The Shadow Thieves Read online

  “Oh!” Charlotte said. “Wow, that’s really nice. But you know…it’s gotten much better. They got a new counselor, and she’s done wonders. I really think they’re going to be able to work it out! Plus Mom’s on a new medication and, uh…she’s really much less moody.” Charlotte grinned like the happy, well-adjusted thirteen-year-old she was, then added pointedly, “They’re really trying to put all their troubles in the past.”

  Ms. Bristol-Lee broke out in a huge smile that almost made Charlotte feel guilty. Almost. “Oh, Charlotte, I’m so glad! Keep me posted, okay? And take care of yourself….”

  “I will,” Charlotte nodded, eyes big. “Thanks.”

  Ms. Bristol-Lee squeezed Charlotte’s shoulder, then went on her way. Charlotte exhaled heavily.

  She sighed and put her chin in her hands. The stream of students coming out of the doors was wearing thin now, and still no Zee. She stretched her legs out and thought of all the things her weird cousin and her creepy English teacher might be saying to each other.

  “Hey!” Another voice interrupted Charlotte’s reverie. She looked up to see the cat-eyed glasses of Maddy staring down at her.

  “Hey,” Charlotte grinned.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting for Zee. He’s talking to Mr. Metos. Probably getting his blood sucked.”

  “Char!” Maddy looked behind her. “I like Mr. Metos. He’s…interesting.”

  “Interesting is right,” Charlotte said. “Vampires are extremely interesting.”

  “I doubt he’s a vampire.”

  “Well, maybe he’s a werewolf.”

  “For a werewolf he sure gives a lot of homework,” she said, patting her big purple assignment book. “And if he is, Zee better get out of there. Full moon tonight.”

  Charlotte looked at her watch again. “I’m really hoping he comes out before dark. If he doesn’t, getting eaten will serve him right…. Are you getting picked up today?”

  “Nah. I’m gonna walk. Mom’s got Pilates…. Anyway, Zee’s awfully cute.”

  “I know,” Charlotte sighed long-sufferingly. “There’s something weird about him, though.”

  Maddy grinned. “Is he a werewolf too?”

  “I’m serious!” Charlotte said. “Something’s up with him.” She told Maddy about her first conversation with Zee and what she had overheard Uncle John say on Saturday night. “And, I don’t know, I swear when I mentioned Mr. Metos, it was like he knew his name.”

  “Huh!” Maddy bit her lip and thought for a second. “That is weird.”

  “I know!” said Charlotte. “There’s something going on with him, Maddy. Something strange. Zee has a secret, I know it.”

  Maddy nodded. “Look, I gotta get home, I’ve got piano. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, okay? Keep your eyes on him! We’ll figure it out.”

  Charlotte smiled. They made their good-byes, and Charlotte watched as her friend headed off down the street.

  Charlotte kept her ears open and her eyes peeled that night, but she didn’t have any new information to give Maddy the next day. But Maddy wasn’t in homeroom anyway. Charlotte thought she must have had an appointment or something, because Maddy had never missed a day of school before in her life. But she wasn’t in science, either, and when Charlotte looked at the list of excused absences on the teachers’ announcement board, she saw her friend’s name: MADELINE RUBY—ILL.

  Weird, Charlotte thought.

  She didn’t get a chance to call Maddy that night, though. Zee stayed after school to try out for the upper-school soccer team (every once in a while when a kid was super good at something, they let an eighth grader play on the upper-school teams), and she stayed with him on her mother’s instructions. It was worth it to watch the coach’s eyes bug out when Zee played. He might be weird and a cat thief, but Zee could sure play soccer. Charlotte didn’t know whether to feel bad that she had no actual talents or to be proud that Zee was on her side, so she settled for both. Then they went out to dinner because Uncle John was going to leave the next morning. So by the time they got home, it was way too late to be calling sick friends, as much as you might want to. All you could do was start your math homework, know that your friend would probably be back in school the next day, and watch wistfully as your kitten snuggled up on your cousin’s lap.

  But Maddy wasn’t in homeroom the next day either, and Charlotte could not help but feel uneasy. During her free period she found herself going from classroom to classroom, collecting homework assignments for her friend, even though she hadn’t willingly spoken to so many teachers before in her life.

