Boelik (14 page)

Bo shook his head good-naturedly. “Started
breakfast?” he as ked. Ryan shook his head. Bo tutted. “So
close.”

After the two finished breakfast, they went
to training. Bo decided that the best thing to start with was
Ryan’s jumping, so he had him practice leaping into branches with
two goals: the first was to get into the tree. The second was to
avoid breaking the branch. Unfortunately, the second task seemed to
be a problem, if not the first.

Another branch snapped underneath Ryan’s
clumsy weight, and he fell with a hard grunt and a moan. Bo shook
his head. “You have to land lightly. You’re trying too hard,
pushing your feet down. Watch.” Bo leapt into a low branch that
bent some under his weight but did not yield. Ryan pushed himself
up to watch.

“
Well that’s just mean,”
Ryan muttered, getting up. “I think these trees hate
me.”

“
They’d hate you much less
if you stopped stomping on them,” Bo said.

Ryan tried again to leap into a tree, this
time trying to mimic Bo as he leapt onto a limb beside him. His
branch bent and swayed and he had to fight to keep his balance, but
the bough stayed on the tree. He grinned at Bo, his features
lighting up. Though, his smile was… something else.

“
Good work,” Bo commended.
“Now to get down—and
gently
, for the love
of Mercy.”

“
Bo? Ryan!” a voice came
through the trees then, catching Bo’s attention. As he looked, Ryan
turned to track his gaze and lost his balance, falling
hard.

“
Ow,” he groaned, curling
into a ball.

“
Are you all right?” Bo
called down, continuing to balance on his branch.

“
I’m fine,” Ryan hissed
between his teeth, getting up slowly and brushing himself off.
“What did you notice?”

“
I thought I heard one of
the girls from yesterday,” Bo explained. At the same time, the call
came again. He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “I suppose I
was right.”

“
Which one?” Ryan
asked.

“
Colette, I believe. Stay
here; I’ll deal with this.” Bo sprang down from the tree and turned
to Ryan. “Keep working on that,” he said, pointing at Ryan before
darting off.

He found Colette around the cabin, staring
the opposite way. As he came behind her, though, she turned around
and smiled. “Hello, Bo,” she greeted.

“
Hello, Colette. What were
you calling for?” Bo asked, eyes flicking to a basket on her
arm.

“
Well, we told our parents
what you told us to say. This morning Ma had me come out and told
me to try to find you and give you this,” she said, holding out the
basket, covered with a white cloth.

“
What is it?” Bo asked,
taking it with slight hesitation.

“
Some of our Ma’s bread and
a few coins in thanks.”

“
Well, we’re very grateful,
but are you sure all of this is necessary?”

“
Absolutely,” Colette said,
her voice stern. Softening she asked, “Also, where’s
Ryan?”

“
He’s…out,” Bo
said.

“
Oh, I see,” she said
softly. “Well, would you tell him I said hello?”

“
I…well, I don’t see why
not.” Bo shifted, crossing his right arm over his chest, the basket
hanging from the crook of his elbow.

“
Thank you,” Colette said
with a polite little smile. “I’ll be heading home, then. Shall I
see you again?”

“
It’s a possibility,” Bo
said, allowing a small wave. Colette grinned and waved back,
heading off. “Ryan’s more comfortable at night,” he decided to
shout after her. She turned back, her brow furrowed and her head
tilted to the side. “If you wanted to see him, that is.” The
confusion fled from her face then, replaced with a nod and a
smile.

“
Thank you!” she called
back, waving. Satisfied, both turned around. Bo put the basket in
the cabin and headed back to the area he’d left Ryan in.

Bo stopped a short way from the training spot
and listened. He did not have long to wait before he heard a thud
and an
ow
. Not long after, he heard a
whoa
and another thud. Shaking his head,
he walked into view. Ryan was lying sprawled on the ground, looking
up at the treetops. Bo walked to stand next to the boy and leaned
over him.

“
You all right there?” he
asked, his mouth quirking into a small smile.

