House of Korba: The Ghost Bird Series: #7 (The Academy)

by C. L. Stone

  Kota nodded slightly, his face tight. I sensed he wanted to suggest another option but didn’t want to go against Mr. Blackbourne’s wishes. Did he not like the idea of a school dance? Was it the possible danger?

  “I ride in whatever car Sang’s riding in,” Luke said with a grin.

  Mr. Blackbourne looked at Luke and then at Kota. “Will you take Mr. Taylor and Miss Sorenson downtown? Mr. Coleman wanted to work with a particular seamstress. I’ll text you the address.”

  “We’ll meet you there,” Kota said.

  Victor waved to me shortly. I waved back. Mr. Blackbourne had already turned toward his car. It was an odd parting. I’d be seeing them again soon, but after spending the afternoon together in such a nice place, it was like breaking the spell.

  Kota drove and I sat in the front seat next to him. I secured my cup with the flower in the cup holder. Luke slumped in the back, staring out the window.

  I stared out the window, too. The route Kota took was similar to how they got to Victor’s house, but then followed streets further into downtown, and into places I’d never been before.

  Downtown Charleston on a Sunday early afternoon wasn’t particularly crowded. People meandered down the street, and cars moved slowly. I leaned forward, my face nearly pressed to the window, as I tried to glimpse up at buildings, check the signs and peek at the shops.

  Luke nudged my arm, drawing my attention. “Look on this side,” he said, pointing toward Kota’s window.

  I was trying, although avoiding touching Kota while he was driving.

  Kota smirked and took his right hand off the wheel, resting his hand on the headrest of my seat. “Just like the first time I took you to the mall,” he said, with a laugh in his voice. “With your nose pressed to the window.”

  My cheeks heated, but Luke started pointing. “See those buildings?”

  I leaned against Kota to look. Kota stopped at a red light and leaned out of the way.

  A street split and along the middle of it was an open air building. The start of it had outdoor vendors sitting outside with tables covered with baskets. People strolled along the sidewalks on either side, and then right through the center of the brick building. Some walked through the road, slowing down traffic.

  “I like this place,” Luke said. “There’s some great candy shops along this way.”

  I was going to reply when the light changed. Kota moved to take the wheel again. I sat back.

  Once he was driving straight again, slowly making his way through the street, Kota moved his hand until his palm was covering my knee.

  My heart fluttered, warmed by his touch. I looked back at Luke. Did he see?

  He was staring right at Kota’s hand. My heart leapt into my throat. The others had always held my hand, or even had me in their laps in front of each other. I let it happen because I assumed it was okay. In that stretch of time it took for Luke to look up and meet my eyes, my heart tightened in my chest, ready to shatter if he looked disappointed or unhappy.

  Instead, his eyes glowed, and he smiled in a strange way. I was confused, holding my breath. I was sure he’d change to a frown.

  He never did. He winked at me.

  It was almost as bad as him being upset with it. It was like he was telling me it was okay. Was it really?

  “We should park and walk,” Luke said. “It’s not too cold out yet.”

  “Looking for a spot,” Kota said. He kept his palm on my knee, until he had to turn. Once the turn was complete, his hand came back, reaching just above the knee this time, like he was more comfortable with touching me. “We’ll still be waiting for the others.”

  I was quiet the whole time it took him to park along the street. I stared out the window. My focus was on his hand on my thigh, but I tried to notice the new surroundings. Kota’s touch felt reassuring. Maybe it had rattled him earlier when the boys were teasing me and he was trying to show me some quiet encouragement.

  I followed the guys to the steps of a ritzy shopping center with brass doorknobs and freshly painted carved wood framing the archway. We stood together at the front of a doorway, waiting on the others to arrive.

  I was staring off at people walking by, occasionally trying to peek into a window of the shops, but the glass was tinted. There were other stores further up and down the street, and across the street was the start of the outdoor market, with only a few people walking around. It was the weekend, but later in the day, and I suspected on a late Sunday afternoon, people were winding down to close early.

