The Thief

by Aine Crabtree

  I want to run and get help, but I don’t want to leave my mom in the clutches of a crazy magic arsonist, no matter if they’re old college buddies. And besides, who would I get help from? Who would know what to do with this person?

  Realization sparks in the back of my head. Ms. Bea. She’d known immediately what to do at the library. She practically keeps the imp as a pet. Maybe she can help. But that still leaves my mom alone with pyro lady. I look up at Destin. In a near telepathic exchange, I can tell he’s already had the same idea.

  “Did you forget that thing at the library?” I ask him.

  “Yeah,” he says. Ms. Bea wouldn’t be working right now - she’d be at home. But Meredith will probably assume we’re making up code for bringing her the Wolf. I hope.

  “You should go get that,” I say. “I’ll wait here.”

  “Are you sure?” Destin asks.

  “Well, it’s my house,” I say. I hope it’s vague enough not to alert my mom something’s up.

  Destin seems to understand. He nods, saying “I’ll be right back,” and with a glance at my mom obliviously conversing with our blackmailer, he leaves through the front door. He cares about my mom too, I understand that. She had pretty much filled in after his mom had left when he was eight. It was up to us now to keep her safe.

  “Mac, was it?” Meredith calls from the living room, already making herself at home. “Why don’t you fetch your mum and I a drink? Surely you carry the good stuff, darling?” she queries my mom.

  Mom laughs. “It’s a bit early for that, isn’t it?”

  “So you do have the good stuff! Any drinking pal o’ mine would,” Meredith declares. “Bring it forth!”

  “Oh, alright,” my mother relents, blushing. “But only because it’s a special occasion.” She gets up and goes to the kitchen.

  I cross the living room slowly and sit in the chair furthest from where Meredith is sprawled across the couch, scuffed boots propped up on the coffee table.

  “You can’t hold my mom hostage,” I say lowly.

  “It seems to be working pretty well,” she leers at me. “Relax, munchkin, once I get my Wolf I’ll be out of your hair. Scout’s honor. Your better half had best be bringing it.”

  “He is,” I say.

  “Excellent. Then we all get to stay civil and life will go on. I’ll forget I ever saw your miniscule face and leave Havenwood forever. Maybe. Probably. Well, that I can’t promise.”

  My mom comes back in with a tray, two glasses, and a crystal bottle of something dark.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Meredith exclaims happily. “Well done, McAbbey. What shall we drink to?”

  “To old friends?” my mother smiles.

  “To old friends,” Meredith agrees, holding her drink aloft, “and finding lost things.” She spares a little grin at me, and downs her drink.

  Destin, run fast.

  Camille

  Bea sat across the kitchen table from Camille, regarding her seriously. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “You said Gabriel came to Havenwood before,” Camille said. “Tell me.”

  “Twice, in my remembrance. The first time was just before the lumbermill burned. He had been discreet then, not making much of an impression, and in truth I barely noticed him until he returned sixteen years later. He made quite the spectacle then - he was doing research on the area, he said, looking for a good site for an exclusive private school. On behalf of the Uminos.”

  Camille had thought she was prepared for a surprise, but her jaw dropped. “Working for Umino?”

  “We were a poor southern town, and he came in waving money and the prospect of a prestigious institution,” Bea said. “People’s heads were turned. It was exactly the sort of thing local government drools over. He wanted my orchard,” Bea said, grimly. “Offered me ridiculous sums of money. I distrusted his interest and refused to sell family land. We’ve lived here since we crossed the mirror and changed our name, after all. I wasn’t giving it up to some foreigner. In the end, he settled for the closest thing to it. The MacAlisters sold the Umino Corporation the plot of land where the school sits now, and made a mint off it.”

  “But why?” Camille asked. “What do the Uminos want?”

  “I just don’t know,” Bea admitted. “I’d never heard of them before they came to Havenwood. It’s clear they have an interest in the area - and in bringing fae and ferals here - but I just can’t fathom their purpose. I wasn’t planning on giving them Juliet, but when I saw her...I was just too afraid...”

