The Thief

by Aine Crabtree

  Later that night, Camille heard a knock on her open door. “What do you want?” she asked, sitting on her bed, bent over her homework.

  “I’m looking for ice,” Gabriel said, sounding unsteady. “Do we have ice?”

  “Have you checked the freezer?” Camille asked with sarcasm.

  “I think I used all that...” he said.

  Camille looked up; Gabriel was standing in her doorway, glancing forlornly at a dark liquid he was swirling in a glass.

  “I had the loveliest time, catching up with an old friend,” Gabriel said. “My oldest friend in the world. You wouldn’t know her, don’t ask.”

  Camille’s eyebrows raised. “Are you drunk?”

  “Please, I used to drink a whole bottle of whiskey in one sitting,” he said, dropping into the chair by her dresser with less than his usual grace. “Granted, that’s been...” he blinked, eyes unfocused for a moment. “King’s blood, almost a decade. Alright, maybe my tolerance isn’t what it used to be.”

  Camille shook her head. Sometimes, he did not seem like a responsible adult. “You should just go to sleep, old man.”

  “No, no, no. We survived another night, we should celebrate.” Gabriel took another swig of his drink. “How about a story? I haven’t told you a story in forever. You used to love them.”

  “I used to be able to order off the kids menu,” Camille said dryly.

  “You don’t have to be a kid to order off the kids menu,” Gabriel stated loftily. “That’s where all restaurants hide their chocolate milk. You’ve got to give up this idea that you can be too old for things. Now. Once upon a time, there were seven heroes.”

  Camille groaned. “They became too proud of their gifts, an old witch cursed them, they transformed into monsters and became what they’d hunted. Pride goeth before the fall. The end.”

  “You’re no fun,” he frowned. “Alright, once upon a time, there was a man with three sons - ”

  She rolled her eyes. “He couldn’t afford to keep them, they apprenticed to three different masters, they each nearly lost their gifts to a crafty innkeeper until the youngest son won it all back. Use your opponents strengths against them. The end.”

  “Your memory is a little too good,” Gabriel complained.

  “You tell the same stories over and over,” Camille pointed out. “After a few years, the twists stop surprising you.”

  “You want a new story, is that it?”

  “If I have to sit here and listen to you slur through a fairy tale,” she said, “at least make it one I haven’t heard.” Why was he being so weird?

  He regarded her blearily. “Have it your way. Once upon a time,” he murmured, “there was a horrible, selfish man who had only ever caused problems for anyone he met. His gifts brought pain and misery for others, and he was convinced that it was the only way he could live. That it was just part of his DNA, and that the only way to be happy was to continually feed his avarice. Then one day, an angry little girl kicked him in the shins and he was forced to take her home and feed her.”

  Camille sighed. “I think I know this story.”

  “But you haven’t heard it. So shut up. The girl was a monster. She broke his valuable things he’d spent years hoarding, drew on his walls, refused to take baths, put pins in his shoes, wouldn’t speak English, insisted on eating things that smelled horrible, and the only way to calm her down was to tell her long, complicated stories. He figured this was karma, getting him back.

  “He had never spent long amounts of time with anyone, you see, much less a child. He had developed obsessions with certain people before, but obsessing is very different from truly knowing someone, living with them and learning to take the good with the bad. He had no inkling of what ‘camaraderie’ or ‘family’ really meant. But with each passing bedtime story, with every begrudging trek to a ramen shop, things changed. They changed so slowly, at such an imperceptible gradation, that he didn’t notice. They became accustomed to one another, the angry girl and the selfish man. He began to think of her less and less as a temporary nuisance, and more and more as a permanent fixture. But he didn’t fully understand the extent of the change until the day he was sent a letter.”

