The three of them sat there quietly eating their meals for a long time when the little flea found herself stuffed to the gills. As she stretched out her little twig like arms, she let out an enormous yawn. Well, as enormous a yawn as something that weighs 50 pounds and stands three and a half feet tall possibly can.
Amanda instinctively stretched out an arm and pulled the little flea toward her. As the tiny creature curled up against her she noticed a bump under Amanda's shirt collar. Without thinking she reaches up and tugged at the collar until the discovered the intended object. On a thin leather string the girl clasped in her tiny palm what looked like a coiled snake pendant made of a smokey red amber.
Amanda looked down at the girl's palm and asked, "what do you think? It's very old. He made it by hand, so it's not very good, but it's very special to me. "
The giant beside them reaches over and pressed his index finger on the little flea's wrist, tilting her hand toward him. His eyes flew open wide and his brows arched up. "Look at that. Ha!" He reached into the collar of his shirt and fished out a matching pendent.
"Do you know what these are," he asked the the little princess in Amanda's arms. "These are magic serpents. Do you know who gave them to us? Your grandfather."
The little flea lifted an eyebrow and lifted her chin to look back at Amanda. Meanwhile, Amanda closed her eyes and lifted a hand to massage her forehead, softly shaking her head at the same time. She looked over at the man next to her and sighed loudly.
"When did he give you that anyway? I thought mine was the only one." She seemed almost perturbed that this grungy heap of meat and hair could have a duplicate of such a deeply personal and important trophy.
"Well, I guess not," the man replied sharply as he stared amanda down. "Your father told me they were a matching set...that they were magic...and they always find their way back together. Like the prince and the princess from his story. Do you remember that story? I do."
The sleepy glaze that had settled over her eyes instantly lifted and the little flea jumped up, wide awake and ready for another story. "How are they magic? I mean, how do they find each other?"
"Little darling, its just a story. It isn't real. He probably just found that pendant somewhere and thought it would be a good story when he saw mine."
The man gasped in disbelief. "You don't remember me at all do you? I'm hurt." He grasped his chest in a exaggerated gesture and grinned deeply. "That's okay. I remember you. You're a little older. A little taller. Not as pretty as I remember, but still the same."
Amanda's jaw dropped. She could hit him if not for the little flea in her lap. The girl, however, was giggling her heart out. He untied the cord around his neck and put his pendant up to Amanda's. "See," he said, "they fit together."
When Amanda looked down she was surprised to find that the tails coiled together perfectly. As she began to reach up to examine the pendants in the flea's hand the sudden movement made the girl tighten her grip. Clearly, a crisp 'click' rang out in the air and the three looked closer at the locked pendants.
"See, I told you they go together. Now do you remember me Mandy?"
'Mandy'....she hadn't heard that name in years.
The only person who ever called her that was this orphan boy who was always between foster homes. He was always running away, but he always ran to the same place, so he was always getting picked up again. Eventually, he landed with a foster family who didn't much care where he was. When he ran away they didn't report it. He was gone for a week and no one looked for him. No one came to the church where he would escape to. No one checked to see of he was okay. No one looked in to see if he was sound asleep or chased away the monsters under his bed. He was completely alone in the world....except when he came to the soup kitchen cafeteria. There was a little family there. A woman and man in their thirties and their little daughter. Most days he watched them from a distance, imagined what it would be like to be a part of their family. The mother looked tired and stern. The father looked weathered and a little sickly. The girl looked small and frail. But there was something about them that always looked happy. They looked like home and a couple of days every week, for the few hours they would spend at the soup kitchen, he imagined they were his home...his family.
One day the father noticed him filling his tray only a few feet behind them. A large man tried to take the boy's bread and though the boy struggled to keep hold of it, he was too small, too weak to hold onto it. When he finally gave up the struggle he stomped on the crook's toes and stumbled back, shrinking away from the certain retribution. As his feet fumbled to find their footing he felt a solid mass behind him. When he turned to apologize to whoever else he had just managed to insult, he was shocked.
