The cards for this one were: teenager, and garage sale.
It had been a boring summer for Tim. They had just moved to a new town, so he didn’t have any local friends yet, and his mom’s new job had her working nights, so she didn’t want him playing games in the house while she slept. Apparently even with the headset on, he yelled too much and too loud, and after the first week of summer he had been banned from touching his game systems until after 4 pm when she was awake. Instead, he spent his days riding around on his bike, exploring the nearby neighborhoods.
This town didn’t have straightforward streets. Instead of blocks laid out in easy to navigate squares, the roads looped and twisted, sometimes creating a detour from a main street threading through the entire neighborhood, only to return to that very same street. Or occasionally they ended in dead ends and cul-de-sacs. It made navigating hard and he had gotten turned around several times.
Still, some degree of backtracking could get him home, and he always had his phone in his pocket, so he never felt truly lost. He found as fascinating as it was stupid, and he enjoyed riding around to see how lost he could get.
The neighborhood he was in now was strange. A lot of the houses looked empty with overgrown yards and dark windows. He didn’t see any cars around, which he considered strange. Moments ago he had been in a normal neighborhood, the sunlight bright, the summer greenery vibrant. There were cars parked in driveways or on the street, and he could spot people going about their business, occasionally returning his waves. The sun still shone, but somehow seemed to lack the warmth it had moments ago. The trees gave an oppressing atmosphere, and the colors all seemed muted here.
He considered turning around when he finally spotted a few cars ahead, and some stuff piled in front of one of the houses. Riding closer in curiosity, he recognized it as a garage sale. The garage door was open, and the person running the garage sale (an ancient woman with curly white hair, sitting in a plastic outdoor chair and wearing sunglasses and a straw hat, white slacks and a floral blouse) sat in the shade just inside, tables set up in her driveway. A few people poked around at the contents of the sale.
Tim rode up and dropped his bike on the grass at the edge of the driveway. He walked through, glancing at the items on display. He hadn’t brought any money with him, but he loved poking around yard sales and seeing what people had decided to toss out. He loved second-hand stores for the same reason – everything there was something with history. Some of it was quite normal – books with yellowing paper and broken spines, an assortment of clothes. Some of it was a little bizarre. Trinkets and decorations of a macabre sort – skulls, crystals, and taxidermied animals. He glanced up at the old woman running the sale, sitting so still that he wondered if she was even awake. Or even alive. He couldn’t imagine her being the sort to own items like this, and tried to imagine where they had come from. Did they belong to children who had grown and moved away and left their juvenile gothic obsessions behind?
One particular item caught his eye. A little keepsake box, shaped like a pirate’s chest. He studied the intricate designs on it for several moments, lifting it to get a good view of all sides. It was heavy, and he knew it wasn’t empty because he could feel objects shifting inside. He popped the latch on the front of it and pushed the lid up. Inside were little pieces of glinting black stone – shaped like stars, small grooves decorating and accentuating their shapes.
They were fascinating. He wished he had brought some money. He set the little chest back down on the table, poking at the contents within, and felt a sudden sharp pinprick of pain. He pulled his hand up to see a small bead of blood welling on a fingertip. Popping his finger into his mouth, he glanced up to see that the people in the garage sale had nearly cleared out. One man was pulling away in his truck, and the last remaining shopper besides him (a young woman) was currently speaking to the old woman (apparently less than dead), purchasing a couple of things she had found. It was hard to tell since the old woman was wearing sunglasses, but Tim was certain he wasn’t being observed for the moment.
He felt compelled to quickly slip one single star into his palm, then deposited it into his pocket and closed the small chest. He turned and walked back to his bike. Once on his bike, he pedaled away, not daring to look back over his shoulder in case the guilt of the moment was plain on his face.
He backtracked along the way he had come in. It was getting to be later in the afternoon, and he wanted to get back home to AC and XBOX, so he went relatively fast. Still, the quiet, empty neighborhood seemed to stretch further than he remembered. Annoyed, he stood on his pedals and leaned over the handles, pushing forward like he was in a race.
