“And you’ll never guess who goes there!” I say, stealing a carrot as Mom chops them.
“You can tell us during dinner,” she says, shooing me away with a pile of placements and silverware. “Set the table first.” But she smiles as she says it.
Dad clears some books from the table so I can set it and retreats to the couch to watch the news.
“Who’s closing the coffee shop tonight?” I ask.
“Berk’s got it.”
Berk is Betty’s husband, and Betty is Nix’s caretaker. Nix is ancient and blind and lives up on the seventh floor and won’t come down because he’s wheelchair-bound and doesn’t trust the rickety metal elevators.
Berk and Betty moved into one of the vacants on the sixth floor two weeks ago after Nix finally succeeded in lighting his scarf on fire with his cigarette. I was shocked—not about the fire, that was inevitable, but that they would move in for him, not being related in any way. But apparently Nix was like a father to Betty once, and now she’s acting like a daughter. It’s sweet, and it all worked out because Berk—who’s a painter—was looking for a social fix, and Mom was looking for a hand at Bishop’s. She can’t pay him yet, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He only asked to be able to hang his pieces in the coffee shop for sale.
“I’ll take him down some dinner later,” says Mom, setting aside a plate.
I’m carrying water glasses to the table when the headline on the TV catches my attention, and I look over Dad’s shoulder at the screen. It’s the same news story from early this morning, about the missing person. A room in disarray flashes across the screen, and I’m about to ask Dad to turn the volume up when Mom says, “Turn that off. Dinner’s ready.”
Dad obediently clicks the TV off, but my eyes linger on the blackened screen, holding the image of the room in my mind. It looked familiar.…
“Mackenzie,” Mom warns, and I blink, losing the image as I turn to find my parents both already at the table. They look like they’ve been waiting.
I shake my head and manage a smile. “Sorry. Coming.”
But sitting down turns out to be a bad idea.
The moment I do, the fatigue catches back up, and I spend most of dinner rambling about Hyde just to stay awake. As soon as the dishes are cleared, I retreat to my room in the name of homework, but I’ve barely gotten through a page of reading before my eyes unfocus, the words on the paper blurring together. I try standing, then I try pacing while holding my textbook, but my mind can’t seem to grab hold of anything. I feel like my bones are made of lead.
My gaze wanders to the bed. All I can think of is how much I want to lie down…
The book slips through my fingers, hitting the ground with a soft thunk.
…how badly I want to sleep…
I reach the bed.
…how certain I am…
I tug back the covers.
…that when I do…
I sink into the sheets.
…I won’t dream of anything.
SEVEN
THE ROOF IS full of monsters, and they are all alive.
They perch on stone claws and watch with stone eyes as Owen stalks me through the maze of bodies.
“Stop running, Miss Bishop,” his voice echoes across the rooftop.
And just like that, the concrete floor crumbles beneath me and I plunge seven stories through the bones of the building to the Coronado lobby, hitting the floor so hard my bones sing. I roll onto my back and look up in time to see the gargoyles tumbling toward me. I throw my hands up, bracing for the weight of stone. It never comes. I blink and find myself in a cage made from the broken statues, a web of crossing arms and legs and wings. And standing in the middle is Owen, his knife dangling from his fingers.
“The Archive is a prison,” he says calmly.
He comes toward me, and I scramble to my feet and back away until I’m pressed up against the stone bodies. Their limbs jerk to life and shoot forward, grabbing my arms and legs, snaking around my waist. Every time I struggle the limbs tighten, my bones cracking under their grip. I bite back a scream.
“But don’t worry.” Owen runs a hand over my head before tangling his fingers in my hair. “I will set you free.”
He draws the flat side of the knife down my body, bringing the tip to rest between my ribs. He puts just enough weight on the blade to slice through my shirt and nick my skin, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to get away, trying to wake up, but the hand tangled in my hair tightens.
“Open your eyes,” he warns.
I drag them open and find his face inches from mine. “Why?” I growl. “So I can see the truth?”
His smile sharpens. “No,” he says. “So I can watch the life go out of them.”
And then he drives the knife forward into my chest.
I sit up in the dark, one hand clutching at my shirt, the other pressed over my mouth to stifle the cry that’s already escaped. I know it’s a dream, but it is so terrifyingly real. My whole body aches from the fall and the gargoyles’ grip, and the place on my chest where the knife drove in burns with phantom pain.
My face is damp, and I can’t tell if it’s from sweat or tears or both. The clock says twelve forty-five, and I draw up my knees and rest my head against them, taking a few slow, steadying breaths.
A moment later, there is a knock on my door.
“Mackenzie,” comes my father’s quiet voice. I look up as the door opens and I can see his outline in the light spilling from my parents’ bedroom into the hall behind him. He comes to sit on the edge of my bed, and I’m grateful to the dark for hiding whatever is written across my face right now.
“What’s going on, hon?” he whispers.
“Nothing,” I say. “Sorry if I woke you guys up. Just had a bad dream.”
“Again?” he asks gently. We both know it’s been happening too often.
“It’s no big deal,” I say, trying to keep my voice light.
Dad tugs his glasses from his face and cleans them on his T-shirt. “You know what your Da used to tell me about bad dreams?”
I know what Da used to tell me, but I doubt it’s the same thing he told my father, so I shake my head.
“He used to tell me there were no bad dreams. Just dreams. That when we call them good or bad, we give importance to them. I know that doesn’t make it better, Mac. I know it’s easy to talk like that when you’re awake. But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.”
Not trusting myself to speak, I nod.
“Do you want to…talk to someone about it?” He doesn’t mean talk to him or talk to Mom. He means a therapist. Like Colleen. But I’ve got more than enough people trying to get inside my head right now.
“No. Really, I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
I nod again. “Trust me.”
My heart sinks, because I can see in my father’s eyes that he wants to, but doesn’t. Da used to say that lies were easy, but trust was hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it’s lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back. I’ve spent the last four and a half years—since I became a Keeper—trying to cling to my parents’ trust, watching doubt replace it little by little. And doubt, Da warned, is like a current you have to swim against, one that saps your strength.
“Well, if you change your mind…” he says, sliding to his feet.
“I’ll let you know,” I say, watching him go.
He’s right. I should talk to someone. But not Colleen.
I listen to the sound of his receding steps after he’s closed the door, and to the murmur of my mother’s voice when he returns to their room. I let the whole apartment go quiet and dark, and only when I’m sure that they’re asleep do I get up, get dressed, and sneak out.