The Child Eater (4 page)

“Wow,” he said to Rebecca, “you really are a fortune teller.”

“Please,” she said, “we prefer the term prophetic-Americans.”

“So you really believe in all this stuff?”

She laughed. “I do it, of course I believe in it.”

“So will you tell my fortune?”

“No.” She took his hands. “Sweet Jack,” she said, “you are a man who found love when he didn't expect it. Isn't that enough to know?”

“I guess,” he said.

“Good. Then kiss the fortune teller.”

Over the next days, Matyas thought of nothing but the flying man, and the Prince, and above all, the prophetic voices. He had no idea how a swarm of lights could speak but he didn't care. Master Matyas, they'd called him, and promised he would fly, as straight and high as a hawk. Over and over he would stop in the middle of sweeping, or piling up wood, or emptying a guest's chamber pot, and look up, as if he could see the sky through the stained timbers of the inn, and he would close his eyes, and smile.

If his parents caught him they yelled, or hit him, called him a useless, lazy fool. In such moments, his body shook with anger, and his fingers twitched with the desire to cast some spell on them, burn them into lumps of ash and bone, turn them into miserable scurrying rats. How dare they hit him? He was a Master.

He wasn't sure what to tell Royja. If he told her about the Prince, or the flying man, or the voices and their prophecy, she might just laugh at him. Or worse, think he was making it up and respond with some story. Finally, he simply said he was going to leave, run away to the capital as soon as he possibly could.

Luckily, Royja didn't ask him why now, why such urgency. At first she said, “Take me with you!” and, “Don't leave me here alone. Please. If
you went away I don't think I could live.” She said this almost every time they went for a walk together.

“Of course,” Matyas would say. “We'll go together.” And later, “I could go ahead, get everything arranged. And then I'll come back for you. In a great carriage drawn by black horses. What do you think your father would say to that?”

After a time, what Royja said shifted. She asked him how he was going to do it, reminded him how far away the city was, and even if he stole food to take with him, it wouldn't last long enough to get him all the way there. And even if it did, what would he eat once he arrived? Where would he sleep? The city was hard and dangerous, everyone said so, didn't he remember those travelers at the inn who told of runaway children thrown into cages, or eaten by wolves who lived in the dark alleys between the buildings?

Matyas knew he had nothing to fear, for he would join the Wizards' Academy as soon as he arrived. Several times he almost blurted this out but he always stopped himself. What if she told his parents? She wouldn't mean to, but she might get angry and yell at them, “How could you hit him like that? Don't you know he's going to run away and become a wizard, and then he'll send a tribe of demons to devour you?” Then they would watch him all day, and chain him up at night, and he'd never escape.

To stop all her questions, Matyas showed her the coins he'd taken from the bag the wizard had left. They were standing on a flat patch of dirt and scrub brush about half a mile from the inn, under a hook Moon, when Matyas reached into his tunic and took out the coins in the pouch he'd made for them from a piece of paper left by a guest. “You see?” he said. “This is enough to pay for whatever I need.”

Royja stared at them open-mouthed, as if she wanted to swallow them but didn't dare. “You
stole
them?” she said. “From a
wizard
?”

Matyas smirked. “Well, really,” he said, “I stole them from my father.”

“It doesn't matter. It's still wizard money. You could burn up the moment you try to spend it.”

“No I won't! My magic will protect me.”

“Your magic? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” he said. He put the coins back. “It doesn't matter.”

“I'm sorry,” Royja said, and tried to take his hand, but he pulled it away and crossed his arms. “Please don't be angry,” she said.

“Come around me,” Matyas whispered, but there were no flickering lights, or any other sign of the Splendor.

Royja leaned closer, almost pressed her still-flat body against his hard chest. “I'm here,” she said.

When she kissed him, a quick dart against his lips, he wanted to push her away but he only kept his eyes on the caked dirt and the low plants with their sharp leaves. When she did it again, his lips answered her, and a little later he was holding her shoulders as if she'd been the one who wanted to run off.

