Young Writers Society

~1020 words

Note to revising me: Um, Grey has been wearing his machine this whole time. That’d probably be really weird to dance with. Also, I picture the lightbox to be a “you need to hold it while you use it” sort of device, so I dunno how that’s going to work for both the dance and this chapter. Maybe give it to Ivy at some point?

Ivy

Grey pointed to a door seemingly at random, and together he and Ivy crossed the ballroom towards it. Ivy felt light on her feet after the dance, like her head was up in the clouds. When they reached the door, Grey opened the door for Ivy to go in first. The dark room didn’t look any different or more special to Ivy, but Grey gasped as he shone the light from his lightbox into the dark corners. The electric light fell on what looked like an ordinary sitting room with many fine pieces of furniture. Grey immediately walked up to a painting that hung on the far side of the room, to the left of a beautiful fireplace. Though it had a very fancy frame, the painting itself was nothing special. It was a still-life of some moldy-looking fruit, and it wasn’t even very skillfully done. Ivy never would have noticed it if Grey hadn’t taken a special interest in it.

“What’s with the painting?” she asked, walking up behind him. The center of the painting was level with Grey’s head, and it almost looked as if it was him who was framed in gilt gold and not a lackluster painting of fruit.

“If I’m not mistaken, it’s what I’ve been looking for.” He turned to Ivy and grinned. “Are you ready?”

“I… I don’t understand, Grey.”

“You will soon.” And with a seeming effortless grace, he reached up and pulled on the edge of the frame. It swung outward without a noise. Ivy saw now that there had been tiny hinges on the frame, and the frame was so thick because behind it was a thick metal safe with two golden keyholes and a silver handle.

Grey groaned. “Two keyholes? That’s a bit overboard.” He inserted the spindles of his machine into one of the keyholes and seemed to be gauging the difficulty, because then he said, “Gidgit, I think this is easy enough for you. We gotta do it at the exact same time though.” Grey reached under his lapel and pulled the little machine out.

Ivy watched in horror as Gidgit, sitting on Grey’s other hand fiddled with the lock. “A safe? Grey, are you going to steal something from these people? Breaking and entering was bad but this, this is just unbelievable!”

Grey seemed almost too focused on his lock-picking to fully hear her. “C’mon Ivy, you said you’d give it a chance. I know you’re going to love it. Ready Gidgit?” The little machine made a small metallic chirp. “Now!”

Grey and Gidgit both twisted their respective spindles at the same time, and a loud “thump” resounded though the safe. Gidgit skittered back to the safety of Grey’s lapel. Grey grabbed the safe’s handle and pulled it open. He inserted his arm into the space behind the door and felt around for a while, before smiling like a mad-man.

“I found it,” he whispered, half-laughing with glee. He pulled his hand out, and for a moment, it looked to Ivy as if he had just extricated a bloody heart from the dark chest of the house. “For the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met,” he murmured, offering the thing to Ivy.

The thing was the size of a fist, blood red, and glimmered as if it were wet. “What is it?” Ivy asked, backing away, her voice not revealing the totality of revulsion she felt. She wasn’t just disgusted by this strange object, but Grey was obviously not the boy she had taken him for. She suddenly feared for her safety. She didn’t know anything about him.

“It’s the biggest ruby in the world,” Grey said reverently, almost fondly. “They call it The Lady’s Passion. The story goes that there was a King in a far of place who was killed by his queen who had gone mad with jealousy when she found out he was cheating on her with a beautiful countess. The countess, finding her lover dead when she entered his royal bedchamber that night, killed herself rather than live without him. They say where their blood mixed, this ruby was formed.”

Ivy was even more revolted. What an awful story! She needed to talk some sense into Grey. They had to get out of there as soon as they could. She couldn’t risk being seen with this lunatic who was stealing a priceless gem. “Grey. We cannot steal that. We just can’t. I don’t know why you thought I’d like it, but I absolutely do not. Put it back.”

Grey clutched the ruby to his chest. “It’s not like these people need it. They’ve got wealth out the wazoo. They probably won’t even miss it. They probably won’t even notice it’s gone until the next time the man of the house is drunk up to his ears and is showing off for his other rich friends. That’s not how something this beautiful, this precious is supposed to be treated.”

“It’s a rock, Grey! You have to put it back. We have to get out of here! Please. Please.” Ivy began to tear up. She was so panicked, she was finding it hard to breathe.

Grey closed the safe, still holding the ruby tight to his body. He swung the painting back into place.

“What are you doing!” Ivy almost screamed. “Put it back!”

“If you can’t see reason, at least I can,” Grey practically snarled. “I’ll make sure it’s put to good use as a rare and beautiful thing and doesn’t just sit around collecting dust. But I guess you’re right about one thing, we should get out of here. I think I just heard a dog bark after you made so much racket right now. Let’s move.”

But before they could even turn around to go, they heard the floorboards creak by the door. “Not so fast,” came a hard voice. “You’re not going anywhere.”

They whirled around, and the lightbox illuminated a face as pale as moonlight with huge, dark eyes. A look of recognition crept onto the face, followed quickly by a look of confused incredulity.

“Grey?”

“Strix?”