Boelik (17 page)

This time Bo’s charge died of a disease, and
he returned within three years. Colette was married and with child
now. He got to see the babe once before he left again.

The pattern of coming and going to and from
Ireland continued for many years, even after Colette and her
children were dead and buried. Bo watched the generations pass,
watched as more of his pupils either fled from him because they
felt they had no reason to stay, or they passed onto the next life
because he was unable to protect them. Still he continued to return
to his Irish cabin, long after his visitors stopped coming.

He helped the descendants of Colette’s family
in secret, leaving them game on their step whenever famine hit, and
wood in the winter. From the edge of the forest he watched the
children as they played in the fields, or from the branches as they
ran in the woods. Somehow, none ever found his cabin.

***

One day, Bo headed into the town. What used
to be a quiet little hamlet with horse-drawn carriages was now a
bustling place with loud things called cars and artificial lights
everywhere. He sold some game, bought new clothes, and asked
someone to tell him the date—the whole date.

“
May seventeenth, nineteen
eighty-five,” he muttered to himself as he trekked home. He looked
up at the ancient branches above. “It’s been a long
time.”

Bo began to open the door to his cabin when
he heard something coming from deeper in the woods. He peered
around and saw nothing, so he put his belongings in the cabin and
cautiously walked in the direction of the constant noise.

It was in the area where Bo and Ryan once
trained together that Bo found a little boy, looking to be about
eight years old. The boy was sobbing into his arms, sitting curled
up on the ground. His short, fluffy, dirty-blonde hair was tousled
by the breeze in the forest. Bo walked closer to him and knelt
beside him. “Hello,” he said.

The boy, startled, lifted his face from his
arms and stared with puffy eyes at Bo, who held up his right hand
in submission. “It’s all right, I won’t hurt you. What’s your name?
I’m Boelik—Bo for short.”

“
Kian,” the little boy
responded.

“
What’s your last name,
Kian?”

“
Quirke.”

“
I see,” Bo said.
One of Colette’s.
“Well, Kian, what are
you doing out here?” The boy bit his lip. “You can tell
me.”

“
I ran away.”

“
You ran away? Well, what
for?”

“
My Da got mad at me.” Kian
sniffled.

“
Oh, I see. And you got
lost and want to go back, don’t you?”

Kian shook his head. “I just want to stay
here.”

Bo looked at him pityingly. “Kian, I’m sure
this wasn’t your father’s intention. He was probably scared for
you. People get angry when they get scared sometimes. Your parents
care for you very much, I’m sure. And what about your mother? Do
you want her to cry because her little boy ran away?”

Kian sniffled again. “I don’t want Ma to
cry.”

“
There you are. Are you
hungry at all, Kian? Do you want to eat before you go back
home?”

Kian shook his head and wiped his nose with
his sleeve. “Okay,” Bo said, standing and holding out his hand.
“Get up, then. I’ll take you home. But no more tears, all
right?”

“
Mm-hm,” Kian said, wiping
his away. Then he stood and took Bo’s hand.

“
That’s a boy. You’ll be
home soon.” Bo walked Kian back home, to the edge of the little
town that had evolved from the one he’d once known. Cars rolled
down the streets, and the homes of supposedly better quality loomed
over the paved streets. Bo glanced down at Kian. “Can you get home
from here?”

“
Uh-huh,” Kian said with a
nod, releasing Bo’s hand. “Thank you for taking me
home.”

Bo waved him off. “Just don’t get lost again,
all right?”

“
Okay,” Kian said, starting
toward his home. Bo watched him go for a moment, waving to him as
the boy turned and waved before running to his house. He leapt into
his mother and father’s arms as they saw him from their porch. Bo
turned away and walked back to his cabin for another night
alone.

The next morning Bo awakened and ate
breakfast. When he finished, he sat back and stared at the old gray
hat on the chair across from him. He shook his head. “It was almost
easier to burn the house and everything in it,” Bo remarked to no
one in particular, “than to live and see something of the people I
loved every day.” Staring at the hat, he continued, “It’s been
almost two hundred years since then. Maybe my own time is going to
run out soon. Wouldn’t that be nice?” Then he stood and put on his
cloak, clasping it over his right shoulder, letting it fall over
his left side.

