The Thief of Always

VII

A Present From the Pass

There was a Thanksgiving feast awaiting them when they got back into the House.

"You look as though you've been in the wars," Mrs. Griffin remarked when she set eyes on Harvey. "Has Wendell been up to his tricks?"

Harvey admitted that he'd fallen for all of them, but there was one that impressed him in particular.

"What was that?" said Wendell with a smug grin. "The falling ladder? That was a clever little touch, wasn't it?"

"No, not the ladder," said Harvey.

"What then?"

"The thing in the sky."

"Oh that..."

"What was it? A kite?"

"That wasn't my doing," Wendell replied.

"What was it then?"

"I don't know," Wendell said, his smile disappearing. "Better not to ask, eh?"

"But I want to know," Harvey insisted, turning to Mrs. Griffin. "It had wings, and I think it flew off the roof."

"Then it was a bat," Mrs. Griffin said.

"No, this was a hundred times bigger than a bat." He spread his arms. "Great, dark wings."

Mrs. Griffin frowned as Harvey spoke. "You imagined it," she said.

"I did not," Harvey protested.

"Why don't you just sit down and eat?" Mrs. Griffin replied. "If it wasn't a bat then it wasn't anything at all."

"But Wendell saw it too. Didn't you Wendell?"

He looked around at the other boy, who was digging into a steaming plate of turkey and cranberry sauce.

"Who cares?" Wendell said, chewing as he spoke.

"Just tell her you saw it."

Wendell shrugged. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. It's Halloween night. There's supposed to be bogeymen out there."

"But not real ones," said Harvey. "A trick's one thing. But if that beast was real..."

As he spoke he realized he was breaking the rule he'd made on the porch: Whether the winged creature was real or not didn't matter. This was a place of illusions. Wouldn't he be happier here if he just stopped questioning what was real and what wasn't?

"Sit down and eat," Mrs. Griffin said again.

Harvey shook his head. His appetite had disappeared. He was angry, though he wasn't quite sure at whom. Maybe at Wendell, for his shrugs; or at Mrs. Griffin, for not believing him; or at himself, for being afraid of illusions. Maybe all three.

"I'm going up to my room to change," he said, and left the kitchen.

He discovered Lulu on the landing, staring out the window. Wind gusted against the glass, reminding Harvey of Rictus's first visit. It wasn't rain the gusts were bringing, however, it was powdery snow.

"It'll be Christmas soon," she said.

"Will it?"

"There'll be presents for everyone. There always are. You should wish for something."

"Is that what you're doing?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "I've been here so long I've got everything I ever wanted. Would you like to see?"

Harvey said yes, and she led him up the stairs to her room, which was immense, and filled with her treasures.

She obviously had a passion for boxes. Tiny, jeweled boxes; large, carved boxes. A box for her collection of glass balls; a box that played tinkling music; a box into which half a hundred smaller boxes fitted.

She also had several families of dolls, who sat in blank-faced rows around the walls. But more impressive by far was the house from which the dolls had been exiled. It stood in the middle of the room, five feet high from step to chimney top, every detail of brick, slate and sill perfect.

"This is where I keep my friends," Lulu said, and opened the front door.

Two bright green lizards came out to greet her, scurrying up her arms onto her shoulders.

"The rest are inside," she said. "Take a look."

Harvey peered through the windows, and found that every perfect room in the house was occupied. There were lizards lounging on the beds, lizards snoozing in the baths, lizards swinging from the chandeliers. He laughed out loud at their antics.

"Aren't they fun?" Lulu said.

"Great!" he replied.

"You can come up and play with them any time you want."

"Thanks."

"They're really very friendly. They only bite when they're hungry. Here-"

She plucked one off her shoulder and dropped it into Harvey's hands. It promptly ran up and perched on his head, much to Lulu's amusement.

They enjoyed the company of both the lizards and each other for a long while, until Harvey caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the windows, and remembered what a sight he was.

"I'd better go and wash," he told Lulu. "I'll see you later."

She smiled at him. "I like you, Harvey Swick," she said.

