The Boy in the Blue Cap

Reyah found him on a Tuesday.

Not at the market — he had stopped coming to the market. She found him at the Savannah, at the edge of the trees near the Botanical Gardens, sitting on a bench with his head in his hands.

She had been looking for three days.

She had talked to the fruit vendor, who remembered the young man bought a coconut water and asked about the market’s security. She had talked to the taxi driver, who remembered dropping someone matching the description near the Savannah after dark. She had talked to the child selling bags of channa, who remembered the young man had a phone call that made him angry — and that he said a name before he hung up.

Kareem.

The same name as Mr. Harrinarine’s son.

Reyah had expected Kareem to be the thief. She had built a whole story in her head — the son, back home after years away, desperate for money, stealing from his own family. It made sense. It was clean. It was the kind of story that ended with a confession and an apology and everyone learning a lesson.

The young man on the bench was not Kareem.

He was younger than she expected. Maybe seventeen. Maybe eighteen. His blue cap was pulled low, but she could see his face — the sharp cheekbones, the dark circles under his eyes, the specific pallor of someone who hadn’t slept well in days.

His hands were shaking.

Reyah sat down on the bench next to him. Not too close. Close enough.

“You’re the one they’ve been looking for,” she said.

He looked up. His eyes were red.

“Who’s they?”

“The market vendors. Mrs. Harrinarine. Mrs. Leung. Everyone whose lockboxes you’ve been opening.”

He didn’t deny it. That was the first thing that told Reyah she was right.

“I didn’t steal anything,” he said.

“The ring is gone. The recipe book is gone. You were seen at both stalls on both days.”

“I was there. I didn’t take anything.”

“Then what were you doing?”

He looked at the trees. At the dark between them. The Savannah in the late afternoon was still bright, but the shadows under the trees were already deep.

“Someone hired me,” he said quietly. “To open the locks. That’s all. Open the locks, leave the boxes unlocked, walk away.”

“Who hired you?”

“I don’t know her name.”

Her.

Reyah’s heart beat faster.

“What did she look like?”

“Ordinary,” he said. “The kind of ordinary you don’t remember. Medium height. Medium age. Medium clothes. She could be anyone.”

Mrs. Leung had described the same woman. Ordinary. Forgettable. Asking about keys.

“Why did she want the locks opened?”

“She said she was doing research. On market security. She said she was writing a report.”

“And you believed her?”

He looked at his hands.

“I needed the money,” he said. “My mother is sick. The medicine is expensive. She said she’d pay five hundred dollars for each lock. Five hundred dollars to turn a key and walk away.”

Five hundred dollars. Reyah did the math in her head. That was more than her father made in a week.

“How many locks did you open?”

“Three. The Harrinarine stall. Mrs. Leung’s stall. And one more.”

“Which one?”

“The Singh stall. The one with the cricket things.”

Reyah hadn’t known about the Singh stall. Neither had Anya or Simone. A third theft. The cricket memorabilia — the photograph with Brian Lara. The one Mr. Singh had been showing off to customers for years.

“Did you take anything from any of the stalls?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone else go into the stalls after you left?”

He was quiet.

“Did you?” Reyah pressed.

“I saw something,” he said slowly. “The first night. After I opened the Harrinarine lock. I was supposed to leave. That was the deal — open the lock, leave, don’t look back.”

“But you looked back.”

He nodded.

“I saw a woman go into the stall. Not the one who hired me. A different one. Older. She was wearing a long dress, the kind my grandmother wears to church. She moved —” He stopped.

“Moved how?”

“Too fast,” he said. “She moved too fast for someone her age. And when she came out, she was carrying something. I couldn’t see what. But I could see her hands.”

“What about her hands?”

“They were wrong,” he said. “Too long. Too thin. Like they belonged to someone else.”

The shadows under the trees had gotten deeper while they talked. Reyah felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

“The second night,” he said, “I watched again. The Singh stall. The same woman went in. Same fast movement. Same wrong hands. And when she came out —”

He stopped again.

“When she came out, she looked at me.”

Reyah waited.

“She smiled,” he said. “And her mouth was too wide. Too full of teeth. And I ran. I ran and I didn’t stop until I got home and I locked every door and I haven’t been back to the market since.”

He looked at Reyah. His eyes were wet.

“I didn’t steal anything. I just opened the locks. I didn’t know what would come through them.”

Reyah found Anya and Simone at the roti stand an hour later.

She told them everything.

“A woman with wrong hands,” Simone said slowly. “Too long. Too thin.”

“Mouth too wide. Too many teeth.”

“That’s not a person,” Anya said.

They looked at her.

“That’s a description of something that’s pretending to be a person,” Anya said. “Something that’s not quite getting it right.”

