Hagane no Renkinjutsushi - Volume 2 - Chapter 3

LIVELY LODGINGS

“SAY, AL, do you believe in possession?” Edward asked suddenly from where he sat by the window of the train, his hair blowing wildly in the wind.

“Uh, possession?”

“Yeah.” Edward nodded. He looked serious. “You know, when nothing seems to be going your way, when you get a string of bad luck, some people say it’s because there’s a ghost or something possessing you.”

“Well, bad luck, sure,” his brother replied from the seat facing him. “I hear about that all the time. But …possession?”

“I dunno. I just feel like my luck’s not on lately. I’d hate it to be because something found me, you know?”

Alphonse shook his head. “I don’t know—about possession, that is. About bad luck, well, I have to agree. We have been having miserable luck.”

“Yeah.” Edward placed his arm on the windowsill and set his chin on his elbow. “Seems like we’ve had nothing but bad news these days, and now we get dragged into this whole terrorist thing,” he said, gazing distractedly at the scenery flowing by. “I was kind of looking forward to getting a fresh start on our search, and then there was that attempted bombing at the station. I guess I’m kind of blue.” Edward sighed. 

They had lost two days at Eastern Command, going over the details of the train-yard incident again and again with investigators. When they finally got back on the road, they made for a town where something like the Philosopher’s Stone had been seen, only to find that their information was outdated. The Stone had already passed into someone else’s possession. They followed the trail to the next town, where they discovered the truth: the so-called Philosopher’s Stone was nothing more than an expensive ruby. Par for the course on their search for the Stone, but on top of everything else it had Edward suspecting supernatural interference.

“Still, think of it this way: better to spend three days getting to a village and being disappointed rather than two whole weeks like last time,” Alphonse said, trying to cheer up his brother. “And you and the colonel did see the terrorists—without getting hurt. That sounds like good luck to me.”

“I guess.”

Edward and Roy had left the train yard that day trembling. The man they had encountered, Gael, was impossibly strong: a monster. Maybe they had been lucky. Getting caught under that container car would have ended everything for them. Edward shook his head to clear his mind and opened the map he held in his hands.

“I guess you’re right, Al. Look, let’s get off at the next station before the sun goes down. I think the train’ll make it at least that far before there’s another terrorist blast. Maybe our luck has changed, after all. And I need a good night’s rest, anyway.” Edward pointed at a town on the map and smiled. “Let’s just tell ourselves that we’ll find some real information on the Stone this time, shall we?”

BY THE TIME Edward and Alphonse stepped onto the station platform, dusk was falling on the town. According to the map, a river ran near the town, which accounted for the greenery. Edward could see house lights shining through tree-lined streets.

The station was a simple cobblestone platform, roofless, like any number of stations in any number of the other small towns they had visited in the East, except for one major difference. Edward and Alphonse stood on the train platform, for a while unable to speak.

“Look at all this stuff,” Edward muttered at last.

Every square inch of the train platform was covered with wooden crates. A lone man moved through the twilit station inspecting the crates, moving some and reordering others. It wasn’t unusual for small towns like this, where there weren’t any large factories, to lack a warehouse. Judging by the number of boxes piled up in the station, they certainly could have used one.

“What are all these crates doing here?” Edward called out, weaving his way through the wooden boxes.

The man looked up. “Ah, I should have left you a path. Sorry about that. Didn’t think anyone else would be arriving today.” He wiped sweat from his brow and pushed a stack of crates out of Edward and Alphonse’s way.

“What are these crates here for?” Alphonse asked the man. He was resting with one hand propped up on a stack of said crates.

“Oh, these?” the man said with a wry grin. “Well, with so many of the rail lines shut down, a lot of freight’s being diverted our way.”

