Sneak Thief

by Faith Harkey

  Squinting into the shadows, she said, “Belle? Honey? Is that you?”

  I gulped. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank God!” And just like that, her arms were around me and she was kissing the top of my head and patting at my arms like she was checking to be sure I was all right. “Belle! What happened? Where have you been? Ramey didn’t—?”

  I steeled myself for the worst, by which I mean the truth. “No. It wasn’t nothing to do with Baron. I, uh—”

  Now the men stepped out on the porch. When they saw me there, they came running. Just in time to hear me say—

  “I was over at Nina’s.”

  The ruckus that followed was bad enough, full of whats and whys. But when it became clear that I’d gone there by my own free will, the upscuddle turned awful.

  “Oh, Belle!”

  “You made a promise!”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “Obviously, she wasn’t thinking, Mike!”

  The worst of all came from Mabel, though, when she asked the men, “Well, what did you expect?”

  As if I was some kind of trailer-trash washout just destined to fail her!

  A switch flipped in me.

  “I’m Nina Cantrell’s girl, don’t you know!” I roared. “Surely any reason I had for going there was wicked and wrong! Oh, if only I had listened to you good, upstanding folk! If only I weren’t so despisable and rotten to the core! What hope was there ever for sneak-thieving, reprobate little Hush Cantrell?”

  They stared slack-jawed, all of them. Finally, Mabel looked as if she was about to find her voice, but I didn’t want to hear it.

  “And by the by!” I shouted, snatching a pain imp off the side of Ham’s belly as I stormed past. “I thought there weren’t no penalty for honesty in this house!”

  With no place else to go, I locked myself up in my room. Which, of course, wasn’t my room, but someone else’s. It had only been a game of pretend all along, the idea that I could be something different. Something more.

  What did you expect?

  * * *

  —

  The next day, Desiree and I were supposed to teach a yoga class, but I wasn’t in any kind of mood for it.

  Mabel looked up from her breakfast as I entered the kitchen, but I sailed right past her and headed for the phone.

  “Everly? This is Hush. Ain’t no yoga today.”

  “Laura Lynn? This is Hush. Ain’t no yoga today.”

  “Skeeter? This is Hush. Ain’t no—”

  The call-waiting chimed. I clicked over.

  “Mabel Holt’s house, Garden Assistant speaking,” I snarled.

  “It’s Sue, sugar! Put Mabel on!”

  Even though I was mad, I knew real strain when I heard it, so I handed the phone over right quick.

  Surprised, Mabel set the telephone to her ear. “Hello?”

  As she listened, a deep red pain imp flared over her heart. Her face turned pale. “What? How? I only just saw him last night! Aren’t there supposed to be, I don’t know, warning signs?” She cupped her hand over her heart. “Bless him. I’ll be right there!”

  “What happened?” I asked, my ire forgotten.

  She was already running for her keys. “Ham’s appendix burst! He’s very sick.”

  “Are you going to the hospital?” I asked as she flew by me.

  “Yeah!” she called back.

  “Wait up, then!”

  * * *

  —

  Without the radio on, the jangle of the truck’s keys against the steering column was downright harsh.

  “Could he die?” I asked as we drove.

  Mabel gave a long blink and blew out a breath. “Yes.”

  * * *

  —

  I don’t know how many of us there were, crowded in that waiting room. At least twenty. Besides me, Mabel, and Sue, the Orrs were there, plus JoBeth, a couple yoga students, Peggy from Beezer’s, and a whole slew of people whose faces I was learning to recognize but couldn’t yet name. As the bunch of us sat around, waiting on news, another family filed in.

  “How is he?” the mother asked.

  Even Sue’s shrug was exhausted. “We’re waiting.”

  Mabel got up to go rub Sue’s shoulders, so the chair next to me turned empty. Desiree came over, sat down, and took my hand. She didn’t say anything, but I reckon we had reached a place in our friendship where words weren’t always needful.

  We were still holding hands when a nurse came into the room.

  Sue stood up. “How is he, Lainey?”

  “He’s out of the woods,” the nurse replied with a little smile.

  A great wave of relief surged out over the room. More than one person’s heart imp turned pale, and a couple even winked out.

  “Lain, can you tell us anything?” Mabel asked. “Isn’t this the kind of thing a person sees coming?”

  The nurse held up her empty hands. “Usually, yeah. You’d expect a whole lot of pain before an appendix ruptures! It’s the body’s early-warning system—a signal to get help before things turn dangerous. But Ham said he didn’t feel much of anything. Just a sharp twinge last night, then it passed. Gone as quick as it came.”

  My hands began to tremble. My whole insides quivered.

  “Desiree,” I whispered. “Where’s your appendix?”

  She pointed to a spot on the bottom right side of her belly.

  Right where I’d nabbed that pain imp off Ham last night!

  Pain is a teacher. That’s what old Nate’s granny taught. And what did a teacher do but give you help—and yap at you when you were going astray?

  No, no, NO! I done it to Ham! I took away his early-warning system! He didn’t feel no pain, so he didn’t get no help! His appendix just got bigger and bigger until it blew up! He could have died—because of me!

