The Secret Keepers

  They got out of the car and walked up the street, passing beneath the rather sickly ornamental trees planted along the sidewalk. Penny was ambling back in their direction. No one else was around.

  “About five minutes ago,” Penny said as she approached. “They left in a limousine. Turned at the first corner and drove away fast.”

  “Nice work,” Jack said glancing at his wristwatch. “See you later.”

  And that was all they said. They had agreed ahead of time to speak only in passing. If by any chance they were observed, there’d be no reason for anyone to think Penny actually knew them. She might simply have been asking the time.

  Good luck, her eyes told them, and she began to skip again, moving on in the direction of the park.

  It would take The Smoke and his men at least an hour, Jack had told her, just to drive to the rendezvous point and back. So Penny shouldn’t expect to see anything before then, and probably not for another hour or two after that, since The Smoke, having no other leads, would feel compelled to wait for Jack to show up. For now Penny would skip her rope, eat her packed lunch, just generally be a kid hanging out around a neighborhood park. But in an hour she would drift back toward the mansion. She would be their eyes.

  Reuben and Jack kept well away from the mansion’s front gate, instead circling the block and coming at the property from behind. The trees in the neighborhood obscured that stretch of wall from any distant windows or other vantage points. And so, knowing themselves to be alone, they scrambled through the hole without hesitation, then crouched beside the rosebushes to study the mansion. The rope was still there.

  “I’m not surprised,” Jack murmured. “You can barely see it.”

  Reuben pointed toward the place in the shrubs they’d be aiming for. Jack nodded and took hold of Reuben’s sweatshirt. “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Remember to stay crouched down,” Reuben said. He reached into his pocket. They vanished.

  Jack swore under his breath and yanked at Reuben’s shirt.

  “What is it?” Reuben hissed, alarmed.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Jack whispered. “Nothing. Just the—the going-blind part. Startled me is all.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know, I know. Sorry. I’m good now. Let’s go.”

  They crossed the open ground awkwardly and slowly, coming at last to the shrubs. Reuben made them briefly visible again—first warning Jack what he intended to do—and found the place where he had pressed through before. He made them vanish again until they were crouching behind the shrubs, where, for the first time, Reuben noticed that Jack’s eyes were not green like Penny’s but rather a pale, clear blue. His attention was drawn to them because just then they were as wide as he’d ever seen them.

  “That’s really something,” Jack whispered.

  “You all right?” Reuben asked teasingly.

  Jack narrowed his eyes. “I’m great,” he said. “Never better. Ready to do some climbing.”

  The next part was riskier. Reuben couldn’t climb and carry the watch at the same time; they would be briefly exposed. Jack went up first, and he went fast, his strong arms and legs making easy work of it. In no time he was balancing his knees on the window ledge, raising the window, and ducking inside. He might have been making the same climb all his life.

  Reuben waited while Jack scouted from the window. He felt two quick tugs on the rope—all clear—and started to climb. The rope hurt his hands; he wished he had thought to wear gloves. He gritted his teeth and scrambled up as fast as he could. Jack reached out, caught him under the shoulders, and hauled him in.

  “We’re fine,” Jack whispered as he pulled up the rope and lowered the window. “I didn’t see a soul.”

  Reuben clenched and unclenched his aching hands. He shoved the rope under the bed skirt. It occurred to him that there was no need to whisper. But he wasn’t about to suggest they raise their voices. Whispering seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

  Jack followed him down the long, gloomy hallway, his eyes roaming left and right, taking in the empty, dusty rooms. When they reached the bedroom nearest the stairs, the one whose furniture had been removed, Reuben stopped at the doorway.

  “This is where I think you should hide,” he whispered. “If he’s chasing me, you can step out and catch him by surprise.”

  Jack glanced into the bedroom. “And if something goes wrong before then? Will I be able to hear you?”

  Reuben pointed to the doors near the top of the stairs. “Those are the balcony doors right there, the ones I told you are boarded up on the other side. If I call for help, you’ll hear me, easy.”