The man checked the label on the box under his arm, lifted it up, and placed it on a stack behind him. “This station’s not so large,” he continued, “but we had an extra set of rails they used to use for conductor training. Now the freight trains are using them to do U-turns when the tracks get blown out further down the line.” The man shook his head and chuckled. “ ’Course, we don’t got a warehouse, so these crates just get stacked up here, out in the open. And here they’ll lie until a train comes along going to wherever they’re s’posed to go. If it were up to me, I’d just leave them where the trains dump them, but we got passengers to serve. So I’m stuck here moving these things, day in and day out.”

Edward looked around. Indeed, there was no one else on the platform. It seemed the man was working here alone.

“All by yourself?” Alphonse asked, sounding concerned. “If this station’s so important, why isn’t there anyone helping you?”

The man looked hardy enough, but moving all these crates by himself was certainly no small chore. 

“You heard the news about the planned attack on the military freight depot three days back?”

“Yeah,” Edward replied with a grimace. He didn’t want to be reminded.

“Well, these crates here are the weapons and ammunition that were supposed to go out to all the bases through that depot. The blast never happened, but the workers just left the crates here all the same. Not many people going out of their way to help the military these days, you know.” 

“But you are?” Alphonse asked.

The man laughed. “Well, I’ll admit, I’ve thought about giving up more than once. But I used to be in the military—I know they don’t got it easy, either.”

Edward was surprised. The man looked to be only in his thirties, maybe early forties. He was too young to have qualified for normal retirement. But then the man rolled back the sleeve on his right arm, revealing a long scar that ran from his wrist to his elbow.

“My reward for serving my country. Doesn’t get in the way in my daily life, but I’ll never hold a rifle again. Got hit fighting some insurgents. I look at the army today and see they’ve got the same kind of problem on their hands as we did when I was still in service, so I try to help out any way that I can.”

Edward walked over to the man and picked up a crate.

The man lifted an eyebrow.

“Name’s Edward. That’s Alphonse. We’ll help you. You’re moving these over there, right?”

“Y-yeah,” the man stammered, “but you don’t have to …”

“Your name?” Edward asked, cutting him off.

“Eh? Er, Greg. I’m Greg. Nice to meet you. But you—”

Alphonse walked over and picked up another crate. “Don’t worry about it. We’re here to help.”

“Well, thanks, boys.”

Edward sat the crate atop one of the stacks with a loud thunk. “With three of us doing this, we’ll be done in no time!”

Edward thought about his own relationship with the military. He had entered the service by choice, but being an alchemist, not a soldier, he’d always felt distanced from the other people at Eastern Command. He was not the kind to lay his life on the line just because the military asked him to. But this was different. This man was helping out because he had believed in something once. He was helping his old friends in a way, and that, Edward could understand. He picked up another crate. “This one goes here, right?”

The labels on the crates bore the addresses of various military installations across the country. He even found a few that said “Eastern Command.” The faces of the people he knew at the base floated before his eyes. No, he didn’t like the military, but yes, they were his friends.

“Even if we can’t help the colonel directly, we can do our part out here,” he said to himself as he lifted another crate. And so Edward and Alphonse worked quietly together with the only civilian they had met who was still sympathetic to the army, and night fell on the town.

“HERE IT IS,” Greg announced as they arrived at the inn. “They run a bar, too. It gets a bit noisy at times, but the price is right. Food’s good to boot,” he added.

“I’ll be happy if they have a place where I can lie down and stretch out my legs,” Edward said, rubbing his arms and thighs, sore from the heavy lifting.

The sound of laughter spilled out from the large, two-story building. Apparently, the locals had already started drinking. Greg opened the front door and waved the brothers inside.

“Got some guests for you,” he called out as they entered.

“Oh! Welcome, welcome,” came a woman’s voice from the back room.

The first floor of the inn appeared to be, as Greg had warned them, a tavern. A broad, rectangular table occupied the middle of the room, and men sat around it and at a few tables around the edges of the room. They were drinking and talking cheerfully. One of the men looked up at Edward and his brother as they entered. “Well now, if it isn’t a knight in shining armor and his wee bonnie squire. We’ve some unusual guests tonight,” the man said, smiling.

