by K A Riley
“Hey, I just got a really good idea!” Liv said to Callum. “Do you want to come to Perks with us?”
I gasped, terrified and excited at the prospect of spending more time in his presence.
The boy with the impossibly blue eyes pulled his gaze away from me, shaking his head. “I can’t, unfortunately,” he said. “I’m in charge of looking after the shop today.”
“Too bad,” Liv replied, grabbing me by the arm and yanking me toward the door. “Well, I suppose we’ll see you tonight, then?”
“Tonight,” he replied. “I’m looking forward to it.”
I gave him a feeble wave goodbye, which he returned with a raised hand and a mysterious, slightly ominous smile.
Coffee Talk
When we stepped outside, Liv let out a squeal, grabbed my arm, and squeezed hard.
“Ow!” I said. “What was that for?”
“Did you see how he was staring at you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She let go and crossed her arms in an irritated pout. “Are you kidding me right now? Callum didn’t take his eyes off you the whole time we were in there.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” I shrugged.
“Well, that’s total B.S. Anyone sane would feel those eyes on her, even if you weren’t looking—which you totally were, by the way. Come on, Vega. He’s so into you. You should ask him out.”
“Or—and hear me out on this—I could not ask him out.”
Liv rolled her eyes so hard I was sure she spotted her brain. “You’re so frustrating!” she yelled as a couple of joggers dodged their way around us. “You two have so much in common.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What exactly do we have in common? We’re both bi-pedal carbon-based forms of life?”
“He likes books. You like books.”
“Half the universe likes books.”
“He looks like a Greek god sculpted out of marble, and you’re super-pretty, in spite of the fact that you insist on wearing those awful hoodies and hiding your amazing hair all the time.”
Shrugging off her backwards compliments, I said, “I have nothing to talk to him about.”
“You could tell him about your trips to England.”
“I hardly think he wants to hear about some stupid American high school student hopping across the pond and being a tourist in his native land.”
“Fine.” Liv threw her arms up, clearly exasperated. “Then just make out with him and then tell me if he’s a good kisser.”
“Ugh. Tell me, do your hormones have an off-switch?”
“Not that I’ve found.”
I turned and began walking toward the coffee shop down the street. “And now we come to the actual point,” I laughed.
“Come on!” Liv whined. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I probably never will, unless your brother finally asks me out. Until then I need to live vicariously through you.”
“Then you’ll have to live vicariously through a boring single person, because no way am I asking that guy out. If you’re so hot for him, why don’t you make a move?”
“Because he’s perfect for you! What kind of wingman would I be if I snatched up your Mr. Right?”
“Wingwoman.”
“What?”
“You’d be my wingwoman, not my wingman.”
“Either way, I promise to be by your side and protecting your flank when you spread your wings and swoop in for the kill.”
“I’m not sure what’s more Liv-esque. Your tireless persistence or your unbelievably mixed metaphors.”
“We can figure that out when I go to make my Maid of Honor toast at your wedding.”
“Slow down, Wingwoman. I have a strict rule about not marrying anybody on my seventeenth birthday.”
Liv let out a hearty laugh accompanied by an equally powerful hug right in the middle of the sidewalk, which ended with me laughing along with her until we were both teary-eyed and choking for air.
I might have considered her attempted set-up if not for the fact that Callum was intimidatingly handsome. I could barely look him in the eye. But it wasn’t just that, either. There was something else—the disconcerting feeling he could see right through me. I wasn’t sure if it was his confidence or the way he carried himself. Or the weird feeling I got that he had somehow packed a century’s worth of living into his seventeen years.
