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Part I: This Is No Treasure

""I know you don't have any reason to trust me, but have you heard of paranoia? Fear? Psychological warfare?"

The arms of a Finder are never burly things. Not a good-meaning Finder, anyway. They can be dirty, wiry, fat or thin--Hell, plenty of Finders are fairly muscular. But never burly. That's the arms of a Keeper.

Finn does not have burly arms. He is abnormally strong, though--Everyone tells him so. He can lift things twice what he should be able to. If he didn't, and wouldn't have been able to get the door open, nothing would have happened that night. He might've not found what's down there, and he might have left before River arrived.

The moon washes him with pale light as he pries at the root cellar door. A chill breeze sweeps through his fur, and the cold metal stings his fingers, but the 17 year-old fox continues his efforts. The doors won't budge, though, despite the lack of a visible locking mechanism. He's about to give up, but after one last frustrated grunt, the door dramatically swings open. The old, dilapidated wood shutters, unused to such activity. Finn lets out a sigh of victory, thanking his ungodly strength. He picks up his flashlight, aiming it into the darkness below. The black has parted away to reveal dirty, dusty stone stairs heading down. He looks around. All the lights are still out in the elder farmhouse beside the cellar--Good, no one seems to be home. He'd been pretty loud trying to open the damn doors. No cars were in the driveway, and when knocking on the door, no one answered; He'd waited for this opportunity. With a deep breath of the freezing winter air, Finn shuffles his way inside.

The interior of the cellar is damp and impossibly dingy. Boxes full of carrots, large and dirty, are stacked up against the walls--No doubt products of the Windborough's small farm. But that's not what he's here for. He shines the flashlight around, and sees nothing. Just plump carrots stacked into boxes, left to incubate until they're ready to be sold.

So, he looks again. This time, he really looks. He doesn't know what he's looking for. He usually never does. But, as a Finder, he's really good at figuring out where things are. And not in the typical sense, either. He was born with a gift, an abnormal witchcraft. He hadn't known such blood was in his family, but one day, he realized its presence. It turns out it's really easy to know where the eggs are at Easter when you can sense exactly where each of them lay, the color of their plastic and all. So when he drove by the white-painted house while on the way to visit family last week, and felt something in the cellar, something bad, really bad, he knew he had to go look for it.

This time, he senses something. Lots of pieces, all laying together. He can feel that they're hard, and kind of smooth... and they're behind the farthest wall. He walks up to it, moving aside the wooden boxes, and shines his flashlight on it. Now, as a fox, he has heightened sight in the dark. Not enough to see in a pitch-black root cellar without a flashlight, though enough to see differences where others can't. And looking at the wall, he notices something. It's a little off, less dusty than the others and slightly discolored. Are these cement blocks? That's not a typical building material. And probably not what the rest of this place was built with. He places his paw against it, pushing into the stone. Nothing. He should've expected something like this; But the trip was rushed and unplanned. With school in the morning and exams coming up, he'd only been able to come here at midnight today, aka monday. So he finds himself casually committing a crime only 6 hours before school starts. He hopes his parents won't notice his absence. However, this has ended up in a dead end. The wall doesn't seem to be too sturdy, but he has no way to open it; He doesn't just carry that kind of stuff around. Nor does he know how to get through a wall past smashing it to bits. Disappointed, Finn turns to walk back to his car and--

Footsteps. They're outside, walking towards the open cellar door. Petrified, Finn shoves himself behind some of the carrot boxes and turns off his flashlight. The footsteps come closer, but they aren't the angry stomps of a disgruntled homeowner--Rather, they're softer, more cautious, made by a light foot. Finn's fear turns to confusion. Who was out there? What did they want? Did they know he was here? He did leave his car just off the street, probably 60 feet down the road. No, that could be anyone's car. No one had a reason to follow some random teenager.

Whoever is walking towards the root cellar reaches the precipice of the stairs. A light shines down below, mere feet from Finn. A few seconds later, the footsteps clatter down into the cellar. Then suddenly, they stop. The person stops moving, just inside the small underground room. He can hear them sniffing the air. A moment passes. He doesn't dare move. It doesn't matter. "...Hello?" A scared voice asks.

Shit.

