The Secret Keepers Page 16

So it was that when Jack entered his dark study late one autumn evening in search of reading glasses and found the window open, with a cold breeze billowing the curtains into the room, he was, at that moment, the most contented and carefree he had ever been—or, after that moment, ever would be again.

  Whistling to himself (quietly, for the baby was asleep in the adjacent room), puzzled but untroubled, Jack set his lamp on the desk, leaned out the window and drew the shutters closed, and then closed the window itself. Only then, as he turned back to face the room, did he become aware that he was not alone.

  In the corner behind the door stood a man.

  Jack was so used to keeping quiet for the baby’s sake, even his alarmed exclamation came out in a whisper. The man wore a long traveling cloak and an ancient-looking hat that shadowed his face.

  “Hello, Jack,” the man said, in a voice so familiar that Jack’s fright instantly turned to bewilderment. The man removed his hat, simultaneously unshading his face and uncovering his head to reveal a jumble of curling red hair streaked with white, and Jack saw then that the face smiling at him now was not the face of a man at all.

  Jack saw then that the face smiling at him now was not the face of a man at all.

  Don’t look so surprised,” said his sister. “It’s only been twenty years.” She crossed the distance between them with three brisk strides and threw her arms around Jack.

  It took him a few moments to recover from his shock. “Penelope!” he whispered at last. “You’re alive!”

  Penelope drew back, swatting him roughly on the shoulder. “Why, of course I’m alive, Jack,” she said, looking offended. “You know I’d have told you if I wasn’t!” Then she laughed and kissed his cheek.

  They stood for a time regarding each other in silence. Penelope, her brother noted, stood as straight as ever, but gone was the fair complexion of her youth. Her skin was blotchy now and etched with wrinkles, like a coffee-stained parchment that had been crumpled up and then smoothed out again. She had dark circles under her eyes, which had grown heavy-lidded, and one of her earlobes was noticeably disfigured, suggesting a long-ago encounter with fang or blade. There was a seriousness, even a gravity, about her that had been absent before. She looked as strong as ever, perhaps even stronger, but she also looked… What was it? Jack wondered.

  Haunted. Shadowed. To avoid betraying these feelings to his sister, Jack lowered his gaze and saw that her knee-high boots were splotched with black mud.

  “I waited for the tide to go out,” Penelope said, which made no sense. Jack thought he must have misunderstood her. “I did my best to scrape most of the mud off. I don’t wish to make an enemy of your wife.”

  Jack started and looked up. “My wife! April! Good God, you’ve never even met her!” He chuckled. “She always says I couldn’t surprise her if I tried, but I believe this will do the trick. She’s just gone to bed, so let me fetch her and you can tell us everything. I’m tempted to get Jack junior out of his crib—but no, we’ll just peek in at him, and in the morning you can… Penelope, what is it?”

  His sister’s expression had darkened. “You have a baby?”

  “Of course. Well, he won’t be a baby for much longer, I suppose. He’s already over a year old. Why, what’s the matter?”

  Penelope was shaking her head. “This changes things,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t have come. I almost didn’t. But I wanted to see you, and… well, Jack, you’re the only person I trust. The only person in all the world.”

  Jack stared at his sister, instantly serious. “Let me fetch April,” he said gravely. “Then you can explain everything.”

  “I can’t explain everything—”

  “Then you’ll explain what you can.” Jack came back almost at once with his young wife, who embraced Penelope as if she were her own beloved sister.

  “Please be comfortable,” April said, after they had exchanged greetings. “Jack, you must take her cloak and hat and bring her a blanket.…”

  Soon they were all sitting around the great room fireplace with cups of tea, and Penelope had been given a plate of hot beans and bread—which was all, she insisted, that she had the stomach for tonight. Her boots were off; her cloak and hat had been hung up; a blanket lay across her legs. She would have presented a picture of tranquil domesticity had it not been for the gleaming revolver on the table beside her chair. The pistol had been revealed when she handed Jack her cloak, and with apologies to April (whose eyes had gone wide at the sight of it), she’d removed it from its holster to be more comfortable.

