The Thief Of Always

About a week later, when Harvey has nearly given up on Rictus, the strange man floats down toward him on the street near school. He invites Harvey to come with him to the place he calls “Holiday House.” Harvey asks how long he’ll be there, and Rictus reminds him not to ask so many questions.

They set out across Harvey’s town of Millsap. Rictus complains about the fog, the mud, and the trash on the streets. Harvey gets tired and is about to turn back when they finally arrive at a wall that extends endlessly in both directions, its bricks wavering as if they are somehow made of mist. Harvey and Rictus walk through the wall. Beyond is a summer landscape, with a magnificent house standing atop a grassy hill.

Harvey admires the four-story building with its many windows, wide stairway, and even wider porch. The door opens, and an ancient woman with a face and hair like cobwebs welcomes him in a melodious voice. She is Mrs. Griffin, the cook.

Inside, Harvey meets a bespectacled boy named Wendell, who is chasing a cat and laughing. The House’s maze-like interior hints at adventures, fairy tales, and wonders. Harvey thinks the House is perfect, but Mrs. Griffin sadly warns him that nothing is perfect “[b]ecause time passes” (19). As she feeds Harvey plate after plate of delicious food, a young girl named Lulu enters. She has frizzy, light-colored hair, blue-green eyes, and freckles, and she has been at the House longer than anyone except Mrs. Griffin.

Harvey says he can’t stay long and calls home; his mom answers and explains that she and his father asked Rictus to invite him to Holiday House to cheer him up. He is to stay as long as he likes and not worry about school. Reassured, Harvey accompanies Mrs. Griffin upstairs to see his room. Partway up, basking on a sunlit windowsill, is a blue-furred cat named Blue-Cat. The other house felines are Stew-Cat and Clue-Cat. Mrs. Griffin explains that only special kids can visit the House, which is owned by Mr. Hood, who is very private and is not likely to meet Harvey. They continue to Harvey’s room, which is filled with the aroma of apples from the orchard. Harvey falls asleep and doesn’t wake till morning.

Harvey wakes up energized and eagerly hurries outside. The trees have shed their leaves for fresh, new spring buds. Wendell appears, and Harvey agrees to work with him on his unfinished treehouse project after breakfast. In the kitchen, Clue-Cat (the “wicked one,” according to Mrs. Griffin) is lapping at some spilled milk on the floor. Harvey asks if the cat can do as it pleases; Mrs. Griffin says that everyone has someone watching over them. Back outside, Harvey gazes out across the property to the surrounding brick wall and the grayness beyond. He asks Wendell how the rest of the town can disappear so completely; Wendell says, “Who cares?” The two boys spend hours repairing the treehouse with boards from a lumber pile.

Harvey learns from Wendell that Lulu has been at the House for “months,” and has lately begun to wander about as if in a trance. At lunch, Harvey asks about swimming. Wendell says that there is a water hole with fish, and when Harvey suggests they catch some fish for Mrs. Griffin to cook, she reacts with alarm and warns the boys that the fish are poisonous. Suddenly, Clue-Cat jumps up on the stove, paws at a pan, accidentally lights his tail on fire. He yowls, jumps, and knocks over the pan, which pours boiling water onto him as he falls dead in a smoking heap. Mrs. Griffin cries out and kneels down beside the cat, murmuring, “No more questions from you” (32). Fighting tears, Harvey offers to help bury the cat, but Mrs. Griffin says there’s no need. She notices Harvey’s tears, touches one, and says that the tears give her solace. She tells him to go outside and play.

Outside, the morning springtime has already changed into summer. Harvey treks to the nearby lake alone and finds it to be dark and forbidding. Nearby, he sees Lulu staring into the water. When he comments on the cold-looking water, she looks confused and runs away through the bushes. In the water, Harvey sees very large fish who swim past slowly, staring up at him balefully, as if they are somehow prisoners of the lake. When Harvey returns to the House and asks Wendell about the lake and the magically shifting seasons, Wendell wonders why Harvey cares so much but explains, “This is all real. It’s magic, but it’s real” (39). He tells Harvey not to worry about things and to just enjoy the place.