  “Perfect. Only don’t actually say ‘help,’ okay? No need to let him know I’m coming.”

  “Right. I’ll just scream in terror, then.”

  “Yeah, that’ll work fine,” Jack said with a wink, and went into the empty bedroom. “So I’ll be hanging out in here until the moment arrives. Too bad it couldn’t be more boring.” His eyes swept across the walls, taking in the dusty paintings. He cocked his head to the side and squinted. One of the paintings had caught his eye.

  Reuben watched him, bemused. There were countless paintings in this mansion, all of them dusty and fuzzy with cobwebs. With his mind on other things, he’d paid them no attention. But Jack was clearly struck by this one, a small oil painting depicting an armored knight on horseback, in battle with a dragon. The dragon’s scales, even beneath the dust, were a brilliant blue-green.

  “What do you know?” Jack murmured. “Santo Varges’s Saint George and the Dragon. Stolen many years ago and never recovered. Evidently, our Mr. Faug is a collector.”

  Reuben stepped over for a closer look. “How do you know this?”

  “I did a paper on famous unsolved crimes,” Jack said. “When I was about your age, actually. It might not surprise you that I was fascinated by all things untrustworthy and dishonest.”

  Reuben almost smiled. It was true—he wasn’t surprised.

  Jack had his hands on his hips, gazing at the painting and slowly shaking his head. “This was one of several stolen right here in New Umbra. Masterpieces taken from museums and private collections.” He tore his eyes from the painting and glanced once more at the others. “I’ll bet they’re all right here in this building.”

  “But why did he steal them?” Reuben wondered. “He obviously doesn’t care about them. They’re all stuck away in these rooms, covered with dust.”

  “Maybe just to see if he could do it.”

  Reuben’s mind flashed back to that morning in the narrow alley, when he had set his hands and feet against the walls and begun to climb. Just to see. “Maybe so,” he conceded.

  They headed downstairs. They still had lots of time. Not even twenty minutes had passed since The Smoke left. Reuben would give Jack a tour of the traps, they would make a final trip to the bathroom (better safe than sorry, as they had a long wait ahead of them), and Jack needed to see how to get to the ballroom.

  “Best-case scenario, he doesn’t even wake up,” Reuben whispered as they descended. “Next-best scenario, I have a great head start, and he assumes I’m making a dash for the front door.”

  “Right. So he runs off in the wrong direction. We’re long gone before he even realizes his mistake.” They reached the bottom of the stairs and turned right. “Oh, I like the fake candles. Nice touch.”

  “But in the worst-case scenario,” Reuben went on, “if you hear me scream, this is the route you take to reach me. These doors up ahead lead into the ballroom.” They were approaching the intersection with the hallway that contained the scattered furniture and the red carpet runner. Reuben pointed. “That’s the carpet I mentioned, so be careful. I’m not sure where the trap is, exactly, but—”

  He didn't finish his sentence, for that was when they both saw the figure, crouching like a gargoyle on the footstool, looking at them.

  The nimbus of red hair was registered too slowly, the urgently
whispered “Hey, it’s me!” uttered too late: Reuben had already leaped back in fright, one flailing elbow catching Jack precisely in the solar plexus, and vanished. Only then did it dawn on him whom he’d actually seen.

  “For crying out loud,” Jack muttered, his voice strained.

  Reuben reappeared to see him doubled over in pain and glaring at his sister.

  “Sorry!” Reuben and Penny whispered at the same time.

  “What… are you doing here… Penny?” Jack said, slowly straightening. His eyes flashed with anger.

  “I’m sorry, but something important occurred to me!” Penny said. She was still balancing on the footstool, crouched like a frog on a lily pad. “What if the doorbell doesn’t work?”

  Reuben looked at Jack, who was still grimacing, though whether from pain or displeasure it was hard to say. “She has a point, Jack. We should test it.”

  Jack muttered something under his breath. He rubbed his head. “Might have been nice to agree on this ahead of time. Why didn’t you try it just now, redbird?”

  “And give you a false alarm? I didn’t want to scare you!”