“We’d like a room for the night,” Edward told him, somewhat hesitantly. Somehow, he hadn’t imagined checking in would be quite so informal.

The man laughed out loud. “Of course, of course. But before you go to your rooms, you’ll drink with us!”

Edward blinked. “Uh, I’m not old enough to—”

“What of it?!” The man roared, laughing again. He was joined by the others at the table. “Greg! You have a drink with us too!”

“Been cleaning up the army’s mess again?” one of the other men at the table asked. “Just leave it until the next rainstorm comes and washes it all away! Who cares if the station’s a little crowded in the meantime, eh?”

“Right! A drink for the ever-dedicated Greg! And no whining about being underage, m’boy!” the innkeeper shouted.

Apparently, the crowd here had already been at it for some time. Edward laughed despite himself. When he saw Greg working in the station all alone, he had pictured a gloomy town filled with serious, bitter people—certainly nothing like the lively scene before him now. It only went to show how deep the distrust of the military had spread that people as friendly as this were so quick to naysay the military and anything associated with it. The military’s reputation had really taken a nosedive.

Here, though, surrounded by beaming, friendly faces, it took Edward a considerable amount of effort to recall the air of tension and worry that had dominated Eastern Command on their last visit. Several of the people at the tables were obviously travelers like them who had joined the local revelry. After days spent hearing nothing but talk of bombs and terrorists, the mood in the room was like a breath of fresh air to Edward and Alphonse.

“I told you before to watch yourself when you’re drinking! And no beer for children, please! You drunkards go entertain yourselves and leave my poor guests alone,” said a woman who came striding into the room, hefting a platter of food in one hand. It was her voice that had greeted them when they first entered the inn. She walked over to the innkeeper, who had stood up to make a toast to the new guests, and grabbed him by the ear, forcing him back down in his seat. Everyone in the room erupted with laughter.

“She’s got your number, she has,” one of the others at the table shouted to the innkeeper.

“What she’s got is his ear!” another shouted.

“Ah, now that’s the famous ear-pull I came here to see,” one of the travelers remarked loudly.

“What’s it say about our town that the main tourist attraction is our poor innkeeper’s domestic spats!” one of the locals said, howling with laughter.

“Not much else going on around here,” another local agreed. “Much too quiet for my tastes.”

“Well, it’s much too loud in this room for mine,” the innkeeper’s wife said with a glare at the man. She turned to the brothers. “This way please,” she said with a wink.

The innkeeper’s wife led Edward and Alphonse up the stairs. Behind them, the innkeeper called out, “Don’t forget, boys! I expect you back down here for a drink once you’ve settled in!”

The woman frowned and shook her head. “I’m sorry if my husband startled you.”

“Not at all,” Edward told her. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard people having such a good time.”

In fact, the only laughter Edward had heard of late was Gael’s sneering laugh in the train depot. The men’s laughter here might have matched Gael’s in volume, but in ugliness it fell far short.

“It’s true there’s not much here in town, but us being on the line connecting the countryside and the city means we get a lot of passers-through. The locals like to mix it up with them here at the tavern, so things get a little out of hand. Sorry for all the noise,” she said. The woman took them down a short hallway lined with doors and stopped before one. She opened it. “This is your room. You haven’t eaten yet, have you? If you don’t mind the company of loud drunkards, you’re welcome to join us in the tavern below for a hot meal.”

“Thanks,” Edward said.

“They’re boisterous, but they mean well,” the woman added. “There are plenty of travelers like you here, too, so you’re sure to hear some wild stories. See you later, boys.”

The door closed behind them, and Alphonse laughed quietly. “Quite the lively lodgings, don’t you think?”

Edward set down his trunk and stretched. “Well, they probably know how to take care of people, at least.”

“I didn’t even get any comments about my looks—save the bit about the knight,” Alphonse realized. The two were so used to questions about their unusual appearance that their immediate acceptance here in the town deserved comment.

