Outliers

Legends

There was a fire partly banked up in the middle of my tent. The slight smoke it put off drifted away through the hole in the top of the tent, and it gave a flickering mellow light to the tent, not like when it was at full blaze, like it would be tonight when the cold came back. Sometimes when I look at the fire I get lost. For hours I stare at the glowing red embers that seem to look like a crow, a cloud, a moving creature, and I think about my family and the camp. My family? What family? I am mostly alone. My mother died years ago. My father is the reason I am often alone. He put the fear stain on me. He left. He has been gone for so long I can't remember what he looks like. No one ever leaves the camp. But he did. It was on a day like this, kind of cold and cloudy. He looked at me through his scraggly hair. I couldn't tell if he was smiling or not, but I think not. Then he turned and melted into the snowy woods and never ever came back. No one talks about him anymore, and many see him in my eyes, and avoid me as well. Everyone values my help in camp, but no one wants to get close to me. But where would he even go? We are the only people around here. The only people, the only safe place, the only way to survive. The only other creatures out there are animals. And, I guess, the Outliers.

They must be real, I tell myself as Ivan squats near the fire, glancing around nervously. Here is one of them, alive and real and in my tent. But he's not scary. Why was I always told they were monsters?

Ivan's stomach rumbled. That's one thing we have in common, I thought. My stomach was empty, too. It was nearly time for the mid-day meal. I often ate alone after helping with the chicken coop. Our people don't gather and eat all in big groups like we used to. I don't know why we don't anymore. We used to light a big bonfire, smoke and flames reaching to the sky to tickle the nose of the higher ones up there. Everyone would eat from a big circle of dishes that we had all helped cook. But now, big bonfires are not allowed. We each have a small fire inside our own tents. We each cook our own meals. You can have someone over for a visit but since our tents are only the size that fits our families, it makes it tough. Today, though, I thanked the higher ones for their love grant gift of lonely meals, because it meant secrecy.

I quickly stirred up the fire, set up my grate, heated my slab and broke four eggs onto it. I tore up some dried salted chicken and stirred it into the eggs. I wanted to impress Ivan so I pulled out my collection of berries and rummaged through to find the least shriveled ones. Finally, I heated my jug of water and added a few shriveled berries and some fragrant leaves. He looked like he could use some milk but with winter being here, milk was saved for the children and it would be hard for me to get some. Tea would be enough for now.

Once my meal was set down in front of him, he lost all fear and dug in. Even though he didn't look very much like them, he ate just like the boys in the camp. Fast, thoroughly. He drank tea just like the boys in the camp: he blew on it a little first, then sip, then sip more, then as it cools you can chug it down. I was worried he would leave nothing for me but when it was almost gone, he looked up at me, and reading my wishes, pushed the dish back to me and scooted back toward the fire. I quickly finished the meal.

There is a legend in our camp that once you share a meal with someone, you have a bond with the person that will only end in death, or by break-share. Break-shares are terrible things. A person takes something that another has shared with him, appears before the giver (who must have done something terrible), and breaks it right in front of him. When that happens, the two never bond again. They will not speak to each other in the woods, or in the camp. They will pretend the other does not exist. Break-shares only happen once in a great while. My mother broke share with my father's mother before her death. Break-shares started, the legend says, when Gorat, one of our higher ones from the distant past, shared wind with Espa. Espa took the wind and used it to create a beautiful whirlwind of ice, swirling, stronger and stronger, a true work of art. But it got too big and she could not get her arms around it; Gorat had not told Espa the dangers of the wind. Espa's art escaped, sweeping our people's tents and animals and children away in terrible ice windstorms. Wind was constant, never stopping, life-giving and death-dealing at the same time, back then. Espa was so heartbroken at her act that she filled with rage at Gorat for giving her the wind and not the wisdom to control it. She took the wind in her hands and, standing before Gorat, broke it and turned her back on him forever. This is why the wind comes in gusts, or not at all sometimes. It has been broken. 

I hate break-shares because there's no going back. Why can't the two people just fix what is wrong and go on together? I thought as I ate and glanced at Ivan, I will never break share with Ivan, ever.

Voices approached from outside my tent.