The Keeper of Lost Things Read online

  The Keeper of Lost Things

  The Keeper of Lost Things

  JAMIE CAMPBELL

  “The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost,”

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Chapter 1

  Leave.

  Go.

  Now.

  The words screamed in my head as I urged them toward the couple sitting on the picnic table. They were wrapped up in a conversation, completely forgetting about the tube of lip gloss that had been used and then placed on the table.

  They were ready to leave, it was written in their body language. One held the straps of her handbag tightly, ready to grab it before going. The other, a male, had planted both his feet on the ground so he could stand.

  Go.

  The suspense was too much. I silently willed them to leave so I could grab it. I needed it. There was something yearning deep within my belly that said I had to have it.

  I would give it a home.

  I wouldn’t let it be discarded into the trash where nobody would ever love it again.

  It wasn’t going to fall into the dirt and be caked with mud, rolling into the storm drain in the next rainfall. It would be safe, it wouldn’t be forgotten, it would be mine.

  The pair liked to talk, their smiles broad as they clumsily forgot about the lip gloss. They were careless, just like all the others. Nobody else cared about what happened to all the items left behind.

  But I did.

  Lost items were no more valueless just because they were lost. They had worth, they existed in this world for a purpose, they should never have been lost in the first place.

  Just like me.

  The male stood, putting his feet to good purpose. The girl followed, hitching her handbag onto her shoulder. They walked off without a second look back at the table.

  The lip gloss was left behind.

  It sat on the table watching its owner walk away from it forever. It would no longer touch her lips, no longer make her face prettier, her lips softer. It would never again know what it was like to live in her handbag.

  Now.

  Now was my chance.

  I darted across the courtyard, my focus solely on the small round tube. I would rescue it, stop it from suffering the fate of something left behind. I would give it a new home, let it know how valuable it was to this world.

  With one swift swoop of my hand, I grabbed the lip gloss and slipped it into my bag.

  It was no longer lost.

  I would keep it forever, far longer than the girl would wonder where she had left it. It would be a fleeting thought in her mind, but to me the memory would last a lifetime.

  I always remembered where they had come from.

  Nothing was lost to me.

  As I turned to get to class, someone caught my attention. It was a boy, standing on the side of the courtyard. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his dark hair so long it flopped over his eyes.

  He was watching me.

  My heart raced as my breath caught in my throat and threatened to strangle me. I had to push it all away, just like I had done all the times before when my emotions had threatened to make me feel.

  He was nothing. So what if he had seen me. I was doing nothing wrong. Taking lost items was not a crime, it was a service, a kindness that the world lacked.

  I did not care about this boy.

  Not his tall, lanky frame.

  Not his messy hair.

  Not his eyes that were looking at me.

  Not his rosy lips as they formed a slow smile.

  He was nothing to me and I needed to get to class. There were far more important things in the world than being watched by a boy who clearly had no manners.

  I rushed to class, passing the girl who had lost her lip gloss. She was heading back to the courtyard, did she know about her loss already? Would she be searching for her berry bliss gloss for long?

  That wasn’t my concern.

  She had lost it and it was now mine.

  Shame on her.

  Taking my seat in English, I listened intently to the words of Mr. Greene. He enjoyed talking, he was a master of creating imagery that placed you in the middle of the action. There were few other teachers that I actually gave the compliment of listening to.

  While my gaze scanned the room–searching, always searching–they travelled across the boy from outside. I’d never noticed him before. I doubted I’d even seen him before.

  His eyes met mine as I was caught looking. My gaze quickly darted back to Mr. Greene, pretending I had never been staring in the first place.

  I kept my face forward for the rest of the class, escaping the monotony of school with the final bell. My house was four blocks from the school, meaning it was just far enough to be a long walk but not far enough for the city to subsidize a bus ride.

  The lip gloss was singing to me from inside my bag. It was thanking me, ever so grateful for the opportunity of a second chance. It trusted me to find a place for it, for it to never suffer the indignation of being lost again.

  My house came into sight, standing out from all the others. It was the only one with a black façade, the result of a fire many years ago. Nobody bothered to scrub the smoke from the bricks, leaving it there for everyone to remember the tragedy of what had taken place within the walls.

  The house was ugly, both inside and out.

  But it was home.

  It was where I could be found.

  “Good afternoon, Em,” my neighbor said as I hurried past their pristine white picket fence. It was Mrs. Justice, out watering her roses. She liked to talk. “How was school today?”

  “Fine, thank you, Mrs. Justice,” I said politely. I couldn’t admit that I was in a hurry because of the lip gloss calling to me in my bag.

  She wouldn’t understand.

  Mrs. Justice had never been lost in her life.

  “I heard the school carnival is coming up soon. Are you going to go?” she asked with such enthusiasm that a tiny bit of guilt crept into my mind.

  “I don’t know yet,” I lied.

