Never Knew Another by J. M. McDermott Page B

home-sewn burlap the three boys had been wearing.
    The woman stood up when Djoss and Rachel reached her crate. She must’ve had manners once, or else she wouldn’t have pulled herself up from the mud. She wouldn’t have curtsied. But when she spoke, her grace fell. “What do you want?”
    Djoss smiled. He tried to be friendly. “You got three boys?”
    She frowned. “I don’t know where they are.”
    “We’ll share this with you and your boys if you can cook it. We don’t have anywhere to cook anything.”
    She looked with some trepidation at the stolen pig. It had clearly been a long time since she’d had anything that good to eat, but she never believed it would really be handed to her.
    “Bring it here, then,” she said. “I’ll get the fire going, and we’ll cook it up. You know my boys are going to be hungry.”
    “Everybody is,” said Djoss.
    “My name’s Sparrow.” She started piling wood upon large stones in the middle of her crate. She had gotten the wood from the crate, itself, burning her home to heat the cooking stones. “You from around here? Never seen you before.”
    “We came south from the warehouses,” Djoss replied. “Looking for work.”
    “Plenty down here for a man. Nothing for me.” She had stones placed around. “Here, take this pot to the river. Got to boil the pig.”
    Rachel placed her hand on Djoss’s leg. “Wait.” She pulled a chunk of ice from the air and placed it in the pot. It was faster than river water.
    “Don’t need ice,” said Sparrow. “What good is that?”
    “I’m not done,” said Rachel.
    She snapped her fingers and concentrated on another koan. Snap snap snap. Fire picked up in the wood. She pulled it from the air all over the ice, feeling the heat in her fingertips. Flame licked across the ice. The fire took to the wood, too. The ice melted quickly, and the heat rose up into the water from the stones. Soon, the water was steaming like it was about to boil.
    “Don’t say thank you, or anything,” she said.
    Sparrow cut the pig’s throat. She bled it out into the boiling water. It trembled in her arms, but died soon enough. She hacked up the pig as best she could without a knife. It was hard to break the tendons loose from the bones. “How’d you do that?” She tossed pieces of the pig into the pot.
    “I’m Senta.”
“What’s that?”
    “It would… take a very long time to explain.”
    Sparrow poked at the meat in the pot with a stick. “Yeah, and if it was worth knowing you wouldn’t be here with me, would you? Not if you knew anything really good.”

CHAPTER V
    I t happened so fast. Out of nowhere, we were making friends. We brought a pig we stole. We shared it. Got introduced to someone who could help Djoss find work. Djoss makes friends. I don’t really make friends. Djoss just reaches out his hand and I don’t want to talk to anyone.
    Sparrow’s kids came through when they saw food in the pot. They didn’t look at Djoss and Rachel. They were smart enough to know when they should shut up and take what was allowed to them. When they got meat, they ran off with it, hiding from even each other to keep what was theirs in their mouths like wild dogs scavenging. Djoss, Rachel, and Sparrow weren’t so uncivilized. They didn’t run away anywhere to eat. The good meat got eaten as fast as it was boiled through, but there were still edible bits left, and some organs, boiled soft in the pot. Sparrow’s kids were coming back, loud and rowdy. They wanted more. Sparrow smacked the first hand reaching for the pot. “Ain’t yours,” she said. “You want work you bring the pot over to Turco, see if he wants any. You remember me you get any coin from him.”
“We will,” said Djoss.
    The pot was still too hot to carry. Djoss peeled his shirt off and wrapped a hand in it. It had been a long time since Rachel had seen him without his shirt. He looked like the side of a tree. His skin was pale and flaking like bark, and he had lost