“You’re the one who cleared my list,” I say, the pieces fitting together. “There were
names on my list, and they just disappeared.”
“Oh, sorry.” He rubs his neck. “I didn’t even think about that. This place has been
shared for so long. They always keep the Coronado doors unlocked for me. Didn’t mean
any harm.”
A moment of quiet hangs between us.
“So,” he says.
“So,” I say.
A smile begins to creep up the side of Wesley’s face.
“What?” I ask.
“Oh, come on, Mac…” He blows at a chunk of hair hanging in his face.
“Come on, what?” I say, still sizing him up.
“You don’t think it’s cool?” He gives up and fixes his hair with his fingers. “To
meet another Keeper?”
“I’ve never met one except for my grandfather.” It sounds naive, but it never occurred
to me to think of others. I mean, I knew they existed, but out of sight, out of mind.
The territories, the branches of the Archive—I think they’re all designed to make
you feel like an only child. Unique. Or solitary.
“Me either,” Wes is saying. “What a broadening experience this is.” He squares his
shoulders toward me. “My name is Wesley Ayers, and I am a Keeper.” He breaks out into
a full grin. “It feels good to say it out loud. Try.”
I look up at him, the words caught in my throat. I have spent four years with this
secret bottled in me. Four years lying, hiding, and bleeding, to hide what I am from
everyone I meet.
“My name is Mackenzie Bishop,” I say. Four years since Da died, and not a single slip.
Not to Mom or Dad, not to Ben, or even to Lynds. “And I am a Keeper.”
The world doesn’t end. People don’t die. Doors don’t open. Crew don’t pour out and
arrest me. Wesley Ayers beams enough for both of us.
“I patrol the Narrows,” he says.
“I hunt Histories,” I say.
“I return them to the Archive.”
It becomes a game, whispered and breathless.
“I hide who I am.”
“I fight with the dead.”
“I lie to the living.”
“I am alone.”
And then I get why Wes can’t stop smiling, even though it looks silly with his eyeliner
and jet-black hair and hard jaw and scars. I am not alone. The words dance in my mind
and in his eyes and against our rings and our keys, and now I smile too.
“Thank you,” I say.
“My pleasure,” he says, looking up at the sky. “It’s getting late. I’d better go.”
For one silly, nonsensical moment, I’m scared of his leaving, scared he’ll never come
back and I’ll be left with this, this…loneliness. I swallow the strange panic and
force myself not to follow him to the study door.
Instead I keep still and watch him tuck his key beneath his shirt, roll his ring so
the three lines are hidden against his palm. He looks exactly the same, and I wonder
if I do too and how that’s possible, considering how I feel—like some door in me has
been opened and left ajar.
“Wesley,” I call after him, instantly berating myself when he stops and glances back
at me.
“Good night,” I say lamely.
He smiles and closes the gap between us. His fingers brush over my key before they
curl around it, and guide it under the collar of my shirt, the metal cold against
my skin.
“Good night, Keeper,” he says.
And then he’s gone.
I
LINGER A MOMENT
in the garden after Wes is gone, savoring the taste of our confessions on my tongue,
the small defiance of sharing a secret. I focus on the coolness creeping into the
air around me, and the hush of the evening.
Da took me onto the stretch of green behind his house once and told me that building
walls—blocking out people and their noise—should feel like this. An armor of quiet.
Told me that walls were just like a ring but better because they were in my head,
and because they could be strong enough to silence anything. If I could just learn
to build them.
But I couldn’t. I sometimes think that maybe, if I could remember what it felt like,
touching people and feeling nothing but skin… But I can’t, and when I try to block
out their noise, it just gets worse, and I feel like I’m in a glass box under the
ocean, the sound and pressure cracking in. Da ran out of time to teach me, so all
I have are frustrating memories of him wrapping his arm around people without even
flinching, making it look so easy, so normal.
I would give anything to be normal.
The thought creeps in, and I force it away. No I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give anything.
I wouldn’t give the bond I had with Da. I wouldn’t give the time I have with Ben’s
drawer. I wouldn’t give Roland, and I wouldn’t give the Archive, with its impossible
light and the closest thing I’ve ever felt to peace. This is all I have. This is all
I am.
I head for the study doors, thinking of the murdered girl and the bloodstained boy.
I have a job.
SERVAMUS MEMORIAM
. I push the doors open, and stiffen when I see the large woman behind the desk in
the corner.
“Ms. Angelli.”
Her eyebrows inch into a nest of hair I strongly suspect is a wig, and a moment of
surprise passes before recognition spreads across her broad face. If she’s upset to
see me after this morning, she doesn’t show it, and I wonder for once if I read too
much into her rush to leave. Maybe she really was late for an appraisal.
“Mackenzie Bishop, of the baked goods,” she says. Her voice is quieter here in the
study, almost reverent. Several large texts are spread before her, the corners of
the pages worn. A cup of tea sits nestled in the space between two books.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
“Histories, mostly.” I know she only means the kind in books, the
little h
kind, as Da would say. Still, I flinch.