  “That’s good of you, Charlotte,” each teacher said. “What’s wrong with Madeline?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte said quietly each time. And something in her voice seemed to make the teachers quiet too.

  After school Zee went to soccer practice (for, naturally, he had made the team) and Charlotte walked the six blocks to Maddy’s house, clutching a red folder of assignments that Charlotte had spent all of English decorating.

  It had finally gotten cool enough to be October. Two days ago the trees lining the sidewalks had been green; now they were all bright red, and as Charlotte walked along, she felt a few brown leaves crunch against the sidewalk. The air smelled of burned things. The wind had a faint chill in it, and perhaps that, combined with her apprehension over Maddy’s two-day absence, was why she felt that something was not quite right in the world around her, almost as if she were being watched.

  Charlotte pressed the little round iron doorbell at Maddy’s front door and heard the familiar, cheerful chirping echo through the inside of the house. She’d done this thousands of times since the girls became friends in first grade, after a discovery of a great mutual affection for Play-Doh.

  But this time the bell faded out and she heard nothing. No sound coming through the hallway or rushing down the stairs to greet her. Just silence. And Charlotte’s heart flipped a little. But then, there, firm adult footsteps sounded in the house, and Charlotte exhaled.

  Maddy’s mom opened the door, looking weary. There was something different about her, and it took Charlotte a few moments to realize this was the first time she’d ever seen Mrs. Ruby without the light pink lipstick that Charlotte had come to think was her own natural (albeit waxy) coloring.

  “Oh, Charlotte,” said Mrs. Ruby. “Hi.” She smiled faintly and leaned against the doorway. A moment passed.

  “Um,” Charlotte said. “I brought Maddy’s homework.” She held out the folder weakly. She had a strange urge to drop it and run in the other direction.

  “Oh!” Mrs. Ruby exclaimed. “Of course. I’m sorry, Charlotte, I’m just…that’s very nice of you. Come on in.”

  She held the door, and Charlotte walked in, clutching the folder tightly.

  “Maddy will be glad to see you,” Mrs. Ruby said quietly.

  “Yeah, um…what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. She’s just—I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I came home on Monday to find her just collapsed on the couch. She could barely talk.”

  “On Monday? I saw her leaving school. She was fine.”

  “Well, she wasn’t when I got home. And she got worse all evening. We went to the doctor yesterday, but…” She shook her head. “Well, let’s go see her, huh?” Mrs. Ruby smiled tightly at Charlotte, and then held out her hand like she used to when Charlotte was six. Charlotte took it, and together they walked up the stairs.

  The shades were drawn and the lights off in Maddy’s room, and Charlotte could barely make out her friend in the mass of covers on the bed. Mrs. Ruby went over to her. “Honey? Are you awake? Charlotte’s here to see you!” She sounded oddly cheerful, in that way grownups can. “Come on over, Charlotte.”

  Maddy was buried deep inside several layers of blankets. Her head was propped up on three large pillows, but under the covers the rest of her body seemed flat against the bed, useless, like an old rag doll. Her eyes looked shadowy, and when she smile
d at Charlotte, the effort seemed to drain her more. Charlotte sat down on the edge of the bed and sucked on her lips.

  “I’ll leave you girls,” said Mrs. Ruby. “But only a few minutes, okay, Charlotte?”

  And then she was gone, and Charlotte sat on her friend’s bed and thought about how she had absolutely nothing in the whole wide world to say.

  CHAPTER 6

  Get Set

  CHARLOTTE DID NOT SLEEP WELL THAT NIGHT. FOR A few days she had fancied herself on the periphery of some great mystery, one that had begun with the sudden arrival of her British cousin and then seemed to encompass her English teacher as well. But suddenly Charlotte wasn’t living in a mystery anymore, in a fantasy world made of dark secrets and hidden tunnels and vampiric teachers and foggy London nights. Now Charlotte lived in this horrible world where her best friend could get so sick she couldn’t lift her head.

