The One Safe Place (21 page)

Devin opened the brochure. Inside were more photos of the Home: children playing on the go-carts and the climbing wall and a big close-up of one of the horses on the carousel, its wooden mane tossed back, its teeth bared.

Are you low? Are you bored?
Devin read.
Have you lost heart?

Has the passing of time sapped your strength and dulled your spirit?

We offer the solution!

Simply press RE-PLAY!

Devin turned the page.

WHAT IS RE-PLAY?

The Re-Play Treatment is a unique remedy for the depression of old age. As the years pass we forget how to play. But play is essential! It energizes us, increases optimism, eases burdens and provides joy. Now, thanks to the pioneering genius of our founder, Gabriel H. Penn, you can experience that joy again.

Actually experience it.

Just as you remember.

Devin stopped reading. He thought back to his meeting with the Administrator and the way she’d smiled when he mentioned the Visitors.

They weren’t visiting the Home looking for kids to adopt, he thought, with a shock of understanding. They came to become kids again. Literally. To run and jump and throw and catch. To eat marshmallows around a campfire and swim in the pool and put a jigsaw puzzle together.

They came to play. And the kids were their toys.

Numbly he replaced the brochure on the pile, his eyes traveling across the room to the portrait on the far wall. He’d seen that face before. He’d seen it in his nightmare of the little boy. And he’d seen it in the window of his room. He’d thought a giant was peering in at him, but it was worse than that. It was his own reflection.

Devin stared down at the ring on his hand. An eagle, just like the one on the hood of the large sleek car . . .

I’m saving you for something special.

What could be more “special,” Devin thought, than to swap bodies with the great Mr. Gabriel Penn himself?

But why me? Devin thought. Why swap with me?

Because he was different, he saw the world in a way that others didn’t: richer, far more colorful, alive with sound and sensation. But there was more to it than that. It was also because of the farm. He’d been sheltered there, kept from knowledge of the outside world and all its fears. That made him different too. The Administrator had called him the most unusual child she had ever come across. Unusual enough to persuade her father to visit the Home at last and try out his own invention for himself.

She had used him as bait, he thought. A worm held dangling to catch a rare fish.

Devin didn’t know how he made it back to his room without being discovered, because he made no effort to be careful. He shuffled along toward the stairs as fast as he could, his heart bursting with effort, shooting pains running up his back at each lurch of his hips. He knew he looked grotesque, Gabriel Penn with bare feet trying to run down a corridor and managing only a wheezing, panicky trot. But he was past caring what he looked like. He just wanted to get back to his room, curl up in the bed, and wait out the long hours until he was free again.

He reached his room at last. The minute he was inside he reached up and placed the hairpin on the tiny ledge of the doorframe. Then he sank down, exhausted.

Luke would figure it out, he thought. Luke and the others would know what to do.

Eighteen

THE TROUBLE WAS, LUKE
didn’t believe him. Malloy and Kit were no better.

“Sounds like just another dream,” Malloy said. “A really bad one. Sometimes they do seem totally real . . .”

Kit nodded. “You just have to suck it up, Devin. I told you before.”

“But it wasn’t a dream,” Devin cried. And he started explaining it all over again.

They were sitting in the small meadow. Devin had gathered them there because it was out of the way and he knew they wouldn’t be overheard. He had spent the rest of his stay at the Place lying on his bed, pretending to sleep when Mrs. Babbage came in and out but fighting real sleep with all his might. He didn’t want any more nightmares. He’d kept his gaze away from the window and his reflection, counting the minutes, his mind struggling with the knowledge that as he lay there helpless, Gabriel Penn had taken over his body and was using his mouth to talk, his legs to run. There was a stranger in his skin and the thought of it left Devin weak with outrage and horror.

Finally, at the end of the second day in the Place, a deep sleep came over him, too strong to fight. The shot they’d given him was wearing off, and it was the sleep of return. The minute he’d woken in his own bed, he had run to find the others. But now they wouldn’t listen.

“I saw the brochure!” he insisted. “They’re selling this place as a kind of treatment for old people . . . They’re selling us.”

Luke frowned and rubbed his forehead. “It can’t be right, Devin. A couple of visits ago, they forgot to bring me the drink. Doing without it for a whole morning didn’t make me remember anything. It just hurt like hell.”

“Maybe it’s not just the drink,” Devin argued. “Maybe there’s something in the shot that makes you lose memory, and the drink just helps it along.”

“Then why would it happen to me and not to you?”

Devin was tempted to say that his grandfather had come back from the dead to help him, but he didn’t think it would be very convincing.

“I don’t know, it just did.”

“It happened when you smelled the soap,” Kit said. She turned to the others. “His senses are different, remember? Everything is stronger for him. Maybe the smell was strong enough to break through.” She turned to Devin. “Is rosemary special for you in any way?”

He thought of the grave at the top of the hill.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

“So they’re swapping us with old people?” Malloy cried out incredulously.

