Fourteen

The Third Heist

Fin barely remembered what happened at school. She took notes without noticing what they were on, and she ate her bagged lunch in the cafeteria with a kind of robotic absence. A girl glanced at Fin, then whispered something behind her fingers to another classmate, probably remarking on Fin’s baggy secondhand jeans or her worn sneakers. On any other day, Fin would have felt a pang of shame that she couldn’t afford the kind of clothes the popular kids wore. But now Fin didn’t care what her classmates were saying. She had other, more important concerns.

Finally she was back on the school bus again—sitting beside Eddie, her backpack clutched against her chest, and Highway 101 winding through the trees. Eddie was chatting to an older kid who lived north of Aldermere, while Fin gazed out the window.

The bus let them off at the carving shop beside the 101 and Fin followed the other kids up the road to Aldermere. Cedar hung back a little; her dark brown hair shone auburn in the sunlight. “Hey,” she said. “You okay?”

Fin wondered if her worries were written across her face. “Yeah, why?”

Cedar’s gaze swept over her. “You’ve been kind of quiet.”

Fin broke into a laugh. “I’m always quiet.”

“Not with Eddie,” said Cedar. “You’re always talking with him.”

That was true. Eddie was the one person she could talk to without her anxiety getting in the way. “He’s family,” she said, as if that were explanation enough.

“Is he your only family?” asked Cedar. “Besides your mom and your aunt, of course.”

Fin hesitated. “Yeah. I mean, I never knew my grandparents—they died a long time ago.” When she finished, Fin felt obligated to return the question. “What about you?”

“My dad’s side of the family lives in SoCal,” said Cedar. “We get together for holidays and stuff. There aren’t a lot of kids, so I mostly hang out with my abuelita. My mom’s side is in New Hampshire, so we’re not close.” She looked a little wistful. “I love my family, but I’m not really friends with them. Not like you and Eddie. You two are tight, I get that. But you know, if you need someone else to talk to . . .” She shrugged and let the offer trail into silence.

Unbidden, Teafin rose to the forefront of Fin’s mind: the easy step of the monster girl and the way she stood with her arms held loosely at her sides—not with her hands shoved awkwardly in her pockets like Fin usually kept them. Half the time Fin wasn’t even sure what to do with her feet.

Maybe the tea girl was a monster, but she was a monster that didn’t doubt herself—and Fin envied that.

Cedar drifted away and Fin watched her go. She and Eddie dropped their backpacks off at the big house; Fin had explained her plan to Eddie at lunch, and he’d agreed to go with her. Aunt Myrtle was out of the house and Mom was at work. Eddie found a plate of cookies in the fridge: oatmeal cookies with raisins and extra nut flour that gave them a strangely mealy texture. Even so, Fin took two. They were better than the protein balls.

They walked across town in a meandering path, so no one could guess their destination. Eddie was talking determinedly about the science fair; apparently River’s attempt to create a working wind turbine out of Popsicle sticks wasn’t going too well, and Eddie harbored a not-so-secret desire to beat him. Fin’s interest in the science fair had waned to the point of indifference; she listened so she didn’t have to talk.

They approached the tea shop from the back. A few ravens were perched atop the roof, talking to one another in hoarse squawks. They went silent when they saw Fin and Eddie, and a prickle of unease went up the back of Fin’s legs. Maybe they resented her because she looked like the girl who’d hurt one of them.

Fin walked up the steps to the back door, reaching for the knob. There was an inch of space between the door and frame; Teafin hadn’t shut it. She pushed the door open, and it creaked a little.

Fin walked in first, every step cautious. The shop smelled a little damp, a little abandoned—like old wood with underlying hints of tea. Eddie carefully shut the door behind them; neither dared to flick on a light. They tiptoed through the narrow hallway, past the place where Talia had fallen. Fin gently pushed open the door to the main room. It was empty—no Teafin in sight. Fin heaved a breath of relief. Then she glanced up at the shelves, and her heart sank.

