The Secret Keepers Read online

  “Wait!” Reuben cried.

  “No waiting!” The Smoke screamed. “Three!”

  And then Jack was there.

  Reuben’s eyes caught the movement as the young man hauled himself into view. He tried to look away, but it was too late—The Smoke had seen it on his face. He whirled away from Reuben and charged. Reuben saw Jack roll to his feet and spring nimbly out of reach just as The Smoke’s club lashed out.

  Then The Smoke vanished, and Reuben fled.

  In his panic he ran without thinking. Just as he’d done before, he made for the piano. He only wanted to get behind something, to hide from whatever was happening. Rounding the piano, he looked back to see Jack, an expression of fierce concentration on his face—but also a barely contained bewilderment—as he stood with his fists raised, his eyes searching, seemingly alone on the floor. Then Jack appeared to sense something and leaped to the side, his head instinctively jerking backward.

  The Smoke, lunging with the club, flickered into view and out again. Jack ducked and weaved, jabbed with a fist, striking nothing. The Smoke appeared behind him, the club already in motion. Jack sensed it somehow—perhaps he heard it whipping through the air—and spun away, the weapon missing his head by inches. The Smoke vanished again.

  Reuben was shaking. He wiped his sweaty palms on his shirt. He didn’t see how Jack could win. His eyes roamed desperately around the ballroom. In his peripheral vision he was aware of the battle, and he could hear Jack’s grunts of effort, his oaths of frustration. The Smoke popped into view and out again, always in a different place, always dangerously close with his club. Your brash friend has made another misstep.

  Later Reuben would wonder why he didn’t think of the keys. Perhaps because he would have to run past The Smoke to reach them, and his mind suppressed the idea out of fear. What he thought of instead was the balcony. He wanted to be out of reach. And so, putting the watch away, he took a deep breath and sprinted. Then his feet were on the wall, his hands on the column, and he was ascending.

  His eyes flicked toward Jack in the distance, his bristled red head bobbing, his body twitching this way and that. He was backing toward the bar in the corner. When The Smoke snapped into view at Jack’s side, Reuben averted his eyes. He thought it was over. He heard a noise that from this distance sounded like a thin click, followed by a cry of pain and anger. He looked again to see Jack shaking his left hand. Either the club had come down on his knuckles or he had accidentally punched it. His right fist was still raised; he was still backing up, his gaze darting back and forth.

  So it wasn’t over. And maybe, in the close quarters behind the bar, Jack would even have a better chance. He might be able to get his hands on The Smoke, who could attack him from only one direction. Reuben felt a flutter of hope.

  He had come to the top of the column. He didn’t hesitate but instantly swung his arm high, caught hold of the railing, and hauled himself up and over before he had another thought. It was almost easy; his surging adrenaline had boosted him. But now he was left with all this adrenaline and emotion and nowhere to go, nothing to do with it. What was he thinking? What should he do? Reuben held on to the railing, squeezing it hard. He didn’t know.

  An unexpected movement drew his eyes to the hole in the ballroom floor. A familiar tumble of red hair had risen into view. Penny! Naturally, she had let Jack bypass her and climb up first—they would have heard The Smoke talking, would have known Reuben needed Jack’s help. Now she was clinging to the rope, her eyes just below the level of the floor. Reuben ran to the corner of the balcony where she might see him if only she glanced over her shoulder.

  No sooner had he arrived there than Penny did just that. Her gaze went up to Reuben, waving his arms over his head as if doing jumping jacks. Their eyes met, and Reuben gestured frantically toward the door, then pantomimed turning a key in a lock. It had occurred to him that with The Smoke occupied with Jack in the corner, Penny could grab the keys and get out. And he could follow right behind her—he could use the fireman’s pole and make a break for it. He had no idea what they would do then, but anywhere was better than here with The Smoke in his lair.

  Penny looked frightened and uncertain, but when he repeated the gesture and pointed toward the keys, she nodded. She understood. She reached higher up on the rope, struggling to get herself out of the hole. Reuben bounced on his feet, everything in him urging her faster. She would get no better opportunity than now.

