The Thief (23 page)

“
Because I fear what Simon
has planned,” he said. “And not just me. Your
grandmother...Tailor...well, not Charlotte, but she’ll come around
soon enough. I’m telling you all this because you have been the
only person near him in the past fifteen years. I’m telling you
this because I’m hoping you can help me piece together what he’s
been doing.”

He pulled into the driveway of Bea’s house
and shut off the engine. He looked at me, expectantly.

Right then, I wanted nothing
more than to be in the Tower, where confidence would flood me, and
I could hold my own. I wanted to be where I had some control.
Instead I was stuck outside my mirror, in this car, with a man who
clearly knew too much and yet still was demanding information from
me. Unbidden, I began to shake. “What do you want from me?” I
asked. “He never tells me anything. Never. I come home from school,
he’s not there. I ask what he’s doing, he yells at me for being
nosy. I try to stay out of his way, he says I’m not taking care of
the apartment.” I started to cry, all of it coming back in an
unwanted rush. “He lives at the university, he hides in his room.
He doesn’t care what I do as long as the place is clean and I don’t
make a noise. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t
care
. I’m a
maid
, not his daughter, and I
think...I think he hates me...” I broke down, in the passenger seat
of a stranger’s car. Did I hope he’d be comforting? I didn’t know
what to think.

He reached over and pulled a packet of
tissues out of the glove compartment, and handed them to me.

I made a choked sort of laugh, and blew my
nose.

“
I know this is difficult,”
he said. “And unfortunately, it’s going to become more difficult
before it gets any better. You’re a teenager,” he said wryly. “It’s
a horrible time of life. But it’s also when you begin to choose the
sort of person you want to be. You can give in to fear and doubt
and selfish impulses, or you can become the person you wish others
would be. Kind. Giving. Supportive. You know, the sort of person
who breaks jars over thugs to help their friends.”

I made a weak smile. “Is Camille really
going to be okay?”

He smiled. “With good friends, she will be.
I’m certain of it.”

“
I’m sorry I can’t be more
helpful,” I said. I wondered if there was some connection to the
orchard mirror, but I couldn’t tell him about that. I’d promised
Rhys, and as nice as he’d been, I wasn’t sure I trusted Gabriel
yet.

“
If you think of anything
else,” he said gently, “you know where to find me.”

I looked up; Bea had opened the front door,
looking out. I thanked Gabriel, and left the car swiftly, jogging
through the rain up to the porch.

“
Where were you?” she
asked.

“
Working on that science
project with my classmate, like I told you,” I said, hoping the
rain hid my recent tears. “Her guardian was nice and gave me a ride
back since it was raining.”

“
Her guardian?” she repeated
with alarm, squinting at Gabriel’s car. Alarm showed clear on her
face as she recognized him. “Get inside, Juliet!” she said,
ushering me in quickly.

“
What did he say to you?”
she demanded, locking the door behind her.

“
N-nothing!” I said,
startled into lying. I didn’t understand her fervor. Though I still
wasn’t certain of his motives, he’d been the nicest person I’d met
in this town by far. “He said he was glad I was making friends with
Camille, that’s all.”

“
Camille?” she said.
“Camille Teague? Oh, god,” she said, running a hand over her face.
“This friend of yours is Gabriel Katsura’s ward? No, no, Juliet,
this won’t be any good at all. You are not to spend time with that
girl any more.”

“
She’s my only friend!” I
exclaimed. “You’ve been telling me and telling me that I needed to
make friends, and she’s the only one who’s nice to me!”

“
You listen to me,” she said
seriously. “Gabriel Katsura is a dangerous man, and I want you as
far from him as possible.”

The feeling the Tower gave
me was welling up. Indignation burned. “Why?” I snapped. “Because
he knows things? Because he has answers? You want to keep me in the
dark forever, is that it? Weird things are going on all over, and
you just want me to shut up and stay home? You’re just like dad,
you know that? You’re
exactly like
him
!”

My words seemed to stun her. In a faltering
burst of cowardice I ran up the stairs and shut myself in my
room.

Chapter 13

Mac

Tailor’s handing me a mop and Destin a
bucket of cleaning supplies when the girls come in the front doors
Saturday morning. Jul is radiant, dressed in pale pastels that make
her skin and hair seem darker than usual, her ponytail twisted
haphazard over her shoulder. She tugs on it when she catches sight
of Tailor - a sure sign she’s nervous. She’s always pulling on her
hair. I want to reach out and take her hand, reassure her, but I
just can’t shake the feeling that even though she’s right there,
she’s a thousand miles away from me.

“
Fellow inmates!” I say
brightly, instead. “Welcome to hell.”

Tailor huffs. “You’re the ones stupid enough
to get in trouble. I’m the one who has to give up my Saturday to
babysit you.”

“
So let’s all go get ice
cream and no one will be the wiser,” I say. “Or muffins. Isn’t
there a cafe just down the street? Benedict or Benvolio or
something?”

Tailor’s almost as tall as Destin, and the
effect of being stared down over his glasses from almost two feet
above is chilling. In church, when they talk about the wrath of
heaven, I see an English teacher before his second cup of
coffee.

“
Or we could clean stuff,” I
say meekly.

Tailor quirks an eyebrow, as if challenging
me to suggest anything fun ever again in my life. “With the school
festival in three days, Principal Umino wants the place spotless.
The janitors take care of most things, but since you’ve got nothing
better to do, you can do some detail cleaning. The wonder twins get
the stairway railings,” he eyed me. “You girls can dust the light
fixtures. Tie a duster to a broom handle, I don’t need you falling
off a ladder and be forced to take you to the hospital.”

Sentimental, Tailor is not.

“
I’ll be in the English
classroom. Don’t do anything stupid,” he shoots a look at
me.

