Gatekeepers (2 page)

“Handcuffs!”

“And one more thing,” David said. He closed his eyes, feeling as though the jacket had just gained twenty pounds. “Clayton, that kid who wanted to pound me at school? He came through the portal from the school locker to the linen closet.”He opened one eye to see his brother's shocked expression.

“How
long
was I gone?” Xander said. “Where is he now?”

“I pushed him back in. He returned to the school, but he might come back.” “Great.” Xander glanced over his shoulder at the hallway door again, then back at David. “Anything else I should know?”

David shook his head. “I guess if I die, I won't have to go to school tomorrow.” He smiled weakly.

The school year—seventh grade for David, tenth for Xander—had started just yesterday: two days of classes. Mom had been kidnapped the day before that. David couldn't believe they'd even gone to school under the circumstances, but Dad, who was the new principal, had insisted they keep up normal appearances so they wouldn't attract suspicion.

Lot of good it did
, David thought, thinking of the cops downstairs.

“I don't know,” Xander said. “Dad would probably figure out a way to get your body there.”

David's expression remained grim.

“You'll be fine.”

“Don't get taken away,” David told his brother. “Don't leave with me over there. Don't leave me alone in this house when I come back. Don't—”

Xander held up his hand to stop him. “I won't leave,” he said. “I'll go see what's happening downstairs, but I won't leave. No way, no how. Okay? Besides—” He smiled, but David saw how hard it was for him to do it. “You'll have Mom with you when you come back. Right?”

It was David's turn to smile, and he found it wasn't so hard to do. “Yeah.” He turned, took a deep breath, and opened the portal door.

CHAPTER

two

T
UESDAY, 7:05 P.M.

David squinted against the bright daylight coming through the portal. A warm breeze touched his face. The odor of gunpowder wafted into his nostrils. It reminded him of his time on the battlefield, and he felt sick again.

“Go,” Xander said behind him.

“I am.” He stepped through, stumbled, and fell into a bush. He rolled out of it and cracked his cast into a tree. He pulled air through his clenched teeth. Before the portal faded and broke apart like a defective DVD image, he caught a glimpse of Xander looking through it.

David scrambled up to get his bearings and immediately saw the rows of tents across a narrow meadow. Soldiers streamed toward the far hills, beyond which he knew a battle raged. Gun and cannon fire rang out in the distance. His hope for a deserted camp left him as he spotted more sol-diers talking in clusters and others moving from one tent to another.

It wasn't the mad dash to the front line Xander had described, and he wondered if time here had skipped one direction or another, like a hiccup, in the five minutes since his brother had left. They hadn't thought of that. Maybe Xander
could
have returned safely. David looked for the portal, any sign of it, but it was gone.

The first time any of them had gone through a portal, Dad had ended up rescuing Xander from a gladiator. He said the items from the antechamber had tugged him toward the portal home. David and Xander had followed the same tugging to get out of the Civil War world the night before. It was as though the items wanted to go home too, and they knew the way. Now, however, the jacket, kepi, and canteen were exerting no unnatural pull. It was like they knew it wasn't time to return.

Get moving
, David told himself, but his feet wouldn't obey. Even this far away from the battle, smoke drifted over him.
Don't get sick, not now, not with Mom waiting.

Mom. The thought of her unglued his feet. He lurched for-ward and out of the woods. Approaching the backs of the tents, he tried to remember which one Xander had written on. Had it been two tents from the front or ten? He had no clue. He walked behind the big wedge-shaped structures, peering between them, hoping to spot something he recognized. And he did, but not what he had expected: the Harper's Ferry rifle Xander had dropped. He must be close to where Xander had drawn Bob and, later, where he'd seen Mom.

David picked up the rifle and walked to the front of the tents, coming out in the camp's center aisle. He turned in a circle, but he didn't see the cartoon face. He headed toward the rear of the camp. Four tents along, he saw it—and his heart leapt into his throat. Just as Xander had said, words were scrawled in block letters beside the goofy face:
IS THAT YOU? I'M HERE! I'M

Mom!
It had to be! Who else knew the face? Who else would write those words?

