The Secret Keepers Read online

  “I know, I know. But I can do this. It won’t be hard to lie about a made-up puppy. Anyway, if we’re lucky, he won’t see me in the first place. I’ll ring the doorbell and be on my way with my jump rope.”

  Soon they had the plan sketched out. After Penny had rung the doorbell, or if dusk approached and The Smoke still hadn’t returned, she would take the bus back to Middleton and wait at the shop with Mrs. Genevieve.

  Penny reached for a handful of grapes. “That will be good for Mrs. Genevieve, I think. It’s going to upset her so much when we leave.”

  “Yeah, I’m not looking forward to that,” Jack said.

  They ate in silence for a while, Reuben thinking about the watchmaker, who had lived her quiet life for so long, only now to have had it disrupted in the strangest way imaginable. His own life before the watch had been relatively quiet, too. Only Jack and Penny had possessed any notion of something lurking out in the future, waiting to happen or not to happen as fate decreed. But Jack had wanted out, and Penny was only a kid, like Reuben. Now here they all were, plotting to steal a seemingly magic watch from a man known as The Smoke. It felt as real as anything, but it seemed impossible.

  “You absolutely sure you don’t want me to do it, kid?” said Jack, studying Reuben’s face. He had already suggested twice that he could be the one hiding under the bed with the watch.

  Reuben shook his head. He had felt from the beginning—and it was mostly true, he thought—that this was his to do. But it was also true that he simply didn’t want anyone else to have his watch, not even briefly. At this point it would feel like lending someone the use of his head or his heart.

  Jack turned to Penny, expecting her to chime in, but clearly her thoughts were elsewhere, her eyes gazing at nothing in particular. She’d been holding grapes in her hand for some time but had yet to eat one.

  Slowly she became aware that they were looking at her. She put a grape in her mouth, still with a bit of a faraway look to her expression, then took it out again and said to Reuben, “Do you still remember the passage from Penelope’s letter, those lines about immortality?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jack said, furrowing his brow. “I never heard any lines.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Penny said vaguely, waving him silent. “For you he only summarized it. But he actually committed this part to memory. Right, Reuben? Can you repeat it?”

  “I think so.” Reuben searched his memory, making sure he remembered the lines exactly. It took him a minute, but presently all the words came together in the right order. With a quick nod, he closed his eyes and recited:

  “The possessor of both shall know no fear of death;

  Though time may pass, he shall feel it not,

  Nor feel aught pain or loss with any breath

  He draws; nay, who holds these both shall have no mortal care,

  Until such time as he lose possession, which God grant he will,

  For it is not fitting that any man,

  Be he low and wicked, or a good man or great,

  Exist for long in such abnormal state.”

  Jack whistled. “I’m impressed, kid. You sure you’re not a Meyer?”

  Penny was frowning. “It doesn’t sound like him,” she murmured. She looked up at them. “The inventor, I mean. Why would he do this? Why would he make it possible for someone ‘low and wicked’ to become immortal?”

  “To make the brothers turn on each other,” Reuben reminded her. “At least, that’s the legend.”

  “It seems like a terrible way to go about it,” Penny said.

  “Maybe once the guy realized that he could do it,” Jack put in, “realized that he could, you know, create a fountain of youth in a can, he felt like he had to do it—just to see. To prove it to himself. A genius like that, he’d probably find it hard not to try it, especially if it was his only chance.”

  “But then why tell them about it?” Penny said with a look of disapproval.

  Jack shrugged. “Revenge can do strange things to people. Wanting revenge, I mean. Maybe it just seemed like the best opportunity. Maybe he knew that the brothers would never succeed. That’s probably what he told himself, anyway. And he turned out to be right.”

  “I wonder how it works,” Reuben mused. “If it’s true, I mean. I don’t understand how it could work.”

  Jack chuckled. “I don’t understand how you can fiddle with your watch and suddenly I’m looking at stuff behind you.”

  “Mrs. Genevieve says it bends the light.”

  “Bends my brain, is what it does. Eternal youth doesn’t seem much weirder.”

