They left Natchez later than they planned due to having to accept another round of thanks and promises to come back and see what everyone would build. They drove until not long before sunset and found a lovely rest area with actual facilities like a full indoor kitchen, dinning room, showers, and a small sitting room with a television bolted to the entertainment center. Terry figured they were along a route knights used as they passed through the state to parts unknown. The Order had an agreement with each state to put these all over but some were definitely better than others. Even with all these luxuries, Terry opted to find one of the fire pits and start a small fire for the night. He didn’t like getting too comfortable. Elton stayed in the rest building for a while using the wi-fi and doing something on his laptop that Terry couldn’t possibly understand. He said he’d handle dinner for them as well.

  Delores saw a walking trail, and said she needed to stretch her legs after all the scooter travel. When she asked Terry to join her, he begged off promising he would on another night. She looked a little disappointed as she left but, again, he didn’t want to be comfortable. He sat staring into his small fire. It wasn’t remotely cool at night, but the light would be welcome. He normally wasn’t one to mope. At least, he didn’t think he was, but he was definitely doing so now. This “meeting” as he called it. This could go very poorly. He needed to trust these two and they needed to trust him, but he could very easily ruin the small bridges they were building between each other.

  The problem, he realized, was that he’d hit an obstacle he couldn’t fight his way past. He couldn’t hit it, or stab it, or even talk to it. The only thing it responded to was money and that was the one thing he didn’t have enough of to make a difference. Somehow, Elton HAD fixed it. Elton also didn’t want them to know he’d done so. Terry was upset that Elton hadn’t told him he could fix it. Anonymous donors. Miracles didn’t work like this. If they did his parents would still be alive.

  No. He decided the problem was Elton moving pieces behind his back. He didn’t know enough to both trust and possibly utilize Elton’s strengths without violating either of their oathes, but he would make the effort tonight. He would reach out and try to strengthen the tiny bridge between them. All three of them. He’d have to lay the first planks though. He sat and thought for a long time until the sun set behind the pines and Delores finally returned from her walk. She sat down on another log and watched him for a time. He could feel her watching him but he didn’t have much to say. He felt pensive.

  “You alright?” She finally asked.

  “Ask me after dinner.” He said and gave her a weak smile.

  Elton finally emerged from the building with his laptop bag, paper plates, and a big smile.

  “Well, I think we did good work today so I figured I’d swindle some Hot Pockets from the freezer in there. Eat up!” he said, passing the plates around. Elton sat on his own log and they all ate quietly and drank from canteens filled from a filtered pitcher inside.

  After eating, Terry collected everyone’s trash and disposed of it before sitting back down. Elton looked at him.

  “You’ve been awful quiet. You ok?” the bard asked.

  Terry looked from him to Delores before answering. He’d hoped she’d ask him that question. He already felt more comfortable when D gave him conversational openings, but this was good enough.

  “Kinda. I’d like to have a bit of a group talk, Elton.”

  “Uh, sure.” He said.

  “Great!” Delores responded. “We didn’t screw up something did we?”

  “No! Of course not. It’s nothing like that.”

  Terry collected himself before beginning.

  “I realized today that I know precious little about either of you, and you honestly don’t know anything about me for someone you basically ran away from home to follow.”

  He gauged their reactions. Nothing bad yet. He continued.

  “I’d like to rectify that. Starting tonight.”

  There it was. Delores smiled. Elton had a moment of panic before pulling his phone out.

  “Sure!” he said with what seemed like forced excitement. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your previous exploits for the Chronicles.”

  Terry gave him a friendly smile.

  “Well, when Delores and I first teamed up the other day I said I didn’t want this to begin on a foundation of lies and secrets.”

  He looked straight into Elton’s eyes.

  “I stand by that statement, Elton.”

  The man looked hunted, and he swallowed. Terry continued before he had a chance to spin a yarn or try to bolt.

  “Elton, we both know there was no anonymous donor besides you. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but I’m not really angry. You did something really, really good there. You changed lives. It’s exactly why I’m out here doing this. If you want to stay anonymous and keep your philanthropy a secret from people, that’s fine.”

  Elton gave a weak grin. Terry didn’t let it last.

  “But not from us.”

  The grin dropped.

  Delores leaned in his direction, her eyes soft and she smiled reassuringly.

