Is It Ransacking If There's No Mess?
An Inkling of Magic - Chapter 32
Sitting cross legged on her bed and watching Derek as he leaned in brooding silence against the far wall, Elspeth could feel the tension that tsunamied off of him as they waited for Farren and the others to join them. Since he’d been there before, he’d been able to teleport them straight to her bedroom by recalling how it looked and focusing on it, something Elspeth was grateful for despite how mildly uncomfortable it made her that he could clear picture it after just the one visit as it meant she hadn’t have to sneak past Maelyn looking like she did, but it now meant a long, quiet wait before all chaos broke out once more. She just hoped that, this time, Farren had actually managed some measure of explanation after Derek’s vanishing act.
She drew in a deep breath – her eyes slipping shut – and pinched the bridge of her nose. Derek wasn’t the only one on edge, her own nerves felt like they’d been drawn and quartered after all the assaults on them from every direction. She’d hardly recovered from the unnerving walk where it had felt like the forest itself was stalking her on all sides and now a new fear had grabbed her by the throat and was squeezing it. Just who was her mystery rescuer that he’d known what bookstore to take her to without her giving its name or address? That was the question that writhed in her mind until it threatened to strangle all the other questions that tried to wiggle their way past it and questions were a thing Elspeth had in plenty.
Derek’s reaction also played a starring role behind her eyelids and the way that the air had crackled with barely constrained magic. She’d seen him angry, she’d even seen him concerned, but that all paled in comparison to the look of pure, unfettered fear that had flashed across his face before being banished behind the mask of stone he now wore. That mask however did nothing to hide his fear when he’d snatched her wrist to teleport them away, his grip on her far tighter than was necessary and with a quaver so faint Elspeth would have thought she’d imagined it if she weren’t learning to read him so well. He was terrified and, what was more, by the rare, unguarded glances she’d caught when he didn’t think she was watching that terror was for her. The realization of which had her wanting to revert to old habits and hide far from his probing eyes that now, if she squinted, she could see a warmth in their familiar sparkle that had her feeling all sorts of confliction.
The force of a door slamming shut downstairs jolted her out of the memory. With a shaky breath, she wrestled to bring her body’s response under control. The abruptness of the sound interrupting her reflection had her heart pounding as hard as the multiple sets of feet she could now hear thundering up the stairs.
Are you sure it’s just that that has your heart racing like it is? A traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind knowingly.
Swallowing hard, her eyes flicked to Derek and then to her bedroom door before returning to rest on Derek who was now burning a hole into it with his eyes and looked like a panther waiting to spring. Their moment of peace and disquiet was at its end.
“Elspeth! Are you alright?! Where did you go?!” a harried Farren blurted as he burst into her room followed by a visibly uneasy Kieran and Niamh.
Rising from her seat at the edge of her bed, Elspeth opened her mouth to reply, but she didn’t get the chance before a wild-eyed Farren crashed into her, his arms circling her as he did.
“Farren… I can’t breath,” she gasped, her words muffled against her brother’s sweater.
He loosened his grip on her, but didn’t let her escape. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he pulled back, “I’m just…”
Elspeth gave him a small smile, an unspoken apology in her eyes for putting him through what she knew had to have been the most torturous hours of his life not knowing where she was or if she was even safe. “I know.”
Unable to put everything she felt into words, she tightened her arms around him and buried her head in his shoulder as he hugged her back with a fierceness that told her just how worried for her he’d been since she’d taken off as she had. Love and fear, guilt and comfort, everything their stammering tongues failed to utter was poured into that embrace and they stood like that for untold minutes just holding each other with the same tightness that gripped their hearts until a quiet, hesitant cough sounded from behind reminding them that they had an audience.
Elspeth sighed at the interruption and reluctantly dropped her arms from around her brother, mourning the loss of his comfort, to sluggishly move past him and face the other arrivals to her room. With apprehension humming through her body, she studied her friends appearance almost as if they were strangers.
