As soon as the spots on my arms and legs faded away, Milo showed me how to harvest and plant the strange seeds he carried in a sack. How to use a wheelbarrow, shovel, garden hoe, and rake to break up the soil. There was a small stream in the woods nearby, and we would have to make several trips back and forth to properly water each row.

Amongst the multitude of berries visible on each bush, he told me which ones were safe to eat due for their distinct features. Mushrooms were a whole other discovery—including their shape and texture. He collected snail shells. He even ate a slug straight from a tree once, picking it up from the bark between his fingers and dumping it into his mouth. When he saw me staring at him and giggling, he asked if I wanted to try one. He held out a giant beetle—there was a twinkle in his large brown eyes.

I shook my head, bursting in a fit of laughter.

My favorite was the potato field. Their roots were tangled, resembling tiny crooked strands of air embedded in the dried soil. Poking around in the ground and finding them reminded me of a very massive treasure hunt.

When I mentioned this to him as we placed each of the lumpy potatoes into buckets, he smiled. I struggled to yank a massive one from the ground, squirming with all of my might, but his giant hand easily brought it up from the surface. We had it for supper that very night, baked over the fire and covered in seasoning—-its skin bursting with flavor and the white, fluffy goodness burning my tongue as I wolfed it down, famished from the day’s work.

He silently watched me, before he offered me his portion as well, slowly pushing his plate across the table to me. I looked up, still chewing and picking at the crumbs on my own. His face was illuminated by the fireplace, and I couldn’t see his large eyes because they were concealed by the shadows; only his nose and mouth.

The sound of crickets filled the air.

“Here,” he quietly said. “I don’t need you getting sick again. You’re too thin. You finish that up.”

“What about you?” I asked, setting down my fork. “What will you eat?” Then I frowned. “I should’ve looked for another big potato.”

”The only thing you need to worry about is eating proper.” He leaned forward and refilled my glass of milk. “If you want to grow, you need to eat. It’s as simple as that.” He raised an eyebrow. “Although you haven’t been doing much of that at home, have you?”

I took an enormous bite of potato. “When I grow up, I want to be a cook.” My bare feet swung against the stool. “Like Stephanie. She taught me how to make chicken soup. How you’re supposed to remove the feathers from the bird, then cut it so you can get to the best meaty parts. And lots of spices and veggies and cornstarch, to make it rich.” My mouth became watery. “She wouldn’t let me use the knife, of course. But she makes it for me when I have a cold. It always helps. And she promised to teach me how to make other things. Like lemon pound cake.”

He didn’t move—his shadow was still.

I reached over and took a long sip of milk, wiping the white froth that had settled on my upper lip. “She got sick when my sister and I moved up north. My sister took over the cooking.” I made a face. “She can’t cook to save her life. I tell her to just order pizza, but she doesn’t want to. She won’t even let me help her in the kitchen, because she thinks I’ll make the place catch on fire or something.” As I sat down the cup with a thump, I tilted my head to the side, wondering how he was able to sit like a statue. “But I want to be a cook and have my own restaurant. Like in the city.”

“I see,” Milo softly said.

With my fingers, I peeled off the thick skin from the potato and shoved it into my mouth. I didn’t know why I was talking so much. Perhaps it was because he was listening. At home, none of my family usually did. “Papa doesn’t want me to be a cook. He said that it’s a useless way to serve our country. I’m going to have to be a soldier, like him.” A piece of wood broke off in the fireplace, where Here Boy slept, his tail sprawled out on the ground. “It’s un—p-pat-riot—ic to do other things, because the Plodians need our help. So do the Khonies. So…” My voice trailed off. “I don’t think I can become one.”

The legs of Milo’s stool scraped against the ground as he made his way across the table and knelt down in front of me. I still couldn’t really see his face, due to the room being so dim, but his large hands reached over and gently took mine into his own. He lowered his head for a moment, as if thinking. After a few minutes, he finally spoke, breaking the silence.

“You can be anything you choose to be.”

“Anything?” I asked.

“Yes,” he quietly replied. “As long as you work hard to achieve it. Nothing in this life is to be handed to you, let alone others. You must simply believe in yourself and put in the work.” There was a brief pause, and he shakily exhaled. “Don’t you ever let anyone tell you’re not capable of doing something. When you find your passion, you pursue it. You know what a passion is?”