Bo meandered out to the field where Ryan was
buried in an unmarked grave. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he
said to the grass beneath his feet, to the body somewhere beneath
that. “I hope that I can join you wherever you are when I finally
die, decrepit old man that I am.” An image of his wife and Ryan
waiting flickered through his mind.

“
Boelik!” someone called
from behind him.

“
Hm?” Bo turned, and at the
head of the path from the woods came Kian, running up to him.
“Kian? What are you doing here? Did you run away again?”

Kian shook his head and gazed up at him with
his big brown eyes. “No, I didn’t. I came out for a walk with my
Da.” He pointed back to the path, bringing Bo’s attention to a man
coming upon them, taller even than himself.

“
Hello there,” the man
said, his eyes calmly meeting Bo’s. He had brown hair as well, and
the resemblance to Colette reminded Bo of how long it had been
since he’d seen her alive. Though one definite difference stood
out—his eyes were of two different colors, the right being green
and the left a bright blue similar to Ryan’s. “I’m Mr. Quirke. I
take it you’re the Boelik who helped my boy?”

Bo nodded, holding out his hand to Kian’s
father. “Boelik. You can call me Bo.”

“
Well, Bo, thank you very
much for bringing our boy back to us,” Mr. Quirke replied, taking
the hand.

“
You’re welcome. I was just
heading home when I heard him in the woods, to be
honest.”

“
Where do you live?” Mr.
Quirke asked, releasing his grip and letting his hand fall back to
his side. “I haven’t seen you in town.”

“
I’m not in town. I live in
a cabin in the woods.”

“
Really? My parents told me
a story of a strange man who lived in the woods. A magical being, I
think they called him.”

“
Well, I assure you, I’m no
delusional hermit. I’ve just lived there for a long time. It’s far
more peaceful that way. Birds make better company than
cars.”

Mr. Quirke nodded. “I understand the
sentiment. It’s why my boy and I like to go for walks like this. I
didn’t expect to find the man who helped us, though.”

Bo shrugged. “Fate can be kind or cruel,” he
remarked, glancing at the dirt below his feet. “It seems as though
it were kind to you today.”

“
Very,” Mr. Quirke
replied.

Silence followed for a moment. “Well,” Bo
said. “I suppose I should head back home now.”

“
Oh? Well, all…” Mr. Quirke
began to say until Kian interrupted.

“
Wait,” he said. “Won’t you
walk with us?”

Bo looked at the young boy, his big brown
eyes staring into Bo’s hazel ones pleadingly. “Well?”

Bo sighed.

“
Please,” Mr. Quirke added,
picking up on his son. Bo held up his hand in surrender. “All
right. But don’t expect me to come to dinner with you afterwards. I
have my limits.”

The three walked back into the woods,
strolling along the dirt paths that wound around the old alders.
They talked about various things, Bo continuing to be vague and
distant with his answers. However, the Quirkes didn’t seem to mind
at all. It seemed as though they understood his want of privacy and
didn’t prod for answers. Bo returned the favor.

At the edge of the forest that looked over
the town, Bo said, “This is where I break away.”

“
All right,” Mr. Quirke
said. “We’ll be coming out again tomorrow. Would you like to meet
us here again?”

Bo shuffled his feet and glanced back at the
woods, the wind whispering through the branches. After a quick peek
at Kian he sighed and said, “Well, I don’t see why not.”

Around the same time the next day, Bo met
Kian at the edge of the woods. “Where’s your father?”

“
He said he had some work
that just came up and had to be done,” Kian replied. “But I said
that I’d still go with you.”

“
Well that’s good of you,”
Bo said. Kian grinned, and they began to walk through the forest.
They were around the bridge when Bo noticed that Kian kept staring
up at him as they walked. Bo peered down at him. “What is
it?”

