Gatekeepers

gatekeepers

BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

Comes a Horseman

Germ

Deadfall

DREAMHOUSE KINGS SERIES

1 House of Dark Shadows

2 Watcher in the Woods

3 Gatekeepers

© 2008 by Robert Liparulo

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Page design by Mandi Cofer
Map design by Doug Cordes

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Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Liparulo, Robert.

Gatekeepers / Robert Liparulo.

p. cm. — (Dreamhouse Kings ; bk. 3)

Summary: With their mother still missing after going through a Civil War time portal in their spooky house, and their father in jail under a false accusation, Xander, David, and their younger sister continue to try to bring their mother back, now with the help of an old relative who has turned up unexpectedly.

ISBN 978-1-59554-498-8 (hardcover)

[1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Dwellings—Fiction. 3. Brothers and

sisters—Fiction. 4. Supernatural—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L6636Gat 2009

[Fic]—dc22

2008042007

Printed in the United States of America

08 09 10 11 QW 6 5 4 3 2 1

Content

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fifty

T
O MY DAUGHTER
M
ELANIE

You may have outgrown my lap,

but never my heart.

READ HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS
AND WATCHER IN THE WOODS
BEFORE CONTINUING!

“Who are you really, wanderer?”
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I'm a King.”

—WILLIAM STAFFORD,
A STORY THAT COULD BE TRUE

O, call back yesterday, bid time return.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
KING RICHARD II

CHAPTER

one

T
UESDAY,6:58 P.M.

P
INEDALE,
C
ALIFORNIA

Xander's words struck David's heart like a musket ball.

He reeled back, then grabbed the collar of his brother's filthy Confederate coat. His eyes stung, whether from the tears squeezing around them or the sand whipping through the room, he didn't know. He pulled his face to within inches of Xander's.

“You . . . you
found
her?” he said. “Xander, you found
Mom
?”

He looked over Xander's shoulder to the portal door, which had slammed shut as soon as Xander stumbled through. The two boys knelt in the center of the antechamber. Wind billowed their hair. It whooshed in under the door, pulling back what belonged to the Civil War world from which Xander had just stepped. The smell of smoke and gunpowder was so strong, David could taste it.

He shook Xander. “Where is she? Why didn't you bring her?”

His heart was going crazy, like a ferret racing around inside his chest, more frantic than ever. Twelve-year-olds didn't have heart attacks, did they?

Xander leaned back and sat on his heels. His bottom lip trembled, and his chest rose and fell as he tried to catch his breath. The wind plucked a leaf from his hair, whirled it through the air, then sucked it under the door.

“Xander!” David said. “Where's Mom?”

Xander lowered his head. “I couldn't . . .” he said. “I couldn't get her. You gotta go over, Dae. You gotta bring her back!”

“Me?”
A heavy weight pushed on David's chest, smashing the ferret between sternum and spine. He rose, leaped for the door, and tugged on the locked handle.

He wore a gray hat (“It's a
kepi,
” Dad would tell him) and jacket, like Xander's blue ones. They had discovered that it took wearing or holding three items from the antechamber to unlock the portal door. He needed one more.

“Xander, you said you found her!”

Xander shook his head. “I think I saw her going into a tent, but it was at the other end of the camp. I couldn't get to her.”

David's mouth dropped open. “That's not
finding
her! I thought I saw her, too, the other day in the World War II world—”

“Dae, listen.” Xander pushed himself up and gripped David's shoulders. “She saw the message we left. She saw Bob.”

Bob was the cartoon face and family mascot since Dad was a kid, drawn on notes and birthday cards. When David and Xander had been in Ulysses S. Grant's Union camp the night before, Xander had drawn it on a tent. It was their way of let-ting Mom know they were looking for her.

“She wrote back!” Xander said. “David, she's
there
!”

“But . . .” David didn't know if he wanted to scream or cry or punch his brother. “Why didn't you go get her?”

“Something was happening on the battlefield. They were rounding up all the soldiers and herding us toward the front line. I tried to get to her, but they kept grabbing me, pushing me out of camp. When I broke away”—Xander's face became hard—“they called me a deserter. That quick, I was a deserter. One of them
shot
at me! I barely got back to the portal.” He shook his head. “You gotta go! Now! Before she's gone, or the portal changes, or something happens to her.”

Yes . . . no!
David's stomach hurt. His brain was throbbing against his skull. His broken arm started to ache again, and he rubbed the cast. “Xander, I can't. They almost killed me yesterday.”

“That's because you were a gray-coat.” Xander began taking off his blue jacket. “Wear this one.”

“Why can't
you
? Just tell them—”

“I'll never make it,” Xander said. “They'll throw me in the stockade for deserting—if they don't shoot me first.”

“They'll do the same to me.” David hated how whiney his words came out.

“You're just a kid. They'll see that.”

“I'm twelve, Xander. Only three years younger than you.”

“That's the difference between fighting and not, Dae.”He held the jacket open. “I know it was really scary before, but this time you'll be on the right side.”

David looked around the small room. He said, “Where's the rifle you took when you went over? The Harper's Ferry musket?”

His brother gazed at his empty hand. He scanned the floor.“I must have dropped it when I fell. I was just trying to stay alive. I didn't notice.” He shook the jacket. “Come on.”

David shrugged out of the gray coat he was wearing. He tossed it onto the bench and reluctantly slipped into the one Xander held. He pulled the left side over his cast.

Xander buttoned it for him. He said, “The tent I saw her go into was near the back of the camp, on the other side from where I drew Bob.” He lifted the empty sleeve and let it flop down. He smiled. “Looks like you lost your arm in battle.”

“See? They'll think I
can
fight, that I
have
fought.”

“I was just kidding.” He took the gray kepi off David's head and replaced it with the blue one. Then he turned to the bench and hooks, looking for another item.

“Xander, listen,” David said. “You don't know what's been happening here. There are two cops downstairs.”

Xander froze in his reach for a canteen. “What?” His head pivoted toward the door opposite the portal, as though he could see through it into the hallway beyond, down the stairs, around the corner, and into the foyer. Or like he expected the cops to burst through. “What are they doing here?”

“They're trying to get us out of the house. Taksidian's with them.” Just thinking of the creepy guy who was responsible for his broken arm frightened David—but not as much as the thought of getting hauled away when they were so close to rescuing Mom. “Gimme that,” he said, waggling his fingers at the canteen.

Xander snatched it off the hook and looped the strap over David's head. “Where's Dad?”

“They put him in handcuffs. He told me to come get you.”