I shook my head.

Milo faintly smiled. Strands of red hair partially concealed his sweaty forehead. “It’s what you love to do. Something that brings you great joy, and brings blessings to other people.”

”Like Stephanie?” I leaned forward. “It makes her happy when I make her favorite soup. People look so much happier when they’re eating together. That’s why when I get big, I’m going to invite you, Milo. And Papa, Mary, Stephanie, Mr. William, Here Boy, and my teacher Miss Kim.” I grinned. “And my new friend Aiden. He’ll eat anything.”

”I see,” he said again, his voice cracking.

“Do you have a passion?” I asked. “Did your ma and pa showed you how to find yours?”

He looked to the side, flinching from my questions, before slowly releasing my hands. His head was lowered, and as he got to his feet, I looked up at him, realizing how tall he was. He moved away and turned his back to me, his breaths becoming stifled.

I stared at him. “Maybe Papa will change his mind, so that I won’t have to be a soldier. He doesn’t look happy doing it, even though he says that it’s important.” Drumming my fingers against the table, I began to rock back and forth on the stool. “You know that he burned Security? Said that it had vermin in it, that it came from evil. He did that after he found his friend dead on the beach. I’m not allowed to be on the beach, but I went there because I wanted to tell him about the ghost I had seen. He got really mad at me for that.”

Milo kept staring at the wall. “Rehan?”

“Yeah?”

”Who’s Security?”

”My stuffed elephant. I’ve had him for as long as I could remember.” My stomach shrank. “Now he’s gone. He’s never coming back.”

“No,” Milo whispered. “He’s here.”

I sprung to my feet.

The room suddenly became cold—frost gathered on the walls. My breaths became visible in the air, small white clouds. Milo glanced at me. His brown eyes were bloodshot, but a small smile gathered on his scabbed lips. I started to shiver.

“You go on to bed. It’s been a long day.”

”But what about the ghosts?” I asked, chills running down my spine. I stared at the dark hallway. “They’re going to come this way.”

He slowly held out his giant, calloused hand, his blackened fingernails visible in the light. For a moment, I hesitated, before looking up at him. When I finally took it, his sturdy fingers wrapped around mine. The edges of his plaid shirt were frayed, crusted with dirt.

“Then we’ll wait out on the porch until they leave,” he gently replied. “They always leave. That’s what I do whenever they bother me at this time of night. I don’t usually sleep, anyways. I come out on the porch.”

Relief washed over me. “Really?”

”Yes.”

“But how do you deal with them by yourself?”

”I’ve been alone for a very long time,” Milo whispered. “I get used to it.” He then smiled that strange smile again. “But of course, any type of company makes it bearable. We can count the stars while we wait.”

So that’s what we did.

I reached up for him, and scooped me up in his big arms. His presence was a great comfort, and as he tucked a blanket around my shoulders as he pointed to each speck in the sky, I couldn’t help but study him. I began to wonder why Papa seemed to hate him so. Or why the village had thrown items at him. No doubt he was the strangest person I’ve ever met. But he was also the kindest—and I had begun to wish that he was more like Papa. He never yelled at me, no matter how many mistakes I made, or got angry at me or called me mean names.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

And I couldn’t figure out why.

I was getting sleepy, but I didn’t want him to know, so I fought off my yawns as best as I could. He had stopped counting the stars, and the warm cocoon his arms provided made me not want to get up and go back into the dark. He saw me looking at him and gently smiled at me, dimples appearing around the corners of his mouth.

“Milo?”

”Yes?”

”Do you think you and Here Boy can come up to Flanders someday to visit us? So you won’t have to be alone anymore.” I squinted from behind my glasses. “You can stay for supper. And have pizza. And ice cream. We have a ton of it up in the city.”

”I hope so,” he whispered—although a pained look crossed his face, betraying his words. “I really hope so, kid.”

I chewed on my fingernails. ”And when I open up my restaurant, will you be there?”

He deeply exhaled and looked away for a moment, and I was surprised to see his smile slightly waver; the corners of his large brown eyes beading with water. When he made eye contact with me, his voice was less shaky.

”I wouldn’t miss it for the world, buddy.”