  “It’s just wrong in so many ways.” Penny’s face was still set in a frustrated expression. “Nobody should have such power, should they?” She looked to Reuben for affirmation.

  “Eternal youth?” Reuben could only shrug. He honestly hadn’t thought about it. “Maybe not. I know I don’t want The Smoke to have it, though.”

  “I don’t mean that!” Penny snapped. “I’m talking about invisibility! What good can a person do, being invisible? Okay, fine, it can help us get the watch away from The Smoke—but after that? All it’s good for is getting away with things you don’t want anyone to know about. It isn’t honest.”

  “Spoken like a true Meyer,” Jack observed.

  Penny looked at Reuben, who was avoiding her eye, and suddenly turned regretful. “Oh. Sorry, Reuben, I just got worked up. I wasn’t trying to—you know, make a case.”

  “That’s fine,” Reuben said. He did feel defensive, though. He felt sure that there were plenty of good things a person could do with invisibility. He just hadn’t had time to figure them out.

  “Are you two going to tell me what you’re talking about?” Jack asked in the suddenly awkward silence. “No? Okay, then, not to change the subject, but let me change the subject. It’s just occurred to me that we could go about this a different way. You don’t necessarily have to hide under Faug’s bed, kid. I could just ambush him. We could find a good place for me to hide, and then when he walks by—”

  Penny gasped. “Jack, you sound like a cutthroat!”

  Jack held up his hands. “I’m not talking about killing the guy. All I have to do is knock him out and take the watch. One or two punches would do the trick. I’m sure he’s earned at least that much.” He gestured at Reuben. “And then our friend here wouldn’t have to take any risks.”

  Penny had opened her mouth to protest. She checked herself, realizing that to do so meant to insist on Reuben’s taking the risks. She closed her mouth with a frown.

  “It’s okay,” Reuben said to her. “I don’t think he should do it, either. What if something went wrong, Jack? What if he sensed you were there or managed to get away from you? Once he turns invisible, the advantage is all his, and we won’t have a backup plan. Right now you are the backup plan. You don’t want to deal with The Smoke in his own home unless you absolutely have to.”

  “He’s right, Jack,” Penny said firmly.

  “Well, for the record, I think so, too,” Jack said with a shrug. “Just thought I should make the suggestion. But I also think you give Faug too much credit. I’m pretty sure old Aunt Penelope would have made mincemeat of this guy.” He stretched out his legs and looked at Penny. “That would have been nice, huh? Our lives would have been a wee bit different.”

  “I just hope you’re right about him,” Penny said.

  Jack yawned. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  His yawn set off a chain reaction. Reuben yawned, then Penny yawned, then Jack did again. Then they all did, looking at one another in mild amusement. Speaking little now, in silent agreement, they rose and cleared the food away, took turns washing up in the bathroom, found a few blankets in a closet. Dimming the lights, they settled down to sleep, or at least to try.

  Jack and Penny found places on the floor, both having insisted that Reuben take the sofa. With great care, he slipped the winding key from the watch and tucked it away in the pocket of his pants. T
he watch itself he closed, folded up in his sweatshirt, and placed beneath a throw pillow. He stretched out, his head on the pillow. He heard Jack and Penny shifting on their blankets on the floor, trying to get comfortable. Soon all was quiet save for the breathing of sleepers, the hum of the little refrigerator in the tiny kitchen, the whisper of cool air passing through a vent.

  Reuben stared up at the ceiling without seeing it. His mind instead took him out into the city, to the Lower Downs, to the apartment where he hoped his mom would be sleeping peacefully herself. Then it took him out onto the dark streets, to the imagined homes all across New Umbra in which the Directions—who, despite everything, were people, after all—were watching television or drying dishes, some of them, perhaps, even kissing their children good night. It seemed incredible, unfathomable, that these same men would venture out in the morning to continue their search for a boy who met Reuben’s description, yet he knew it to be true. What kind of people were they, really? What kind of world was this?

