The Thief of Always

The Thief of Always is a novel by Clive Barker that was published in 1992.

It is a fable written for children, but is intended for adults as well. The book contains many black and white drawings by the author, and the cover illustrated by the author. His official site has an extensive online gallery of all The Thief of Always illustrations.

The Thief of Always starts out by introducing Harvey Swick. Harvey Swick is a 10-year-old kid who finds himself bored with school, uninteresting teachers, homework, and his day-to-day life. One day, a man named Rictus flies up to Harvey's window and tells him about a kid's paradise, the Holiday House. At the Holiday House, there are all the sweets a person could ask for, four seasons in a day, Christmas every day, Halloween every night, and everything else you could dream of. Harvey reluctantly goes to the house after a week of thinking, and enters the house through a wall of mist. Harvey enjoys the wonders of Holiday House, and stays there for ten days, becoming friends with Wendell and Lulu, two other kids at the house. However, he eventually starts to suspect that the house is not as perfect as it seems. Upon investigation, Harvey discovers that the house's creator, Mr. Hood, has taken all the children who came before him and imprisoned them in a dark, gloomy lake. After that, Harvey and Wendell are trapped in the house, and escape by following a cat named Blue-Cat through the mist barrier that constantly surrounds the property of the house at night.

Harvey and Wendell soon discover that for every day they spend in Holiday House, a year has passed in the rest of the world. They decide that the only way to regain their lost time is to return to Holiday House. Upon doing so, Wendell learns that Hood runs the entire house on magic and illusions. Harvey defeats Hood by tricking him into using up all of his magic by wishing for as many things as he can think of as fast as he can, to drain Hood's power. When an exhausted Hood allows Harvey one more wish, Harvey asks for all the seasons at once, resulting in a furious lightning storm that burns down the house. Hood seems to perish in the fire, but he manages to rebuild a body from the debris of the house, and remarks at Harvey's courage, contrasting Harvey with Wendell, who has succumbed to the House's lures and wishes to stay forever in a trance. Hood then offers Harvey, whom he calls A Thief Of Always, to be a vampire with him and be immortal. Harvey refuses, and this final confrontation ends when Hood is knocked into the lake, which has turned into a vortex (or whirlpool) and sucks him in. The children all leave the remains of the house to go back to their respective times.