The Child Thief

BY THE TIME Nick put the weapons away, most of the Devils had
already finished eating. He was so tired he almost didn’t bother, but the
growling in his stomach won out.
He walked over to the iron kettle, shooed away two pixies, then lifted
the lid. There were only a few dry clumps of the stew left. Nick scraped off
what he could from the walls of the pot, about enough to fill half his bowl.
Leroy sat alone on the far end of the table. Cricket and Danny sat near
two Devils in the middle. Cricket looked his way and smiled. Nick sat his
bowl down as far away from everyone as he could and collapsed onto the
bench.

---

He couldn’t remember ever being so worn out. Yet in a way it was
good. He hated to admit it, but the training had been very satisfying. He’d
never been much good at sports, especially team sports, never stuck with
anything other than skateboarding. It didn’t take too many times being the
last kid picked before he found the whole team bravado to be a load of
bullshit, just another place for kids like Leroy to knock him around.
As the Devils finished up, most of them dumped their dishes in the
barrel of sudsy water and began to spread out about the chamber, some
migrating over to the shelves of books and comics, others picking up darts,
checkers, cards, and various board games.
A soft melody caught Nick’s attention, and he watched a girl with dark,
curly hair tune a fiddle over by the fireplace. Within a few minutes, two
boys joined her, one working out a primitive rhythm on a pair of tall drums
while the other plucked at an acoustic guitar. It was just noise at first, then
the girl tapped her bow three times and they began to play for real. The
chamber filled up with the sweet, haunting wail of the fiddle. The girl
played with her eyes closed, as though the fiddle was her voice singing a
sad, slow song, then the drum joined in, a deep, steady beat, like a funeral
dirge, and finally the guitar, melodic, along the lines of a spaghetti-Western
score. Nick was stunned to see these savage kids playing such a beautiful
song, and playing it with such heart. He found himself lost in the deep
melancholy tune as he ate.
The stew tasted about like the gruel he had for breakfast. As a matter of
fact, the only real difference was that the stew contained chunks of
mushrooms and wild onions instead of berries. The mushrooms were
amazingly sweet and very chewy. Nick plucked one out for closer
inspection. When he did, a pixie flew down and dropped to the table just
out of arm’s reach. This one was a young boy with a jet-black mane of hair.
He strutted and cocked his head, staring at the mushroom between Nick’s
fingers. Nick was struck by how oddly human he appeared. Nick flicked the
mushroom to him. The pixie snatched up the morsel, hissed, and flew off. A
trace of a smile touched Nick’s lips.
Nick watched the Devils going about their evening activities. There was
a lively game of poker going on in one corner, punctuated with plenty of
cheering and profanity. A kid was working away on a horned-skull tattoo on
some Hispanic boy’s shoulder, using a needle and string to push the ink
under the skin. The boy was biting down on a piece of leather, trying to

---

look tough, but to Nick, he looked like he was about to pass out. Nick was
surprised to see several Devils with cigarettes jutting out of their mouths,
looking like delinquents as they puffed away. He watched three kids
engaged in a light game of hoops, tossing a small ball into a makeshift
basket. Even though they were just goofing around, Nick was amazed by
how agile and quick they were.
The boy pixie was back. He landed on the edge of the table, a bit closer
than before. He stared up at Nick with tiny, slitted eyes.
Nick tossed him a crumb.
“You don’t want to do that.”
Nick glanced around and found Cricket standing beside him.
“They’ll never leave you alone if you feed ’em,” she said, taking a seat
across from him. A moment later, Danny slid down and joined them.
“So,” Cricket said. “Where you from?”
Nick didn’t answer.
Cricket leaned over. “Don’t let Leroy get under your skin,” she
whispered. “He treats us all like that. Just take it easy around him. He gets
wound up pretty tight sometimes.”
Nick didn’t need to be warned about Leroy.
“So, where’re you from?” Cricket asked again. Nick started to tell her
he didn’t feel like talking when there came a loud crash.
“You moved your battleship! I saw you!”
“Did not!”
“It was on B-12. Right there. I called it. It counts.”
“Does not!”
“You’re a no-good cheat!”
The room fell quiet.
“It’s Redbone again,” Danny whispered.
“It’s always Redbone,” Cricket said.
“Take it back!” Redbone said and pulled a knife.
“NO!” a big, blond-haired boy said, and pulled his own knife.
Everyone scrambled out of the way as the two boys squared off in the
middle of the chamber.
“Oh, man,” Danny said. “Here they go again.”
All the Devils dropped what they were doing and formed up a loose
circle around the two boys. They began chanting “first blood” over and
over.

---

“First blood?” Nick asked.
“Yeah,” Cricket said. “It’s how they resolve disputes. Whoever draws
first blood, wins the argument.”
The two boys flicked their knives at each other and began a dangerous
dance: weaving, jumping, howling, as each sought an opening. They rushed
each other, leaping, spinning, their blades mere blurs as they drove past.
“BLOOD!” screamed Redbone, holding up his blade and grinning. “I
drew first blood.”
“DID NOT!” cried the second kid.
Everything stopped. Sekeu walked up and examined the boy’s forehead.
She wiped her thumb on the mark, then held it up so everyone could see the
small smudge of blood.
The crowd murmured approval.
“So,” Cricket said matter-of-factly. “The thinner the mark, the smaller
the amount of blood, the more prestigious the win. Shows superior skill.”
The blond kid let loose a string of profanity but lowered his knife. It
was over. The Devils returned to what they were doing as though nothing
had happened. The band started back up.
“How come they can move like that?” Nick asked. “Doesn’t seem
possible.”
“It’s the magic,” she answered.
“Magic?” Nick said. “Give me a break.”
“No, it’s in everything,” Danny said. “You’re eating it right now.”
“What?” Nick stopped eating. “They’re putting stuff in our food?”
“Nope,” Danny said, and pushed at his glasses. “They don’t have to. It’s
not a potion or fairy dust. Sekeu told me the magic’s in everything here: the
air, the water. When you eat it, though, you’re ingesting it directly. This
gunk,” Danny wiped a clump off Nick’s bowl, “is mostly made up of
acorns. But like everything around here, there’s magic in them.”
“You’ve noticed their eyes, right?” Cricket asked. “The gold. The magic
does that.”
Nick noticed that Cricket’s eyes had the slightest glint.
“My understanding is when you’ve been here long enough, that stuff
doesn’t just change the way you look, it gives you superpowers,” she said.
“No, not superpowers,” Danny corrected. “Think more like magical
steroids. It’s part of why they can move so fast.”
“What’re the side effects?”

---

“Side effects,” Danny scoffed. “What are you talking about? This isn’t
science, it’s flipping magic. Look at Abraham.” Danny pointed to a black
boy over by the fireplace. Nick recognized him as the one-handed boy that
had given him the spear this morning. “Abraham’s over a hundred years
old. See anything wrong with him? And Sekeu, no one knows how old she
is. Some of these other kids have been around since like the sixties and
seventies.”
“Yeah.” Cricket laughed. “Go ask Redbone what an iPod is.”
Nick wasn’t sure how he felt about sucking down magical porridge.
Were they being poisoned? He could feel the warmth in his stomach, feel it
spreading. It was kind of a weird feeling when he thought about it, yet good
too, soothing. But he wondered what it was really doing to him.
He eyed a spoonful suspiciously, then studied the Devils. Doesn’t seem