* * * * * * *

It was a hot morning when Milo brought something out from behind the shack. I was finishing up collecting the eggs from the chickens—their squawks filling the humid air. After removing a warm egg from a grumpy hen, I carefully placed it into a basket and straightened up to remove a few loose feathers from my head. Milo’s shadow appeared over the horizon of the field, and I noticed that he was wheeling a rusted bicycle out. The paint was chipped and peeling at the edges, but the chain and wheels appeared to be in descent shape. I made my way through the clucking birds and stopped underneath his shadow.

”Where’d you find that?!” I exclaimed.

Milo bent down and dusted a few leaves from the bicycle. “There’s a ruined city only four miles from here. It got blown up around a decade ago.” He wiped the sweat that had gathered on his forehead, dripped down on the dirty button down plaid shirt he always wore. “I’ve found all sorts of things there. Nearly all of my gardening tools, too.”

”You get to hunt for treasure all of the time, too? Can I see?” I eagerly asked.

Milo chuckled. “Maybe one day. Anyway, I found this stuck in a ditch—most likely due to a landslide. Took me two days to dig it out.” He studied the paint peeling on the handlebars. “It’s not in bad shape at all. I wanted to surprise you, but I was thinking of adding a fresh coat of paint, making it brand new. I was thinking of getting someone to help me with this—”

I rushed forward and tugged at his elbow with both hands. “Oooh! Me! Me, me, me! I can help! I’m very good with using a paintbrush. My teacher Miss Kim even told me so!”

He raised an eyebrow. “That could work. But we have a couple more things to work on before we can get started say—-this afternoon? Maybe some weeding, harvesting the tomatoes. I think there’s also—”

”I can do it!”

Before he had finished his sentence, I had already taken off, nearly tripping on the grass. By the time the sun was halfway through the sky, and I had chowed down my lunch as fast as I could, he helped me carry two large buckets of paint underneath a shaded tree. The scent made me sneeze a great deal, but I grinned as I watched him sand it down to remove the old layer, which was a dark red color. This one was a light green, and it was cold and wet, reminding me a thick syrup. I giggled and dunked my brush into the bucket, causing the paint to slosh out on both sides.

“Steady and slow,” Milo murmured, his hand gliding across the metal bars. He dabbed the edge of his brush against the side of the bucket. “We’re going to have to add a few more coats so it’ll dry well.”

I nodded and began to copy his method. After a couple of hours, we both stood back to admire our handwork. Green paint was splattered all over my overalls, shirt, glasses, and hair, but I placed my hands on my hips.

Milo scratched the back of his ear. “I think that this calls for a celebration meal. What do you say?”

“How long will it take to dry?”

”By tomorrow, no doubt,” he said. “Once I make sure that the tire pressure is good, you should be able to take it out for a spin.” He must’ve noticed by disappointment expression, because he slowly knelt down. “What’s wrong?”

”I don’t know how to ride a bike,” I replied, hugging my arms. “Papa never taught me.”

“No worries. I’ll teach you.”

“What if I fall?” I asked.

He patted my shoulder. “Then you get back up. It’s yours now, buddy.”

”Mine?” I whispered.

”Yes.”

”But won’t the person who it belongs to get mad?”

Milo gave me a long, thoughtful look. “Whoever left it behind isn’t coming back, that’s for sure. That bike’s probably older than you. But it won’t be too much trouble for me to find the parts so it’s safe to ride.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “You’d find it mighty useful when you…” he choked a bit on his words. “…when you go home. Back to the city. You can use it to help you get to and from school.” He warmly smiled, but this time, I knew that he wasn’t doing it for real. I had become better at reading his expressions, as it was hard sometimes for me to tell if he was being genuine or not. “You’ll be a pro by then.”

“And then I come back here to show you,” I said, running in circles around him, making a spluttering sound with my mouth. “Next time, I’ll be going faster than ever!”

Milo blinked hard a couple of times. I suddenly slowed down and stopped running, lowering my arms as he knelt down to my level. His eyes were fiercely wet.

”You listen to me,” he fiercely whispered.

I remained still, startled at his stern tone.

“When you go home,” he quietly said, gently caressing the left side of my face with his palm, “promise me that you’ll never give up on your dream. Promise me that you’ll see it to the end, little one.” His voice shook. “I…I want you to do what you love. That is what I want more than anything in this world. For you to be happy. To have a childhood.”

I studied him.