She took in Niamh first, almost afraid of what she would find when she finally looked Kieran in the eye. In Niamh she could see a conflict of emotions playing out. There was still a distrust in her friend’s eyes as they darted anxiously between Derek and herself, narrowing each time they returned to him, but behind that Elspeth noticed there was also that same bundle of excitement that had bowled Elspeth over the day they first met. All it would take would be the slightest of pushes and she was certain that that excitement would be spilling over and threatening to wash her away with the flood of questions she could see her friend was bursting to ask.
Did you really expect her to react otherwise? the thought whispered unbidden in quiet reprimand at having ever doubted her friend as some of the remaining tension she’d felt since the confrontation at school finally uncoiled from around her spine. Bolstered by a new sense of relief, Elspeth at last found the strength to look at Kieran and just about gasped at what she found.
Gone was the clenched jaw and stiff posture he’d borne the last time – only moments ago – that he’d been forced to share the same air as Derek and, in its place, was the bearing of overcooked spaghetti and oceans of guilt in his eyes. There wasn’t even a hint of irritation at being in the same room as him again. In fact, it didn’t look like he’d even paid Derek a passing glance.
She watched as his shoulders slumped even more and he dropped his gaze to the floor and her gut twisted at the sight. He and Farren had always been her champions, her strong defenders from those that ruthlessly mocked her and from herself when she’d felt so alone. It was strange seeing him like this, so uncertain of himself instead of the quiet, gentle confidence she was accustomed to.
Elspeth swallowed hard and opened her mouth in an effort to breach the awkward silence that had settled over the room, but the words wouldn’t come. They simply shriveled into nothingness on her tongue and melted like a water-splashed witch.
“Els,” Kieran rasped breaking the silence first, his head bowed and his voice little more than a broken whisper, “I am so sorry, Els.” Letting out a pained sigh, he carefully raised his head to look at her once more. “I’ve been worried about you all week, since you visited Gran actually, and then you started pulling away and avoiding us and… it hurt. It hurt a lot and when we started seeing you with Derek it hurt even more after everything he put you through. I was angry and blasted confused and – I know, I know – that’s still no excuse for being a pillock and losing it as I did, but I was terrified I was losing my best friend.”
Unable to bear him looking like a kicked puppy any longer, Elspeth crossed the room and pulled him into a tight hug. “That will never happen,” she fervently assured him. As quickly as she’d hugged him, she released him to retreat backwards a few steps and it took everything within her not to wrap her arms around herself when she spoke again. “I assume Farren’s told you?”
He gave her a small nod. “Aye, he has,” his voice soft and sounding a little hoarse before he shook his head and continued with a lopsided smile. “I’ve gotta say, Els, when you said it was complicated that was the very last explanation I was expecting.”
Kieran paused then, seeming a little overwhelmed and Elspeth noted the tracks his fingers must have worn in his mussed, dark brown hair when he’d found out and she was still nowhere to be seen. With the truth of everything and the danger surrounding her now in his grasp she expected he would have been blaming himself had something actually happened to her after his fight with Derek had sent her running. He would have never forgiven himself.
“I have got one question though.”
A watery laugh escaped her, relief making her heart feel much lighter. “Only one? I know there’s got to be more than question rattling around in that head of yours,” Elspeth asked with a teasing smile.
He laughed. “Fair enough, but they can wait. Now, what can we do to help?”
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“You know,” Kieran said, peeking his head around the door to poke it out into the hall to make sure they were still alone and sighing in relief when he found it as empty as it had been the last time he’d anxiously checked it, “when I asked what we could do to help, I didn’t think it would include ransacking your parents’ office.”
“It’s hardly ransacking if we don’t leave a mess,” Elspeth retorted, not looking away from the screen in front of her the clicking and clacking of the keyboard far too loud in her ears as she tapped in the password to her parents’ computer. “Besides, it’s not like it’s forbidden to be in here and I’ve helped out with digitizing their various ledgers before when they’ve fallen behind and needed and extra hand. I just don’t want Maelyn asking any questions, which I know she will if we’re caught.”