  “Hush, what’s wrong?” Desiree asked. “Didn’t you hear? Nurse Cussler says Ham’s gonna be all right!”

  I shook my head. “You don’t understand.”

  “Understand what?” She gripped my hand tighter than before. “Tell me.”

  “I can’t. I gotta—” I pulled away from her. “I gotta go!” I ran off to the bathroom and very nearly puked up my appendix.

  * * *

  —

  I don’t think anyone figured out I was behind Ham’s appendix busting, and I sure didn’t tell no one. If folks thought I was trouble before, what would they make of me now that I’d nearly killed someone?

  Life turned fairly grim. A bunch of storm clouds rolled into town and stayed, leaving the skies bruised with a rain that threatened but never broke. And me, I started shutting folks out, not talking to Mabel or Desiree, locking myself in my room, eating alone, stewing. Sometimes I’d do nothing but sit and look at the pain imps, picking up the jar and setting it down again, wondering, What could I—what should I—have done different?

  From desolation to anger I flew. I was madder than I was the night I came back from Nina’s, everyone so disappointed in me. Madder, I think, than all the times I’d been mad in my life, combined. I was rageful mad at that Bigger Power they made such a big deal about in Jimmy’s Big Book.

  “What was I supposed to do? Let them suffer?” I shouted Upward. But just then my words took a turn and swirled around my head a few times. “Hold up! I must be addled, asking You! You leave people to suffer all the time! Bigger Power? Ha! Mighty right! Bigger Power to do nothing!” I picked up the Big Book. “Oh, Bigger Power! It’s a good thing we have you! Whatever would we do without all your most excellent helping?”

  I lobbed that book across the room and left it where it landed, open facedown with pages bent.

  “I hate you!” I screamed up at Bigger Power.

  And there I was. Back where it all began. Staring at the c
andles in Beezer’s.

  The light that come in through the front windows was dingy. Folks passed by, heads ducked down, collars up, as if a rain was falling.

  I was wearing my first daddy’s jacket. My loco was up, keen and primed. And I knew, guaranteed, I weren’t gonna get caught today. When I really cranked my engine, all pistons firing, I was just too darn good.

  A woman ducked into the store. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and she was looking for some kind of medicine for her baby.

  “He won’t stop crying! With Tad off working, and me being sick all the time! Sue’s got him right now, but, Peggy, you got to help me!” Pain imps flared all along the right side of her head.

  But I wasn’t worried about pain imps. The shopkeep had her hands full. That’s all I cared about.

  My eyes were on the finest of the candles, the shimmering gold ones. Their wrappers said they were scented like Christmas.

  I slipped two of them into my jacket, then took a third. All at once, though, I thought better of it, put the candles back in their box—and pinched the whole case instead. Twelve golden candles.

  Drunk on loco, I rearranged the display so it looked like nothing was missing. A mighty fine job, and I said so myself.

  With my jacket puffed up around me, and my arm cradling the box just so, I left Beezer’s without so much as a backward glance.

  But I wasn’t finished yet.

  * * *

  —

  Under those useless, rainless skies, I crossed Main Street, turned down Swift, and made for a pair of white double doors.

  FIRST CHURCH OF SASS, said the fancy plaque on the wall.

  I snatched the pen from the guest book and strode down that center aisle to the big altar up front.

  There wasn’t anything convenient to lean against, so I knelt down on one of the steps and set the box on my knees. Uncapping the pen, I wrote on the lid, A present, BP. Thanks for all your great help!

  I proceeded to break every one of the candles.

  Real careful-like, I put the broken pieces—every last bit of wax—in the box. I shut the lid, and set the whole package next to the cup on the altar.

  On my way out, I stopped to write in the guest book. Nina Cantrell’s girl—’Bagoville.

  Then I went to the police station to turn myself in.

  A dispatcher called Jimmy and Mabel. JoBeth wasn’t there, so they called her, too. The sheriff was in some kind of meeting, but he radioed to say he’d be there soon—and not to let me go nowhere.

  Fine by me. I sat in that chair, arms folded, and waited.

  Mabel was the first to arrive. She had two new pain imps over her heart. I turned my eyes aside from those.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I told her.

  “I brought you a muffin. You didn’t eat before you…left.”

  “Not hungry.”

  Jimmy came in. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I told him.

  “Desiree sent you this.” He held out a folded piece of paper.

  I very nearly took it.

  “Don’t want it.”

  He pocketed the note. Turning to the dispatcher, he asked, “Mind if we use the room down at the end of the hall?”

  “Be my guest,” said the man.

  JoBeth appeared just as we were getting settled, so now we were four. Five if you counted the flying duck pictured on the wall.

  “What happened, Hush?” Jimmy asked.

  “I stole some candles. Then I broke ’em. Then I left ’em in the church.”

  “Yes, we know,” Mabel said. “But what happened?”

  I couldn’t decide what to tell them. I knew I was going to juvie; that much was plain. But did I want to go there on a charge of thieving—or one for near-murder, seeing as how I’d almost killed Ham? A brain-cousin of my loco asked, Why tell them anything at all? They’d only hear what they expected to hear—a poor excuse from a trashy girl who don’t know any better.