The mason jars had been ransacked. They’d been pulled from the shelves and hastily shoved back into place, their contents gone. One lay shattered on the floor, bits of broken glass scattered among a few tea leaves. Eddie stepped up beside Fin, eyeing the mason jars.

“So Teafin took everything?” he said.

Fin nodded glumly. “It’s probably how she grew from small enough to fit in a garbage disposal to—well, me sized. She needed to feed.”

“That’s a nice thought,” said Eddie. “So how do we make her go away?”

Fin gestured at the interior of the tea shop: all dark woods, antique furniture, and the bookshelf full of paperback romances. “I hoped there’d be instructions somewhere in here. I mean, if other people brew tea at home, maybe Talia sends an instruction manual with them or something.”

Eddie nodded. “Okay. I’ll take that back storage room if you take this one. If either of us finds an instruction manual or notes or just—something labeled In Case of Tea Monster, Break Glass, then we shout. If Teafin jumps out at us, we should . . . probably shout louder.”

Fin stepped hesitantly toward the counter. Her gaze slid over the broken jar, the empty ones, their labels half tugged off. To see it in such a state made her guilt all the worse. Fin tiptoed around to the hallway closet, where she found an assortment of vintage coats and even a fur stole. But at the very back, as Fin had hoped, there was an old broom. She found a heavy metal dustpan and carried both back to the counter. She swept up the broken glass and stray leaves of tea. Most had been taken, but there were a few bits of Ceylon and Assam beneath the wooden shelves and a tight curl of gunpowder green that had rolled behind the curtains.

A small metal bucket had been overturned, gray dirt spilling onto the floor. FOR ASHES, read an old label. Fin tipped it upright. It would serve well enough. She swept up everything, dumped it all into the bucket, and carried it outside to the garbage bin. Then she picked up the intact mason jars and put them in a row on the lower shelves. The FOR ASHES bucket went back behind the counter where Fin had found it.

It was good, putting things right. Or at least as right as she could make them.

Behind the counter was the cash register, and a few drawers. Fin found three notebooks and flipped one open. It held receipts and tax forms. Fin blinked at them; she’d never considered that a magical shop would have to worry about taxes. She reached down to one of the lower drawers and pulled it open. It looked like a series of bills. The next drawer was full of office supplies: paper clips and pens and envelopes. Another drawer had dog treats. Probably for the ravens, Fin thought, as Talia didn’t own a dog.

There was no giant spell book. And perhaps it was foolish of Fin to hope for such a thing—to think there might have been an instruction manual or even a pamphlet. Magical Tea for Beginners, she thought, and had the wild urge to laugh. With a sigh, Fin leaned against the register.

Her fingers must have hit a button, because the cash drawer popped open with a small ding. Fin jumped, startled. She glanced down and saw dusty dollar bills gazing up at her. Ones, fives, tens, a few twenties—and even a little slot for foreign bills too. Fin had never seen so much money in her life. Talia must sell normal teas too, the kind that weren’t bought with whispered memories. She was about to close the drawer when she saw something poking out of one corner. Fin frowned, lifting the drawer. It slid up easily, and beneath the cash section were scattered notes. She picked one up, heart throbbing with excitement.

Milk, it read. Coffee creamer. Whole wheat bread. Cucumbers.

A shopping list. Not the spell that Fin had been hoping for. She checked a second note and saw a list of chores; a third note contained a scribble about needing to call someone called Eudora. Fin shut the cash drawer.

Disappointed, she leaned against the counter. At least Teafin hadn’t touched the money. Well, the money and the mortar and pestle. Fin supposed it had been too heavy for Teafin to mess with, and Fin was glad for that. She liked the mortar and pestle—the veins of pink and white running through the heavy stone, smooth and cold against her fingers. Teafin had said it held the echoes of many memories, that such things weren’t so easily destroyed.

Fin straightened. She had always thought the tea was magical—but what if it wasn’t? What if the mortar, not the tea, was the important part?

Fin looked up at the mason jars. There had always been a lot of tea there, but surely there had to be more. Talia couldn’t have relied on a few jars’ worth to run her shop.