A shudder ran through her at the thought. That was the very last thing she wanted as Maelyn would absolutely have questions and questions she couldn’t give a proper anser to. She had been the one to make sure their parents’ inventory and sales records were all up to date before they left for their latest buying trip and so when Elspeth would inevitably stumble over her answers to evade her questions she would only get suspicious. While Farren had accepted the truth well enough, not that he’d really had much choice after witnessing what he did, Elspeth didn’t think things would go as smoothly with Maelyn which was how a very nervous Kieran came to be acting as lookout while she looked for the files they needed.
“I still don’t know how I feel about this,” he sighed, not sounding very reassured by Elspeth’s reasoning and she tried not to let his nerves become her own. She had enough of them as it was.
Finally, she mouthed when the loading screen vanished and the icons of the homescreen made their appearance. It was one of those mysteries of the universe how there always happened to be a system update required right when it was most inconvenient and when one was engaged in clandestine activities most definitely was one of those times.
“Well,” she drew the word out, her eyes still fixed on the screen as she quickly jumped into navigating a labyrinth of document folders, “I suppose I could always have asked Derek instead.”
It was a dirty move, but she couldn’t resist and had to bite down hard on her lip to stop from snickering at the low growl her words pulled from her friend. She knew that would draw a reaction from him. Even after Farren’s emergency explanation and their reluctant agreement to call a truce on the hostilities between the three of them – and Kieran and Derek in particular – Kieran was still not altogether happy about her newfound association with Derek. Grateful as he was that Derek had actually been protecting Elspeth, it was clear from all his glares and pursed lips that he was a long ways from anything resembling trust where he was concerned.
The folders pulled up, Elspeth wasted no time in inserting the flashdrive she’d kept in her pocket and, highlighting the ones they needed, waited for the copied folders to finish saving to it. A tense silence settled over the room making her start to regret her choice of tease.
“Why didn’t you?” the strained, almost curt question cut in to silence. “You two have been near inseparable since you learned the truth about what you are and everything with these break-ins began so why didn’t you?”
She ached at the hurt that rang in his voice and held back a sigh. Perhaps teasing him hadn’t been such a great idea after all.
“Because I –”
“Shhh,” he cut her off, carefully and quietly shutting the door as quickly as he could before pressing his ear to it.
Elspeth gave him a confused glance, but remained quiet all the same. It wasn’t long though before she knew what had made him cut her off so abruptly. Her breathing hitched and her eyes darted to the office door when she caught ear to her sister’s lyrical voice drifting softly from somewhere down the hall.
“So, how’s everything in Connecticut?” she heard Maelyn ask.
Connecticut? Who would Maelyn be talking to in Connecticut? Elspeth wondered, her brows pinching together in a frown before her eyes suddenly blew wide. Maelyn was on the phone with their parents!
“A 1900 Tommy and Grizel by J.M. Barrie?” Maelyn spoke again, her voice a little louder and clearer than before, “I’m not sure. I can go check the files though?”
At that, Elsepth stiffened and met Kieran’s panicking eyes just briefly before shooting a glance back at the computer. It was only at 63% complete and inching forward with all the speed of a dying snail.
“Come on, come on,” Elspeth muttered impatiently under her breath, her heart pounding with obscene force that echoed in time with the thumping of footsteps in their direction.
“Oh, no, it shouldn’t take long at all,” Maelyn said, answering whatever question their father had just asked her, “I wrote up a complete inventory spreadsheet before you left so I wouldn’t need to go digging around in each year’s sales and purchases lists. In fact, I wouldn’t even need to go to the complete list, just the book list…Yeah, yeah, I know, I might have gone a little overboard with the speadsheets, but it was just so easy once I had all the information in front of me.”