Standing there stoically was the father. He didn't speak. He didn't even look down at the trembling boy in front of him. He stared down the other man until he sneered and walked away. Then, without any warning, he grabbed the boy by the back of his neck and led him toward a table. He pulled out a chair, set down the boy's tray and after sitting the boy down next to the little girl, pulled his own chair out and sat down. As if it were completely natural, as if all were as it was supposed to be, he took the piece of bread from his own tray and split it twice. He placed one piece in front of the little girl, one in front of the boy and the last in front of the mother.
The girl glared at the stoic tower dolling out bread like cards to this stranger at her side, encroaching on her story time, stories that were hers and hers alone.
Seemingly on queue, Silvia chirped softly at the girl, "it's better to break the bread both ways. Sometimes it's better....than to not have any at all." Amanda knew instantly what her mother had meant. If Amanda couldn't behave and be nice....there would be no story today.
Thinking back on their first encounter, Amanda finally remembered the boy's name. "Dont tell me you're Oliver," she said, almost shouting. "But that's impossible. You were such a scrawny pitiful little thing. Look at you. You're huge and gristled and strong. You can't possibly be that same little boy."
"I know...I got prettier, didn't I." Oliver grinned at his old friend who now looked at him with a soft, almost weeping expression. It was as if she had just found something, lost a very long time ago....some precious thing, gone but not forgotten in her heart, now returned.
Oliver looked down at the little doll in Amanda's arms. "Has your mother ever told you the story of the Island of Unwanted Things?"
The little flea shook her head and began to listen intently.
Once, very long ago, a mage and his daughter lived in a warm green valley surrounded by mountains. Here, the mage knew no harm could ever come to his beautiful daughter. He knew because he had enchanted the flowers and the trees in the woods where they lived. If any danger ever lurked near his little daughter the flowers and trees would devour the evil doers.
In this way, they lived peacefully for many years. Centuries passed and the girl played in the gardens and meadows, never knowing fear of any dangers. Time was kind to the mage and his daughter in the valley where they lived in perpetual happiness. It passed far slower there than it did anywhere else in the outside world. But as little girls eventually do, the mage's daughter grew into a young woman and wanted to see the outside world. The wise father, of course, had already prepared for this day. He gave his daughter three challenges; if she passed, it meant she would be strong enough to protect herself alone in the outside world.
The first was to enchant a flower. This, the daughter did with no strain at all. She had been enchanting flowers and saplings since she herself was just so tall. There was no challenge in this feat.
The second challenge was to charm a wild beast. For this they would have to venture out of their valley as all the beasts in the valley had become complacent and quite tame over the centuries of valley life. To be honest, they were quite a bore. The old sorcerer needed to test his daughters wit, teach her to hone her instincts and teach her how to properly guard herself. These things can not be taught by means of falling on a feather pillow. She needed the distraction and hazard of true beasts.
Amanda watched as Oliver repeated the story from their childhood. Though she recalled her mother retelling the story in later days while working in the fields, Silvia could never quite recapture the tone with which it had originally been told. Oliver, however, widened his eyes, pitched his voice for each character and flailed his hands in an exagerated manner. As if he himself were casting a spell. He told the story with all the same enthusiasm Amanda remember the dear bum used when he would act them out at the old soup kitchen tables. In that moment, Amanda felt small again, safe from all harm, surrounded by the warmth of what could have been a family to the untrained eye.
Oliver, noticing that Amanda's attention seemed somewhere far off paused a moment. When their gazes met he felt a sort of wave of sadness piercing his chest. He furrowed his brow and broke away, taking a long drawn gulp from his water bottle. 'Hurtburn maybe,' he thought to himself, and quickly brushed the feeling off. And so, he continued the story....
But true beasts are not all tusk and hoove.
Oliver leaned in closer to the little doll to punctuate the next part, the way he remembered the man doing when they were young.
Some walk on two legs, not four. Some are clothed in fine silks with fine boots and lace and gloves. Some whisper gently sweet nothings into the wind to lure their prey. These are the most dangerous beasts. They delight in the suffering of their prey. They sup to quench a thirst and eat to feed a famine....for the hunt. The hunt is their desire and a prey once captured holds no more value to a beast of this nature. These beasts are cruel and cunning. To enchant a beast of such nature takes great skill, lest your charm should backfire, that you yourself become enchanted by such an odious creature....that you become nothing more than prey.
