Heriot by Margaret Mahy

done nothing to you.’
    But in some vague way he understood that this gang had been skirmishing around, looking for something to torment, some stray dog perhaps, something that would suffer and die for their entertainment, and to them, bloodstained and alone as he was, he had become that stray dog, a dog that would never be missed.
    The grip on his shoulder was twisting him to the ground, and suddenly they all closed in on him, striking and kicking, while, beyond them, fair-haired soldiers marched by as if nothing was going on. He tried to connect himself to the power he knew to be lurking somewhere within him, but for some reason he couldn’t touch it. Perhaps he had used it up, protecting himself from the knife of the naked stranger. He remained nothing but a tired boy being beaten by others.
    Better to be killed by that other one, Heriot thought, swinging up his arms desperately, trying to protect his head. Better that knife than being kicked to death. Quicker!
    But suddenly another voice was shouting, shouting imperiously as if it expected to be obeyed. ‘Leave him alone! Youthere! Leave him.’ And his attackers fell back, while, bruised and bleeding yet again, but free from his enemies, Heriot, who had screwed his eyes tight, rolled over and opened them again.
    The first person he saw was a girl … a girl in rich clothes staring down at him, as shocked as if he were an animal being slaughtered in front of her. Then he looked at the person in the act of dropping on to his knees beside him, and found himself staring up into odd-coloured eyes, one blue and one green, blinking under a mop of mouse-coloured hair … someone Heriot recognised, even though they had never met before. And, as the boy stared down at him, Heriot saw his expression changing … saw him jerk back on his heels as if he, too, had been given a shock, looking so startled his startlement was almost a form of fear.
    ‘You!’ the boy cried softly. ‘You! Hey! You’re my ghost. My ghost.’ He looked over his own shoulder at the girl standing behind him. ‘This is him ! The one I told you about, the one who’s been sitting on my windowsill all these years.’ Then he looked back at Heriot. ‘I’m the only one who’s ever believed in you,’ he muttered.
    Heriot took a breath. ‘Fair enough,’ he mumbled. ‘I don’t believe in myself, either. Not right now.’
    The boy began to recover from that first shock.
    ‘You can’t be a ghost,’ he said. ‘Ghosts don’t bleed. You’d better come with me and I’ll take you to our doctors. We’ll work it out later – that you-and-me of things I mean. The dream business.’
    Slowly, slowly Heriot stood up. He was glad to have someone friendly to talk to. The sound of his own voice began to make the places around him real. He was also glad to be with someone slightly smaller than he was, someone who could be leaned on easily, though, before he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, he looked rather doubtfully at those grand clothes.
    ‘Likely I’ll bleed on you,’ he said. ‘Most of the bleeding’s over, but it keeps on starting up again. And that kicking will have set it off.’
    ‘Forget it,’ the boy said. ‘They’ll clean any blood off me.’ He laughed. ‘It’s what they’re there for, to make me respectable.’ He laughed again, a curiously wild laugh as if he were joking with something beyond reason.
    ‘They won’t make me respectable, not ever,’ Heriot mumbled, still panting a little.
    Suddenly the boy, who was also his support, stopped. Heriot, head bent down, could feel that they were making way for others. Shadows moved across them. Horses’ feet drew alongside, shifting and shuffling in the mud. Feelings of apprehension flooded Heriot, but they were not altogether his own feelings. Somehow he was feeling his companion’s response to the world in front of them. Heriot looked up, expecting to see strangers but to his astonishment, an astonishment immediately touched with