A Borrower's Anthology

Everyday

After seeing Michelle a first time, normally escaping details become all the more present in Philip's life.

...

When one knew of a very important, very precious, secret it found a way to slip its way into everything each and every day.

True to his word, Philip had kept silent about his meeting with the tiny 'borrower', as she had claimed herself to be. When Shauna had queried him of his sudden need to go that day, he was tight-lipped about the encounter, chalking it up as another phone call he'd needed to take about work. Partially, his sworn secrecy came from the fact that anyone would have doubted his account of meeting a four-inch tall person on his kitchen counter--would have accused him of catching the high he'd been missing out on during his undergraduate years. No; painfully, Philip's meeting with the borrower had been the soberest he had ever been in his life. Even when he'd never had a drop of alcohol before. Yet meeting with her had given him the highest of highs he'd never experienced.

The other part of him didn't see the harm in being respectful to her wishes though, and he sided with that more. Plus, it gave him a reason to potentially see her again, as she had told him.

A few days had passed since then without the little borrower in sight, but that didn't mean Philip wasn't looking for her in his own ways. Though he may not have seen her physical presence in any room he ventured to⁠--especially when the house was full with more than just him⁠--clues had begun to pop up here and there that he wouldn't have normally paid much attention to in the past, or maybe he would have if he'd noticed them so blatantly.

It started with the kitchen, of course; the cabinets were rife with openings, apparently, for tiny-folk to either climb or peruse through from the safety of a closed space. And in one such cabinet had sat a bag of flour with a small opening sealed by tape. If faced with that information in the past, Philip would have just assumed the bag had worn down. It happened all the time--tiny rips or tears in boxes, bags, and other items that sometimes let the crumbs spill through. Yet removing the bag had revealed to him a dusting of feet and hand prints against the cedar wood only bifocals could catch.

Then there was another time in the bathroom, where he'd noticed a sliver of the soap bar against the sink faucet had been chipped away at. Or the next day after discovering her, where he'd seen a few loose strands of rope in the attic. It could have been anything, surely, but now he had one more possibility to add onto the list. He had to wonder if the borrower--or borrowers, perhaps--were being sloppy, he was oblivious, or the girl he'd met was purposely leaving him clues. If the latter, it was nice to know she had not forgotten just as much as he wouldn't.

At night, however, was when he really noticed things. It seemed to be their time to stir, which made sense. The laptop she'd used had been accessed a quarter to eleven, and when he and his family was home, they were typically asleep. Unless there was a busy work night for any of the four adults of the house. Lying in bed, lights off, Philip would stare up at the darkened ceiling and shut off his brain. It would be silent at first. He'd feel crazy for laying awake to catch the barest of indications, straining his ears.

And then he'd hear it: a shuffle, or something sounding like it had been moved aside. Unlike his little sister and parents, who often fell asleep with the televisions still on, a trait he and Darius shared was sleeping in the comfort of a mostly pitch-black room. From his open door, the hallway lights would creep through dimly, washing his bedroom in a very low light. Could a 'borrower' see in the dark? Or did they have their own light source? It would have been terrible to fall because they weren't able to see, like how he had found the girl all tangled up in her own climbing gear.