Alexander Loutris
That evening, a magister dropped by Sophia’s house with a message. Jun had disappeared from his home unannounced, he said. His parents were forming a search party, he said. Sophia was invited to join them, he said. She had buckled on her armor before he was finished speaking.
There was a small crowd outside the Yangs’ house when Sophia arrived. Jun’s mother was speaking very quickly and very loudly. Jun’s father was laughing at his own jokes. The guards were demanding information—where would Jun have gone? When was the last time anyone had seen him? Had he been planning anything? Jun’s mother ignored them. She kept telling the guards where they were supposed to go. Jun’s father complained that Jun had probably not left the house and was just hiding, and everyone might as well go home and forget anything had happened. Sophia decided that she did not like having Jun’s parents in the search party.
Sophia asked if any of them had noticed the carrot Jun had been holding when she had found him during class that day. There was a great deal of shouting, by the end of which it was determined that Jun had kept the carrot and refused to let it be taken from him. Sophia remembered what Jun had said to her—“This isn’t mine. I’m not supposed to have this. Did I do something wrong?”
She told the search party that she was taking them into the wheat fields to find a lairmole trail. Jun, she said, was returning a gift.
There was no moon that night. It took a long time to find the trail. By the time they entered the woods, Jun’s mother was talking about the things she would do to her son when she saw him, and Jun’s father was complaining about bugs and rashes and wanting to go back to his toilet. The guards kept telling them to be quiet, but even after the second wolf attack they refused to do so, although in Jun’s mother’s case she was mostly just responding to Jun’s father complaining about her, which seemed to be his favorite thing to do when he wasn’t complaining about things that weren’t her (each of which he did in roughly equal measure). It was nearly daylight when they began to smell the blood.
Up ahead in a small clearing of aspen trees they found a boy with hands stained the color of rust and blackberries. He was digging a hole, but poorly, and slowly, using a sword with chipped edges and a blade that had broken off halfway through. There was a tree behind him with a broken branch, and its roots were covered in smashed pieces of carrot. There was a lairmole cub beside him no larger than his thigh, and the red around it was no longer fresh. There was a silverfang wolf sprawled at the edge of the treeline, and the hole in its throat was beginning to smell.
Sophia had the guards cover Jun’s mother’s mouth and Jun’s father’s mouth. Then she went over to the boy and whispered his name. He did not respond. She said his name louder. He did not respond. She asked him to please talk to her. He said he was sorry. His mother made a noise that made both Sophia and the boy flinch. Sophia asked him if she could take him home. He was quiet for a time, then said that he did not like that idea, and that he had something to do. His father laughed. An argument happened behind Sophia and the boy, although it was hard to tell what it was about because the arguers had their mouths covered.
Sophia tried to tell the boy that he needed to go home, because more wolves could come and hurt him, and nobody wanted him to be hurt. He asked if she was sure, but then his mother and father broke free from the guards, and his mother grabbed one of his arms and his father grabbed the other. Jun dropped his broken sword. He began to cry and struggle. Jun’s mother and father struggled back, yanking his arms repeatedly in opposite directions. Jun’s mother began to lecture him loudly about doing things she didn’t tell him to do. Jun’s father was still laughing. “Look at him!” he was saying. “See what we have to put up with? He always does this at home when he wants to be lazy. I’ve never seen anyone fight so hard to do nothing in my entire life!”
Sophia stepped forward to get between Jun and his parents, but one of the guards took her shoulder and held her back. “That boy should not have been out here,” he told her. “How many times has he caused trouble for the schola now? He needs someone to keep better control of him.” And, when Sophia looked uncertain, he added, “Let his parents handle this. It’s not right for us to get in their way.”
And Sophia let the matter drop. She watched, quietly, as Jun’s mother and father dragged their screaming, bloody son all the way home.