Day Three - Morning

     The boy is awoken by his empty stomach. He curls up, clutching his sore belly. A combination of hunger and pain culminates in a rude awakening. The sun's barely up for crying out loud! He groans, rolls over, and waits for his stomach to unclench so he can resume sleeping. The ache abates without vanishing. Respite eludes him. He digs his head out of the pillow. Like it or not, he's up and he'll stay that way. He rubs at dry eyes, stretches feeling into heavy limbs, and dashes on his shoes; he's put them on the wrong feet. A melodramatic sigh as he puts them on right.

     Hunger’s made him cranky, meaning he's got less patience than usual for nonsense like this. Not that he has much to begin with on a Monday morning.

     The bedroom door swings open. He plods out a moment later. He’s still stiff. One stretch wasn't enough and a second proves equally disappointing. He's stuck with a wooden gait.

     When he ventures into the main hall, he doesn't see the front door because it's thoroughly obscured by the foreigner standing in front of it. The boy blinks lazily at the large man. His brain doesn’t work during the early hours. It takes a him few seconds. When the realization hits, he's instantly cured of his morning blues. His first instinct is to rabbit the other way, but the foreigner's gaze glues him to the spot.

     The foreigner approaches him. His mouth is the only part of him that makes sound. “It is curious that a child should be running amok at this early hour. It leaves one to wonder why, exactly, you've found it an appropriate occasion for a stroll into town.” He stops a few paces from the boy. He towers over him.

     The boy steps back as puzzles through the foreigner's obtuse wording. And he thought the way toffs talk is confusing. Toff talk has got nothing on this guy. He responds to the part he does understand. “Who says I'm going to town?”

     The foreigner makes a short rumble. “Clever. Though you've not answered my question.”

     “You haven't asked one."

     More rumbles. “Clever indeed… You certainly are nothing like Myr.”

     The shift in tone is a tell, but what for? The boy examines the foreigner for more cues. He sees little, if any. Brick walls are more expressive. Time for a change in tactic. “What do you want?”

     The foreigner returns from whatever train of thought he had departed upon. He scrutinizes the boy as thoroughly as the boy did him. “I come with a proposal. It is one which caters to both our interests.”

     “... I'm listening."

     And so the foreigner details his proposal. “Myr has ordered myself to ensure you do not interfere with his current lifestyle. I cannot disobey his orders. That said, it seems any concerns about you making deliberate efforts with aims of pestering your uncle are unfounded. For what other reason would you be actively avoiding him by, oh I don't know… sneaking out at dawn?”

     The foreigner's got him on all accounts, all except one, but the boy will let that rest. “I dun see what this’s got to do with a proposal.”

     “I'm getting there. Have patience... The crux of the matter is as follows: you wish to have as little contact as possible with your uncle; I wish to do as little as possible to comply with Myr's orders. I believe we might forge a solution from there.”

     The boy squints up at the large man. “You got somefin' in mind?”

     “Indeed. This is what I thus propose: I shall direct you away from wherever Myr is at any given time, should the need arise; erstwhile, you may do as you please, so long as you refrain from doing anything that would prompt Myr to order myself to deliver you before him. Such things would include liberation of various cutlery from their respective drawers.”

     The boy feels every part of him go numb. Shit. The silver! He completely forgot about the silver! More to the point, he got caught red handed. Now the foreigner's going to rat him out and Myr’s gonna kill him and he is so, so dead. He feels ill. Maybe he’ll die of fright right here? It'll save him the trouble of getting throttled by Myr again.

    The foreigner reassures him. “I see no reason why I should tell Myr of yesterday's escapades. However, I recommend excavating what you planted yesterday, lest Myr reaps you for an unfortunate harvest.”

     The boy’s attention drifts to the plant pots set along the foyer beyond the foreigner. He needs to get those spoons back.

     “Go,” the foreigner says.

     The boy bolts past, heedless of the foreigner’s presence. The world shrinks until it's just him and the pot of cracked earth he has to plunder. All that matters are the spoons, the spoons. Where are those spoons? He abandons one pot after rifling through it and scurries to another.

     Why the hell did he not pay attention to where he was putting the blasted things! It's no use hiding something if you can't find it when you need it. Isn't that why pirates draw maps for their buried treasure? Wherever his buried treasure is, it's not here either.

     He's swearing between hyperventilations. The other side. They have to be on the other side of the hall. There's still more pots to search on the other side of the hall. Two more pots. He isn't dead yet. They have to be there. They have to.

     He leaps to it and resumes digging. The hard dirt is easy to break as rocks. It stabs his fingers and makes them bleed, but he can't feel the fresh sores. He'll feel it later when he's calmed down and the adrenaline recedes, but that’s an age away. Right now, he keeps at his frantic search.

     His efforts are rewarded. He hits pay dirt. Cracks his nails hard on something glittery. Silver. “Oh, god. Thank god, thank god, thank god I'm not dead…”

     But he's not out of the woods yet.

