by Yvonne Woon
“Should we take action?” an elder said.
My grandfather paused, as if considering it. “Not yet.”
I held in my gasp. The Liberum were killing people, and my grandfather was just going to stand by and let them do it?
“The Liberum can do things that we cannot, at least not out in the open,” he continued. “We’ll need them when it comes to the end. We’ll need someone to deal with the Keepers. They haven’t struck yet, but they will. They’re waiting, picking off Undead boys on the way. I’ve found their bodies strewn in the snow at night near their camp. It’s only a matter of time before they begin with us.”
Who are the Keepers? I mouthed to Clementine, but she only put a hand on her mouth, shocked. Moments later the elders disbanded and walked, one by one, back to the refuge. Clementine and I pressed ourselves against the overhang of ice behind us, wrapping our towels tightly over our bodies to make sure we couldn’t be seen.
“The Keepers are rumored to protect the Netherworld,” Clementine said as the elders disappeared down the slope. “Incredible Monitors. They work silently, blending in to the scenery around them. When they strike, you won’t hear them, you won’t see them, you won’t feel them until the life is already leaving you. Supposedly, they’re descendants of the ninth sister. There are five of them, one for each point.”
I thought back to the pale girls I’d seen haunting the first three points, their hair so blond it looked as white as the snow, their complexion so fair it blended in with the winter landscape. I thought of the images of the canaries that kept appearing with them. Had I been seeing the Keepers? And were they somehow related to the Nine Sisters, or Ophelia Hart?
“That’s why the elders haven’t been attacking the Liberum,” Clementine continued. “They’ve been searching for the Netherworld for years, and now that they’re close, they don’t want to get their hands dirty by killing the Keepers themselves. They want the Liberum to get there first and do it for them.”
“And it’s why they’ve been tracking the Liberum,” I said. “Why they’ve been turning the other cheek, even when they know that the Liberum were taking innocent souls. The elders have been using them to find the Netherworld.”
“But what does that have to do with the bombing of the court all those years ago?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But if it’s up to Monsieur, I bet we’ll find out soon enough.”
CHAPTER 12
Widow’s Pass
T HOUGH MY VISION HADN’T DULLED over yet, I almost wished it had. Then I would have been able to look my grandfather in the face and feel nothing. But instead, all I could feel was disdain. When he laughed at breakfast while chatting with the High Court, all I could see were yellowed teeth, hollow and decaying, like those of the Liberum. When he stood, pushing his plate aside—the food barely touched—and gathered the elders to map the route we would take toward the fourth point, all I could see were their gaunt bodies, their withered skin, their thin lips, as desperate as those of the Liberum. Even their gray overcoats recalled the long cloaks of the Brothers, their tails billowing around their legs as they led us out into the sunlight.
As we set out from the refuge, I could feel the Undead ahead of us, their presence licking my skin. We followed it west with the sun, my grandfather leading the way. With each turn, the landscape brought the thin lines of the map to life from my memory, turning a circle into a frozen lake, a swooping curve into a slope of ice, a ridged rectangle into a rocky cliff. Then finally, a diamond, into a dark tunnel leading through the middle of the mountain.
“The Undead have drifted down the mountainside,” my grandfather said. “As they cannot go through the pass, they must go around it. We must catch up with them on the other side.”
We crowded around the passage while my grandfather and the elders ventured inside to make sure it was safe. Their flashlights faded into the darkness.
“Widow’s Pass,” Clementine whispered from beside me. “Supposedly, once you’re inside, if you’re a widow, you can hear the voice of your dead lover bouncing off the rocks.”
Dead lover. I had never used those words to describe Dante, though they were true. I peered into the tunnel, suddenly nervous. Would I hear him as we walked through it?
The dim orb of my grandfather’s flashlight appeared as he walked toward us. “We stay here tonight,” he said, hoisting up his pack. “It’s underground, which means it’s safe from the Undead, who are close. We’ll be able to sleep.”
Sharp black rock lined the passage through the mountain. I raised my flashlight and gazed up at the cavernous ceilings. They were so high that I couldn’t see the top, only a series of jagged edges jutting down from the walls. I tried to imagine what this hike would have been like if Dante hadn’t been captured by the Undead, if I hadn’t been discovered by the Monitors. How would we have gotten through this section of the map together?
Dante couldn’t have traveled underground, and I wouldn’t have been able to hike around another mountain, like the Undead were probably doing now. They were tireless; they didn’t need to sleep, and they weren’t affected by the cold like I was. Perhaps Monsieur had been right about letting the Liberum take Dante. But that meant Monsieur must have known about this place. Had he traveled this path before?
We set up camp along the broadest part of the pass, no wider than a riverbed. My grandfather positioned his tent at the head of the group, with mine just a few yards away between the two Monitors guarding me.
While I put together my tent, I listened to the dull echo of voices around me. Some of the Monitors whispered to each other while they unpacked. Others built a fire at the center of camp to cook dinner. Even though they were far enough away that I shouldn’t have been able to hear them, the shape of the cavern magnified their voices. But the more I listened, the more garbled the echo seemed. The sounds didn’t bounce back immediately, and when they did return a few moments later, they sounded like gibberish.