“I guess they see all sorts here,” said Edward, sitting on the edge of his bed and letting himself fall back onto the mattress with a thud. “The men downstairs remind me of the locals in Resembool,” Edward said, remembering their old hometown. He closed his eyes.

Before his mind’s eye rose a vast prairie and a single road lined with walls of piled stone. A few green patches rose here and there, and sheep were grazing on the hills. He thought he could hear the laughter of the men working in the fields even now, but it was just the distant echo from the tavern below.

“I wonder how everybody is,” Alphonse said, joining his brother’s reverie.

“Yeah …”

All the tall buildings and the chimneys they had seen since coming to the city blended together. They lacked a certain individual character, a sound and feel that was all their own. Their hometown, by contrast, had nothing to see, just endless blue skies. But that nothing was more important to Edward and Alphonse than anything they had found since.

“Well, I’ve half a mind to go join them,” Edward said, raising his legs and vaulting out of bed. “Let’s get some grub.”

“Yeah.” Alphonse stood up from his chair in the corner.

Without a body, Alphonse didn’t actually need to eat. Yet, even if he had nothing to do, he always made it a habit to join his brother for dinner. He might look different now, but the boy that was Alphonse had changed very little since their Resembool days. Stepping lightly, he followed Edward down the stairs.

WHEN THEY REACHED the main table, the innkeeper had already passed out and sat snoring in his chair, mouth agape.

“Ah, there you two are.”

“We were waiting!”

“Come join us!”

A chorus of voices, some noticeably slurred, called out to the boys as they stepped into the room. Everyone was happily drinking, eating, and talking. Edward ordered a single meal and joined Alphonse at the table.

“Evenin’, ” Edward greeted the men as he sat.

“And a good one it is!” one of the men shouted. “Why, we were just talking about …” he turned to the man sitting next to him. “What were we just talking about?”

The other man shrugged and laughed uproariously. He turned to the brothers and asked them their names.

“I’m Edward, and this is Alphonse,” Edward exclaimed. He was already feeling very much at home here with these people. They rarely found a crowd so receptive to travelers, especially unusual ones like them. Edward planned to enjoy it to the fullest.

“So,” said the first man who had spoken. “Tell us about your travels!”

“Yeah, come over here and join us!” another said.

“That Alphonse sure is a big one!” one of the men sitting further away said in awe.

“Greg was just telling us he lifted three of those crates at once,” another remarked.

Within moments, the brothers were drawn into the swirl of conversation. Edward found another group of travelers and asked around if anyone had heard of anything resembling the Philosopher’s Stone, while Alphonse participated in an impromptu arm-wrestling competition.

By the time Alphonse had excused himself to the second floor to clean his armor and Greg and the other locals had gone home, only a few men remained awake at the table.

The conversation gradually drifted until they were talking about the recent terrorist bombings and, predictably, complaining about the military’s handling of the situation.

“They’re given fair warning!” one man was saying. “Why can’t they catch those terrorists?”

“I know Greg’s got sympathy for ’em, but you gotta hold them accountable for their failures, too,” another said.

“Still, it’s not like the warnings come very far in advance,” Edward said. “And with the attacks happening all over the place, I think the military’s spread pretty thin. I can see how it would be hard to make any arrests in that situation.” He hadn’t said anything about the attempted bombing he was involved in three days before, but it weighed heavy on his mind. “I hear the military has really been pulling out all the stops. Wasn’t it a colonel from Eastern Command who stopped the bombing at the freight depot the other day?”

“You think?” one of the men said doubtfully.

“Well, it just seems to me that the bad ones here are the terrorists,” Edward continued. “I know people have given them a break, just because there haven’t been any injuries. But who knows what could happen tomorrow?”

“That reminds me,” one of the travelers said with a chuckle. “The doctor in the next town over was complaining, saying that with all these terrorist bombings, he should be getting more business than he is.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” another one said, “these terrorists really are the bad guys. They’re not giving the doctors any business at all!”

