Chapter Four | Noticed
Hook. Lamp. Line. Pin. Bag.
Everything was on her hip or on her back, and she was ready for one of her more daring borrowing trips. What made it daring was that the things she needed were under the bed of one of the boys who lived in the apartment, and it was something that might be missed.
What Ashlynn was looking for was cloth and stuffing for a proper bed. She'd been accustomed to sleeping on the ground or against any and all weird and hard surfaces, and only once for a very brief time did she have a bed. She loved it. The warmth spreading through the covers with no downward draft chilling her to the bone. Something soft to replenish rest after a hard day's work. There was nothing like coming back from a borrowing trip and flopping down onto a thick cushion and curling under a nice thick blanket.
If this place was going to be a long-term solution, at least for the coming months, Ashlynn needed to allow herself to have some of the nicer things - and that included a bed.
So, she waited patiently by the ceiling lamp and listened to the family of three as they talked about their days and ate dinner. Ashlynn promised she'd borrow some of their leftovers if the borrowing trip went well and if she had the time. The smell alone was tantalizing and made her mouth water. She wasn't sure what it was, but Ashlynn wanted to taste it. If it was Soren cooking, there was no doubt it was going to be delicious. Until then, she quietly nibbled on a corner of toast and part of a dried sausage she'd nicked from breakfast while listening.
The three finished dinner and separated to complete their various activities while they took turns showering before the three of them finally settled down and turned out the lights. She stood and stretched, placing her hands against her back and leaning back and twisting from side to side as her back cracked dully, before walking back to her area and beginning the countdown to when she'd set her plan into action.
It was a simple process. She'd done it a million times before for every borrowing mission she'd ever been on.
Lights out. Wait. Check sleeping boys from a distance. Dart to borrowing. Borrow it. Get back to the walls. No hip lamp outside the wall. No sudden movements. Don't deviate from the original borrowing on a high-risk job. Always have a backup plan. Don't let the little buggars see you.
What could go wrong?
It was an old hat, and Ashlynn knew it well.
Still, it didn't stop the jitters making her hand twitch ever so slightly as it rested on the edge of her hook. She knew it was probably inaudible, but every step felt heavy and loud. Every scrape or crunch of even her lightest borrowing shoes felt like scratching sandpaper with a rusty nail as she moved through the walls. The little pieces of drywall and dust that littered the ground cast long shadows and threatened to create an avalanche of sound that would lead to her discovery by the humans.
Being a Borrower, thankfully, had its privileges and let her move about silently with ease.
Still, she couldn't help but imagine the worst case scenario.
Ashlynn maneuvered past the walls, pipes, and wires until she reached the edge of the wall that was part of the boys' bedroom. The chasm of darkness yawned before her, but this was the easy part. She secured the line she'd borrowed from some twine she found in the garage and climbed carefully along the prickly material. It made her hands raw, even through her well earned callouses, but Borrowers can't be choosers and she needed the line more than the comfort of a decent line.
Even fishing wire would be better than this. Ashlynn thought as she carefully descended the line. She winced as the rough material poked her again. The Borrower woman finally made it to the bottom of the line and shined her light on her raw hands and immediately noticed that "little" poke she'd received before was bleeding now.
Curses! Always something. Ashlynn grabbed a piece of tissue she kept in her side pocket and pressed it against the wound. It didn't bleed for long, but there was a very obvious slit along the side of her worn hands that would undoubtedly make a scab later.
Ashlynn continued along the base of the wall until she found the electrical outlet she planned on using. Checking the scratch and seeing it was fine, she pocketed the tissue fragment and extinguished the lamp on her hip before fidgeting with the screw that she'd loosened a few days prior. Like a hot knife through butter, Ashlynn slid the screw out seamlessly and noiselessly pressed against the electrical cover. It opened without issue and, just like that, Ashlynn was out in the human world.
She crouched in the darkness by the leg of something called a "dress-her," which she thought was weird since she was in the room of two rambunctious boys, and surveyed the room. Her ears, keenly attuned to the ambient sounds of silence and any out-of-the-ordinary noises, picked up every breath and creak in the room.
One breath.
Then another.
Then another.
A stir.
Then the pattern continued.
Ashlynn dared to smile to herself as she inched forward and listened again. The same things presented themselves through the darkness. Overall, she felt safe and confident. All the more reason for her to be cautious.
With silent steps, Ashlynn crouched and made her way along the wall, darting between the furniture pieces and sliding between them and the floor to make friends with lost socks and dust bunnies until, finally, she made it to the far corner of the room by the youngest's bed. There is where she had initially glimpsed her quarry, and that is where it still was.
A children's stuffed animal covered in patches and filled with illustriously soft fluff had been shoved back behind one of the legs and had obviously been there for a long time based on the dust bunnies that were keeping it company. Ashlynn suspected the young boys weren't the types to play with stuffed animals anymore, based on the fact that there were countless gizmos and gadgets all around, and that a little bit of fluff and a bit of the cloth patch.