71% complete. She urged the bar of completion forward with her pleading eyes and bruised lower lip from how hard she was biting it to keep silent. 75%… 76%… 79%.
Frozen in place, Elspeth inhaled sharply when a shadow fell in front of the door and the tiny sliver of light vanished. Her throat was tight with anxiety making her swallow hard. She swore it felt like her heart had leapt into her throat when the door knob rattled a little as it started to turn. Her breathing stilled and she flicked her eyes up at Kieran who was now inching backwards with the pale, panic-stricken face whipping about the room in desperate search of someplace to hide. 83%… 87%. She was starting to feel faint now from holding her breath, but Elspeth wasn’t sure she could breathe even if she tried. The fear as she waited for the door to push open had her mind racing as hard as her heart for what she would say when her sister entered the room. 91%… 93%.
This is it, that unwelcome corner of her mind whispered hopelessly waiting for their clandestine computer raid to come crashing down around them like a house of cards. I hope Farren and Derek know a way to break me out of the funny farm if Maelyn forces the truth from me.
The progress bar had now been stuck at 96% for what felt like a lifetime. There was almost no way it would finish in time and, even if it did, she wouldn’t be able to remove it fast enough and still hide. Not that there were any convincing hiding spots to begin with other than under the old oak desk, but Maelyn was sure to see her under there. There had been a reason when they’d played hide-and-seek as kids that their parents’ office was rarely used as a hiding spot – it wasn’t that it was off limits, unless they were actively using it at the time, but because the massive oak desk and wooden, antique filing cabinet and bookshelves took up so much space there was virtually no place left to hide.
Suddenly, though the doorknob was released and clicked back into place. “Are you sure?” she heard Maelyn ask, her voice clear as day now that she was just outside the door. Her sister laughed at something on the other end of the phone, “alright, that works too. I’ll just modify the entry to include item quantity and both purchase dates after you get home if you end up getting it… Yup, will do. Love you, Dad. Bye.”
Able to breathe again, Elspeth buried her head in her hands as she sagged forward against the desk and heaved a shaky sigh of relief when the crack of light reappeared underneath the door again and she heard her sisters footsteps disappearing back down the hall.
“That was way too close,” Kieran breathed out, the relief palpable in his slightly trembling voice.
With her nerves still frayed, she took a deep breath try and reclaimed some assemblance of calm before finally looking back up at the screen. No progress bar. File copying complete.
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“Okay, soooo… what are we looking for?” Niamh asked, practically bouncing on her bed with excitement.
After getting the files and racing back to her bedroom, Elspeth had grabbed her laptop and stuffed it into her backpack before calling Farren and Derek while Kieran texted his sister. What with almost getting caught by Maelyn once neither had any desire to repeat the experience and a silent agreement had been reached to shift operations to Kieran and Niamh’s house for a bit which was how they came to be hiding out in Niamh’s danger zone of a bedroom. It wasn’t that it was sloppy with clothes strewn all over, but that, where Elspeth’s room was taken over by her art, Niamh’s was a library. The only problem was that the shelves of that library were teetering hazards that rose like the Tower of Pisa all over her room – they was called the floor.
Having carefully shifted over the towers of books with only a few casualties, Elspeth had taken up a spot on the floor by Niamh’s bed so Niamh, Kieran, and Farren could perch on the bed behind and and peer over her shoulder.
“Shouldn’t Derek be here by now?” Kieran asked with a frown as he glanced around the room, not quite managing to keep out the sour edge from his voice.
Elspeth shook her head as she booted up her laptop. “No. He said he had to take care of something and would check-in later to catch-up.”
“Convenient. When we might actually need him he’s suddenly not able to be here,” he groused.