The men at the table laughed and nodded. Edward listened with some relief as the conversation wandered on to other topics, when suddenly the man sitting next to him tapped his shoulder. “You got friends in the military, or something?” he asked. The man had earlier introduced himself as “Mr. Colt.” He was in his late twenties. He was a thin man, sporting silver-rimmed glasses, and like Edward, he had traveled to many places. He had been a major contributor earlier in the evening when they had been exchanging stories. “It takes guts to take the military’s side these days,” he went on. “I sure wouldn’t do it myself.”

“Oh, I didn’t really mean it like that. It’s just …” Edward stammered.

“Wait, you aren’t actually in the military, are you?” Colt’s question caught the attention of some of the other men sitting around the table.

“What’s this? Edward’s in the military?”

“Ah, now that you mention it, I thought he did have that soldier’s look to him. A bit young, though.”

When he had left Eastern Command this time, Edward had resolved not to tell anyone he met that he was in the military. There was the potential for too many problems. Even if the people here weren’t openly angry at the military, they had their complaints like everyone else.

“Um, well, I’m not a soldier, myself, actually …” Edward said, earnestly grasping for a way to change the topic.

“You know,” Colt said, raising an eybrow, “I thought you sounded awfully well-informed about that botched terrorist strike. What was that you were saying about Eastern Command?”

“Who, me? Uh …” Edward fidgeted with his hands.

“Aha!” a man at one of the tables along the side of the room said, snapping his fingers. “Now don’t be ashamed, son. We didn’t mean anything by our bellyaching. If you’re in the military, well that’s just fine, and we won’t think any worse of you.”

“No, it’s not that,” Edward stammered. “I’m not a soldier …”

“So you got a relative in the military or something?”

“Uh …” Edward’s tongue was thick in his mouth. He couldn’t think of a way to get out of this without lying outright to these people. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said at last. “I’m not with the military myself, but I’ve got family who is, sort of.”

“Oh, so maybe your father or an uncle works at this Eastern Command place you were talking about?” the man in the corner asked.

“Uh, yeah, something like that,” Edward responded with some relief.

Mentally, Edward was kicking himself. He had revealed far too much about the terrorist attempt the other day to be a common citizen. No wonder he had raised everyone’s suspicions. They seemed to buy his story about his father the soldier, though. It helped that Edward himself was so young. Come to think of it, they probably thought he was a runaway teenager.

“Well,” the man was saying with a smile, “maybe you can tell your father to get his act together for us!”

“Yeah, we’re on your side, kiddo.”

“And if he ever comes this way, you tell him to drop in for a drink on the house.”

It looked like this inn, at least, welcomed the military’s business. Edward smiled. All this talk of his father being in the military reminded him of when they ran into Roy on the train, back before they’d heard about the terrorists. For those few moments, when he ran up to talk to Roy, Edward did have a father in the military, and he was surprised to find he wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about that.

MEANWHILE, Alphonse sat upstairs in their room, carefully cleaning the suit of armor he could never take off. They had been so busy these last few days that he hadn’t gotten a chance to properly clean it, and so as soon as he reached the room, he rummaged through their luggage, pulled out some oil and a rag, and began polishing.

“Gotta buy some more oil,” Alphonse muttered to himself as he carefully wiped the grime off the edge of his shoulder. If his armor ever rusted, it would make it hard to move, and on the road, that would be no good. Maybe he couldn’t take baths in this body, but he still liked to keep clean. Old habits die hard, he thought.

Alphonse had opened the window and the door to the hall outside, so that the smell of oil would not fill the room. He had been wiping and polishing for some time when he suddenly got the feeling that he was being watched. Alphonse lifted his head to see a small face at the door, peering into the room.