But what else had she wanted to write? She had obviously been interrupted: “I'M . . . ” I'm what? I'm safe? I'm hurt? I'm at this place or that?

Mom, where are you?

Which tent had Xander seen her enter? He remembered it was on the other side of the aisle. Could she still be there? It struck David that he could be in the camp
before
the events Xander had witnessed—time was
that
weird with the portals; she might not have even entered the tent yet.

Don't start freaking out now,
he told himself.
I can do this: find Mom!

He looked up the aisle one direction, then down the other. Only men—most of them in blue soldier uniforms, some in the bloodied, once-white smocks of surgeons. A soldier was pounding the butt of his rifle against a rock, a blackened metal pot beside him. David had learned that coffee was cherished in Civil War encampments; this was how they ground the beans. Another man sat on the ground, writing on a piece of paper on his thigh. Two men sat on a log, cleaning their rifles. He wanted to ask whether any of them had seen her. He wanted to call out for her. But did he really want to attract attention to himself ?

He started for the tents across the aisle, then thought of something. If she knew they were looking for her there, wouldn't she stay close if she could? He returned to the tent bearing Bob's face and threw back the flap. A soldier sat at the edge of a cot, pulling on his boots. Another lay on a different cot, a rag over his face.

The soldier with the boots looked up. “What do you want, boy?”

David backed away, letting the flap fall into place. He moved toward the next tent. He'd check a few on this side, then cross to the other.

“Hey!” It was a man's deep voice. “You, boy!”

David spun to see the bearded officer who had spoken to him yesterday—General Grant. He was limping now. David couldn't remember if he had limped the day before.

As he drew close, the general expertly flipped up the cover of his gun holster with his thumb. He laid his hand on the handle of his pistol and said, “Drop the rifle, son.”

“But—” The word squeaked out of David's tight throat.

General Grant's eyes narrowed. “If I pull this pistol on you, boy, I'll use it. Now drop it.”

David forced his fingers to open. The gun hit the trampled earth with a thud. He said, “Sir, I—”

“I know you,” Grant said. “Last time I saw you, you wore Confederate gray. Now you're wearing blue and carrying a rifle. Where's the soldier who was escorting you to the stockades?”

He meant Xander. They had pretended to be soldier and prisoner to get David off the front lines without getting shot.

“I . . . sir . . . he . . .”

The general shook his head. “We better not find him dead, boy.” He turned and raised his hand to a passing soldier.

“Corporal!”

David dropped to the ground and started to scramble under the edge of the tent. He heard General Grant say, “Oh, no, you don't!” and felt the man grab his heel.

He yanked his foot out of his sneaker, rose, and ran through the tent, jumping over cots and the men sleeping on them. He slid under the tent's back wall as though he were sliding into home plate. His head snagged on the canvas wall. He ducked, and the cloth wall snapped away.

Behind him the general was yelling, “Escaped Rebel!”

David pictured the man pushing through the tent flaps, pistol in hand. He expected to hear a shot any second. Instead, a commotion arose from within the tent: the clamor of soldiers jumping to their feet, going for their weapons, calling out for someone to tell them what was going on.

“Get down, men!” General Grant bellowed. “Out of my way!”

David got his feet under him and ran for the trees. Kicking through the meadow's tall grass, gritting his teeth against the pain of his cast banging against his ribs, he got the feeling of déjà vu: hadn't he run for his life through this very field before?

Yeah, last night!

Only then Xander had been with him. And he'd had both sneakers. Now he was loping along, one shoe on and one shoe off.

He was almost in the woods when the first shot rang out. Though he had been expecting it, the
crack!
of the weapon startled him. His feet did a little dance, and he tumbled over himself. Up again in no time, he plunged into the shadows of the trees. Behind him, another rifle shot cracked. He pushed deeper into the woods, then rammed his shoulder into the trunk of a big oak. He rolled around to the tree's far side and stopped. His breathing came in ragged gulps.