  “Perfect,” Jack said dryly. “And dare I ask how you even got in here?”

  “The hole in the wall, same as you,” Penny said. “Then I went around to the front. Don’t worry, I kept behind the bushes. There was no one around, so I ran up and tried the front door.”

  “And it wasn’t locked?”

  She shook her head. “I had a feeling it wouldn’t be. From what Reuben told us, I figured The Smoke might not care if someone snuck in. All the better for catching them in his traps, right?”

  “Wow,” Reuben said. “That never occurred to me.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t get caught yourself,” Jack snapped.

  “Not really,” Penny replied mildly. “Reuben told us how he got to the ballroom, so I just had to remember what he said.” A sheepish look came over her face. “But you didn’t describe this last part, Reuben. That’s why I’m still on the stool. Do I need to jump somewhere in particular?”

  “Just step right there and keep close to the wall,” Reuben said. “That’s what I did.”

  Penny did as he instructed and came over to Jack, who still looked furious. She took him by the sleeve and gazed up at him. “I really am sorry. I just didn’t know what else to do. And it seemed safe enough. They haven’t even been gone half an hour yet.”

  Jack’s expression softened. “I know. I’m not blaming you, all right? I’m blaming myself for not having thought of this. We could have figured out something different.” He tousled her mass of red curls. “Forget it. Let’s just do this and get you out of here.” With a wry look at Reuben, he added, “The front door would have been easier, wouldn’t it?”

  Penny, looking grateful and relieved, gestured toward the big doors. “So that’s the ballroom in there, right, Reuben? That’s where you should be when we test it, don’t you think? To make sure you can hear it.”

  Reuben nodded. “Want to take a quick look?” He opened one of the doors, stepping back to watch their reactions. They led the way in, gaping all around.

  “This is just how I imagined it,” Penny said to Reuben. “Only weirder. You didn’t mention the ceiling. It’s like the sky is falling to pieces.”

  They walked wonderingly past the fireman’s pole and its pile of pillows, and Jack knelt to inspect the damaged floor. “So this is where the ladder will be?” he said. “Okay, good, if something goes wrong up on that balcony, I have a way to reach you. Just be sure to do a lot of screaming and kicking and biting and so forth. Keep him distracted.”

  “I’m pretty sure that would all come naturally,” Reuben said, shuddering. “But I intend to avoid getting caught, remember. Hope that doesn’t disappoint you.”

  “Only a little,” Jack said.

  Penny had walked over to look at the rope ladder, though she kept her distance by several feet. “I’m impressed you figured all this out, Reuben. And is that where you’ll be climbing up?” she asked, pointing. “It looks hard.”

  “The kid must be part monkey,” Jack said, a bit distractedly. He was looking up at the high windows in the opposite wall. Dirty as they were, and given the cloud-covered sky beyond them, they didn’t admit light so much as dimly, grayly glow. Scratching his cheek, now stubbly with red whiskers, he walked toward them, saying, “You’d think there’d be traps under those windows. Sure, they’re way up there, but with a long rope, someone could climb right down.”

  “There might be!” Reuben hissed in warning. “I didn’t check everywhere, only behind that tapestry. That’s where the ladder’s hidden.”

  Jack had stopped walking midstep. He lowered his foot slowly and turned to see where Reuben was pointing. “Good to know.” He turned then toward the grand piano in the corner. It was so thoroughly fuzzed with gray that it looked less like an actual piano than a dust sculpture of one. “That’s a weird detail, too, isn’t it? You’d think it might be a trap of some kind, but then, what sort of intruder would sit down and play a few tunes?”

  “Maybe he keeps something hidden in there,” Reuben said.

  “Or else it really is a trap,” Penny warned. “Don’t go near it, Jack.”

  “Maybe it’s just there to drive us crazy,” Jack said, squinting at it. He glanced back at Penny. “Don’t worry, I won’t get within ten feet of it. I just want to see—”

  He took one step, but it proved to be one step too many. With a sound like a cash register drawer springing open, the floor fell away beneath him.

