The Brotherhood: Blood (3 page)

The young farmer stepped into the kitchen and settled into a chair. When he realized what he had done, however, he made way to stand, but Ectris shook his head and gestured him back down.

“Sir,” Ectris smiled, taking his place across from his friend. “I appreciate you bringing the cradle out here, but you didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s all right. I spent all night making it for a reason.”

What?

“Don’t thank me. Everyone needs a little help every once in the while. Joseph slid his hand across the table and gripped Ectris’ wrist. “You’ve helped me before. I just wanted to return the favor.”

Is that—

“Hey there,” he said, reaching into the pile of blankets to take the child into his arms. “It’s ok, it’s ok. I’m here.”

Almost immediately after being bought to his chest, the child calmed down, as if Ectris had completely extinguished the fear within the young boy’s heart.

He’s ok now,
he thought, closing his eyes.

After patting the baby’s diaper to make sure nothing was inside of it, he grabbed the little boy’s blanket, wrapped him up, then carried him out of the room and out into the kitchen, where he looked over at Joseph as he turned his eyes up to look at him.

Joseph offered no response. He took the baby into his arms when Ectris offered it, then trained his eyes on the child, careful to keep him close to his chest.

After pursuing the kitchen for both the pail, the bottle and the nipple, Ectris crossed the distance between him and the oven, grabbed a few pieces of kindling, then stoked the fire, careful not to burn himself as he struck stone to flint before setting the pail above the brimming flames.

Good,
he thought, nodding as he made sure the pail was secure on the hook.

For several long breaths, he waited, letting the milk warm and trying to decide just whether or not it would be worth it to have Joseph continue this daily ritual. Though he knew the young farmer seemed not to mind in the least, it would, eventually, become an inconvenience, and for that Ectris tested the warmth of the milk carefully and with a single index finger, as within his mind he considered their relationship taxing and not in the least bit friendly. It took much less for it to begin to heat than he’d expected, and when his finger began to tingle beneath the liquid, he pulled it from the fireplace, then set it up and onto the counter.

“Is it ready?” Joseph asked.

“Yeah,” Ectris said. “Come on. Let’s feed him.”

The personal responsibility of having to take care of a child had changed him surprisingly so within only a few short days. Before the cloaked figure had come—bearing, within his bloodied hands, a baby whom he could not care for—Ectris seemed not to have purpose in life, save for cutting wood when the weather was decent and distributing it out and to the families. That alone had counted his life as something less than important—as something that, without any regard, could have made him seem plain and boring. Now, however, with this baby, the entirety of his focus had changed and therefore had begun to mold him into a much different and even stronger person.

The baby sleeping at his side, his breaths coming in and out of short births, Ectris stared at the ceiling and smiled at the fact that, when the young boy snored, he sounded much like a freshly-born kitten meowing to its mother.

I’m going to have to find someone to sit for me if I want to continue working,
he thought, sighing.

Whomever he found would have to be a trusted source. That in itself would be a problem far beyond the scope of any normal limitations, given his child’s eyes and the fact that he was not normal beyond the standard definition. A pair of red peepers would scare off most any sitter whom he managed to find—if not because of the old legends, then the superstitions that surrounded such children—and while he knew that his son would not harm anyone at this current stage in his life, he knew stupidity ran in many a person, especially those who maintained their lives as farmers, woodcutters or even as common yet perfectly-independent housewives.

But what about the person who came with Odin? How could he just leave his baby in the hands of a complete stranger?

While pondering over this question, almost to the point where he fell into a haze of sleep and lost himself to the world, he listened to the baby’s soft breaths at his side and smiled whenever the boy offered a snort or even a slight giggle in his sleeps. What Odin could be dreaming he couldn’t be sure, but he hoped, at the very least, it was of good, normal things, not of something that could have harmed him from past experience.

Then again, just what was he thinking? This baby had come to him but a short two days ago, freshly-born and therefore immune to the world. What possible thoughts could he have of anything other than his stay here, in Felnon, within this house?

Whatever it is,
Ectris thought, closing his eyes,
he left me with his son. I won’t just abandon him.

With that thought in mind, his thoughts consumed him.

He drowned in darkness.

The following morning, he woke to the baby crying and immediately took him into his arms.

“It’s ok,” Ectris whispered, grimacing at the raging storm outside, which lit up the sky and even the distant houses beyond the street. “It’s just thunder, Odin.”

The baby threw his head back and let out a squeal. In response, Ectris brought the child to his chest and rubbed his tiny back. “Don’t cry, Odin. It’s ok, son.”

