The Thief (27 page)

In the yellowish glow, I can make out the
shape of Meredith impaled on a stalagmite, the calcified rock
poking up through her midsection. She groans, lifting her head,
looking at the injury. “Son of a bitch,” she swears, but sounding
more annoyed than anything else.

That’s when I notice the glow is coming from
her wounds. Magma seeps out around the hole in her chest, melting
through the stalagmite. She wrenches the spike away, tossing it
aside and standing with a groan.

“
That was my last shirt!”
she yells up, a ragged circle showing just below her ribs where her
flesh is reforming.

Holy. Crap.

I look at Jul. “Um, make a break for it?” I
suggest.

She nods frantically, snatching up the
velvet box where it had fallen.

“
Blighting mortals, can’t
you at least toss down my other bottle!” Meredith’s petulant voice
follows us as we hurry out to find Destin and Camille.

“
I didn’t
hear
her,” Camille
bemoans. “What’s wrong with me?”

“
Well the good news is, you
saw how freaked Dez was and look! Not a single feather,” I say,
thumping him on the back. “Mind over matter, right
buddy?”

“
Huh? I wasn’t thinking
about that at all,” he admits.

We’d agreed that we needed to be long gone
before Meredith found her way out of the cave, and Jul’s house was
closest, and empty. Ms. Bea was working at the library again today
and Jul insisted that she was going to find something to bandage my
arm.

A light rustle in the dead leaves makes me
glance back, and for the first time I’m relieved to see those
unnatural yellow eyes instead of something else.

“
Why is it following us?”
Destin asks, unnerved, looking over his shoulder at the imp. It
darts between the barren trees, keeping mostly out of sight and
about twenty feet back, but it’s definitely following
us.

“
I don’t know, maybe it’s
checking to see if we run into any more fire-breathing immortals on
the way to grandmother’s house. And speaking of, what was she
talking about, the wolf?”

“
Wolf?” Camille
repeats.

“
Yeah, she wanted to know if
Jul was a wolf. Is that like a metaphor, or...?”

“
Monster,” Camille
says.

I raise my eyebrows at her, my surprise
almost masking the steady throb of pain in my wrist. “Oh yeah? What
do you know about it?”

“
Story Gabriel tells. Once
upon a time,” she says slowly, as if trying to remember the words,
“there were seven heroes. They fought many monsters and saved many
kingdoms. Won treasure, fame, love - even some kingdoms for
themselves. With time, they became arrogant. Lazy. Selfish. It
was...
nan no itta...
” she mutters to herself, “they ah, ‘bought into their own
hype.’ So, the gods cursed them, making them into the same monsters
they once swore to destroy. Cursed them to return always, to remind
all mortals.” Her gaze is distant as she looks up at the roof of
Jul’s house rising above the treeline.

“
Remind them what?” Destin
prompts.

Back to earth, she glances at him. “This is
what happens when you waste a gift,” she says.

I scrape my shoes on the doormat at the back
door, certain that Ms. Bea will murder me if I track anything into
her house. I leave my mud-spackled jacket outside for the same
reason. The interior looks no different from before Jul got there -
same peeling floral wallpaper, same faded decorative china hung on
the walls. Same little old lady smell of dusty porcelain and
regular baking.

“
There’s got to be a
medicine cabinet somewhere,” Jul says, pulling open drawers in the
kitchen. “I’m sure I can find something for your arm.”

“
I’m totally fine, don’t
worry about it,” I say, but it’s a blatant lie. Meredith’s
handprint around my wrist is a blistered, angry red. I hold the arm
gingerly, trying not to wince.

“
There’s nothing here,” Jul
frowns into the last drawer. “It’s all ladles and
potholders.”

“
Check the bathroom?” Destin
suggests.

“
There aren’t any cabinets
in the half-bath on this floor,” Jul says, then hesitantly, “but
there is a bathroom attached to Bea’s room.” She looks down the
hall, as if the idea of going in there is sacrilege.

“
Really, I’m fine,” I say
again.

