The Secret Stealer

by Jess Webster

  Perhaps they would not have slept quite so well had they been privy to James’ plans.

  Lilith Palmer was growing impatient. Once curiosity took hold of her it became very difficult for her to concentrate on anything else. Currently her mind was filled with thoughts of a little boy in teddy-bear pyjamas: James Winchester IV.

  Was he dead? And really a ghost? Why should he protect her? What had she ever done for him? Perhaps he wanted something. But if so, what? And she would have to wait for her evening rendezvous with Ew-Boy to learn anything else. And what a depressing thought that was, she considered, frowning. Oh, who cares how many lollies I have left if I started with 20 and gave four each to three friends? I’ve never had 20 lollies in my life, let alone three friends to give four each to. This question is stupid!

  “Maybe it’s just that seat,” Ew-Boy whispered to her.

  “What?” The question was out before she could catch it. The last thing she wanted to do at present was talk any more with Ew-Boy.

  “You look a little sick. Jimmy-boy was always sick. He probably spent more time in the infirmary than he did in class.”

  Lilith instantly raised her hand. “Miss…uz Bartlett-Cooke?”

  “Yes?” her teacher muttered disinterestedly from behind a magazine.

  “Can I please go to the infirmary?” Lilith asked. “I’m not feeling very well.” It certainly helped that when she thought obsessively on any topic her face paled significantly.

  “Andrew, show Miss Palmer the way,” Mrs Bartlett-Cooke ordered and disappeared again behind her magazine. “And don’t get any ideas, Andrew – if you’re not back in two minutes flat you’ll be sent straight to Miss Gerson-Clay’s office.”

  “Back in a jiffy!” Ew-Boy grinned at their teacher, then at Lilith, in a way she did not entirely like.

  As they exited the classroom Ew-Boy said to her, “Good thinking!”

  Lilith felt it wise to make herself immediately clear. “I really do want to go to the infirmary. I’m feeling sick.”

  Ew-Boy tapped the side of his nose and winked at her. “I know, I know. I’ll take you there straight away.”

  Without warning he grasped her small hand in his sweaty one and began to fairly drag her down the hallway.

  “Ouch! Let go of me!” Lilith shouted.

  “Oh-kay.” Ew-Boy released her and muttered, “It’s just around the corner anyway.”

  Soon they passed through two heavy doors and entered a room filled with blinding light. At least, Lilith had thought it was a room until her eyes adjusted. They were in a courtyard, surrounded on four sides by the school building, whose bricks were obscured almost completely from sight first by hedges and then by wall-crawling ivy. Reflections of the sun winked in the windows, which peeked out through the gaps in the ivy. It was a charming sight, but not what Lilith Palmer wanted to see. It was the teachers’ lunch area.

  “Fresh air,” Ew-Boy said expansively, “the best cure.”

  “Ugh!” Lilith growled at him and stalked back inside.

  “Hey – where’re you going?” Ew-Boy called after her.

  “I’ll find it myself,” she shouted back.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll take you, don’t worry. No more tricks.” He held out his hand expectantly.

  Lilith spoke with a grimace. “I don’t want to hold that!”

  His face was very serious as he said, “These halls can be very dangerous.”

  Lilith did not have time to argue. She knew something was about to happen – something important. It was one of those feelings she got, periodically. Once, about a year ago, it had been that she should duck. As soon as she had done so, Robert Penfold had flown through the air just above her head, thrown by Jack Collins, the Ew-Boy-type at the orphanage. Another time, on a trip with Miss Lewis, she had found a ring at the shopping centre, and aside from the fact that it was the right thing to do, she had felt that something good would come out of returning it to Lost Property. The ring itself turned out to have no monetary value whatsoever, but its sentimental value was priceless. The owner had rewarded her with a $100 note, which she convinced Miss Lewis to take to roulette and bet entirely on the number 11, then on black, and then on black again. Of course Miss Lewis won, turning Lilith’s $100 reward into $14,400, thus forming the basis for the orphanage’s ‘scholarship’, which enabled Lilith to attend Westcott.

  And this was one of those moments. She knew she had to get to the infirmary, and fast. She gulped and took Ew-Boy’s hand.