  He leaned back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “It was written by a powerful woman, from an even more powerful family. She demanded the girl’s presence in a faraway school. She offered him a great deal of money and priceless artifacts if he would relinquish guardianship of the girl. The man was affronted - offended - that she would assume he’d turn her over for things. But then he remembered that things were all he’d cared for in his long life; how could someone expect differently of him? He told the woman no, but unfortunately it only made her assume the girl was that much more of a prize. She began to make threats, questioning the validity of his guardianship, insinuating the man was hiding from something, making accusations the girl was too dangerous to be ‘loose’ in the world. Still he refused. He decided instead that it was time to make a new plan.”

  He took a heavy breath. “The man was selfish, first and foremost. That had not changed. What surprised him was that his system of measuring value had been upended by a scrawny orphan who tormented him with grilled mackerel for six years.”

  “I never made you eat mackerel,” Camille muttered.

  “You made everything smell like it,” he returned, grimacing as he upended the last of his drink. “Anyway, the new plan was to make the girl so incredibly badass that no matter what she encountered in the world, she would survive it. By this time the man had realized that the girl possessed a great deal of power, and he resolved that she should learn to use it better than he had with his own. He wanted to save her from what he’d decided was the worst fate - looking into the face of the person you care about the most and telling them that your entire, overly long life has been a total failure.”

  “Not a total failure, you make good melon bread.”

  That surprised a chuckle out of him. She was unaccustomed to serious Gabriel and it worried her when he lost his humor. “Ah, yes, thank you, I forgot. So the man bit the bullet, dragged her kicking and screaming to the faraway school, because if they were going to blackmail her into attendance, he was going to be there to make melon bread.” He glanced up at the clock. “And then the angry girl went to sleep, because she had class with a grumpy English teacher in the morning.”

  He rose, walking to the door, empty glass in hand.

  “Does this story have a happy ending?” Camille asked.

  He regarded her for a moment. “Ask me later,” he said, shutting the door behind him.

  Chapter 11

  Jul

  Mirror, 4pm

  Tell anyone, and you’re dead.

  That was all it said, in a neat, no-nonsense script. I’d unfolded the piece of paper Rhys had handed me several dozen times and I was still no closer to understanding his motives. Was he my enemy? He certainly didn’t seem like my friend. Did he just want to talk? Even if only that, did I really want to hear what he had to say?

  As much of a threat as he seemed to be...if it led to my mother, I did. I absolutely did.

  I gingerly stepped through the mirror’s frame, feeling the bizarre climate change from the humidity of the orchard to the chill of the stone stairwell. I climbed the steps with trepidation. I felt more like an intruder, this time. Bea was working at the library again this afternoon, so I’d had to walk home - but at least that meant I had some time to sort this out with Rhys in the Tower. Maybe he’d explain how all of this was possible.

  A bleary face appeared in a small mirror on the wall when I reached the gleaming white atrium.

  “Master Rhys awaits you in the library,” the face said, and then faded away.

  I pushed aside the curtain. The sight of all those books still took my breath away. Rhys looked up at my entrance. He was seated at a wide table, books spread out around him.

  “Hi,” I said sheepishly. “Please don’t...um...destroy me.”

&nb
sp; “I won’t,” he said.

  Tendrils of glass curled up from the floor, snaking around my legs and rooting me to the spot.

  “Yet,” Rhys amended, rising from the table.

  I twisted in my bonds, but the glass was too thick - I was trapped. My heart hammered in my chest.

  Rhys approached a few steps, but kept his distance, well out of reach. “How’d you get in, hunter?” he demanded. “Are you a hybrid?”

  “H-hybrid? What? I’m a girl, I’m just a girl, I don’t know what you’re saying!”

  “Not convincing,” he stated coldly. “You’re a Graham and you made it into my mirror, and you want to pretend that it was an accident? Do I look stupid?”

  “Yes! I mean no!” I floundered, as Rhys’s pale eyes sharpened. “I mean yes it was an accident - I was just following directions.”

  “What directions?”

  “In...in...” As I scrambled for coherence, something bizarre happened. My mind was suddenly wiped blank. Emotions pushed to one side. Indignation bubbled up inside me. I don’t have to tell him, flashed unexpectedly through my mind. Entitlement I had never felt in my life took over. The immediate certainty of ownership. “Let me go!” I snapped at him, demeanor shifting on a dime. I twisted in the binding glass. “This mirror is on my grandmother’s land. That makes it mine, not yours, you...you...mirror squatter!”