  His thoughts traveled across the night, through a hole in a wall, through a window. They floated up in a vast, dark space, hovering over a balcony crowded with furniture to observe a bent figure in a lonely bed, gazing at an object on his nightstand, on a bed of velvet, a sphere softly gleaming in lamplight. Perhaps it seemed to him like a crystal ball, an enchanted object in which he could see his own future. Perhaps, like Reuben, he felt destiny in the air about him, a palpable feeling. Like steam. Like smoke. Perhaps, yes, when he saw the future, he saw his own name and nothing else.

  A clink of a pan, a crack of an egg sounded from the tiny kitchen. A high-pitched splat and sizzle as the egg hit the hot metal. The sounds repeated themselves as more eggs joined the first. Reuben’s eyes located the sleeping forms of Jack and Penny on the floor. So it must be Mrs. Genevieve cooking breakfast. Morning had arrived.

  Reuben sat up, the iron tang of dread in his mouth. He groped for the sweatshirt and the watch and took them with him into the bathroom. When he emerged, both Jack and Penny were sitting up, both groggily rubbing the same eye. At that he smiled inwardly and felt a bit better.

  “Well, today’s the day,” Jack said, stretching. “You kids excited?” He made it sound as if they were going on a picnic.

  Penny squinted at him. “You’re a piece of work,” she said, her voice raspy with sleep.

  “I think I smell bacon,” Jack said, jumping up.

  In the kitchen, Mrs. Genevieve handed Reuben a plate. “I did not intend to fall asleep,” she said. She was wearing the same rumpled clothes she’d lain down in, and her face seemed rumpled, too. But her bright blue eyes were clear enough, as was the troubled emotion in her gaze. “You haven’t changed your mind?”

  “I’m sorry,” Reuben said. “We have to do this.” He looked down at his plate. Mrs. Genevieve had arranged his fried eggs and strips of bacon to resemble eyes, a nose, and a mouth. It seemed a surprisingly whimsical thing to do, given her mood.

  She returned his quizzical expression with a small smile. “It is not every day I am able to make breakfast for a child I like,” she said simply, and turned away.

  They all ate together in the sitting room, speaking little. Afterward, Reuben and Penny volunteered to do the dishes, and Jack prepared to head out. When he returned with the getaway car, it would be time to go. Just before he left, however, while Mrs. Genevieve was in her bedroom changing, Penny caught his arm. Reuben, gathering cups from the table, sensed she was about to say something serious.

  “Jack,” she said, looking up at her brother. “If something goes wrong…” Her voice faltered.

  “Hey, this is going to work, redbird. I have faith in our friend here,” Jack said with a nod toward Reuben. “Believe me, we’re all going to be laughing about this tonight.”

  “You, maybe,” said Penny, hugging him tightly.

  “All of us,” Jack said. He drew back to give her a wink. “And it’s going to make for quite a story, isn’t it?”

  An hour later they were ready to go. A nondescript gray sedan with darkly tinted windows sat at the curb, its rear passenger door left open as if the driver was returning with something to load. Which he was. Jack stood inside the shop with Reuben and Penny, saying goodbye to Mrs. Genevieve. “We won’t be back until after dark,” Reuben told her. “And possibly not until very late.”

  The watchmaker nodded, her expression grave, and gave him a solemn hug. To the others’ surprise, she hugged both of them as well. Then she returned to Reuben and took his hands in hers. “You will be as careful as you can, yes? You promise me this?”

  “I promise,” Reuben said.

  Tears stood in Mrs. Genevieve’s eyes. She shook his hands once, firmly, like a carriage driver snapping the reins. “Then go,” she said, releasing him. “Save the city, change the history, all of these things, I know.”

  Penny took Reuben’s arm. They vanished. Jack opened the door and held it as they stepped through and made their way to the sedan. Then he came out and closed the car door. By the time he had jogged around to the driver’s seat, Mrs. Genevieve was standing at her window, watching them.

  It was a simple, ordinary-looking scene to behold, the departure of a single car on a cloudy Sunday morning, and yet for the watchmaker it was awful. She couldn’t bear to see them go but seemed unable to resist. She watched the young man jump in, close the door, and pull away from the curb almost in the same moment. And in the next moment they were gone.

