Free The Child Thief by Brom Page A

pointed tips. Other than a particularly lush head of reddish hair, he looked like any other cupid-faced newborn.
    Peter wintered the first several weeks of his life either in his mother’s arms or in the great wicker basket by the hearth. His mother’s face was lost to him now, but not her grass-green eyes, nor the glow of her bright red hair.
    His mother was never far, singing to him while she wove wool and mended tunics with her two golden-haired sisters. He slept away most of his day, dreamily watching his large family go about their daily routines: the two men and oldest boy leaving before dawn to hunt, the younger boys tending the sheep and gathering wood, the old bent man and his old bent wife going about their chores as long as the daylight would allow. At sunset the hunters would return, and with the thick stone walls between them and the winter wind, the family would gather around the rough-hewn oak table for their evening meal.
    Day after day, Peter lay there watching and listening. Before long, he could make out words, then whole sentences. When he was three weeks old, he understood most everything said around him.
    Each night, before dinner, his mother would nurse him, wrap him in his blanket, and leave him in the large basket near the hearth to sleep while the family ate. But Peter didn’t sleep; he watched and listened as they laughed and joked, cursed and argued, encouraged and consoled, as they shared the good and the bad of their days. And when they would laugh, he would smile, and the tiny specks of gold in his eyes would sparkle, for the sound of their mirth was a sweet song to his ears.
    One night, on the evening of his seventh week in the world, Peter decided he was done just watching, that he wished to join in. So he kicked his legs free of the blanket, sat up, and climbed over the side of his basket. His legs gave out from under him and he landed on his bare bottom with a solid thump. What’s wrong with my legs , he wondered; it had never dawned on him that he couldn’t yet walk. Everyone else could. He pulled up onto wobbly legs and steadied himself on the rim of the basket. He looked out across the room. Suddenly the table seemed a long way off.
    He took a tentative step, fell, pulled himself up and tried again. This time he didn’t fall. He took another step, another, then let go of the basket and began to waddle his way across the room. By the sixth and seventh step he was toddling toward the table, his face rapt in concentration.
    The old man spotted him first. His jaw hung open in mid-chew and a clump of potato rolled out of his mouth and bounced off the table. The old lady frowned and swatted the old man. He let out a cry and jabbed a bony finger at Peter.
    They all turned in time to see the naked infant stroll up to the table.
    Peter, delighted to have his family’s full attention, put his small, chubby hands on his hips and grinned boldly—the gold flecks in his eyes now positively gleaming. When no one spoke, when no one did more than let out a high-pitched wheeze, Peter asked, “Can I join you?” But this being the first time he’d put words together, it came out more like “an I oin ouu?”
    He frowned at the odd sound of his own voice. The words hadn’t come out right and the alarmed and astonished looks confronting him confirmed this. His tiny brow furrowed and he tried again. “Can I join you?” he said, much clearer. Then, with confidence, he said, “Can I join you? Can I?”
    He looked expectantly from face to face. Surely that was right? Yet still they stared at him with those wide, startled eyes. If anything , he thought, they look more alarmed than before — angry even . His smile faltered and all at once he needed his mother, needed her badly, needed the reassurance that only her soft bosom and warm arms could provide. He put his arms out and took a step toward her. “Mama,” he called.
    His mother stood up, knocking her chair over, her hands clutched at her