  And Maddy had been just fine at school that day, absolutely 100 percent fine. Better than that. She’d been Maddy, all cat-eyed glasses and mischievous smiles, with purple socks that matched her assignment book. The girl in the bed was just a shadow of her friend.

  She hadn’t told her family about Maddy, not yet. She didn’t really know what to say, and somehow the words “Maddy’s got something weird” or “Maddy’s really sick” sounded useless to her, like a crumpled-up lunch bag. So at dinner, when her mother said, “You’re awfully quiet, honey,” and her father said, “Is there something bothering you, dear?” she just shrugged and said she was tired. The Mielswetzskis believed in giving children their own emotional space, so they did not prod, but merely turned back to Zee and listened to him talk about how much he was enjoying his new school.

  Charlotte couldn’t even toss and turn—she had taken Bartholomew to bed with her that night, for she had great need of Mew’s kittenness, and the cat had dutifully passed out tucked right into Charlotte’s stomach. This was a thing too wonderful to be disturbed, so Charlotte lay with her hand on Mew, staring at the wall and thinking of her shadow of a friend.

  It was hard for Charlotte to get out of bed the next morning; all she wanted to do was stay in her bed with the covers pulled over her head and never ever, ever get out. Every piece of clothing Charlotte put on that morning was gray, from her hair elastic to her socks. It set the tenor for the day well. She’d never noticed before how colorless the school was—the walls and floors were all the same noncontroversial beige, and it fit Charlotte’s mood perfectly. Every splash of color that she saw seemed to hurt her eyes.

  Zee, on the other hand, was strangely exuberant—more so than was natural for a thirteen-year-old boy, if you asked Charlotte. Whatever trepidation he had had when he first arrived seemed to be gone, and he bounded through school like a prisoner on his first day out.

  He went through the hallways saying hello to people Charlotte didn’t even know. Of course, since their schedule was the same, Charlotte had to walk from class to class with him and his red sweater and his bright chatter, while everyone in the school greeted him as if now their lives were shiny and free too. Thanks to her cousin, the great malaise had gone away, and Charlotte very much missed it.

  Nothing was right anymore. All the social structures were being thrown off. Zee was friendly with the mean boys, the smart boys, the cool boys, and the formerly fat boys. And those boys, as a result, were being—if not friendly—at least civil to one another. The girls, meanwhile, had all started to be nice to Charlotte, as if she could get to Zee for them. She’d liked it better when they were all angsty, she decided. At least then they’d stayed out of her way.

  In the locker room after gym she was accosted by one of the Ashleys, who had never spoken to Charlotte before in her life.

  “Char!” she said brightly. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” Charlotte said, letting her suspicion show.

  Ashley smiled toothfully. “You know, that’s a nice sweater. It really tones down your hair!”

  Charlotte sighed. “Thanks.”

  “Not that your hair’s not pretty.”

  “Yeah,” Charlotte turned back to her locker.

  “Hey, I was wondering…you know your cousin?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte said. “I do.”

  “Well, um…does he have a girlfriend? Like, back in England?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte turned to face the girl. “He has six girlfriends, and they all have their natural hair color.”

  Ashley reddened and bit her lip. Charlotte felt a momentary pang of regret, which she quickly stifled. What would happen—the girls would never speak to her again? They didn’t now, and she didn’t think they had anything interesting to say anyway. Whatever. The world was too gray and heavy for regret. None of it mattered.

  The rest of the day girls with dark roots in their hair were whispering and pointing at her. Charlotte walked along staring at the ground, trying to will the flushed color out of her cheeks. Even Zee stopped trying to communicate with her, and Charlotte found herself trailing along well behind her cousin and whatever bright bunch was traveling with him.

  By the end of the day the entire school was cutting a wide swath around Charlotte, as if they had all gotten the memo. In English, Gretchen-the-goth-girl nodded approvingly. Charlotte spent the class running her pen back and forth across her notebook just to see how black she could get the paper, and darn the consequences.

  But after class, as she was stalking through the door, Mr. Metos stopped her.

  “Ms. Mielswetzski?”

  Charlotte’s neck prickled. Perhaps consequences should not be taken so lightly after all.

  She turned slowly. “Yes, Mr. Metos?”