  Mabel’s eyes shone with tears. Her imps burned scarlet.

  Two wrongs don’t make a right, I recalled hearing sometime in my past.

  Justice ain’t for poor folk. I’d heard that, too.

  Finally, I shut my eyes and said, “It was my fault Ham got sick.”

  Jimmy made a hissing sound and leaned back in his chair.

  “What do you mean, your fault?” Mabel wanted to know.

  I tried to remember how angry I’d been, recalling Mabel’s terrible words, What did you expect? But Mabel’s heart was on her sleeve. So, I started piecing together the story for them—for her, mostly. I had just come to the part where I’d plucked the pain imp off Ham’s belly, when jingling keys and heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Sheriff Thrasher appeared in the doorway.

  “Folks.” He nodded.

  “Hey, Mike,” Mabel said softly.

  The sheriff set his thumbs into his belt. “We got us a situation.”

  * * *

  —

  The adults disappeared for a time. Only Mabel came back.

  She sat down in her same chair and put a cup of water before me. I took a few sips before she spoke.

  “Something’s happened to Nina,” she told me.

  As I say, I know real strain when I hear it. Water sloshed over the rim of the cup as I dropped it onto the table. “What?”

  “Someone…beat her up. She’s in the emergency room—”

  I was out of my chair in a flash. “Will you take me?”

  She said she would.

  * * *

  —

  It was a terrible sort of familiar, that drive to the hospital, the second time in a week. Mabel was mostly quiet. I asked if Nina could die.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied.

  “All right.” I blew out a big breath. “All right.”

  As she pulled into the parking space, Mabel said, “Can I say one thing before we go in?”

  “Hurry,” I told her, my hand already on the door handle.

  “This is not your fault.”

  But I knew from the very fact that she said it at all—it surely was.

  * * *

  —

  The room’s window curtain had been pulled shut, but Sheriff Thrasher opened it before he’d let me go in alone.

  The light was harsh and the coldish air smelled like medicine. Nina sat upright on her bed, one arm in a sling, the other hand fiddling with the tips of her hair. She looked up when I came in.

  “Hush?” she asked as if she didn’t expect to see me there.

  I quick-counted a dozen new pain imps on her.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “But we ain’t allowed to see each other.”

  “Sheriff said it was all right.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. I made out a bruise on her far cheek. Her eyes were darker than normal, too. Not blackened like they’d been hit, but sunken, like she was pulling inside herself—or fixin’ to sneak out the back door of her mind.

  “Was it Baron?” I asked.

  Again, she only nodded.

  Where had the angry rebel Nina gone? She should have been swearing six ways from sideways, furiously shaking her head and slapping at walls. She should have been swearing off Baron for good (not that it would last) and telling me to mind my own beeswax.

  I couldn’t take her unnatural quiet. “Are you gonna tell me what happened or not?”

  “I would if I could,” she replied. “I don’t rightly know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Had he given her something? Like a drug? My hackles rose.

  “It was…the most curious thing,” she said. “Couple days, maybe a week ago, I woke up feeling so strange. Like I had been locked up in a cage, but suddenl
y I was free.” She dipped her chin, then winced as a pain imp on her neck went from pale to dark red. “Ye-ah. Like I’d been in a body-shaped cage, steel all around me, right up against my skin.” She wrapped her good hand gingerly around the slung-up wrist, to show me. “But I didn’t know it was there until it was gone.” She smiled, though a smile on her was so rare, it hung a little strange on her face. “It was gone!”

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure she was talking about the morning after I’d plucked her pain imps.

  “And I was feeling so good,” she went on. “Started cleaning the place up. Thinking of ways I might convince the sheriff to let you come home. Caught a notion that I ain’t been a real good ma—” A pain imp over her heart flashed deep red.

  She drifted off for a time.

  “Baron turned up this morning. Real early. Like, four. He was drunk. And angry. And all of a sudden, I thought, I can’t have this in my home! I can’t have this in my life! I am a person!” Her eyes were wide with wonder. “I said that to him! Can you believe that? I am a person! Then I told him to get out of my house.

  “He didn’t like that none. So he—” She turned her cheek out where I could see it better. She held up her broken arm. “Lucky he didn’t do worse, I reckon.”

  I stood there staring. I’d lifted Nina’s pain—and what had come of it? She sassed back at Baron Ramey and he broke her arm!

  My feet started moving toward the door.

  “I got to go,” I heard myself say. “Hope you feel better soon.”

  * * *

  —

  Mabel found me in the hallway. “You all right, Belle?”

  I shook my head.

  “Am I allowed to come back home with you?” My voice sounded a million miles away.

  “Absolutely.” Hers wasn’t much closer.

  “I’d like to go there now, if we could. Please.”

  * * *

  —

  After the fact, Mabel told me I’d slept for a day and a half. There weren’t any pain imps in my dreams this time. No Baron Ramey, either. But I did keep seeing those candlesticks I borrowed. Except, instead of gold wax, they were real, solid gold. And when I snapped them in two, they let off a fine golden powder that stuck to my hands and wouldn’t brush off.