Shadow in the Snow

New Friends

   La did come back. She never stayed very long but she would bring him a little food when she could, though it was the company he looked forward to more than anything. He wouldn't admit that, of course, but it offered him relief from the lonely hours he would lie there on his bedroll, too stiff and in pain to move much at all. And she could make him laugh. Laughing hurt but it was worth it and as the days went on the aching began to alleviate and he started to be able to move a little more freely, though there were a few places that had been more badly injured that didn't heal so quickly.

    "They'll scar, I 'spect," said La cheerfully. She widened her eyes and jumped towards him, pulling a grotesque face. "You'll get all covered in scars. From head to toe, all over, until you get to join the circus as a freak, too. Just like your little brother."

    "He isn't a freak!" Crow was quick to defend his brother but looked a little worried. Would he really join the circus as Scarman? Hastily he checked to see if the bruises on his arm had healed but they looked just the same as they had the last time -- and yet he had had bruises before, though not from beatings like that. Those ones had healed just fine. Slightly relieved, he turned his attention once again to the thing that was most important: His brother. He repeated himself. "He isn't a freak."

    La shrugged. "Everyone says he is."

    "Well, they're wrong."

    "Everyone is wrong? You're the only one who's right?"

    "This time I am." His green eyes met her dark ones in a steady glare. She looked amused. He looked angry.

    "Prove it." She said only two words but it was enough to make him stop short. Prove it? He had a hard enough time getting in there to see his brother on his own; trying to take someone else in there with him wouldn't be easy. But she did bring him food. No one else did that.

    At last, he nodded. "Okay. I'll let you know when. I'll bring you to him and I'll prove to you he isn't a freak."

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    Crow didn't have a chance to prove it for another few weeks after that. He was kept busy and when he wasn't busy, he was so tired and sore that he just went right to sleep, collapsing on his bedroll every night and wishing the aching would go away completely. But La was around now and she helped out with the chores and made his days a lot more interesting with her free spirit and her sarcasm. Sometimes he couldn't tell when she was joking or when she was serious and he would get angry at something she said but then she would laugh and nudge him in the arm.

    "Calm down," she would say. "It's just a joke." And he would do as she said. Her carefree attitude was a mystery to him who, though only a boy, had been made so serious by the world around him. But somehow she still remembered to dance. Even in the rain.

    At long last, the time came that he finished work early and, feeling much better and having little else to do, Crow went to help her finish her own work. It was late afternoon by the time they were both free and he took her hand and led her straight to the main tent. They were lucky this time. Normally the circus left early in the morning, very early, but due to weather conditions and a few broken wagon wheels, they were leaving much later than anticipated and that gave them time to go and visit his brother.

    "Everyone's busy and preparing to leave in the morning so they're not paying as much attention to him as usual since he doesn't do any of the work or packing up."

    "Lucky," she said enviously.

    "You know he don't get to go outside, right? He's never even seen it out here."