  He made a face. “Phrasing. Please don’t ever say that again.”

  “I’ll say whatever I want!” I shot back. My nerves burned, up and down my limbs, and it felt good even as it worried me. What was this place doing to me? “You want to know what I am? I am pissed off!” I shouted. There was an audible crack in the glass at my feet, but I paid it no heed. Everything was tumbling out of me, all the injustices, all the frustration. “My father abandoned me, my grandmother hates me, I’m a million miles from home, I don’t have any friends, your friends keep trying to ruin my life - this is the only good thing I’ve stumbled across in years. Years! I finally found something that might connect me to my mom and you want to take it away from me? I won’t let you!” The glass around my limbs burst apart, skittering fragments across the stone floor. They tumbled into grains of sand and lay still.

  Rhys took a few steps back, eyes wide. A narrow, analytic look quickly replaced his confusion. “I’m not taking it away,” he said gruffly.

  “You tried to trap me.” I folded my arms, still indignant but easing off the ledge. I couldn’t believe I’d exploded like that. And...exploded the glass. I think.

  “I don’t know you, I was being cautious,” he said, but I was pretty sure he was just covering his tracks. “I just want you to answer my question. What are you?”

  I sighed, deflating. “Just a normal girl.”

  “Not possible,” he said flatly. “There are only a handful of normal people in that school, and after what you just did...you’re definitely not one of them.”

  He reached inside his jacket and pulled out my mother’s journal. Instinctively I reached for it and he held it higher, giving me an icy warning look. “You carry this around,” he said, “and you expect me to believe you’re just another human?”

  “I don’t know, alright?” I blurted, everything tumbling out. “Please, I need it back, it’s all I have of hers. I only just found it, I followed the map to the mirror that got me into the Tower, I didn’t know it was yours, please just let me have the journal back!”

  He regarded me narrowly. “No.”

  My whole countenance crumpled. “It was my mother’s,” I murmured. “Please, it’s all I have of hers.”

  His expression became a bare fraction less stern. “And your mother,” he said. “What was she?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I seriously don’t know anymore.”

  “Hmph,” he said gruffly. “Well you’re either a very good liar or you’re woefully ignorant. Either is dangerous. Something like this isn’t safe with you,” he said, brandishing the journal. “Anyone could take it. No, I’m keeping it.”

  Tears welled up. What could I do? Mom, I’m sorry. I messed up.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Rhys said quickly. “I’ll keep it here, In Between.”

  “Huh?” I said, swiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

  “Or the Tower, whatever you called it,” he said. “You can come look at it here, if you follow the rules.”

  He left me no choice. I nodded. “What are the rules?”

  “You tell absolutely no one about this place, about anything here, and most of all you do not tell anyone about me and my research here. You can’t take anything outside the mirror - not a book, not a cushion, not anything - that you didn’t bring in yourself. I don’t need anything dissolving when you try to take it back into the real world.”

  “The real world?” I repeated.

  He sighed, and sat stiffly in a chair opposite me. “You really have no idea where you are, do you?”

  “I went through a mirror,” I stated.

  “And?”

  “And that’s it.” I sniffled. At least the tears had subsided. Maybe the freak mood swings were over.

  He rested his hands on the chair’s armrests, regarding me with his unnaturally pale eyes. It was like getting stared down by a glacier. I cringed under his scrutiny. I had to look like a wreck after all that. He looked just as intentionally disheveled as ever.

  “You didn’t go through a mirror,” he said at last.

  “I’m pretty sure I did.”

  His eyes relayed a rebuke. “You went in a mirror. You didn’t go through it. We’re inside the mirror.”

  “What, really?” I gaped.

  “Technically, nothing here really exists,” he stated. “Nothing but what you bring in...everything else is some kind of illusion.”