  At last she was out, lying flat on the floor, her eyes fixed on the battle in the far corner. Reuben saw her work her shoes off with her toes. Smart, he thought. Now hurry!

  She did. Crouching low, making herself small, Penny scuttled across the ballroom floor toward the keys. Reuben glanced toward the bar again, saw Jack standing behind it, ducking an invisible blow, then snatching a dusty bottle from the shelf. Now he had a weapon! Reuben wanted to cheer. He knew at once that Jack had been planning this the whole time, had maneuvered his way into the corner where he could not only grab a bottle but also limit The Smoke’s angle of attack.

  But in the next instant, a telltale clanking sound reverberated in the ballroom. The floor beneath Jack dropped open with a bang, and with a trailing “You’ve got to be kidd—!” he plummeted yet again toward the basement, taking with him Reuben’s brief hope of victory.

  The shelf of bottles had been the trigger to a trap.

  The Smoke had yet to reappear. Reuben’s eyes shot back to Penny, frozen in the act of stooping for the keys. The sound of the trapdoor and her brother’s shout had momentarily paralyzed her. Recovering now, she bent to the keys again, reached out—and now she had them! And The Smoke was still nowhere to be seen!

  Hurry! Reuben thought. Hurry, hurry, hurry!

  Penny straightened as if to run to the door, but then she did something peculiar. She lifted her chin, as if suddenly taking a profound interest in the ballroom ceiling, and began to walk backward. “Ow!” she cried, dropping the keys. With both hands she reached toward the hair on the back of her head, which, bizarrely, had risen out and away behind her as if affected by a static charge. “Ow, that hurts!”

  With both hands she reached toward the hair on the back of her head, which, bizarrely, had risen out and away behind her as if affected by a static charge.

  The Smoke appeared then, arm extended, leading Penny by the hair as he marched back toward the middle of the ballroom. He looked angry, resolute—and triumphant. He was glaring up at Reuben. Somehow, even in the midst of fighting Jack and snaring Penny, he had determined that Reuben was on the balcony. He hadn’t even needed to look for him.

  The Smoke marched Penny back over to the hole by the piano. The rope was not moving. Reuben wondered if Jack was hurt. They came close enough for The Smoke to glance into the hole, shaking his head angrily. He yanked on Penny’s hair, causing her to cry out again.

  “You and your brother,” The Smoke snapped, “for he is your brother, isn’t he? You’ve both caused me so much trouble, and for what? For nothing!”

  “Oh, please!” Penny cried as Reuben looked on helplessly. “I’m sorry! Please don’t throw me down there!”

  “You think I won’t?” The Smoke snarled.

  “Please don’t!” Penny whimpered. “Please, I’m scared!”

  “Tell him that,” The Smoke hissed. He gestured toward Reuben on the balcony. “Tell your friend how scared you are. Tell him that if he doesn’t come down this very instant and give me the watch, I’m throwing you in.” He yanked her hair again. “Tell him!”

  Penny’s eyes locked with Reuben’s. She hesitated, and suddenly he understood everything.

  But so did The Smoke.

  “Why do you hesitate, little girl?” he said, his voice abruptly turning oily and knowing. “I wonder. Can it be that—yes, I think it is—you want me to toss you in? But why would that be? Unless… Ohhh. I see! You are a little girl, aren’t you? What, do you fit between the bars? I think you must. I think you knew that. Yes. You are a clever one
indeed.”

  Penny said nothing to this, only gazed helplessly up at Reuben, who gazed helplessly back.

  “My goodness,” The Smoke continued, “this must mean that you tried for the keys even though you didn’t need them. How noble! You were thinking only of your brother, weren’t you?”

  Again Penny said nothing, but Reuben knew the answer. Unlike Penny, he had been distracted by the keys, had forgotten that she didn’t need them. She could have gotten away. Instead she’d climbed back up to the most dangerous place she could possibly be. Why? For Jack and Reuben, to see if she could help them. She’d gone after those keys only because Reuben had told her to. She’d trusted him.

  “Speaking of your brother,” The Smoke said with a glance at the rope, which had begun to twitch and tremble, “I imagine your plummeting body would interrupt his climb, don’t you? And in a most unpleasant way. Naturally, I’d need to make sure you couldn’t run off first, so I’m afraid you would be making your descent unconscious.”