“Look on the bright side,” Elspeth said, squashing down her irritation at Kieran’s dig. It was going to make for a frustrating time if he couldn’t learn to at least pretend to tolerate Derek and not like he was devising how to get rid of him and hide the body. Even Niamh, who hadn’t liked him any better than Kieran, seemed to understand that and though Farren still wasn’t a huge fan of the fae, his tolerance for Derek was at least genuine. It was really just Kieran that was holding on to past grudges. And you aren’t? the thought came unbidden and bringing back unpleasant memories of throwing every weak and unsubstaniated fear she’d had in faerie back in Derek’s face just to push him away. Brushing the guilt ridden thought aside, she contined. “At least you won’t have to be in close quarters with him for two days in a row – school encounters not counting.”
The bed creaked and shifted side-to-side a little at her back as someone, Kieran she assumed from his half-muttered grumblings, repositioned himself on the bed.
Perplexed, Elspeth frowned when she felt a sudden gust of air graze the side of her face, but it was quickly traded for a snort of muffled laughter when, seconds later, she heard a thump and what distinctly sounded like an utterance of pain coming from Kieran.
“Anyways, getting back to the point,” Niamh broke in while her brother recovered from whatever pillow she’d just attacked him with to stop him from digging himself into another hole, “I repeat, what are looking for?”
She clicked her tongue. “I’m not totally certain,” Elspeth confessed while she plugged the flashdrive into her laptop before reaching overtop of it to grab out the pages that Mrs. Skrollman had printed out for her and Derek. “First though, we need to cross-reference everything that has been either purchased from or sold to any of the names on this list. Every name on the list has one thing in common – ”
“They all deal with books and were broken into, though do I even want to know how you managed to get this list?” Farren said with a nod, interjecting at the memory of an earlier conversation with Elspeth.
Elspeth laughed and shook her head. “That’s two things, and, no, probably not. Also, neither. Well… yes, actually those too, but they weren’t…” she stumbled over her words before huffing with frustration and taking a deep breath. “Okay, let’s try that again. What I meant is that every person and place that’s on this list has something in common other than the obvious connections. Apart from the libraries, they’ve all done business with my parents. Hence, why Kieran and I had to pay their office a little visit today.”
“Wait, I thought we needed those files to look for a connection between them?” Kieran piped up and sounding more than a little confused.
“Nope,” she replied, turning around to fix them with a proud grin, “I already figured that connection out when Derek and I looked over the list the first time. I’d expected to recognize a fair handful of names from the list, but recognizing all of them? That can’t be anything other than a deliberate pattern. Clearly, someone thinks my dad either has or had a book that they’re desperately looking for. We need to figure out what that book is, but, first, we need to go through all of these sales and purchasing records to weed out which ones didn’t involve books at all.”
The bed shook and creaked again before a weight appeared on her right shoulder from what she was certain was Niamh’s chin now sat digging into it. “Are you sure that it’s a book they’re after?” Niamh asked, a note of uncertainty in her voice as she peered over Elspeth’s shoulder when her attention returned itself to her laptop.
Pulling up the first of the files, Elspeth gave a shrug. “Of course. I mean, what else could it be?”
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Pain. Searing, burning Pain. Her eyes were burning from staring at the screen and it felt like someone had replaced the skin of her eyelids with course sandpaper they were so dry and scratchy. Sitting there with her left leg crossed and its foot hooked underneath her right leg which stuck straight out in front of her, her left leg had long since gone numb from her foot to the bend of the knee – a feeling, or lack thereof, that was slowly spreading the rest of the way up her leg. Elspeth was also fairly convinced that the frame of Niamh’s bed was going to leave a permanent dent across her back from leaning against it for so long. They had just spent the last five-and-a-half hours scrolling down an endless stream of spreadsheets and they were still not even a third of the way through the files she’d copied from her parents’ computer. Though at least Niamh had given up using Elspeth’s shoulder as a pillow in favour of her actual pillow.
Unsuccessfully fighting off a yawn, she blinked and rubbed her tired eyes when the words on the screen started to blur and swim once again.
A phone buzzed from somewhere behind her.
“That was Maelyn wondering when we’d be back,” Farren said, half yawning the words, “her work schedule just got changed on her and she needs us to pick something up for tonight.”