“Hello there,” Alphonse called out, stopping his polishing. The faced belonged to a girl of three or four years; maybe she was the innkeeper’s daughter. She stared at Alphonse. “Can I help you with something?” Alphonse spoke as gently as possible so as not to frighten the little girl. He had sent enough children crying down the street simply because of how he looked.

However, it seemed he had avoided that on this occasion. The girl didn’t cry. Instead, she opened her mouth and spoke. “Mister in the armor. You smell oily.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess I do. Does it smell too strong?” Without a body, Alphonse couldn’t smell, but he remembered a time when he could, and he knew that oil was particularly stinky. He started to worry that the smell had drifted to the other rooms. “I’m sorry. I’ll close the door,” Alphonse said, standing up.

“No, it’s okay,” the girl said, shaking her head. “I don’t mind the smell.” Her hair was tied into two blonde pigtails over her ears that wobbled back and forth when she shook her head. “My name’s Ancy. What’s yours?”

“Nice to meet you, Ancy. I’m Alphonse.”

“Good evening, Mr. Alphonse. Can I come in there?” The girl asked. She seemed remarkably bold for a little girl. Maybe it came from growing up in an inn like this.

“Of course,” Alphonse replied. “Are you sure you should be up at this hour?” It was already well past ten o’clock.

The girl named Ancy walked over to him. “My mommy and daddy are busy. That’s why my uncle brought me here to play. My parents aren’t here.”

“Oh,” Alphonse said. So she wasn’t the innkeeper’s girl after all. She was a guest like him. “So, is your uncle staying in one of the rooms?”

“No, I think he’s downstairs. He said we could come here to play, but he doesn’t play very much, really. He told me not to go outside, and then he went right downstairs. I got bored, and I maybe cried a little, and so another nice man staying here bought me a book. But I’m still bored,” Ancy explained, pouting a little.

Alphonse resumed his polishing. He could hear the men laughing and talking in the tavern below. “You know,” Alphonse said with a smile in his voice, “I came here with my brother, but he’s downstairs, too. So I’m all alone myself.”

“Really?” Ancy said, her face brightening. “Will you play with me, Mr. Alphonse?”

“Sure thing, what you want to do?”

“Let me help polish your armor,” the girl said, reaching out a hand.

“But your hands will smell all oily!” Alphonse warned her.

“I don’t mind! My house always smells oily anyway. I’m used to it. See, my hands are stinky already!” she said, waving a hand in front of Alphonse’s face.

Of course, Alphonse couldn’t smell a thing. He handed a cloth to the little girl. “Okay, then let’s get started.”

“You bet!” Ancy said, and she began wiping furiously at Alphonse’s armor, asking him a barrage of questions, like where did he come from and where was he going. Poor girl, Alphonse thought with a smile, she must have been really bored.

“WELL, AL, you’re … you’re beautiful.”

Edward had come upstairs to find Alphonse newly polished. He and Ancy were drawing pictures when Edward came into the room.

“Welcome back, Ed,” Alphonse said, waving to his brother. “Ancy, this is my big brother, Edward.”

“He’s your big brother?” Ancy said, a little confused.

“Nice to meet you, Ancy,” Edward said.

“Nice to meet you!” the girl said, shaking Edward’s outstretched hand. She stood on her tiptoes and looked up at his blond hair. “You sure have a cute little, er, big brother, Alphonse,” she said, giggling.

It was typical. Few people could believe, after seeing the two, that Edward was the elder. Which usually led to this sort of comment. Which usually led to Edward losing his cool. Which usually led to a fight.

“Cute, huh,” Edward said, frowning. As always, the words stung his pride, but, he told himself, she’s only a little girl. In the end, he patted her on the head and sat down beside the two to look at what they had been drawing.

“So you were drawing? Would you draw something for me?” he asked her.

“Yeah! I drew something already for Alphonse, so now it’s your turn!” Ancy grinned and pulled out a new sheet of paper. 

Beside her, Edward and Alphonse joined her in drawing. After all that had been happening, Edward couldn’t think of a better way to spend a quiet evening.

