Come to Dust, Special Anniversary Story #2 - Origins

“Simon, I’m booooored!”

The familiar voice echoed out at me as I looked up from this very journal I had been neglecting for weeks now.  I saw Fiz, the black fox kneeling on a chair with his hands on the back of the chair, looking at me with those bright eyes of his, dramatically frowning.

A lightning flashed and filled our tenement with bright light for a moment, followed by the roaring of a thunder that shook the walls a few seconds later.  Water pelted down onto the building, and Rut was setting up a bot to catch the drip from the leaky ceiling.  Thankfully it was only one tiny hole this time.

“What do you usually do when you’re bored?” I asked, putting my hand in my palm, elbow on the desk.

“Go out.”

“And you can’t really do that right now with the storm, huh?”

“Rut mad.”

“Rut gets mad at you if you go out in storms like this?”

Fiz nodded.  “Worth it.  Sometimes.”  He nodded with a grin.  His clipped ear turned toward the door as he heard his brother approaching.

Rut walked in and sighed.  The white fox sat down at another chair and ran fingers through his slightly longer headfur.  “We need to get some supplies when the rain stops.  I found two spots that look like they could leak at any moment.  I swear this building is made of paper.”

“Is not.  Not burn as easily.”

“What…?”  I blinked.

“Good wood!  No burn!  Tried several times.”

I glanced at Fiz who was slumped in his chair, hands folded across his stomach and looking like he was ready to pass out.  “Is he serious?”

“Do you really want to find out if he is?”  The white fox looked at me with only one eye open, bored and tired.

I turned back to Fiz and asked, “What about that book you were reading?”

“Fire.” 

“You can’t be serious…”

“Read!”  Fiz pointed to the small desk I was sitting at.  He had his eyes on this old, beat-up journal I had carried around for years.  The leather was old and frayed, bloated with pages and entries, held together with some twine at one end.  My whole life in one book.

“It’s my journal, and boring.  I doubt anyone will want to read it even when I’ve come to dust.”

“Come to dust?”  Fiz tilted his head.

“When I’ve died,” I cleared my throat, sitting up straighter.  “I have some books in my room, I think—”

“Journal,” Fiz said with a firm tone to his voice, wagging his bushy black tail behind him.  “Pleeeeeeeaase?”

At that, Rut opened one of his eyes.  “Huh.”

“What?” I said, hoping it wasn’t something else about the roof.

“Nothing,” Rut yawned and settled back down.  “Just that Fiz doesn’t say ‘please’ all that often.”

I looked at the black fox and thought about him.  Such an enigma, this man.  He was friendly, cheerful, kind, sweet, but he was also dangerous.  There was always something under the surface that told me Fiz, like his twin Rut, could do a lot of damage if they wanted to.  Not that this was ever directed at me, but it was one of those things you get from being around dangerous men for years.

“Okay,” I sighed and sat back, making my spot with the small braided cord and then closed the journal, flipping through the first pages to the beginning. “One of my first entries, back when I was a boy in London, before I even became a chimney sweeper.”

“Simon.  Simon… SIMON! BOY, are you paying attention?” 

I raised my head just as a bit of chalk struck me square on the forehead.  I groaned and winced, rubbing it and picking up the piece of chalk.  “Ey! Give me a chance to answer before you lob things at me head!”

“If I gave you a chance to answer, when you clearly weren’t paying attention to today’s lessons, you’d probably have just fallen back asleep.”  The lady in front of us was not a nun but a friend of the Sisters.  She came by every few days to give us lessons on reading and numbers and was a stickler for rules and procedures.  No one liked her but the few girls who said her tail was pretty.  I could care less for the pale orange vixen; she was mean.

“Now then, children, who read this on the board?”

Hands went up, waving excitedly.  I glanced over at them.  The boly to my right, a small wolf in a hat much too big for him and a jacket that was even bigger, waved about like he was trying to hail a carriage or something.

“Yes, Avery?” the vixen said in a now much sweeter voice.  She liked Avery.

The wolf cleared his throat and sat up straighter.  “She sells sea shells by the sea shore.”  Avery wagged his tail, having said the words slowly and with enough force to avoid slurring the syllables together.  Some of us had lisps and I guess this school lady wanted to fix them. 

