The Unseen Traveller

The Unseen Traveller

As the first light of dawn broke, he was awake. As the first bird started to sing, he was up. At the first signs of movement from the household, he was gone. No-one noticed his passing just as much as no-one noticed his arrival. He came and he went without so much as a passing glance from any of the inhabitants in the castle. It had happened before, it was always happening, he was used to it. It just bothered him sometimes, the fact that he posed no source of interest to anyone, anywhere he went.

         It had all started when he was a baby, born into servitude of the lowest kind, a family of maids and under-butlers, a family where, usually, you were accepted and incorporated into the trade, and lived a life much the same as the people before you. He, however, was different. There was something about him that made people look away, even when he was just a child. His parents tried to get used to it, and told themselves that this strangeness would pass before he came of age, but when it hadn’t, on his fourteenth birthday when people still avoided his gaze, they gave him away. This wasn’t an unusual thing in this part of the world, if there was anything wrong with a child when he or she came of age, such as weakness or deformity, they were given away to the next passing band of travellers, no hard feelings, just passing them on to someone who may be able to do something with the child.

         But even he, given unto the most wild-eyed and diverse group around, had no hope. He was put to one side, left to his own devices, and was finally passed on to another group of travellers. It was when he was sixteen that he decided that it was best for him to leave. By now he had realised that people just weren’t going to notice him. Instead of going through the intense awkwardness of yet another new bunch of people who yet again didn’t seem to see him, he felt that he had better try his luck on his own. See if he could get anywhere of his own accord, rely on his own skills to get him opportunities and acceptance, to see if he could belong, rather than be passed on as useless excess.

         This is how he found himself leaving the castle. This was his fourth place of residence after the last group of travellers, and it was getting worse every time. Now, people seemed to put so much effort into not looking at him that they didn’t even notice him in the first place. It was as if the world was building a resistance to his presence. Even when he tried to make contact with other people, they seemed to go vague and forgetful, and eventually wander off, leaving him with the feeling that he had died somewhere along the line and was now a ghost.

         So he was alone, travelling unseen. And he would just have to get used to that.