  “We’re a team. You don’t have to hide things from us.” She said.

  Elton wore a pained expression. He looked from Delores to Terry and back.

  “I’m not proud of my past.” He said.

  Terry smiled at him and spoke softly.

  “There’s no judgments here, Elton. Just no secrets either.”

  Elton’s head dropped and he finally nodded. Terry slowly exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “I’ll go first. It’s only fair since I’m asking so much.”

  Delores grinned at him and he grinned back. Or he did until Elton held up his phone and Terry realized with a level of horror that the bard was going to record him. Terry looked straight at the lens.

  “Now, this isn’t going to be some great epic. This is just a run down of my life story, ok? We’ll pick one night a week and I’ll get into specifics.”

  Elton motioned with his hand for Terry to continue so he looked into the fire before he started. He took another breath and let it out slowly. He began.

  “I was born twenty one years ago in Raymond, Mississippi to Glen and Marie Lingal." He paused. "Marie died barely a month after my birth to a cancer that had gone undiagnosed. I only recently discovered that my father, Glen, died shortly afterward to a dragon. On purpose. He, uh, he couldn’t deal with the loss of his wife, so he left me. He left me with his brother Ernest and Ernest’s wife Dottie. I don’t remember either of my parents.” That had hurt far more to say than he expected.

  Terry looked up to see his companions. Elton watched Terry with pity and Delores suddenly looked on the verge of tears with a hand over her mouth. He snapped his gaze back to the fire instead of meeting their eyes. He tried to speak but only a croak escaped. He cleared his throat and tried again. This time it worked but his voice was lower and huskier than he meant it to be.

  “Ernest and Dottie raised me. They tried really hard to give me a good and normal life but as soon as I was old enough to know about my father and the Order, I started asking. They tried to talk me around it but," he gestured at himself, "it obviously didn't work.”

  He refused to look from the fire this time, not wanting to see their faces.

  “I swore the Peace and Truce of God, the PToG, at five? Maybe six years old.”

  “WHAT?!” shouted Elton and Terry looked at him. Better at him than Delores. Elton continued. “There is no way that should have been binding. The youngest they’ll take a squire is eleven or twelve on a case by case basis.”

  Terry smiled remembering.

  “Yeah. Ernest said that, but Dottie told him it would be better to take it seriously and start my training than to risk alienating me as I got older.”

  “You went to school, though, right?” Delores asked. “You told me about the incident with your principal.”

  “I did. Ernest insisted I have a shot at a normal life before I got too old. Maybe I'd drop this "foolishness” as he put it. He'd tried to be a knight and washed out late in training. My dad hadn't.”

  God. Had Ernest really tried to stop him at some point? The idea seemed insane now. He’d been the biggest source of knowledge and training to a young Terry. Maybe it was because he looked like his father that Ernest had finally relented. He didn't know.

  “Anyway, I kept getting in trouble at school. I have a problem with bullies. Every year I’d go for a little while and get suspended for the rest of the year for fighting, and then the next year we’d try it again. I made it all the way to fifth grade.”

  Delores smiled. She knew where he was going with this.

  “I’d only made two friends and they were in that grade. I got in trouble when a group of bullies wouldn’t leave them alone and I took them all on. The principal told me bullying built character.”

  He looked at Delores and actually pulled off a wink. She cackled.

  “I beat that man like a circus monkey and got expelled for life.”

  Terry took a long pull from his canteen as Elton stared at him. The bard finally found some words he seemed to think fit.

  “You are unreal.”

  “How old were you then?” Delores asked smiling. He grinned to himself. She was helping him tell the story in tag team.

  “Ten. I was ten years old when that happened.” The smile slid from his face as the rest of the story came back to him.

  “After that, George and Sean, those were my friends, moved to Jackson. Their families both thought Raymond was too toxic for them. They weren't wrong. I saw them maybe twice a year after that? I remember killing my first dragon at twelve. George and Sean were there for that summer. By then I was old enough to really start my training officially, so I did. I spent every waking hour training, defending the locals from invasive monsters, or ranging through the woods for weeks at a time hunting horrid beasties.”

  Neither of his companions said anything so he poked at the fire with a stick and continued.