  “Are you sure you remember the way?” Esther asked James. “I don’t want you getting lost and not being able to find your way back.”

  “It’ll be fine,” James assured her. “I can remember.”

  Since James could not carry a map with him, Esther had thought that his best bet of finding his way there and back alone was to look up the satellite images for the island of Barbados, and the location of the Sandpiper Hotel. Having done so, she fervently hoped that James was not over-estimating his recollective abilities.

  Esther smiled. “Well, I guess I’ll see you in a while then.”

  James grinned back.

  The doors to the infirmary suddenly burst open, and Esther turned to see Andrew Harrison VI, hand-in-hand with a little girl whom she had never met. Judging from the interest suddenly excited in James, however, Esther correctly deduced the girl to be none other than Lilith Palmer. The little girl hurriedly withdrew her hand and said with great superiority of tone, “You can go now, Andrew.”

  Mrs Bartlett-Cooke then also appeared within the door-frame.

  “You’ve been four minutes and counting, Mr Harrison,” Mrs Bartlett-Cooke said sternly.

  “We got lost,” Andrew Harrison VI said, with what Esther considered to be extremely uncharacteristic quietness.

  “No we didn’t,” the little girl objected. “You were just wasting time.”

  “Miss Gerson-Clay’s office. Now!” Mrs Bartlett-Cooke ordered.

  “Yes, Mrs B.C.”

  “I will not be identified with an acronym that also stands for Before Christ, Andrew Harrison! I am not a prehistoric monster!” Mrs Bartlett-Cooke shouted at him. “You’ll call me Mrs Bartlett-Cooke – nothing else!”

  “Yes, Mrs Bartlett-Cooke,” Andrew replied, his head still low.

  Esther began to wonder whether Andrew was feeling ill also, he was being so quiet. Not that she cared to do anything about it, even if he was.

  Mrs Bartlett-Cooke turned to Esther. “Lilith Palmer, Miss Mason-Smith. I’m not sure you two have met yet. She’s not feeling well today.”

  “I’ll do my best to make sure she feels better soon.” Esther nodded to Mrs Bartlett-Cooke, and the latter took Andrew Harrison’s hand and led him away to the Headmistress’ office, for a reprimand that would no doubt be forgotten even before it started.

  “What seems to be the problem, Lilith?” Esther asked once they were alone.

  “He’s here, isn’t he?” she asked.

  “Who is here?” Esther asked innocently.

  “James Winchester,” Lilith replied.

  James froze, not sure what to do. Esther opted for feigned ignorance. “James Winchester, as you may have discovered during your first few days here, was the student that you replaced. He disappeared several days ago.”

  “That’s not all of it!” the fiery little creature objected. “He’s in this room right now. I know it, and I know that you know it.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, Miss Palmer, I wonder if your family has any kind of history of mental illness?”

  “Miss Mason-Smith!” James exclaimed. He could not bear to see that exquisite child accused of having damaged mental faculties, even by his beloved Nurse Esther.

  “There, I heard him!” Lilith cried triumphantly.

  “Goodness, James. If you’d just kept your mouth shut,” Esther chided.

  “What difference does it make, Miss Mason-Smith? She knew I was here anyway.”

  Lilith’s anger dissipated in
a moment, to be replaced with a look of extreme concern. “Are you… dead?” she asked quietly, stepping closer to them both.

  James looked to Miss Mason-Smith, who shrugged. He took this as permission. “No, I’m not dead. I’m only invisible because I’m cursed.”

  “That’s just awful,” Lilith murmured, clasping her hands together, sympathetic tears springing to her eyes.

  “Oh, it’s not so bad,” James replied, sighing.

  Esther Mason-Smith could not help rolling her eyes – it was evident that Lilith thought James ever so heroic in that moment. “As it is, James has a bit of a job to do, and must get going,” Esther prompted.

  “But Miss Mason-Smith,” James whispered, “now that she’s here, don’t you think we should ask her what she thinks?”

  After a moment Esther nodded her agreement. James seemed to nod back to her, which she took as ‘you explain it’. She turned to Lilith. “James and I know a couple who are rich, attractive and owe James a huge favour. We were thinking they could adopt you.”