THE LAST STARS twinkled and faded as dawn spread through the sky outside their window. Alphonse watched a bird flapping its wings in a nearby tree. Quietly, he stood and left the room, leaving a note to tell Edward, who was still sleeping soundly, where he had gone. He walked through the first floor, now so quiet it was hard to recall the ruckus of the night before, and opened the door to the outside.

The cold, clear air of morning filled the town, and far off, the sound of a steam whistle echoed forlornly. Alphonse ran toward the station. There, through the thin veil of mist that hovered over the platform, he saw Greg continuing his work from the night before.

“Good morning!” Alphonse shouted. Greg looked up, surprised.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“I heard from one of the guests that there would be a freight train coming in here this morning. I thought you might be here,” Alphonse explained.

“Alphonse, right? You didn’t need to come all the way down here to help. I imagine you’ll be heading out soon. Don’t want to wear you out. Your buddy Edward’s still sleeping, eh?”

“Really, I’m fine.” Alphonse lifted one of the crates nearest to him and added it to a stack by the rails. Yesterday, Edward had decided to help Greg because he felt camaraderie, a shared connection to the military. However, Alphonse felt differently. His brother helped people with alchemy, and the people at Eastern Command worked day in and day out to help civilians. But Alphonse lacked both his brother’s skill with alchemy and the authority of the military. All he had was a body that never tired.

“What time does the train arrive?” he asked Greg.

“Got about another thirty minutes. They’re going to take this stuff to the nearest large warehouse along one of the open lines. We need to load the gunpowder first. It don’t do well in the moisture out here.”

“This box, right?” Alphonse asked, picking up a large box with a label that read “powder.” Just then, a piece of paper came fluttering out onto the platform.

Alphonse stopped. It was a picture Ancy had drawn for him the night before. Ancy had folded the drawing and tucked it neatly under a plate of his armor, so that he would always have it near him.

Alphonse set down the crate he was carrying and picked up the paper. It had opened with the fall, revealing a tree with some fruit and a horse. The lines of the drawing were a little sloppy, but really quite good for a girl Ancy’s age.

“Ancy give that to you?” Greg asked, seeing the drawing in Alphonse’s hand.

“You know Ancy, Greg?” Alphonse asked, surprised.

“Yes, I met her when she came here, about two weeks ago. She dropped her notebook, as I recall, and when I handed it back to her, she gave me one of her drawings.”

“Two weeks ago … Wow, so she’s been apart from her parents for quite some time. No wonder she’s lonely. She said her uncle didn’t play with her much.”

“You have to wonder why her parents left her with a guy like that. Not a nice man. Drinks too much. You’d think they’d’ve thought twice about leaving their daughter in his care. And I hear they didn’t even ask him in person. Just gave him a letter saying ‘please play with Ancy’ or some such.” Greg shrugged. “That Ancy’s so sweet and honest to everyone. Hard to believe they’re related.”

“I had no idea,” Alphonse said, remembering Ancy’s bright and easy smile.

So her parents had left her with this uncle of hers in an inn for two weeks? She must be bored to tears. They had planned to leave early today, but now Alphonse thought that maybe they should linger a bit and give the girl some company while they could.

“I’m surprised she could take it. She’s so young.”

“No kidding. Still, after two weeks, she must miss her parents. I see her crying every now and then. Luckily, there’s been someone staying at the inn who’s been good about playing with her. I think you met him last night at the party? The man named Colt, with the glasses.”

“He seemed nice enough,” Alphonse said, remembering the man with the silver-rimmed glasses they had met at the table last night.

“Good with kids, that one. I’ve seen him playing with Ancy every now and then.” The sound of the steam whistle came from far off, and Greg started working again while he talked. “She does like her drawings, that little one. Ancy showed me a book that Colt bought her once. Here, I was expecting some children’s book, but it was an art book! All these fancy paintings, and Ancy was explaining them to me. That shook me. I look at these drawings, and I see a bunch of scribbles, but here she was telling me how this was expressionist, and this over here was symbolizing something. It was all a bit over my head. And she’s only four!”