  He stared down at her, his dark eyes precise and unwavering. “Ms. Mielswetzski, I am told that you are collecting assignments for Ms. Ruby. Is that correct?”

  “Oh!” Charlotte exhaled. “Yeah, I am.” This morning one of the counselors, Mrs. Spackelor, had asked her to keep collecting the homework until Maddy was back at school. She had not gotten anything from Mr. Metos, since she was in his class too and could just tell Maddy the assignments. Anyway, she was too terrified to talk to him. Like, say, now. With any other teacher she could spin a golden tapestry of lies, but Mr. Metos scared all the artistry out of her and she became a bumbling idiot. Talking was her only skill, and he took it away from her. “I told her about the reading and the test and stuff,” she sputtered. “I didn’t think—”

  “No, no, Ms. Mielswetzski. It’s perfectly fine,” he coughed. “Would you tell her not to concern herself with the rest of this unit? Madeline seems to have things well in hand.”

  “Oh!” Charlotte blinked. “I will!”

  “Good, good.” He leaned back on his desk. “Mrs. Spackelor said Madeline might be out for some time. Do you know…do they know what she has?”

  “Um…” Charlotte bit her lip. “No. Not yet.”

  “I see.” He nodded slowly, still looking at Charlotte. He opened his mouth but then shook his head slightly. “Well, you tell her to feel better,” he said briskly.

  Charlotte nodded, wide-eyed. Mr. Metos released her from his gaze, and she began to make for the door, when he added:

  “Oh, and Ms. Mielswetzski? In the future, if you would like to practice your modern art, would you not do it during my class?”

  “Yes, Mr. Metos,” she squeaked, and scurried out the door.

  Perhaps everything would have unfolded differently had Zee not gotten a concussion at a soccer game on Sunday morning. Perhaps the whole story would have come out earlier, and Charlotte could have taken precautions or warned everyone or something…. Perhaps then the Footmen would have moved on to some other plan at some other school, and this would have been some other girl’s story, and Charlotte could have gone on with her ordinary life, which really wasn’t so bad once you looked at the issue carefully.

  But it didn’t.

  Because Zee got a concussion at a soccer game on Sunday morning. It was just one of those things that shouldn’t have happened
, except that it did happen. It was late in the game, and the score was tied 3-3; Zee had two of the team’s three goals, and the Mielswetszkis couldn’t have been prouder. Until…

  The goalie for the other team was an All-Metro senior and had a particularly high drop kick, which he aimed at a very burly midfielder, and Zee ran in to make the steal. The two jumped for the ball at the same time, and the midfielder threw his elbows out to push off Zee, headed the ball, then headed Zee. The heads knocked with a sickly thud that seemed to reverberate through the field, and both players were on the ground. The midfielder got up. Zee did not.

  The referees appeared around him, then the coach, then the team, then the other team, then the ambulance. The Mielswetzskis had gone to the game, of course, and Charlotte’s mother rode in the ambulance with Zee, while Charlotte and her father drove to the hospital.

  They were back at home three hours later. He would be fine, he had a concussion, he needed to lie down for a few days, they should watch him carefully, they should wake him during the night, and absolutely no soccer or any other physical activity for two weeks. Any strange signs, any vomiting, any difficulty in speech or movement, any personality change, and they should take him straight back to the ER.

  At home they propped Zee up in the den with blankets, lots of root beer, and just about every new release the movie rental place had. Once he was set, Charlotte watched as her mother sat next to him, held his hand, and began to apologize.

  “Oh, Zachary, your father’s going to kill me.”

  “It’s not your fault, Aunt Tara,” Zee said sleepily.

  “He’s absolutely going to kill me. You’re here barely a week—”

  “It’s all right, Aunt Tara.”

  “It’s not all right! You got a CAT scan!”

  “Which was normal. Aunt Tara, I promise he won’t kill you. I won’t let him. He really hasn’t killed anyone in a long time.” Charlotte watched, wide-eyed. The attempt at humor would not work, she knew; Charlotte had seen her mother like this before. Her imagination was more out of control than Charlotte’s. It was best just to agree with her before things got out of hand.