There's no walking his way out of this one. Heart pounding, Finn steps reluctantly out into the light of the other person's flashlight.

He looks at a cat with the brightest pair of blue eyes he's ever seen. He's about his age, wearing a light pink sweatshirt and black track pants. Orange fur, white muzzle leading down to his neck... he's vaguely familiar. He's very clearly fey-touched, too, just like Finn: Far more prone to witchery, and an anthropomorphic animal. Oh, and he's holding a sledgehammer. What is he doing here?

Finn holds up his paws. "I mean no harm."

The cat looks him up and down, and his fearful expression seems to relax. "You're a Finder?"

Finn isn't sure if that's a statement or a question. "You're one, too."

The cat leans to look past him, ignoring the statement. He squints a little. "Can you feel it too? Something behind the wall?" Finn nods. The cat shoves his flashlight up under his arm, and picks up his sledgehammer with both paws. "I have no idea who you are or if I should trust you, but it looks like we're together on this."

What option does Finn really have? They're both here for the same thing, both committing a crime, and the cat is prepared, unlike him.. "Okay. We both wanna find out what's on the other side, yeah?"

The cat looks away. "Pretty much." He steps awkwardly past Finn. "Let's break the wall down."

"Do you know how? Safely, I mean, not just swinging the hammer."

The cat nods, pulling out two ear plugs. "My father works for a construction company. He made me sit through some lectures." He glances back at Finn. "You should wait outside. I only brought one pair of earplugs." He says in his soft voice.

Finn nods. "Okay, yeah. Tell me when you're done, okay?" Finn doesn't know why he cares so much about what's down there. He's committing a serious crime, trusting a complete stranger, perhaps risking ruining the rest of his life... all because of a bad feeling. A really bad feeling, at that, but still. A feeling. That's it. Alas, he knows there has to be something important.

Finn heads up the stairs as he watches the strange cat put on protective glasses. He breathes in a breath of fresh air as he sits down on the snow-dusted grass beside the cellar door. It's cold, but not that cold. He can handle it. He considers also closing the door itself, but he doesn't want to risk it being impossible to open again or scaring the cat.

When the first strikes of a hammer against the cement block wall rings out, Finn shudders at the noise. He hopes the cat's earplugs are enough for him. Hearing just how loud a sledgehammer really is, he's very glad the homeowners are gone right now.

As the minutes pass, he thinks back to the strange feline. He's seen him once or twice before, he thinks, maybe talked to him once? He's not sure. But he's a Finder. He has to be. There aren't many finders; Maybe 100,000 maximum out of 7 billion people. So it's pretty interesting to find another person just like him. Finders make up only about 5% of witches. They get a pretty bad wrap too, with about half of them being Keepers, aka thieves. Oh well. Finn isn't a Keeper. In fact, his local police station has an anonymous tip-giving website, and he's used it a few times. Fancying himself a bit of a vigilante, he's done something like this to a lesser extent before. It's always been finding out petty thieves, though, nothing like this. He's only committed misdemeanors before. Is breaking into someone's property and knocking down one of their walls a misdemeanor? Probably something worse. He hasn't been caught before, though, and hopefully he won't be now.

Finally, about 10 minutes later, the hammer strikes begin to patter out, until one last slam. Finn rubs his bruised ears. He wasn't that far away, though he had moved a good 20 feet from the cellar door over time. A soft voice soons shouts out: "I've found what we're looking for."

Finn stands up, dusts the snow off his pants, and walks back to the cellar door. He says goodbye to the moonlight and heads below. He's greeted by the scene of rubble piled on the floor, stone dust smothering the cat wearing a pink hoodie. Behind the new cement rubble on the floor is a continuation of the original wall, about 2 feet back. Someone was hiding something.

The aforementioned cat leans his sledgehammer against the wall and takes off his protective glasses. Still breathing heavily, he speaks. "Are you ready?"

Finn nods. "I have a weird feeling about this." He walks past the teenager and drops to his knees. He lifts a paw and carefully begins pulling the rubble aside.

Bone.

It's a bone. What kind? Heart pounding once more, he begins pulling aside more and more cement pieces.

It's bone. All of it. Smooth, cream-colored bone, long or short, thick or thin; And it's not animal bone.

