The Keepers (29 page)

“Actually, I don't need to go home. Can you take me to my aunt Lou's instead? It's close by.” Beck regarded her in the mirror for a moment. “My sister is there,” Chloe explained, and after another little pause, Beck nodded.

Chloe started to give Beck directions, but Beck just reached up and tapped a sticker on the dashboard that read:

ANY ADDRESS ANYWHERE

“Oh, sorry,” Chloe said, and she rattled off a street and number. As they swung around the next corner, Chloe leaned into Horace. “Are we supposed to take that literally?”

After a couple of blocks, they pulled up in front of a squat blue house with four little girls playing outside. Chloe got out and one of them, a girl of seven or eight with copper-colored
hair, came running. They hugged, and then Madeline pointed at the cab, a question on her face. Chloe turned, and Horace saw the words form on her lips—
my friend Horace
. Horace offered up an awkward wave. Madeline just stared.

An enormous woman with short hair came out of the house. More hugs, more talking, more pointing at Horace. Another embrace. They went inside briefly, and two minutes later Chloe reemerged, carrying an overnight bag. As she headed back to the cab, Madeline wrapped herself around her leg. Chloe staggered down the sidewalk, making the most of it, dragging the leg and Madeline with it. Horace could hear the laughter—Madeline's high squeal and Chloe's laugh, too, rich and childlike, a laugh he hadn't heard from her before. They made it all the way to the cab, and then Chloe heaved Madeline to her feet with a groan. He could hear their talk now, round and muffled. Madeline's face bent into a pout. “Tomorrow,” Chloe said. “Promise.”

Chloe pried herself away from her sister and opened the car door. Madeline's sad, suspicious eyes locked onto Horace.

“Horace, Madeline,” Chloe said. “Madeline, this is Horace. Say hi.”

“Hey, Madeline,” Horace offered, and gave another wave.

Madeline pointed abruptly to the pouch at Horace's side. “What's that?”

“It's just a box,” he said, putting his hand on it.

“No it's not,” Madeline shot back.

“It's a special box,” Chloe explained. “Like the dragonfly.
Special and private. Okay?”

Madeline nodded, eyes wide. Horace could see he'd gone up a notch in her mind. Now came yet another hug, and promises that Chloe would return in the morning. As the cab pulled away, Madeline ran alongside briefly, bare feet slapping on the sidewalk, waving frantically. Her eyes were bright and eager, but Horace saw something else in them, too—something that pleaded and pulled. Chloe waved back until she dropped out of sight, then sank into the seat with a faraway look of concern on her face. Before they'd gone a block she said, almost to herself, “She's scared. Too smart not to be.”

Horace cleared his throat. “I thought she didn't know about the dragonfly.”

“Oh, yeah. She knows it exists, of course. I don't think she knows what it does.”

“You don't think?”

“I told you I don't go thin in front of her—not since she was really little—but I don't know. She's smart. She might remember things.” A wry smile slid onto her face. “I used to play a pretty awesome game of peekaboo.”

A noise erupted from the front seat, gruff and startling, like a heavy fist pounding into a punching bag. Beck's shapeless shoulders heaved with the sound. The driver was laughing:
“Hurhh, hurrhh, hurhh.”
In the mirror, blue eyes squinted back at them. Chloe began to laugh too.

“What was that place?” Horace asked. “Who was that lady?”

“Oh, that's Aunt Lou. Not really an aunt, but whatever. She watches Madeline a lot. And me too, when I was younger.”

“So Madeline's staying there. You
do
think there's danger, like Mr. Meister said.”

“God, Horace.” Chloe leaned her head against the glass.

“That was some story he told us. I feel kind of . . . small after hearing all that.”

“Yeah, some story.”

“So are you going to join them? The Wardens?”

“Are you?”

“I guess it depends on what you do.”

She turned toward him. “Why?”

“Well, if I go off and join the Wardens, who's going to stick around to rescue you?”

“Very funny. Look, I get that they want our help protecting the Tanu. I'm just not sure yet that I want theirs.”

