Lose 10 Pounds of Ugly Fat... Cut Off Your Head

The first time he come, it was just after supper.

“D’you have any matches, ma’am?” he asked straightaway when I opened the door.

He couldn’t’a been more than ten or eleven, I reckoned then, the top of his curly head not even as high as my breastbone. And I could tell he weren’t from around these parts neither -- or leastways his family weren’t -- on account of the way he called me ma’am instead of missus.

Wherever he come from originally, I’d’a wagered the clothes off my back on one thing. It weren’t from a poor district like this one. Something about him just stank to the heavens of money. 

Ain’t nothing I need less, I said to myself, than to find myself wrong-side of a HIgh-Ender’s kid.

I must’a looked at him sideways one minute too long, ‘cause he opened his big brown eyes impossibly wide and fixed them on me. “Please, ma’am?” he squeaked, his lower lip all aquiver.

“What on this green earth’s a child like you gonna do with matches?” 

“It’s cold and I’m lost,” he said, but I seen how them doe eyes couldn’t quite meet mine.

“What’s your name, child?” I asked, just as gentle as I could.

His little body tensed all up at the question. He looked up at me again, his eyes near the size of dinner plates. For a hot minute he didn’t say nothing, just stared at me like a cornered deer.

“Eric Woods, ma’am,” he finally got out.

If that ain’t the fakest name I ever did hear, I said to myself then. In the Sentry Wood district, the forest’s both life and death. Ain’t nobody here named after it, though. I shook my head.

“Please,” he said again.

“You know you’re too young to play with matches,” I chided him. “Where’s your momma live? I’m more’n happy to help you find her. There’s leftovers from supper too, if you --”

My words caught in my throat and I seen I was talking to empty air. The boy was gone.

* * * * *

He showed up again a week later, still in the same plaid pants I seen him in before. The cuffs of ‘em was black this time, and the front of his grey shirt was streaked with the same black dirt.

Or soot, mayhap, I thought to myself. I reckon he found them matches after all.

He didn’t look like he’d found any means to warm his self, though, on account of the way he was hugging his self and shivering. And I couldn’t hardly blame him for that, with the wind howling through the trees like a wounded beast. He gave me the saddest little smile.

“D’you have any matches, ma’am?” he asked just the same as the first time I seen him.

‘Cept this time the words sounded wobbly ‘cause of how bad he was shaking.

“I told you, you ain’t old enough to be playing with matches,” I said. “But you’ll catch your death if you don’t warm yourself a bit. You can set by my fire for a spell if you --”

But just like that, I might as well’a been speaking to the stars, ‘cause the boy was gone again.

* * * * *

I started to fret in earnest, once he come knocking a third time. His cheeks had gone hollow by then and his dark curls were matted. Just like before, he come looking for matches again. 

And just like before, he vanished as soon as I offered him anything other.

That night, I set up late and scoured the ‘net for a trace of an Eric Woods. It weren’t a surprise when I came up empty -- I knew all along it couldn’t’a been his real name. But by then, I couldn’t just leave sleeping babes to lie anymore. I’d already let that boy suffer alone for too long.

In my line of work you can’t hardly just sit by and watch when a child’s in danger like that.

It weren’t strictly legal, looking him up in the Citizens’ Record. A Care Assistant’s never meant to access the Record for personal reasons. But I reckoned the good I could do canceled out any sin on my part. ‘Sides, I never expected no more’n the goose egg I’d already found on the ‘net.

You could’a knocked me clean over with just a breath when his name and pic come up there.

And I near fell flat out when I read the last page of his record:

Citizen perished in a house fire on Wintertide Eve, one week after his twelfth birthday. The fire claimed the life of his mother, Drea Woods, as well. The only surviving witness was Sasha Tolliver, a classmate at Sentry Wood Middle Grade School. Tolliver died tragically less than three years later, while detained in the Home for the Intractably Insane on suspicions of --  

I had to pause there, ‘cause I knew full well what they thought Sasha Tolliver done.

