Beneath

Chapter 1

The smoke begins to clear away. I snatch two eggs of the wooden display in front of the market stall, but in my haste, I knock one over, and and it tumbles to the ground, pooling sticky liquid on the dusty road. No one notices, though. All the nearby faces huddle around the smoking charred hole in the center of the merchant’s straw mat.

I walk away, hoping not to draw attention to myself. When I'm safely out of sight, I reach into my pocket and feel the two eggs and the matchbox tucked safely away. Nolan gave me the matchbox only a week ago, but I’ve used them twice already and have grown especially fond of them.

If only you could only see how I’m putting them to good use, I think to myself. I can imagine him facing me with that soft smirk etched into his eyes. He’d chuckle and tell me that I’m just as capable of stealing the eggs without his matches. It’s true. It’s how I have been feeding Avus and myself for over ten years. I swipe goods from the local merchants. It's the only way to satiate our empty stomachs. But of course, I make sure to target a different merchant every day, and never, never take enough items for them to notice anything missing.

I take my usual path home, walking along the edge of the road. I almost get to the the pier when I turn into a narrow alleyway. I reach the clearing at the end, and enter the battered shack Avus and I call home. I cross the threshold and glance over to see Avus snoring on the coffee-stained mattress in the corner of the room. His hair seems especially gray today. I empty my pockets of its treasure and set it on the faded poker table.

I sit on a low wooden stool that wobbles every time I move. The sun shines through a gaping hole in the wall, illuminating the fine dust particles drifting in the morning air. Avus and I found this shack a couple years ago. This place used to be an intimate poker house for drunk men to gamble away their sorrows, but since then, was unoccupied. The scent of tobacco still lingers in the air.

Before Avus and I came here, we were no different from the rest of the mendicants lining the outskirts of Pareylem City. Every day, we sat near the edge of the curb and begged for money. It was pathetic, but it was life.

Homeless Dan, who had an acute case of amnesia and sat at the road curb every morning, always asked Avus if I was his daughter. No, Avus had to say to him every time. Seeing as we had nothing much to do, we retold Homeless Dan the story of how Avus woke up after a night on the streets and found a pudgy baby girl in a shopping  basket at his feet sixteen years ago. The basket contained a note, identifying me as Ebony Wynn. We told Homeless Dan that I was the baby, but Homeless Dan never seemed to listen. Even though we have long since moved into the shackhouse, I still occasionally see Homeless Dan out on the streets. I give him a tomato, or an apple, or anything I happen to have at the time.

He never remembers who I am.

With the city noise of the morning drawing a crescendo, I boil the eggs on our makeshift stove and prepare two cups of tea. I set Avus’ egg and tea on the poker take, down my own breakfast, then go back out into the crisp city of Pareylem.

I weave through the streets and stalls of the city until I reach the steps of Nolan’s apartment. I crouch between my usual two bushes and wait. His mother’s strident voice sings an awful tune as she clears away breakfast dishes with a clatter. A moment later, her warbly notes pause when Nolan bounds down the stairs to bid her goodbye with a kiss on the cheek and a “Bye Mom, I’m off to school.”

The dark green front door opens and Nolan slips out into the slanting sunlight. He patters over to where I’m crouching.

“Ebs!” he exclaims. He grabs my hand and pulls me up so we’re standing face to face. He smiles his crooked smile, and I instantly return it. We head off in the direction of Nolan’ school, still holding hands. We sport identical friendship bracelets, which Nolan had bought off a pedlar a month after we met and first became friends. I still remember that night clearly.