When Harvey asks what happens in the evening, Wendell says that Halloween is a nightly occurrence. Harvey flips through the pages of a comic book, then nods off. When he wakes, the sun is lower, Wendell is gone, and fall leaves and chestnuts are beginning to sprinkle down on him. Clouds form overhead, and the House looms. He asks the House, “’You’re real […] aren’t you?’ A voice whispers, ‘What do you think, child?’” (40-41).

At dinner, Wendell says he plans to be a hangman for Halloween that night, while Harvey smears his mouth with ketchup and declares that he’s a vampire. Mrs. Griffin thinks their ghoulish ideas are horrible and jokingly calls them “monsters.” The boys dress in costumes and clothing left behind by previous visitors. Some items look to be decades or more out of date; Harvey wonders if the kids who left them are even alive anymore. He finds a long coat with an upturned collar that looks suitably vampiric, and then selects a death mask to wear.

Outside, under a full moon, the boys walk past flickering jack-o-lanterns and head to the rear of the House. Harvey feels vaguely frightened. In the sky, he sees a strange form fly overhead that “seem[s] to claw at the darkness […] as though it were crawling on the very air itself” (47). Harvey asks what the flying thing is but gets no answer; Wendell is gone. Harvey hears creaking and follows the sound to a tree, then feels something brushing against him, back and forth. When he grabs at it, the thing collapses to the ground, and a firework goes off behind him. Harvey sees that the fallen thing is a dead man with his neck in a noose. As the boy screams, he realizes it’s a Halloween decoration with a pumpkin for a head and a mask for a face. Behind Harvey, Wendell laughs at the success of his trick. He reminds Harvey that tonight he’s a hangman. Irritated, Harvey promises to get back at Wendell one night soon. Wendell replies, “Always […] That’s what this place is […] It’s the House of Always” (50).

Inside, a Thanksgiving dinner awaits the boys. Harvey asks again about the flying thing he saw, but Wendell says it wasn’t his doing, and Mrs. Griffin insists that Harvey imagined it. Annoyed, Harvey leaves the kitchen and finds Lulu on the stairway landing. Outside, snow is falling. Lulu says that Christmas will arrive shortly with presents, as it always does, but she’s already gotten everything she desires and doesn’t care about it. She shows him her room, which is filled with endless gifts of boxes and dolls. Harvey mentions the lake, but Lulu doesn’t remember seeing him there. He asks her to be careful not to fall in, and she reminds him to make a Christmas wish.

After cleaning up, Harvey makes a wish for something he thinks Mr. Hood can’t possibly produce: a toy ark that his father made for him. He goes downstairs, where a giant Christmas tree with twinkling lights adorns the hallway. Outside, Wendell is making a snowman and asks Harvey to join him, but Harvey is tired, so they agree to build one together when Christmas returns the following night. Inside, Mrs. Griffin points to a gift under the tree, and Harvey opens it to find the ark he wished for, exactly as his father had made it. When Harvey wonders aloud how such a gift could be possible Mrs. Griffin says, “Mr. Hood knows every dream in your head” (58). 

The following days pass exactly like the first, with morning springtime fun followed by summer afternoons, fall evenings, and Christmas nights. Harvey and Wendell and Lulu play together every day. Harvey calls his parents a second time to let them know he’s doing well. The outside world fades from Harvey’s thoughts, and his only reminder of home is the ark he received on his first Christmas in the House. On the seventh day, Harvey takes the ark to the lake. It floats well until a fish rises from below and capsizes it. Harvey tries to pull the boat away but slips and falls into the water, quickly sinking toward the bottom. In a panic, he struggles upward toward the capsized ark at the surface, swimming past fallen lead animals as they drop toward the depths. Breaking the surface of the water, he scrambles from the lake before a fish can bite at him. He hates that the lake has taken something of himself into it. Dripping and cold, he looks back at the sinking ark and hopes that a fish will eat one of the lead figurines and choke on it. Harvey realizes that something is seriously wrong with Holiday House, and he decides to find out what it is.