Burglary!
“Here it is,” Goody Blem told us, a weird satisfaction in her voice. Like we had doubted that she was the victim of a crime, and this was her proof to show us up as fools. The common folk do not love Guardians; nor should they. Usually the thing we guard them from is their own neighbors.
‘Around the back’ was a shack, stouter than I expected, with barred windows and a sturdy door. Or it was sturdy: the padlock had been pulled off, the doorframe itself was scarred, and the hinges half-ripped out of the wood. It looked like some foul beast had come in from the hills and ripped the door off in its quest for what was inside, and certainly such things have happened, but …I frowned. “Nobody heard a sound, you say?”
“I did not say! But if my neighbors heard this, they kept mum. I didn’t hear nothing myself until I came back here yesterday to gather the offerings for the Festival. They were gone! And who’ll pay for this door, I ask you? Good work, it was, though it cost me too much…” And with that Goody Blem was off again, muttering about the Kee and how they charged too much and took away all the good jobs, and where were the Guardians then, hey?