Five minutes later, Beck dropped them off a few houses down from Horace's house. He could see his mother was already home from work. Chloe refused to come in, not wanting his parents to see her and invite her to dinner.

“They'll invite me even if they don't want me,” she said. “They're polite.”

“So come to dinner. They love you.”

“Nah. I'm really not in the mood to deal with parents right now. I just need to think for a while.”

“You sure?”

“Sure,” Chloe said, already backing away. “I'll sneak up
to the attic. See you tonight.” She slipped between two neighbors' houses and disappeared.

Inside, Horace's mother said nothing about his lateness. Horace probably would not have cared even if he had gotten in trouble. The sudden absence of Chloe was muddling his mood. Later, during dinner, he had to stop himself from looking at the ceiling every thirty seconds, imagining Chloe up there alone. At bedtime, he left his desk lamp on, pointed at the wall, and waited impatiently in the near-dark for her. Time crept by like clouds. Where was she? At last, at 10:18, there came a soft knocking, and she stepped through his closet door.

“Howdy,” she said.

“Hey,” Horace whispered. “We have to be quiet, okay? My parents are still up.”

“I know. I'll use my inside voice.”

The sight and sound of her was like a cure, like a fog thinning. Chloe moved around the room like a cat without a care, wandering to his desk and digging aimlessly. She found a bottle of bubbles, sat on the foot of the bed, and blew a barrage of bubbles into the air. As they drifted down around her, she went thin, holding out her arms and letting the bubbles sink unpopped through her flesh.

“How was dinner?” she asked.

“Strangely normal. I brought you a couple of rolls.”

“Thanks, but I'm not really hungry. I snacked.” Chloe pushed her finger into the center of a small, tight bubble,
wearing it like a fat ring. “Did you get in trouble for coming home late?”

“No. My mom didn't even ask. My dad would've, but he wasn't home yet.”

“Well, it could be worse. My dad . . . he never asks where I've been anymore. He might not see me for a whole day but never miss me. I haven't even been grounded in years, and some of the stuff I do? Seriously.”

“My dad grounds me for stupid stuff sometimes,” said Horace. “That would be weird now, wouldn't it? Getting grounded? Here we are with our ‘instruments of legend,' and I can't even watch TV.”

Chloe snorted. “Yeah. You can see the future . . . but in that future, there will be no dessert.” Horace laughed, but Chloe went on: “Actually, my dad grounds me all the time. I just never listen. He never remembers. Last time he grounded me, he called me by my mom's name. He didn't even say what it was for.” She dipped the bubble blower into the bottle, brought it to her lips. She coaxed out a bubble as big as a grapefruit. It wobbled over her, glinting. “Watch this.” The dragonfly's wings flitted into motion. She leaned forward and let the bubble drop down into her black hair, on into her scalp, her skull. When it was halfway inside her head, the dragonfly's wings slowed to a halt. Chloe's face squinched into a comic pucker and one hand shot open, fingers straight and electric. “Bubble brain,” she squeaked, eyebrows arched.

Horace frowned. “Is that good for you?”

“Oh, Horace,” Chloe said, blinking and pinching the bridge of her nose. “You're so Horace.” She capped the bubble bottle and flopped back on the bed. “So are you going to do it?”

“Do what?”

“You know.” She punched her small fists into the air. “Fight. Join the Wardens.”

“I'm the one who asked
you
that. You're the one that's being weird about it.”

“I'm not being weird. I'm adjusting.”

“Adjusting to what?”

“Well, think about it—for you, this whole thing is new. But for me, it's like I've had this private thing for years, and now all these strangers want me to do a little dance.” She did a goofy little shimmy on the bed, her face deadly serious.

Horace had to smile. “I hadn't thought about that.”

“And the old folks. Mr. Meister and Mrs. Crabhead. Do you really trust them? That story he told us about the Makers—that seemed . . . heavy. All that stuff about the Riven taking over the world.”

“You don't believe that?”

“I just think there are things they don't tell us.”

“There are things we don't tell them, either.”

Chloe shrugged, as if to suggest she wasn't sure about that—a ridiculous idea. “But do you
trust
them?” she said.