Just ahead, he saw a familiar woman walk to a car, and quickly pull away from the curb. His jaw dropped as he slowed, staring at the garage sale as he coasted by it. The old woman was still seated there, barely acknowledging his presence.
He stopped just past her house. He turned and looked back. Yes, it was the same place, the same sale laid out on the same driveway, the same old lady in sunglasses and floral sitting just inside the garage. Had he somehow gotten turned around so bad that he had looped back around completely? Starting down the street again, he decided to follow a different route than he had moments before.
Before he knew it, he saw the tables in the driveway and found himself coasting by the house again. He frowned hard, staring at the house as he passed it. What was going on? He had taken a completely different route that time and had still ended up in the same destination. He stopped and pulled his phone out, to pull up a map and see if it would pinpoint his position on it.
He frowned at his phone’s dark screen, furiously mashed at the buttons he knew would boot it up if it had somehow completely shut down. Nothing happened. He had completely charged his phone before leaving home, and finding it dead and useless now felt wrong. In fact, everything about this felt wrong.
Frowning back at the old woman, like maybe she had somehow caused this, he balanced back on his bike and took off again.
This time it took a little longer, but soon the garage sale came into sight again. He stopped well before he even saw the woman sitting just inside her garage. Someone else had arrived and was poking around at the items. He decided to wait to see if he could follow them on their way out of this neighborhood. He balanced on his bike, shifting his weight from one side to the other in boredom as he waited for the person to finish looking and climb back into his car. The man started the engine and pulled away from the curb, and Tim followed along behind, not bothering to look at the house or the woman or the sale.
He never fell behind or lost sight of the car. Instead it was like it vanished from thin air. He came to a halt, his jaw dropping as he stared. Then carefully, slowly, he biked forward, waiting to see if he passed through something too, but there was nothing – no unexplained portal, nothing strange that he could see. Just regular space.
He continued slowly, his stomach churning with dread at what he knew he would see soon. And sure enough, just ahead – the familiar tables came into sight.
He stopped and dropped his bike where he had left it the previous time, and approached the woman timidly. It was the only thing he could think of to free him from this. He fished in his pocket for the strange stone star. “Ma’am,” he said morosely, holding the small dark shape out to her in his open palm. “I’m sorry I took this. I think I need to return it.”
He could see his hand reflected in the sunglasses. For a moment, he wasn’t certain she was going to respond, but suddenly she gasped and reached out, gently folding his hand around the star instead of taking it from him. “Oh my, that wasn’t supposed to be out here,” she said, standing and walking out to the table in the carefully measured steps of the elderly. He watched in dumbfounded confusion as she picked up the little chest carefully, holding it close to herself before turning around to walk back to him. “Did you feed it blood?” she asked.
Tim thought about the pinprick on his finger, the small drop of blood. He didn’t think any had dropped into the chest, but he wasn’t really sure. “I think… maybe?”
“Oh, boy. Oh, child,” she said, her voice quite sad. “I’m so so sorry.”
The feeling of alarm started to grow in Tim’s chest. “Why?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman repeated, opening the chest so it faced him. Tim stared, mouth agape, as he watched what was happening to him reflected in the glossy surface of the woman’s sunglasses. It was like his shape had lost its form and was swirling toward a single point. Looking down, he could see that everything about him seemed to focus on what was in his hand – the star, glowing brightly now, pulled him in.
********
Gladys carefully reached out with the open box. She knew that if she waited too long, the star would finish consuming the boy’s soul and fall to the ground, and she hated touching the things. So much risk, so many sharp edges and points if one wasn’t careful. Better to simply swipe it out of the air while it still floated. She closed the lid down around it and carefully latched the box, then carried it back into the house. She hated to leave her garage sale unattended, but this was more important. If they were awake and seeking blood, it was important to put them to sleep again.
mehryment 