A week had passed and June continued daily yoga classes. Today she was shocked opening her to find her missing black Keds. Even stranger it had been washed. The laces were bright and new looking and there wasn't a spot of dirt.
It was a week later, and the unsettled feeling still clung to June like an uncomfortable second skin. The single missing Keds had pestered her thoughts, twisting through her mind during yoga’s quietest moments—when breath slowed and the world seemed to pause. She thought she would have shaken it off by now, but there was something intrusive, something violating, about having one of her shoes stolen. More so because there had been no apparent reason. No note. No message. Just silence and one missing shoe.
Since that strange afternoon, she’d continued attending her yoga classes, her solitary Keds now paired with some old slip-ons that were functional, but uninspiring. Her black Keds had been special in a way she hadn’t really appreciated until now. The thought snuck into her mind as she walked across the gym’s threshold once again, slipping into the familiar routine of stowing her shoes and belongings in the industrial metal locker.
Maybe she was paranoid, but she’d picked a different locker every day this week. It didn’t ease her anxiety much. Numbers changed, combinations shifted. One day she’d chosen 18, two rows closer to the back; another day, locker 5, closer to the showers. Each time, she’d moved nervously, her thoughts circling like a storm, replaying every moment in the gym over and over, trying to recall some forgotten face or misplaced interaction.
It had become almost embarrassing, the way she scoured the gym with darting eyes, seeing threats where there likely weren’t any. Stephanie, bless her cheery heart, had even asked if June was feeling okay—asked with that eyes-too-wide concern that made June feel slightly unhinged. She brushed her off with a wave and a distracted “Just tired.”
So when she opened her locker today after another grueling yoga session, her mind was far from focused, lulled by the meditative haze of Savasana. She expected nothing but the canvas slip-ons she’d stashed there earlier.
But what she found stopped her cold.
Her missing
black Keds.
There it was; the second shoe. Not dirty anymore. Not scuffed or lived in as it had been before. No, this one—
her shoe—was
clean. Too clean.
June bent down, her heart quickening as she plucked the shoe out of the locker, examining it carefully.
The shoe that had vanished a week ago now gleamed unnaturally in the dim light of the locker room. The black canvas was rich, a deep, renewed ebony, looking as if it had never touched pavement, never weathered a day of concrete. The white soles were pristine, practically
glowing. The laces—god, the laces—were immaculate, stiff and bright, as though someone had pulled them freshly out of the box that morning. White, not a shade of cream or dulled gray. White, as if it were a snowflake unto itself.
June stared at the shoe, her mind trying to make sense of the pristine condition. The smell of detergent—
or was it bleach?—clung faintly to the fabric, erupting into her nose as if the shoe had just come out of a deep wash. Whoever had taken her shoe had tenderly, meticulously
cleaned it.
Her fingers traced along the edge of it, where there had once been scuff marks. Scuffs she remembered clearly from where her foot would drag along the pavement on the way to the gym. Gone. Completely erased. Erased like it had never lived the life she’d walked in.
A chill ran through her.
This didn’t feel like a prank. Not anymore. This was calculated. Intentional. Someone hadn’t just taken her shoe as a joke—they’d taken it, cared for it, polished it.
Returned it.
But who?
Why?
Her eyes darted to the people around the locker room, quickly scanning the few women there. Lila was off in the shower, no one else had ventured this far into the back row of lockers. The only sound she could hear was the faint rush of the showers and the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights above.
Sweat pricked the back of her neck, her body suddenly too warm, the oppressive heat of paranoia flooding her system. She ran a thumb over the toe of the Keds again, as if she'd missed some hidden clue.
Footsteps perked her ears up. She flinched slightly, swinging the locker door wider to obscure herself without even thinking.
Two women walked into the room, chatting quietly, tennis bags slung over their shoulders, but neither seemed to notice June or her increasing panic. They strolled right past, oblivious in their conversation.
In a hurry, June dug deeper into her locker, as if half-expecting some other message or hidden item. Slowly, she pulled out her canvas bag… and found nothing else but her things. Just as she’d left them. Except now, there were two shoes.
Her heart pounded as she pulled the second Keds from her second bag, the original shoe—the one that hadn’t gone missing. She held both shoes in her hands, inspecting them side by side. Perfectly identical. And yet, impossibly, the one that had been stolen had been reborn in front of her, without a trace of use.
Someone had taken the shoe and lovingly restored it.
It wasn’t the act of cleaning the shoe that terrified her—it was the quiet
intimacy of the gesture.
Whoever had taken her shoe had known
exactly what they were doing. And now… they’d returned it, better than ever. Was this their way of communicating? A message without words? A warning, perhaps? Or worse—an invitation?
The door clanked against the side of her locker as it swung shut from its own weight, the sound echoing in the empty locker room. June stared at the two shoes in her hands, the unsettling perfection of the clean one gnawing like a sick irritation in the back of her head.
That question came back to her.
Why just one shoe?
Now she had the shoe back. But that only meant a new question:
What would go missing next?
——
June slid her feet into both Keds, her right foot encased in the newly polished, pristine one. It felt strange, different somehow. Clean. It almost didn’t feel like hers anymore.
As she stood, the laces whispered taut under her hands. Perfectly tied. Perfectly crisp.
Too perfect.
Her heart raced as she left the gym, feet moving faster than usual, her black Keds quiet against the cool pavement outside.
Was someone watching her?
Someone was close enough to her to take from her locker. Close enough to
return the stolen shoe without her knowing.
And if they could do all that…
What were they planning next?
