Talisman of El (7 page)

Then darkness swallowed him.

The Other Thief WHEN 

CHARLIE WOKE THE following day, it was several seconds before he remembered what had happened. He was lying in bed looking through his photo album. The shock of what occurred that night had taken a while to wear off. For a time, he tried to convince himself it had been a hallucination. Jacob wasn’t a thief. There had been no woman with mysterious powers. After all, he was in no pain, which he should have been had someone thrown him around like a rag doll as he’d thought.
Just a dream,
he told himself; yet he still could not get Candra out of his head.

Frustrated, he thrust the photo album onto the floor and sat up, swinging his legs out of bed. Candra’s scarred but beautiful pale face kept flashing through his mind. She had looked in her thirties, her alluring green eyes clouded by the deepest sorrow. It was as if she had fallen into a web of barbed wires –

The sound of a click brought his thoughts to a sudden halt. He looked at the door and saw Jacob glaring at him.

‘We’re leaving at eleven tonight,’ Jacob said. ‘You better be ready.’

Charlie averted his eyes. ‘How can I forget? You’ve been reminding me every second.’

‘Don’t get smart with me, you ungrateful brat.’

Charlie sprang to his feet. ‘You expect me to be happy?’ he said through clenched teeth.

‘I expect you to do what you were brought here to do.’

Charlie paused, scowling as he processed Jacob’s words. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Did you think I took you in out of the kindness of my heart? Let’s face it. I’m not getting any younger. I need a new pair of legs.’

Charlie stared at him in shock and indignation. ‘You don’t really want a son.’ His low voice was tense. ‘You never have.’

‘Bravo.’ Jacob clapped his hands together. ‘I knew I made the right choice with you. The first time I saw you, you looked so lost. You had no one and nothing to your name. My mother used to say that a person with no expectations was a person with no disappointments. She was a clever woman, my mother. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t have what you want,” she used to say.’ A vacant expression appeared on his face as his gaze wandered around the room. After a moment, his eyes locked on Charlie, and he stared intently at him, as if he’d only just noticed him. ‘Why so glum? You have nothing to lose, so shut up, and get on with it.’

‘How many times have you done this?’

Jacob grinned. ‘That depends on if you mean robbing from the dead or just in general.’

Oh great, I’m living with a kleptomaniac.
Charlie felt a headache coming on. He looked at his clock – eleven forty a.m. – and remembered he had planned to meet up with Alex at twelve. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

Jacob huffed. ‘I don’t think so, boy.’ He grabbed the door handle and retreated out of the room, slamming the door shut.

Charlie heard keys jingling, followed by a loud click. He was on lockdown.

Charlie’s bedroom door unlocked.

It was time.

It took them a little over thirty minutes to arrive at their destination, longer than the previous night, due to the slippery roads caused by the melting snow. Jacob cut off the road and entered the woods.

Charlie could see why someone like Jacob got away with this for so long. It was easy to carry out since Capeton was seventy percent woodland and thirty percent civilisation. One could easily get away with murder.

Jacob stopped the car. He got out and Charlie followed. They headed through the woods and arrived at the same house they had been to twenty-four hours ago.

‘Let’s try this again,’ Jacob said. ‘We go in, get the goods, and get out. You better not mess up this time.’

Easy for you to say,
Charlie thought. As they headed towards the house, he kept glancing behind him, as if expecting to see someone – or something.

They entered the house.

Jacob led the way into the living room on the immediate right, his torch in hand. ‘Keep up and touch nothing.’ He gave Charlie the black sack while he moved towards a glass cabinet to collect his earnings – or so he called it. Opening the doors, he shone the light on a set of silver and vintage crockery. He picked up a silver bowl tray, and a huge grin spread across his face. ‘Just one of these is worth a fortune.’

Charlie glanced around the room, his gaze focused on the photos on the wooden wall shelf above the sofa. He wrinkled his nose at the musty odour pervading the cramped space. ‘Isn’t someone going to notice things are missing?’