  There was a poke at my arm, and I instinctively turned, thinking it was one of the boys.

  A little face with big brown eyes looked up at me. He spoke quickly, “Ma’am, would you like to buy a grass rose? I made it. Ma’am, would you? Ma’am? Only three dollars.” He held up a rose made from what looked like thick grass leaves.

  My mouth unhinged and I stared at him like he’d been talking in Greek. He had to be only seven or eight, with a small frame, but his face was so serious. He never stopped speaking, either. He pushed the grass rose at me, like trying to push it into my palm. When I took a step back, he stepped forward, thrusting his hand out and the rose toward me.

  “I don’t...” I started to say.

  He continued, “Come on, lady, it’s three dollars. I made this rose myself. You’ll love this. Just—”

  There was movement and Luke was right behind me, his hand on my waist, his other hand he kept behind his back. “Don’t have any cash, kid,” he said. “Sorry.” He tugged me toward the shop. Kota had moved ahead, opening the door.

  “Sir!” The boy cried as he followed us, holding out the rose. “She was about to buy it.”

  “Get your little friends off the steps before the security guys get here,” Luke said. He didn’t let go of me, pushing me toward the doors until I was inside. The moment he stepped in behind me, Kota closed the door.

  My heart was pounding in my chest. The way Kota and Luke had moved so quickly, if I didn’t know them any better, I would have thought them completely rude and abrupt to someone so young. “The kid...”

  “He was pretty trained,” Kota said, coming up beside me. He nudged at the corner of his glasses. We were only standing just inside the door so I could see when the kid turned toward the steps, checking up and down the street. As far as I could tell, he was alone.

  “Hustlers,” Luke said, then chuffed. “And his buddies were waiting.”

  “What?” I asked. I scanned outside again, but I didn’t see anyone else. “Who?”

  Luke turned, his brown eyes lighting up, much more amused now than a moment ago. “They target tourists. You pull your wallet out to pay him for the rose, and they figure out where your wallet is. Or maybe they accidentally bump into you while you’re paying and grab the wallet.”

  “He’s not just selling things?” I asked. “I mean he’s pretty young to be on the street and...”

  “His parents are nearby I bet,” he said. “He’s not alone. But did you see his bag?”

  I hadn’t noticed, but when I checked back, the boy had a plastic grocery bag, it was almost empty except a small shape of what looked like more grass and one half made rose inside. “The stuff he was making them out of?”

  “He only has one made,” he said. He scanned the street, searching the people. He slipped his arm around my neck and then pointed out, angling me to see off to the side. “See the mom over there?”

  I checked. Over at the outdoor market, on the far edge of the entry way was two parallel tables set up with baskets all over. Luke was pointing to one of the women making baskets. While her partner at the opposite side of the table had her back to us, the one Luke pointed to kept looking up as her hands were busy making one of those grass baskets. Her focus settled on the kid, then to people in the street, then back down to her work, in that pattern, over and over.

  “She probably made it,” Luke said. “But he’s only got one, so he’s not really trying to sell them, or he’d be there with dozens
. He’s got just enough so it looks like he’s making them.”

  “But how do you know they’re stealing?” I asked.

  He checked, and then turned me by my shoulders to look the opposite way. He pointed out. “Right there,” he said. He was pointing to two kids: one maybe fifteen, and a girl who looked to be twelve. They looked related with similar facial features. They were standing on the sidewalk next to one of the trash bins, watching.

  “They’ll steal?”

  “They’ve got a lookout and someone to bump into the right person,” Kota said. “When you pull out a wallet or open up your purse, the flower kid is showing the other kids where the money is. He’ll either take it while you’re trying to buy the flower, or follow and wait for you to make a mistake, maybe put your wallet down somewhere when buying something else or when you leave your purse on a counter. Depends on the target and the opportunity. If your wallet has a lot of cash, you’re more of a target.”