  Lilith Palmer became very still. “Parents?” she finally managed to say.

  Esther nodded.

  “Real parents? Home, family, everything?”

  Esther nodded again.

  Lilith slumped down upon the nearest bed. “All the other couples that came to the orphanage didn’t like me. They said I was weird.”

  “Blythe is a little weird too.” Esther smiled. “I’m sure you two will get along just fine. You’re a Sensitive, so there’s a fair chance she’ll make you her apprentice, as well.”

  “Apprentice?” Lilith asked, bewildered.

  “Blythe’s a magician,” James said matter-of-factly.

  “Huh.” Lilith looked as if her brain was about to fizzle.

  It probably was a lot of information to deal with in all of two minutes, Esther thought. “Look, we can talk about it more later–”

  Here the infirmary door burst open once more, this time to reveal Miss Gerson-Clay supporting a rag-doll-like, virtually senseless Andrew Harrison VI.

  “Miss Mason-Smith,” Miss Gerson-Clay hurriedly explained, her face white, “something’s very wrong with Andrew. Mrs Bartlett-Cooke left him in my office and when I came back he was vomiting everywhere – EEW!” She managed to turn Andrew to the left at this point to direct his vomit-spray away from Lilith Palmer, who sprang away just in time. “I think he must’ve eaten something bad last night.”

  Esther frowned. “It’s possible.”

  “She’s lying,” James murmured quietly to Esther.

  Lilith Palmer, also hearing this, brazenly accused the headmistress with, “You’re lying!”

  Visibly shocked, Emile Gerson-Clay replied, “I beg your pardon?”

  “She’s got vodka in her office,” James said quickly. “She left it on her desk and came back to find Andrew had drunk it all and he was vomiting everywhere. What’s vodka, Miss Mason-Smith?”

  Lilith pointedly said to the headmistress, “He drank your vodka.”

  Esther tried very hard to suppress her amusement.

  Miss Gerson-Clay paled. Andrew hung limp, suspended from his collar by the hand of the frowning headmistress.

  Esther grimaced. “It does look like alcohol poisoning, Miss Gerson-Clay. He’ll have to have his stomach pumped. We’ll have to call an ambulance – I’m not equipped for such things.”

  “Why not?” Emile asked, dismayed.

  Esther answered with one eye-brow raised. “Alcoholism is not generally seen to be a problem in primary school children.”

  Miss Gerson-Clay let Andrew slump down upon the nearest bed, came to stand very close to Miss Mason-Smith and whispered very shortly, “I want you to take Andrew to the hospital, along with Miss Palmer here.”

  “Hey,” Lilith objected, “I’m not going anywhere with him.”

  Esther considered this. She nodded almost imperceptibly to James, who had been waiting by the window. James nodded back and took only a moment to vanish into the distance.

  “If this were to get out, it might end your career,” Esther said measuredly.

  Emile pulled back and said, “If you want to head down that path you’ll be finished at this school.”

  Esther could not but laugh.

  Emile Gerson-Clay looked very perplexed.

  “Don’t mistake me, Miss Gerson-Clay.” Esther reclined slightly in her chair, crossed her arms and smiled lightly. “I don’t work here because I need the money. Five years ago, before you became headmistress, my father, Sebastian Pritchard, bought this school. The nurse position fell vacant and I took it just to help him out. I decided to stay, however, because I liked it here. So you see, you can’t fire me.”

  Miss Gerson-Clay looked appropriately horrified by this speech.

  “But you’re in luck today, Miss Gerson-Clay,” Esther continued jovially. “As it happens, I think you’re a fine headmistress. If you choose to take a swig of vodka intermittently, that’s your own business. As a nurse I would advise against it, but I can’t say that I’ve noticed it affecting your work. Furthermore, my dislike for Andrew Harrison VI is second only to – well, nothing, actually. Frankly, I hate the boy and I’m glad he’s suffering a little, after all the pain he’s inflicted on the other children here. All I wanted was to be asked politely.” Esther smiled benignly at the headmistress.

  Emile swallowed. “Miss Mason-Smith, will you please take Andrew to the hospital. And Miss Palmer, will you please go with her?”

