The Thief by Aine Crabtree Read Free Book Online

the enormous atrium entryway, down
the huge corridors on either side that apparently housed the
lockers. I hesitated in the atrium, as students swarmed around me,
up the stairs that climbed either side of the entry. I clutched my
bag, peering around at the signs on the walls. My fear
compounded.
    Oh god, I’m lost
already, I thought. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. I won’t get my schedule. I won’t find my classes. I’m going
to be late. I’m already late by three months! I’m going to look
like an idiot!
    “ Ladies,” said a smooth
woman’s voice, “you look as if you could use some
direction.”
    I turned and saw an Asian woman in a skirt
suit. Perfect manicured nails curled around the tablet she carried.
The bottom edge of her chin-length hair was impeccably
straight.
    “ Camille Teague, I see you
at least made it through the doors without incident,” she said,
offering a hand to another girl, who I hadn’t noticed close by. She
had been leaning so casually against the edge of the stairs, she
had looked like she belonged here. She was short and pale, with
long, unruly blonde curls. She gave the woman a wary look, but
shook nonetheless. She was new as well? Was I miraculously not
alone?
    “ And you must be Juliet
Graham,” the woman said, turning to me.
    “ Yes ma’am,” I said, shaking
her offered hand.
    “ I’m the principal of
Havenwood School,” she said, inclining her head to us both. “Rin
Umino. Ms. Umino, to you.” Other students flowed around us like a
river around a boulder. “We are pleased that you have finally come
to join our school.” Her narrow smile was strange, but I smiled
back as best I could. “You may not be aware,” Ms. Umino said, “but
we have been talking to your father,” she looked at me, “and
your...guardian,” she looked at Camille, “for several years now. It
is unfortunate, Ms. Graham, that you come to us in such
circumstances, but we are happy to have you
nonetheless.”
    I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Thank you...”
I said uneasily.
    “ Come into my office, there
is much to discuss,” she said, a slight foreign accent slipping
into her English for a moment.
    She began walking across the atrium to a
room at the back of the hall. Camille followed first, though with a
distrusting frown. I moved to follow as well, but before I went
inside, I glanced back to get a better look at the lofty atrium,
now nearly cleared of students. That’s when I saw him, standing in
front of the doors.
    He had inquisitive almond-shaped eyes and
short ink-black hair. He was standing in the atrium, and I swear
the sun from the front doors was streaming in around him, tipping
his silhouette in gold. Everyone else was rushing around the edges
of the atrium, desperate to get who-knows-where, but he just stood
in the center, framed in sun, observing something on the second
floor with the faintest, contented smile on his face.
    He looked like certainty. He looked like
peace.
    His gaze slid across the room and landed on
me. The corners of his mouth lifted the barest fraction. It was a
smile worthy of the Mona Lisa. A smile that knew everything and
would give away nothing.
    My heart didn’t literally skip, but I
definitely stopped breathing. Did time stop? It might have. Either
that, or it went very fast.
    “ Graham,” I heard, and I
jumped, turning back to Ms. Umino’s office. She looked at me
expectantly from behind her desk. Camille was already seated in one
of the two chairs across from it. How long had I been
staring...?
    “ Uh, I’m sorry, the uh...the
school is very lovely,” I said.
    “ That it is,” she replied
evenly. “Come have a seat.”
    I snuck a final glance at
the atrium, but he was already gone. Who
was he...? My heart hammered. I shut the
door behind me and sat in the chair next to Camille. I tried to
focus on the present. Here was someone in my same circumstance.
Maybe she needed a friend as badly as I did. Was it rude to hope
that?
    I took in