“
No,” Ryan stated flatly.
“I don’t get it. I’d rather just lie here for the rest of my life
and look back at my failures.”

“
Well, you don’t get to.
Come on, get up,” Bo said, pulling him to his feet.

“
How do you do it?” Ryan
asked.

“
Bend your knees more as
you hit. It’ll absorb the shock and quiet your landing.”

“
Oh,” Ryan said. He looked
up into the branches and down at the ground again. “Oh.”

“
Got it?” Bo asked as Ryan
leapt again, landing on it with minimal swaying. Then, after
analyzing the ground for a moment, he leapt down, his
double-jointed legs bending and absorbing the shock even better
than Bo would. He shot Bo a beaming grin.

“
Yep,” he said.

“
Good,” Bo congratulated.
“Now do it again, with a higher branch. Keep doing it until you can
do it throughout the tree, for as high as will support your
weight.” Ryan nodded.

“
Right.” With that, he
began leaping higher. Bo let him go at it until evening, and they
went home and ate by dark. Ryan had managed to make it more than
halfway up the tree.

It was not long after dinner and dusk that a
knock came at the door. Bo hid a small smirk from Ryan as he looked
confused. “Well,” he said as he hid his smile, “open the door!”

Ryan tentatively opened the door to find
Colette standing there. He stumbled back and fell over himself,
landing with his bum on the floor and his hands behind him. The
exact shape of his legs was hidden by the dim light as Bo had let
the hearth fall to dull, dying flames.

“
Are you all right?”
Colette asked, reaching to take his hand as Bo smothered a
chuckle.

“
I-I’m fine,” he stuttered,
hiding his lower half under the table as he leapt into his seat.
Colette cast a glance at Bo and he shrugged.

“
Come in. Close the door,
if you’d please,” Bo said.

Colette closed the door and sat at the table
across from Ryan. Bo sat at the bed and drank out of his flask.
When Colette gave him a funny look, he raised it and said, “Water
with honey.” Content, she turned back to Ryan.

“
You see very well in the
dark,” she remarked.

“
I, uh…” he began,
squishing against his chair. Bo cleared his throat to catch Ryan’s
attention and mimed for him to relax some. Ryan looked back at
Colette and did just that, exhaling and leaning forward slightly in
his seat, pulling his hat further over the right side of his face.
“Yes, I can. I’ve always been able to see well in the
darkness.”

“
That is pretty amazing,
you know,” she said.

Ryan seemed not to know where to look. “I-I
don’t know. Is it amazing to be born different from everyone
else?”

“
Well, some people might
find it scary or odd, but I think it’s amazing,” Colette said. Ryan
looked at Bo, who just waved him off and took another drink from
his flask. He understood how Colette might have mistaken it for
liquor, but at least it wouldn’t make him dead-drunk, and it kept
him from being able to laugh out loud at the boy.

“
What about when it makes
them
look
scary?” Ryan asked.

“
When it makes them
look
scary?” Colette asked, putting a
finger to her lip in thought. Ryan nodded. “Well, they can’t help
it, can they?” Ryan shook his head. “You’re like that, aren’t you?”
she asked then.

Ryan looked at Bo, horrified. Bo shrugged.
“You get to choose how close to her you want to be.”

Then, “I’ll show her mine if you do.” Ryan
turned back to Colette and nodded, swallowing.

Colette’s eyes sparked with curiosity, and
she eyed Ryan expectantly. He gave a shaky sigh and pulled his hat
up. Even with the dying fire giving little light, the contrast
between the two halves of his face was easy to see. Bo could hear
Colette catch her breath before she let it out slowly. “It’s not
really that bad,” she said. Bo almost spat out his swig of
honey-water in laughter, and Ryan blinked in surprise. “Is that
all?”

Ryan stood up and let Colette take a long
look at him, and when she furrowed her brow he lifted one leg. Her
small brown eyebrows shot up, but all she said was, “Oh.”

Bo began laughing even harder, unable to
swallow his mouthful.

She squinted at him and asked, “Are you sure
you aren’t drunk?”