The skull is of a wolf: The person kind.

Finn jumps to his feet, taking a few feet back. "Holy shit."

The enigmatic cat shakes his orange-and-white head sadly. "I was hoping it wouldn't be this. A dead pet or something, I don't know... Maybe it's a relative?"

Finn shakes his head. How did the feline know it was a corpse, anyway? "Who buries a dead relative behind a wall?"

The cat doesn't say anything, staring at the bone. He looks almost... guilty? Maybe Finn is just crazy from the shock. He'd expected it to be something bad, but not... but not, you know. "We have to call the police." Finn says, voice shaking, turning to leave. He couldn't use the police's hotline for this one. Too big of a crime.

The enigmatic feline grabs his arm. "No. They'll arrest both of us for breaking in."

Finn looks down. "It's the right thing to do."

The strange cat nods. "It is. But there's a better way. Better than instant charges." The cat smiles mischievously. "I know you don't have any reason to trust me, but have you heard of paranoia? Fear? Psychological warfare?"

Finn blinks, following where he's going. "We leave the bones and don't say anything?"

The feline shakes his head. "No. We steal them. We leave the old man scared and confused, always looking over his shoulder. And they can't say anything. Because if he does we can pull out evidence and turn them in." The cat pulls out his phone and begins taking pictures.

Finn paces back and forth. "I don't fucking know, man. How the hell are you so confident about this? I- I- This is a fucking body. A fucking body! A person! I-" He sighs. "How do we even know the person who lives here did it?"

The cat leans against the wall, fiddling with his sweatshirt. His mood rapidly shifts, suddenly looking guilty again. "I know the family personally. The Windborough family. They've lived here for years, and-" His voice shakes. "I've felt what's under there for a while. I just- I didn't want to accept it, and I never truly knew-" The feline squeezes his eyes shut. Finn's heart wells up with empathy. The cat continues. "I know Edgard Windborough. He's a very, very paranoid man. This is worse than any jail cell for him. Trust me. We take the bones, we leave him wondering, scared, not knowing what will come next. When he cleans everything up, hopefully clearing away the evidence of us being here, we turn in what we found anonymously."

Finn looks intently at the bright-eyed cat, who is now staring at the floor. So he knew him personally. Was he going for some kind of revenge? Was he making this all up to trick him? No, this was too elaborate. He rubs the top of his muzzle. It's midnight. He's so tired. This is too much to be dealing with right now. But alas, he has to, and alas, he is.

He has to trust the feline. This looks to mean a lot to him. "Okay. A 'fate worse than death' scenario, right? I can get behind that. But I have nowhere to keep the bones. And how I've never been the most traditional of folk, the dead deserve at the very least an inkling of respect, and I can't get that by stuffing them in a cardboard box."

The cat nods solemnly. "I have a solution for that. I'll handle the body." He reaches tenderly into the rubble, pulling out a single arm bone. It's too casual. "I want you to handle this." His ears fold back nervously. "I... have a connection with bones."

"What do you mean?" Finn asks, reluctantly taking the bone. It's smooth and cold, and almost speaks to him: I'm not supposed to be here, it says. The arm feels wrong in his hpaws, and he almost drops it. It shouldn't be his possession.

The cat, wasting no time, begins bounding up the stairs. "I'll explain to you later. I need to go get a box to transport everything." He calls back quietly. He stops, and turns back to Finn. "My name is River, by the way." He holds out his paw. Finn takes it. It's soft and warm; An inviting and welcome presence. Finn shakes it. "Finn."

And so, the strange cat turns around and walks away.

For the next 20 minutes, he watches River carefully load the bones into two small, foam-bedded crates. When he's done, he waves goodbye to Finn. Asking where to meet him again, they figure out they go to the same highschool: Thus the familiarity. They agree on meeting just outside room 201 after the last class ends.

Finn goes home too tired to do anything. He immediately and cautiously places the bone in his bottom drawer, locking it away. It feels wrong, somehow. Placing something so ceremonious into something as unceremonious a bedroom drawer. He's still too tired to care, though, so he immediately throws himself in bed. He'll get a shower and change of clothes in the morning.

It's time for rest.