“Very good, Avery!  Now, I must be off for today.  Do your readings…and Simon, I expect you to be awake for the next lesson or I’ll string you up by your toe claws, you understand me?”

I groaned inwardly and nodded.  “Yes Ms. Lesser, I promise.” 

Presser Lesser.  The bane of my existence.  She had no sense of humor and absolutely zero sense of fun.  I sighed a little bit and slumped down in my chair after she left.  Avery looked over at me and grinned.  “You know, her aim’s getting better.”

“Is it?”

“Yes!  When she first started coming by, she hit me once when she threw the chalk.  But you give her so many chances to practice…”

I scowled at the small wolf but then grinned and laughed.  We broke into a fit of giggles right there in the small school room of the church where we lived.  Avery and I had been here our whole lives—two of the longest-living boys here.

Avery and I were like two peas in a pod; you couldn’t separate us since we were little ’uns.  The Sisters always said that we should have been brothers even though he was a wolf and I was a fox.  We played together, did our chores together, our beds were next to one another, and we got in trouble together.  Avery was the closest thing I had to a family in the church.

“Don’t look now but Sydney is back, and he’s got that knife of his,” Avery hissed under his breath.  He pulled his hat down more so his eyes would be covered, as if that would stop Sydney from seeing us.

I glanced over to the door and saw Sydney.  The otter was a bully.  Big, tall, and gruff, he was not what you expected when you pictured a river otter.  Whoever his Mum and Dad were, they musta been giants.

In his left hand, the otter held that knife he got from somewhere none of us knew.  It wasn’t one of the knives from the kitchen.

“One boy told me it’s a huntin’ knife,” Avery whispered to me.

“I don’t care if it’s a butter knife.  Sydney is already a pain in the tail.”

“Ey!  Runts!” Sydney shouted at us.  He liked to call us that.  We were both small for our ages, especially Avery.  “You ain’t bein’ sneaky, I can hear you clean across the room.”

I grumbled, knowing it wasn’t enough to get him mad but it did earn me a scowl.  “Yeah, well, good for you, your ears still work.”

He did march over to us.  “Either of you runts seen Roary?”

I gave Avery a side eye.  He looked back and shrugged, so I responded, “Nah mate, can’t say that I have.”

“Damn it.”  I watched Avery quickly make the cross when he heard Sydney curse.  “When I get my hands on him I’ll—”

“Rub his back?”  I then quietly cursed to myself.  Why did I have to speak before thinking?

“Huh?”  Sydney blinked down at me.  Watching his mind try to switch gears was always amusing, but when he realized what I had done he scowled and grabbed me by the shirt, hauling me close.  “Gonna put ’em full of holes.  Want a demonstration, runt?”

I was being lifted off my feet and kicking.  Avery was up and grabbing Sydney, shaking him.  “He was just foolin’ you, Sydney.  It’s Simon, he cracks jokes.  Put ’em down before the sisters see us.”

“Hmph,”  And I was put down on my feet.  I was then greeted by the blade against my black nose.  I gulped.  “You better start watchin’ your mouth, fox, before I start giving you extra holes.”  Sydney then left us, on the hunt for Roary I guess.

I exhaled and turned to my wolf friend who fixed my shirt for me.  “What would Sydney want to hurt Roary for?”

“You didn’t hear?  Roary got the sisters to make sure Sydney got one of those uncomfortable baths.  You know, with the painful combs?”

“Ugh.”  I shivered.  I hated those baths.  The metal combs always hurt and pulled on my fur.  It was supposed to prevent any bugs from living in the fur, but I was—happily—bug-free.  How Roary tricked the Sisters was probably a good one.

“How’d the meeting with them go?” I asked Avery, my feet kicked up on the desk and a book in my lap.

The wolf groaned and flopped down into the chair next to me.  “The sisters fussed with my fur forever and then when I met them they said they weren’t looking for a wolf.”  Avery was trying to fix the lay of his fur with his claws and getting almost nowhere. 

“What are they looking for?”

“They’re a coupla red foxes, so you know the answer.”  Avery flicked his ears back and tried to see his reflection in the window pane.  He sighed and slumped down.  “I think the Sisters only brought me out because I’m still small.” 

