The small boy and the skeleton that now answered to the name Charlie walked along the forest path. Lucas had a lot of questions for his strange companion, barely giving them time to answer before a new one popped into his head.

“So, if you don’t need to breathe, could you walk into the sea and keep going until you get to the really deep bits where the whales and the giant squids live? Even the sharks would leave you alone because you’re just bones and no meat, they wouldn’t even care that you’re there. And you could walk right up to the sunken pirate ships and pick up all the treasure chests and then walk back home again, you’d be rich!” The skeleton listened with saint-like patience to all this, occasionally giving answers in the brief pauses of the boy’s avalanche of questions.

“I suppose I could. What would I do with all that gold though? I don’t really need anything,” Charlie said calmly with its pleasant but thin voice.

“There’s got to be something you want. Everyone wants something, right? Even animals. Like, squirrels are always looking for nuts, right? If it doesn’t want a nut, it can’t be a squirrel, practically. And,” Lucas paused for a moment, staring up into the blue sky with his mouth open, “and birds, they want worms, and worms want, uh, apples? So everything wants something! And people want stuff too, all the time, like my dad wants, um, tobacco, and mum is always looking at the silk dresses that the merchants show at the market sometimes but when I said, mum, why don’t you just buy one she got cross and said it’s too much money and who needs something that tears to shreds if you even look at it sharply anyway, but I could tell she wants one because she’s always feeling the fabric and looking at it like dad looks at the boxes of Welcher’s Finest at the pipe maker’s stall. So, there must be something you want. Like, um, bone polish? So your bones look nice and shiny!” Charlie laughed a thin laugh.

“It’s a nice thought, but I don’t feel too fussed about my bones looking a bit dull. But, what do you want, Lucas?”

“I, uh,” said Lucas, who wanted so many things so intensely that he was momentarily stunned trying to name all of them at once, “I want to be a soldier with a big sword and then I’d be a hero and get lots of medals and the king would make me a baron and then I’d buy a big house for mum and dad and they could have all the clothes and tobacco they want, and I’d get a big dog and a cat and a horse and I’d ride it and win the horse races, and, and,” he said and stopped, out of breath.

“It’s very kind of you to want to share your riches with your family,” Charlie said. Lucas shrugged.

“It wouldn’t be fun being a baron, if I couldn’t do something nice for mum and dad.”

“What about your friends? Would you give them presents too?”

“I’d give Jamie a big house because they live in a really small one, even smaller than ours, and he’s got three brothers and two sisters. And he can have a horse too so we can ride around together, but one that’s slower than mine because he always gets a big head when he does anything better than me,” Lucas replied, with a look of annoyance at the last part. The two continued on under the sunlit canopy of the forest, Lucas chatting eagerly about all the things he would buy with his pirate gold.

After a while the skeleton suddenly stopped. Lucas went on walking for a little bit, happily speculating about the advantages and disadvantages of existence as a skeleton before noticing and turning around.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Charlie was standing still and looking off to one side of the path, into the forest, but turned to him on hearing the question.

“Oh, probably nothing. I got an odd feeling.” Lucas, somewhat untypically, said nothing, as if waiting for further explanations. “It’s hard to explain. Did you ever lose something and searched for it, but didn’t find it? And then much later you suddenly remember where it is?” The boy thought about this and nodded. “Like that. Only, I’m not sure what I lost. But it’s definitely over there.” It extended a bony arm and pointed into the forest.

“Then let’s go get it!” Lucas said at once, enthusiastically.

“Are you sure? I thought you wanted to gather raspberries,” it said.

“We’ll get them after we find out what you lost! What’s wrong, don’t you want to find out?” he asked, astounded. Charlie shrugged, indicating no particular hurry or inclination one way or the other. “Come on, maybe it’s the rest of your clothes! Which way is it?” Lucas said.

“If you insist,” the skeleton said, and walked into the forest. Lucas hesitated. His parents had warned him never to get too far off the beaten path in the forest, but he couldn’t leave his new friend alone. He dropped his basket by the side of the path and picked up a stick, making little marks where the ground was soft enough as he followed Charlie.

Charlie walked through the undergrowth, unfazed by the branches of bushes brushing against the exposed bones. Lucas was less lucky and had to duck and weave despite his small height. Their passage disturbed bugs that flew up in small clouds, further annoying Lucas; Charlie ignored them completely. Eventually they reached a small clearing where the ground was free of trees for several yards.

