The Secret Stealer

by Jess Webster

  “Of course not, of course not. I know better than to let the two of you find each other.” Sebastian chuckled, adding, “I’m quite sure the apocalypse isn’t due for two centuries at least.”

  “Do you have any documents in the house that state the address? If so, burn them. Reduce them to ashes. Leave no record of my location. I do not want to be found.”

  “Sometimes I wish you twins would get along a little better. It’s quite ludicrous, the way you fight. Normal sisters just insult each other – they don’t move to England and apprentice themselves to warring magicians.”

  “She was so selfish it was unbearable. She had to be taught a lesson.”

  “Blythe, don’t be ridiculous. Esther? Selfish?”

  “I suppose you think I am the selfish one, then.”

  “I always thought neither of you had a selfish bone in your bodies.”

  “Liar.”

  “Well, maybe just one or two – a distal phalanx here and there,” he yielded, shrugging into his deep armchair. “But Blythe, tell me, why was it you two had that falling out all those years ago?”

  “She always was the most unbearably selfish person on the face of the planet.”

  “Yes, yes, you said that. But what was the specific straw that broke the camel’s back?”

  The young woman remained silent for a few moments. “When you get right down to it, she –” she hesitated a moment more, “– well, she stole the last piece of chocolate.” (The latter was spoken very quickly and with great superiority of tone, her chin uplifted and resolute.)

  The old man was silent for a few moments, then abruptly burst into loud hoots of laughter. “You mean to say that you two made yourselves enemies over a single piece of chocolate?”

  “Obviously it was not about the chocolate,” she replied coldly. “The piece of chocolate was representative of a deeper issue. She was so self– stop laughing!” But he would not. His daughter’s cheeks flushed with indignation. “What is so funny?”

  Still laughing, he asked, “It was dark chocolate, wasn’t it?”

  After a moment she conceded that it was, as she recollected.

  “Neither of you took it. I was always sneaking pieces out of your stash. You two always thought I never knew where it was, but you were wrong.”

  “If this is true then it is hardly amusing, old man.” To her devious old father she seemed a little less sure of herself in that moment. “Anyhow,” she continued, “this is all beside the point. Go get your documents together. I want to make sure that you burn them properly.”

  “You believe me completely incompetent, Blythe?”

  “I know you too well to trust you in anything.”

  “And well you shouldn’t,” the old man replied, chuckling.

  “Well hurry up, Father, I haven’t got all day.”

  “You young people these days, always in a hurry. Why don’t you stay for tea?”

  “So you can practise stealing from women’s purses? I think not.”

  “Cruel girl,” he simpered at her, and began to leaf through a mound of paperwork upon his desk. She certainly was growing paranoid these days, he thought to himself. But then Blythe had always been the more cautious of the two. She hardly put her trust in anyone. That is, not until they had passed a series of engineered, disguised tests. He remembered the story of her second boyfriend[34], sighing reminiscently. Blythe’s regular letters from England had been an endless source of amusement to him – though this, of course, did not fully compensate for the loss of her company.

  Anyhow, he thought to himself, in the absence of his daughters he at least retained some modes of entertainment. Yet he could never seem to bring himself to be his usual vulgar self in front of his daughters. They had a certain… softening effect upon him. He wished she would stay longer. It took him only a minute to locate amidst a large pile of receipts the single scrap of paper on which was scrawled Blythe’s address at Manor d’Arlend, and he suddenly wished he’d thought of feigning its loss.

  “I find it comforting to know that you keep documents of such importance so well hidden, old man.” The young woman scowled at him. “You could at least have hidden it in one of those books on your shelves.”

  “My dear girl, I don’t read any of these thousands of books. They all look the same to me! Besides, a mound of tax paperwork is as good as any disguise.” Sebastian held the slip out to her but withdrew it as she reached for it, saying, “Blythe – chocolate is only chocolate. I do wish you’d get your priorities straight. There are more important things in life than holding onto silly quarrels. Like holding onto the people with which you can conduct your silly quarrels.”