That was another level of ugliness to being an orphan — families that were looking to adopt generally only wanted their own species.  Wolves with wolves, tigers with tigers, etc.  Sure, cross-species happened, but as you got bigger the less likely it got.

I grinned and stood up, thumping the book onto the desk and stretching. “That so? May have a crack at ’em then.”

“Simon, the sisters didn’t say you should go down.  You know you’re supposed to stay up here until the parents leave.”

“Yeah, yeah, and if wishes were horses and such and such.”  I waved a hand dismissively and went down the backstairs that led right into our kitchen.

The old church was a warren of little passageways and hidey-holes, great for playing hide and seek in and getting around quickly.  No one who came here for services was even aware of the tiny stairs and doors.  You had to know where to look.

When I got to the first floor I saw a foppish couple walking away through the window.  Undeterred I slipped out the back door.  Much to my frustration, it was cold and raining, but I had a shot at finding a home so I decided to take it. 

I ran down the road and turned a corner, dodging people who were in various degrees of being soaked.  I slipped through the alley not far ahead of the two foxes.

Avery was right—they were very red.  Their fur was almost like fire and they held themselves like they were better than anyone else.  The husband was tall and slender wearing a nice suit.  His wife, a vixen who was not that much shorter than her mate, was wearing a nice dress with a coat over her shoulders.  The husband held an umbrella, and the wife walked against him to keep the rain off of her.  What did Avery call that…ah, right!  Chivalry!

I paused to fix my hat, my shirt, my jacket and beamed as I walked down the road and stopped in front of them. 

“Good afternoon si—”

“No beggars!” the man said without even noticing me and pushed me aside firmly.  I stumbled but held myself.

“Wait, I ain’t begging!”

The two adults paused and slowly turned to face me.  The husband quirked a brow and huffed slightly.  “Your reason is better than your grammar, son.”

“I would hope so,” I said with a smile and puffing out my chest.  I held out my hand toward his missus.  “My name is Simon!  I was at the church you were just at, looking to adopt?” 

The wife recoiled her hand like I was made of poison.  I still held it there and then, awkwardly, turned to the husband to shake.  He did not take my hand. 

“We are,” the man said coldly.  “But you were not on the list of boys we were shown.”

“He’s not a red fox,” the wife hissed under her breath with a long muzzle turned toward her husband’s ear.  He nodded. 

“Too old,” the man said and began to turn around.  “Now if you’ll excuse us, we must be going before the storm really settles in.”

Defeat was not something I took well.  I was stepping forward and reached out and gently took the wife’s hand in my own.  I remember her fingers were like ice.  “Hey, wait, just let me—”

Several things happened at once.  First the wife screamed and whirled on me, slapping me across the muzzle.  I remember her yelling at me to unhand her.  She recoiled quickly and bumped into her husband, who quickly pushed the umbrella into her waiting hand.  He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and hoisted me up.  He was stronger than he looked.

“Attacking my wife are you, boy?!” the man growled.  “I know non-red foxes don’t have manners, but I would’ve expected you to know how to treat a woman of refinement like my dear Mabel.”

I was gripping the arm, trying to haul myself up and breathe a little easier.  I shook my head.  “No!” I managed to gasp out.  “I was just trying to get you both to ta stop!”

“We already told you no!”  I was shaken so hard my teeth clacked together.

“I don’t…I don’t take no for an answer!”

The male fox stared at me with those dark brown eyes of his, narrowing his vision and then sighing.

“Free advice, boy, and listen well,” he said.  “You are not a red fox, you will never be adopted by a red fox family, it doesn’t happen, and you are an urchin.  Know your place and never grab a woman’s hand for anything, especially one of such higher class than you.  Now go back to your church and out of my sight before I call the police on you for harassment!”

The man then threw me to the ground, making me land in a wet puddle. 

I lay there, panting, thinking about what I had said.  I didn’t want to move, and I remembered watching their feet walk off and down the road toward the corner.  When they vanished I clenched my fists and slowly began to push myself up.

God damn fops, I thought.  Ain’t worth the time ’n effort, Simon. You were lucky.

Yeah.  Lucky.  She acted like I had fleas.

Let her do what she wants.  Any kid she picks is going to have hell on earth.  You lucked out again, Simon Fox.

Then why did it hurt so much? 

