famously unfamous | jaron artolius eckbert iii

Three

I knew Tobias. He might not have known me because I'd come and gone from Gelvins Charity Orphanage so quickly. But in my two year stay, Tobias had stood out amongst the others. He was no ordinary orphan. He'd been educated as a child and continued to read anything he could get his hands on. He was given special privileges at the orphanage because it was felt he was one of the few with any hopes of one day making a success of his life.

Tobias glanced Sage's way. "You're bleeding."

He brushed at the cut mark on his neck. "It's mostly stopped."

That was as much concern as he wished to invest. "Do I know you?"

"I stayed here about six months ago."

"Yeah, I remember. Locked the headmaster out of the orphanage for an entire night, didn't you?"

The grin on his face became his confession. "You have to admit, we ate well that night. For once."

"It's not funny," Tobias scolded. "Maybe we don't eat well most of the time, but it's because there's not a lot of food to go around. You gave out a week's worth of food that night. It was a very long, very hungry week after you left."

His grin faded.

"What about you?" Tobias asked me.

"I stayed here when I was seven to when I was eleven. Then I skipped out and found myself in Carchar."

He nodded.

We rode for over an hour through a lonely plain covered in gorse and nettle. Tobias remarked that he found it beautiful in a desolate sort of way. I saw the desolation, but the beauty escaped me. Eventually, it became dark enough that Mott suggested we find a place to stop for the night. The closest town was still Gelvins behind us rather than anything yet ahead, so I didn't think it should matter too much where we camped. But Mott still took us a ways farther until the vegetation changed and he found a small clearing surrounded by tall willow trees and thick bushes.

"They're hiding us," I muttered to the boys.

Roden shook his head back at me and said, "It's safer here than out in the open. They're protecting us."

Mott jumped off the wagon and began shouting orders at each of us for what to unload from the wagon and where to put it, mostly blankets and, I hoped, food. Sage was assigned to remain in the wagon and hand things to the others on the ground.

"Afraid I'll run away?" he asked.

"Any trust you get here will have to be earned," Mott said. "And I'd say you have a great deal more to earn than the others." He nodded at a sack near his foot. "Hand me that."

Although Conner was the master of our group, Mott was clearly the one keeping our show running. He was no ordinary, useless vigil. At least, I noticed that he didn't need to ask Conner's permission for everything, and when Mott issued orders to Cregan, Cregan did as he was told. While we worked, Conner stationed himself on a fallen log to peruse a tattered leather-bound book. Every now and then he'd glance up, studying each of us with more than a casual examination, then return to his book.

Cregan got a fire going, and afterward, Mott instructed us to gather around so that Conner could talk to us.

"Talk to us?" Sage said. "When do we eat?"

"We eat after the talk," Conner said, closing his book and standing. "Come, boys, sit."

Sage jumped out of the wagon and squeezed onto the edge of a log Roden and Tobias had dragged near the fire. They weren't too pleased to have him there but didn't complain either. Latamer squatted on the ground. I sat on my knees on the other side of the log.