  “There’s no need to apologize,” April said, quickly recovering. And though for the rest of the evening Jack’s eyes were repeatedly drawn to the gun, April herself made a point of never glancing at it again, as if it were no more out of place on her table than a lace doily would have been.

  As Penelope ate her simple meal, she listened to Jack and April’s account of all the happenings in Point William since her last visit so many years before. Then, gesturing for them to remain seated, she rose and slipped her revolver back into its holster. In silence they watched her step to the window, draw back the curtain an inch to peer out, and let it fall closed again. From a deep pocket inside her loose-fitting trousers, she withdrew something neither Jack nor April could see, for she subtly shifted her body to shield it from view. After the merest glimpse, she returned it to her pocket. Jack had the impression she’d been checking the time, though why she would do that so slyly, he had no idea. Still, he might have thought no more about it had she not repeated the curious gesture several times over the rest of the night.

  “I don’t know if you’ll remember, Jack,” she said, returning to stand by the fire, “or if you even received any of my last letters, but I fell in with a man named Bartholomew.… Yes? You remember him? I believe I mentioned him just twice before I thought better of putting his name down in writing. It was the sort of thing he might kill a person for if ever he should find out. Very dangerous fellow, Bartholomew. Very dangerous. The only man I’ve ever truly feared. I knew within five minutes of meeting him that he was more intelligent than anyone I’d ever known, including myself. And I have no small opinion of myself, Jack, as you know. Still, I believed I could handle Bartholomew if only I was careful.”

  “You thought he would lead you into fortune,” said Jack, now holding April’s hand tightly in his own.

  “And he did. A very dark fortune. Years and years of treachery, of wicked people lurking behind every corner, in every shadow, behind every door. People who wanted the same thing Bartholomew wanted—and who, when at last he was within reach of it, would stop at nothing to claim it for themselves. In the end, he proved cleverer than the lot of them. He was so clever, in fact, that when the time came for him to kill me, I knew exactly what he had in mind, yet could think of no way to avoid it. That, I can tell you, is a nasty feeling.”

  “You knew he was going to kill you?” April whispered, scarcely daring to speak the words.

  “Yes. I had known for a long, long time that such a day would come—a day when I no longer seemed of use to him, when he would consider my continued existence a threat. I knew too much about his secrets, you see, and he wouldn’t risk my telling anyone.”

  “Why didn’t you try to escape,” Jack asked, “before that time came?”

  Penelope shook her head. “By then the dangers were too various, the ground too uncertain. Bartholomew’s shadow, no matter how frightening, was the safest place to hide. Oh, believe me, almost from the beginning I’d been looking for the right chance to get away—but no chance ever came. Then it was too late, and I knew I had come to the end.”

  Penelope stood with her back to the comforting fire, her hands clasped behind her. But her mind, her memory, was thousands of miles away. Jack and April could see it in her eyes.

  “What spared you?” April asked at last.

  Slowly, Penelope’s eyes seemed to clear. Looking at the two of them, she half smiled and waved a hand. “Luck. Pure and s
imple luck. On the night before he was to spring his final trap, and in so doing come into possession of the precious thing he had sought for so many years, Bartholomew was bitten by a spider. A terrible sort. He grew delirious, and soon lay shivering and helpless on the floor. I thought the bite might kill him. Certainly, I could have, and I’m sorry to admit that I was tempted. Instead I took from him what I needed to escape, and leaving him to his fate, I fled.”

  “But he survived,” Jack said. “Bartholomew.” He uttered the name in a tone of contempt.

  Penelope nodded. “I managed to slip through the hands of his enemies, who wanted what I had taken from him. But later I learned that Bartholomew still lived and was on my trail. And what I must tell you now is painful, but I can’t avoid saying it: for all these many years, in every corner of the world, he has pursued me, and he continues to do so even now.”