Later, they lay on a bare patch where they'd hurriedly swept away any pebbles or twigs. Royja's head rested on Matyas' shoulder, while he himself stared up at the sky, as if at any moment a wizard would fly overhead and Matyas would simply rise up to meet him. He wondered vaguely if the things he and Royja had done were what the guests at the inn (and sometimes his parents) joked about.

Royja said, “You won't leave me, will you?”

“Of course not,” Matyas told her. To himself he said,
I'll come back for you. I promise.
It wasn't really leaving if you planned to come back.

Matyas' chance came on a cold afternoon in early spring. An elderly lady arrived at the Hungry Squirrel in a black and red coach. She was thin and stooped, and dressed all in black except for a white shawl that she draped over her thin hair. Frown lines were so deeply etched in the sides of her mouth that if she ever smiled it probably would break her face. As she stood in the doorway and looked around with disgust, she remarked how barren the road to the capital was, and how grateful she would be to return there the following night. When Matyas' father (in between bows to the old creature) sent Matyas out to bring down her boxes of luggage from the top of the carriage, the Master-in-training (as he already thought of himself) saw an unused iron grate on the back of the carriage.

That night he went for a walk with Royja. He hadn't talked for a while about leaving, and as a result Royja was more relaxed, waving her arms and giggling, and making up stories about the “fat sour-faced cow,” as she called the old lady.

Matyas said very little, only guided her far from the inn, all the way to the grove of dead trees. “Oh,” Royja said, “why did you want to come here? I hate this place.” Matyas began to touch her, first her face, then
her shoulders, then her breasts under her blouse. “Not here,” she said, and twisted away. “I want to go somewhere else.” But Matyas continued, held her and kissed her, and soon she sighed and dropped her resistance.

He didn't make a sound through all their thrashing and rolling, and stayed silent all the way back to the inn. At the door to the smithy he suddenly said, “I love you.”

Royja stared at him, gaped really, her mouth open, as tears sprang from her eyes. “No,” she finally said. “
No
. You can't just—
Please
. Don't leave me here all alone!” She looked like she would hit him, half raised her fists. But when Matyas didn't move, only stood and watched, Royja turned suddenly and ran into the smithy.

The next morning, after Matyas and the woman's driver had restored her boxes to their riding place, Matyas found his own place, squeezed into the narrow gap between the grate and the wooden back of the carriage.

For several minutes he held his breath and made himself as small as possible and wished he knew a spell to make himself invisible. Perhaps he did so without knowing it, for his father, after bowing, and cupping his hands for the coins the woman dropped at him, called out, “Boy. Where are you? Matyas! There's work to be done,” and even though Matyas could hear him searching around the woodpile and around the building, it never appeared to occur to the man to look behind the old woman's carriage.

The ride was miserable. Metal wheels jolted on the rutted road, while dust, mud and horse excrement flew up into Matyas' face. He was terrified the whole time that some rider, or a carriage with swifter horses, would pass them, and someone yell up to their driver, “Do you know you have a boy stuck in your back grate?” Every two or three hours, they stopped and the driver helped the old woman step out to the side of the road where she relieved herself with loud grunts and sighs. Matyas shook with fear that the bored driver might wander to the back and spot him. He was sure what would happen then. The driver would yank him out, beat him and kick him, and leave him battered on the side of the road. Luckily, the old woman appeared to demand that the driver stay in constant readiness to help her back to her seat, for he never discovered their secret passenger.

They rode until late into the evening, pushing the poor horses so they would make it there in one day. There was a way station, a cabin with
beds and a latrine outside, but as Matyas had guessed, the old woman clearly refused to stay in such a wretched place. The Hungry Squirrel was as low as she could bear.

When darkness finally came, Matyas felt a little safer, though he was hungry and all his muscles ached. Finally, late in the evening, they arrived at the outskirts of the city, and the biggest house Matyas had ever seen, had ever imagined. Years later, he would walk by this place in his wanderings around the city and laugh at how meager it was, but then he thought it a palace, with its white walls and gray shutters, its gables and turrets, its stone posts upholding a yellow balcony over the front door.

