Little Ethan watched the odd fellow with fascination. “Momma?” he said, tugging at her long skirt.
“Honestly, I don’t know how you always have such a good crop,” a woman said, speaking to his mother.
“Just the Lord’s grace, that’s all,” his mother replied.
“And how old is your son now?”
“Five last month,” his mother said proudly.
“I had no idea you’d been in Salem that long already. Seems like just the other day you arrived in that rickety wagon. I don’t know how you got here without going into labor with all that jostling about.”
Ethan tugged again. “Momma, who is that man?”
She turned to Ethan, then followed his finger. “I don’t see anyone. Now go play, but stay close.”
“Have you heard the rumors going around?” the woman continued. “They say a village was sacked near the northern border.”
“I hadn’t heard,” his mother replied.
Ethan had fixated upon something-something he had never seen before. The demon appeared almost human at first, although far more regal. Ethan noticed his brilliant clothing, red against black and gray cloth of the finest quality. A bare sword hovered near his left hip. The intricately crafted weapon remained in exactly the same position no matter where the demon moved.
Though beautiful, the demon’s appearance fluctuated. Every few seconds, his form morphed from a near-man to something wolfish, then to something reptilian, and back again. The light blurred around the demon, as though light could not quite keep up with his movements. Ethan pointed a little stick at the odd creature. Everywhere the demon wandered in the village, Ethan followed him with his stick.
The demon searched among men, but never regarded the small, blonde-headed boy standing near the muddy puddle in his cut-off tan breeches. Dust coated Ethan’s bare feet. He had smeared dirt on his white pullover shirt, despite his mother’s admonishing.
The demon surveyed the village and its inhabitants, searching for something. The demon crept near people unawares, listening to their conversations, trying to catch clues. He moved on to different houses, disappearing inside briefly, then reemerging in the street again. Ethan remained still, awe-struck.
Then the demon came back toward Ethan. By now, the child had completely lost track of his mother among the market goers. The demon stopped. Something caught his attention. He bent low, examining the stick Ethan held in his hand. He did not regard the boy.
The demon had such a puzzled look on his face and knelt so close that Ethan moved away a little. When the stick moved with him, the demon’s expression of surprise frightened the child. He swatted the piece of wood from Ethan’s small hand. The child ran into the crowd to find his mother, and his tiny feet left imprints in the dusty ground.
The demon smiled wickedly. His face flashed through his wolven and reptilian forms. “So, you are here, after all,” he whispered.
The footsteps disappeared in the throng of people milling about in the market. He had still not seen the child printing them in the dust, but that didn’t matter now. He knew the place, and that would sate his master. The demon left Salem in a blur of light imperceptible to mortal eyes.
The children lay tucked into bed inside the loft over their parent’s bedroom, while the adults sat in the main room of the house, cozy beside the fire burning in the hearth. Ethan whispered of his experience to Elspeth. His beautiful sister, a young woman at seventeen years of age, pretended to listen intently. Auburn locks swept around the milky skin of her face as she lay on her bed, indulging another of her little brother’s wild fantasies. Strangers who appear as reptiles and wolves, indeed, she thought.
“It’s true, I promise,” Ethan said. He even proffered the very fingers, which had been struck by the peculiar creature when it batted away the stick from his hand. Elspeth examined the bruise. “That doesn’t prove anything,” she said. Ethan is a five-year-old boy and prone to getting into trouble, she surmised.
“Other than the bruise there’s nothing unusual about it,” she said. Elspeth noticed the odd birthmark upon Ethan’s right forearm. The mark had the appearance of a star. Elspeth rolled her eyes for the third time and then lay back down on her pillow. “Go to sleep, Ethan,” she whispered.
Ethan slammed his head back into his pillow. “No one ever believes me.”
“Goodnight,” Elspeth said.
Ethan yawned. “I’ll show you tomorrow, Elspeth, when we go to sell at the market.”
“Good night, Ethan.”
The boy exhaled deeply, studying the bruise in the half-light. Soon he drifted off to sleep.