“Where did they all come from?” I ask, gesturing toward the volumes stacked on the
table and lining the walls.
“The books? Oh, they appeared over time. A resident took one and left two behind.
The study simply grew. I’m sure they stocked it when the Coronado was first converted,
leather-bound classics and atlases and encyclopedias. But these days it’s a delightful
mix of old and new and odd. Just the other night I found a romance novel mixed in
with the directories! Imagine.”
My pulse skips. “Directories?”
Something nervous shifts in her face, but she points a ringed finger over her shoulder.
My eyes skim the walls of books behind her until they land on a dozen or so slightly
larger than the rest, more uniform. In the place of a title, each spine has a set
of dates.
“They chronicle the residents?” I ask casually, eyes skimming the years. The dates
go all the way back to the earliest parts of the past century. The first half of the
books are red. The second half are blue.
“They were first used while the Coronado was still a hotel,” she explains. “A kind
of guestbook, if you will. Those red ones, those are from the hotel days. The blue
ones are from the conversion on.”
I round the table to the shelf that bears the books’ weight. Pulling the most recent
one from the wall and flipping through, I see that each directory comprises five years’
worth of residential lists, an ornate page dividing each year. I go to the last divider,
the most recent year, and turn until I get to the page for the third floor. In the
column for 3F, someone has crossed out the printed word
Vacant
and added
Mr. and Mrs. Peter Bishop
in pencil. Flipping back through, I find that 3F has been vacant for two years, and
was rented before that to a
Mr. Bill Lighton
. I close the book, return it to the shelf, and immediately take up the previous directory.
“Looking for something?” Ms. Angelli asks. There’s a subtle tension in her voice.
“Just curious,” I say, again searching for 3F. Still
Mr. Lighton
. Then
Ms. Jane Olinger
. I pause, but I know from reading the walls that it was more than ten years ago,
and besides, the girl was too young to be living alone. I reshelve the book and pull
the next one down.
Ms. Olinger
again.
Before that,
Mr. and Mrs. Albert Locke
. Still not far enough.
Before that,
Vacant
.
Is this how normal people learn the past?
Next, a
Mr. Kenneth Shaw
.
And then I find what I’m looking for. The wall of black, the dead space between most
of the memories and the murder. I run my finger down the column.
Vacant.
Vacant.
Vacant.
Not just one set, either. There are whole books of
Vacant
. Ms. Angelli watches me too intently, but I keep pulling the books down until I reach
the last blue book, the one that starts with the conversion: 1950 – 54.
The 1954 book is marked
Vacant
, but when I reach the divider marked
1953
, I stop.
3F is missing.
The entire floor is missing.
The entire
year
is missing.
In its place is a stack of blank paper. I turn back through 1952 and 1951. Both are
blank. There’s no record of the murdered girl. There’s no record of
anyone
. Three entire years are just…missing. The inaugural year, 1950, is there, but there’s
no name written under 3F. What did Lyndsey say? There was nothing on record.
Suspiciously
nothing.
I drop the blue book open on the table, nearly upsetting Ms. Angelli’s tea.
“You look a touch pale, Mackenzie. What is it?”
“There are pages missing.”
She frowns. “The books are old. Perhaps something fell out.…”
“No,” I snap. “The years are deliberately blank.”
Apartment 3F sat vacant for nearly two decades after the mysterious missing chunk
of time. The murder. It had to have happened in those years.
“Surely,” she says, more to herself than to me, “they must be archived somewhere.”
“Yeah, I—” And it hits me. “You’re right. You’re totally right.” Whoever did this
tampered with evidence in the Outer, but they can’t tamper with it in the Archive.
I’m already out of the leather chair. “Thanks for your help,” I say, scooping up the
directory and returning it to its shelf.
Ms. Angelli’s eyebrows inch up. “Well, I didn’t really do—”
“You did. You’re brilliant. Thanks. Good night!” I’m at the door, then through it,
into the Coronado’s lobby, and pulling the key from my neck and the ring from my finger
before I even reach the door set into the stairs.
“What brings you to the Archive, Miss Bishop?”
It’s Lisa at the desk. She looks up, pen hovering over a series of ledgers set side
by side behind the
QUIET PLEASE
sign, which I’m pretty sure is her contribution. Her black bob frames her face, and
her eyes are keen but kind—two different shades—behind a pair of green horn-rimmed
glasses. Lisa is a Librarian, of course, but unlike Roland, or Patrick, or most of
the others, for that matter, she really looks the part (aside from the fact that one
of her eyes is glass, a token from her days as Crew).
I fiddle with the key around my wrist.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I lie, even though it’s not that late. It’s my default response
here, the way people always answer
How are you?
with
Good
or
Great
or
Fine
, even when they’re not. “Those look nice,” I say, gesturing to her nails. They’re
bright gold.
“You think so?” she asks, admiring them. “Found the polish in the closets. Roland’s
idea. He says they’re all the rage right now.”
