The Moonlit Mind: A Tale of Suspense

17

Hard years of change, now Crispin thirteen, no longer quite a boy, not yet a man …

Good dog Harley sits on the booth bench beside Amity Onawa, as if the part of the story that the girl likes best is also the most appealing part to him. His eyes twinkle in the candlelight.

“Harley takes his paw off the empty box,” Crispin continues, “and I put the cards away. I’m able to get back to sleep for a while, with no bad dreams. In the morning, I expect to go upstairs to the magic-and-game shop before the start of the business day. I should be able to unlock the front door from inside, and if I can’t, me and Harley will wait until the old man and woman open the place, then we’ll dash out past them, no explanations.”

“Sounds easy,” Amity says, and smiles again.

“Totally easy. Except when we go upstairs from the basement storeroom, there isn’t any magic shop like there was the night before. The store is empty, bare, no business there of any kind.”

“No old man with green eyes and six emerald rings.”

“No one, nothing,” Crispin confirms. “Hasn’t been anything happening there for a long time, judging by the dust and cobwebs.”

“But the storeroom …”

“I go back down the stairs. Harley doesn’t bother coming with me, as if he already knows what I’ll find. Which is nothing. All the shelves and all the stock on them are gone. The storeroom is as empty as the store above it.”

“This is two days after you ran away from Theron Hall.”

“Two days but the third night. After everything that happened in Theron Hall, maybe I should have been scared half to death by the magic shop disappearing, but I wasn’t.”

She stares at him unblinking. He does not look away from her, because this is the hardest part for him to tell, and it means more if he can tell it eye to eye.

“I was able to unlock the door from inside, and we closed it behind us as we went. The day was warm for early October, the sky so blue, and birds singing in the streetside trees. I looked back at the shop and saw a FOR RENT sign taped to the inside of the door glass. At the bottom was a phone number and a Realtor’s contact name. The name was Miss Regina Angelorum. I was too young then to know that it was a name but also more than a name. Years would pass before I knew what it meant, but right then, at the start of my third day free of Theron Hall, I was certain that in spite of my many weaknesses, in spite of my cowardice and my failure to save Mirabell or Harley, I was meant to live, to grow and change, and to accomplish something in this world that mattered.”

They are silent together in the candlelight.

Amity’s eyes are worlds of mystery, as Crispin imagines his eyes must be to her.

Four candles in red-glass cups brighten the table. But for what comes next, Amity wants more light. Earlier she gathered four more candles for this moment. With a butane match, she sets the wicks afire.

Crispin opened the box of cards earlier. Now he shuffles three times, hesitates, then shuffles thrice again.

Amity wants him to deal, and yet she doesn’t. She reaches toward him with one hand, as if to stop him, but then crosses her arms on her chest once more and hugs herself.

With no false drama, dealing them quickly, Crispin turns up four sixes. They are clean cards when they leave his hand, but as he turns them over, they are dirty, creased, and moldy.

The time has come for him to return to Theron Hall.