I lay low in my van when Mr. and Mrs. Flaherty drive away. I’ve been parked across from their house since 5:30 pm, and now it’s 8:27. Their Buick’s ruby eyes turn onto the main road and I wait five more minutes before twisting my key. The van falls as quiet as the rest of the neighborhood. The elderly couple’s house, garage, and pine tree are all shadows despite several streetlamps. Slipping into the humid August night I walk so nonchalantly—hiding a crowbar in the left sleeve of my hoodie—that anyone would assume I belong. But I still avoid the streetlamps.
For appearences, I knock right on the front door. I even call out, “Mr. Flaherty? Anyone? You guys around back?” And I walk between the pine and the brick corner as calmly as a man invited to a get-together.
Their backyard is unlit, just one big shadow. My teeth shouldn’t be chattering from a simple job like this—get in, get it, get out—but I notice I have to steady them. A distant baby wails; someone down the street calls their pets; the nearby pine rustles. I take off my hoodie and wrap it around the crowbar. When I smash in the back window, the shards fall to the carpet inside and make no sound.
I climb through: my boots aren’t slowed by the glass razors. I trample them into the white shag of what must be the living room. There are polished wooden bookshelves stuffed with old portraits, maps, and medical textbooks. I set my wrapped crowbar under the biggest shelf, resisting the urge to browse. I just need to find that locket, so I leave the living room with glass crunched into the carpet.
On the second floor I find the master bedroom: it has artsy-fartsy wallpaper patterned like a shifting forest. There’s a bed, two nightstands, and a heavy wood dresser. The nightstand to the left of the bed looks like his stuff, not hers. I check the other nightstand, and find an ornate box. Bingo, I think, and it is a jewelry box—but the specific locket isn’t inside. There must be a unique hiding place. I don’t have high hopes about the dresser but I look through it anyways, probing for anything taped inside. After the last drawer, I sit back and rub my sweaty neck.
I’m about to stand, to go try another room, when I notice a tiny hole in the shifty wallpaper—with no wall beneath it. If I hadn’t been sitting at the dresser I would have missed it. I kneel forwards and peel the paper away… and my eyes grow so wide they almost pop. I wasn’t expecting much, maybe a small hollow, but I’m seeing something I could never have dreamed. I want to dash out of the room, to check the other side of this wall, but I’m glued to the spot. Behind the shifty wallpaper in the Flaherty’s bedroom… is the stone chamber of a castle.
Torches light the rough-hewn hall and glitter on valuables spilled across the floor. I can’t pry my eyes from the overflowing chests and urns, but for a moment my boot hesitates to travel from carpet to stone. Then I brush under the flap of wallpaper to examine the hoard. At first I still look for the locket, but before long I’m filling my pockets with sapphires and golden figurines. There’s a crystal the size of my body: inside it I see myself in handcuffs, being roughly thrown into a patrol car. But next to the crystal, on a pile of coins, I’m drawn to a silver serpent ring. I slip it on. Then I find an amulet with coils of lapis lazuli and wear it too. It’s not the locket I’m supposed to find, but it will be more than worth my while.
Suddenly, iron double-doors crash open, spilling white into the treasure room. Two men stand there in silhouette, pointing jagged spears. One booms, “Who dares disturb the treasury of King Ahaxxa Moloux the Twenty-Seventh?”
I clutch my pockets. I wrap my finger around the amulet’s chain. I try to swear at them but my voice is as noiseless as a hiss from my ring. In a flash I tear back towards the Flaherty’s bedroom—but I can’t find the wallpaper. The walls are all solid stone. And then guards’ earthen hands close on my wrists. One spear digs into the small of my back, threatening to sever my spinal column.
“You are lucky, thief,” says the same guard. “Ahaxxa Moloux the Twenty-Seventh demands imprisonment for burglary! His father the Twenty-Sixth demanded death.” And they both snort with glee.
They strip me of valuables, and clothes, and lead me through the castle. Down secret stairways where braziers burn colors I can’t comprehend, down root-infested shafts where hieroglyphs depict the journey of the soul. And far beneath the deepest cellar they shove me into a tiny iron cage, too small even to stand in. I curl like a fetus, too bewildered to cry, then they bolt me in. The guards rotate a massive crank, and I hear chains rattle. They lower my cage into a bleak abyss. There isn’t room even to crane my neck, but I feel the heat of magma below, and see other cages, moaning, dangling from the dungeon far above.