf made a gurgling growl as it stared at him with wild eyes,
their light fading.

At last the beast let go, dropping to the
ground, its crimson blood mixing with the red apples. Boelik cast a
quick glance at the woman before running off, much closer to a
proper human speed, toward his creek. He had no desire to let her
see any more of him lest she run and tell the villagers of the
monster in the woods. Images of fire and swords and screaming
horses swept through his mind; he shoved them away and kept
running.

“
Wait!” the woman called.
She ran after the man who saved her, the man whose foot she
had—regrettably—stomped over the day before. She ducked between
branches and weaved through the forest after him without
hesitation. Slowing as the soft sound of flowing water appeared in
her ears, she peeked through the trees to see her savior sitting on
a large, shallowly slanted rock. He turned and spotted her and, in
an instant, stood poised to run again.

“
Don’t run, please!” she
said quickly as she stepped into clear view, her eyes drawn to the
blood dripping from his arm.

Boelik paused. Everything in him screamed
run, but instead of listening he asked, “What do you want?”

The woman gave him a strange look. “I wanted
to….to, um, thank you. For rescuing me.”

“
Well, you’ve thanked me.
Now you should go home.”

“
But… you’re hurt,” she
said softly, her eyes shaking as she gazed at his arm, much to his
surprise.

“
I’m fine. It will
heal.”

“
Not like that, it won’t.
Not unless you want to die of an infection.”

“
The creek water is clean
enough. And I have cloth.”

“
I have better,” she said,
walking out to meet him. He stepped back, nearly tripping and
falling into the creek.

“
I’m fine. Truly,” Boelik
insisted, his heart pounding, yearning to accept her kindness, but
he couldn’t bear the thought of what her kind face would look like
once it was full of fear and disgust.

“
Nonsense. Come here and
sit,” she commanded, patting Boelik’s stone. He hesitated. “I
promise I won’t crush your foot this time,” she added with a tiny,
guilty smirk.