  April gasped. Jack shot to his feet. “What?” he cried. “Even here?” With an angry look at his sister, he ran to the door and checked the bolt, and was crossing the room—going to check the back door as well—when Penelope intercepted him.

  “Not here, Jack, not tonight, I swear!” she said, holding him by the arms in a powerful grip. “You have to believe me. I know where he is tonight—he’s in the city—and he has no way of knowing I’ve come.” She looked pleadingly at April. “You must forgive me, both of you. I didn’t know you had a child! I’ve taken every precaution imaginable, but if I’d known you had a baby, I wouldn’t have dared to come even then.”

  “Why did you peek out the window?” Jack demanded. “If you’re so sure this monster is in the city, why are you so anxious?”

  “Habit, brother,” Penelope said, still clutching his arms. “Constant watchfulness has kept me alive, but it’s also a curse. I’m always wary. I’m never… anything… but wary.” These last words she spoke slowly, with a great heaviness, and as she released his arms with hands visibly trembling, Jack for a moment wondered if she hadn’t actually said weary. For just then his sister looked like the most exhausted person he’d ever seen.

  “How do you know that Bartholomew is in the city?” he asked.

  “Because, Jack. There’s more to it than I’ve told you. I’m not just being hunted by Bartholomew.” She looked him squarely in the eye so that he would see the truth in her words. “I am also hunting him.”

  Jack blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course not, because what I’m saying sounds like madness. My life is no longer about me, Jack. It’s about putting an end to a wickedness that has survived in this world for centuries. I’m in a position to do it, and until the day I die, I must do everything I can to succeed.”

  “Why have you come, Penelope?” asked April, and turning toward her, they saw with some surprise that the baby was in her arms. She had flown to his crib at the first mention of danger and now cradled him protectively as he slept on, undisturbed.

  “I came,” Penelope said reluctantly, “because I may not succeed before I die. I came because I wanted to influence what may happen after that.”

  There followed a pause, during which Jack and April exchanged glances. Whatever anger they had felt toward Penelope was dissipating, leaving only a state of tense anxiety and a desperate desire to understand.

  “I’ll make more tea,” said April, handing the baby to Jack. “Then you can tell us the rest.”

  In the end, however, though Penelope would tell them more, she would also leave much unanswered. It was to keep them safe, she said. No one would know about this visit to Point William Light—never had she been more careful to disguise her movements and cover her tracks—but it could be found out that she had connections here. If Bartholomew ever came seeking answers, Jack and his family would be protected by their ignorance.

  “But how could he tell we don’t know anything?” Jack asked. “Wouldn’t he think we were just keeping your secrets?”

  “It’s his own secrets he’s worried about,” said Penelope, “the ones that he knows I share. And he’d be able to discover easily enough that you don’t know them. He’d also see that you can’t help him locate me. Bartholomew has ways of finding things out that you can’t imagine. I’m sorry, I don’t wish to frighten you. On the contrary, I’m telling you that it wouldn’t suit his purpose to harm you. Pain leaves its own trail, and he knows as well as I what sort of dangerous game the two of us are playing. No, as long as I keep you in the dark about certain things, you’ll be safe.

  “There are some things, though,” Penelope continued, “that I must tell you—and ask of you. Jack, you’ve never told anyone about the secret place, have you?”

  “A secret place?” April repeated, turning from the bassinet, which Jack had brought into the room for the baby. She peered questioningly at Jack and Penelope, who stood facing each other before the fire. “What secret place?”

  Penelope smiled. “I hope you won’t blame my poor brother for keeping secrets, April. When we were children, our parents made us promise never to tell a soul about this place, only because it was dangerous and they feared someone would come to harm. I’ll bet Jack has wanted to tell you, but after keeping that promise all his life, he’s found it difficult to break.”

  Jack’s face had reddened. He was visibly uncomfortable. “She has me pegged,” he muttered to April.