The street felt empty.  I couldn’t hear the sound of wagons or people, just the echo of water hitting cobblestones.  I clenched my fists tightly as I was up, staring down at my own reflection.  My hat had come off and some of the soot on my forehead had washed off.  I gasped.

I could see my white mark!

I scrambled for my hat and quickly pulled it on.  Another peek down at myself and I saw I was fine for the time being.

Sadness overwhelmed me.  A sense of loss, of emptiness, and I clutched my chest with both hands and screamed.  I screamed from the top of my lungs and curled in on myself, kneeling in the puddle and holding my hands against the part of me that hurt so much.  I dug my claws into fur and flesh, trying to rip it out.  Tears rolled down my cheeks as I sobbed.

Did no one really want me?  Where were my parents? Why didn’t anyone want me?  The pain you learn to deal with as an orphan came flooding back and overwhelming me.  I swallowed hard, and just screamed loudly again.

“Are you okay?” someone said to me.

“Never better!” I said, sniffling and glaring down at myself, looking at my reflection and feeling anger well up in me.  I pushed myself up and wiped my nose on my sleeve. 

Standing next to me was a boy I had never met before.  He was some kind of brown wolf, older than me, with red eyes and a few scars on his body.  He was wearing ratty pants and just a vest—which surprised me, since in this weather, dressing that lightly could kill you.  But I then saw his long and bushy fur; I supposed he had his full winter coat.  No wonder he wasn’t cold.  It also told me that he lived outside. 

“You don’t look fine,” he said, staring down at me with a slight frown.  “I saw what they did.  What they said.”

“Great,” I growled, whirling on him.  “Maybe you can make them trip ’n fall in the water next.  I heard the Thames is balmy this time of year!” 

I’ll never forget what this boy said to me next: “Good.  There may be help for you yet, Simon Fox.”

We were in an alleyway not far from the church.  I was tucked into a cold corner with my jacket pulled tightly around me and slightly shivering.  My new friend had vanished but came back quickly with a couple apples and some silver flask.  He handed me an apple and then the flask.

“Here, it’ll make ya warm.”

I looked down at it and quickly took a swallow.  I almost spat it up the moment it hit my tongue.  “Ah! What the hell…this is nasty!”

“Never had a drink before, have ya?”  The older boy smiled and took the flask from me.  “That’s okay, you do look a little on the small side.”  I watched him take a long swallow from the flask and then bite into his apple. 

I opened my jacket and put it around the other boy as well.  You learned quickly to share things like warmth when you were an urchin.  He scooted as close to me as he could, curling his arm around me.  I ended up doing the exact same.  We were both cold but didn’t want to admit it to one another.

“You’re from that gang in the big part of town…the factory, right?”

“Heh,” the wolf chuckled and squeezed me a little tighter.  “That obvious, eh?” 

“We’re always told you and your friends are bad ’uns, but…you been nothin’ but nice to me since you found me all pathetic.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a good ’un, but I try to be decent.  Name’s Gideon.  Gideon of the Howlers.”

“I’m Simon.”  I noticed I was starting to warm up and my teeth weren’t chattering anymore.  I was still cold but Gideon was curled around me almost like a blanket.  His thicker fur was so warm. 

“Sorry about what those wankers said to ya,” I could hear the sadness in his voice.  It made my throat clench and threaten to start crying again.  I swallowed it down and forced myself to smile even though it was the last thing I wanted to do.

“It’s…It’s okay.” 

“Nah mate, it ain’t, and life ain’t fair one bit.  But this world is mean and cruel and guys like you and me…well, if we aren’t smart we end up broken and in the rubbish.  Or worse.”

“Is there a trick so it doesn’t hurt so much?” 

“Yes, but you gotta make a decision.”  Gideon looked down at me and gave me one of his sad smiles.  I would learn he looked forlorn.  It made my heart skip a beat.  This was the first person who seemed to genuinely care about me besides Avery.  It was a weird feeling, one that admittedly made me a little uncomfortable.  I was used to getting my attention by acting out, not…this. 

“The trick is to never let anyone see you’re hurting.  Not like what you were doing in the water not too long ago.  You can feel sad, frown, lower your ears, tail, all the normal stuff…but you never show anyone you’re hurt.  You don’t cry.  You don’t whine.  It is so simple ’n yet so hard…”

“Why do I need to hide how I feel?”

