The Gentleman

There is a place, beside, under, and outside our own world, which is outside Time. It's bleak and lifeless.

You can't go there, not by any normal means. No ordinary human can. Unless they are Taken.

The baby would have been healthy enough, but she is so new she's still slimy and spindly, with no proper cry to speak of. It sounded like a little lost lamb at first. Now it's hardly more than a whisper. Nobody will hear her.

Someone had cared enough to wrap her in newspaper, and yet been desperate enough to leave her on a riverbank. If the water level doesn't rise, and wild animals don't get her, she's sure to die anyway. Hunger and Cold are vying for the privilege.

She's not alone, not really, because there is someone else in this scene, hovering at the edges of it. She is alone, though, in every way that counts. Deathly alone.

The figure waits in the shadows. We can't usually see him, but he leaves little touches, for those in the know, to let them know he is nearby. Sometimes you can smell him. Sometimes you can feel him.

Is he sad? Respectful? Dutiful? Bored?

Curious?

Compassionate?

He is moving towards her, and at the moment when he should strike with his blade, he reaches out instead with a bony finger and prods at her hand.

As weak as she is, the reflex is still strong. Her fingers nestle around it, even as the strength wanes in every muscle, leaving her floppy and pale.

The figure takes her to his horse (did you not see the horse?) and carries her away, to the place outside Time.

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She exists, poor little lamb, on the precipice, until milk is found for her, and clothes, and then the only Time she is allowed, is time to get better in. To get fatter and stronger.

He has laid her gently on the table beside a mountain of baby-changing paraphernalia. The cowl of his robe is down, exposing his shiny skull, and the cavernous sleeves are pushed back to his elbows out of the way of any Fluids. His scythe is tucked away safely, far from the reach of tiny, grasping fingers.

He has probably used more cotton wool than is strictly necessary (there is a smaller mountain of that, and traces of powder still linger in the air). Once he is satisfied that she is all clean, he spends quite a while poking twig-like arms into soft pink sleeves, and misaligning fiddly buttons.

He hesitates to hold her again. Not because it would be unhealthy for her, no more so than being here, anyway. But because they are opposites, these two, totally alien to one another. When he does cradle her in his arm, mindful of her wobbly head on her weak neck, the hard coldness of his radius and ulna doesn't make her cry. Instead, his robe cushions her, like a soft nighttime breeze. She seems perfectly at home, even tilting her head towards his breastbone. There is, of course, nothing there.

She is a little sun of warmth and colour in this world outside the world, and as much as she appears to be quite at home, she doesn't belong here. He knows it, and he is anxious to find a place for her, back in the world.

His work takes him all over, and he is sure, before too very long, there will be a household with a baby-shaped hole in it. He's visited nurseries before, in unfortunate circumstances. Perhaps all that's needed is a simple swap. He can carry away the little one that succumbed, and leave this one, hale and hearty, in its place. The parents needn't know. After all, one baby looks similar to another. They will be spared the heartache.

This, as he soon learns, is a terribly flawed plan. To begin with, half the candidates are immediately ruled out. Human beings may not be the most observant creatures, but he suspects they will notice if their son becomes a girl overnight. He doubts dressing her in a blue onesie will work, or at least not for very long.

Human technology is advancing at quite a pace. What if they find out about the little changeling? This worries him, and he hesitates some more. Her grip on his bony finger grows ever stronger, and he, in his turn, is entwined hopelessly around her pudgy one.

This nursery is too warm, and that one too cold. This family is too strict, and that one not watchful enough.

In his regular work, he has never been judgemental. It turns out preserving one life is a more complicated business than collecting any nmumber of them.

The mountain of cotton wool and lotion becomes clothes and toys. The little one totters on podgy legs, and feeds sugar to the pale horse.

She will need to go to school soon. Which seems awful, but how else is the girl to learn her letters?

The clothes and toys are shoved over to make room for a chalkboard and bookshelf, and the gentleman keeps looking.

Thank you for reading!

This is for RMS' November Challenge, which you can read about here:

You still have a couple of days to enter a Wanky Song for this challenge:

This one is open until the end of the month (Sometimes dead is better):

And whether you are a culinary whiz or not, I would love you to join me in this spot of baking jollity:

Thanks again!