Alphonse laughed to himself, imagining the little girl instructing an adult in the finer points of art. “Maybe she’ll become a great painter someday.”

“Well, she’s certainly off to a good start, I’d say.”

The two laughed, and there was an easy quiet before Greg spoke again. “I’ll bet her parents’ house is filled with paintings. That’s the only explanation.”

Alphonse stopped mid-lift.

No way . . .

Alphonse took a deep breath. His mind was racing. If Greg hadn’t said anything, he would never have made the connection, but now that he thought about it, it made far too much sense for comfort. 

“Something the matter?” Greg asked, looking up at Alphonse with a curious expression.

“No …”

I have to be sure . . .

“I’d better get back to the inn,” Alphonse said suddenly. “Sorry, I wanted to help you with the crates until the train got here, but something’s come up.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. You’ve helped quite a bit already. Thanks, Alphonse,” Greg told him, waving his hand in farewell.

Alphonse hurried off toward the inn.

I have to be sure . . .

As Alphonse ran, dark thoughts took shape in his mind. Hadn’t Roy said that the latest kidnapping was the child of an art dealer? And here was Ancy, a little girl who loved paintings, who appreciated art books no child her age should be able to understand, sent away from her parents, supposedly, into the care of an uncle who paid her no attention at all. The whole thing stank.

The kidnapper could have forged a letter and shown it around, saying it came from her parents. This nondescript town welcomed travelers—it was a good enough place to lie low for a while. Ancy got along with people so well that most of them probably wouldn’t have cause to suspect something was wrong. With easy access to both the city and the countryside here, it would be easy for him to plan his next move.

Alphonse noticed the morning sun glinting off his armor. What had Ancy said about the oil? 

“My house always smells oily anyway. I’m used to it.”

Oily, Alphonse thought. Of course. Not machine oil, but oil paints.

“ANCY!”

Alphonse ran in the front door of the inn, nodded to the startled innkeeper’s wife who was making breakfast on the first floor, and ran up the stairs. The room they had brought Ancy back to after her visit last night was at the end of the hallway. Alphonse knocked on the door. His suspicion was only a theory. He didn’t have any proof. But if he was wrong, he could always apologize. He hoped more than anything that he was wrong.

There was no answer.

Thinking they might be asleep, he knocked again. Again, no answer. Steeling his nerves, Alphonse turned the handle and opened the door.

“Huh?!”

The room was empty. For a moment, Alphonse thought he might have the wrong room. He looked back out into the hallway, but there was no mistaking it. This is where they had brought Ancy the night before.

It’s hard to imagine they left this early in the morning, Alphonse thought with a sinking feeling. His theory became more and more likely with every passing moment. Alphonse turned and walked out of the room. The thing to do now was to inform the military. And that meant he had to go wake up his sleeping brother.

Alphonse walked quickly down the hall and opened the door, shouting, “Ed! Wake up! It’s Ancy …”

Alphonse’s voice trailed off. His brother’s bed was empty.

“Ed … ?”

Thinking Edward might be hiding, perhaps trying to catch a few more winks, Alphonse lifted first the covers and then the mattress. Nothing. He opened the closet, looked under the table, the chair, even under the bed. Edward was gone.

Alphonse rapped his hand on his helmet. It had just occurred to him that his brother might’ve gone to the bathroom. He turned to go out and froze again.

There, stuck in the door, was a single knife. The knife had been shoved right into the wood of the door, through a piece of paper. Alphonse realized that it was the very same piece of paper on which he had left his message that morning to his brother.

The paper had been turned over, and a new message was written on it:

Want to continue your journey? If the boy’s father at Eastern Command pays his ransom, you can. Pray that his father doesn’t find the price too dear.

Alphonse stood, stunned, watching the early morning sunlight glint off the sharp edge of the knife.