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Arbid was a strange boy. Everyone said so and that made it true.
He would sit for hours on the front porch of his parent’s cabin and stare at nothing. Every now and then, he would wave his arms about aimlessly, grabbing at the empty air as if he were swatting at flies. He never said anything, not a single word. Ever.
His mother said he would grow out of it, but his father knew better. Arbid was already twelve, and if a boy didn’t talk by then, it wasn’t going to happen. All Arbid did was take up space. He couldn’t even feed himself. If his mother hadn’t forced him to eat, he would have starved long ago. But his mother was kind, and his father loved that kindness, so he left Arbid alone, even though Arbid annoyed him. Still, every now and then, he often thought about taking Arbid deep into the woods, sitting him on a stump, and leaving him there. But he knew it wouldn’t work. He had tried it—six times—when he was much younger, and every time Arbid found his way back home before the wolves or bears ate him.
Then one day, everything changed.
Arbid was sitting on the front porch waving his fingers around in the air, playing with something that wasn’t there, just like he always did. His mother had spent much of the morning by the creek pounding the breeches, tunics, and undergarments on the rocks, rinsing them, pounding some more, rinsing, pounding—it was hard work. It took time. Then she had to lug the basket of wet, heavy garments back to the front porch. The younger children had helped some, but the older ones had gone with their father into the woods to collect firewood.
It was a nice, warm day. The sun was shining. There was a slight breeze. A perfect day for drying clothes. She set the basked on the front porch beside Arbid and touched his shoulder. He didn’t respond to it, so she let it linger as long as she dared. Usually he screamed like he was on fire. It was a good day.
She smiled. It was a small thing, but an important one. A bit of human contact with her strange little boy, the son that was so different, so distant, so special. Even though he never said anything and had never done anything, she loved him the most—and the other children knew it. They were not happy about it, but they tolerated it because she was their mother too, and she loved them all—just not as much.
After this brief indulgence passed, she sighed and started draping the breeches over the porch railing, arranging them from smallest to largest so they would catch the most breeze and sunlight. She had just finished the third one when she noticed the bear.
Now bears in the wood are not unusual. Nor was it particularly odd for a bear to enter their clearing or come near the cabin. Usually, they ran away when she made lots of noise. So, she made lots of noise. She yelled. She waved her hands. She dumped the basked and used it as a drum (not a very good one, though; it was woven out of dry reeds). She expected the bear to run off into the forest like all the other bears had done, but it didn’t. Instead, it reared up on its hind legs and roared. It dropped down and ambled toward the cabin, its huge shoulders rippling with power, dwarfing its head—until it paused to open its maw and roar again. It had big teeth. Very big teeth. She screamed. She screamed again. She grabbed the old, dull axe they kept by the door and stepped forward—
“Stop!” Arbid muttered, his hands moving rapidly in the air in front of him.
Now, think for a moment. Here Arbid was, talking for the first time ever, and his mother didn’t know if he was talking to her or to the bear. Maybe both. It didn’t matter; she stopped—and so did the bear!
Arbid smiled—something else he had never done—and looked at his mother. Another first! “See?” he said before turning back to face the bear. “Go away,” he added as he made a very intricate series of gestures. When he finished, fire—at least, it looked like fire, sort of, but not quite—erupted from his fingertips and streaked toward the bear. When it reached the bear, the fire-but-not enveloped it, singed its fur, and caused it quite a surprising amount of pain. By the time it finally fizzled to smoke-but-not, the bear was already fleeing into the forest.
Arbid’s smile grew as he said, “Now I understand it.”
His mother fainted.
He patted her head and smiled.
Yes, Arbid was strange.