The three of them sat in silence.

The market was closing around them. Vendors packed up their stalls. The light was fading — the specific gold of a Port of Spain evening, the kind that made everything look like a photograph.

“We have to go back tonight,” Simone said.

“What?” Reyah said.

“We have to go back to the market. After dark. We have to see what’s happening.”

“Simone, that’s insane.”

“Is it? Someone is stealing from locked stalls. The boy in the blue cap opened the locks, but he didn’t take anything. Something else did. Something that moves too fast and has wrong hands. If we want to know what it is, we have to see it.”

“Or,” Anya said, “we could tell an adult.”

“Tell them what? That we talked to a stranger on a bench who told us a story about a woman with too many teeth? They’ll think we’re making it up. Or worse — they’ll believe us and close the market and whoever — whatever — is doing this will just move somewhere else.”

Anya didn’t have an answer for that.

“We go tonight,” Simone said. “We watch from the trees near the Botanical Gardens. We don’t get close. We just watch. If we see something, we leave and we tell someone tomorrow.”

“And if we don’t see anything?”

“Then we come back tomorrow night. And the night after. Until we do.”

Reyah looked at Anya. Anya looked at Simone.

“Midnight,” Simone said. “Meet at the roti stand.”

That night, Anya couldn’t sleep.

She lay in her bed, the green notebook open beside her, the words she had written earlier staring up at her:

Too fast. Too many teeth. Something pretending to be a person.

Her grandmother was still awake — Anya could hear her in the kitchen, the low sound of the television, the clink of a cup being set down.

She thought about telling her. About walking into the kitchen and saying, Grandma, I think there’s something at the market that’s not human.

Her grandmother would believe her. That was the thing. Her grandmother was from San Fernando, from a family that knew about the old things, the things that lived in the dark between houses and the deep parts of the forest. Her grandmother had stories.

But if she told her, her grandmother wouldn’t let her go tonight.

And Anya needed to go tonight.

Not because she wanted to. Because Simone was right. If they didn’t see it for themselves, no one would believe them. And if no one believed them, whatever was taking the objects would keep taking them. And maybe — maybe — the objects weren’t just objects.

Mrs. Harrinarine’s ring. Mrs. Leung’s recipe book. Mr. Singh’s photograph.

Things that mattered. Things that held memory.

Things that something from the old stories might want.

Anya closed the notebook.

She set her alarm for 11:30 PM.

She tried to sleep.

She couldn’t.

At 11:45 PM, Anya slipped out of the house.

Her grandmother was asleep in her chair, the television still on, the volume low. Anya covered her with a blanket — the blue one, the one that smelled like lavender — and let herself out the back door.

The night was warm. The stars were out — more stars than you could see from inside, the specific brightness of a sky with no clouds. Anya walked quickly through the empty streets of Woodbrook, past the closed shops and the dark houses, toward the Savannah.

She was the first one at the roti stand.

Simone arrived five minutes later, carrying a flashlight she didn’t turn on.

Reyah arrived last, breathless, her sneakers untied.

“You’re late,” Simone said.

“My father almost woke up.”

They stood together in the dark, the market silent around them, the trees of the Botanical Gardens black against the sky.

“Ready?” Simone asked.

No one said yes.

But they walked anyway.

The market at midnight was not the market at noon.

The stalls were closed, their metal covers pulled down, their padlocks gleaming dully in the light of the street lamps. The roti stand was a shadow. The Harrinarine stall was a box of darkness. The air was still — not the comfortable stillness of a breeze, but the waiting stillness of something holding its breath.

The girls hid behind the trunk of a large samaan tree near the edge of the gardens. From here, they could see the whole row of stalls. The Harrinarine stall. Mrs. Leung’s stall. Mr. Singh’s stall.

Nothing moved.

For a long time, nothing moved.

Reyah started to whisper, “Maybe nothing is —”

Then they heard it.

Scratching.

Coming from inside the Harrinarine stall.

The lock was still closed. The metal cover was still down. But something inside was scratching — the sound of nails on wood, on metal, on something that wanted to get out.

Or wanted something in.

Anya grabbed Simone’s arm.

A figure emerged from the darkness between the stalls.

Not a woman. Not a person.

Something that walked like a person, stood like a person, wore a long dress like a person. But when it turned its head toward the tree where the girls were hiding, its neck moved too far. Too smooth. Wrong.

It smiled.

The teeth caught the light.

Too many. Too sharp. Too white.

Then it walked to the Harrinarine stall, reached through the metal cover — through it, Anya’s brain registered, that’s not possible — and pulled out something small and shining.

The ring.

It held the ring up to the light.

And then it spoke.

Not aloud. Not in a voice that air could carry.

In Anya’s head.

Finally.