  “Should we do something?” I asked.

  “Security will be around,” Kota said. “There’s a few policemen that walk through here, watching for them. They aren’t going to let kids hustle people entering the shops, even if they were just selling flowers.”

  “But...” I wasn’t sure how to put it. Maybe it was the fact that the kid was so young, and his siblings were there. Shouldn’t they be at home studying? Or playing?

  And what about Luke and Kota? They were Academy guys. Couldn’t they talk to them and get them to stop?

  “No good,” Luke said, squeezing me a little around the shoulders before he turned me away from the doors and further into the indoor shopping center. “I know the feeling. But it’s no use. Tomorrow, it’ll be a different kid, a different adult. Or the kids will be in school. It doesn’t happen a lot, and maybe some days they really are selling flowers, but right now they aren’t. But if we tried to talk to them, the parents get all into your face about harassing their kids and try to call the cops like you were the one doing something wrong. They’re very protective.”

  “So you’ve tried to talk to them?”

  “Maybe not these people in particular,” Kota said. “It’s something the Academy might send a younger team out to do. The parents are less likely to harass another kid.”

  Younger kids dealt with this? I kept forgetting that Kota and the others had joined when they were very young: around ten or so. For some reason, even if they’d been pulled out of school, I still imagined they went somewhere, studied like regular students. But if they were with the Academy, they probably had special jobs to do, too. “Why not just sell the flowers?” I asked. “Why steal?”

  “We’re out of tourist season,” Kota said. “So there’s not a lot of opportunities to sell, and locals don’t want them. Some families don’t save for the off-season. They spend it all. Mostly bad money management and lack of knowing what else to do. You get in a rut, and you revert back to something you know. That mom probably used to do something similar.”

  “And a lot of them are just bad,” Luke said, his lips dipping a bit into a frown.

  “Isn’t there anything we could do?” I asked. It struck me as odd that he was so quick to dismiss and not want to help, especially when it was a young kid.

  “Some people can’t be helped,” Kota said quietly. He reached out to brush a palm across the small of my back. It was a quiet motion, urging me further into the shopping section, but also a reaffirming touch. Coupled with Luke’s arm around my neck, it felt amazing to be protected on each side. “And we can only do so much. Family first. After that, we can only help people that want it. That’s the trick, though. They have to be willing. We can’t stretch ourselves so thin to fight for people who won’t even use the opportunities we give them.”

  I pressed my lips together. They’d all told me before they do what they could. I knew I should trust them on their judgment, but my thoughts kept turning to the kid with those big eyes and such a strong personality. Was he really beyond hope?

  I supposed the most intriguing part about the whole thing was the fact that they were usually so helpful and concerned and did their best, and here was one instance where they drew a line and said don’t. Don’t and can’t weren’t words I often heard from them. They saw that invisible line somewhere and they both knew exactly where it was.

  I quelled my thoughts as Luke pointed to one of the shops. “Hey, there’s a jewelry store. Let’s go look.”

  It was enough of a change of topic that I focused. Not all the shops were open on a Sunday; some had their doors closed and lights off. The whole interior of the shopping center was much more elegant than the mall they’d taken me to last time. The floors were marble, and there were fancy chandeliers hanging from the wall. There was a station down the hallway with a row of seats and places to prop up feet, and it took me a minute to figure out it was for shining shoes, something I hadn’t seen except in movies and couldn’t believe still existed.

  Luke was pointing to a display case filled with necklaces and rings just outside an open jewelry shop. The display was pretty fancy, with velvet-covered neck models and boxes decorated with crystals. There was a tiny jeweled clock and a gilded box covered in expensive-looking gemstones inside as well.

  “Gabriel’s birthday is coming up soon,” Kota said.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Luke said.

  “His birthday?” I asked. I knew his birthday was in November, but I’d not thought of things like birthdays for a while. I usually forgot my own. Remembering to think of someone else’s was new to me. “Should we do something?”

