soul thieves

“We tried interrogating them,” Greg said impatiently, shouting now. In a single moment, his entire demeanor had shifted from a state of rigidness to one of utter instability. He took a deep breath, lowered his head for a moment, then looked around to see if his outburst had drawn any attention to our conversation. It was clear he was beginning to admit to himself that he had no choice but to confess the extent of the situation. Once he finally wrestled the swirling thoughts in his mind into a single sentence, he leaned in close to me, so close I could smell the spearmint gum he’d been anxiously gnawing on. I could see the concern cast over his burning auburn eyes. “They’re not…people,” he said quietly.

His face was twisted into a confused expression, as if he barely believed what he had just said himself. I couldn’t even imagine what mine looked like in response. That might have been partly because I had lost feeling in it. As the blood rushed from my cheeks, making its way down to the floor, it took my heart with it.

I began carefully processing the emotions popping up, trying to decide which one held the best reply. Confusion and anger were the most prominent among them and simultaneously forced their way out. “What do you mean they’re not people?!” Now I was the one shouting. I suddenly gained an understanding of his behavior from earlier in the conversation. “How can they not be people?” I began turning over the same question in my head, trying to coerce some reasonable explanation out of it all. Greg had stopped looking at me though, and instead began frantically scanning the locals nearby with a panicked look. If he was trying not to draw attention, he sure was doing a shitty job of it.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me into a small bookshop at the corner of the square. Curiosity made me follow, though I don’t think I had much say in the matter. The shop owner was sitting behind a small desk, reading what looked to be an old hardcover classic. He barely looked up from the pages as we entered. I gave him an awkward, pursed smile as Greg pulled me along. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the shop, but Greg was clearly eager to be completely out of sight. We hurried through towering shelves of books, organized chaotically without any clear strategy. “Ironic,” I thought. The stacks of books brushed the ceiling, blocking out a majority of the light. Despite our reason for being there, something in me desperately wanted to explore each and every one and sink into the stories they told. It took everything in me not to reach out my free hand to brush their spines as I went by. As Greg and I raced through the narrow walkways, I couldn’t help but breathe in that familiar and comforting aroma of beloved hardcovers and worn pages.

We reached a secluded corner at the back of the shop and Greg finally turned to face me. He was holding it together, but I could tell he was trying not to sound out of breath. “Look,” he said, “we can’t be too sure about anything right now. But the only conclusion we did come to, the only one that made any sense, was that these guys aren’t actually human at all.” He looked at me with his eyebrows gently furrowed, almost pitying. His breathing slowed. He began pacing, as much as the narrow aisles would allow. “You should have seen the way they acted during the questioning, Charlotte. They didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t react to anything.” He was clearly still processing, so I just let him speak. I had a feeling I would need to process myself when he was done. “Even Harry – you know how he is – he has some pretty brutal tactics when it comes to questioning. I’ve never seen him get so violent. The more they didn’t react, the harder he pushed. I had to step out of the room at a certain point. But still, they did nothing.”

He paused for a minute and we both sat down against the bookshelves, shoulder-to-shoulder. In the back of my mind, I was slightly worried we might cause an avalanche so I tried not to move much. We sat there for a long time before he spoke again. I knew it was the last thing he needed to say, and that it was something he had been building up to. Something he didn’t quite want to say out loud yet. “I can’t stop thinking about their eyes, Char,” he whispered. “It was like staring into a black hole. Like there was nothing and no one left inside. Just a void. Something about it made me feel…empty. And scared. Like everything was about to change and there was nothing I could do about it.” His knees were pulled up to his chest and his head had dropped so low I couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed. I tried not to stare at him, but I could’ve sworn I saw a tear fall out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t lift his head again for a long time.