I called out my name to see what would happen.
The voice that returned spoke with a mishmash of sounds, as if all the letters had gotten jumbled on the journey. It repeated itself. Renaar—enee—entee—ante—Dante.
I covered my mouth. Had anyone heard? I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to meet my grandfather’s watchful gaze, but he was huddled over the black box with two of the elders.
I kept hearing that echo: while we ate dinner, while my grandfather set out a strategy for what we would do if we met the Liberum on the other side of the pass. Dante. The cavern knew who he was. Did that mean he was still alive?
I stayed up by the fire long after everyone else had gone to bed. Tents dotted the darkness, each glowing from the lanterns within until they lit up the passage like a string of Christmas lights. When the embers died out, I tiptoed through them to the back of the camp. I could hear my grandfather murmuring in his sleep.
“Don’t leave me,” he said, his voice so low that had I not known which tent was his, I would have thought I was listening to someone else. He let out a snore. “Nora, don’t go.”
Nora was my grandmother’s name. She died when I was very young. He was hearing his widow speak to him.
“I miss you,” he said. “Every day I miss you.”
I wondered what he was hearing, what she was saying. I wanted to listen in, to find out what she was like and what he was like with her around, but instead I averted my eyes and kept walking, ashamed for listening in on such a private conversation.
My tent was a small affair, the fabric a translucent periwinkle. It rippled in the light, making me feel like I was underwater, staring at the sun shining through the waves. It should have been lovely, but all I could think of when I saw it was Dante. The plane falling from the sky. His father praying as they hit the ocean and sank into the water; the waves a brilliant blue that grew darker, darker, until the world around him turned black.
I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and crawled outside. Clementine’s tent, which
she shared with her father, was on the other side of the pass. I could see her silhouette through the fabric. She sat curled over a book, holding a flashlight while she turned the pages. I coughed, and Clementine spun around, shining her light through the tent in my direction. I pointed my beam back at her, and flashed it twice.
Clementine flashed hers back at me, and for a moment it almost felt like we were just two girls on vacation, staying up late after everyone else had fallen asleep. I had that life once, I realized, though I could barely remember what it felt like.
I turned to go back into my tent when I heard a voice.
Five more minutes.
I spun around, but it didn’t seem to be coming from one of the tents.
You saw her? the same voice said. You’re sure she’s still with them?
“Dante?” I breathed. His presence swept over me like a chill seeping in through my blanket. My eyes darted about the cavern, searching for some trace of him in the rocks, even though I knew he couldn’t be there.
A pause. Was he talking about me? Who was he speaking to?
Did they hurt her?
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m waiting for you.” I wanted to call his name into the cavern, to tell him that I was safe, that I was going to find him. I pursed my lips to speak, but then changed my mind. I didn’t know if anything I said would get through to Dante. What if my words echoed off the rock walls for all of the Monitors to hear? They would know Dante was out there. They would use me to find him and bury him.
Four more minutes. Are you ready? In exchange, I’ll tell you anything you want to know about the Monitors. I can tell you about the other Monitors who were traveling with us. I can tell you about the map in the chest that they have. About the sealed box.
What? The only people he could be talking to were Undead boys. But Dante would never offer to tell them about us, about the chest and the box, about Theo and Anya. Would he?
Do you see them?
A long pause. See whom? I tried to imagine the other side of the conversation, but couldn’t imagine Dante talking to any of the Undead boys like this.
All nine of them?
He could only be referring to one thing. The nine Brothers of the Liberum.
Three more minutes. This time, his voice was more urgent.
What was happening in three minutes?
Don’t move, Dante said. They’re coming.
His words made me nervous. I pulled the blanket tight around my shoulders and waited.
Did they have the boys from the village? Did they take them into the woods?
The boys from the village. The Liberum could only be doing one thing with them in the woods: taking their souls to give themselves a little bit more life.
Good, he said. When we go in after them, we’ll only have a short window of time. After they take the boys’ souls, their eyes will shut while they pass into limbo. It will only last a few seconds, while their bodies absorb their new life. A minute, no more. That’s when we have to take it.
A wave of dread spread through me. I tried to piece together what Dante was talking about. Was Dante going to wait until the Liberum killed nine local boys, and use that moment—when each of the Brothers was incapacitated from absorbing their new bit of life—to take something from them? The chest. I swallowed, not wanting to believe it. The Dante I knew would never stand by and watch while the Liberum killed innocent people.
There’s nothing we can do to help them, he said, as if answering my question. If we try to save them, the Liberum will bury us. Two more minutes.
I went still, my muscles tightening as if I were right there with him.
I don’t know which one of them has it, so we’ll have to search all of them. We have to be careful. Make sure your cloaks are wrapped tight around you. We can’t let them see our faces. If they wake up while we’re there and catch us, there will be no escaping.
A pause.
No, we cannot leave it behind. Without it, we will never find the last two points.
The chest, I realized. Dante was trying to take it back from the Liberum.
One more minute.
I hugged my knees, waiting for what came next.
Not yet, he said. Not yet.