  Afraid? Of Jul?

  There was a loud pounding on the door. “Ms. Bea! Ms. Bea!” someone shouted.

  She hurried to the door, and there stood Destin, breathing heavily and sweating like he’d run a mile. “The tattoo lady,” he gasped. “She’s at Mac’s house.”

  “No,” she said, paling, and snatched up her keys.

  Destin explained what had transpired as Bea drove them to Mac’s house. Her hands on the steering wheel were tense.

  “That idiot,” Bea moaned. “What does he think he can do? He’s as helpless as Abbey.”

  “He sent me to you,” Destin reminded her.

  Her mouth set in a grim line, Bea acknowledged, “I suppose. This is a bigger problem than you know. Meredith hasn’t been to Havenwood in sixteen years, and she won’t remember a minute of it. If we knew who her target was, where the Wolf is, we could start to plan - ”

  “Um,” Camille said. “Well...”

  Bea glanced at her expression in the rear view mirror, horror dawning. She swore. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  “You?” Destin exclaimed, leaning away from her involuntarily. A feather escaped his collar and floated to the seat between them.

  “Perfect,” Bea grumbled.

  She pulled the car into the driveway of a large, attractive two-story brick house with an expansive, carefully groomed yard. “You two stay in the car,” she insisted. “Destin, if anything happens - ” she handed him the keys. “You drive to the school, you get to John Tailor and you tell him - ”

  Just then, the front door opened and Mac ran down the steps to meet them. “Come on!” he said excitedly. “It’s ok, I think, but we’re going to need a hand...”

  Swiftly, Bea exited the car and followed him into the house. Destin and Camille shared a look and went in after them.

  Inside the house, a grungy woman dressed in leather was passed out on an expensive-looking rug, clutching an empty whisky glass.

  A short blonde woman - Camille assumed this was Mac’s mother - stood over her. Seeing them enter, she folded her arms and smiled slightly at Bea’s look of shock. “And you said an acting degree was a waste of my time.”

  Bea shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. “I take it back, Abbey, I take it all back. What did you do?”

  Mrs. Dupree picked up a crystal decanter half-full of dark liquid. “I keep a bottle for special occasions. Even immortals aren’t immune to knockout drops. She might have forgotten the last time she came to town, but I haven’t.” She made a rude sound. “London. I wish I studied in London.”

  “She is not going to be happy when she wakes up,” Bea said grimly.

  “Please tell me you have a contingency plan, here,” Mrs. Dupree said. She curled an arm each around Mac and Destin and gave them a hug. “That was very clever of you, boys, but remind me to give you a lecture later about talking to strangers.”

  Mac looked at his mother in awe. “You’re kind of a genius,” Mac said, like the thought had never occurred to him.

  “Well, I wasn’t exactly planning on finding the Ender passed out on your floor, dear,” Bea said. “That’s hard to plan for. But there is a way to contain her for awhile...help me get her into the car.”

  Mrs. Dupree gawked. “What?”

  “Do as I say, girl, before she wakes up,” Bea snapped. “Do you want to get it right this time?”

  Mrs. Dupree’s face pulled harsh. “Yes ma’am,” she said. “Ye
s ma’am I do.”

  Mac

  We had to wear oven mitts to drag her out of my house, into Ms. Bea’s car, and then into her house. Destin and I had a hard time maneuvering her in and out of the car, but we managed. I just hope Bea actually has a way to contain her, like she claims. Meredith could wake up any minute and I’m seriously doubting she’ll just laugh off the whole drugged-and-kidnapped thing.

  Inexplicably, Bea directs us to drag her into the room with all the teacups.

  “What, is china her kryptonite?” I say, exasperated.

  Bea gives me a withering look and reaches into one of the three bookcases against one wall of the room, twisting a bookend in the shape of a chesspiece. With a rumble, the bookcase recedes into the wall, revealing a set of stairs leading down, and a computer monitor hidden in an alcove.

  “Got one more set of stairs in you?” Bea asks, coolly. “We’re running out of time.”