“Well, we’ve run out of snacks and my legs feel like they’re about to become one with Niamh’s bed so maybe we should call it quits for now and regroup later?” Kieran said forlornly tossing a longing look at the now empty tray his mother had brought up for them hours ago saying that no one had dies of thirst or hunger in her house yet and they weren’t going to start now. Naturally, there had also been a big pot of good strong Irish tea for with Elspeth especially was grateful as she was certain it was the caffeine that kept her from monotony induced sleep.
There was a murmur of a agreement from both Niamh and Farren at that.
Elspeth sighed, not really wanting to put it up quite yet despite how tired and achy she felt. She just wanted it done so they could move on to more than just playing file clerk. They have a point though, she grudgingly conceded. Besides, you’re hardly going to make anymore progress if you can’t even read anymore due to eyestrain.
She quickly saved the two new spreadsheets they’d made and shut everything down before carefully standing up and trying to to stumble from how asleep her left leg was. “Tomorrow then or later tonight?”
Niamh scrunched her nose up like a rabbit making her laugh when she answered. “Can’t tonight. Ms. Jefferson’s assigned us each some wretched poet to read and write an analysis of and I thought I’d get it out of the way tonight so it wasn’t looming over me all weekend.”
“I thought you liked poetry?” Elspeth laughed.
“I do,” she replied defensively, “just not what she calls poetry. It’s so depressing and lifeless that I almost had to go read Poe to cheer myself up.”
“Oh yes, because Poe is such a ray of sunshine.”
“He’s not, but there’s no denying that there is life to his words – the rhyming, the sense of meter, the way it evokes feeling even if it is to send a chill down your spine and through your veins. All that what Ms. Jefferson has us read is as evocative as wet cardboard.”
They all laughed at that and groaned as each struggled to get up and remind their limbs how to work.
“Alright, so I guess tomorrow it is.”
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Much to Aiden’s disappointment, they’d picked up Chinese instead of pizza after they’d left the O’Rourke’s. Maelyn’s had been set aside for her where the black hole of food that was their youngest sibling wouldn’t be tempted to abscond with it and soon after a vigorous debate on what they should watch had ensued resulting in them vetoing Aiden’s suggestion that they binge-watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended editions of course, as some would actually like to get to sleep before dawn and choosing just the first with the promise to make a weekend of the rest.
Elspeth yawned and slid off the couch as the credit song finished – the smell of all their dinner still lingering in the air. “Night, all,” she said, intending to make her way to the stairs, but pausing when she caught her sister’s frown.
“It’s a little early for you isn’t it?” Maelyn asked, her dark brows pinched together in question, “you’re usually such a night owl Mom’s always teasing you you’ll turn into a pumpkin one of these days.”
She shrugged, proud of herself when she didn’t make it into some spastic jerk under the scrutiny of her sister’s attention. “It’s been a bit of a crazy week I thought I’d maybe read for a bit in bed before actually going to sleep,” Elspeth explained, fighting to keep her expression neutral when she heard a cough she was certain must have come from Farren.
“Oh, alright. Goodnight then.”
“Goodnight, Els” Farren’s sing-song voice full of shared secrets trailed after her, ringing out as clear as crystal overtop of the barely intelligible chorus of ‘goodnights’ from the others as she made her way to the stairs.
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Sitting in the dark, the light from her laptop cast an eerie glow against the muralled walls of her bedroom as Elspeth’s fingers glided across the keyboard to add the name and details of another private collector her parents had sold a book to within the last five years.
“It’s about time you showed up,” Elspeth said when the flash of green and orange swirling light dissipated from the room, raising her head to stare at Derek’s silhouetted form. She raised a brow at him expectantly and asked, “So what was it really that kept you busy all day?”
His jade eyes seemed to glow and dance in the darkness as he came closer, a truly impish smirk pulling on his lips as he replied. “Hunting.”