  I blinked. “So...this couch...” I ran my hands over the soft, threadbare cover.

  “Not real,” he said flatly.

  “That is insane!” I said, bouncing slightly on the fake couch, testing it out.

  Rhys rolled his eyes. “There’s no way you could fake that kind of stupidity.”

  “Excuse me?” I snapped. This guy was pushing all my buttons, and with a vengeance.

  “Listen, June - ”

  “Jul.”

  “Jul. Whatever. Look, this is all clearly way beyond your ken - ”

  “My ken?” I laughed. “Who talks like that? Beyond my ken?”

  His look soured. “Some people have vocabularies.”

  “Some people were born in the seventeenth century,” I laughed.

  He colored slightly. “Look, just because you don’t know the word - ”

  My newfound confidence rose. “Oh, I know the word. I know you’re trying to talk down to me by using words you think I don’t know. Well I’ve got news for you. Words have been my only friends for almost sixteen years, so you’re going to have a hard time coming up with a vocabulary that I find intimidating. Alright?”

  He regarded me narrowly. “You don’t act like this at school. What kind of game are you playing?”

  I ran my hands through my hair, suddenly concerned. “I - I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s like...all the voices in my head vanish. Something about this place is...” Clarity. The mirror’s interior filled me with clarity. “Do you feel um, different in here at all?”

  A conflicted look crossed his face. “Of course I do, what kind of a question is that?”

  “A question! You seem to know stuff, so help me out already! Why is my brain going haywire?”

  His mouth twisted. “This place is a sort of a dimensional fold between the two worlds on either side of the mirror. There’s our side, the Oncelands, and the other side, the Afterlands. Where we are right now is In Between. There’s not a whole lot of data on it because making a mirror like this is nearly impossible, even by a Mirrormaker, and those are already rare to begin with. This mirror was made by my uncle Soren,” he said, his chin raising. “That makes it more mine than yours, by the way. It was
lost over thirty years ago, but I found it here, in this orchard. I’d take it away with me but it won’t budge,” he said sullenly. “I think it’s spelled in place.” He gave me a sudden harsh look. “If you tell anyone it’s here you’re dead.”

  I laughed nervously. “Who would believe me?”

  “More than you’d think, in this town,” he grumbled. “The humans who run the school would give a lot to get their hands on an artifact of this magnitude. Havenwood has a long history with magic and old connections to the Afterlands - that’s probably why they chose this town as the location for the school. The Umino Corporation has a strong interest in magic, and the school figures into that. I’m just not sure how yet. All I can tell for certain is that they’ve been working hard to keep the roster full of fae and ferals - and the rare human bloodlines with the capacity for magic.” He regarded me distrust. “Like you.”

  “Fae and ferals?” I asked. “What are those?”

  “Fae are like humans, only better,” he said haughtily. “They have the power to manipulate the world around them, or the perceptions of others - abilities vary from person to person. Ferals are an inferior, animalistic species with powers that pertain to their own forms - things like strength or speed or transformation. The trick is, magic isn’t supposed to work on this side of the mirror, only in the Afterlands - but about a hundred years ago, it slowly started trickling back. It’s gotten stronger in the last two decades, and no one knows why. Only that there are children being born with powers that haven’t been seen in generations, and the Umino Corporation wants to corral them here at Havenwood.”

  “So everyone at school has...powers?” I said hesitantly.

  “No. It’s hard to tell which is which until they turn sixteen. That’s when most fae and feral abilities manifest. If you don’t gain any...that means you’re human and they find an excuse to expel you. They accept most of the local kids carte blanche at first, just because this area has a history of being settled by suspicious characters. They don’t want to miss any potentials. But let’s face it, if Hayley and Mac Dupree are anything but human, I’m a time traveling chimney sweep.” He opened a nearby book and flipped the pages to a particular passage. “But you’re a Graham, at minimum...so you’re stuck. Here,” he said, pushing the book towards me. He stood and disappeared into the stacks. I glanced after him, and then turned my attention to the book.