* * * * *

“Remind me again why you brung me here?” I fight the urge to squirm in my seat.

Doc Brinkley crosses his arms and leans ‘gainst the conference room table, tall and towering over me. I smooth down my skirt and cross my legs tighter ‘neath it. There’s something ‘bout being all by my lonesome with him that makes me feel naked as the day my ma birthed me.

He smiles the same fake smile my instructors always did when I asked why a girl couldn’t grow up to be a doctor -- or even a measly Care Tech -- instead of a stupid Care Assistant. 

“I’ve brought you here,” he corrects me, speaking nice and slow like I might be too thick to understand him, “because the boy trusts you as much as he’s capable of trusting anyone. Which means the Board will take your word if you --”

“If I betray that trust?” The words spill past my lips like bile before I can stop ‘em.

“If you present evidence supporting my case,” the doc says, that smile near cracking his face.

My eyes narrow of their own free will. “You know full well I ain’t got that evidence.”

He leans in, near enough so’s I feel his hot breath on my face. “I know ‘full well’ that the boy’s real name is Sasha Tolliver. That he’s suspected of setting a house fire that killed his best friend.” He takes my hand and squeezes, hard enough that I’m biting my lip so’s not to cry out.

“And I know about your career aspirations, Ms. Page, along with the allegations against you before you came to work at the Home. It’d be a shame to --”

I stand up, my blood fit to boil. “I ain’t never laid a hand on that man.”

It’s a lie, a’course. They told me the records were sealed, when they helped me smooth it all over. Said I deserved a second chance on account of how my husband-to-be hurt me. But it don’t change the law. It won’t change what’ll happen to me if word of what I did gets out.

The doc smiles again, for real this time. It’s the grin of a wolf on the hunt. “And I never laid a hand on the Tolliver boy. It appears it’s not only my future that hinges on proving it now.”

* * * * *

The Wood’s ablaze, the trees on three sides of me in flames. I’m running for safety, my lungs fit to burst and my feet pounding hard ‘gainst the forest floor. The sound of my shoes on the hard-packed dirt swells ‘til it fills my ears and I can’t hear nothing else, and -- 

My eyes fly open. I set up with a start, my head full of fog, and blink at the Wintertide log still burning merrily in my fireplace. I must’a fallen asleep in my chair -- on a holiday eve, no less.

I shake my head. It’s been a dog’s age since I had a full night’s rest. 

Someone’s pounding at the door, I realize, loud enough it’s a wonder the windows ain’t rattling in their frames. I hold my breath, my heart slamming into my breastbone. It’s him, I just know it.

‘Cept it can’t be him, can it? He’s been dead nigh on four years and I know that now. It’s my guilt getting to me, ain’t it? On account of me selling out that Tolliver boy to save my own -- 

“Joyous Wintertide, ma’am,” pipes a sweet, clear voice from behind me.

I leap from my seat like I seen a ghost. Which I s’pose I have. He’s covered in soot from head to foot, ‘cept for clean tracks on his cheeks -- mayhap from tears, but he’s smiling softly now.

For once, it ain’t him shivering. “I told you, child, I ain’t gonna give you any matches.”

He bites his lip. I reckon he’s gonna plead with me again, but he don’t.

“You don’t need to, ma’am,” he says, in the saddest little voice. “I’ve got something better now.”

His hands are behind his back, I notice. And whatever he’s got in ‘em, it’s… bright. He holds it up to show me -- the kerosene lamp I keep in the shed out back. It’s lit up and I don’t understand how I ain’t seen the shadows it’s casting ‘til now. I shake my head. 

Mayhap I’m still dreaming. 

He shakes his head too, his filthy curls bouncing. “Believe it or not, I’m sorry to do this.”

The lantern’s sailing through the air before I can say boo. I duck, but it ain’t headed towards me. It hits the fireplace dead-center with a tinkle of shattered glass, and it hits me that I oughtta run.

I turn to do just that. There’s a thwump from behind me, along with a rush of heat.

And then his little voice: “Joyous Wintertide, Sasha.”