  “That was my entire life for the next eight or nine years. I just kept trying to be better than my father. Trying to live up to the PToG. I saw people when they needed me. Ernest and Dottie tried to be there as much as they could, but I always found a reason to go off and work. Finally, I got the last big kill on my tally to become an Errant Apprentice this past Saturday.”

  He wondered at that.

  “It feels like a month ago already. It’s only Tuesday.”

  He shook himself.

  “Anyway, I met Delores on Sunday after eating pickled pig parts and now we’re here.” He finished with a smile and looked at the both of them. They continued to stare. Delores finally said something.

  “That may be the saddest series of things I have ever heard you say.” Delores wiped her cheeks as she said it.

  “Terry?” Elton asked, “Are you Batman?”

  Terry threw a pine cone at him and Elton ducked it. Terry crossed his arms and put his elbows on his knees. He knew he looked sulky and didn’t care.

  “Well I’m sure I’m sorry my life didn’t ride like a magical road of gumdrops.”

  Elton lowered his head.

  “Sorry dude. You said no judgment. It's just, how do you even get YOU out of that?”

  Terry just shrugged. He never thought his life was very sad until he'd laid it all out like that. He looked at Delores and she looked back sadly.

  “I dunno. Let’s move on. Delores? Do you want to go next?

  “Sure.” She said. She wiped her face again and leaned forward, arms on her knees. Terry rested his chin on his arms to listen. Elton had turned his phone to her and she ignored it.

  “So, I’m from Bay St. Louis, which is a lovely place. My dad was the Priest of one of the Churches.”

  Terry raised his head.

  “Really?”

  “Is it really that surprising?” She asked.

  “I don’t know. I just thought it was interesting. Sorry to interrupt.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Anyhoo," Delores continued, "I had an older sister, but she moved north when I was pretty young. We don’t talk much. I was a daddy’s girl, and I stress was. By the time I hit twelve I was sneaking out to the cemetery across the street to play between the crypts with the goth kids.”

  “If you need to take breaks, please do.” Terry said into the silence that followed. She smiled and thought for a bit on how to continue.

  “I met a boy there. He was older than me. Gideon. He was a magic user and fast tracked for the Circle of the Greenman when he was old enough. We were close.” She emphasized the word. Terry nodded. Not everyone was like him. He knew that. Some people apparently had normal lives.

  “He had been teaching me magic, but when I turned 14 he left me. During that time I’d started acting “witchy” at home. My parents were not happy. Well, dad wasn’t. I don’t really know what mom thought.”

  She looked up meeting Terry’s eyes.

  “Dad never really let mom have an opinion on anything after I turned 13. It was very “trad wife” if you know what I mean.” She looked back at the fire and Terry took his stick and poked at the flames a bit.

  “I started running away around the same time. I’d stay at friend’s houses or sleep in the cemetery. Sometimes I’d find an isolated boat out at the dock that had been left alone for a while and break in.” She gave both of them sharp looks. Terry held up his hands.

  “No judgments, remember? I didn’t live your life. I’m sure it was the option that seemed best at the time.” That seemed to calm her and she continued.

  “Things at home got really bad with dad once I joined the Circle. He made the situation unlivable so when I hit 18 I moved out and went to Biloxi.” She sighed.

  “I think I didn’t go far in case everything fell apart. Maybe I could run back home. Just give the whole thing up. Try to fit in.” She looked up at Terry with a grin. “But that isn’t what happened, is it?”

  “No. No it’s not.” He said. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. You say you’re weak. I’ve seen nothing but amazing work so far, Delores, and it’s all appreciated.”

  The girl tried to hide from the praise behind an arm as she rubbed her hand over the top of her head, but she had such a big smile after that. Terry thought he could look at her all night. Then he remembered himself and turned to Elton.

  “Well, Mr. Beasley, we’ve had our turns. Just remember, take the time you need. We’re all friends here.”

  Elton looked at them both and then down at his phone. He thought about it a moment and stopped recording. He stuck it back in his pocket and seemed to deflate.

  “Ok. I’ll talk.”

  “Elton, don’t think of it like that.” Delores said. She stood, walked over, and sat beside him. She waved for Terry to come over and sit. He did and sat on his other side and watched the bard's face. Terry spoke to the man gently.