  Wiping the astonishment from our faces, Destin and I haul the unconscious immortal down the stone steps, cool, dry air rising up to meet us. Bea stops Camille at the top step, a hand out. “Stay here,” she tells her. “Keep an eye on the monitor for me.”

  It’s clear that Camille doesn’t think the monitor needs watching any more than I do, but she almost looks grateful. She had sat as far away from the Ender in the car as she could...she had followed at a distance into the house. I had wondered before if Camille was afraid of anything - and it turns out it’s a five and a half foot alcoholic furnace.

  Bea flicks a lightswitch at the base of the stairs, revealing a stone door. She punches a code into a keypad in the wall and it swings open.

  “This is some fancy spy stuff, Ms. Bea,” I comment.

  “My other car is an Aston Martin,” she says.

  I perk up. “Really?”

  “No,” she says flatly, as we enter the basement.

  Every bit of the room is made of stone. The floor, the ceiling, the walls - even the inside of the door is lined with thick granite. In the center of the room stands a cage, about twenty feet square, also made of granite, with thick stone pillars in place of bars. Unless Meredith has super strength I don’t see a way she’s getting out of this.

  “She doesn’t have super strength, does she?” I ask.

  “Last I checked, no,” Bea says. “She may be indestructible, but she’s not Superman.”

  Destin looks behind us nervously. “She doesn’t have any friends with super strength, I hope?”

  “She doesn’t have any friends,” Bea says, holding the cage door open.

  We lay the disheveled, leather-clad woman in the center and exit. I for one am glad to be able to take off the oven mitts. I’m sweating from prolonged nearness to her extreme body heat. Bea shuts the cage and twists the stone lock.

  “Get upstairs,” Bea tells us. “She’s fixated on you, if she sees you it’ll only agitate her. I want to see how much she knows.”

  Meredith stirs slightly, and that’s all the prompting I need. Destin and I hurry back up the stairs, joining Camille at the computer monitor in the tearoom. It shows a clear view of the cage, with sound. There must be a camera planted in a corner of the stone room. I sure hope Ms. Bea knows what she’s doing.

  “Why didn’t you say you were the Wolf?” Destin asks Camille quietly.

  “I didn’t know,” she replies, “until yesterday.”

  My jaw drops. “Seriously? It was you the whole time?”

  The Ender groans, and our attention is recaptured by the image of her pushing herself up on her hands unsteadily. “Ugh, I feel like I’ve been trampled by the post. McAbbey, have we got any more?”

  If she didn’t remember anything, why was she calling my mom by that ridiculous nickname?

  “I’m afraid you’re enjoying a different sort of hospitality now,” Bea says, entering the room but staying a healthy distance from the stone cage.

  Meredith glances up at her blearily through her tangled hair. “Holy hell, you got old. Wait, who are you?” She coughs, sitting back against the granite bars. “Forget it, I don’t care. Just give me a minute and I’ll burn this place to the ground.” She coughs again. “Heh, she wasn’t kidding, that was the good stuff.”

  “We’re underground with two stories above that,” Bea states. “Setting anything on fire would bury you under fifty feet of rubble, trapped in a stone cage.”

  Meredith seems to notice the cage for the first time. “Stone? That’s clever. Have I terrorized you before? Wait, don’t answer that.”

  “The first time you came to Havenwood was in nineteen - ”

  “I SAID DON’T ANSWER THAT,” Meredith roars, throwing herself at the bars. Sparks spit around her.

  Bea is stock still, watching her cautiously.

  “It might take me awhile, but I can torch my way out of this,” she growls. “Everything burns eventually, even stone. Your fifty feet of rubble would be an inconvenience for me, nothing more. I am the definition of resilience. Look it up in the dictionary. Resilience. Noun. Meredith. When are you people going to learn that putting obstructions between me and you only hurts you?”

  “Why are you here? There’s nothing to interest you in Havenwood.”