I’m not surprised. In addition to his public addiction to trashy magazines, Roland
has a private addiction to stealing glances at newly added Histories. “He would know.”
Her smile thins. “What can I do for you tonight, Miss Bishop?” she asks, two-toned
eyes leveled on me.
I hesitate. I could tell Lisa what I’m looking for, of course, but I’ve already used
up my quota of Lisa-issued rule-bending coupons this month, what with the visits to
Ben’s shelf. And I don’t have any bartering chips, no tokens from the Outer that she
might like. I’m comfortable with Lisa, but if I ask her and she says no, I’ll never
make it past the desk.
“Is Roland around?” I ask casually. Lisa’s gaze lingers, but then she goes back to
writing in the ledgers.
“Ninth wing, third hall, fifth room. Last time I checked.”
I smile and round the desk to the doors.
“Repeat it,” orders Lisa.
I roll my eyes, but parrot, “Nine, three, five.”
“Don’t get lost,” she warns.
My steps slow as I cross into the atrium. The stained glass is dark, as if the sky
beyond—if there were a sky—had slipped to night. But still the Archive is bright,
well-lit despite the lack of lights. Walking through is like wading into a pool of
water. Cool, crisp, beautiful water. It slows you and holds you and washes over you.
It is dazzling. Wood and stone and colored glass and calm. I force myself to look
down at the dark wood floor, and find my way out of the atrium, repeating the numbers
nine three five, nine three five, nine three five.
It is too easy to go astray.
The Archive is a patchwork, pieces added and altered over the years, and the bit of
hall I wander down is made of paler wood, the ceilings still high but the placards
on the front of the shelves worn. I reach the fifth room, and the style shifts again,
with marble floors and a lower ceiling. Every space is different, and yet in all of
them, that steady quiet reigns.
Roland is standing in front of an open drawer, his back to me and his fingertips pressed
gently into a man’s shoulder.
When I enter the room, his hands shift from the History to its drawer, sliding it
closed with one fluid, silent motion. He turns my way, and for a moment his eyes are
so…sad. But then he blinks and recovers.
“Miss Bishop.”
“’Evening, Roland.”
There’s a table and a pair of chairs in the center of the room, but he doesn’t invite
me to sit. He seems distracted.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Of course.” An automatic reply. “What brings you here?”
“I need a favor.” His brows knit. “Not Ben. I promise.”
He looks around the space, then leads me into the hall beyond, where the walls are
free of shelves.
“Go on…” he says slowly.
“Something horrible happened in my room. A murder.”
A brow arches. “How do you know?”
“Because I read it.”
“You shouldn’t be reading things unnecessarily, Miss Bishop. The point of that gift
is not to indulge in—”
“I know, I know. The perils of curiosity. But don’t pretend you’re immune to it.”
His mouth quirks.
“Look, isn’t there any way you can…” I cast my arm wide across the room, gesturing
at the walls of bodies, of lives.
“Any way I can
what
?”
“Do a search? Look for residents of the Coronado. Her death would have been in March.
Sometime between 1951 and 1953. If I can find the girl here in the Archive, then we
can read her and find out who she was, and who
he
was—”
“Why? Just to slake your interest? That’s hardly the purpose of these files—”
“Then what is?” I snap. “We’re supposed to protect the past. Well, someone is trying
to erase it. Years are missing from the Coronado’s records. Years in which a girl
was
murdered
. The boy who killed her
left
. He ran. I need to find out what happened. I need to know if he got away, and I can’t—”
“So that’s what this is about,” he says under his breath.
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t just about understanding a murder. It’s about Ben.”
I feel like I’ve been slapped. “It’s not. I—”
“Don’t insult me, Miss Bishop. You’re a remarkable Keeper, but I know why you can’t
stand leaving a name on your list. This isn’t just about curiosity, it’s about closure—”
“Fine. But that doesn’t change the fact that something horrible happened in my room,
and someone tried to cover it up.”
“People do bad things,” Roland says quietly.
“Please.” Desperation creeps in with the word. I swallow. “Da used to say that Keepers
needed three things: skill, luck, and intuition. I have all three. And my gut says
something is
wrong
.”
He tilts his head a fraction. It’s a tell. He’s bending.
“Humor me,” I say. “Just help me find out who she was, so I can find out who
he
was.”
He straightens but pulls a small pad from his pocket and begins to make notes.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I smile, careful not to make it broad—I don’t want him to think he was conned—just
wide enough to read as grateful. “Thank you, Roland.”
He grunts. I feel the telltale scratch of letters in my pocket, and retrieve the list
to find a new name.MelanieAllen.10.I rub my thumb over the number. Ben’s age.
“All well?” he asks casually.
“Just a kid,” I say, pocketing the list.
I turn to go, but hesitate. “I’ll keep you apprised, Miss Bishop,” says Roland in
answer to my pause.
“I owe you.”
“You always do,” he says as I leave.
I wind my way back through the halls and the atrium and into the antechamber, where
Lisa is flipping through the pages of her ledgers, eyes narrowed in concentration.