The man left him to me,
he thought, a few tears escaping his eyes when the baby stilled within his grasp and stopped crying.
He wanted me to take care of him. He’s mine now.

Sooner or later, he knew, he would have to face the fact that the baby in his arms would eventually come to call him father. Along with that, he would have to train his mind to realize that when the boy addressed him as such, Odin would be speaking to him, not some strange man or creature that would have since become a distant but all-too-close part of his caretaker’s past.

“Come on,” Ectris said, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and beginning his trek across the house. “Let’s get you some milk.”

And a change.

Stepping into the kitchen, he set the baby on the table, cleaned his mess up, then opened the door to be buffeted by rain before throwing the dirtied diaper out along the clothesline.

“There,” he said, dipping a rag in water to clean the baby before sliding a new diaper up his legs. “Better, right?”

The baby didn’t do anything, much to Ectris’ relief and disappointment. In response, he washed his hands, stoked the fire currently burning out in the oven, then set the pail of milk over its surface, nodding as he took the child into his arms and held him close to his chest.

“It’s scary out there, huh?” he asked, smiling at the baby as he turned his attention outside, at the world that currently lay shrouded in darkness but occasionally offered its own bout of light when lightning struck and lit the world in blue. “It’s ok though. We’re inside. You’re not going to get wet.”

The child watched him with an unrelenting stare. His eyes widened at Ectris’ words.

“I’m going to feed you,” he said. “Then we’ll go back to sleep.”

A short moment after checking to make sure the milk was a safe temperature, he dipped the bottle into the pail, filled it to the brim, then capped the nipple on top before offering it to the baby, who grasped it almost immediately.

This is what he wanted.

Although having been thrust into the role of a parent with little choice in the matter, Ectris thought he did a fair-enough job, all things considering. It felt good, even remarkably-peaceful and settling to know that he was caring for something that would otherwise die without his help and guidance.

Over the course of the next month, Odin grew to the size of a normal baby, and while the increase in weight pleased Ectris to no end, it still puzzled him, given the fact that it had taken the boy so long to grow to what he considered to be a regular, infant size. He knew based on that alone that the boy would be much smaller when he grew up, but how much smaller he didn’t necessarily know. In the end, he had a happy, healthy baby. That’s all that mattered to him.

“There you go,” he said, setting Odin into a pail of warm water. “You like that?”

The baby looked at the water, likely puzzled by the warmth and feel of liquid sliding over his skin. It’d been the first bath Ectris had ever given him for fear that he would drown due to his size, and while the sponge baths had done enough to keep the baby clean, he knew that a full-body soak would do him more good than any actual arm.

A smile crossing the surface of his face, Ectris reached forward, slid a finger into the water, then splashed as gently as he could. “Like this,” he said.

He continued to do this for the next several moments, watching the baby out of the corner of his eye, until slowly the child tried for himself, lightly slapping the water with his tiny fists. While the effect itself wasn’t as grand as his father’s, the little boy laughed nonetheless.

“There!” Ectris grinned, unable to resist laughing with his son.

The few times Odin had laughed thrilled him to no end. While he’d eventually come to know that the child preferred silence more than anything, it didn’t help to know that his baby, as quiet as he happened to be, was unlike the other children whom the other fathers had raised. Some called this a godsend, given that most children were unbearably loud to the point where their parents’ distaste for them often outranked their love. They called his child ‘lucky’ and said that he was ‘blessed’ to have such a quiet baby, when in reality Ectris felt nothing but the opposite. He’d much prefer being woken up in the middle of the night than rising in the morning to know that he had not woken up once to check on his son.

“That’s ok,” he finally said, setting his hand on the baby’s warm back when he felt his train of thought had gone on far too long. “You may not be different, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a good baby.”

“He doesn’t have a mother,” the farmer said, squirting the last of the milk the cow offered into the pail before lifting it at his side.

“He’s been feeding off the bottle just fine.”

“Have you considered a midwife?”

A midwife?
Ectris thought, frowning. “Why would I need one?” he asked. “The baby’s fine. Nothing’s wrong with him.”

“So far as you know.” Joseph paused. He peered into the pail before turning his head up to look at Ectris. “Look,” he said. “I know you’re of the opinion that you can take care of your son just fine, but think about this—the baby isn’t getting the nutrients it needs from a mother or a woman who could offer it. At the very least, you should look into finding a midwife, if not a wet nurse.”

“I have no idea where I’d start.”