  Mrs. Genevieve’s stomach gave a lurch, and she turned quickly from the window. She looked around her empty shop, feeling strangely bewildered to find herself alone. How had she let them go? But what had she been expected to do? It was another unsolved mystery, and never in all her years had she felt so helpless.

  Suddenly she was aware of the ticking clocks in a way she had not been only moments before. Mrs. Genevieve had grown up amid the ceaseless, myriad ticking of clocks, of course; they had long since constituted a kind of silence, the backdrop to everything in her life. But now, for the first time in her many years, she felt that the sound would drive her mad. This multitude of clocks, ticking and ticking and ticking—one would think that with all this ticking, the passage of time would be accomplished more quickly. It should run infinitely faster; instead, it scarcely progressed at all.

  Mrs. Genevieve began to feel a rising panic. How many hours must she wait before she knew what would become of Reuben and his friends? How many untold ticks of these clocks? These hundreds and thousands of audible, terrible moments in her empty shop?

  “Oh, help!” the watchmaker gasped. “Oh, what can I do?”

  And stopping her ears with her fingers, she ran into her rooms.

  Jack hung up the pay phone and jumped back into the car, where Reuben was waiting in the front passenger seat. “Sounds like he bought it,” he said, putting the car into gear. “He was even trying to sound agreeable. Said he understood why I got spooked and promised that this time they’ll do it my way. He probably spent the night stewing over how close he’d gotten, only to lose his best lead.”

  Reuben eyed Jack dubiously. “But you don’t actually believe he’ll do what he says, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Jack said, running through the gears. They were moving fast now. “He was trying to seem less threatening. No, I’m sure that right now every single one of his men is on his way to Burlington again.”

  “Unless they’re on their way here,” Reuben pointed out. After all, Jack had used this pay phone in East Middleton, a neighborhood that had nothing to do with anything, precisely because he knew that The Smoke could trace the call.

  “That’s right. He’ll probably send a few to sweep the blocks around here, just in case. But we’ll already be gone. We’re already gone now, in fact.”

  It was true. They were already halfway back to Westmont, where, with any luck, Penny would be witnessing The Smoke’s departure. They had dropped her off at the park, Jack having pointed out a spot up the street from which she could watch
the mansion’s gates. A few small children were already on the park swings, pushed by their parents, and there were several cars on the streets, some of them pulling into the church lot beyond the park.

  “Listen,” Jack said, “I switched the plates on this car, so I don’t expect the police to track it down anytime soon. But if it isn’t here when we come out tonight, don’t panic. I can find us another ride.”

  It took a few moments for Reuben to process what Jack had said, for whenever his thoughts turned to the car he was in, his first impulse was to leap out of it. You’re riding in a stolen car! Mom would kill you! He’d been trying not to think about it. Borrowed, he reminded himself. Borrowed borrowed borrowed.

  “What do we do if he’s chasing us?” Reuben asked. “That won’t exactly be the perfect scenario for car shopping.”

  Jack gave him a lopsided grin. “We’ll have both watches then, remember? You can give me his, show me how to use it. We’ll be the Invisible Duo—though don’t ever tell anybody I said that. Way too corny. Anyway, we’ll figure it out. Okay, here we go.”

  They were back in Westmont now, had passed the church and were approaching the park. At least half a dozen other cars were parked along the street. “This is perfect,” Jack said, pulling up to the curb. “Lots of different cars today, not just us. Do you see her?”

  Reuben had already spotted Penny’s bright red hair in the distance. It was bobbing up and down—she was skipping rope. She was looking their way, had clearly seen them. She stopped skipping to pass one hand above her in a slow arc; Reuben was reminded of the way she had waved to her family members high up on the lighthouse gallery. This time, though, she was delivering a signal. A single wave was a warning; a double wave gave the all clear.

  “See that?” Jack said.

  “Two waves,” Reuben confirmed. Penny had seen The Smoke and his men leave.

  “Looks like we’re in business.” Jack got out a pair of dark sunglasses, considered the overcast sky, and put them away again. “So much for my clever disguise. You ready?”