“Because,” Gideon began with a slow breath, “people in this world, Simon, they watch you.  If they see they can get a jab at you, make you cry, hurt your emotions…the bad ’uns are gonna exploit it.  They gonna stick you with a knife and twist that spot until you’re a mess and then they gonna hurt you in some way…maybe a fight, maybe robbin’, it depends.  But if you show pain…like sadness pain, you lost, game over, mate.”

“That sounds…really lonely, and hard.  Why’d I want to shut myself off like that?  Wha would be the—”

“You do this then your friends are gonna see you as strength.” 

That got me to stop.  My mind flashed to Avery.  My best and only true friend.  We supported one another but I got flashes of how he seemed when I showed I cried, or was hurt, or didn’t know how to process my feelings.  He always looked so unsettled.

“Strength,” Gideon continued, “is a burden, but if you don’t want to be hurt by your emotions and instead learn to hide it or make walls around it, you’re gonna be the strength for your friends.  They’ll say things like ‘Well, if Simon can go through this then I can too!’ and the like.  You show ’em that the bad thing ain’t so bad, even if it is bad, you show ’em that you can get through it.”

“Really?  That works?”

“Yup.”  The big wolf puffed his chest out and even chuckled.  “It’s what I do for the Howlers.  The guys under me?  They never see me feelin’ bad.  Before I knew it they was lookin’ at me for strength and advice.”

“But isn’t that hard?”

Gideon shrugged and looked out at the water.  “You ever hear a story so much, you’re sure it was true even though you didn’t know it was entirely true?  Same thing.  When you fake the strength, you kinda start to believe in it.  Stuff that used to hurt me don’t anymore.  I think the guys supportin’ me and bein’ there for me, needin’ me, they helped me realize that I can be strong without hurting others.  I like it.”

“And that’s why you saved me?”

“Not quite saving as…stopping you from crying in the rain for another hour.  You needed someone to talk to, and it’s cold as heck.  I figure you could use a friend and I could use some warmth.  Think it worked out.”

I looked at the other boy and then burst out laughing.  So hard that a tear formed at the corner of my eye and was wiped away.  “That’s…very nice of you.”

“I’ll make you a deal—you be strong for me and I’ll be strong for you.  Got each other’s backs, always working on hiding those bad feelings.”

“Deal,” I said and shook Gideon’s hand.  Just like that, I felt much better.  The pain wasn’t there anymore and I knew things were going to be okay.  I exhaled and just enjoyed the quiet moment with my new friend, the rain beating down and the warmth of his fur and body. 

When I got back to the church, Avery had grilled me off and on the rest of the night.  I told him that the couple wasn’t worth my time, and I was ready to go play games with him.  I could sense Avery wanted to ask more, but he didn’t push the issue. 

Two days later, we were playing cards when we saw Sydney walk in.  He looked angry, his eyes darting around left and right.  Most of the other kids were downstairs helping the sisters clean up for some new guests, but Sister Martha had told Avery and me to “stay out of trouble” and shooed us off upstairs with some other boys. 

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Sydney set his sights on Roary.  The little lion boy was reading a book and unaware that he’d been spotted — the two had been avoiding each other ever since Sydney had that horrible bath of his.

Sydney walked fast up to Roary, but what was odd about it was that Sydney was holding a mug of something steamy in his hand.  I tapped a claw on the floor and flicked an ear for Avery to watch, since they were behind me now and I couldn’t watch without turning my head.

“They talking politely,” Avery put a card down.  “Roary looks like he’s about to piss himself, but Sydney isn’t yellin’ or putting a fist up or anythin’.”

“That seems odd.” 

“He gave that mug he’s holding to Roary.  I couldn’t hear it but something about a peace offerin’ of some tea.”  The wolf shrugged and picked up some cards that were between us.  “I guess Sydney ain’t gonna kill Roary.” 

I was able to watch Sydney walk downstairs again, his thick rudder like tail swaying happily behind him.  Sydney didn’t sway his tail.  Not never.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Roary drinking his tea and focusing back on his book.  The tension was out of the room, but I could sense that something felt funny.

