The Thief

this alone,” she was saying. “Have you seen her?”

I stopped, and took a step back, where I was out of view. Eavesdropping wouldn’t help her to like me any better. But I was glued to the spot.

“If you saw her, you wouldn’t say that,” she said lowly. “I’d swear it was that girl. You’re certain she’s...?” Silence. “Well, that’s as certain as you can get, I reckon. Yes, I know what I said...I take it back. She has to go.”

I had to go...? All the muscles in my chest froze rock solid.

“G-grandmother?” I said, as if I were just walking up.

She spun, and for a second I thought I saw fear in her eyes, but it vanished immediately. “Expect her tomorrow,” she said brusquely into the phone, and hung up. Then to me, “Yes, Juliet, what is it?”

I had to go. Tomorrow. My head spun. What had I originally come out here for? “Um...the plates...should I...?”

“Leave them, I’ll take care of it,” she said.

I had to go. “If - if you don’t mind,” I said, “I’d like to go to my room. I know it’s early, I’m just really tired.” Tomorrow.

“Alright, settle in and get some rest then,” she said. She gave me a hard look, like she was deciding whether or not to say something else. “Good night,” she finished, and strode quickly past to the kitchen.

I looked after her blankly, and then climbed the steps. One foot after the other. The sun was finally setting outside, casting shadows down the hall. The floorboards creaked underfoot and every horror movie I’d ever seen was rolling around in my head. Had my father really grown up here? He had only ever expressed at best disdain and at worst open loathing for small towns and countrysides. “If you can’t handle the city, you deserve the country,” were his exact words. Yet this house was at least three times as large as our apartment, and the extra unknown space unnerved me. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep without at least looking at the other rooms. After all...this was probably my only chance.

First I went to the room that connected to mine. It had no closet, but a larger dresser, and a vanity with an oversized oval mirror. An inspection of the adjoining bathroom proved equally lacking in ghostly activity.

I passed the landing to the other side of the hall. There were two rooms on this side, mirroring the other. I opened the first door. It contained furniture very similar to mine, though was even stuffier from the lack of a fan. The closet was open and vacant. The emptiness comforted me. I closed the door and went to the second one. The handle wouldn’t turn.

I twisted harder, but the knob wouldn’t budge. I looked up. Carved into the door in crude letters, as with a pen-knife, was a name. Simon. My father’s name. I released the handle and backed away. The floor creaked under my feet. There was a loud call of a bird outside. Startled, I raced back to my room, shutting the doors to both the hall and the bathroom. I sat on the bed, knees tucked up. Insects screamed outside. I recalled the wide, yellow eyes I’d seen in New York - I’d been hysterical when the police had come in, babbling about monsters. They’d sworn that it must have been a cat, that I’d been seeing things. But cats didn’t have teeth like that...I pressed my forehead into my knees, trying to block it out.

Five minutes later there was a knock at my door. She must have heard me running. “Juliet?” Bea said. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yes,” I responded.

She opened the door, and I realized I didn’t look alright, sitting like that on an unmade mattress.

Her look softened slightly. “It’s an old house,” she said. “You’ll hear things creaking, but it’s nothing more than boards settling.”

My father’s room is locked from the inside. “What are those bugs?” I managed to ask instead. “They’re so loud...”

“Crickets,” she said. “And cicadas. Completely harmless. They live out in the woods. Afraid I can’t do anything about them either. If you get used to them, they can be mighty soothing.”

I swallowed. “I guess...” I wasn’t sure I could find anything that loud to be soothing. Traffic outside our apartment in New York woke me up constantly.

She gave me another of those looks, like she was measuring me against something. “Here, get up,” she said, moving the stack of linens. “Help me put sheets on this.”

I obediently took the other sides of sheets as she handed them to me, and soon the thin, faded quilt was in place.

“I doubt you’ll get cold,” she said, “but extra blankets are in the vanity in the other room. I should tell you,” she stood briskly, “you’ll be starting school tomorrow.”

My eyes widened. Tomorrow. Had I heard wrong? Assumed too much?

“Tomorrow is Monday, after all. I figured the sooner you got into a normal routine the better. It’s not the public school. There’s a private school down the road that has...different entrance requirements.”

I couldn’t begin to guess what she meant by that, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Anything to get me away from her, I guessed. But at least I wasn’t getting turned out of the house entirely.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted.

She looked at me curiously.

“For all of this,” I said. “For suddenly being here.”

She seemed surprised by my apology. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You didn’t choose it.”

She didn’t say I wasn’t a burden. I hung my head.

Bea rose, looking uncomfortable. “Good night, Juliet,” she said, shutting the door.

With everything that had happened, one thing baffled me the most: she hadn’t said one word about my father. Not the whole time.

I reached into the drawer of the dresser and withdrew the blank journal. I inspected the cover more closely, this time, looking for some kind of mark. The exterior was just some random scratches, but on the inside, just near the spine, there was the imprint of a name, sunk into the leather. Kyra.

My breath left me. This was my mother’s - I was holding something of hers! What was it doing in the back of an empty dresser, in this house? Maybe it was something she’d left behind, something that didn’t matter. It was empty, after all. My thumb stroked the blank page. Maybe it was meaningless.

But what if it wasn’t?

I lay back on the bed, journal clutched to my heart, and listened to the insects scream out a lullaby.

Chapter 2

Camille

Once upon a time, a girl and her guardian left the safety of their home to make their way in the wide world.

“It’s a dump.”

“The term is fixer-upper.”

“No, the term is dump.” Camille looked up at Gabriel. “People will never eat here.” She spoke in Japanese; he spoke in English. It was how they’d conversed for years.

“They will once I get done with it,” he said with perfect confidence. He never seemed unsure of anything he did, why should this be any different?

They stood in front of a small stone building that was just a shade away from condemned. Weeds grew out of cracks in the parking lot. The windows were filthy. The signage out front had collapsed. In a tornado last year, they’d been told. The method of its demise didn’t signify much to Camille - the fact remained that it was useless. Gabriel somehow made it into a point in the building’s favor.

“A tornado went right in front of this place, and nothing but the sign fell down,” he said. “Solid as a rock. And I’d have replaced the sign anyway.”

“You need to replace the entire building,” Camille said. “It’s a church, Gabriel. You