  “You, grandma, are lying,” Meredith states. “The Wolf is here, I can feel it, it’s just so bloody foggy in your air. I have to find it and I have to destroy it. It’s my thing, it’s what I do. I’ll tell you the same thing I told the Hardy boys, the sooner you give it to me, the sooner I’ll get out of your hair. And you can go back to being old and boring and I can go back to the pub. Everyone wins.”

  “And what if I keep you here forever?”

  “I just told you...everything...melts,” Meredith says, smoke rising from her fingers around the bars.

  “I’ve lost two to you,” Bea said. “I won’t lose another.” She turned her back on the cage and walked to the door.

  “You think it’s cute now!” Meredith shouted after her. “In another couple of months it’s going to start murdering people and you will beg me to end it!”

  “I don’t follow zealots,” Bea said. “Not anymore.” She punched the keypad and the heavy stone door sealed behind her. She came back up the stairs into the tearoom.

  Destin, Camille, and I are waiting by the computer panel. She gives us a hard, considering look.

  “You need to get to school,” she says.

  “And just leave her here?” I say. The monitor already shows a firestorm brewing around Meredith, swirling around the cage’s stone bars, making them glow.

  Bea follows my gaze. “Yes,” she says. “This is the most dangerous place to be right now. What we need is a Null. We need John Tailor.”

  Chapter 18

  Jul

  Camille had said she’d be back - but it looked like whatever she’d forgotten was keeping her busy. Fidgeting with the arrangement of our experiment, I hoped she’d return soon. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand here alone. I hadn’t seen Mac or Destin either, and wondered what was keeping them. Though it was possible I’d just not managed to spot them yet. The gymnasium was packed to the brim with students and their families, grouped up around winding rows of folding tables draped with standard white cloth and each showing a science project in varying stages of assembly.

  I stood back from the table to admire our handiwork. Mostly Camille’s, to be fair. The tri-fold display contained all the pertinent information about our invisible ink experiment - told as a bright, cheery comic. Camille had called the art style ‘chibi,’ which meant tiny bodies and large heads drawn overly-cute.

  “I think the glitter paint for the rainbows were the right choice,” I said to myself.

  “Well I don’t,” said an unmistakable voice of disdain. I turned - there was Rhys, arms folded over his crisp dress shirt.

  Guilt bubbled up along with indignation. My movements were stiff as I rearranged the test tubes and the pieces of paper showing the stages to and from invisibility. I could stand to be invisible right about
now.

  “I thought you wouldn’t be coming,” I said, back to him as I focused on the display.

  “I had to bring you this,” he said, and I turned to accept the folder he handed me. The paper. Right. His contribution. My eyes met his briefly as I took it, and just as quickly I looked away. He was still angry with me.

  “Thank you for bringing it,” I said, formally, and turned back to fiddling with the test tubes.

  He made a small sound of astonishment behind me. “That’s it?” he said. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

  “I’m not apologizing, if that’s what you’re looking for,” I said, focus on the table so my voice wouldn’t waver.

  “You promised me - ”

  “You blackmailed me into promising you,” I said, the fabric of my dress sighing as I turned on him, angry enough to hold his gaze now. My heels put me at eye level with him. I kept my voice low so as to not attract unwanted attention from nearby groups. “Holding my journal hostage. You act like I betrayed some trust, but how could I trust you when you’re always threatening to take things away from me?”

  That got a reaction. Off-balance, he fumbled a response. “I had to - you - you don’t know what’s at stake - ”

  “I know that if you really want to be king one day,” I said, “you won’t ever have loyalty if you rule by fear.”

  I didn’t want to make him angry like this, but also I did - I knew that he could do better, I was certain of it, and he shouldn’t think he had to resort to bullying. If no one ever made Rhys compare his situation to others, he’d never know he had options.

  “Everything alright here?” Tailor said, coming up behind me, eyes on Rhys.

  Rhys regarded Tailor narrowly, his dislike plain. “Nothing that’s your business.”

  A muscle under Tailor’s eye twitched. “Everything that happens inside these walls is my business, Ryan. The rules are the principal’s, but I’m the one who enforces them.”