Finally, Bo managed to swallow before he
broke down and blurted his laughter into the night. After
recuperating, Bo looked at the two, who were staring at
him
like he was utterly insane—Ryan hadn’t
even sat down again. And, maybe he was losing his mind. Ryan really
had shown her his ‘defects,’ and she really had blown them off like
a double of Olea. But after a few more moments passed and Bo didn’t
wake up in his bed, he realized that he was not going crazy. He
grinned at the two.

“
Sorry, but I expected this
to go much differently. Acceptance, I was as prepared for as
denial; I just thought we’d have to wait for you to wake up from
fainting.” With that, he placed his flask to the side and took off
his cloak, folding it and putting it beside him on the bed, showing
both of his lean arms. He chuckled again, giddy with the
strangeness of everything. He imagined a stranger coming into the
house, and imagined their view of everything. Then he found it
still
more
hilarious, but he managed to
control himself now. “Ah, it is a very good thing that I don’t
drink, I think,” he said finally, craning his neck and staring up
at the ceiling. “I’d almost certainly be thrown into an
asylum.”

“
So…” Colette began,
bringing Bo’s attention back. “What exactly are you
two?”

“
Half-demons. Both of us
had a demon parent as well as a human one,” Bo replied, bringing
his left hand in front of his face and working it, staring at the
silver fur and sharp claws. He stilled himself and said, “These are
the ‘gifts’ they gave us.”

“
Well, at least it’s better
than not being born at all, right?” Colette asked.

Bo laughed, bitterness creeping into his
voice. “Ah, not always. Colette, can you imagine what life must be
like for us?” Bo continued without waiting for an answer. “I think
you could. When I was a boy, I once tried to play with a boy from a
nearby village.”

Ryan nodded, sitting once more. He’d heard
this before.

“
I didn’t understand why it
was necessary to cover my arm then, and his mother saw me and
screamed. The village came after me with fire and metal, and I ran
back to my mother. And after that, she had no choice but to kill
them all, to protect both us and the forest.” Bo could remember the
screams as his mother ate people, guilty only of fear, snarling
with a terrible fury to protect her child. And her tears as she saw
him leave because of that day.

Colette stared at his arm in shock then, not
sure how to take this new information. That, or she was appalled.
Bo couldn’t place the exact expression, or to what it was focused
on. “I’m…” she began.

“
If you’re going to
apologize, don’t. You didn’t do this to us. Just understand that
you can never tell anyone what we are, not even your sister. Just
try and see things like most people would, and understand their
fear. Understand the situation.”

Colette pursed her lips for a moment and set
her jaw before responding. “I understand.”

“
Good. I think Ryan would
be a little heartbroken if you didn’t,” he said, causing Ryan to
splutter an excuse to her, replacing his hat and putting it over
his face. Bo laughed.

Three years later…

Bo watched as Ryan leapt from branch to
branch, light as a sparrow. Colette watched from below, sitting
next to the basket with the three’s lunch on top of Bo’s cloak.
Both children Bo now considered his own, and they had grown well
under his watch. “All right, Ryan!” Bo called into the trees, their
leaves just beginning to change color. “Get down here and spar with
me! Progress report before we eat!” In an instant, Bo felt Ryan hit
the ground behind him and try to catch him in a headlock. Bo ducked
and twisted out of the way in a second. “You’ll have to do better
than that with an enemy who’s seen you in those branches!” he
growled with a grin, facing the boy.

“
Oh, shut up old man!” Ryan
called with a light voice, charging forward and leaping up and over
him with a flip, trying to catch Bo’s head and shoulders and bring
him down. Bo ducked and Ryan sailed overhead, landing on his bare
feet and whirling to face Bo again, a challenged grin on his face.
Bo whipped himself around and went low to swing his leg beneath
Ryan as he ran at him.

Ryan saw the blow coming, leapt over it and
used Bo’s position against him. He tackled him and rolled, getting
Bo off-balance. Bo let them roll and left Ryan panting on top of
him, pinning him down. “Good,” he congratulated. “You’ve passed the
simple test.”