I gripped the edge of the blanket. What if it didn’t work? What if the Liberum woke up and discovered him?
Wait until you hear them fall.
All I could hear was my own breath, slow and heavy. I imagined it belonged to him, that he was sitting here beside me. “Come back to me,” I whispered.
Now!
I felt a surge of adrenaline, the mountain air whipping against his face, the drag on his feet as they sank into the snow. I waited for his voice to echo through the walls again, for him to give me some sign that he was okay, but all went still. I tried to imagine what was happening: Dante running through the evergreens to where the Liberum were lying, half dead, half alive, in the snow. Around them lay nine young boys, all lifeless. I imagined Dante approaching the Brothers and quietly sifting through their dark robes, searching for the chest. Who was he with? Who was helping him? I didn’t know. A minute had almost passed. The Liberum would wake at any moment. I waited for him to say he had found it. No word came. I pressed my eyes shut, wishing I could somehow transport myself there. But I was in darkness, all alone.
I didn’t remember crawling back into my tent or falling asleep. All I could recall was Dante’s voice as he whispered, They’re out. I dreamed of the icy skin of the Liberum as Dante touched each of their withered hands to feel for a pulse. None. Quickly, I heard him say. I dreamed that he unclasped their cloaks to search for the chest within. And then...
I woke with a jolt. I heard a clamor of noise outside my tent, followed by loud voices. My grandfather’s voice boomed over them. “Where is it?” he shouted.
I sat up, only to discover that my tent had been looted. Everything was gone—my bag, my clothes, my gear. All that was left was my blanket and my shovel.
“We searched everywhere,” said John LaGuerre, Clementine’s father. “No one has it.”
“They must!” said my grandfather. “Are you trying to tell me that someone just walked into this tunnel in the middle of the night and stole all our gear?”
I rubbed my eyes, suddenly alert. Their gear was gone, too?
“Yes,” said LaGuerre.
“Who?” my grandfather demanded. “It couldn’t have been the Undead, because they can’t go underground. So who was it?”
“I don’t know,” said LaGuerre.
“No,” my grandfather insisted. “Whoever it was must have come into my tent while I was sleeping and taken the chest from me. Who could have done that?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out—” LaGuerre began to say, but my grandfather cut him off.
“The answer is no one. Don’t you think I would have woken up if someone had unzipped the flap of my tent and come inside? Don’t you think I would have heard it?”
“In some other place, maybe,” John said, “But here—it isn’t exactly quiet.”
So he had heard the echo, too.
“I don’t know what you mean,” my grandfather said, though I knew he was lying. I’d heard him speaking to my grandmother in his sleep.
“I’m just saying that because of the...ambient noise...in this passage, it’s possible someone could have snuck in and taken our things without us realizing.”
“Possible?” my grandfather said with a scoff. “Anything is possible, but is it likely? No.” He paused. “Unless...”
I heard footsteps approach my tent. Before I had time to sit up, my grandfather had unzipped my tent and ripped open the flap. He leaned inside, his face flushed. His eyes darted about my tent, searching for something. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, his face hardened.
“Stand up.”
I threw on a sweater and crawled out of the tent. Although it was morning, the only sunlight that penetrated the passage was the dim glow at the end of the tunne
l.
My grandfather paced around the rocks, his white hair unusually disheveled.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Last night someone stole all of our gear and supplies. All they left behind were our Spades, burial tools, and a few cans of food.”
“What?” I said, confused. “Why would anyone steal all of our things, but leave us with all of our weapons?”
“I was hoping you would have an answer to that question,” said my grandfather.
“Me?” I let out a laugh. “Why would I know who took all of our things? I just woke up. All of my things are gone, too.”
My grandfather squinted at me, trying to figure out if I was lying. “They took that strange black box of yours, too. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“The box? Wasn’t that in your tent?”
My grandfather gritted his teeth together, as if he had been asked that question one too many times this morning. “It isn’t anymore. Now, I’m going to ask you one more time. Do you know who was behind this?”
This time, I didn’t have to lie. I was just as confused as they were. “No.”
My grandfather frowned. “Pack the remainder of your things,” he said. “We leave in one hour.”
I nodded and looked down at my empty tent, when I noticed a necklace, wrapped twice around my wrist like a bracelet. It hadn’t been there before. I froze, suddenly understanding. I touched the irregular brown beads. At first glance, they looked like they were made of wood, though I knew that they weren’t. They were a string of beans. And at their center hung the soft paw of a cat. For health and protection.
I bit my lip, trying to hide my excitement. Anya had made a necklace like this one for me just before I left St. Clément. She had told me it was supposed to bring me good luck and protection. I turned my wrist until I could see the clasp: a hasty knot tied into the twine. Could she have come here in the middle of the night and tied it on herself?
I realized then that I did have the answer to my grandfather’s question. I straightened my face, knowing the other Monitors were watching me, but inside I was beaming. There was only one person who could have snuck into our tents without us knowing and stolen all of our things. Theo. I remembered his tarot reading. He had decided to come back. And only one person would have risked sneaking into my tent and waking me, just to tie a bracelet around my wrist for good luck. Anya.