  “I’m sorry if I gave you the feeling that this was an interrogation. You continuing on with us is not dependent on this. I will help you keep your oath to me. But, if you have resources for helping people, I’d like to know before hand. And then I can help YOU help people. Again, I’m sorry if this hurts. That was not my intention.”

  Elton nodded. He looked back and forth between them again.

  “Thanks. That. . . That actually helps. Have either of you ever heard of Therman Beasley?”

  Terry shook his head and Delores’s eyes got as big as oranges.

  “You have got to be kiddin’ me. THOSE Beasleys?!”

  Elton side-eyed her.

  “Yeah. I’ve been getting that a lot lately.”

  Terry just felt confused.

  “What am I missing?”

  “SERIOUSLY?!” she squeaked. “This was the biggest financial scandal to hit the state since-you lived in the woods and chased trolls. Nevermind. I forgot.”

  Terry narrowed his eyes and looked at her but all it did was make her burst into a fit of the giggles until Elton started laughing too. Terry did not have enough dirty looks in his repertoire to split between the two. Finally Elton sputtered out and calmed himself.

  “Ok. I needed that. And thank God SOMEONE doesn’t know my dirty laundry.” He looked at Terry when he said it and Terry thought the man looked more at ease with them. Maybe it had been worth it to be the butt of a joke.

  “My father was the CEO of Beasley Communications based out of Canton. They did long distance phone and early ISP stuff. That means internet, Terry.”

  Delores put a hand over her mouth and Terry just rolled his eyes.

  “He’d been cooking the books for years and was responsible for one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in the telecommunications industry since Worldcom. I was being raised as the heir apparent as the eldest son. I'd been training my whole life to do it. Well, that all fell apart.” Terry suddenly felt a kinship to the bard. They had that one thing in common at least.

  Elton slid off of his log and laid his head on it, stretching his legs out. He stared up at the sky as the stars came out.

  “So dad handed over as much of the money that hadn’t been embezzled as he could and set up a deal to reduce his sentence. The company got liquidated for the settlements, leaving us with the not insubstantial family fortune that we'd had before the whole mess. I figured dad would try and start over after prison. He never went to prison though. Did he, Delores?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. He disappeared. ELTON. Your dad didn't. . .”

  “Oh!” He turned his head to look at her. “No. Nothing like that. He was too proud to take his own life. Dad DID spend entirely too much of his personal money before sentencing to find a group of elves that would agree to perform a Sending to the Everywhen. The only group willing were snow elves in the Northwest Territories in Canada. He flew me, my sisters, my brother, and my mom out there with him, to say goodbye.”

  Terry watched Elton. There were no tears. There was no anger. Just a numbness in his eyes. He thought Elton had hurt over this all he could already.

  “The last thing he said to me before they sent him was “Elton, don’t be me. Don’t be even remotely like me. Find something that makes you happy. Hopefully it helps people. Just, be good.” And then he left us standing there in the snow with strangers and elves.”

  Delores put a hand on his shoulder.

  “What happened after that?”

  “Well,” he said, “mom started losing it. She started yelling that I was just like him and I’d be the ruin of the whole world. Then she said monsters were reaching out to get her from under all the doors. She got diagnosed with a soup of awful mental illnesses after that and she wasn’t able to take care of herself. All she does is scream now. Emily, my oldest sister, takes care of her most days. I offered to help but she said I would make things worse. My brother and youngest sister won’t speak to me.”

  Terry put his own hand on Elton’s other shoulder and squeezed. He caught Delores’s eye. She just shook her head slowly and sadly.

  “So I took my part of the money," Elton said, "made some investments, doubled it a few times, and set off on walkabout. I toured the world seeing everything the Fantastics had brought over. I met elves, dwarves, green dragons, gnomes, goblins. You name it. I finally hitched back to Jackson and got my degrees from Millsaps College in absolutely nothing that could be used in business.” He smiled at that.

  “Well that sounds fun at least.” Terry said.

  “It was. I decided following knights around and writing might be fun too, so I joined the Order. I’d always wanted to be a writer, but business training and financial studies never let me take the time. It would give me an excuse to travel with the lowest of the low, no offense, and maybe do some good for people. Then I got bullied into working for Lawless. He was the first knight I’d met and I thought he was going to get me killed. Or kill me, the dangerous fool that he was. Then you two showed up.” He looked at Terry. “I never thanked you for that, did I? Thank you.”