Heart beating a little too quickly, she turned and strode toward the back room. Eddie was on the floor beside a pantry, searching through what looked like old envelopes. “No magic spell books,” he said. “Not even a copy of the witch’s almanac that Mom keeps in the bathroom. Maybe—”

But Fin wasn’t listening. She went right to one of the cupboards and pulled it open. It was full of boxes. She yanked one free and ripped at the cardboard, withdrawing what looked like a metal tube. It was vacuum sealed and on the side was a printed sticker label that read EARL GREY.

Teafin hadn’t found all the tea. She hadn’t even found most of it. She’d gone for what was obvious, in the front room. But this stuff looked like it was bought in bulk off the internet. Fin gazed at the metal tin of tea. Talia bought it elsewhere. Of course she did—because she didn’t have giant gardens where she could grow her own plants. Now that Fin thought about it, it was obvious: the tea itself came from outside of town.

Which meant it was just tea.

“What’s up?” said Eddie, standing. “You look like someone hit you over the head.”

Her fingers gripped the tin even harder.

“It isn’t the tea at all,” said Fin aloud. “It’s the mortar. The mortar infuses the tea with its power. It feeds on the memories that people give it. Talia buys tea off the internet. I know this brand—I’ve seen it at Brewed Awakening.”

“And she puts it in mason jars to look more homemade,” said Eddie, wrinkling his nose. “Well, that’s kind of disappointing.”

“It’s not, though, because the mortar is the real magic,” she said. “They take the memories, infuse the tea with magic, and then the used tea leaves must be like . . . the magical equivalent of nuclear waste or something. They have to be destroyed afterward.”

“But how, though?” asked Eddie.

Fin shrugged. She put the tea back on its shelf and returned to the front room. The mortar sat there, silent and gleaming.

One hand resting on the countertop, Fin gazed out the window. A flicker of movement caught her eye. There was a good view of the town. She could see Mr. Hardin’s grocery store, Brewed Awakening’s rooftop, the edge of Mrs. Brackenbury’s porch, and—

And a thin stream of something gray rising from the house beside it.

Fin frowned and took a step closer to the window. It looked like smoke, but it couldn’t be. Aldermere had strict rules about burning. It was one of those things that was drilled into them even at school; fires could too easily catch in the dry forest, and after several years of drought, California’s fire season threatened much of the state. Last summer, a nearby fire had muddied the horizon and left the sky a strange color of orange. Most of the town’s older occupants had stayed inside or worn medical masks.

“What is it?” asked Eddie.

Fin walked closer to the window, her nose almost brushing the glass. Dark gray twined upward, flickering oddly and—and that was definitely smoke. Smoke next to old Mrs. Brackenbury’s home. Fin thought of the old lady and her lumpy bulldog, both of whom were rather hard of hearing. Would they know?

“Smoke,” Fin whispered.

Eddie jerked in surprise, and he followed her to the window.

“Maybe someone burned popcorn or something,” he said, sounding hopeful.

A bell rang out—clanging so loudly that the sound emanated through the walls and the floor. Fin had only heard that bell once before: when a tourist kid had gotten lost in the woods. It summoned the volunteer firefighters.

“Okay, not popcorn, then,” said Eddie. He glanced from side to side, racking his brain. “The house beside Mrs. Brackenbury is that small cabin. The guy living in it works at the inn, at the front desk.”

“Ben,” said Fin. Ben—who was always smiling and nice to her. She hoped nothing had happened to him. “Come on.”

Fin made for the door; she checked that it remained unlocked before she pulled it shut behind Eddie. She had no idea where that spare key was—probably in Teafin’s pocket. If a monster had pockets. And Fin might still need to get back into the tea shop.

Eddie was the faster of the two; he tore down the gravel driveway, over a neighbor’s fence and through a couple of backyards.

There was a terrible acrid scent upon the air. It was bitter against the back of Fin’s throat, and she coughed. Eddie skidded to a halt, nearly hitting a man watching from the sidewalk.