Luke was silent. “I suppose it’s possible,” he said at last.

“No it’s not!” Malloy burst out. “It’s impossible times ten.”

“Okay,” Luke said, talking very fast. “I once did this Hi-Speed course on the biology of the brain. And in theory, it is possible—”

“You’re telling me that people can go around swapping their bodies?”

“Not swapping bodies!” Luke snapped. “It’s not that. It’s swapping minds. I know that sounds like the same thing, but it’s not. It’s completely different.”

“I don’t get it,” Malloy argued. “Why is swapping brains any different?”

Luke jumped up in agitation. “No! Not brains!” he cried. “I said minds!”

“But how do they do it?” Devin said. “How do they swap our minds?”

Luke sat down, but he kept on talking just as fast as before. Devin tried his best to follow, but it was hard. Luke seemed to be saying that Gabriel Penn—or a team of scientists working for him—could, in theory, have found a way to see all the connections that made up a person’s mind and they could have developed a method—using a combination of biology, chemistry, and technology—to transfer one person’s mind patterns into another person’s brain, at least for a while.

“So you’re saying it is possible,” Malloy said slowly.

Luke nodded to himself, caught up in thought. “Amazing, really, completely amazing . . . and very cool.”

“It’s not cool!” Malloy half shouted. “It’s terrible! It’s . . . it’s like stealing your soul.”

“Yeah, that too,” Luke said.

Devin glanced at Kit, but she had her head down and was tugging at the grass, pulling out clumps and flicking them away.

Things were starting to be clearer to Devin now.

The reason the Home was so old-fashioned wasn’t just because the Visitors liked to remember the past, it was so they could actually experience the past. The group activities weren’t for the children; they were only organized to provide extra play for the Visitors. Even the name of the Home itself now made sense. It wasn’t a home for children but for childhood: the Visitors’ childhoods.

It was obvious now why the kids became “spoiled.” Over time, it must be devastating to a child’s mind to be treated like that. No wonder Pavel had been struck dumb and Jared had started behaving as if he were five years old.

“We act crazy when we’re in the Dream,” he said. “But it’s not us, is it? It’s the Visitors who are acting crazy.”

“Yeah,” Malloy agreed, looking as if he might be sick. “They probably can’t believe how good it feels to be a kid again.”

“But why do we have the dreams?” Devin asked. “Why do we have such bad dreams?”

“My guess is that they’re leftovers,” Luke said. “Really negative emotions can actually change the makeup of the brain itself. We’re using their brains, remember? So the Visitors must leave bits of themselves behind—the bad bits.”

Devin thought of the little boy in the dream with his terrible old man’s face who had sobbed as if his heart would break. Who was he? And what had he done to become a leftover in Penn’s brain?

“Now do you agree that we’ve got to escape?” Malloy cried. “We can’t go to the Place again, not knowing this.”

Luke nodded. “Bad as it was before, this makes it ten times worse.”

Devin glanced again at Kit. She had gone pale but she was still plucking at the grass, taking no part in the discussion.

“Kit? What do you say?”

She gave him an odd, defiant look. “I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t know. I have to think about it, okay?”

“What’s to think about?” Malloy demanded. But Kit just shook her head and refused to answer.

Devin found her later that day, down by the kennels. She had taken Frisker to visit the other puppies, and all four dogs were tumbling wildly, frantic with joy. Devin couldn’t help smiling at the sight. Kit was smiling too, and it gave him hope that she’d come out of whatever strange mood she’d been in.

“You okay?”

She looked at him and then looked away.

“Sure,” she said tightly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“We’ll get out of here,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out a way. Luke’s smart, and so is Malloy in his own way. And you’re tougher than anyone.”

“What if I don’t want to get out?”

Devin stared at her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

“But they’re using us! Kit, weren’t you listening?”

“I can take it. Like you say, I’m tough. I’m staying until I get adopted.”

“By . . . a Visitor?”

She shrugged.

“Why would you want to be adopted by the same people who’ve been doing this terrible stuff?” Devin protested. “People who’ve used you like that could never really love you.”

Kit jumped to her feet, her fists clenched. “Love! Who said anything about that? I’ve never been loved and I’ve gotten along just fine.”

Devin wanted to tell her she was wrong about never being loved, but he couldn’t find the words.

“Love!” she repeated in a scornful voice. “Listen, the people who’ll adopt me will be old, very old. That means they’ll die soon; and when parents die, their children inherit all their stuff.”

“So it’s about that,” Devin said quietly, thinking of her dollhouse furniture and the way her face had looked as she imagined it being real and all hers. “It’s just about having stuff.”

“You don’t understand!” she cried. “Of course it’s about having stuff! Rich people don’t get hurt, Devin. They don’t get beaten. For the first time in my life I’ll be safe.”

She scooped Frisker into her arms, and before Devin could say anything, she hurried away, her shoulders hunched, her face buried in the puppy’s soft fur.