Hey honesty made him honest. "I like you too," he told her. Then, his expression darkening, he said: "I wouldn't want anything to happen to you."

She looked puzzled.

"I saw you at the lake," he said.

"Did you?" she replied. "I don't remember."

"Well anyway, it's deep. You should be careful. You could slip and fall in."

"I'll be careful," she said as he opened the door. "Oh, and Harvey?"

"Yes?"

"Don't forget to wish for something."

What shall I ask for? he wondered as he washed the dirt off his face. Something impossible maybe, to see just how much magic the House possessed. A white tiger, perhaps. A full-sized zeppelin? A ticket to the moon?

The answer came from the depths of his memory. He'd wish for a present he'd been given (and lost) a long time ago; a present that his father had made for him, which Mr. Hood, however much he might want to please his new guest, would never be able to duplicate.

"The ark," he murmured.

With his face washed, and the scratches he'd got from the thorns in the thicket worn like war wounds, he headed back downstairs, to find that once again the House had performed an extraordinary transformation. A Christmas tree-so tall that the star at its summit pricked the ceiling-stood in the hallway, the colors of its twinkling lights seeping into every room. There was a smell of chocolate in the air, and the sound of carols being sung. In the living room, Mrs. Griffin was sitting beside a roaring fire, with Stew-Cat purring on her lap.

"Wendell's gone outside," she told Harvey. "There's a scarf and gloves for you by the front door."

Harvey went out onto the porch. The wind was icy, but it was already clearing the snow clouds, leaving the stars to shine down on a perfect white carpet.

Not quite perfect. A trail of tracks led down from the House to the spot where Wendell was building a snowman.

"Coming out?" he hollered to Harvey, his voice as clear as the bells that were ringing through the crisp air.

Harvey shook his head. He was so tired even the snow looked comfortable.

"Maybe tomorrow," he said. "It'll be back tomorrow, won't it?"

"Of course," Wendell yelled. "And the night after, and the night after..."

Harvey went back inside to look at the Christmas tree. Its branches were hung with strings of popcorn and cranberries, with colored lights and baubles and soldiers in gleaming silver uniforms.

"There's something under there for you," Mrs. Griffin said, standing at the living room door. "I hope it's what you want, sweet."

Harvey knelt down and pulled a parcel with his name on it out from under the tree. His pulse quickened before he even opened it, because he knew from its shape, and from the way it rattled, that his wish had been answered. He pulled at the string, remembering as he did so how much littler his hands had been the first time he'd held this gift. The paper tore and fell away, and there, shiny and new, was a painted wooden ark.

It was a perfect copy of the one his father had made. The same yellow hull, the same orange prow, the same wheel-house with holes in its red roof for the giraffes to put their heads through. The same lead animals, all in pairs, snug in the hold or peering through the portholes: two dogs, two elephants, two camels, two doves; all these and a dozen more. And finally, the same little Noah with his square white beard, and his fat wife, complete with apron.

"How did he know?" Harvey murmured.

He hadn't intended the question to be heard, much less answered, but Mrs. Griffin. said: "Mr. Hood knows every dream in your head."

"But this is perfect," Harvey said in amazement. "Look, my dad ran out of blue paint when he was finishing the elephants, so one of them has blue eyes and the other one has green eyes. It's the same. It's exactly the same."

"Does it please you then?" Mrs. Griffin asked.

Harvey said it did, but that wasn't entirely the truth. It was eerie to have the ark back in his hands when he knew the real one had been lost; as though time had been turned on its heels, and he was a little kid again.

He heard Wendell stamping the snow off his feet at the front door, and was suddenly embarrassed to have such a childish present in his hands. He gathered it up in its wrapping and hurried away upstairs, intending to head back down for some supper.

But his bed looked too welcoming to be refused, and his stomach quite full enough for one night, so instead he closed the curtains on the gusty night and laid his head down on his pillow.

The Christmas bells were still ringing in some distant steeple, and their repetition lulled him into sleep. He dreamed that he was standing on the steps of his house, looking through the open door into its warm heart. Then the wind caught hold of him, turning him from the threshold, and carrying him away into a dreamless sleep.