At least three people had already arrived—one of them had a hose and was spraying at the flames. It looked like the garden shed had caught fire, not the house. Another woman had a bucket in hand and was filling it up at a neighbor’s spigot. Ben himself was cursing quietly as he jogged out of his home, carrying a very dusty fire extinguisher. He sprayed foam at the flames and they died away, falling back into the shed. Ben pulled the door open and stepped inside the smoking interior, waving away anyone who tried to follow.

A tall woman rushed past the gathering cluster of people. She had white hair streaked with cast-iron gray, and there was a distinctly hawkish look to her eyes and tight mouth. Fin knew her by sight—she was the head of the volunteer firefighters. But to her squirming discomfort, Fin realized she couldn’t remember the woman’s name. It was something like Pat or Patty or—

The woman moved with a kind of sturdy determination, a fire extinguisher in one hand and her other gesturing for people to get back. “Status?” she barked at Ben.

He jumped. “It’s—it’s under control. Must’ve been a wire chewed by one of the squirrels or a whintosser or something.”

“We need to cut the power,” said the tall woman.

“I did that, Mrs. Petrichor,” said Ben. “The flames are out. It’s all just smoke now.”

Petrichor—that was it, Fin thought with relief.

Mrs. Petrichor eyed him with all of the warmth of a hawk looking for mice. “You haven’t been burning illegally, have you?”

“What? No!” Ben shook his head.

“I’ll have to check for signs of arson,” said Mrs. Petrichor grimly, and began to walk toward the shed.

“I’m going to call my landlord,” said Ben. He looked exhausted and more than a little shaken, and Fin felt sorry for him. “Let him know.”

As if summoned by Fin’s thought, Ben’s gaze jerked up to meet hers. A strange expression passed over his face, and if Fin hadn’t known better, she might have thought it was fear. “Hey, Fin,” he said with an attempt at a smile. But the corners of his mouth twitched uncomfortably. His gaze tracked between Fin and Eddie, and he seemed to be chewing on his next words. “Did you two just get back from school?”

“Pretty much,” said Eddie. He wasn’t great at lying, but he was making an effort.

“You didn’t come back early?” asked Ben.

“No.” Fin answered for them both. “Can we help?”

Ben smiled. “Thanks, but no. You should head on home. Fin, if you see your mom, tell her I might be late for my shift, okay?” He turned back toward the shed, but not before sliding Fin one last look.

It was this last glance that did it, tipping uncertainty into surety.

Ben was looking at Fin as if he was afraid of her. Ben had never looked at her like that before.

Which meant—

Fin drew in a sharp breath that tasted like burned wood and plastic. “Come on,” she muttered to Eddie, and began pulling him away by the arm. Eddie, who liked a spectacle as much as anyone in town, went reluctantly. As Fin and Eddie walked around the front of the house, a voice called out to them.

It was Mrs. Brackenbury, standing on her porch. Her bulldog, Mr. Bull, was sitting on the lowest step. Some of his girth overflowed, and he looked at Fin and Eddie with a hopeful wag of his stubby tail.

“What’s all the commotion about?” asked the older lady, with a sharp glance in the direction of the smoke.

“Ben’s shed caught on fire,” said Fin. “He said it was probably bad wiring.”

Mrs. Brackenbury puffed up with indignation. “It’s those Wilsons,” she said with a downward twist of her mouth. “Rich landlords living in the city, ignoring the upkeep of places they rent out. They own three houses on my street, and I know at least one of them’s got termites.” She sounded as though she was gaining momentum, but Fin didn’t have time for a rant.

“See you later,” she said.

They were halfway down the block before Eddie said, “All right, what’s up?”

Fin shot another glance over her shoulder. “Did you see the way Ben was looking at me?”

“Not really,” said Eddie.

“He was looking at me like he was scared,” said Fin.

At that, Eddie burst into disbelieving laughter. “Yeah—yeah. You’re terrifying. Almost as terrifying as Mr. Bull. We should have you doing security for the inn, you’d be—”

He cut off abruptly. Then he looked at Fin.

Fin looked back steadily.

“Oh, no,” he said, finally getting it. “You think . . . ?”

“That Teafin set that fire?” said Fin. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”