‘Not if they don’t know what there is to miss.’ Jacob closed the cabinet doors, and he and Charlie headed back to the hallway. ‘Edna has one son who she hadn’t seen in six years. He wouldn’t know if the roof was missing.’

Charlie was about to follow him through to the kitchen when a faint creaking noise reached his ears, and he stopped. Glancing down at the carpeted floor, he took a step back then a step forward, but he heard nothing.

The noise returned, and his eyes flashed to the hallway cupboard. A strange feeling gripped him as he approached the cupboard. On the count of three, he pulled the door open, and a beam of light blinded him.

Charlie covered his eyes with his hand. His only reaction was to point his torch towards the other light.

The boy looked at him in shock. He had short blond hair, blue eyes, and wore shabby oversized clothes. He was younger than Charlie was.

They stood in silence, staring at each other. Charlie saw a black bag in the boy’s hand, like the one he was holding – except the boy’s bag was full.

Jacob reappeared in the hallway. ‘What’s taking you so long?’

Before Charlie could respond, the boy jetted past him, heading towards the front door.

Jacob shouted after him, but the boy dashed through the door. ‘Who was that?’ Jacob asked, panicked. When Charlie didn’t answer, he grabbed him and pushed him up against the wall. ‘Who was that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well go after him and find out.’

Charlie headed towards the open front door, but when he got outside, the boy had vanished.

Monday arrived, and Charlie was glad to get out of the house. Jacob had confined him to his bedroom with no outside privileges for the entire weekend. He went from being an orphan, to almost being a son, to being a prisoner, all in the space of two months.

The day passed in a blur. Charlie was sitting in the school bus, staring out the window as he headed home. He wanted to tell Alex everything, but Jacob’s constant threats to put him in the ground made him think otherwise. He didn’t want to get her caught up in his mess of a life.

‘Are you going to tell me or not?’ Alex asked.

‘I told you,’ he said. ‘He moved them. End of story.’ ‘But it’s not the whole story, is it?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘You’ve been avoiding me all day, so clearly there’s something you’re not telling me.’

‘Quit already.’

Alex frowned and crossed her arms. ‘It always feels as if you’re hiding things from me.’

‘It’s not my fault you’re paranoid.’

‘I’m not the paranoid one staring out the window every second.’

‘Maybe that’s because you’re doing my head in.’ Charlie noticed students staring at them and ran a hand through his hair. Tugging on his shirt collar, he loosened his tie. It felt as if his body temperature had gone up ten degrees.

The bus slowed as it approached a stop.

Charlie glanced back out the window, and a movement across the other side of the road caught his attention. He saw a boy running across a large meadow, heading towards a forest, and his jaw dropped. It was the boy from Edna’s house. As the bus came to a stop, Charlie got up and climbed over Alex.

‘Where are you going?’ Alex asked. ‘This isn’t your stop.’ 

‘I have to sort something out. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He headed down the aisle and exited the bus, walking to the rear end. It wasn’t until the bus pulled away that he glanced in its direction and saw Alex walking towards him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘What are
you
doing?’ she asked.

He looked across the meadow. ‘I told you I had something to sort out.’

‘Do you know him?’

Charlie glanced at her and saw her looking towards the meadow. ‘No, but I’ve seen him around.’

Alex shot him a suspicious look. ‘So, what’s this thing you have to sort out?’ She looked back in the direction of the boy. ‘Has it got something to do with him?’

‘No.’ The word couldn’t have flown out of Charlie’s mouth any faster.

‘Fine. Don’t tell me.’ Alex headed towards the meadow. ‘Where’re you going?’

‘We’re following him.’

‘Wait, what?’ Charlie’s voice sounded strained. ‘Alex, we can’t just follow him.’

Alex looked back at him and smiled.

Charlie pursued her. He didn’t want Alex present when he confronted the boy in fear she may find out about what occurred two nights ago.

‘Let’s just see what he’s up to,’ Alex suggested.

‘We’re not following him.’