  She gave me a kind smile, the same one she used when she was feeling sorry for me. “Well, I hope you decide to go. It looks like it will be lots of fun.”

  “I’m sure it will be.” I smiled too, but mine felt fake. “I’ll see you around, Mrs. Justice.”

  She watched me take the few more steps to my house and go inside. They burned on my back, even when I was through the door and it was closed behind me.

  I hurried up the flight of stairs to my room at the end of the corridor. I locked the door behind me as my gaze roamed over everything inside, searching for anything that was out of place.

  Sometimes Uncle Marvin came into my room when I wasn’t home. I never knew what he did in there, but sometimes things were moved.

  I didn’t like it when things were moved.

  This time, everything looked to be in the right place. All the items stacked on the shelves were right where they were supposed to be, awaiting my return in silence.

  Taking the berry blast lip gloss from my bag, I stood in front of the cramped shelves. I knew exactly where it needed to be placed. On the third shelf up, with the other fourteen lip glosses that had been lost by careless people.

  I placed the tube at the front, because I liked the smell of it. Berries filled my nostrils even though I had replaced the cap. I had fifteen now. Fifteen little soldiers, so brave and courageous.

  It was no longer lost now.

  It had a home.

  I would keep it safe.

  Chapter 2

  “Get your butt down here for dinner!” Uncle Marvin bellowed from the kitchen. He never just spoke, he only knew how to bellow. Sometime
s I wondered if he was going deaf and nobody realized it.

  I knew if he got to a second bellow, I wouldn’t be having any dinner that night. I scrambled to get downstairs, almost tripping down the stairs as I did.

  “I’m here, Uncle,” I said, just to be certain he knew.

  “About time.”

  He laid down the burnt meatloaf on the table, stabbing at it with a knife until it fell into two pieces. He dumped one onto my plate, shoving the ketchup my way.

  I drowned the meat with the red, sticky sauce. It was the only way to make anything Uncle Marvin made edible. Every day I was surprised that I hadn’t turned red from the excess intake of ketchup. It was a miracle, really.

  We ate in silence, the dry meat sticking in my throat with every bite.

  “You got anything to say?” he asked, his voice more of a grunt than a proper enunciation of words. He saved his polite voice for Mrs. Justice and the few others that dared speak with him.

  “Um, how was your day?” I knew he didn’t care about my day so there was no point in sharing. What Uncle Marvin really wanted was to complain about all the trials of his day, but he wanted an opening first.

  “Everyone at work is an idiot,” he started, which was how he normally did. Everyone he worked with was an idiot, everyone he encountered was an idiot, everyone in the world was an idiot except for him.

  I was an idiot too.

  He reminded me quite often.

  His fork banged on the table, making the ketchup bottle quiver with fear. “Are you even listening to me or are you thinking about those stupid ideas of yours again?”

  “No, I’m listening,” I lied. I did that a lot. Lie, I mean. The truth rarely escaped my mouth. I’d heard it called a compulsion before, by my school principal.

  I called it a necessity.

  The truth was ugly, nobody wanted that.

  Uncle Marvin continued his tirade against the world while I tuned out again. This time I made sure to nod where appropriate so it looked like I was agreeing with him. He wouldn’t catch me thinking thoughts of my own again.

  “You have to cook dinner tomorrow night,” he changed the subject abruptly, like the thought had only just occurred to him and he needed to say it before he forgot.

  “I can’t,” I replied. “I have recycle club on Wednesdays.”

  “Recycle club? Who the hell joins a recycle club?” He was bellowing again, his voice so loud it made Matilda, our cat, flee the room. Not even the possibility of getting the meatloaf leftovers was enough to convince her to stay. “You are outstandingly weird, girl.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip so I didn’t say anything I would regret later on. The best way of dealing with Uncle Marvin was to let him do all the talking. It got the conversation over that much faster.

  “Your father was smart leaving you,” he continued, his eyes crazy and wild while his bushy eyebrows tried their very best to contain them. “If I could run away from you, I would too.”

  The thing about my Uncle Marvin was that he knew exactly what to say that would shatter me into a million pieces. I should have been immune to his barbs by now. But every time he mentioned my father, it cut me in two.

  Then ten.

  Then a million.

  Until I was nothing but the six year old I was back then, watching my father leave in the middle of the night without looking back to say goodbye.

  I blinked away the image, refusing to let it cause tears to fall. It was the truth, after all.

  Like I said, the truth was ugly.

  Nobody wanted that.

  “Yes, Uncle Marvin,” I replied dutifully before standing to clear the dishes. I’d had enough of the meatloaf that I could stomach for one night.

  He leaned back in his chair and undid the belt straining his huge belly. The moment the leather was free, a mass of flesh bulged over his pants. Uncle Marvin could use a diet but I wouldn’t be the one to tell him.