“If you don’t ask him out, that evil wench Miranda will,” Liv said as we headed down the street toward the coffee shop. I cringed at the name of the notorious ringleader of a clique of Plymouth High girls Liv and I referred to as the Charmers. They were mean-spirited, perfectly-manicured Pit bulls who loved nothing more than taking other girls down a notch, and Liv and I were among their favorite targets. I stood up to them when I was up for it. Most of the time, it was just too exhausting to deal with them, so I tended to let them have their bullying fun and play their immature little mind games while I went on about my business, got better grades, and went to bed at night secure in the knowledge that one day I’d be happy and successful and they’d be miserably struggling to justify their wealthy husbands’ infidelities.
“Let Miranda do what she wants,” I told Liv. “Besides, if Callum wants to date a girl like her, he’d never be interested in someone like me. Now, how about if we get on to the more pressing project of getting some caffeine into you?”
“Deal.”
As we made our way toward the end of the block, Liv leaned in close and whispered, “Great. Charlie’s out front of Perks.” She gestured toward the homeless man in a tattered grey coat who was sitting on the sidewalk out front of the café, a large German Shepherd by his side. “I suppose you’ll want to say ‘Hi’ to him.”
I nodded. “Sure. Why not? I don’t base my civility on how much money someone has in their bank account.”
“I never understand why he stays in Fairhaven,” she said. “No one except for you ever gives him money. He’d make a lot more in a big city.” The moment she’d spoken, she shot me a remorseful sideways glance and added, “Not that I mind him being here.”
“Maybe he likes this town because it’s pretty,” I replied. “Who knows? He must do okay. It’s not like he and Rufus are starving.”
“That’s because you’re always giving them food, Saint Vega.”
She was right. I’d always made a point of greeting Charlie and Rufus as I passed by, and on days when I could, I’d always given them a little something to eat or drink. I supposed I felt like I could relate to both of them. Like me, they didn’t entirely fit into society, at least not on society’s terms. They were outcasts who lived on the periphery, watching the world pass them by as if they were invisible. It was a position I could relate to all too well.
As we approached, I could hear Charlie humming some unidentifiable tune. His voice was low and gravelly, and the sound wasn’t exactly pretty, but for some reason it still made me smile.
“Hey, Charlie,” I said as Liv and I stepped up to front doors of the café. “Want a coffee?”
“You’ve gotta buy it,” he said curtly, turning one of his empty pants pockets inside out. “I got no money.”
“Fair enough. I’ll buy this time,” I said with a wink. “But the next one’s on you.”
He smiled his broken, yellow-toothed smile and said, “Deal.”
I considered mentioning it was my birthday and I’d do it as a gift to myself, but I didn’t want to attract any extra attention. The truth was, though I was way too embarrassed to ever admit it to Liv, I was still trembling from my encounter with Callum. “Wait here.”
“Where else do ya think I’d go?” Charlie asked with a shrug.
When I ducked into the coffee shop, I ordered a large with cream and sugar and a chocolate donut, while Liv asked for some sort of fancy, frothy, whipped cream, cinnamon mocha concoction that was sounded more complicated than any equation I’d learned in algebra class. As I sidled up next to her, a long line of customers began to gather behind
us.
“Must be the late-morning crowd,” I said as I grabbed my order. “I’m going to bring this to Charlie. I’ll meet you outside.”
“You don’t want something?” Liv asked. “I’ll buy! It’s the least I can do, considering I didn’t get you a real gift, other than the hottie in the bookstore.”
“I’m good,” I said. “But thanks.”
When I’d squeezed through the growing group of customers and out the front door, I handed the coffee and donut to Charlie, who took them with a nod and a grunt, before turning away as if to let me know he was in no mood for further conversation. I stepped away, giving him space, only to see Liv skip back outside, an enormous whipped-cream-topped beverage in hand.
“What do you want to do now?” she asked with a grin. “We could hang out in the park. You can check out your new book while I watch the cute boys passing by.”
“Actually, that sounds like an excellent plan.”
Without a second’s hesitation, we turned to head over to the nearby crosswalk.
But we’d only gone about five feet down the sidewalk when a deep, echoing voice from behind us stopped me in my tracks.
“Vega Sloane,” the eerie voice rumbled. “I have a gift for you.”