And did he? Mrs. Hapsteade's abrupt manner and her obvious misgivings about the box. Mr. Meister's unmistakable
shroud of secrecy, even as answers poured from him. It was hard to say how honest they were, how trustworthy. But if it weren't for them, Horace would never have found the box. And if it weren't for them, he might already have lost it by now. “Yeah, I think I trust them. Or how about this? I absolutely trust that they don't want our instruments to fall into the hands of the Riven. For now, that's enough for me.” He watched Chloe mull this over, and then he said, “More than them, though, I trust you.”

“You do?”

“Of course. If you're in, I'm in.”

“And what if I'm not?”

“Then I don't know. But anyway, we'll see Mr. Meister again soon.”

Chloe laughed softly. “Sooner or later a moon elevator,” she said.

“What? What does that mean?”

“Something my dad used to say. After my mom left.” Here she paused, as if making room for Horace to ask about that, but he wasn't sure how to begin. After a moment she continued. “He meant it like, good things will happen eventually if you just have patience. But for me it means kind of the opposite now—it means you shouldn't sit around waiting for rescue.”

Horace thought that one over for a while. He said, “I guess it depends on where you are. If you're on earth, it might be cool if a moon elevator appeared one day.”

“Right. But if you're stuck on the moon, waiting for an elevator would be a stupid thing to do. And I've been feeling sort of stuck on the moon lately. Far and alone. Like Rip.” She pointed straight overhead, where the lightning bug was crawling through the ceiling's field of stars.

Far and alone. Horace watched as the bug took off and began drifting around the room like a sagging zeppelin. Horace had forgotten to send him through the night. He wondered how big a burden the light he hauled was. It looked so heavy, dragging the bug down. And yet it must be everything to the bug, right? Why else bother?

“So, your mom,” Horace said softly. “Can I ask you why she left?”

Chloe sat up and leaned against the wall, her face turning to stone. “Apparently you can.” She popped a mint into her mouth, chomping. She wrapped her arms around her knees. For a while, the room was silent except for the sound of the mint being ground into powder between her teeth.

“I'm sorry,” Chloe said. “I'm feeling . . . antsy. I don't handle antsy well.”

“Why are you antsy?”

“All this stuff about trust. Not telling people things.”

“Yeah?”

She hesitated for a moment. “And also what I said earlier. About not needing your help?” She let the words hang there, her face still stern but her eyes pleading. She shrugged an apology.

“Chloe, what's going on?”

“I need you to come with me.”

“Come with you where?”

“To my house. Like . . . now. There's something I have to do. Something I can't do without you.” Dread crept slowly over Horace. If Chloe was being this hesitant, something was seriously wrong. “I have to tell you two things,” she said. “Try not to flip.”

“I don't flip.”

“Well, we'll see. Here goes. One: I did have that bone thing Mr. Meister was talking about. The leestone. Only I never knew what it was. But I had it for years and then it disappeared, a few months back. Around the time the freak started showing up.”

Horace opened his mouth to protest—he couldn't help it—but then closed it again. He nodded instead. “Okay.”

“Two.” Chloe squared herself. “That other thing he talked about. The malkund. I think my dad has one.”

Horace had to bite his tongue again. So many lies she'd told to Mr. Meister, so many things she'd kept hidden. “Okay,” he said slowly. “What is it, exactly?”

“I don't know, some little black stone. A figurine, I think. He's always rubbing it between his fingers. He always has it. It makes a sound, sometimes.”

“What kind of sound?”

“Like a chirp, maybe? I don't know. I think it does. But the whole thing is really weird, and it seems exactly like what
Mr. Meister was talking about. And my dad's been different. He's actually been drinking less, but he's worse, somehow. Farther away. He's not as unpredictable, but it's only because he's . . . deader. And he always has that thing, for the last few months.”

“Since you lost the bone?”

“I didn't
lose
it—somebody took it. But yes, maybe that long. It's all sort of recent—the bone, the black stone, Dr. Jericho always after me.”

Horace felt his worry rising. If all she was saying was true, Chloe's house was a very dangerous place for them to be. “So what do you want us to do?”