  “I have my priorities straight, Father. Deceiving is my business. Esther is not.”

  Sebastian Pritchard sighed deeply and handed the slip of paper to his daughter. She stood for a moment, studying it, and then gave him an expectant look.

  “What?” he cried. “That’s the only thing in the house that states your address. I promise.”

  “Very well,” she said, and cast it into the hearth-fire beside her.

  “Are you quite sure I cannot convince you to stay to tea, Blythe? I promise not to pickpocket.”

  “Why ever would you wish for me to stay, if not to steal from me?” his daughter asked mockingly.

  “Give your old man a chance, girl,” Sebastian exclaimed. “I’ve missed our family tea-times. An old man gets lonely in a big house like this with no wife and no daughters to keep him on his toes.”

  She seemed to hesitate then, and Sebastian momentarily thought himself triumphant. But it was not to be, at least on this day.

  “Another time, perhaps,” she said. “Soon. But I have some urgent business to attend to at present.”

  “Good girl!” Sebastian cheered up immediately. Now all he had to do was convince Esther to come along at the same time and watch the fireworks ensue. No, this was not being cruel or evil, he told himself. Those girls had been avoiding each other all these years, and it would do them good to air their grievances and get on with their lives.

  “Well.” His daughter seemed to hesitate again, momentarily awkward. She came to stand beside him at his desk and, saying goodbye, kissed his cheek and departed.

  Sebastian Pritchard watched his daughter walk away, feeling a little regretful. Then a certain truth dawned upon him as he observed her gait, and he began to smile, saying to himself, “Well, perhaps the air will be cleared even sooner than I thought.”

  “Manor d’Arlend, Greenwood Way, London. Manor d’Arlend, Greenwood Way, London.” Esther Mason-Smith[35] repeated the address over and over again as she resumed her own appearance in a liquid smooth transition whilst she hurried down the drive of Pritchard Manor.

  She had left her little green Mini a safe distance away[36] whilst tricking her father into giving up Blythe’s current address. She had considered just asking him but thought the outcome too risky, so she had eventually decided it safer to play her abrupt, brusque and intolerant sister, Blythe, to the audience of her father. She congratulated herself on the success of this mission, feeling she had done quite well.

  It was in times such as these that Esther almost wished she had been trained as a witch, so she could simply jump on a broomstick and make her way to England without having to book any flights. But then, concomitant with the advantage of broomstick flight were several significant disadvantages, including the eventual evil tendencies, the scraggly hair, the large black facial mole, and the large black hair growing from that large black facial mole. Her one comfort at this particular time was that her sister was much vainer than herself, and for the aforementioned reasons would never have dared to receive witch training; and thus Blythe too would have to catch a plane[37].

  So, Esther comforted herself, she could not be too far behind her sister. And woe to Blythe Pritchard when Esther and her righteous wrath caught up with her. She had never been so outraged in her entire life! To let such a thing happen to a poor, unsuspec
ting nine-year-old boy wearing flannel teddy-bear pyjamas and a look of pure innocence. Why, it was almost as awful as Louis d’Arlend’s behaviour some several hundred years ago!

  And yet, even stronger than her feeling of anger was the sick disappointment that choked her throat. She had hoped that her sister had retained some shred of decency after their split several years ago. Blythe must have had some extraordinary motive to behave so abominably, Esther thought to herself. And, knowing that selfishness had been the basis for all Blythe’s shocking behaviour in the past, she wondered: what could her twin sister possibly gain in allowing the Secret Stealer to pass his curse on to a poor little boy like James? Esther Mason-Smith was not even sure she wished to find out. Yet what must be done, she decided, must be done.

  By now James Winchester IV had begun to discover some of the inconveniences associated with being cursed – or at least being half cursed, and attempting to travel with someone who is not.