  “Jack Meyer!” said his wife, setting her hands on her hips. “I’d never have imagined you were keeping a secret from me. Is there anything else?” Her tone was sharp, but she didn’t seem truly indignant. In fact, she seemed impressed.

  Now Jack looked relieved. “Nothing else, April. I promise.”

  “There, that’s settled,” Penelope said. “We all know that Jack is as good as his word. And because I’m sure it still makes him uncomfortable to break the promise himself, I’ll tell you what it is, April. There are some old smuggler or pirate tunnels nearby, tunnels that flood whenever the tide comes in—that’s what makes them so dangerous. They’ve been there for ages.”

  “We had a special way of remembering how to find the entrance,” Jack put in, “a sort of verse that our grandfather taught us. We never knew if he made it up or if it had been handed down for generations, perhaps even learned from one of the pirates themselves! That’s what I liked to believe as a boy, anyway. Papa took us into the tunnels once, just to show us, then forbade us ever to go into them again. And of course we had to promise not to tell anyone about them. He said they were haunted by children who had drowned in them. ‘Those tunnels are already full of ghosts,’ he said. ‘Let’s not make it any more crowded down there.’”

  “Who knows if anyone ever actually drowned?” Penelope said. “That might have been something he said just to scare us into keeping our promises.”

  April shook her head wonderingly. “So you never went back, and you never spoke of them again? You Meyers—so steady, even as children!”

  “Well,” Jack said, “Penelope and I talked about it all the time, but only between ourselves. It’s true we never went back, though.”

  Penelope snorted softly. “You never did, Jack, but do you really think I didn’t?”

  Jack gaped at her, then broke into a grin. “Honestly, I don’t know why I’m surprised. Of course you did. Probably dozens of times.”

  “Hundreds, more like,” Penelope said. “Mostly to see if I could get away with it. But to the point, Jack, you’re sure you could still find the entrance if you needed to?”

  “Of course! I couldn’t forget if I tried.”

  “Good. Because tonight I hid something extremely important down there—but you must never retrieve it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jack said. “Why are you telling us, then?”

  “When I leave here,” Penelope explained, “I’ll be going into the city, where I intend to arrange it so that if something should happen to me, and if the right sort of person comes to possess… No, let me say it another way. If Bartholomew outmaneuvers me, in the city or elsewhere,
you needn’t worry that he’ll ever come here—he won’t need to, for he’ll have what he desires. Of course, I don’t intend to let that happen. I’d die ten times over first!

  “But still, someone else may contact you one day, offering to return something to you. If that happens, then it will most likely be a good person, and therefore someone you may decide to take into your confidence. You must decide for yourself, though. The Meyers have always been excellent judges of character. Only if the person seems trustworthy and good—only if you are absolutely certain that you haven’t been approached by a spy—only then should you risk venturing into the secret place. What I’ve hidden there will help you do what must be done.

  “If, however, you have any suspicions whatsoever about the person’s good nature—if, for instance, a reward is demanded, or the person seeks information in exchange for returning what’s been found—in any such case you must claim ignorance, offer no help, and by no means go to recover what I’ve hidden. Never assume that you can do so unobserved. Let my secrets remain secrets, for uncovering them may only put you in danger and lead to greater wickedness.”

  When Penelope had concluded this troubling speech, April was left aghast. “But what about you? How would we help you?”

  Penelope tossed the dregs of her tea into the fireplace, sending up a hiss and a thick plume of smoke. “If someone comes to you,” she said, “then I’m beyond help. Dead, most likely—I’m sorry to be so blunt—though I suppose it’s possible that I’ll grow too old, or otherwise incapable of finishing the task I’ve set myself, in which case I may feel compelled to pass it on to another. I have yet to find anyone I’d trust to do the job, but I may yet. I’ll know it if I do—I’m no poor judge of character myself. But even if that happens, I will need to disappear. For your sake and my own, I can never return here after tonight. You’ll never hear from me again.”

  “Oh, Penelope!” April cried, and Jack stared at his sister with anguished eyes.