Something furry and very colorful lay in the middle of the clearing. It looked like a big, sleeping dog to Lucas, but its fur was a vibrant red color so intense that it almost seemed to glow. Slivers of light poked through the tree cover and where it hit the strange animal’s coat it looked almost like it was on fire. Foxes lived in the forest; they were small, red-coated animals that Lucas had glimpsed occasionally. This creature was different. Its color was the deep blood red of a piece of iron in a forge, with streaks of orange like fiercely glowing coals.

“Is that your dog?” Lucas asked, quietly. The animal hadn’t moved, but its size gave him pause. Some people in the village kept dogs, from small terriers that hunted rats to big guard dogs, but this one seemed larger than those even. To his horror, the dog’s pointy ears flicked up at the sound. Slowly it stood up, turning to them and opening eyes with pupils glinting like embers. This was no trick of the light: Lucas was certain those big orbs shone with a light of their own. The creature resembled a wolf more than a dog, but it was heavily built and shaggy like a big brown bear. Its shoulders came up to Charlie’s chest, and Lucas had to look up slightly to its head. The boy stepped behind the skeleton.

“Yes, it’s definitely mine. But I don’t think it’s really a dog,” Charlie answered. It didn’t sound scared or even concerned about the huge red animal that was now advancing towards them. Its paws were huge, with long black claws that dug into the ground. When it drew back its jowls it revealed long, startlingly white teeth. A deep rumbling growl emanated from its chest that reverberated in Lucas’s stomach.

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“I don’t think it likes you,” Lucas said, pulling on the skeleton’s bony wrist. Charlie didn’t move.

“I’m sure it’s just play-”, Charlie started saying, but in the blink of an eye the shaggy thing had darted forward and slammed its forepaws into the skeleton’s chest. The two went down with the dog on top. Charlie brought up its arms protectively and the dog clamped its maw on the two bones of the left forearm, growling and tearing at them. Lucas screamed, stumbling backwards.

“Get off! Let him go!” he screamed, but the dog only rolled its mad eyes at him, giving him a murderous stare for a moment before going back to mauling Charlie. The skeleton was pinned down under the creature’s substantial weight; its thin legs scrabbled at the ground, but gained no purchase.

“Stop it. What do you want, anyway?” Charlie said in a conversational tone, as if it was talking to someone who was persistently tapping it on the shoulder rather than a monstrous beast attempting to tear its arm off. The thing’s teeth ground on the skeleton’s bones. Lucas was more scared than he could remember ever being, even more than in the moment when he’d balanced on the rim of the deep old well in the village and almost slipped. He crouched down and grabbed bits of twigs, little stones and anything loose he could find on the ground, and started throwing them at the beast. The tiny projectiles bounced off the red fur harmlessly and couldn’t possibly hurt the dog, but they successfully annoyed it. It let go of Charlie and squared up on Lucas. The maw opened wider than he could ever have believed, and it let out a deafening roar directly at the cowering boy. Lucas saw it tense its leg muscles and closed his eyes, too scared to look at the gleaming teeth that would surely cut him to shreds in the next moment.

“NO!” Charlie’s voice rang out suddenly. Lucas heard something scrabbling on the ground and opened his eyes, surprised. Charlie was still on the ground, but had grabbed one of the dog’s back legs with a skeletal hand. It didn’t seem strong enough to hold back the huge beast, but it did. The dog was struggling mightily, but Charlie seemed to hold it almost effortlessly, and it could not advance. The skeleton somehow pulled the dog toward itself and grabbed it first by the forelegs, then wrapped its hands across its neck as if to throttle it. “I know what you are. Go back to sleep, until I need you,” the skeleton said calmly, holding the great beast down firmly. Lucas watched open-mouthed as the dog’s fur turned from its vivid red to a deep blue, and its body transformed into a cloud of smoke that wafted up to Charlie’s bones and disappeared, as if absorbed into them. The boy and the skeleton sat on the ground for a while in silence, Lucas breathing hard from the stress.

“What was it?” Lucas finally said. Charlie seemed to think for a moment before answering.

