Little soft things scurried in the undergrowth, rabbits and field mice and miniature foxes with overlarge ears and watchful eyes. I liked the soft loam of the earth here, the wet green smell of the ferns mixed with the pungent sweetness of fallen fruit.
The trees arced over our heads far above, the long broad leaves tangling there like they stood arm in arm, protecting us.
“I like it here,” Charlie said, kneeling to push his fingers into the dirt. He laughed when several fat pink earthworms poked their heads blindly through the surface, waving about like they were sniffing for an intruder.
All we needed to do was cut through the forest and we would come out alongside the rocky cliff that led up to Bear Cave. The footing was narrow there, but Charlie was small and I’d climbed it so many times I could do it in my sleep.
We’d easily beat Peter and Nip there if they stayed to the path, for the path they followed twisted and rambled all through the forest and countryside before stopping at the point of Bear Cave, where the mountains met the plains.
And Nip wasn’t all together in his mind and body either. The memory of his broken cheekbone moving out of time with the rest of his jaw made me smile to myself.
Charlie ran ahead of me, giggling and flushing birds out of their nests in the ferns so that they chirped angrily at him. It was the first time I’d seen him free and happy since he’d arrived on the island.
When night fell and the woods grew dark, he came back to me. It didn’t feel that this was because he was scared, just a little unsure where to walk.
Bigger animals moved in the dark around us. We heard the soft pad of hooves and spotted the gleam of white antlers.
Later, we heard a bear snuffling toward us, big and broad and smelling of the last thing he killed. Bears mostly left us boys alone, but the reek of this one warned me of its approach and I decided not to risk it, pushing Charlie onto a tree branch and following after him.
We waited until the bear’s shadow passed underneath the branches we perched on and its grunting bulk gradually moved away.
“Would it eat us?” Charlie asked. I was glad to hear that he didn’t sound frightened, only curious.
“Probably not,” I said. “Bears have much better things to eat on this island than skinny boys, and that one has already had a feast.”
“I smelled the blood,” Charlie said. “It probably had some rabbits, like us.”
“A rabbit’s nothing but a mouthful to a big old grunter like that.” I laughed. “He’s been at deer or elk or maybe some of the fat silverfish that live in the ponds and streams. All those kind are much better food for a bear than us, but a bear is something that kills, and being something that kills, the best wisdom is to avoid its teeth and claws.”
“Are you something that kills?” Charlie asked. “Nod and Fog say that you are. They say no one’s killed more pirates than you.”
“I’ve lived here a long time,” I said. “Peter’s lived here even longer.”
I shifted uneasily as his bright little eyes studied me in the moonlight. Both of us knew quite well that I hadn’t answered the question.
I’d killed more pirates than I could remember, and for longer than I could remember. The pirates hated Peter but they hated me more, for I was a plague to them, a plague that cut away their best and youngest mates. No older pirate was quick enough to face me, so they sent their bright things to try to take me. But no bright young man, for all that he has the strength of a man, was as fast as a twelve-year-old boy. And I had experience on my side, though I did not look it.
You’d think that after all these years of losses to us, the pirates would choose another island when they wanted to stay in port, but they returned to ours season after season. One time, long ago, I asked Peter why they kept coming back.
“Because they want to know why we never grow up, silly,” Peter said, and cuffed the back of my head. “They think we have some special treasure that keeps us young, and they want it.”
I frowned at him. “If they want it, then why don’t they ever go past the beach near their ship?”
“They think they’ll catch one of us when we come a-raiding,” Peter said.
I snorted a laugh, and Peter smiled at me, and when he smiled like that it was just the two of us together, brothers forever.
Charlie’s voice brought me back to the woods and the dark, his voice and the fear in it. “Will I have to kill a pirate?”
“Not if you don’t want to,” I said. Not if I have anything to say about it, you won’t.
“I don’t know how to fight,” Charlie said.
“You’re not the only one,” I said, thinking of the other new boys, the ones who’d never handled a sword or a knife. “Just stay with me and you’ll be fine.”
I hopped off the branch and reached up for him, and as I set him on the ground I decided. Peter wouldn’t like it, but I wasn’t going to let Charlie anywhere near the pirate camp. I was going to tuck him up in a tree or a cave like a baby in a cradle and keep him well away from any fighting. If I was lucky, Peter wouldn’t notice.
Except Peter notices everything.
There was always a first time, I reasoned. He might be so busy with the raid that he wouldn’t trouble to keep track of Charlie, though since the little boy was almost always attached to my sleeve that was unlikely.
Charlie’s silence told me he was worried about the pirates, and the joy had gone out of the adventure in the woods.
Too damned little, I thought for the dozenth time that day. Too little for all of this.
We emerged from the forest right at the bottom of the cliff path. The boys up in the cave had a fire lit and the smell of burning wood and meat had led us to them for a good mile before we reached the cliff. They were having a raucous time of it, too—screeching and laughing and jumping about.
“They’re having a jolly time,” I said, smiling down at Charlie.
He stared up the path at the leaping shadows and beyond, into the cold white eye of the moon. He didn’t seem to think it was very jolly up there, and his fist wound into my coat again.
I detached him gently. “You have to go ahead of me. There’s not room for us side by side.”
He stubbornly rewound his fist and shook his head. “I don’t want to.”
I felt the first stirrings of impatience. “You have to.”
“I don’t want to,” Charlie repeated.
I deliberately peeled his hand out of my coat and pushed him toward the path. “You have to. We can’t stand here playing about all night.”
He wriggled away from my hands, shaking his head, his mouth set in an obstinate line. “No.”
I didn’t know whether this was about Peter or Nip or that he was afraid of the dark or the cliff path or what. I just knew that I wasn’t of a mind to deal with his nonsense. I didn’t care about Charlie’s reasons at that moment; I just wanted him to mind me.
I was angry and let him see it. “You have to go up there. If you don’t, I’ll leave you here.”
His face went shocked and white. I could have smacked him and hurt him less, I reckon. “The duckling,” he whispered. “What about the duckling?”
“The bloody duckling didn’t listen, didn’t mind,” I said, starting up the cliff path and leaving Charlie there, staring after me.
Peter was right. I didn’t do them any good when I tried to take care of them. I wasn’t Charlie’s mama and it wasn’t down to me to be one. If that stupid little boy fell in the crocodile pond or got eaten by a bear or wandered into the fields of the Many-Eyed, it was no nevermind to me because he wasn’t my problem, not my responsibility.