Dust and Water: A Song For The Stained Novella (A MAGICAL SAGA) (7 page)

At the edge of the city there’s a wall, then a huge wide road that surrounds the city and is mostly for the maintenance crew. There’s a little stream and a bridge, then the road wanders into the trees and that’s it.

It looks so simple. Just a few more steps and I will no longer be a city rat, but a… what’d he call them? Farmhand. I’ll be a hand.

My hands have calluses on the knuckles from scrubbing floors and my shoulders have grooves warn into then from hauling loads. That, and a few scars from my pa or uncle is all I have left of the city.

And, this letter.

I unfold the piece of paper that I pulled from behind the loose stone. It’s thin with age and a brownish-yellow colour. The edges have begun to wear away and if it was seen on the street, it would be considered trash.

But, the neat scrawl is my mother’s handwriting, and both of them signed the bottom. This is the last I have of my parents.

To my son.

To be given to him on his twelfth birthday.

Ride like the wind to find your dreams and make them a reality. Pick yourself up, carry your chin high, but carry your heart higher still. And treasure your mind, our greatest gift to you.

Mother and Father

If I wasn’t snooping around Pa’s room, I wouldn’t have found this, not so long ago. I still don’t have a clue what it means, or why they’d be leaving me a letter – as if they knew the authorities were coming for them and that the noose lay ahead. They were street dealers, setting up quick tables for betting on cards or dice, scamming people for money and high-tailing it before they got caught. At least that’s what my uncle says.

I shrug to myself. It doesn’t matter, whatever they did, whatever they were planning. I have three lines to live by and I plan to try as hard as an anvil.

“Ride like the wind to find your dreams and make them a reality. Pick yourself up, carry your chin high, but carry your heart higher still. And treasure your mind, our greatest gift to you,” I say, then I repeat it.

As I walk, it becomes a little song.

My ripped, torn and stained song.