Exaltation (Insight #11)(64)

River.

She pulled Raven past the sheet, locked the door, and pushed the nightstand against the door once more.

“What’s going on?”

“This is our security system. We knew we’d have time to hide the books if Mom gets past the sheet and such.”

“Look, I’m tired. Long day. Can we do whatever tomorrow?”

“No way,” Ash said, as she waved Raven over. All the lights were off except one desk lamp on the floor between their beds. Ash pulled out a book from under the bed as River and Raven sat down by her. Within a second River had a stash of old books pulled out, too.

“Miss Sherri gave you guys all this?”

They glanced at each other then back to the books. “Miss Sherri was a bust,” River said. “Best we got out of her was what we already knew and Berries’ address.”

That made sense. The reason Miss Sherri knew so much about everyone was because she sold real estate in the Quarter. As a result of her job she always had to know the history of the houses, including all the old residents as well as the current ones. She was good at what she did because she had a way of making every home look like an epic novel. She knew all the secrets.

“And what did you already know besides Mr. Berries is your mom’s ex and he’s a creep?”

A shiver ran down both their backs as they made a face.

“That this mythology stuff he teaches is a fluke. A mask,” Ash spat out. “He’s a skeptic—like he was just using Mom for research. Back then he was trying to disprove every belief he could find. Basically a black and white kind of guy who thinks there’s no magic to life.”

“Odd career choice then,” Raven muttered. She had sat through one too many of his lectures on the greatness of myth.

“Not really,” Ash argued. “He’s in the best position to destroy peoples’ beliefs and he does that by using their own words against them. But that is not the point. The point is from what Miss Sherri told us—we were right about him. He was into Mom but she was only really into his mind. And he was really ticked when Mom told him ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ That was right after all of us were born. Miss Sherri said he was a coward, that he never faced your dad or anything or really said anything to Mom, but he used the law against them. Berries would make false complaints about your dad’s business or even to child services about how we were raised. He taunted them until we were like toddlers then he just vanished, never saw him again. Miss Sherri told us to steer clear and make sure we locked our doors at night.”

“What did she mean by that?”

“There is a rumor that he’s a thief. That your house was broken into, way back when, and so was Aunt Saige’s, and ours. Apparently, before we were robbed a few other business and homes were. It was a major drama because the things that were stolen were antiques and such, old books.”

“If he was a thief why would they let him teach at our school or why would my dad or your mom not say something?”

“Miss Sherri said they never proved it was him, that they just thought it was him because the robberies stopped as soon as he was gone. She gave us the impression she thought your dad took care of it. She for real said she was surprised Berries was still alive.”

“Like my dad would kill someone.”

“Yeah, we know, but you know how she is,” River said, finally chiming in on the conversation. She was taking notes like a crazy woman.

“So where did all of this come from?”

“Mr. Berries’.”

“What!”

River shrugged. “Miss Sherri told us where he lived, so we went and took a look around.”

“You robbed his house!”

“We un-robbed our house,” Ash clarified.

“What?”

“Look,” she said, pointing to the cover of the book. “This is our family crest.”

“He stole books like fifteen years ago and had them lying around his house?”

“No, they were hidden. Miss Sherri told us about how the walls in the house were rebuilt and that there were panels that led to them, so we took a chance.”

“You could go to jail for this!”

“Only if we are caught and besides, he wasn’t there and no one saw us. I don’t think he’s going to miss these anyways.”

“You have two book bags full of books—how would he not miss that many books?”

“There were like a thousand more there. These were all the way in the back. We covered our tracks. We were going to take them back but now we think we might keep them because they’re our family’s.”

“Two wrongs do not make a right.”

“Yeah, yeah. Seriously, check this out though,” River said, pushing a book into Raven’s lap. It was an album slash journal.

“Are you trying to show me images of my dad forever ago? That is not breaking news. I know he’s lived a long time.”

“Not the images of him, the drawings.”

Raven turned the pages and saw a sea of triangles and circles and words she was sure were in Latin, a language she didn’t want to decipher tonight.

“And?” Raven asked, as she ran her fingertips across an image. It was four rings with an array of triangles and spheres within them. It was familiar to her but she didn’t know why.