David hadn't bothered to grab the rifle when he'd bolted away from General Grant. He raised his hand to his head and confirmed what he expected: he'd also lost his kepi. But he still wore the blue jacket, which was now applying a pressure like gravity on his body—only in a
sideways
direction, not down-ward. If the strength of the tug was any indication, the portal was close. He noticed the canteen. It was lifting up on its strap, vibrating slightly, pointing in the same direction the tug indicated.

He craned his neck to peer past the tree. In the field behind the tents, soldiers were gathering around General Grant. The great man himself was pointing toward the woods, pushing at the soldiers and saying, “Get moving! Go!”

Me too
, David thought.
I gotta get out of here.

He pushed off the tree and ran. The canteen strap rotated on his neck until it floated a few inches off his stomach, directly in front of him. It acted like a compass needle, guiding him toward the portal . . . he hoped.

Behind him a voice yelled, “There!”

Someone fired. The musket ball tore past him, ripping through leaves, snapping branches.

David veered left. For a few steps he ignored the jacket's pull and the canteen's shift to his side. Then he turned back, farther than the canteen's bearing. It swung to his other side.

He zigzagged this way, following the tug of antechamber items, but trying to be a difficult target.

Another shot rang out. Bark exploded from a nearby tree.

A hand grabbed the back of his jacket. He yelled and threw his weight into his forward motion. The canteen hit his chest, slid up and over his shoulder. Its strap tightened around the front of his neck. Nobody had grabbed him, he realized—it was the coat, tugging at him to reverse; he had passed the portal. He skidded to a stop, turned, and ran the other way. The canteen shifted sideways. The jacket urged him to plunge into a thicket of heavy bushes. He stopped, trying to understand.

The corner of his eye caught movement toward the encampment. He turned to see a soldier twenty yards away, taking aim. He stumbled back and tumbled into the bushes. The rifle cracked.

CHAPTER

three

The musket ball sailed right over him. David hit the ground hard, flat on his back in a tangle of twigs and leaves. The air whooshed out of his lungs. He tried pulling it back in, but it wouldn't come.

Gotta move! Get up! Go!

Gasping for breath, he scrambled to stand. Not easy with only one good arm and the weight of the cast on the other one. He fell back again. His head smacked the ground—a rock, it was so hard. He realized the light around him was not from the sun. His eyes focused on a lamp mounted to a ceiling.

The antechamber. He was home.

Something struck his leg, a hard kick to it. “Xander?”

But it was the door, closing, dragging his legs with it. He remembered the baseball bat that had broken in two between the door edge and the frame when Mom had been taken. He pulled his legs up quickly, and the door slammed.

He rolled over and pushed himself up on one arm. Foliage fell off him.

“Xander?” he said again, wheezing out the word.

The room was empty. He lowered himself back down, resting his face against the wood planks. He put most of his weight onto the right side of his body, feeling his broken arm throb between his chest and the floor. He closed his eyes and breathed.

Wind hissed into the room, causing the twigs and leaves to flutter, then fly into the air. He watched them zip into the crack under the door. The largest twigs got stuck, and leaves piled up behind them. The twigs cracked and splintered. As they did, they disappeared, along with the leaves, all of it heading back where it had come from—heading back to
when
it had come from.

David stood and stared at the portal door. He didn't expect it to open. He didn't expect anything. His eyes simply needed a place to rest while he came out of a mild daze, as if awaking from a deep sleep. Having brushed that close to death, his emotions should have been raging. Instead, he felt numb. It was as though his mind had said
Enough already!
and flipped a switch. He was thankful for the break.

Slowly, he began to move again. He pulled the canteen's strap over his head and set it on the bench. He dropped his shoulder, allowing the jacket to slide off, and slipped his good arm out of the sleeve. He opened the door and walked into the hallway. He hoped Xander, Dad, and Toria, his nine-year-old sister, had fared better at getting rid of the cops than he had at rescuing Mom.