  His beady black eyes followed me around the kitchen, inspecting what I did while waiting for an opportunity to criticize. I kept my back to him, going about my chores while keeping my mind blank and unthinking.

  Matilda slid through my legs, walking between my ankles and meowing for dinner. I filled the tabby’s dish until she was purring with happiness and eating contently. Her fishy cat food looked more appetizing than the meatloaf.

  “That cat smells,” Uncle Marvin grumbled.

  His nose was nowhere near Matilda. He was probably smelling his own body odor.

  “I will bathe her tomorrow,” I promised. At least, I would run a wet rag over her and tell him she had had a bath. Matilda wasn’t the smelly one here.

  Uncle Marvin stood, making his chair screech with the movement. “You’d better.” He stomped off, his girth barely balancing over his stick legs. Quite frankly I was surprised his body managed to get around at all. It seemed to always be balancing like a spinning top.

  I finished cleaning up and gave Matilda a pat. At least someone in the house was pleased I was there. The cat and I were alike, we had both been abandoned by our parents and adopted by Uncle Marvin.

  The memory of finding Matilda when she was lost was still vivid in my memory. I had been searching the area behind a construction site, looking for lost things, when I heard the most pitiful meow on the planet. Her pathetic voice led me right to her.

  She weighed less than the tube of lip gloss and was mostly bald. Whatever had happened to her in her short life as a kitten was hard on her. I took her home but she didn’t belong on one of my shelves. I cleaned her up, shoveling food into her mouth until she started to gain weight.

  Uncle Marvin didn’t know about her for three weeks.

  I was punished when he did.

  Still, I begged and pleaded until he finally allowed me to keep her. I was given a million rules to follow, including making sure he never had to do a thing for her, but she was officially mine.

  She was officially found.

  He’d been grumbling about her ever since but I didn’t care. Matilda was mine and she was the only living being that I never lied to. She was always honest with me in return.

  While Uncle Marvin settled himself in front of the television game shows–where he knew all the answers and the contestants were idiots, of course–I took Matilda upstairs to my room.

  We curled up on the bed together, having survived another day.

  * * *

  My eyes were always scanning.

  Looking.

  Searching.

  For lost things.

  It came naturally to me now. I didn’t have to undergo any training to spot items that were lost. They spoke to me, calling to me to come and rescue them. I always just followed their cries and there they were.

  Someone had left behind a book underneath the tree on the edge of the school grounds. It was sitting there on the grass, crying out for its owner to return and take it away with them.

  The owner didn’t care.

  They hadn’t even been missing it.

  Collecting the book was going to make me late for class. The bell had already rung, everyone around me hurrying to make it before receiving a tardy note.

  I didn’t want another tardy note.

  But I couldn’t leave it behind.

  I wouldn’t abandon it.

  My feet stepped off the path and hurried to get to the book. Perhaps if I ran I would still be able to make it to class on time. I could slip in and pretend I was invisible, pretend I was one of the cool kids who made a point to be fashionably late.

  I was almost there, just a few more steps and I would be able to pick up the book and shove it into my backpack for safekeeping. I would add it to my shelves when I returned home later.

  Just as my hand was reaching, my knees bending, someone stepped out from behind the tree. It was a male, the same one who had been watching me yesterday.

  This time, he spoke. “I wondered if you’d come.”

  My hand was frozen mid-reach, my knees still bent. It
was like someone had switched a freeze frame switch and paused me into place.

  “Get away from me,” I replied.

  “Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed?” Of all the random questions he could ask me, he chose that one? I didn’t have time for this… idiot.

  “Stop talking.”

  “You don’t want to talk?” His head cocked to the side and I could see all the unspoken questions in his sparkling eyes. I didn’t have time to notice sparkling eyes, I needed to get to class.

  My body could move again as I picked up the book and shrugged off my backpack so I could stow it away. The boy watched my every movement.

  He made me uncomfortable.

  He made me curious.

  “I left that book there,” he said. “I wanted to see if you would take it. I guess I got my answer. Today is the third day I have been watching you and I still can’t figure out—”

  “Stay away from me,” I growled, finally getting the book to safety.

  I backed away from him before running to class. I didn’t know who he was or who he thought he was, but he needed to leave me alone. I made it one of my rules to stay away from people and found they generally did the same to me.

  That boy was breaking the rules.

  And I didn’t like it.

  He also made me receive another tardy note. I added it to the pile in my bag. So far I think I had the record for how many one student could receive in a semester. They should have given me an award.

  I slipped into my seat and ignored the looks I received from the others. They were generous, my peers, with their judgements. They threw them at me without knowing one little thing about me. I would have been surprised if they knew my name.

  Emmeline Grace Gabrielle.

  That was what my parents had named me.

  Before they left.

  I hated it.

  “We have a new student with us today. Let’s get to know a little more about Francis Bolero,” old Mrs. Thompson said with a smile. I wasn’t really paying attention until the kid from outside stood up.