Spitting after him, Leena shuffled back into the still-standing portion of the old warehouse she called home. It was small and dirty, but rain didn’t come in and there were no other people around to threaten her. She liked this place better than the dozen or two others she had lived in since leaving the abandoned tannery. Old Leena crooned to herself as she went, smiling at her wisdom. An inner voice always told her things like that-keep moving, speak to no one unnecessarily, keep the boy alive because one day he must be made to pay. Oh, yes, indeed! Old Leena was smart and wise, and no one would ever catch on to her, never.
There was a place for a fire. It was near the rear wall, and above it was a hole in the ceiling. The hole went above to where the upper storey was collapsed. There were, in fact, floors above that one even. No rain found its way down the hole, but the smoke from the fire went up through it, drifted around above, and escaped skyward in wisps and wafts that were hardly noticeable by day, invisible after dark. “Smart,” Leena said aloud, She talked to herself, naturally. Who else was there to talk to? “Very smart, and getting younger and prettier too!”
That bit of self-delusion made her recall something she hadn’t thought of for a while. She looked around carefully to make certain the dirty little brat wasn’t spying on her, then pried up a loose flagstone beneath her pile of ragged bedding and took out a small box. She lifted the lid and looked at a scrap of parchment she had found inside the box long, long ago. “How long ago was it?” she asked absently, scratching her filthy gray locks until they became even more straggly and tangled than before.
She recalled how she had found the parchment, an event that mystified her to this day whenever she thought too hard about it. She had found the box under her bedding one day, and had no idea where it had come from-but all she really cared about was the fact that the box was hers. Then she got angry when she opened the box and found it empty-no food, no coins, nothing. Frowning at the container, she had growled, “Who would play such a bad trick on old Leena?”
Then, to her amazement, the bottom of the box seemed to disappear, revealing some items beneath it-but still inside the container! She reached in carefully and withdrew several sheets of parchment. Some of them contained writing she couldn’t read and didn’t care about anyway; on other scraps there were pictures of people, and Leena was immediately drawn to one of these portraits in particular.
It was a picture of a girl. Leena wondered if she was a princess. After all, princesses had their pictures drawn, didn’t they? “Not like this,” she said aloud. “How do you know?!” The response was cross.
The ink markings on the scrap were carefully drawn, and the detail showed a young and pretty face, a face without lines and wrinkles, framed by long, flowing hair. “I wish I were that lady!” she said, continuing to converse with herself. “You will be, silly girl, but it takes a long time to grow young and pretty…,” Tears made marks on the leathery cheeks of the crone, washing away the dust and grime of Old City’s slums.
“I didn’t wait for so long when I grew ancient and ugly!” she sobbed. Then a thick veil came over her thoughts. Leena toppled over onto her heaped rags and slept, still clutching the drawing of the beautiful girl. At the bottom was written a word, but only the first two letters-“ME”-were legible. Below that pair of letters was written the number “100”. Perhaps, the crazy old hag imagined, she would become like the drawing when she reached a hundred years old, or a hundred years from now…
Finding wood or anything else to use as fuel was no easy task. Old City was a vast place to the little boy. He didn’t dare venture very far from his home. Even though that location changed every few months, he soon exhausted all the ready sources within a quarter-mile of where he and Leena lived at the moment. This was now the case. He could find not even any dried horse-apples to use for fuel, so it was time to begin exploring some of the dark and dangerous old buildings on the fringe of his territory.
“Hey, sonny!”
The boy nearly jumped a foot at that, and he began running away from the sound immediately. A hand grabbed his garment, which was merely an old sack converted into a one-piece outfit.
“Don’t you remember me?” The voice was rough but bore no hint of menace or threat of punishment.
The urchin gathered his courage and turned his narrow face toward the voice. “Oh,” he finally managed to say.
The big, bearded face split into a friendly grin. “A clever lad like you can say more than that. I’ll give you a little something to help you speak-here,” the man said, producing an apple. “Try eating that up, and I’ll bet you’ll be able to say a whole lot more after it’s inside. It’s a magic apple, you know.”
The lad didn’t care if it was magical or otherwise. He was always, always hungry. He grabbed the little red sphere and bit into it without a word to the man. Eat it up first, then see what happens afterward. The fruit was soon gone, core and seeds included.
“Well?”
“Gotta nuther one?” the grubby boy asked seriously through the last mouthful.
The fellow took him gently by the shoulder, smiling and chuckling. “That and more, lad. My place is just there,” he informed the waif. “Let’s you and I go there for a bit. You can eat all you want, and I’ll just talk a bit-sort of fill in the gaps until you’re ready to take over. Sound all right?”
The man was big, much bigger than Leena, so undoubtedly he could hit very hard. His laugh was nice, though, not like the old hag’s. Besides, this was the same man who had saved him from a pair of bigger boys who had been pummeling him just a couple of days ago-and so far the two hadn’t come back to beat him up again. The boy was grateful to the man for that, too. He still didn’t trust him completely, but getting food was worth a risk. His large, gray eyes met the man’s merry blue ones, visible above the bushy beard.
“Yes,” the boy said after a moment’s hesitation.
The man walked off. The little boy had to hurry to keep up, and this fact was reassuring to him. He reasoned that if he had to work to get where they were going, the hairy-faced man wasn’t setting a trap for him. They went into a small, narrow building through a stout door the man opened with a key. Not many places in this part of the city were so guarded, but there were a few. Leena had told him to watch such places closely, because if he ever found one left unguarded, vast treasures would be found inside. But he had never before been inside such a place, and the little lad was instantly impressed.
“What’s your name?”
“Don’t know,” the lad said without thinking too hard about the question. His eyes were busy roaming over the place. It was a treasure trove. There was a real rug on the floor, dishes on a table, all sorts of wondrous things.
“Sure you do,” the fellow countered. “Everyone is called something. Now, I’m called Bru, see? That’s my name. What are you called?”
He thought for a moment, then said the first thing that came to mind. “Dirty little bastard.”
“Nope, that’s not a name. Think some more.”
It seemed evident that the man would keep at it until he had a name from him, and then perhaps he’d give him more to eat, so the little boy thought carefully. Almost everything that old Leena called him was like “dirty little bastard,” not really names but nasty things. That much the lad had understood down deep for a long time. Then something came to him. “Leena always says she’ll thump me… gourd!” It was an exclamation of near triumph.
“Gord… Well, then, that must be your name. Glad to make your acquaintance, Gord. Sit down on this stool here, and I’ll ladle up a bowl of soup for you.”