ONCE UPON a time in the Kingdom of Verania, there was a kickass boy born in the slums of the City of Lockes. His parents were hardworking, and at times, life could be difficult, but they were alive and had all their teeth. Which was very important.
The mother had been a gypsy, olive-skinned and beautiful. She could smile sweetly to hide the steel in her eyes. Once, a man had tried to rob her in an alley. The man no longer has testicles.
“What happened to his testicles?” the boy asked when he was four.
The mother grinned. “I threw them in the sewer.”
The father groaned. “I’m glad our child knows that story now.”
The father hailed from the north, deep in the mountains where snow fell year-round and people wore unfashionable things made from yak skin. He had auburn hair and a deep laugh that sounded like thunder in the fall.
“I’m not wearing that,” the boy said when he was seven.
The father sighed. “It’s what my people wear. It’ll keep you warm.” He tried to push the weird furry coat thing at the boy again.
The boy said, “It’s August. And I don’t want to look like I’m the poster child for what happens when a human has relations with a yak. Come one, come all! See the incredible yak-child!”
“Sam,” the father growled. It was a low sound that always made the boy smile.
“Sam,” the mother laughed. It was a husky sound that always made the boy happy.
The mother was Rosemary. The father was Joshua.
They lived in the slums, yes. They didn’t have much, yes. But they were happy.
We were. I swear it on all I have.
My mother worked at a little flower shop at the end of a broken brick road, singing as she tended to the wildflowers in a language that sounded almost like birds trilling. She told me once that the songs were old, older than Verania. Her mamia, the grandmother of her clan, had taught her the songs under the stars in a field far from the City of Lockes.
My father worked at the lumber mill. He was a big man, able to carry a three-hundred pound Veranian oak log over his shoulder without breaking a sweat. He told me once that in the north, there were beautiful trees made of ice and that could be shaped into the most wondrous things. Like dragons and horses and swords with the sharpest blades. At night when he couldn’t sleep, he would carve little trinkets. A heart for my mother. A raccoon for me. Little toys for the children in the slums who never had such things.
Like most other people around us, my parents couldn’t afford
to send me to the schools, so they taught me themselves at night, bringing home old and outdated books on math and art and history. After I started learning at the age of four, it only took three months to point out mistakes in what was supposed to be factual.
I didn’t miss the smile my parents exchanged over my head.
We were happy.
I had friends. Well, sort of. I had acquaintances. Boys and girls that ran with me through the streets. The castle guards knew my name, and sometimes they’d give me bread and meat and I’d share it with the others. Sometimes I’d accidentally do something illegal like setting a cart on fire that belonged to a rich man who’d hit a boy named Eric because he hadn’t gotten out of his way quick enough. The guards would look the other way because surely little Sam would never do anything like that, no matter how loudly the man protested. As a matter of fact, the guards said, Sam was spotted on the other side of town when the cart was supposedly set aflame, so it couldn’t have been him.
Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that it’d been one of the guards that’d given me the accelerant I’d used to start the fire. They didn’t like assholes, either.
Everything was good.
Sure, I had dreams of something bigger. I’d lie in my bed at night, listening to the slow, deep breaths of sleep my parents took in their bed across the room. I’d stare out my window, and if I’d crick my head just right, I’d be able to see stars above the stone buildings across the way.
And didn’t I wish upon them?
Of course I did.
That’s how these stories go.
I wished for many things, like children do.
I wished for money.
I wished for the biggest turkey leg.