Ashlynn continued to stay low to the ground as she darted from the bedside table to the place under the bed where she found the stuffed creature. To her, the thing was enormous, standing at nearly three times her height. There was a moment where Ashlynn imagined the boy waking and snatching the toy and her up into his arms, crushing them both to his chest. It made her shudder.
Still, she was here for a reason and intended to see it through.
Removing her razor blade dagger and creeping forward, she began cutting away at the fabric piece being held onto by no more than a few threads. It was quick work, but time moved oddly while borrowing. A moment could feel like an hour and an hour could pass by in a flash. Now was one of those times.
Every thread felt like Ashlynn was hacking down a small tree, taking a painstaking amount of time while, in all reality, the fibers snapped in a matter of seconds. The real trick was getting the fabric to roll up nicely, and that took even more time. Ashlynn laid out the misshapen rectangular piece she'd removed from the cloth creature and began rolling and folding. Like her old sleeping bag, she continuously had to readjust the sides to make sure it was balanced.
Wrestling it into her pack, however, was the hardest part of the whole endeavor. She wiggled it one way, and then the other. For a moment, she was afraid she'd taken too much and that it would be noticed, but there was no going back now. It was going to be more suspicious anyway if only part of the cloth had been taken or left behind.
It took a little more time than anticipated, but Ashlynn finally managed to get the cloth into her pack. Wrestling it from side to side, it now bulged out of her backpack which was barely being held together at the seams.
Now for the fluff.
The Borrower woman made quick work of the fluff, managing to fill and puff out the material that was already there to make her borrowing less obvious. Everything was going smoothly until, out of nowhere, she heard the bed creak and crack above her. Instantly, her heart was in her throat and she dropped to the ground, abandoning her bag and rolling behind the nearest bed leg to hide.
Moments later, two immense legs of the youngest boy, Rey, swung off of the bed and padded out of the room. The way he shuffled and bounced followed by him darting to the right toward the bathroom made Ashlynn a little less uneasy since this was something out of the normal pattern. Still, she couldn't breathe a sigh of relief yet.
Ultimately, she had two options.
One, make a mad dash back for the wall before the boy got back and abandon her pack for the next night in the hopes the boy wouldn't notice it.
Two, wait until the boy fell asleep again and then creep back.
Either way, Ashlynn had to make a choice – and soon.
It was a crazy big risk, but Ashlynn knew it was better to wait than to make any rash decisions. Her impulse was to run, but she'd known many good Borrowers make that mistake before and then be seen or have to leave because they thought they were seen.
So, she waited. She listened to the massive human child cough. She heard the flush of the water and the hiss of the faucet. Then, finally, she watched as his immense feet padded across the floor before launching him to that impossible height onto the top of his bed. The springs above her shifted and cracked, making her flinch and draw in on herself. The earth shattering sound made her believe the bed could split and collapse at any point.
Still, she stayed hidden.
To pass the time, Ashlynn began counting over and over until, after a while, she heard the soft breathing of a sleeping human once more. With precision, she pushed herself to her feet and hoisted her bags onto her back and onto her side. She tiptoed to the edge of the bed and waited just a few more seconds before darting back under the bedside table.
The adventure was almost over. Ashlynn was mere feet away from her final goal of the "dress-her" and the electrical cover leading back to her home when she heard something that made her blood run cold. The nearby bed of the older boy, Dorian, shifted, which was her worst nightmare seeing that the bed literally towered over her.
It was an absolute nightmare, and this time Ashlynn let her instincts kick into high gear.
As fast as possible, she darted across the floor and practically dove under the bed, except the dive didn't happen. Ashlynn was suddenly yanked back and thrown onto her bum. She sucked in a panicked breath and glanced over her shoulder, terrified at what she might find.
It was an astounding relief that it was only a toy that had snagged the side of her bag in her haste to run under the bed. She gave it a quick tug and continued running for her safe spot which was only a foot away now. She'd just made it back under the "dress-her" when she heard the creaking of the bed again and the older of the two boys slipped out from under his covers and also padded off to the bathroom.
Ashlynn hated the sigh of relief that escaped her body, but she was eternally grateful that she'd managed to make it through her venture without detection.
The journey back into the walls was thankfully uneventful and slipping into the safety of her own home was a welcome sight. Even climbing the twine wasn't as hard as she thought it would be, even though she'd sliced her hand twice more on the way up.
In her mind, it was a small price to pay for her safety.
She wrapped her hands with some fresh cloth and decided she'd construct her bed the next day. One more night on the floor on her makeshift cot wouldn't hurt.
It was her only mistake.
If she'd removed the cloth and the fluff she'd borrowed, she would have seen the torn side in her pack which held the small cloth fragment she'd used to staunch the blood from her previous cut. She would've wondered where it was and, maybe, dared to go back to collect it.
Instead, it hung there in the clutches of the toy that had snagged her – in the boys' room.