The driver jumped down and held open the carriage door. Matyas could hear the old woman complaining as she stepped out and took the driver's arm. He could hear her muttering and cursing the entire way up her mosaic-tiled path until they slammed the door behind them. Quickly, Matyas tried to uncurl himself. Only . . . only, he was stuck. He couldn't seem to move any part of his body after being jammed in so tightly for so long.

He heard the door again, heard the driver's heavy steps. In his mind, Matyas could see the man's thick shoulders, his large hands. He was whistling now, coming closer—

And then he was there, grinning down at Matyas, whose frozen body shook with fear. What would they do? He didn't mind a beating (as long as he survived), but what if they sent him back to his parents? The driver put his finger on his lips. Still smiling, he helped Matyas rise out of his iron tomb and step onto the cobblestones. “Better go quickly,” he said, “before the witch sticks her head out of the window and sees you.” Like a duckling in its first steps, Matyas wobbled down the street. He didn't even stop and relieve himself until he was sure he was out of sight of the old woman's house.

He got over his stiffness soon enough, but not his amazement. The city was so huge! He had thought it would be very easy to find the wizards' school, it would be the biggest and grandest of all the buildings. Instead, there were so many mansions and palaces and churches he had no idea where to look. Maybe the school would shine with magical power. Maybe they kept whole cages full of those colored lights he'd seen in the woods. When he spotted a building with a silver stairway that spiraled up the back wall to a roof garden, he slipped over the fence and scrambled to the top for a better view.

The city went on forever! How could there be so many buildings, so many people, all in one place? Sadly, nothing gave off so much as a shimmer. If he could fly, he would soar over the rooftops until he spotted the school. But of course—

“You!” someone shouted. “What are you doing there?” Matyas hurtled down the stairs as fast as he could.

Hours passed. As night faded to dawn, more people appeared on the streets, workers, messengers, merchants, but no one appeared to want to stop and talk with him, or if they did, they had no idea where the college of wizards might be. That had never occurred to Matyas, that the city might be so big people simply would not know where something was.

Or maybe they just didn't want to tell him. As he walked past people both grand and simple, he became aware of how much filthier he was than everyone in the city. His tunic and pants and sandals were not just rough-sewn and dirty, they were splashed with mud from the road and grease from the iron grate. A couple of times he passed beggars crouched against walls with their hands out. They glared at him, as if afraid he would try to take away their patrons. He thought of the three coins hidden in their paper pouch in his waistband and smiled. He wasn't sure how much money he had but he guessed it was more than any of these professional blind and lame people saw in a week.

And then he came across an old woman, bony, with matted gray hair and a face pitted from some long-ago disease. She slumped against the stone wall of a small building with cast-iron bolts on its doors, wearing a torn dress that was so faded Matyas could not tell its original color. Something about her made Matyas stop and look at her, the way her hands shook, the way she hunched a shoulder up, as if in pain. Her eyes half closed, she didn't see Matyas for a long time, but when she did she scowled and said, “What are you doing there? Brat. Get away from me.”

To his own amazement, Matyas said, “Can I help you?”

The woman made a yelping sound that Matyas guessed was a laugh. “Help me? What can a stench-filled, starved rat do to help me?”

“I'm not a rat!” Matyas shouted. “I'm a Master!”

The yelps turned into a wheezing cackle. “Master of what? Rolling around in your own shit?”

Matyas grabbed at the coins in his waistband, held them in his open palm. “You think I'm just a beggar like you? Look.”

The woman's mouth gaped open so wide it looked like a bottomless cauldron. “Oh please, Master,” she said. “Forgive a helpless, miserable woman. Forgive me and help me. I'm starving and in so much pain I can hardly move.”

A mix of pity and rage swept through Matyas, and before he knew what he was doing, he threw the coins at her as hard as he could.

In one swift gesture the old beggar snatched the coins from the air before they could strike anything, and almost in the same movement, she leaped to her feet and hobbled down the street. Despite her limp, she moved so fast she was gone around a corner before Matyas could even think to go after her.

Now he slumped down against the cold stone wall.
What did I do?
he thought.
Oh God, now I have nothing.
He put his hands over his face and cried.