“
Me? Do something stupid?” I
grumble under my breath, as Tailor disappears up the
stairs.

“
It’s like he knows you,”
Destin says.

“
When do I ever do stupid
things?”

“
In math last week when Mrs.
Ragland asked what the square root of 144 was, you said Jenga,” he
reminds me.

“
People laughed,” I point
out.

“
And you got extra
homework.”

“
Karate yesterday,” Camille
says.

Ikeda had made us pick sparring partners,
and I’d picked her before Hyde could pick me. Somehow I still ended
up getting thrown halfway across the room. “I thought you’d go easy
on me because we’re sort of slightly friends!”

“
Stupid,” she said
flatly.

“
Chasing imaginary
creatures...” Destin mumbles.

“
It is not imaginary! You
saw it!”

“
What’s not imaginary?” Jul
asks.

“
The reason we have this
ridiculous detention in the first place,” I say, frowning at the
window by the front door that was replaced a week ago. You’d never
know anything had happened to it.

“
Yeah, how
did
you get detention?”
Jul asks.

“
I made a riot,” Camille
says.

She doesn’t seem to think I can top that.
“We found the creepy little monster that’s been stealing out of the
lockers,” I say, folding my arms. I dare them to laugh. “I chased
it around the school and it broke a window. Umino decided I was
lying because she’s evil.”

Jul’s eyes are wide. I’m not sure if I’ve
ruined her opinion of me or not.

“
Monster?” Camille
says.

“
It was this freaky little
thing with a tail and wings and ears - ”

“
He’s calling it a catbat,”
Destin says, deadpan.

“
Don’t you go pretending you
didn’t see it,” I snap at him. “Maybe if you got a haircut you
wouldn’t have an excuse - ”

“
If you say you saw it, you
saw it,” Jul says, apparently nervous we’ll start fighting. “We’d
better start cleaning something before Tailor comes back or we’ll
never get done with detention, no matter how we got into
it.”

She and Camille take the dusters and brooms
and go down the stairwell to the basement to clean the lights.

“
Thanks for the help,” I
tell Destin.

“
You’re welcome.”

“
That was
sarcasm.”

He sighs, dunking a rag in cleaning
solution. “Do you ever wonder if girls would like you better if you
were less weird?”

“
Me?” I swipe the curling
ironwork of the banister. “I’m not the one who sheds pillow
stuffing.”

Reflexively Destin looks around swiftly,
tension in his shoulders. “Keep your voice down!” A single downy
feather escapes the hem of his shirt.

“
Tailor’s shut upstairs and
the girls are in the basement,” I say dismissively. “And let’s be
clear about something. I’m not weird - I just don’t hide under the
covers when something weird
happens
. There’s a difference. Also,
weird means ‘not boring,’ and I am perfectly fine with being not
boring.”

“
So is that a yes or a no to
being weird? Because I think you just claimed both.”

“
What I am is awesome. End
of discussion.”

He chuckles and goes back to work on the
grime in the grooves of the railing.

Sometimes I wonder if he’d spend the rest of
his life shut up in his room with comics and a laptop without me
there to drag him out into the sun.

I look up at the wide staircase curving up
from both sides of the atrium, railings all twisted in iron vines.
I heave a sigh. This is going to take all day.

A flash of yellow catches my eye at the top
of the staircase. I stare, unbelieving, but I swear I see a flash
of pink tongue before the shadow darts away down the second floor
hall.

Why that little...

I sprint up the stairs after it.

“
Mac?” Destin calls in
shock.

“
It’s taunting me!” I yell
back, tearing down the hall, catching sight of it zipping into the
upward stairwell.

And it was not going to get away with
it.

Jul

We descended the stairs to the basement in
silence.

There weren’t any visible bruises on
Camille, and the color was back to her face, but she held herself
gingerly, almost wincing as she took each step down. I remembered
that most of the beating she’d taken last night had been to her
torso, hidden now by her signature oversized red hoodie. I didn’t
think I’d even be vertical after the fight she’d had.

“
You look a lot better,” I
said.

“
I feel like crap,” she said
lightly, as we crossed the door into the basement level.

“
I-I’m sorry - ”

“
Did you hit me?” she
asked.

“
N-no!” I stammered, staring
at her.

“
So why
apologize?”

She was grinning at me, and it was
infectious. The corners of my mouth quirked up as well.

“
You really believe Mac?”
she asked.

I shrugged. “I’ve seen too many weird things
lately to rule out a...what was it...catbat?”

She just shook her head. “I don’t know.”

I look up at the long line of lights running
down the ceiling. “Well, if you want to start at this end I’ll go
around the corner,” I told her.

She snatched up one of the dusters, gave it
an expert twirl, and stretched up towards the first light.

I hefted up the other duster and started off
down the hall. I was glad she seemed to be alright - and selfishly,
more glad that she seemed to like me even better now. Strange that
an event that ought to have been traumatic had left me with a smile
on my face.

Turning the corner of the L-shaped hall, I
went down to the end, hearing my footsteps echo on the tile floor.
Half of these labs weren’t even used as classrooms, and stayed
locked up. The school had a lot of unused classrooms, presumably
expecting that someday they’d have the students to fill them. I
looked up at the circular recessed light at the end. Maybe if we
got done quickly Tailor would let us leave early?

“
Hiya,” said a
voice.

I turned around and came face to face with
Kei. I stifled a gasp. Where on earth had he come from? The school
was supposed to be empty!

“
Kei, what are you -
”

He pressed a finger to my mouth, smiling
like the Mona Lisa. His flat black eyes glinted. Then he pulled
back, opening his hand as he did so. Something cool and metallic
fell down the front of my shirt and I yelped.

“
Jul?” I heard Camille
call.