“
You’re not,” she insists.
“I’ll...I’ll be right back.”

I glance around the kitchen, lifting the lid
on a jar. “Think she’s got cookies stashed somewhere?”

“
We’re not supposed to be
here,” Destin reminds me. “That means leaving things the way we
found them.”

I replace the lid and go to the window,
eyeing the imp perched on the porch railing. “Yeah, I guess. If
that’s even possible. Hey, where’d the gold ranger get to?”

“
Baka no ebi,”
Camille grumbles from down the hall. “Just
looking.”

“
Oh, please tell me you are
not in the teacup room,” I say, standing and crossing the hall,
Destin on my heels.

Sure enough, she’s in the only room in the
house where everything inside is insanely fragile. The chairs and
tables are ancient and look like they’re built of toothpicks and
velvet tissue, and glass cabinets all around full of china cups
that don’t look strong enough to handle a mild insult, much less a
cup of tea.

Every single cup and saucer is different,
and to my surprise, Camille seems totally fascinated by them. She
peers through a cabinet at a shelf devoted to cups in the shape of
different flowers.

“
I would never have pegged
you for a tea party kind of girl,” I say.

“
Party?” she says, without
inflection. “I just like tea.” There’s a spot of color on her face.
I’m betting that’s as close to embarrassed as she gets.

Destin stands in the middle of the room,
arms close at his sides, as if afraid that one touch will cause a
chain reaction and the whole room will implode in burst of
porcelain. Which frankly, I would pay to see.

“
Guys!” Jul exclaims,
standing at the door, holding a box of gauze. “Please come out of
there, what if you break something?”

“
You say that like we’re
accident-prone or something,” I say. “...Alright, you have a
point.” But my eye is caught by a series of frames hung on one
wall. I’d always known this room was here, but I’d never gone
inside for obvious reasons, so I’ve never seen this
wall.

Most of the black and white photographs
feature one or both of two girls with wide smiles - one pale with
black hair, one dark with what looks like white hair, despite her
youth. Picnics, a day at the beach in old-style bathing suits.

“
That can’t be Ms. Bea,” I
say, blinking at a picture of them sitting with legs dangling off
the back of a pickup truck, grinning at the camera.

“
You didn’t think she’d
always been old, did you?” Destin asks.

“
I didn’t think she’d be a
babe,” I reply. “That’s just weird.”

Destin looks at a picture of them in an
office, with two guys. He leans back in surprise. “I think that’s
my grandfather,” he says.

“
What,
seriously?”

“
Yeah, I recognize the
police uniform he’s wearing. I didn’t know he was friends with Ms.
Bea. Who’s the other guy? He looks pretty young, like our
age.”

Despite Jul’s soft sound of
protest, I carefully lift the picture off the wall and pop off the
back cover.
Omen’s first day of
work,
is scrawled across the back of the
photo in looping script.
Bea, Zinnia,
Omen, Marco - 1976.

“
This is him!” I say,
fitting the picture back together and turning it around to get
another look. “This is the guy who died in the fire. This must have
been taken at the mill - it burned down the next year.” He was
younger than the rest, Destin was right - maybe fifteen, while the
other three were about twenty. “He looks normal enough to me,” I
say.

“
Kinda reminds me of you,
actually,” Destin says. Omen’s hair and skin are as dark as mine
are pale, but he’s about my height - Destin’s grandfather towers
over him, with a hand on his shoulder. Omen’s grin at the camera is
wide, oblivious that his death is a mere year away.

“
Morbid, dude,” I tell
him.

“
What? He has the look of
someone who’d walk right into certain danger and drag his friends
with him.”

Jul, however, is transfixed by a small
portrait propped up on a side table. It’s painted, not a photograph
like the others. The face is almost familiar, but the expression is
wrong, and the hair. Mentally I switch out the blue-white hair for
a dark brown, and trade the far-off, detached smile with a
disapproving frown.

“
Is that Rhys with white
hair?” I ask, standing at Jul’s shoulder.

