It had been several years since Aelfric lived with Uncle.
Lately, Uncle had become irritable and hard to deal with. Well, harder to deal with than his usual, horrible self. Aelfric wasn’t allowed to eat as often as when he first arrived. Uncle said he was growing too fast. Aelfric didn’t understand how that was a bad thing.
Uncle forbade him from cutting his hair, even trimming it.
He obeyed.
Uncle chose all the clothes he would wear. At first, this was the least bothersome thing that Uncle out of all the strange and horrible ways he controlled his life, but over time he came to hate the clothes. Aelfric complained about his clothes, and Uncle promised he would get him better ones.
All of his clothes were replaced with female ones.
The only thing that truly hurt him was when he took away his pendant. It was given to Nero by his mother. Uncle said that “It doesn’t fit with the new clothes I bought you," and crushed it .
He laughed, his terrifying, gravelly laugh, and his hands hardened into thick gemstones and rocks, crushing it once he smacked them together, throwing the bits of the pendant in the trash.
He attempted to escape many times.
The rabbit watch would always push against him, and he would try to work through the pain, but being malnourished didn’t help, his body was always weak, and his ability weakened even further.
As Aelfric grew bigger and taller, Uncle became angrier and angrier. Giving him less food kept him thin, but it didn’t stop him from growing taller. Over time Aelfric realized that Uncle was trying to keep him young forever, but it was impossible.
Everyone has to grow up eventually.
Aelfric prayed everyday that he would grow up to be bigger and stronger than Uncle, and he would finally escape him. Every night he would promise himself that whenever he got the chance he would leave. He promised himself that he would never let him take anything else away from him and that he would become happy.
One day his prayers were answered.
One afternoon, Aelfric sat in his room, watching TV on the bed. He hated his room, Uncle refused to redecorate it. He was much older now, and the childish books and toys bored him, the bright wallpaper of smiling mermaids too immature.
He was watching his favorite shows on the nature channel. He never got to go outside anymore. He missed the garden in his old home and the hours he spent playing in it.
He jerked in fright when a door could be heard slamming, the voice of two people laughing, and Aelfric became tense.
Uncle was home.
Aelfric got up to meet Uncle, as instructed. He stood at the door connecting his room to the other and waited patiently to be allowed inside. Instead, no one told him to come in.
He heard muffled noises on the other side and put his ear up the wall to listen.
“I need more, the other’s break too easily,” Uncle complained. “I kept this because it's special, but he is not. It’s used. I’m so tired of going on trips to find the right ones.”
“I can get you more,” the woman said. “We need you to help us plant more people in the biggest police department downtown as instructed. We’re not bending on that favor.”
Aelfric didn’t understand what being a police officer had to do with anything but he understood about wanting more. He had heard the voices of many others on the other side of the door, and he now knew where all the other clothes came from, of dead children and adults.
“I find it difficult to do this favor,” Uncle complained. “I work there already to find more items for my collection, I don’t want to become their Captain.”
“You hold so much sway in Atlaan, no one would ever suspect you,” the woman explained. “Your family has put so much money into this town; why not call in all the resources you’ve allocated?”
“I suppose. It would be easier for you to give me monthly deliveries than leaving so often to get them on my own. I have very specific tastes, ” Uncle said.
He put an emphasis on the last sentence, and then outlined what he wanted, his victims' pieces of meat at a store, how he wanted them delivered to his home, and finally, where he wanted the trash disposed of.
Another set of feet could be heard entering the room, and Aelfric’s curiosity got the best of him. He opened the door and looked inside to see who it was.
A woman and a man were with him. The woman had a short pixie cut and wore a beautiful floral dress, and she tugged at her dangling drop earrings with little peppers on the ends.
The man standing next to her had some sort of kit in his hands. His body was covered in tattoos, except for his bald head, and there was hardly any unmarked skin on his body.
He looked indifferent.
“Hello there," said the woman. “I’m Duchess. I’m here to help you."
He gasped, his obvious cover blown, slammed the door shut, and his face was flushed, as they all laughed at him in the other room. He knew she wasn’t there to help him, not as naive as he previously was.
“I know you don’t trust me, seeing as we just met, but I want to assure you I only want what’s best for us,” Duchess said through the door.
She reached into her purse and took out a bottle of Vimu.
“I heard it was your favorite soda," she said. “See it as an olive branch."
Aelfric opened the door and took the drink without hesitation. Uncle only allowed him to drink water, and it had been two days since he ate.
“Go relax in your room and we’ll be with you in a moment," she said. “We have some adult business to discuss."
Aelfric knew “adult business” was a term adults used when they didn’t want children to interrupt them, so he left. He had no interest in whatever strange discussions they would have.
As Aelfric watched a documentary on penguins and their strange similarity to the tropical birds of Paradis, he suddenly felt tired. He decided to take a nap.
They would wake him if they needed him.
Aelfric woke up to a sharp pain in the back of his neck.
It was hot to the touch, and he couldn’t understand how he hurt himself. He was in the backseat of a car, and Duchess was driving it. Uncle and the other man were not there. He tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t unlock.
“Don’t bother with that dear. The child safety lock is on. I don’t want you opening the door while we fly down the hyper way."
Aelfric didn’t give up escaping, he knew that if he wanted to break free it had to be when she opened the door. The last time he was put into a car he was taken to a dry, arid planet, locked in some windowless, blocked-off, soundproof section of a home.
He didn’t know where he was, but anywhere was better wherever they were taking him.
