The silent ones

There was a small boy, face dirty, nose running, huddled into a corner. The woman sat on the floor by the window, her head resting against the pane, her eyes staring out into the darkness. She didn't say anything when we came in. The boy stared at us with fearful eyes, huge, wet, unprotected. I wanted to rush over to him, hold him, comfort him, but I knew better. He stood infront of me, his staff in hand, his coat hanging to the floor. The coat always seemed heavier on nights like these. A few candles shed shadows across the floor, against the walls. One of them hid the boy. The woman stirred, turned her face to Him and smiled a sad, sickly smile that would haunt me for many nights to come. They never shouted, these ones. Their pain was the silent type, the ones that He felt the most, the deeper, darker pains with silent screams locked into them. Her eyes moved to the end of the room, to a bed next to the boy on the floor. Something lay there. He walked over, I followed eventhough everything in me said to stay. When he pulled back the covers, the little boy began to cry, a small whiny sound, helpless, thin and annoying. On the bed lay another child, this one younger than the boy. He was brown....all over. The only thing that said he was human was the way he was lying. He covered the boy up. I looked into his face hoping to see something, understand what he was feeling. But his face never changed. "So you see you are late" said the woman. Her anger lashed around the room then died quickly as if that was all the energy she had left in her. He turned to the woman, bent down and cupped his hand, then rose, put the hand to his ear and finally put something unseen into the pocket of his long coat. "He is not the one I came for" he said.