I shrugged it off and shook my head to get the weird feeling offa my fur.  I was thinking way too much about this stuff.  Roary was fine.  Sydney was always more talk than his bite.  Yeah, he could hit you, but you had to really do something to get a pounding like that.

Avery and I continued our game, the wolf giggling as he kept beating me.  Avery was always good with numbers.  He said he had a system to “count” the cards, whatever that meant.  He wouldn’t explain it to me, not in detail.

I was about to put another card down when we heard a heavy thump from the other side of the room.  Roary was standing in the doorway of the stairs, struggling to walk down them.  His long tail was drooped and his head down.  The mug was on the floor with a little splatter of liquid. 

Avery and I immediately stood up and headed toward Roary.

By the time the two of us got to Roary, he had made it down the stairs somehow without getting hurt.  Yet we found him on his front, drooling and slightly snoring.  I blinked and crouched down next to him and held my hand in front of his muzzle to feel if he was breathing.  He was.

“He’s alive.”

“But…he…this is—”

“By God it worked!” Sydney said from the other side of the room and walked over, grinning ear to ear.  He shoved Avery aside as he walked and crouched down, looking at Roary.   “Didn’t think it would.  Surprised he could walk after that.  You two saw him trying to walk?  Was it all funny?” The otter stood up and was smiling, then he kicked Roary, hard, on the side of his head.

“Hey!” I said, looking down at Roary who had rolled limply onto his back.  Sydney had brought his foot down onto his stomach, hard, enough to make the lion cub cough and wheeze, but still not wake up.  Roary kicked him again, making him roll a little bit onto his back a few paces away.

“Sydney! What’s your problem?!” I shouted.

“He refused to fight me like a knight, all honorable, so I got to play dirty.”  The otter crouched down and punched Roary across his muzzle.  We saw blood fly from his knuckles on the follow-up draw back. 

“What did you put in the tea?”  Avery stepped over to him and tried to figure it out as Roary pummeled the lion.

“Medicine,” was all the otter said.

“You knocked him out so you could beat him up and he wouldn’t make a noise!” I growled as deep as I could.  “You lowlife!  That’s a cheat’s way to win!”

“Oh shut up, Simon.  You pretend to be high ’n mighty somewhere else.  Shit ain’t ever fair, and Roary has to learn, and be made an example out of.” 

Sydney stood up from his crouch and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out that knife he had been showing off the other day.  My eyes widened as I saw the otter grin wickedly down at the bleeding lion.  He stepped over and was bringing the knife up.

“NO!” I yelled and quickly stepped forward.  To this day I still don’t know why.  I would never have put myself in front of danger like that…you didn’t do that if you wished to live a long life.  But I kept thinking about what Gideon told me, that you never showed fear.

The muscled otter brought the knife down and I caught the other boy at the wrist with both my hands.  I struggled to keep it up.  If I slipped and moved, the knife would cut me.  It was hovering very close to my face.

“LET GO, SIMON!” I heard Sydney scream right in my face.

“No!  You wanna hurt people?  FINE, hurt me first then!”

“Oh you are such an idiot!”  Sydney tried to switch the knife from his trapped hand to his other, but Avery bounded forward and jumped up at us.

I could see people filing into the room, nuns and kids alike, but my eyes were locked on Avery flying through the air and slamming his muzzle around Sydney’s arm, biting down with all his force.

Blood exploded from Sydney’s arms where Avery’s teeth pierced fur and flesh.  The otter howled in pain and Avery just growled and bit down harder.  I wasn’t nudging an inch but my arms were really starting to tire.  Each second that passed and more blood trickled down Avery’s muzzle.  Sydney yelped when there was a pop of bone snapping in his arm. The knife was dropped and clattered to the floor.

It was at this moment the nuns began screaming and kids piled around us.  I felt small hands and arms wrap around me, trying to pull myself away.  I looked up as we were yanked apart to see a gentleman in a faded top hat stand in the doorway of our church, his eyes wide but a slow smile crossing his muzzle.  He exchanged a few words with the sister who held me and walked toward us.

I can still remember the first thing he said to me:

“How long can you hold your breath?”

I didn’t understand then what he meant, so I answered in the only way that my witty little head could:

“Until I pass out.”

And on that day, I became a chimney sweep.