“
Why is your hair so long?”
Kian asked.

“
Hm?” Bo wondered, holding
up some of his shoulder-length hair. He cut it regularly so it
wouldn’t get longer, so it had stayed a pretty steady length over
the centuries. At least he hadn’t ever grown facial hair. “Isn’t
this the normal length?”

Kian shook his head. Bo thought back and
realized that men seemed mostly to wear their hair short now.
Oops.

“
My Ma cuts mine all the
time. Do you want me to ask her to do yours, too?” Kian
asked.

Bo gave an awkward smile. “No, thanks. I’ll
figure something out.”

They continued to walk for some time, though
Kian didn’t ask about much else. Bo eventually took him home before
returning home himself. He found his knife in its ‘new’ sheath by
the bed and took it to the river so that he could cut his hair. It
wouldn’t do to stand out quite so much.

It was evening by the time he was satisfied.
The short cut reminded him of a boy’s hair, but he shrugged it off.
Fashion was something he never understood, even after all this
time. Bo soon returned to his home, thinking of the next day’s walk
as he fell asleep.

***

It was a few years late. A light snow covered
the ground, and Bo was headed to the normal meeting place. When he
arrived, though, no one was there, and he leaned against a tree to
wait. The sun began to set, turning the fresh white snow into a
pink sea. Bo watched it sink, the snow beneath gradually changing
to violets and blues. And when still neither of the Quirkes had
shown up, Bo sighed and glanced down at his feet. That’s when he
saw the tracks and paid new attention to the village.

There seemed to be a commotion on the
Quirkes’ porch. He saw Mr. and Mrs. Quirke in conversation. By the
looks of it, Mr. Quirke was trying to calm down a panicking missus,
and trying to keep her voice down. “The boy is thirteen years old,”
Bo muttered. “Don’t tell me he’s run off again?”

Nonetheless, Bo followed the barefoot tracks
deep into the woods. He sped up as he noticed the steps were
getting more erratic. The trail led him past his cabin and closer
to the heart of the woods, and he began to hear something. Bo
paused to listen.

The sounds were a deep grunting and panting.
It seemed like a large animal was in distress. Bo looked up and
leapt into a tree, bounding from branch to branch until he saw the
source of the noise. It was a large deer, stumbling about in the
snowy woods with enormous, clunky antlers. It certainly wasn’t
anything Bo had seen before, in Ireland or elsewhere. He was
tempted to hunt it for a moment when Dayo decided to pop in. “Don’t
kill that!” he shouted in Bo’s head, making him grab for his
ears.

Dayo! Quit yelling! What is
it?

“
I know it’s been a while,
but do you remember what I told you? About morphers?”

You’re saying this is one
of them?
Bo asked as he removed his hands and took a new
look at the deer.

“
Yes. I found a line of
ancient morphers in your vicinity. It is a dying breed. Apparently,
that little Colette you once knew was carrying the
ability.”

Colette? How do you
know?

“
My visions are sometimes
convenient,” Dayo replied.

Dayo. You are increasingly
frustrating.

“
I know. The life of a
prophetic unicorn-dragon is quite a burden at times.”

Dayo, Bo warned.

“
I apologize. I remembered
her from a vision, and then I had another where I saw you with her
another time. I found you knew her then.”

Her name, though? I don’t
recall telling you that.
Bo watched the deer below smack its
head into a tree with its awkward antlers.

“
I hear a surprising amount
of your thoughts when you don’t pay attention.”

Dayo! You’ve been
eavesdropping on my thoughts!?

“
I’m sorry. Either way,
that is a morpher, not a piece of prey. Do
not
kill it.”

Where are you?

“
Overhead. I was coming to
tell you.”

Two hundred years
late?
Bo thought, glancing down again at the strangely
drunken deer-morpher.

“
My visions are only
sometimes convenient.”

Well, I have the
information now. I shall take this from here.

“
If you say so.” With that,
the old dragon withdrew, and Bo’s head cleared.