Liar, Dreamer, Thief


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Maria Violante
 Cover illustration and design by Shreya Gupta. Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
 Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
 The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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 First Edition: January 2023
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Dong, Maria, author.
 Title: Liar, dreamer, thief / Maria Dong.
 Description: First edition. | New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2023.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022037054 | ISBN 9781538723562 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781538723494 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Thrillers (Fiction). | Novels.
 Classification: LCC PS3604.O546 L53 2023 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20220805
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022037054
 ISBNs: 9781538723562 (hardcover), 9781538723494 (ebook)
 E3-20221202-JV-NF-ORI
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 Before We Get Started
 Prologue
 FIRST STELLATION
 
 Chapter 1: This Is Your Stop
 Chapter 2: A Box of Secrets
 Chapter 3: The Mirror-Man
 Chapter 4: The Well in the Mountain
 
 SECOND STELLATION
 
 Chapter 5: The Truth, Whole and Nothing But
 Chapter 6: When You Smell a Rat
 Chapter 7: The Flimsy Fetter Flies in Sunder
 Chapter 8: Recapitulation
 Chapter 9: A Message from Beyond
 Chapter 10: Ad Libitum to A Tempo
 Chapter 11: Another Man’s Treasure
 Chapter 12: X Marks the Spot
 
 THIRD STELLATION
 
 Chapter 13: When Worlds Collide
 Chapter 14: Finders Keepers
 Chapter 15: Glass Ceilings
 Chapter 16: Coffee, Sorrow, Smoke
 
 FOURTH STELLATION
 
 Chapter 17: Crossed Stars
 Chapter 18: Duck Psychology
 Chapter 19: The Jagged Edge of the Familiar
 Chapter 20: The Prodigal Returneth
 Chapter 21: Right Under Your Noses
 Chapter 22: And When the Postman Rings Again
 Chapter 23: You Can’t Always Get What You Want
 Chapter 24: Coda
 
 Epilogue
 Acknowledgments
 Discover More
 About the Author
 Reading Group Guide for Liar, Dreamer, Thief
 
 
 
 
 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
 For Mom, Dad, Tina, and Justin, who all believed in me when I couldn’t.
 For every person who’s ever been forced to hide their truth.
 
 
 
 
 I need to make one thing clear before we get started.
 I’m not a stalker, no matter what Leoni says.
 In this, at least, you cannot trust her.
 
 
 
 PROLOGUE
 When I was ten, I found a paperback chapter book nestled amongst the tables of the Scholastic Book Fair. Its title was Mi-Hee and the Mirror-Man.
 Maybe “found” is the wrong word—the cover had a fake mirror made from a reflective foil sticker, and it wasn’t until I turned away for another table, eagerly seeking something about stars or animals, that its flash caught my eye.
 As soon as I picked it up, I knew it was meant for me. All that delicious alliteration, the symmetrical title—three sets of paired syllables and a double hyphen!—but it was Mi-Hee’s name that really thrilled me. It was the first time I’d seen a Korean name on a children’s book.
 In its opening pages, it’s revealed that Mi-Hee is eleven years old. Imagine my surprise when I discovered her story was actually much older—because long before my Korean parents immigrated to the United States, both had devoured Mi-Hee’s journey into the fantasy world on the other side of her kitchen door. So just like that, before I’d even cracked the cover, Mi-Hee and the Mirror-Man had taken on an almost magical significance, a portal into a childhood I couldn’t believe my serious parents had ever inhabited.
 And though I loved the story, it was Mi-Hee I most identified with, this lonely girl between worlds who couldn’t stop compulsively counting the seconds on her fingers, who knew that the sounds of some words made them intrinsically better than others, who received from the wizard a powerful artifact I immediately coveted: a magical spyglass with white jewels along the rim.
 Spyglasses are supposed to make faraway things appear closer, but when Mi-Hee put the six-inch telescope to her eye, it revealed invisible layers in the world around her—gods and spirits and monsters, yes, but also the fundamental nature of people. Their souls became little birds that perched on their shoulders, tittering and preening—and the louder the bird, the bigger the ego of the person it belonged to. If two people were deeply connected, glistening strands stretched between them, like brightly colored spiderwebs. Sometimes, a person’s greatest fear projected itself in the air above their head, like the flickering images of grainy horses that gallop in old kinetoscopes. The world of Mi-Hee’s book was a treacherous one, and the power of the spyglass kept her alive through all 321 pages.
 The truth is there’s always a hidden world under the one we initially perceive, but grasping its nature can be inconvenient, unsettling, even dangerous. It’s easier to just pretend we don’t see it, like when we tell ourselves the extra slice of cherry cobbler on our plate doesn’t count