  With the utmost courtesy Esther replied, “Yes, of course, Headmistress. You go back to your office and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll tell them he broke into my medicine cabinet. He’s a recalcitrant child – always doing things like that.”

  She then rose from her chair and practically shoved the somewhat relieved headmistress out the infirmary doors.

  Andrew seemed to stir a little.

  “Ugh – Miss Mason-Smiss,” he murmured, then managed to slur out something that sounded a little like, “Irr – I ben arruminatin, miss.”

  “Ruminating?” Esther glanced critically at the boy below her. “I don’t think I believe you. But it would be a nice change.”

  “That’s n-oh–” Andrew then made a sound that could only be approximated by the word ‘BLEURGH’, as he vomited all over the floor beside the bed.

  “Right, that’s it, we’re calling an ambulance.” Esther picked up the receiver on her desk and dialled 000. “I’m not having you throw up all over my nice little Mini. It’ll pong for a year.” She turned to Lilith and added, “You don’t have to come. I’m sure Miss Gerson-Clay just wanted you to stay quiet about the whole vodka thing.”

  The little blonde girl had a look of such concentration on her face that Esther half expected a fire to erupt on the floor below her eyes. After a full minute of silent contemplation Lilith said, “I should stay with Andrew while you wander around the hospital. You need to find a person called Darcy.”

  “I wish,” Esther Mason-Smith muttered.

  “I’m being serious.” Lilith looked intently at the nurse, speaking almost with that same strange authority that Esther herself was at times capable of. Lilith reinforced this with a nod, saying slowly, “Like I knew James Winchester was here – sometimes I just know things.”

  Lesson Fourteen: One should NEVER walk in on newlyweds…

  OH&S regulation 12.5.3[88]

  The world lay beneath him, bright and colourful. The azure oceans were periodically obscured by slivers of cloud which were probably, in reality, larger than he could imagine, or by countries and continents that appeared like blots of paint on a marble. It occurred to James Winchester then that he was immensely privileged, despite his accursed state, and that this was a sight few people would ever see in person; for a photograph will only capture a small field of view compared to that of a pair of human eyes. The stars hung like secrets in the heavens, flickering across the vast distances of space. James wondered what knowledge they held, or whether he could touch them. May
be that’s what stars were after all, he wondered to himself. God’s secrets, hung in the sky for mankind to wonder at and reach for, but never touch.

  Remembering suddenly that time meant nothing to him, James forced himself to recall his task, lest he remain too long above the atmosphere and let this window of opportunity pass him by. Unhindered by all the natural laws of gravity, physics and motion, he sped across the skies as fast as he could imagine. Soon he willed himself to a halt somewhere far, far above South America, and looked northeast, across the North Atlantic, to the United Kingdom. Yvette and Walter Winchester were probably sipping champagne and spending ludicrous amounts of money on their own enjoyment, with no consideration for anyone else on the planet, James thought. He had his reasons for not telling Miss Mason-Smith the truth about Yvette and Walter Winchester; he feared that she might have done something she would come to regret. He had two objectives, in fact, for his meeting with Blythe and Domenic. The first was to ask them to adopt Lilith. And the second was to request their help with a small matter of personal justice…

  James tried to concentrate on where he was going, but in his mind he continued to relive that awful moment, when he’d unsuspectingly entered Mr Gables’ waiting room to see Yvette and Walter Winchester, and the dreadful secrets they kept hidden behind their eyes. Words and images and awful sequences of events had all leapt out at him, and within a matter of moments, poor nine-year-old James had been subjected to a truth that should not have dawned upon him until several years later: people could be bad. People could be very bad. Even the ones you loved.

  Some ten years ago, in blatant disregard to English tradition[89], Angeline Winchester, the youngest child of Walter Winchester I, had been left Larkwind, the house and estates of the Winchester family, along with the fortune, to the amount of several hundred million dollars.

  Nothing at all was left to the eldest child, Walter Winchester II. Walter II had been an idle lad all his life, and his father had hoped that the gesture would shock him into usefulness. But usefulness, as we (hopefully) know, must be taught, not shocked into someone like a bullet. Thus was Walter II shocked into something less like usefulness and more like blind, unabated hatred – firstly for his father, and secondly for the root of all his troubles: Angeline Winchester.