  “Oh, come on!” came Jack’s cry, hollow and booming, as he rocketed down the chute.

  Penny shrieked. Reuben gasped. Both raced to the spot where the floor had swallowed Jack. They dropped to their knees, peering down into the gloom. Penny called Jack’s name, so loudly that Reuben winced, fearing she might be heard even from outside the mansion. All he could think was This is bad, this is bad, this is bad.

  Penny yelled Jack’s name again, and this time there was an answer. His voice floated up to them through the chute, metallic and distant. It sounded as though he was saying he was all right, but they couldn’t be sure.

  “There’s a net, remember?” Reuben said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “He’s okay. We just have to get him out of there.” He mopped his brow with his sleeve. All of a sudden he was roasting.

  “The rope!” Penny exclaimed. “The one you have upstairs! Is it long enough?” She looked at him entreatingly, as if he might will it to be so.

  “I’m not sure,” Reuben said, jumping to his feet, “but we’ll try it. Stay here!”

  He dashed out of the ballroom. How could this have happened? The placement of the trap seemed completely random. It was near the windows but not directly beneath them, near the piano but not connected to it—or at least it didn’t seem to be. Maybe, Reuben thought as he flew up the stairs, the placement had to do with the location of support beams or something. It was a bad bit of luck, in any case.

  He ran into the bedroom, threw up the bed skirt, and began frantically working at the knot in the rope. It had been pulled impossibly tight. He bit at it with his teeth. He was jittery, sweating, scared. He needed to calm down. They had time, he reminded himself, and the rope was probably long enough. It was going to be fine.

  After several tugs with his teeth, the knot started to come loose. Reuben scrabbled at it with his fingers. Finally he had it all the way undone. He gathered the heavy coils of rope onto his shoulder and raced back downstairs.

  Penny was pacing back and forth next to the square hole in the floor, her hands lost in her hair. “Hurry!” she hissed when she saw him come in.

  “I am!”

  “You can tie it to the piano! It’s safe—I already checked it!”

  Reuben puffed past her and slid to his knees at the nearest piano leg. He got the rope tied, grabbed the coils, dragged them back over to the hole and shoved them in. The rope tumbled and slid down the chute, uncoiling as it fell
away into darkness. Then, with a little tremor, all was still. They heard Jack’s voice again.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They waited, straining their ears, watching the rope for any telltale movement, any twitch or tremble to show that Jack had taken hold of the end. For several moments nothing happened. Then Jack yelled up again. Penny and Reuben looked at each other and shook their heads. Neither one could make out his words.

  Penny started to yell something down into the chute, but Reuben checked her. He put a finger to his lips. Then he took out the watch, vanished into blackness, and listened. Habit shifted his mind into a different mode, one in which the audible was everything. He heard Penny breathing, heard the faintest shuffling sound as she shifted her weight without realizing it, and heard a distant muttering and rustling that drifted up from the bottom of the chute. Jack yelled again. And this time Reuben understood him.

  “The coils are tangled at the bottom,” he said, reappearing. “He can see it in the chute, but there’s no way he can reach it.”

  Penny gaped at him. “You understood that? Are you sure?”

  “Positive.” He gestured with the watch. “When the lights are off, I can hear pretty much anything.”

  “Okay, then we’ll untangle it!” Penny grabbed the rope and tried to pull it up, but though she strained until her eyes bulged, the rope didn’t yield. “It’s stuck!”

  She tried tugging the rope from side to side, without luck. Reuben suspected it was caught in the crease of a sharp turn in the chute. “Like when a vacuum cord gets stuck,” he said. “You know, when you drag it through a doorway at an angle? I think this may be like that.”

  “I think you’re right,” Penny said, and after the briefest hesitation she added, “I’ll have to go down there.” She swung her legs into the hole.

  Reuben started. “Wait, what?”

  Penny was already lowering herself hand over hand. “If I untangle it, maybe he can reach it.”

  Reuben started to protest, but then he wasn’t sure why. It was actually a good plan. He was just anxious. He dropped to his knees to watch her climb down.