Eight-year-old Max looked about the kitchen, hands in pockets, struggling to maintain a bored expression. If he were to show how he truly felt, his jaw would be hanging open and his eyes would pop from their sockets. No child at the orphanage dreamed a place such as this existed. They'd never believe him if he told of the rows and rows of gleaming pans hanging from shiny hooks or the stoves, each one larger than the entire kitchen they passed through every day.

"You are so bored, eh?" The chef teased him. "Look at this, then." He opened a door to a queer cabinet where the inside air was as cool as a winter day, despite the sweltering heat of the kitchen.

"Is it magic?" Max forgot to be nonchalant.

"Yes. And magic is far from free so you are not to touch it unless I expressly order you to. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

The chef narrowed his eyes. "That goes for everything in this room. I hired you away from that woman and I will pay your room and board. I expect a decent return on my investment. If I catch you stealing from me, you'll wish you were still scrubbing floors for nuns."

"I won't steal from you," Max told him.

The man removed his hat and coat and exchanged them for a long white apron. "The sisters told me as much. It is why you were chosen. So, welcome to the restaurant business, Max." He produced a large handful of fresh herbs from a basket and carried it to the counter. "I hope you like it because this is your life now."

"It's not, though."

"Oh? You plan to be prime minister, then?"

Max pushed his hair away from his eyes. "No, sir."

"Then what? Something more romantic, perhaps? A pirate, sailing the seven seas?"

"I don't know," Max said. "This seems fine for now." For now, he thought, but not forever. There is something else I'm supposed to do. I'm sure of it. One day, it will be clear to me and I'll need to leave this place.

"Well, I'm so happy to hear that my purchased servant approves of his new post." The chef said, laying his blade against the green bundle in his hand and reducing it to slivers in a flash of motion. The earthy fragrance of parsley rose above the older smells clinging to the room. "Since you're staying for a while, go to the butcher. Make a list." He paused. "Damn, I forgot you can't read." A new bundle of parsley went under his knife. "You'll need to learn. I'll arrange a teacher for you in the mornings, before work."

Neither the immense size of the kitchen nor even the magic of the cold cabinet held the wonder of this proclamation. To learn to read! The nuns had read to them from enormous books with black leather covers. Stories of Noah and his Ark, Moses, calling the plagues on Egypt, Jesus, walking on water. He always wondered what other stories those pages held. He would learn to read and he would find out for himself.

"...listening to me, boy?" The chef's voice broke through his dreams.

"Yes, sir."

"Mmmm," the chef mumbled, scooping the chopped parsley into a large bowl. "Well, just in case you didn't hear me, I told you to go to the butcher. Ask him for the usual Monday order. He'll not need paying now. I settle with him at the end of the week. And don't get sidetracked. We've work to do before dinner and already a late start."

"Yes, sir."

"And don't fall into the habit of making me repeat myself. There's no time for that in a place like this. Here, we do real work for real people. We don't just wander around praying and thinking holy thoughts."

"Yes, sir."

The chef made a shooing gesture with the gleaming knife. "Well, go on then. Be quick about it!"

Max hustled out the back door into an alleyway where the smell of rot and human waste hung heavy in the air. Holding his breath against the stench, he jogged toward the main street. He stopped at the edge of the road, realizing he'd forgotten something very important--directions. Having never been to this part of the city, he no more knew where the butcher was than he knew the name of the street he stood on.

"You look lost, mate."

Max turned. The man leaned against a brick wall smoking a cigarette and watching the world go by. He wore the striped trousers, long black great coat, and towering top hat of a gentleman, but the clothes were tattered and shabby as though he'd come by them second hand. Thick dust coated his boots. Everything about his appearance spoke of him being a scoundrel but there was something else--something just beneath the surface that drew Max the way a warm ray of sun drew a boy on a cool day.

"I need to find the butcher," Max said. If this rapscallion could point him in the right direction, chef need not be bothered by Max's stupidity.

The man smiled a lopsided grin and took a long drag on his cigarette. "You'll be lost for sure in this maze. I'll walk with you."