  The Smoke spoke these last words looking not at Penny but at Reuben, his face hard. “Is that what you’d like to see?” he called. “Must I hurt your little friend? Or will you come down this instant? How shall we go about it?” He brandished his club, waggling it mockingly. Even from this distance Reuben could see that Penny’s eyes had grown huge at the sight of it.

  At their feet the rope sawed back and forth. Jack was climbing frantically. But he had much too far to climb, and too little time. The Smoke had every advantage. He had already beaten them on every front. He could dispatch them all, one by one. No matter what Reuben did, this was going to end badly. One way or another, The Smoke would be taking the watch. It was over.

  Reuben didn’t think these things so much as feel them. He knew them to be true. What he was actually thinking about was his mom. He didn’t just imagine her heartbreak; he felt it. He could almost hear her weeping. She wouldn’t believe it, wouldn’t accept that anything bad had happened to him. As if in a dream, he could see the tears on her face, and—much to his surprise—he could see how angry she was. She was scolding him, Reuben realized. And why?

  “Because there’s always another way,” he mumbled, imagining her saying it to him. “There’s always another way, and you didn’t find it.”

  “What are you saying?” The Smoke barked. “Speak up! Or no, don’t speak. Simply come down. Right. Now.”

  And suddenly Reuben knew. He knew what his mom would have told him to do. The Smoke didn’t have every advantage. Penelope had known that, and Reuben knew it, too. Reuben had one advantage—only one, but it would be enough. It had to be.

  He stood above the rope ladder and leaned over the rail. He held the watch out before him, high above the ballroom floor, so that The Smoke could see it. “I’m going to drop it,” he said simply.

  The Smoke stiffened. “You wouldn’t dare!” he snapped, but there was an edge of fear in his voice. “What would be the point? I would still have mine.” Dragging Penny along with him, he moved toward the balcony.

  “The point is that I’m not going to let you have it,” Reuben replied. “Do you understand what I’m saying? You’re never going to have this watch.”

  The Smoke continued his approach toward the balcony, his eyes fixed on the watch in Reuben’s hand. “You won’t drop it!” he growled. “It wouldn’t help your friend, wouldn’t help you. You think you can negotiate with me, you little fool? You—”

  “I wasn’t trying to negotiate,” Reuben interrupted. “I just didn’t want you to miss this. Say goodbye to your dream, Mr. Faug!” And with that, he let go of his very last secret, the one he’d been trying to keep from himself. He let go of the thing he had wanted with all his heart to hold on to.

  He let go of the watch.

  The Smoke screamed.

  And then, even as his scream resounded in the ballroom, The Smoke was moving, reacting with desperate speed. In one motion he let go of Penny, flung away the club, and darted forward in a mad sprint, one hand instinctively flying to his suit coat pocket even though vanishing would have done him no good in the face of this threat, the worst threat, the destruction of the watch he’d been seeking all his life. His other hand shot out before him, fingers spread wide, and with the plummeting watch just a few feet above the ballroom floor, The Smoke dove—and caught it.

  At the top of the rope ladder, Reuben threw the levers on the control box. The trapdoor dropped open even as The Smoke was crashing down onto it with a shriek of triumph. He appeared not even to notice. Reuben watched as the ballroom floor seemed to gobble the man whole.

  The Smoke’s delighted laughter echoed up out of the darkness of the chute. Perhaps, Reuben thought, he’d forgotten that he no longer had his keys. Or perhaps his wild excitement simply crowded out every other thought, including the fact that he was about to be imprisoned in a dungeon of his own making.

  Reuben stared down into the darkness after him, after the watch that he would never use again. He was aware of Jack clambering out of the other trap, could hear Penny telling him to pull up the rope, but still Reuben stared down into that darkness. And still he could hear The Smoke’s laughter. It drifted up out of the hole as if the darkness itself were mocking him.

  But it was The Smoke, he reminded himself. A man who had yet to comprehend that he’d been trapped by his own dream.

  “Enjoy your eternal youth,” Reuben muttered, and tore his eyes away.