  Blythe had told him to sit in the car. A simple enough request, you may think. But being invisible is not at all conducive to sitting on anything. James tried to sit on the front seat, but as soon as the car started to move he found himself slipping through its frame and being left behind. And again, only a few minutes later, as Blythe slowed to make a turn, James did not. He instead continued at the same pace, sliding across the intersection (still in a sitting position and looking positively bizarre) and onto a field that ran beside the road. He found Blythe waiting for him about 100 metres down, leaning upon the door of the parked car and looking somewhat impatient.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve had a lot of experience with people in just your situation, James Winchester,” Blythe Pritchard said. “The only way for you to stay with me is to look at me the entire time while we travel.”

  James frowned at her over the roof of the car. “How far are we travelling?”

  “You dislike the idea of looking at me for any extended period of time?” she demanded.

  “Well, not you specifically,” James countered, adding, “I don’t really look at people all that much. They always think I’m thinking something nasty about them and then they get mad at me.”

  As previously, the woman’s face softened for a portion of a second, then reverted to its usual coldness. “I do believe all the children at that school of yours must be useless little ratbags, James Winchester.”

  “Well…” James felt a bizarre, unqualified urge to defend his fellow classmates from this grown-up attack. But try as he might, he could not think of anything useful that anyone in his class had ever done. At least not for him[38]. “No, they’re not very nice,” he conceded. After another moment he worked up the courage to ask again, “How long will we be travelling for?”

  “Approximately 24 hours,” Blythe answered, opened her door, settled into the driver’s seat and started the car once more. James’ nine-year-old mind reeled at the concept of concentrating on any one thing for 24 hours straight. He did not like his chances of succeeding. He passed through the frame of the car, tried again to arrange himself in a sitting position, and commenced his 24-hour staring bout.

  It worked for some time, to his surprise. That is, until he lost concentration about halfway to the airport and flew through a large intersection, three buildings and a public park before he realised that he’d lost Blythe again. He knew that Blythe’s car was red, so then it was only a matter of flying into the air and looking down at the traffic in search of that red car. He observed that she must have been telling the truth, at least, when she’d said she had a lot of experience with people in his situation: on the roof of a red car down below him were painted the words ‘I’m in here’. But the closer James came to the car the more faded the lettering became, until he was right above it and the words vanished altogether.

  “I’m glad you found your way back,” Blythe said as he made his way into the car.

  This seemed a strange thing for her to have said, James thought, since she did not sound very glad at all. That clinched it, he realised. If Blythe Pritchard had actually been Esther Mason-Smith pretending to be someone else, she would not have exhibited so dispassionate a response to him being lost and then found. Miss Mason-Smith probably would have hugged him upon his return. Although, he countered silently, Blythe Pritchard was driving, and so was in no position to give anyone a hug. So perhaps it was not a completely sure thing that Blythe Pritchard was indeed Blythe Pritchard.

  Nevertheless, James thought he should at least say something in response to her statement, even if it had sounded like a lie. “Thank you,” he said lamely, and continued to stare at her.

  “For what?” Blythe looked confused.

  “Saying you were glad I made it back to the car.”

  “Goodness gracious, James. That was a quarter of an hour ago. We’re almost at the airport now.”

  “Oh.” He really had lost touch with time. It was more than a little disconcerting. “Miss Pritchard?”

  “Yes?” she asked in that wearied tone a teacher uses when a student asks the same question for the fourth time in a row[39]. James was beginning to dislike Blythe Pritchard. She had all the features of Miss Mason-Smith with none of her kindness or patience. James decided to ignore her tone of voice and press on regardless. What was the point in being able to learn if you didn’t ask questions, and if no one answered you? After all, James loved to learn[40].

  He asked, “How come I can’t see your secrets?”

  “I’m immune,” she replied hastily.

  “How?”

  “I don’t have any secrets.”

  “That’s just silly,” James exclaimed. “Everyone has at least one secret.”