"I have no money for you to steal," Max told him.

The man threw his head back and laughed the most fantastically genuine laugh Max had ever heard. "I'm not going to steal from you, Max."

Max took a step back toward the alleyway. "How do you know my name?"

The man winked. "I'm a little psychic." He tossed the cigarette in the gutter. "Come on, I imagine your master wants you to be quick."

Max glanced over his shoulder. He was desperate to make a good impression with his new employer. That desire won out over his misgivings regarding the stranger.

They wove through the crowded streets, careful to avoid piles of horse dung on one side and trash dumped out of apartment windows on the other. A left turn at the tall green post, a right into the alleyway just past the apothecary. Max watched for details, knowing he'd be expected to make this trip again tomorrow.

They passed a building with loud music of a kind Max had never heard in the convent rising up from open doors and windows. Girls in dresses that showed off their ankles and bare shoulders and the smooth white tops of their full bosoms laughed and shouted out to them.

"Daniel!"

"We miss you!"

"When will you come again, my angel?"

The shabby man raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "There is only one of me," he shouted in reply. "I cannot satisfy every woman in Paris."

"That's not what I hear!" A dark-haired beauty called back and they all dissolved into laughter.

The man shook his head and laughed. He prodded Max in the ribs. "Girls, mate. Fabulous, greedy little wonderments, am I right?"

Max shrugged. He'd spent the entirety of his eight years in the company of nuns and little girls in pigtails. The females of his experience were as different from those exotic creatures giggling and smoking, surrounded by music and laughter, as peacocks were different from little brown sparrows.

"The butcher," the man announced.

Max realized they stood in front of a little shop with whitewashed walls and a large glass window. He hadn't paid much attention to his surroundings in the past block or so, but he didn't think they'd turned any corners. "Thanks. I'll find my own way."

"Tryin' to brush me off, are you?"

Truth be told, Max worried the man would steal the chef's meat, but saying as much seemed rude after he'd offered his help.

"I'll not rob from you, Max." He rolled his eyes. "Childhood."

Max bristled at being called a child when he'd just that day been hired to do an apprentice's work--a young man's work, but he didn't have time to waste arguing so he ducked inside and told the butcher what he needed. When he emerged, the man was gone.

Laden with his basketful of meat, Max jogged back toward his new home, offering thanks to God when the restaurant came into view and he could be certain he wasn't lost in the maze of city streets.

The man was leaning on the wall smoking again. A young woman called to him from a carriage. He grinned his lopsided grin and tipped his hat at her.

Had he run to get there before Max?

Or had Max taken longer than he realized in the shop? Worried about the chef's anger, he ducked between two wagons, crossing the street with unsafe carelessness.

The man raised a brow at him. "Watcher there, Max. Wouldn't do at all to get trampled by a horse."

Max forced a little smile for the stranger. "Thank you for your help today."

"You really want to thank me, feel free to bring a plate out with you next time. I'll not say no to some Soupe à l'oignon or a fine or Confit de canard."

Max said nothing, but the next day he carried a little bundle of bread and cheese with him when he was sent on errands.

The man was there, leaning on the wall and watching the people. Max thought it would be a boring way to spend the day but the man appeared enraptured with the river of human activity before him. He took the bread and cheese and offered Max a cigarette in return which Max, of course, declined, having been taught by the nuns that such things could lead him toward a slippery slope that would end in his destruction.

Perhaps I should pray for this new friend, he thought as he walked. A moment later he realized he'd thought of Daniel as his friend and a smile came to his lips. In all his life he'd never really had a friend before. "Thank you, Holy Mother," he whispered. "I'm glad you sent me a friend who's not too boring. This one is funny. I like him."

After that, running errands became his favorite part of the day and, as the chef taught him to cook foods from every part of the world, Max brought his culinary experiments out for Daniel to try. Each and every one met with hearty approval.

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A bit of a time-hop in this chapter! What did you think about the glimpse into Max's past... or... one of his pasts, at least?