‘You got off the bus fast enough. Were you planning to watch him from afar?’ She stopped in front of the barbed-wire fence and turned to him. ‘You coming or not?’ She tossed her bag over the fence, got down onto her stomach, and crawled underneath the wire. Rising to her feet, she brushed dirt off her clothes and turned to him. ‘Maybe he’s up to something. Or, maybe he’s an alien.’

‘Yeah, that’s it, he’s an alien.’

‘We won’t know unless we follow him. Look, you got off the bus for whatever reason. It’s a long walk home for nothing. We’re here, so we might as well do something.’

‘I know, but –’

‘But nothing. You’re not afraid, are you?’

An image of Candra flashed in his mind. ‘No.’

‘Well, come on, then.’

Charlie glanced in the direction the bus had headed and looked at his watch. It was nearing four in the afternoon. He deliberated for a moment and then handed her his bag before climbing under the fence. ‘Thirty minutes tops.’

Alex smiled, and they took off.

It took them a couple of minutes to get to the forest. They would have been quicker were it not for the wild grass of the meadow round their knees. Tall trees guarded the dense forest, blocking out most of the sunlight. They saw the boy with a bag on his back and followed him.

They walked for fifteen minutes until they came across a small, shabby, wooden shack in the old growth Douglas-fir forest. Hiding behind a tree, they watched as the boy went inside the shack.

‘Shall we knock?’ Alex whispered in Charlie’s ear, and he flinched. ‘What’s with you? You’re so jumpy.’

‘No I’m not,’ he snapped. ‘And no, we’re not knocking.’ 

‘We didn’t come all this way for nothing.’

‘What are we supposed to say? Sorry, just thought we’d follow you.’

‘It is the truth.’

‘Let’s just wait until he comes out.’

‘Then what?’

‘I don’t know. This was your idea.’

Alex crossed her arms. ‘Well, I say we knock –’

A loud scream cut her off. She and Charlie poked their heads out from behind the tree and saw the boy running towards them. As the boy drew nearer to them, they came out of their hiding spot, and he came to a sharp halt in front of them. His blue eyes studied Charlie, as if searching for a missing piece to a puzzle, and as though he found it, he looked stunned. Charlie knew what he was thinking, but before he could assure him he wasn’t there to recover the stolen goods, Alex spoke.

‘Why are you screaming?’ she asked the boy.

Suddenly, as if he had just remembered something, his eyes widened, and he glanced back in the direction he had come from. Charlie looked at Alex, and his own confusion mirrored back at him.

‘What is it?’ Alex asked.

The boy pointed at the shack. ‘So-so-something’s in there.’

His soft voice trembled.

‘Something like what?’ Charlie asked.

The boy turned to him. He seemed to freeze for a moment, his expression distant. Finally, he shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t live in the shack, do you?’ Alex asked. The boy’s expression became nervous, and he turned away from them.

Alex looked at Charlie and gestured towards the boy. When Charlie didn’t budge, she rolled her eyes and gave him a nudge. ‘Where are your parents?’ Charlie asked. The boy kept his back to him. Glancing back towards the run down shack, Charlie realised he didn’t have it half as bad as the kid. ‘So how big is this thing?’

The boy turned to him. ‘Big,’ he replied with raised eyebrows.

‘But it didn’t attack you, right?’

The boy shook his head.

‘Charlie,’ Alex said. ‘You’re not thinking what I think your thinking, are you?’

‘We’ll just have a peek,’ Charlie replied.

‘No way. Let’s just leave.’

‘I wanna see what’s inside,’ the boy said.

‘Weren’t you the one screaming a minute ago –?’ Alex began.

Charlie cut her off, ‘Just wait here for us.’

Alex folded her arms across her chest. ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll just be Little Red Riding Hood waiting for the wolf to come eat me.’

‘There are wolves here,’ the boy said, alarmed.

‘No,’ Charlie assured him, ‘there are no wolves.’ He looked at Alex and frowned, and then his gaze lowered, his eyes sweeping across the ground. ‘We need something big.’ Spotting a branch, he walked over to it and picked it up, hitting it against his palm to test its durability.