  “How old are you, James?”

  “Nine,” he replied, wondering what his age had to do with anything.

  “Nine!” she cried, smiling. “Exactly! When you reach 21, like I did some years ago, along with getting your full driver’s licence you lose control of your tongue and tell everybody nearby your deepest secrets. So I have none left to tell, and that’s why you can’t see them[41] .”

  “Really?” James said, horrified at what the future held in store for him. “Then why do people always want such big birthday parties for their twenty-first? I think I’d rather hide in a closet than let everybody know my deepest secrets.”

  “Careful what you say about closets, and coming out of them,” Blythe Pritchard warned.

  James wondered what she was smiling about. He was now thoroughly confused. “Why should I be careful about what I say about closets?”

  “Goodness gracious! Do you always ask this many questions? You don’t look as talkative as you apparently are.”

  “But you don’t even know me,” James objected. “Do you?” Perhaps she would let something slip and James would discover that she actually was Miss Mason-Smith!

  “No, James, I never met you before this hour or so.”

  Having stared at Blythe Pritchard for this ‘hour or so’ (excluding the two intersections in which he’d accidentally gone his own merry way at 60km/h), James came to the conclusion that, if she was not Miss Mason-Smith, she must at the very least be related to her. And, though her explanation as to why James could not see her secrets seemed a little strange, it also explained why he had not been able to see Miss Mason-Smith’s secrets. It had been her 26th birthday a short while ago, James knew. He had picked her some flowers for that very occasion. “So that’s why,” he said.

  “Why what?” Blythe murmured.

  “Oh, what you just said explains why I couldn’t see Miss Mason-Smith’s secrets either, that’s all. She’s over 21 too. I know because I picked her flowers for her 26th birthday last month.”

  Had James not been focussing on Blythe Pritchard’s hair at that moment he might have seen the narrowing of her eyes as he spoke, and the way her lips curled into a thin smile. She pressed her foot down a little harder on the accelerator.

  One should NEVER ask a woman if she is a witch…

  for you will
almost assuredly be slapped.

  Blythe Pritchard and James Winchester IV passed customs in a blur. James floated along in her wake, a little boy-ghost; forlorn, but trying to make the best of a bad situation by asking question after question in search of those elusive things we call answers.

  “Miss Pritchard? There was another thing I was wondering.” This time he did not even await her permission before continuing. “How exactly did you make that ‘I’m in here’ sign appear on the roof of your car and then disappear when I found you?”

  Blythe looked momentarily amused. “How do you think I managed it, James?”

  James shrugged. “How should I know?” Ever so cautiously, and for the first time very grateful for his current ghost-like state[42] , he asked, “Are you a witch?”

  “A witch?!” Blythe Pritchard repeated, looking grievously insulted. “James Winchester!” (James kept his mouth shut, thinking this was perhaps not the wisest time to interrupt with ‘the Fourth’.) “Do you see any large moles on this face?” She pointed to the perfect, porcelain-like complexion of her cheeks.

  “Well, no–”

  “Does my hair look like a person’s who’s just got out of bed from a night of tossing and turning?” She pointed to her perfect head of short brunette locks.

  “N–”

  “Does my nose look too big for my face?” She pointed to her perfectly proportioned, straight nose.

  “No.”

  “Ah. Excuse me for a moment, James,” Blythe said, smiling a light, wicked smile at him, “but something is about to delay our flight. We can’t have that, now can we…”

  As she moved away from James he noticed a man, standing alone like a rock in a stream of people, his shirt speckled with sweat and his eyes nervous. He did not notice Blythe’s approach – or if he did, he showed no sign of it. She leaned close to him and whispered something into his ear. As she did so the man seemed to fall under a strange lassitude; he nodded a few times, as if to accept her point of view, then turned and headed back the way he had come, finally disappearing from their sight. James wondered vaguely what had just happened, but felt there were more pressing questions at hand, so he did not bother to ask about it[43] .