  “Be on the lookout for something he’d like,” Luke said. “Might as well take a look while we’re waiting.”

  I walked in, staying as close as possible to Kota while Luke moved forward and started looking at the display cases. My arm brushed his, and his hand reached out to mine, holding onto it. I clasped it back, waiting with him.

  A salesman checked us out. He didn’t say anything, but he kept his eyes on us. I suppose because of our age, he probably thought we were just browsing.

  I checked out the closest display that was filled with diamond bracelets. I didn’t see a price tag on anything in the shop. I supposed you’d have to ask. My eyes kept getting distracted by sparkling here and there. Kota moved further down the line, and I followed to stay near him and hang on to his hand still. I wasn’t really looking at anything in particular, but admiring the settings and the pretty colors of the rings in the cases.

  Jewelry was one of those things that had never crossed my mind much growing up. I knew it existed, but I didn’t wear any because I didn’t have any. It was like knowing caviar existed but if you never were going to experience it, why waste time thinking of it?

  “Your ears aren’t pierced?” Kota asked.

  As he did, I sensed movement behind us, and noticed the salesman had moved to lean against the front of the counter and was staring at us. It was making me nervous.

  “No,” I said quietly.

  “Did you want to?” he asked. “I guess with your parents you probably never got a chance, but we could...”

  “No ear piercings,” Luke said. “I like that she doesn’t have any. She’s like this perfect little clean slate.”

  Kota released my hand and turned to Luke, touching a finger to the corner of his glasses to adjust them. “Did you ask to see if she wanted them pierced? What if she does?”

  Luke’s brown eyes widened in surprise. His head tilted and he looked at me. “You’ve never mentioned it.”

  My face heated and I took a small step back, almost knocking into the glass case. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

  Kota put a palm at my back to guide next to him again. “We could if you’d like. You can tell us what you want to do.”

  My heart raced a little. I appreciated the thought and how they both looked eager to hear what I had to say, but the truth was, I didn’t really know what I wanted. Something like getting my ears pierced had
n’t been on the table as an option before, like many things in my life. Now suddenly I had every opportunity and didn’t know where to start.

  The problem was maybe I simply never assumed I’d ever have such a chance, so I never thought about exactly what I wanted. I also liked knowing what the guys liked. If I didn’t really like something, I’d say so, but some liked me in sporty clothes, and some liked me to dress formally. I liked it all, and wanted to wear what was comfortable. Something like getting my ears pierced probably wasn’t a big deal, but I didn’t have a strong opinion about it one way or another, and Luke’s confession about liking me without made me wonder if I shouldn’t.

  The unease inside me told me I didn’t want to get my ears pierced, at least not today. “I don’t want to at the moment,” I said. “I’d rather look for something for Gabriel.”

  This seemed to appease them both. Luke reached back and adjusted the clip in his hair. When a couple of locks fell back against his face, making a nice frame, I stared. With the high cheekbones and the strong chin and friendly eyes, he reminded me of male models in magazines. “I usually get him some new crystal earrings, but I’m thinking he might like a gold hoop or two. Or maybe a ring. Something for his pinkie.”

  “He mentioned getting his tongue pierced,” Kota said. “Or his lip.”

  “Mr. Blackbourne said no to the lip piercing. But he could have one of those magnetic ones or the fake hoops that don’t require...”

  “Excuse me,” a voice said and we all turned, looking at the salesman. He’d approached us quietly and he kept his hands behind his back. “May I interested you three in anything?”

  “Pardon us. We’re still browsing,” Kota said in an easy tone. “We’re thinking of—”

  “If there isn’t anything specific,” he said, cutting Kota off, “why don’t you try the jewelry store at the mall.”

  From his tone, I gathered if we weren’t going to buy, that he’d want us to move on. My spine rippled, sensing he was displeased with a few kids talking about piercing body parts. I imagined it wasn’t the type of thing he’d want other customers having to listen to, even if we were the only ones in his boutique at the moment.