An old barn on the far side of the abandoned village served as shelter for nineteen exhausted children, three horses, and four adult protectors. LT fed the children pieces of bread and cheese from the stores pilfered from the slavers’ wagons. He also rationed out water from his canteen: two sips per child.
Autumn lingered near the meadow long enough to ensure that the children’s tracks were covered and the gnolls were released from the entanglement spell. He monitored from across the river as the warriors called the rest of their pack and took nearly everything from the camp except the wagons. He watched as three gnolls shouldered the corpse chain, hauled it into the bush, and vanished.
When Autumn arrived at the barn in the abandoned village, the children were eating their cold suppers while Scout, chewing on some jerky, was outside in the dark stacking firewood. Autumn picked a clear spot on the barn’s dirt floor and used a flat rock to scrape out a shallow depression. He filled it with tinder and sat crossed legged before it.
The children, who recognized him as the funny man from the church, watched him with curiosity. Taking some dried holly leaves from a pouch inside his coat and two small twigs from a garland braided into his hair, he rubbed them briskly between his palms while quietly singing a cracking little tune to himself. As his tune ended, tiny flecks of dried leaves rained down from his hands onto the tinder, igniting as they fell.
“Whoa,” whispered a wide-eyed little boy nudging the boy beside him.
As the flames grew in the tinder bundle, Autumn looked around for larger kindling. One of the children was a step ahead and handed him what he needed.
“Why thank you, honey,” Autumn beamed with genuine appreciation.
The little girl bobbed her head in the manner of a servant and immediately retrieved more wood to offer to Autumn.
“Why thank you again, honey,” Autumn beamed again. “How do you know so much about making fires?”
“It’s my purpose, sir,” she offered meekly, looking at the ground.
Autumn, who had never lived in a house, never met a servant, and never, before this night, conversed with a human child, was puzzled.
“What do you mean: it’s your purpose, honey?” Autumn wondered sincerely.
“I’m a char girl, sir,” she explained. “I tend the fire. I sweep the floors. I do what the kitchen-maid tells me too,” she said without looking up. “It’s my purpose.”
Autumn looked around the barn and took in all of the dirty little faces. Until today he had never actually spoken to a human child. And in that moment, he realized that he knew almost nothing about them.
A sudden burst of coughing snapped him back to the present and reminded him of some unfinished business.
“Oh my goodness,” he said to the little girl, “do you still have that nasty cough?”
The little girl said nothing, but her eyes began to well.
“Oh, sweetie,” Autumn cooed tenderly, “I know,” he held his hand out to her.
The little girl walked shyly toward him as another fit of coughing took hold.
“What’s your name, child?” he asked her, but her coughing fit made answering impossible.
“She doesn’t have a name yet,” offered another child.
“No? Why not?” Autumn, who was still sitting cross legged before the fire, stood up and lifted the child into his arms. She instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her cheek upon his shoulder.
“She doesn’t have a purpose yet,” offered one of the old boys. “She’s still a baby.”
“Then why don’t we give her a name?” Autumn asked the children. “How about Baby?”
The other children giggled.
“What’s the matter with Baby?” he gently demanded. “I think Baby is a wonderful name.”
“A name is not what you are,” one of the boys explained. “A name is what you do?”
“Really?” replied Autumn. “What does she …?”
“Kitty,” interjected the sick little girl suddenly lifting her head. “I want to be called Kitty,” she insisted, before returning her head to Autumn’s shoulder.
No, said the other children laughing uproariously. A person can’t be named kitty.
“Why not?” Autumn said, gently stroking her hair. “I think Kitty is a beautiful name. I have never met a kitty I didn’t like.”
“But she’s not a cat,” one of the boys insisted.
“She could be,” Autumn insisted in return. “She can be anything she wants.”
“But she’s not a cat,” the same boy insisted, this time strenuously.
“OK, children,” Autumn spoke to the group. “Time for sleep. It’s been a long night.”
As instructed, the children pulled up their dirty blankets and lay down on the barn floor. Some closed their eyes; others stared into the fire. Autumn continued rocking the little girl who was slowly drifting off but continuing to cough.
Quiet humming gradually gave way to an elven lullaby about a kitten who lost her name. As the song progressed, Autumn was bathed in a soft orange glow that seemed to be reflecting the firelight. One by one, however, the children became aware that the glow, which was growing in intensity, was coming from within Autumn. And as the glow intensified, Kitty’s cough diminished and gradually disappeared.
“Whoa,” mouthed one little boy to another, as Autumn lay Kitty down on the ground next to the other children and covered her with a blanket.