  Terry didn’t know what to say. He’d assumed some of what Elton’s life had been but this was a lot. He just nodded to him and Elton nodded back. He understood the moment. Of course he did. He was a bard.

  “And then there’s Natchez.” Elton started up again. “I can’t stand the institutions of the Old South. Those goblins got shit on. When Terry said he wanted to help them and he had no idea how, I knew I wanted to step in. Runt’s talk about that tavern. . .”

  He smiled. It was a look of satisfaction.

  “That old bitch. I’d eaten there before. No reason Runt would remember me. No reason I should have remembered him, except that the goblins were what made that place. They were like the crap on the wall at a Friday night chain restaurant but alive. It was like a place run by tamed gremlins. It was fucking amazing.”

  He turned to Terry again looking for validation.

  “It isn’t right, man. All they were trying to do was make people happy. So last night at dinner I made a call to Susan, that’s the woman who runs my business stuff while I, well, while I don’t. She pulled some strings and we got them a grant so they can start their own restaurant and we rushed some things through. Money greases a lot of wheels.”

  “I’ve noticed.” Terry said.

  Elton continued.

  “So the sticking point was legally we couldn’t do any of this with lower classified Fantastics. Goblins are what the government calls your “mob” races. So I had to get a human involved. Larry is a good man. He stepped up as soon as I tossed it toward him. There's a lot he doesn't like about the way things work in that town. So he signed for Runt, I signed off on the grant, and now everyone should be happy. Hopefully. It’s still a business, after all. Business fail all the time.”

  Terry looked at the bard. He seemed drained now.

  “Elton?” Terry said quietly.

  Elton rolled his head and looked at Terry again.

  “Yeah?”

  “Ya did good man. You did really good. I just wanted you to know that.”

  Elton’s eyes got watery for a second before he sat up.

  “I’m really tired now.” He said. “I’m going to turn in, you two.”

  He stood up, rubbing his eyes, inhaled with a runny snort, and looked at them both.

  “Thanks.”

  With that he walked into the gloom to get some sleep.

  After Elton left, Delores sat quietly by Terry at the fire. There was something bothering her from earlier, and she decided that this was the night for openness. She turned to find Terry already looking at her and she was suddenly glad the fire hid colors so well.

  “Hi.” Stupid. You’re already here, she thought. He just smiled. Damn it.

  “Look, you did a good job with Elton there. And me. You’re good with people. Better than you think you are.”

  “Thanks. You helped a lot. I just. . . .” he looked out at the night. “I just want us all to be friends, you know? Especially if we’re going to be working together. I miss having friends.”

  “About that.” She said. There was no point in waiting. He raised an eyebrow when he looked back at her. “I need to apologize.” She blurted out.

  “What for?”

  She squirmed. She really was going to have to get used to this kind of honesty with him, and someone wanting to hear what she had to say as well.

  “Something I said earlier. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable about your childhood. You said no judgments. I don’t want you to think I was judging it, or you.”

  “Oh.” Was all he said.

  An awkward silence fell on them and Delores watched the flames dancing. Terry sat there looking around as if he could see past the reach of the flames. Finally he smiled again.

  “I never really thought I had a bad childhood or a bad life. Not until I said it all out loud to someone else.”

  “You didn’t talk about it with anyone before?”

  Terry shrugged.

  “Who would I tell?”

  “Still. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s ok.” He said and sat there for a time. She felt like she needed to say more. To try a little harder. Neither she nor Elton had really known what to say as he told his story, but she’d been thinking.

  “Were you lonely?”

  Terry took such a long time to answer that she didn’t think he would. Finally he let out a long breath, dropped his shoulders and tipped his head back to look at the sky. It looked to her like he had just set down something massive after a long time.

  “Yes.” He whispered. “Very. Always.”

  He twisted on the log to face her. He looked nervous, pained. It was the first sign of this sort of vulnerability she’d seen from him since they’d met.

  “When I was twelve,” he said, “I moved out of my aunt and uncle’s house into the storage trailer we kept on the property. I converted it into a basic bedroom. Lumpy mattress on a cheap frame. Night stand. Just enough to live in.”