     He scoops up everything, the dirt, the spoons, some fluttery thing, and sprints down the hall to the kitchen. It's still early. Myr won't be up yet. He still has time. He's not dead yet. Open, slams the door. Open, slams the drawer. In, slams the spoons in a tinkling, gritty mess. In, slams the drawer. Down, slams the boy as he collapses from pure relief. Done. It's done.

     He looks up at the drawer and wipes off the dirt he smudged on the handle. Done. Myr won't know the difference… if it weren't for the piece of paper sticking out the top.

     What the hell is that?

     He plucks the paper. It's about the size of a playing card and is made of stiff- oh! He knows what it is. It's the toff's telegram card thing. He must've dumped it in with the spoons when he emptied his pockets.

     Wait, wait, wait… It's a telegram card. Remember what the toff said? Er… What did he say? It's been a long two days.

     The toff said… He said, 'If there's any trouble, you send this telegram and help will come this way.'
     The boy is pretty sure that's what the toff said. Even if it isn't, the details aren’t important so long as he gets the gist of it. He’s adamant he got the gist down to pat, if nothing else and what the gist is is that he can get the hell outta here. All he has to do is send this telegram. He studies the card's calligraphic loops and squiggles. Surely the intricacies inked there hold the secrets to how he's supposed to send this sucker off. Pity he's not able to decode them. Whatever's written there, he'll never know.

     He sighs. Never has he lamented his illiteracy as he does now. And the toff doesn't even know. He never told him. Forget reading the blasted card, he doesn't know how to send a telegram to begin with! How's he supposed to figure anything out if he doesn't know what he's supposed to do?

     He slumps further. There's gotta be a way out of here, he just has to find it. He shifts away from what he doesn't know and focuses on what he does.

     A telegram is basically a fancy letter. That he knows. Letters can be sent from a post office for a fee. That he also knows. Therefore, assuming he has the money, he should be able to send the telegram from the Glenholm post office.

     He raises himself from his slouch. The cutlery drawer is, once again, an object of interest. Perhaps he can work out a trade? The clerk seemed the sort of fellow who might be duped into a deal, not that the boy would be ripping him off. Silver for one measly telegram-letter? Any rube can see the boy's got the poor end of the exchange.

     Well, whatever. It's not his silverware. Plus, he really needs that letter sent. It'll be worth it in the long run. Perhaps he can swindle the post clerk into giving him change? It’s nice to have a bit of cash squirreled away for sweets.

     The boy peers into the drawer again. He plays out haggling strategies in his head and he picks out a single spoon. Just one. He can come for more if need be and it’s harder to miss one spoon than it is half a dozen. The smaller number is also less noticeable in pockets. Less pokey too.

     He hears thumping on the floor above him. Footsteps. Definitely not the foreigner. Must be Myr. Sounds like he's coming down the stairs.

     Meanwhile, guess who still has a hand in the silver drawer? The boy snatches his fingers back, spoon in his grasp. He slams the drawer again, polishes the handle again, and searches for an exit. He can’t leave the way he came. The stairs land in the corridor he came from. If he runs through there, he’ll be caught. He needs an alternative route.

     First, he closes the kitchen door, blocking Myr's inevitable line of sight. It'll buy him time. Back to escaping.

     He scans the room. There’s another door by the stoves. It won’t do. According to the house’s layout, it opens out into the main hall and, therefore, isn’t a definitive exit. He needs something that’ll lead him outside. He sweeps the counters, searching the windows above them for a catch, and follows them to the other end of the room. There’s a door there too. It’s nondescript, but it should open to the great outdoors. It's perfect. He flings himself towards it.

     Myr is downstairs, stomping down the side hall, and heading his way. He must’ve been tipped off by the ruckus the boy's been making in the kitchen.

     Enough dallying! Get the door open!

     The door’s warped with age and weather. It doesn’t give easily. Or he could be opening it the wrong way. Duh. He rams the door instead of yanking on it. It stutters outward and he flies into the rain, lithe as yesterday’s birds. He skids to a stop and shoves backwards into the door to close it. It's still not enough. What if Myr decides to look outside for whatever reason?

     The boy doesn’t trust his failing luck to leave such risks to chance, however unlikely it is. He bolts around the corner of the manor, out of sight. Mud splatters with each step. Rain muddles each print beyond recognition as fast as they’re made; there’s no trace of where he went, save his own self, back to the wall and edged under the roof eaves. He makes himself small and unnoticeable. He muffles his breath with his hand when he hears Myr bust into the kitchen.

     Myr knocks around a bit. There’s a minute’s silence, then the sounds of a door closing and receding footsteps.

     The boy pulls in a lungful of air. He sinks down. He stops short of landing in the mud by bracing himself on the bricks behind him. He spends the next few moments appreciating how good it feels to be alive. The adrenaline rush is finally fading. He feels more tired and achy than when he woke up. He pulls himself to his feet anyways. He’s still got to get his soggy rear into town for his daily bread. The telegram too. Can’t be forgetting that telegram.

     He stuffs the spoon into the confines of his pockets. With that, he’s got everything he needs for the day. Off to town he goes.

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