Five Stolen Rings

Chapter 25

STELLA || TWO YEARS AGO

La Luna, California, is in shambles.

I won’t say it’s completely destroyed, because parts of it aren’t. Parts of the city—the ones with seismically sound buildings—are more or less fine.

But our little community, a hidden treasure of the Bay Area, perches right on the San Andreas fault; the earthquake that hit early this morning was the worst we’ve had since the seventies. So while some parts of the city are fine, other parts have crumbled.

Several people have died; dozens more are injured. But even the ones who’ve survived—many of them have been left homeless, adrift, with nowhere to go.

I sigh and wipe the sweat from my forehead with one grimy arm before bending down to pick up the box in front of me. As much as I tell myself to lift with my legs, it doesn’t work; I do not have a lift-with-your-legs body. So I wrestle the giant box of books out of the room using my arms and back only, shuffling out into the hallway.

“I think that’s it,” I say to my neighbor Mr. Mackie. Our building was spared the worst, thank goodness, but he has an entire library room that fared poorly. He’s in his sixties, and he has a bad back, so when he knocked on my door and asked for help getting his place back in order, I said yes.

I wish I could do more. I feel so stupid picking up books from Mr. Mackie’s floor or shards of dishes from my kitchen counter when there are people across town whose entire lives have shattered.

I return to my own apartment after I finish helping Mr. Mackie. Part of me worries about being on the second floor after an earthquake, but I only have the capacity to be anxious about so many things; if my building collapses, I’m going to have to accept that it was my time to go. So I flop down on my secondhand couch and let my head rest back against the cushion.

I’ve been up since four this morning, and it feels like I’ve cried more in the last ten hours than in the last year of my life. I would love nothing better than to go to sleep. When my eyes flutter closed on their own, I let them; I’ve almost completely drifted off when my phone rings.

My hand thumps around blindly on the sofa next to me, searching for the phone; when I answer, my voice is groggy.

“Hello?” I say.

“Stella?”

My eyes flicker open as my brows furrow; it’s a man speaking, someone I don’t quite recognize.

“Yes,” I say slowly. “Who is this?”

“Are you okay?” the man says instead, his voice tight, anxious. “The earthquake—you’re okay? You’re good? Are you hurt?”

My frown deepens. “I’m fine,” I say, and I hear a sigh of relief from the other end.

“Good,” the man’s voice says. “Stay safe, okay?” It’s not a request; it’s a demand. “ Please. ”

“Who is?—”

But the line goes dead, and when I check the number, it’s listed as blocked.

I don’t hear from the man again.

But I never stop wondering who he was.