The Thief Read Free Page A

“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 can’t just start
selling