These were dire warnings, certainly. But, the sorcerer's daughter would not be dissuaded. She meant to see the world and if she must master the rod and the staff to do so then so be it. The old mage warned his daughter then that once she left the valley it would be hidden to her until she completed her task. All memory of it and all who dwelt within would be but a haze until she accomplished her aim. The young sorceress nodded to her father in acknowledgement.
The old mage bade her one last blessing and bestowed upon her a protective talisman, two snakes coiled together forming a knotted tree. He told his daughter that she need not worry about ever losing it. The talisman itself was imbued with her life force and would always find its way back to her. When it was close to her heart it would protect her from those who would mean her harm and amplify her power.
But at that mention, he amended his warning. Though the talisman would protect her from harm, there are powers stronger than the simple enchantment he had placed on this little knotted tree. If she should ever give it away she would leave herself defenseless and weak. To give away a charm imbued with her own life force was to give away her life force itself.
Now this was of particular concern to the mage, for his own life force flowed through his daughter. She had been born twice. The first time, when she fell from her mother's womb. The second time, when the mage gave of his own power to breathe life back into her fading little heart. Even still, his magic was so strong after centuries of stealing the life force from his fallen foes, that only a short while after splitting his own soul he was as well as if it had never happened. Better, in fact. Power calls to power and as the girls power grew, the mage found that so did his. Their powers grew in tandem so, that the girl stayed a girl far longer than most and the withered white haired old sorcerer found himself only grey and slightly wrinkled. And so they remained as time aimlessly passed them by.
While the loss of his only beloved child could only break his spirit as much as it had been broken by the empty void that filled his days before he had found her; he might never be able to recover himself, should he loose what he found when he split himself in two.
Almost as if in a daze, Oliver stared off into the void he felt creep up on him.
"Well that's sort of bleak, don't you think?" Amanda interrupted his lost thought.
"Hey, I'm just telling the story the way your father would tell it."
"Why do you keep saying that? Who are you talking about," Amanda asked, wildly confused.
"Well, aren't you the girl with the short term memory," Oliver mocked. "Your dad.....the guy who used the tell us all these stories when we were little. Tall guy, salt n' pepper beard, huge shoulders....he could break the boogeyman in half without breaking a sweat....that guy."
"What? My dad?" Amanda laughed. "Are you talking about the sweet old bum who always wore that same old grey sweater? The one who shook hands and smiled at everyone. That guy? That's the scary boogeyman wrestler you're talking about?" Again Amanda burst into laughter. After a long while and a cramping gut from laughing a little too hard at her childhood friend, she took a deep breath and sighed. "No, he wasn't my dad. I used to wish he was though. He was always nice to me and my mom....and he always had extra bread in his pocket. No, that wasn't my dad."
The kitchen was closing and the dining room had completely cleared out except for them. The workers were folding and stacking the chairs and moving the tables aside in the room to mop the floors.
"Ha! I guess that's our queue." Oliver suddenly spoke in such a sullen bashful tone as he rubbed the back of his neck and ruffled his hair before standing up. "I can't believe it," he said with a slanted smirk across his face. "She's asleep."
Amanda looked down at the flea in her arms and giggled. "Maybe you'll have better luck tomorrow." She stood and draped the tiny girl over her chest, resting the flea's head on her shoulder. Suddenly, Amanda remembered Oliver's pendant....it was still clipped to her own.
Oliver watched her fumble around for a second before stopping her. "That's alright," he said patting Amanda's arm. "You can give it back to me tomorrow. I'll need it for the story anyway." With that he turned and walked away, picking up folded chairs and stacking them on tables on his way back toward the kitchen.
"Little flea.....what a lucky charm you're turning out to be," she whispered to herself. Not knowing, in fact, on her shoulder lay the head of a smiling wide eyed litle flea....well contented with her day's conquest.
There would be more story tomorrow.....and more bread.