  No sooner had Reuben plunged into the pillows at the base of the fireman’s pole than his friends were on him, laughing and hugging him in relief and amazement, flinging pillows away as if freeing him from a cave-in of cushions. The three of them stumbled away from the pole, tripping over pillows, holding on to one another, all of them talking at once. In their excitement they kept speaking too loudly, shushing one another, then speaking too loudly again. They soon got hold of themselves, however, and became aware of the silence now issuing up from below.

  “He stopped laughing,” Penny whispered. She was still trembling, still shaken from her terrifying encounter. Even when laughing and hugging Reuben, it had seemed as if she might burst into tears at any moment. “Maybe he’s trying to get out.”

  Jack was already heading for the ballroom door, stooping on his way to snatch up the ring of keys. “Good luck to him. More likely he’s just realizing the fix he’s in. But I should go and check.” He stooped once more, this time taking up The Smoke’s discarded club. His tone and his movements were so casual he might have been cleaning up trash after a party. But his expression was tense.

  “We’ll all go,” Reuben found himself saying. He could hear in his own voice how anxious he was, every bit as anxious as Penny, who quickly nodded her agreement. Neither wished to be separated from Jack.

  “All right, but keep behind me,” Jack said with a somber glance over his shoulder. “I’m sure it’s fine, but—”

  “We’ll keep behind you, don’t worry,” Penny said.

  “That’s not going to be a problem,” Reuben agreed. He was glancing around for his shoes, but he would have to come back for them. Jack was already unlocking the ballroom door.

  Reuben pointed the way to the basement stairs. Moving cautiously, keeping close together, they descended. In the furnace room at the bottom, among the shadows cast by the dusty lightbulb, they stood listening. A steady dripping came from the rusted water heater in the corner, while overhead the lightbulb made rustling, crackling sounds and gave off the scent of burned dust. From beyond the opposite door there was silence.

  Jack spread his arms to keep the children behind him—an unnecessary gesture, as it happened—and murmured, “Nobody gets within six feet of those bars, understood?”

  Penny and Reuben nodded. They hadn’t needed to be warned, either.

  Jack crossed the room and eased the door open a crack. He waited, listening and peering through. He held the club high, ready to swing. After a few moments, he opened the door a bit further and waited again. Then in an alarming rus
h he threw the door open and shot through the gap.

  Penny gasped, and Reuben made an extremely loud squeaking sound, and then they heard Jack calling out to them.

  “It’s okay!” he was saying. He poked his head back in. “Oh,” he said, raising his eyebrows and suppressing a grin, “sorry if I scared you. I just didn’t want to be ambushed. It’s fine, though. He’s still locked in.”

  Penny and Reuben were clinging to each other, wide-eyed.

  “You should warn us,” Penny hissed.

  “Seriously,” Reuben said.

  “My apologies,” Jack said, though he still looked amused. “So are you ready?”

  Reuben and Penny did their best to collect themselves. Nervously they followed Jack through the door into what appeared to be an empty basement, with a big empty jail cell in front of them. The Smoke was nowhere to be seen.

  “Are you sure?” Penny whispered.

  Jack pointed. Beyond the bars the net sagged in the middle as if bearing a weight, and looking closely one could see that a large, circular swath of strands there appeared to be missing.

  “Do you care to say anything?” Jack called out, to no reply. He smiled and looked around at Reuben. “I think maybe our friend is feeling a little frustrated.”

  Reuben felt none of Jack’s nonchalance. He imagined The Smoke crouching in the net, listening to them. Perhaps he knew something they didn’t, something Reuben hadn’t counted on. Perhaps he was plotting something. Readying himself for some terrible, unforeseeable act.

  “It’s over, you know,” Jack said, projecting his voice. “You won’t be getting out of there, not with those watches, anyway. Don’t you want to, I don’t know, swear at us or try to trick us into letting you out? Maybe you want to bribe us? No? Nothing?”

  “Why is he being so quiet?” Penny mumbled, in her nervousness being very quiet herself.

  And that was when Reuben understood. Or thought he did, anyway. Penny noticed the look on his face and asked him what the matter was.