“Where are we going," asked Aelfric.
“Oh, we’re going to your new home," said Duchess. “It's one of the many I own. I promise it will be a lot better there than it was with your previous own- uh, friend."
“It can’t be better if you tricked me into going there.”
“Quiet.”
Duchess parked the car in front of an innocuous building, the front sign reading ‘ Royalty Bread and Breakfast ’. She got out of the car and let Aelfric out of the back. She grabbed him by his wrist and had a surprisingly strong grip.
“No funny business," she said with a smile. “ Let’s just get you inside as quickly as possible."
Duchess and Aelfric walked across the parking lot, and suddenly she stumbled on the ground, her heel snapping on a rock. Aelfric saw it as a sign from the gods and ran. He ran faster than he thought he could, farther than he thought he could, to anywhere away from there.
Aelfric loved visiting the library even though he couldn’t read.
It had air conditioning, free water, and pizza on Tuesdays.
The librarians helped him get a library card, even though he didn’t have an address. He could check out the audiobooks and listen to all kinds of stories. He could take a bath in the family stall because the door could lock and no one interrupted him while he used the sink.
Today wasn’t Tuesday though, he had no choice but to beg at the street corner near the tourist traps. He wasn’t there for very long, because it started to rain.
He found a cafe to hide out in while he waited for the rain to subside, buying the cheapest thing on the menu, black coffee, so he could sit and get free refills while he listened to his audiotape on history.
The little audio tapes he got from the library were the only way he could read.
He missed the library his mother kept at his home.
The little audiotapes were tiny little black boxes, with a port for headphones, and tiny green little play, stop rewind, and forward buttons on them. They all came with little picture books to accompany the recordings, which Aelfric loved. It helped him imagine the scenes better in his mind.
This one was about the ancient Empire of Rome on a strange planet called Earth. Aelfric found other cultures interesting, and couldn’t understand why a planet would call itself DirtLand. They were a race of strange beings, naming their home after a mixture of decomposed animals and feces.
The name confused him even further because most of the planet was made of water, so shouldn’t it be named WaterLand?
As he drank his free refill of coffee and watched the people pass by through the city he listened to tales of boy Emperor, Nero.
Many tried to take his life, but he foiled all their plots. Politicians hated him because he indulged in the arts, the people loved him, because of the arts . Aelfric wanted to be like Nero because even though he became a king while still a child, he was respected and feared.
He did not understand the nuance of Roman politics on a different planet, centuries ago, but the dream was very much alive that maybe he could be just as strong.
Aelfric knew there was a slim chance he would ever be king, with four older siblings and the Empire being matriarchal. He was never attended to as often as a child, and looking back at it when he was older, he understood why.
He was “the spare, in case of emergencies,” the giant age gap between his siblings making it painfully obvious.
The only thing that made him happy was that he didn’t have to pretend to be dignified. He hated the many banquets he was forced to attend, and his many cousins who pretended to like him, because their parents told them to. He only missed them because it had been so long since he had real human interaction.
Aelfric was sad because he was starting to disgust himself.
When he finally figured out what they had done to him, violating every part of his body, he feared he would soon be caught. The tattoo on his neck was peeling, marking him for death. The soles on his shoes were worn down and had holes, and the worst of it all was that he smelled today because he hadn’t been to the library yet to clean himself.
While watching the rain, hoping it would let up soon so he could shower, he weighed in his mind the pros and cons of finding an empty alley to stand in the rain but worried the water would soak through his trusty orange backpack, stolen from a nearby 8-Twelve, ruining it forever.
Lost in thought, he flinched, and froze, as a man in his early twenties came up to his table.
“Hi," he said. “Is anyone sitting here?”
“Oh I’m sorry if you need the outlet," said Aelfric. “I can move.”
“No, no stay," said the young man. “Let's sit and talk."
So Aelfric sat and talked with the man for a while. He wore large glasses, a tank top, and cargo shorts. Aelfric was so happy to have someone to talk to, most people avoided him, and his smelly worn clothes, and he could not find fault with them.
“I’ve noticed you around town," said the man. “Do you have a place to stay?”
“No," answered Aelfric. “I don’t know how I’m going to find my way back home.”
“Oh I’m sorry to hear that," the man said. “I can help you out if you want.”
“Really? You mean it," asked Aelfric.
“Of course! How much do you want? A hundred? Two hundred?”
He was not a good Samaritan, and Aelfric’s weak smile turned into a face of fear. It wasn’t the first time he had been approached, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last.
But he was hungry.
He couldn’t keep stealing food from the stores in the area. Some even had a picture of him on their wall of shame. He thought that this was probably the apex of his worth.
The food banks had turned him away many times, citing his odd-looking ears, or required proof of residency in town, which was impossible when he was homeless. Those who didn’t reject him only gave him food that needed to be refrigerated, he couldn’t keep it for long.
He had only three dollars left in his pocket, and the rain didn’t seem like it was going to let up any time soon.
“Okay. A hundred and fifty is fine,” Aelfric whispered.
“What’s your name?”
He said nothing, not wanting to tell the pervert his real name, so he might follow him later, and he chuckled, realizing his mistake.
“Your other name , yes? You don’t have to give me your real one, I know many who use them around here,” he said.
He used the first name that came to his mind.
“Huh, like the emperor? Interesting,” the pervert replied.
Aelfric nodded, put his books on tape inside his orange backpack, and left the small cafe with the man. He had a very large umbrella, and he told him that his place was not very far from here.
