The Book of Trials || ONC 2019

1k Extra: The Jeims Boy

Here it is! The 1k special. Just so there isn't any confusion, this isn't written in Veia's perspective—it's actually written over a decade before TBoT takes place. It's told through the eyes of a shop vendor in the Jeims' hometown. I hope you enjoy!

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That Jeims boy had always been a sneaky one. It seemed like every time I turned my back, the little pest would come steal from my shop. Luckily, he wasn't old enough to figure out what was valuable, so most of what went missing was scarves and outdated blouses. For a measly four-year-old, however, he was a viper. I shuddered to imagine how he would grow. I hoped he'd be gone by then.

All of us women never saw him coming, that boy's father. Reya tried to keep what he'd done to her a secret, but there were more ears in this town than working hands and it didn't take long for a baby's cry to gain notice. It was clear then what had happened, and yet, by whatever logic that poor woman held, the bastard child was still around. His vagabond father hadn't even stayed to know he had a son, not that any of us wanted him back.

I heard a faint shuffling behind me in my shop and pretended not to hear it, my eyes narrowing at the familiar sound. Then, when I knew he couldn't get away, I swiveled around and snatched the wrist of the little thief himself.

"What did I tell you?" I snapped, and the child panicked and tried to pull away. "If you want something, pay for it!"

His face twisted immediately into a cry, the skin around his eyes going pink, but I squeezed his wrist again for good measure. He did this every time, and still came back to prove he didn't mean it.

I let him go. Watched him run off into the rainy streets. He had a sister now, didn't he? Reya had gotten married two years ago, but still somehow managed to live a miserable life. I shook my head, returning to the clothes I'd been folding. What a shame, that poor woman.

+++

The Jeims boy didn't return for several weeks, and word spread that something had happened between Reya and her husband. You could never trust the word on these streets, though.

That is, until I saw a horse splashing on the muddy, broken cobblestone, its rider undeniably Reya's husband by the erratic way he rode. It didn't take more than a second for the animal to race by, quickly hidden in the distance by the pouring rain, but by then I already knew that Reya no longer had a husband. And true, for once, to the gossip, he never returned.

The same couldn't be said about the pesky Atlas Jeims, though.

It took him longer than it usually did, but the scoundrel still had the nerve to steal from me not a week after Reya's husband had galloped away. I didn't know what happened in the walls of Reya's household—or even that she had walls anymore—but I knew by the wild look in the boy's eyes that things were not the same.

+++

It was an entire three weeks before another of that house stepped through the threshold of my shop, soaked through to the bone in the constant storm, a wailing bundle her arms. If I hadn't known Reya before, I'd think she were a ghost—a risen corpse drowned in the river, arms of skin and bone and dripping black hair tangled to the roots. Her daughter looked slightly better than her, but not, I assumed, because of the woman's efforts to keep her that way.

Reya pleaded—begged—for me to take the baby from her, that if I didn't, she may try to kill it for the misfortune it had brought her. I knew I couldn't care for the infant myself, but I let her place the child in my arms before she ran off, her spare figure disappearing much like her husband's into the thunder and mist. I felt nothing but pity for the woman. The infant hadn't been the cause of her misfortune, but the result of it.

What a shame, what a shame.

+++

I received but one more visitor to my shop from that family—if that was even the word to use for them now.

The Jeims boy stood at the entrance. His dark hair, more like his father's than his mother's, was for once dry and matted in the absence of the constant rain. It had been only a day since his sister had not returned home, and the boy had already shown up to take her back.

I thought it would have been Reya to come for her, but more than anything, I thought the infant would have been sold to someone. I hadn't expected the boy to show up.

"Please." For the first time ever, the child asked my permission, and I put his sister in his arms. Without another word, he left the shop, I assumed until Reya could get back on her feet, at which point he'd be back at his snatching business.

But I watched him go, and he didn't turn toward his home, nor toward anything else in this town. His tiny body carried them both into the distance and out of sight, and I did nothing but stare, thinking again of what a terrible shame it had been.

For the years and years that followed, the boy never once returned.