He looked at the silver tree. “Not here. Here, bad things just… listen.”

“I know.”

One autumn, a tinker came to town. He was a bent, clever man with a cart full of mousetraps and tin cups, and he had a gift for seeing what others missed. He watched Pretty Boy sitting alone on the church steps, tossing a pebble from hand to hand.

The tinker reached out and, very gently, wiped a tear from the boy’s chin onto his own calloused thumb. He held it up to the weak autumn sun. The tear shimmered, then hardened into a tiny, sharp seed.

When Pretty Boy Dthrip cried, things broke. Not violently, not immediately. But within a day, the boy who’d pinched him would trip over a root and snap his wrist. The man who’d called him a “pansy” would find his prize cow dead in the field, eyes wide, no cause. The girl who’d laughed and dumped her lunch tray on his head would come home to find her mother’s wedding ring had slipped down the drain.

The other boys hated him for it. They had knuckles like scabs and boots held together with wire, and here was this creature who looked like he’d been polished by moonlight. They’d corner him behind the slag heaps and hiss, “Pretty Boy. Go on, cry pretty tears, Pretty Boy.” And he would. Not because he was weak, but because his tear ducts were, annoyingly, just as photogenic as the rest of him. Each teardrop rolled down his cheek like a tiny diamond.