The Gift
The way the words vibrated through the air sent a shiver down my spine.
The voice wasn’t Charlie’s. It couldn’t be.
And yet it had to be. I could feel in the marrow of my bones that the words had somehow emerged from his mouth.
I turned to Liv, who was standing frozen next to me, her eyes focused on something in the distance. She looked as though she was too freaked out to move, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. I twisted around to see Charlie standing in the middle of the sidewalk, his eyes locked on mine. Rufus was alert at his side, his ears pricked up, tail tucked between his legs. But something was…off.
“What the…?” I gasped. “What happened to you?”
Charlie’s normally dull, dark brown eyes had turned gold, his irises flickering as bright as the scales on a goldfish. Rufus’ eyes, too, had changed to a fiery shade of yellowish-orange.
I slammed my eyes shut, trying to will away the impossibility of it all. But when I opened them again, the man and his dog were still standing in front of me, glowing eyes still firmly locked on my own. I glanced around, hoping to see pedestrians stopping and staring at the two odd creatures. I needed someone to confirm that I wasn’t losing my mind.
But aside from my best friend, the street was eerily empty.
I reached out for Liv, whose eyes were still fixed, unblinking, on something in the distance.
“Hey,” I whispered, squeezing her forearm. “Turn around. You need to see this.”
But she didn’t react. Didn’t move. Didn’t seem to hear me at all. I poked her with my finger, but her shoulder felt hard and unyielding. She didn’t so much as flinch, let alone answer me.
It was then I realized the rest of the world had come to a stop, too. The cars on the street had gone stone still. The leaves of the fluttering, summer trees had frozen in mid-rustle.
Not a single bird was flying through the air or chirping in the treetops. The crisp breeze that had been whistling around all morning had gone eerily mute. No one was walking along the sidewalk, and none of the usual cars was cruising by, despite the fact we were standing on Fairhaven’s busiest street at one of its busiest times of day.
“What’s going on?” I asked, turning back to face Charlie, who was still staring at me, his chest heaving with effort.
“I have something for you,” he said, his breathing choked off and labored like he was trying to talk underwater. “On your seventeenth birthday.”
“Forget my birthday,” I nearly shouted, making a sweeping gesture at the frozen-in-time scene around us. “Everything just stopped!”
“We haven’t,” he gurgled. “As for you, you’re just getting ready to start.”
“Wait—how did you even know it’s my birthday?”
Instead of replying, he raised his left arm and held something out in his palm. A small red box, no bigger than a deck of playing cards. A silver ribbon was tied neatly around it, shining bright in the sunlight.
I looked down at Rufus, searching his face for a sign. His tail flicked back and forth in what seemed like some kind of canine encouragement, his tongue dangling out in a friendly pant. His eyes were still a few fiery shades of gold, but otherwise he was behaving like a relatively normal dog.
“Okay, buddy,” I said. “But I’m holding you responsible if something horrible happens to me.”
Rufus let out a loud bark.
I inched forward and took the elegant little package from Charlie’s outstretched hand. “What is this?”
But when I pulled my eyes up to Charlie’s again, the odd glow had left his irises. He was shaking his head, like he couldn’t figure out where he was or what was happening.
“What?” he growled in his usual low rumble. “What’d you say?”
“I was asking…what…this…”
As I spoke, the world started up again, as if someone had turned an ignition key and coaxed it to life. To my right, a car whizzed by. Behind Charlie, the café’s door opened, and a woman came striding out, excusing herself impatiently while he backed out of her way, pulling Rufus with him. I looked down to see that the dog’s eyes had also reverted to their usual dark brown. Now ignoring me, the pair plopped themselves back down in their usual spot, with Charlie muttering something unintelligible as he picked up the coffee I’d bought him and took a long swig.
“Vega!” Liv called out from up ahead on the sidewalk. “What’s the hold-up?”
