Anne Ursu - The Shadow Thieves

"Weird!" He thought for a minute. "So you were having a dream about something you were talking about in English, and those men were in it."

"Yeah."

"Maybe they have the power to work their way into normal dreams?"

"Maybe," said Charlotte.

"I dream about doors," Zee added offhandedly.

"Doors?"

"All the time. I'm always opening doors. It could be -" Zee stopped and looked around again. "There. You didn't hear anything?"

"No," said Charlotte.

Zee leaned in. "Come on," he whispered. "Let's go home."

And then Charlotte did hear something. Something sibilant and sneaky, something creepy and close. Her stomach dropped into her intestines. And she felt something too, something shadowy and sinister. Her skin began to prickle…

"Zee!" she exclaimed.

"Run!"

But it was too late. There, right in front of them, were two man-like men, with gray-white skin and dead-looking yellow eyes set in a face like a skeleton's. Charlotte screamed, and the men smiled and bowed-and if you asked Charlotte, that was the creepiest part of all.

The cousins turned as one and began to run in the opposite direction. Charlotte was struck with the feeling that she was about to be sucked into the earth. Or worse.

She thought she was still screaming, but the world seemed absolutely silent all of a sudden. She could feel her feet running, but she wasn't sure she was moving. All seemed strange and still. She knew, somehow, that if she looked behind her, the man-like men would still be standing, still smiling, just as close as they were before.

The world was a lonely, terrible, cold place – and utterly silent.

Then, suddenly, a sound burst into the night-a loud motor, a squeal of tires, then a bright light. A car turned the corner and barreled down the street toward them. Charlotte and Zee ran toward it; Charlotte wanted to jump in front of it because getting hit by a car was surely better than what was about to happen to her.

She could hear her voice again and could feel her feet pounding against the pavement. She ran toward the car and heard her cousin doing the same. She didn't know where the men were, and she didn't want to look back to find out.

The car squealed to a stop right in front of them, the passenger door flew open, and a voice yelled, "Get in!" Charlotte gasped. It was Mr. Metos.

CHARLOTTE AND ZEE SAT SIDE BY SIDE IN THE passenger seat of Mr. Metos's battered old sedan. Charlotte felt like her organs had been ripped from her body. Zee didn't look much better.

"What were you kids doing outside?" Mr. Metos muttered. He didn't sound like he wanted an answer.

It took Charlotte some time to regain power of thought. She sat huddled next to her cousin, who had his eyes closed and was slowly breathing in and out, as if to reassure himself that he still could.

They drove on in silence, block after block.

Charlotte put her brain back in place, then her throat, then her heart and lungs, then her stomach. It took some time to untangle her intestines, which seemed to be intertwined with her kneecaps.

That done, Charlotte could focus on her immediate situation. She had a thousand questions. As in, what on Earth was Mr. Metos doing there, what were they doing in Mr. Metos's car, and what in the world was going to happen to them now? Charlotte had a strange urge to open the door and run all the way home, grab Bartholomew, hide under the bed, and never ever, ever come out.

But then she would never find out the answers to these thousands of questions, and frankly, she really wanted to know, and besides, she didn't have any breath left to run.

Mr. Metos did not seem in a particularly chatty mood. He was a lot less frightening than the man-like men, but that really wasn't saying much.

Charlotte gulped. "Um, where are we going?" she asked quietly.

"To my apartment," Mr. Metos said brusquely. "We have much to discuss."

Charlotte's heart flipped. "I'm supposed to be home for dinner," she whispered.

Mr. Metos raised his eyebrows and just kept driving. Charlotte huddled closer in to her cousin, who looked nearly catatonic. Eventually they pulled up behind a small white brick apartment building in a neighborhood full of such buildings. The only thing that distinguished this one from the others was a big sign that read, IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU WOULD BE HOME BY NOW.

Charlotte could not argue with that logic.

Mr. Metos parked right next to the building. Zee awoke from his coma and dutifully began to open the passenger door, but Mr. Metos whispered harshly, "Don't." Zee quickly shrank back in his seat, and Charlotte didn't know whether to be comforted or even more frightened that Zee seemed scared of Mr. Metos too.

Charlotte and Zee watched while Mr. Metos got out of the car, closed the door softly, and began to walk slowly around the parking lot. He stopped a few times, looking around carefully. Finally he walked up to the passenger door, opened it, and hurried them out.

"Quickly, now," he said, ushering them to the building door. Up a flight of stairs they went, then another, then another, feet echoing noisily in the concrete stairwells. The lights buzzed and flickered overhead. Charlotte was conscious of Mr. Metos behind them, moving them with his gaze.

When they got to Mr. Metos's apartment, Charlotte immediately thought it looked a great deal like his classroom-small, dark, and bare. There was a little, brownish kitchen to the right, in the sitting room was a tan couch on which rested a bed pillow and a folded-up blanket, and to the left Charlotte could see a room that seemed to be filled entirely with books. And right in front of her, on the counter, sat a small phone. And that reminded her:

"I have to call my mom. She'll think…" Charlotte gulped a little. "She'll think something happened to us."

It wasn't until she had finished dialing that Charlotte realized she had no idea what to say to her mother, who of course picked up on the first ring. Charlotte was a good liar, but really, how on earth was she supposed to come up with a plausible narrative if her mother picked up on the first ring? "Mom, hi!" she gasped. "Um, we ran into our English teacher walking home from Maddy's, and he invited us over to dinner…"

There was a pause. "Your father made turkey burgers," said Mrs. Mielswetzski flatly.

"Um, it's extra credit," said Charlotte. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she winced. It was her worst lie ever.

Mrs. Mielswetzski just sighed heavily. "Oh, well… they'll keep. Mr. Metos will be driving you home, I hope?"

"I'm sure," Charlotte grimaced.

"You better let me talk to him."

Charlotte panicked. "He's in the bathroom!" she said. "He's been there awhile! Um, I have to go. We'll be home in a couple hours." And she threw the phone back on its hook as if it were burning.

She looked up, blushing. That had not been her best performance. Mr. Metos was looking at her oddly. Zee was still standing in the entrance, staring at the door (which was also odd) and hugging his coat around him. It was awfully cold in there. Charlotte was suddenly conscious again of being a human, one who felt cold, hunger, exhaustion, and tremendous thirst. She stood by the kitchen and bit her lip. Mr. Metos was standing a little awkwardly, looking at both of them as if he'd never seen human children before.

"Um," Mr. Metos said, "you can sit down over there." He motioned to the furniture brusquely. Charlotte guessed he didn't entertain a lot. She nudged Zee, and together they plopped down on the sofa, which was awfully squishy. Charlotte wanted to wrap the folded-up blanket around herself, but she had a feeling that it was what Mr. Metos slept with, and that was just… icky.