That Which We Find

I don’t know what attracted me to the little antiques shop on 23rd. I’d seen it every day when I drove to work, and every day when I drove back, but I never stopped until one day in September.

I stepped inside, the bell on the door tinkling quietly. A sort of old, musty smell hit my nose, which didn’t surprise me. A fine layer of dust covered almost everything in the store, and those special objects that weren’t dusted with grey were covered in tarps and blankets.

Trailing my finger over the top of a wooden bench, I wove my way between lamps and cabinets, looking for the proprietor.

“Hello?” I called. The echo of my voiced sounded way too loud in the quiet space. No one answered. “Hello?”

Nothing, not even a whisper. I rubbed my fingers together, and then wiped them on my jeans. I turned to leave.

Movement I saw out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned, half-expecting some withered old man to come out of the woodwork, but there was no one there, just the edge of one of the sheets twitching in a draft.

A draft, I realized, that couldn’t actually be coming from anywhere. The front door was closed, and there weren’t any other doors around. There weren’t even any windows, other than two by the front door, and they looked as if they hadn’t been opened in years.

Stepping over a doll in a lace dress, I made my way over to the object the moving sheet was covering. It was about as tall as me, and half as wide, and I had no reason to investigate, except that I was curious.

With a movement much larger than necessary, I swept the sheet away, stepping back to see what was underneath.

A silver-framed mirror stood in front of me. At least, I thought it was a mirror at first glance, but the person standing in it was most definitely not me. It was a sandy-haired boy with deep blue eyes, wearing jeans and a black-and-white hoodie. He was standing with his arms crossed on his chest, and his hip hyper-extended to the right.

He was standing in front of a bunch of junk, old tables and pictures, with a doll in a lace dress lying on the floor to his right. I frowned slightly, leaning in closer to get a better look. Then it hit me, and I stumbled backwards, my breath catching in my throat.

The background in the photo was the store. My eyes flickered from the doll on the floor to the doll in the picture, and as much as I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t possible, it was obvious that they were the same.

“Wow,” I whispered, because it was amazing. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to position the picture so that it looked like a mirror. Shaking a little bit from the adrenaline rush, and feeling just a little silly, I stepped back over to the silver frame.

I wondered who the blond boy was, and why someone had taken his picture in this old dusty place. And then why they had blown the picture up and framed it in something so ornamental.

“You,” I said softly, running my finger along the edge of the frame, “are a mystery.”

Then the boy blinked.

My hand dropped, the tip of my finger grazing the photo, and the next thing I knew there were fingers curled around my wrist and a warm body hanging desperately onto mine. I staggered a little bit, surprised by the weight.

The figure in my arms shook, trembling uncontrollably. I petted the back on his head a little awkwardly, and my eyes drifted up to the picture frame.

It was empty.

I felt eerily calm as I looked down at the figure that was pressed up against me. The first thing I saw was the blond hair, and then the black-and-white hoodie. I could feel the boy’s fingers gripping my shirt, and from the way he was shaking, and the sounds that were coming out of his throat, I guessed he was crying.

“Shh. It’s okay. It’s all right.” I kept stroking the back of his head, trying to calm him down. “You’re gonna be okay. Shh.”

After a few more seconds, his body stopped shaking so badly, and his cries quieted down. His death-grip on my shirt, however, didn’t show any signs of weakening, so I moved my hands to his shoulders and gently pushed, creating some space between him and me.

He was young, probably seventeen or eighteen, and his face was wet with tears. His dark blue eyes were looking up at me, full of respect and hope and fear, and that last one was the one that bothered me the most.

“What happened?”

He closed his eyes, his breath catching in his throat. “You saved me,” he said. His voice was low and soft, barely audible.

He collapsed against me, and I slipped an arm around his waist, keeping him on his feet. “Whoa there, you all right?”

That was then I noticed how thin he was under the sweatshirt, and the pale tint to his skin, and the dark circles under his eyes. I didn’t even think about it. I just put my hands under his arms and lifted, holding him up against my chest. He wrapped his legs around my waist of his own accord and buried his face in the crook between my shoulder and neck.

I turned and walked away, making sure the door to the antiques shop closed behind me. The boy’s warm breath on my neck told me he was still alive, at least, but I wanted to keep him conscious until I could figure out what the Hell was going on.

“Hey,” I said quietly, not wanting to startle him. “What’s your name?”

He barely shifted, his arms just wrapping a little tighter around my neck. “Aaron.” He started shivering again, and I picked up my pace.

“Well, Aaron, my name is Tanner. Whatever happened to you, it’s over now. You’re safe. I’m gonna take care of you, okay?”

The boy was already fast asleep.