“Sorry,” I said, forcing the tremor out of my voice. “I…thought I dropped something back here.”
Shoving the red box into my bag, I turned her way. “You didn’t happen to notice anything weird just now, did you?”
“Besides you pretending not to be into Callum and then buying a coffee and a donut for a guy you hardly know and his dog? No. Nothing weird about any of that at all.”
Just as Liv shot me a skeptical look, a Bleep-Bloop! sound erupted from inside her jacket pocket. “Oh, crapola!” she said, pulling her phone out and reading the message on its screen. “I forgot I have a dentist’s appointment at eleven. My mom’s wondering where I am.” She stared at the screen for a second before looking up again. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on the park. I’m so sorry!”
“It’s fine,” I replied with a withering smile. “Totally fine.” I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my mind, but other than that, no worries.
She pulled me in for a quick, one-armed birthday hug. “Have a great day,” she said before dashing in the direction of home, her icy mocha monstrosity still in hand.
Reaching into my satchel to make sure I hadn’t imagined Charlie’s gift, I jogged across the street to Norfolk Commons and slipped through the large wrought iron gate. I headed for the first unoccupied park bench I saw, all the while trying to calm my racing heart. Drawing my hood up over my head, I plopped down, pulled the package out of my bag, and set it down in my lap.
“Should I open you?” I asked, perfectly aware of how idiotic it was to ask an inanimate object such a question. Or any question, for that matter. After staring at it for several seconds to reassure myself it wasn’t going to explode, I picked it up, held it to my ear, and shook it.
I couldn’t hear anything.
Holding my breath, I tugged at the end of the silver bow holding the box shut, and the glittering fabric slipped loose in my hand. I put my fingers on the box’s lid and lifted it open, wincing as I did. Charlie was a nice guy and all, but a sudden thought flashed through my mind that the gift could easily be a dead mouse or something equally repulsive Rufus had found behind a dumpster.
I swear, Charlie. If this is gift-wrapped doggie poop, I’m going to dump the next cup of coffee I buy for you on your head.
Inside the box, though, was a
delicate golden cloth, wrapped around an object. The cloth itself was exquisitely beautiful, as though it was spun from the finest gold thread.
“Wow,” I gasped, stunned at its opulence.
I picked up a corner of the delicate fabric between my fingers and lifted it, peering underneath. It was then that the strangest item met my eyes: a silver key so ornate that at first, I didn’t recognize what it was.
Its head was shaped like a vicious, fire-breathing dragon. Just below that was a dark red gem, surrounded by what appeared to be a frame of small diamonds.
I stared in wonder at the trinket. I’d never seen anything like it. The piece was intriguing, like something a medieval magician might have worn on a long chain around his neck while concocting spells or zapping lightning bolts at the king’s enemies or whatever it was those guys used to do.
Picking up the key, for the first time I felt its substantial weight in my hands. For some reason, it seemed heavier than the package had. I slid a finger over the gems, trying to determine if they were real. “No, of course they’re not,” I chuckled to myself. “A homeless guy wouldn’t be likely to go handing teenagers precious gems. If they were real, the key would have to be worth thousands of dollars…and I don’t think Charlie’s exactly wealthy.”
So where had it come from, exactly? Was it some carnival prize? A novelty paperweight from the office supply store over on Victoria?
For a moment I contemplated going back to ask Charlie who’d put him up to this stunt. Was it something my brother Will had set up? It had to be some sort of elaborate hoax. But why would he give me a key, especially one like this? Maybe it was a skeleton key, the sort that would open an ancient treasure chest or some forbidden room in a gothic mansion.
As I was trying to figure out what to do, I noticed a piece of paper tucked inside the box, under the bottom fold of the gold cloth. My fingers shaking, I reached in and drew it out.
The handwriting was elegant, the words written in a scrolling calligraphy. I had no idea who could possibly have managed to write so tidily on such a small scrap of paper. Then again, that seemed like the least of today’s mysteries.