  She watched his face. Why was everything he said about his past so sad?

  “They let you?!”

  He looked embarrassed.

  “After a week of me sleeping in the yard in a sleeping bag, yes.”

  “Why would you do that?” she asked, suddenly deeply concerned about this man. He turned his face away. Before she realized what she was doing, she put her fingers on his chin and turned him to face her again, then let her hand drop. Oh what in the hell? she thought.

  “Hey,” she said softly, “I’d like to know if you’ll tell me. If not, it’s ok. Just know the option is here.” She smiled. “No judgment this time.”

  God. His expression. He looked like a boy who had suddenly realized he wasn’t actually in trouble over something. She tried to keep a friendly smile on and not let her heart break for him. Finally he seemed to decide on what to say.

  “This is going to sound stupid.”

  “I bet it isn’t.”

  He seemed to struggle with something inside himself before speaking again.

  “I’d decided two things that year. First, I needed to forgo comfort. I’d live as Spartan a life as I could to prepare for being out here.”

  She just listened.

  “Second, I just needed to be prepared to be alone.”

  “Jesus. I thought it might have been the Order. You did it to yourself.”

  “Yeah.” He said. “I lost my folks, Sean and George had moved to Jackson and I saw them very infrequently. Dottie and Ernest aren’t getting any younger. They were going to die some day.”

  The pain truly broke through then. His facade crumbled and he ran his hands over his face trying to hide it. She put a hand on his shoulder and slowly he started pulling it all back together. It was like watching him suit up in his armor. Finally, he lifted his head to look into the fire and took a deep breath. That armor fell right back off.

  “I just want to stop losing people.”

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she was hugging him. At first he was stiff and gave her a “there-there” styled pat on the back, like she was the one hurting. She refused to let him go and he eventually hugged her back. After a moment, she felt him start to quietly cry, and she let him. For a long while she didn't know whether to say anything.

  “I’m here. It’s ok. I’m here.” she finally murmured. She rocked him slowly.

  As they sat there in the embrace she realized that this was the first time he’d ever let any of this out. She thought of him, a lonely, frightened young boy in the woods surrounded by monsters, thinking that was all life could be for him. This poor hero. Maybe he was just as broken as the rest of them.

  She let him break the hug when he was ready and she was glad he took so long. He pulled back wiping his face with his hands.

  “I’m sorry about that. Aunt Dottie always said my family keeps moving because if we ever stop to think about anything, we’ll just break down.”

  She smiled at him.

  “It’s ok to do that sometimes. I know I have.”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Thank you, Delores.”

  “You gonna be ok?” she asked.

  The smile Terry put on was one of the saddest things she’d ever seen.

  “I will be. I’ve got no other options.” He said with a shrug.

  For a long moment she watched him as he turned to face the fire again. This time, the armor stayed up.

  “Ok,” she said, “I’m going to try and get some sleep. If you need me, you know where I am. I’ll be here.”

  He nodded with his tiny smile turned to the fire.

  She kissed him on the cheek, got up, and started walking to her sleeping bag. She was just past the fire when she started screaming internally at herself.

  WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT OH MY GOD. Three days, you idiot. You’ve known him three whole days! He could have been a serial killer! Ok maybe not a killer but STILL. Turn around RIGHT NOW and apologize for that kiss DON’T DO THAT YOU IDIOT! That’ll be even more embarrassing! Just keep walking. Keep walking like a normal human being who knows how to walk and didn’t just do that. Go to sleep and pretend the last several seconds didn’t happen! AAAAAAAGH!!! What the hemorrhaging Hell is wrong with you?!

  Delores climbed in her sleeping bag and tried very hard to sleep.

  Terry sat at the fire for several minutes watching Delores walk away. He felt the kiss on his cheek burning like a brand and didn’t dare move in case he shattered like glass. He knew he was emotionally compromised and wasn’t thinking clearly right then. It was nothing. Obviously. It was her comforting him and he was keyed up. He’d just broken down. It felt awful, like a bleeding that wouldn't stop. He felt better, though. It didn't make sense to him how both could be true. He realized that, above everything else though, he didn’t feel lonely.

  Eventually, when he could trust his legs, he kicked the fire out and went to bed. He tried not to dream. He didn’t want two people in there that night besides him.