“
I don’t think that’s him,”
Jul says, but her expression is strange as she stares at
it.

“
Distant relative,” says a
cold voice from the door. Ms. Bea stands there, arms folded. “What
are you doing in my room?”

“
Um...” I offer,
“...scavenger hunt?”

Chapter 15

Jul

My grandmother had caught me and my friends
snooping in an off-limits room when we were supposed to be at
school for detention. And yet, I was the one feeling righteous
indignation.

“
What happened at the mill?”
I asked, shocking myself with my own forwardness.

“
The mill?” She managed to
not even glance at the photos on the wall.

“
Meredith burnt it down
forty years ago,” I said. “You were there. Your friend died. And
now she’s come back.” I trembled, remembering the woman’s scalding
fingers reaching for me. But I hadn’t burned. “You knew a
Mirrormaker - ” I pointed at the portrait, “didn’t you? I bet you
know everything. You certainly can’t forget, all Grimms are
Hunters, after all - ”

“
Busy girl,” Bea said
angrily. “So this was Simon’s plan? Did he send you here to play
the innocent, all the while grooming informants out of your
friends?”

I gasped as if punched. “What?”

“
You think I don’t see you,
greedily turning over every leaf in Havenwood? He’s sent you for
the Tower mirror, and he’s never getting it. I swore he’d never
have it.”

“
This isn’t about the
mirror!” I cried.

“
Why else would you dig up
the past with such fervor?”

“
Because I want to know who
I am!” I shouted. “I have to sneak, and hide, and lie,
because
no one will give me a straight
answer.”

There. I’d said it. And from the shock on
Bea’s face, there was no taking it back.

Camille, Mac, and Destin stood stock still,
silent spectators to my outburst.

“
All of us,” I said. “You
and Tailor, you keep telling us to ignore what’s around us, but how
could we? We’re here. We’re involved. If you want to protect us,
give us the tools to protect ourselves. If you don’t, we’ll find a
way to arm ourselves.”

I felt Camille take a step up to stand
beside me. Gratitude flowed through me for the silent
solidarity.

Bea’s expression was incredulous, and
somehow distant, as if seeing something other than Camille and I
standing there. “You’re not here for the mirror?” she said at
last.

Maybe if I finally told the truth, all of
it, maybe then she would finally believe me.

“
I know where the mirror
is,” I said, and she went rigid. “I’ve even been inside,” I raised
my chin. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading. But Dad has nothing to
do with it,” I stated firmly. “He’s never mentioned anything to me.
He never let me look at his research. I didn’t even know magic was
real until I found the stupid thing by accident. I haven’t even
told my friends about it, because it just seemed...too much.” No
lies, just...omitting Rhys.
He’s not going
to be happy...

“
I’m sorry, guys,” I turned
and apologized to the others. “I was going to show it to you
eventually, it just...felt really private, I guess,” I said,
suddenly embarrassed.
He’s going to kill
me.

“
Don’t,” Bea said sharply,
then shook her head, letting out a long sigh and softened her tone.
“Please, don’t show it to anyone. Not ever.” She gave me a long,
considering look. “You want the truth, Juliet? Then swear to me
that you will keep its location a total secret from this moment on.
From everyone. That mirror is more important than you, or me, or
this entire town. You can’t tell Simon, you can’t tell Camille,”
her eyes flicked to the blonde girl, “you can’t even tell Tailor.
I’m serious. I’ll tell you what you want to know, but in return you
have to help me guard it.”

I nodded slowly. Rhys already knew, but did
I need to tell her that? Surely I could keep one thing to myself?
“Ok,” I said. “I’ll keep the mirror a secret. Tell us about the
mill.”

She let out a breath she’d been holding.
“Just remember, this is what you asked for,” she said. “You won’t
like it all. The more you know, the more you have to be afraid
of.”

Camille gasped, looking out the window. Bea
followed her stare but quickly lost all sense of alarm, seeing a
pair of wide yellow eyes peering in.