The Lock

The Return

"I'd like to return these, please."

The teenage girl behind the counter accepted the box from Gabriel without word or expression. She studied it a moment longer than seemed necessary, then opened it to reveal a pair of pristine white-and-blue basketball sneakers. She picked them up and looked them over, turning them back and forth.

"Have you worn these outside?"

"No. They were a gift, but they didn't fit."

In fact, they had fit, but she didn't need to know that. Dorothy had given him the shoes out of the blue, claiming she'd gotten a great deal on them that she couldn't pass up, but Gabriel already had a sturdy pair of boots. What he really needed was money. He'd gone through most of the fifteen hundred bucks he'd received from the sale of the moth. He had about two hundred bucks left and he'd need all the cash he could get to buy supplies before he went back through the gate. Returning the shoes would give him a little extra money. Besides, even if he had cash left over, it could go toward the money Dorothy owed the bank.

"Do you have the receipt?"

"Uh ... no. Like I said, they were a gift."

"If I can find them in the system I can process the return, but it'll be at the lowest sale price from the last ninety days."

"That's fine."

She tapped the keyboard attached to her point-of-sale system, clicked the mouse a couple times, then looked up at Gabriel.

"It looks like you'll get twenty-four bucks and ninety-nine cents back, not including tax," she said. "Sound good?"

It wasn't a lot of money, but he needed cash more than he needed shoes, so he nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good."

She rang up the transaction, tucked the shoes out of reach behind the counter, and handed him a wad of cash and some change.

"Thanks," he said. He stuffed the money into his pocket and made his way to the mall entrance. He headed straight to the food court; he figured a soft pretzel wouldn't take too large a chunk out of the shoe money.

He sat down at a table and bit into his snack. As he chewed, he looked around at the people bustling around him. He didn't particularly enjoy hanging out at the mall, but it fascinated him nonetheless. Malls were massive commerce centers unlike anything in the world he was from. Granted, countless wonders filled that world as well, but people didn't seem to take them for granted as much over there. Here, people could visit a single, cavernous building that allowed them to acquire just about anything their hearts desired, but they were more likely than not to treat the experience of visiting such a miraculous site with outright disdain. He just didn't get it.

He finished his pretzel, threw away the paper wrapping it had come in, and walked outside to the bus stop. He rode it for four blocks to a grocery store.

He got a cart and walked down the aisles, carefully evaluating the products lining the shelves. He'd need food and water. He grabbed beef jerky, some trail mix and a box of granola bars. He made his way to the beverage aisle and got a six-pack of water. He'd have a canteen with him, but it'd be nice to have a couple extra bottles. When he had just about finished up, he started for the checkout line when his cart nearly collided with someone else's.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to-"

He looked up at the cart's operator and found himself locking eyes with Emma. His Emma.

The blood drained from his face. His tongue suddenly felt heavy. He wanted to be anywhere else in the world than standing here in the grocery store directly in front of his ex-girlfriend - an ex-girlfriend who, last time he'd seen her, he'd stolen a bottle of gin from.