“It’s the part of me that gets annoyed and angry, and lashes out at others. Somehow it ended up outside of me. But I got it back safely inside me now. Thanks to you,” Charlie said, looking at Lucas in that odd way that conveyed a smile, despite technically never not smiling. Lucas didn’t know how to reply; in truth, he wasn’t sure if he could take credit for doing anything much other than annoying the giant dog slightly. Charlie sensed the unspoken question. “It was too strong for either of us to take on in a battle of sheer brawn, but how it turned on you viciously for throwing some harmless bits of dirt at it made me realize what it truly was. That allowed me to bring it under control. Still, you couldn’t know that it would be easy to subdue once I understood its nature. It was very brave of you to try. You really are a hero.” Lucas, who didn’t quite understand the skeleton’s explanation of what had happened, blushed a little. The nicest thing anyone had ever called him so far was something like “a nuisance, but he doesn’t know any better yet, bless him.” “I think we can continue on our way to get your raspberries, what do you think?” Charlie stood up and the pair made their way back to the path.

Lucas was glad he’d taken care to mark where they’d come; Charlie seemed to have no sense of orientation whatsoever and had no idea which way their path had been. After the excitement of their encounter with the red dog-thing was over, every direction had looked the same to them. Fortunately he found the last “X” he’d scratched into the ground with a stick and traced his way back from there to where they’d started.

“Look, there’s my basket! Told you this trick would work,” he said to Charlie, with more than a hint of pride in his voice.

“Well done. You really do have the makings of a hero,” the skeleton remarked; if there was even the mildest hint of sarcasm, Lucas missed it entirely. He puffed out his tiny chest with pride. The boy picked up his basket and they set off again towards the raspberry bushes.

“Are you hurt? That dog gave you a big bite,” Lucas asked after a while. Charlie’s bones were scratched in places from the beast’s teeth and claws.

“Just a scratch. It doesn’t hurt,” Charlie said. Lucas was quiet for a while and seemed deep in thought. The sounds of the forest surrounded them; distant birds calling, wings fluttering, small things like acorns falling from the treetops and hitting branches on the way down, the buzz of the occasional insect, and the ever-present quiet rustling of leaves in the soft wind. Eventually the boy spoke up again.

“So, um. How could someone take your anger out of you? And why was it a big, red dog? Was it magic?” he asked. After a moment he added, “I mean, it’s got to be magic, on account of you being a walking, talking skeleton. But, what kind? In the stories, there’s always a bad witch, or an evil wizard cursing people. Did you annoy a warlock and they cursed you to be a skeleton with its anger missing?” Charlie considered this.

“I honestly have no idea. All I could tell was that it was definitely mine. I don’t remember anything from before I met you. If it was an evil witch that did this to me, she also took away my memory of her. But you could be right I suppose. Maybe I am some sort of cursed princess from a faerie tale.”

“In the stories there’s always a handsome prince that has to kiss the princess and then she wakes up and they live happily ever after,” Lucas said thoughtfully.

“Are you offering to kiss me?” Charlie asked?

“No, yuk!” Lucas exclaimed, sounding half angry, half horrified.

“Why not? Am I too ugly for you?” Charlie asked in a mock hurt tone.

“No! I mean, I don’t know!” Charlie didn’t say anything, but had the air of someone silently amused by something. Lucas had blushed a little but recovered quickly.

“What happens now that you got your anger back? Do you feel any angrier? I mean, right now?” Lucas asked.

“No, not at all. But I can tell it’s there, somewhere inside,” Charlie said, patting its ribcage, which made a clack-clack noise. “I could get angry though if I wanted to. Well, or when someone makes me angry. Before I got it back I was a complete wet blanket. You could have shoved corn cobs into my ear holes and I wouldn’t even have found it wrong.” Lucas grinned and looked at the skeleton’s head mischievously. “Don’t even think about it,” Charlie said with a soft growl and took a playful swipe with a skeletal hand at the boy, who dodged out of reach, tittering.

“But could it come out again for real? I mean, as the dog?” Lucas asked, with a hint of alarm. Charlie thought about this.

“I don’t think so. At least, not if I don’t want it to. In any case, we wrestled it down once, we can do it again,” Charlie said, with a hint of pride.

“Hm, okay,” Lucas said, feeling maybe not entirely assured. They walked on in silence for a while before Charlie suddenly stopped again. Lucas looked at the skeleton with a look of worry on his small, suddenly earnest face. “What is it?” he asked. Charlie looked off into the distance, towards somewhere in the forest to the right of the path.