“Promise me,” he repeated. “Please. No matter what, you’ll keep at it. You don’t let anyone stop you.”

I nodded.

“Very good.” He patted the top of my head and stood up. “I best do some more weeding. You go on in the house and wash your hands for dinner. I’ll be there soon.”

Home. The word seemed like a blow to the face. I did miss Stephanie and Mary very much. But throughout the past several weeks, not once had I thought about Flanders—it almost seemed like a distant memory. Before I could ask if Milo if he and Here Boy could come visit again, he silently turned and walked back to the corn field, picking up his tool and disappeared between the tall plants.

I stared after him in the glow of the setting sun.

* * * * * * *

The first time I ever got on the bicycle in the following days, the world seemed wobbly at first. My bare feet curled around the pedals. The dirt path in front of me seemed endless, long and twisted. Milo’s large, calloused hands rested on the edges of the rubber handlebars, keeping it upright. He held the strange metal bars just a few feet away from my own palms.

“These are the brakes,” he said. “Whenever you need to stop, you just grab them and squeeze.” He then let go, allowing me to put one foot on the ground. “Now you try.”

I did. “Like that?”

”Good! Very good.” Milo cleared his throat. “Alright, now here’s the tricky part. To keep yourself balanced, you’ve got to make sure to pedal enough to keep yourself from falling over. You need momentum.”

”Momentum?”

“It’s what’ll keep you going.”

I looked down. The ground did look very far below. I then gestured at the strange buttons on the handles. “What are these?”

”Those are the gears. But don’t worry. We’ll just worry about getting the bike moving today. I’m going to give you a head start, okay. But then you must begin pedaling.”

As he began to push the bike forward, I began to giggle, hearing the chain rattle and the pedals spin. Once I began to pedal faster, a breeze fell on my face.

”Wheeeeeeee!!!!”

“Wait, wait, kid! Slow down!”

His voice became lost in the wind that suddenly got caught in my ears. As I began to descend down a hill, I screamed. He hadn’t anticipated that I would take off so fast and continued to run after me. The front wheel began to shake from side to side, and I ended up tumbling into the bushes headfirst. The soft leaves pressed into my back, and I was giggling uncontrollably. Milo’s bare feet pounded against the ground, and he breathlessly approached me, helping me sit up. Panic was visible in his brown eyes, and he began to frantically dab at the blood that had gathered around my mouth with his shirt.

”Are you hurt? Tell me where.”

Despite the stinging in my mouth, I didn’t feel any pain. “I’m okay.”

”What the hell is the matter with me?” he murmured more to himself, helping me sit up. After checking my arms and legs to make sure they weren’t broken, he examined the back of my head for knots, before breathing a sigh of relief. “What an idiot I am.”

“I like this hill,” I said, squirming as he kept wiping my face. “It has a lot of turns.”

“I’m not too much of a fan of it. I should’ve checked this area better before we started our lesson,” Milo replied. “Let’s get you some water. I’ll take you back inside.”

“But I haven’t even learned how to use the brakes yet.” I gestured to the left. “I was going to use them. Honest. Can’t I try again?”

The wheels of the upturned bicycle were still spinning. Milo sighed and glanced at it.

“No. I don’t want to take another chance with you splitting your head open. You sure you alright? Does anything hurt?” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Next time, I’m going to find a helmet for you. Or make one.” He slapped his hand against his forehead. “God, how could I be so careless? I’m a terrible—”

He suddenly stopped, shifting his gaze at the bike. I studied him.

“A terrible what?” I asked.

Milo didn’t answer.

My glasses were lopsided on my face, and I straightened them. I spat out my front tooth into the palm of my hand and grinned, holding it up to him. My tongue ran against the empty gap in my gums. “Look!” I pulled back my lips to show him with my fingers.

A perplexed expression crossed his face.

”Let’s do that again,” I announced as I rose to my feet and brushed the dirt from my overalls. “I want to make sure I can get twenty rupees from the tooth fairy tonight.”

Milo suddenly burst out laughing, clutching his stomach. It kind of startled me at first, because I had been completely serious. His was a deep, rich laugh, one that I could tell that hadn’t had in a long time, and his eyes were closed as he burst out into hysterics as I stared at him. His laughter was so contagious that I began to giggle uncontrollably, and for a moment, we could hardly breathe due to us laughing so incredibly hard.