Ultimate Nyssa Glass, H. Burke [cat reading book .TXT] 📗

paused, listening for any sign of a crying boy, then hurried back down to the kitchen. A pot of beans simmered on the stove. A heavenly smell of onions, garlic, and cumin wafted from it. That should’ve been enough to draw the boy like metal to a magnet. He wouldn’t have gone into Ellis’s quarters, would he? The door to the washroom was open, revealing the small space to be empty.

Hoping he’d miraculously re-materialized, she returned to the workshop.

“Did you find him?” Ellis asked, his brows furrowed. Mrs. H leaned closer.

Nyssa shook her head, suddenly feeling numb all over.

Don’t panic. He’s only been gone a few minutes. But where to?

“Maybe he went out back,” Ellis suggested.

“There’s nothing out there but trash barrels and old crates,” Mrs. H said. “Why would he be back there?”

“When I was his age, I loved old crates,” Ellis said.

“I’ll go check,” Nyssa said.

She exited the back of the house through the kitchen.

The sun had baked the narrow space to a nose-wrinkling ripeness. Wooden boxes leaned in a haphazard stack beside the bins of old newspapers and vegetable peelings.

“Theo?” She picked her way over the scattered filth.

If he came out here, he’s going to need a bath.

Something rustled behind a rain barrel near the corner of the house.

“Are you there?” she called.

The boy emerged from the narrow space between their house and the shop to the left. He slumped towards her.

“What were you doing in there? This place is filthy.” She brushed off his vest. “You don’t want to ruin your new clothes, do you?”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, avoiding eye contact.

“Are you all right?” She tilted her head. “I know what happened today was scary.”

“He was going to hurt you.” Theo rubbed his nose on his sleeve.

Nyssa winced and handed him a handkerchief. “He just wanted to scare me. You stood up to him, though. You’re a brave kid. Come on. Mrs. H made lunch.”

She started towards the door, but Theo lingered behind.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Once you’ve done bad things, do people ever forget?” His bottom lip quivered.

Nyssa’s heart clenched. “Forget, maybe not, but forgive, yes.”

“But if they don’t forget, aren’t you always the person who did the bad thing? Like Al said, you’ll always be a thief. Won’t I always be a thief, too?” He drew closer to her.

“No, of course not.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Theo, you’re so young. You have plenty of time to become whatever you want to be. Besides, you aren’t a thief to me, or Ellis, or Mrs. H.”

“Miss Nyssa? Did you find him?” Mrs. H called from the kitchen door.

“Yes. We’ll be right in.” Nyssa ruffled Theo’s hair because it seemed like a comforting gesture, the sort of thing a parent would do. “Let’s have lunch.”

Theo settled at the kitchen table and picked at a bowl of beans and rice.

“Is he all right?” Mrs. H whispered.

“He’ll be fine once your cooking kicks in.” Nyssa smiled, hoping it wasn’t a lie. The shop bell rang across the hall. “Excuse me.” She ducked out of the kitchen.

When she entered the shop, Ellis was passing a coin to a messenger boy in a black uniform with bronze buttons. The young man said thanks, then exited the shop.

Ellis held up a yellow envelope. He ripped it open. “Amara would be delighted to entertain us tomorrow at noon for lunch. Should I try to get her to see us sooner?”

Nyssa shook her head. “We should be fine until then. I’ve set up the alarm system, so it isn’t as if Uncle Al can just pop in uninvited.” She let out a long breath.

Amara has to be able to do something. She’s married to the island’s heir apparent, for Spark’s sake. Less than twenty-four hours and this nightmare will be over.

“Theo all right?” Ellis stuck the telegram on a spike on his workbench.

“I’m not sure. My uncle shook him up. Theo seemed to instinctively know Al was bad news.”

“Kids are perceptive … kids and dogs. When I was a boy, my dad wouldn’t do business with anyone his basset hound didn’t like.” Ellis laughed. “For all my dad’s faults, he loved that stupid, floppy eared dog.”

Nyssa whisked a cloth over the counter, not because it was dusty, but to keep her hands busy. In spite of the good news of Amara’s potential help, something twitched in the back of her head like rusty clockwork.

Uncle Al has to have a better plan than threatening me a few times. The man used to plan burglaries down to the second, and he knows I’m no pushover. Something else is coming.

She’d triple check the burglar alarm before bed. Dear old Uncle Al won’t catch me unprepared.

Chapter Nine

The stairs grew narrower as Nyssa climbed. In the distance, Ellis’s three-faced clock ticked, speaking to her, warning her. She needed to reach it, to find the message he’d left her, but the stairs stretched on, dark, tight. Her shoulders scraped the walls. She couldn’t breathe. With a push she forced herself through the gap into the sitting room.

A bright fire crackled like laughing voices, but the clock now drummed in her ears.

I’m missing something. Why can’t I understand?

The steady tick-tock turned to long and short clicks. Morse code? She knew that. She could understand. But no, every time she thought she’d deciphered the pattern, it changed.

“It’s right in front of you.”

She whirled about. Ellis stood before her.

“You should see it. It’s happened before. Why can’t you see it?” He stepped closer and his face morphed,  high cheekbones sinking in, dark eyes fading into Uncle Al’s watery gray irises. She shrieked and struck out, and he shattered into shards of glass.

Her heart pounded with the clock. She needed to stop it. If she could silence the clock, she’d be able to think. She’d understand the message. The floor undulated beneath her, but she stumbled to the clock.

Instead of hands, a cat and a mouse spun around the face, chasing each other endlessly. Nyssa reached out to stop them and