“Fine,” she said. “You don’t wanna admit what you did on Alisundi, what about here?” She pointed at the floor.
“The girl’s bathroom?”
“Ugh. Here, dummy. Earth.”
“What about it?”
“What about the things you’ve done here.”
“What? Like football?” I asked, confusion setting in. “I wouldn’t exactly—”
“No, not football, genius. Your mom.”
“What about her?”
“Do you think nobody’s noticed what you do for her?”
“I don’t think I’ve done anything for her except nearly get myself killed.”
“Sit and read to her? Make sure Stacy remembers to get the cereal she likes? Listen to her when she starts rambling incoherent nonsense? Stay up with her when she can’t sleep just to make sure she’s okay even though you had school in the morning? This isn’t what makes you a hero,” she poked at my bicep. “Running around in spandex and making up a stupid name for yourself isn’t what makes you a hero. This is.”
She placed a hand over my heart. I felt it thump against her palm.
“If being a hero is what you want, if mattering is what you strive for, then I have news for you. You already do matter. To your mom. To your aunt.” She hesitated just a beat. “To me.”
I opened my mouth to say something but couldn’t figure out what it was exactly I meant to say.
“If you want to run around putting yourself in danger for the greater good or whatever, that’s fine. But don’t do it because you feel like it’s what will redeem you. It’s those acts of kindness that will do that. I can’t think of a more loving son than you. You’ve always been so kind towards everybody you meet. I don’t think you’ve ever raised a hand against somebody.”
I thought back to my last football game. When I grabbed that kid’s facemask, I wanted to hurt him. I didn’t know how. I tried to figure it out as I stared into his face, but I couldn’t. I just wanted to hurt him.
“You keep being you and you’ll be just fine.”
The bathroom door swung, hitting the wall. “Are you in here?” Dylan said as he came into the girl’s room.
His sudden appearance really should have startled us, but it didn’t. I think my brain was too addled to process he was in the room fast enough to be shocked. Aoife didn’t seem to care. It was like she expected him to show up at some point.
“Thanks a lot, jerk. We were having a moment.” She hesitated like she was reluctant to remove her hand but she did. She turned to grab the remaining clean washcloths and soap. She pushed them into my chest. You should take care of your garlic and onions, too.”
“Right.” I turned to the sink.
“Not here.” She pushed me toward the door. “I have to pee, perv.”
***
Once I was washed and properly deodorized, I left the dark backroom where the bathrooms were, surprised to find the store brighter than we left it. The sun was rising, casting the gray light of morning on the white tile floor like some creature slinking toward me. There was something in seeing the store in a new way—dull and evil—that made me incredibly tired again. I wanted to just get my family and get out with Aoife and Dylan. I wanted to leave it all behind and just sleep for about a week.
As quiet as the store was, I heard Aoife and Dylan having a hushed conversation from a few aisles away. I couldn’t tell what it was about, but from the tone, it no doubt had to do with me and the story she had recounted. Whether he believed her or not, he wasn’t happy about the whole situation. I stopped just around the corner from the aisle and listened.
“Whatever, Aoife,” Dylan was saying. “If—and that’s a big if—what you’re saying is true, that has nothing to do with us.”
“Us?” Aoife repeated. “No, it doesn’t have anything to do with us because you’re not involved in it.”
“The hell I’m not. What kind of brother would I be if I let you run off with him again? Whether it’s chasing after demons, or whatever, or going on some fantastical adventure full of dragons and dancing unicorns you two have concocted in your minds, I’m involved.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic.” I could almost hear the eye roll in Aoife’s words. “Gaige and I are involved whether we like it or not.”
“Fine, let’s say what you told me is the truth and he is involved. That doesn’t mean you need to be. You said you were dragged into it while looking for him. Now’s the perfect time to get out of here and let whoever deal with whatever.”
“Come on,” she said. “Gaige can barely tie his shoes without my help.”
Thanks, Aoife, I thought.
“That’s not your problem.”
“What’s that?” Aoife asked.
My heart skipped a beat. Had I made a noise I hadn’t realized I was making?
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
“Shh,” she hissed.
The store went quiet again and after a moment, I heard what she was talking about. Somewhere in the distance, a siren whined in the early morning. It grew louder with each passing moment like an alarm ratcheting up its wail.
That can’t be good, I thought.
I turned the corner and Aoife looked at me while her brother stared to the front of the store. She winked a slightly golden eye at me and I got the feeling she knew I was there the whole time. I don’t think I’d ever get used to her ability.
“Maybe they’re coming because somebody saw us in here?” Dylan suggested.
We listened a few more moments. Aoife shook her head.
“That’s not a police siren. That’s a firetruck.”
Dylan nodded after another moment of listening. “Yeah, you’re right. You think there’s a fire?”
Aoife and I glanced at each other. A fire randomly popping up wasn’t completely out of the question, but it was too big of a coincidence.
We walked to the front of the store as the wail grew to an earsplitting volume. I glanced at a checkout counter as we passed. A hastily scrawled note sat there with a list of items Aoife and I ate next to a twenty.
The roar of the siren pulled my head around just in time to catch the tail end of a red firetruck flying by the store. A police cruiser followed, its sirens drowned out by the truck’s.
“We should check it out,” Aoife said.
“No,” Dylan objected.
I nodded.
“Come on,” she said, ignoring her brother. She ran out the front doors and towards the other end of the parking lot by the street.
Dylan and I followed just in time to see the firetruck turn the corner and head down the street toward the backside of the grocery store. We cut back to the parking lot to the end of the building. It became obvious where the truck was heading. Even in the gray light of morning, it was hard to miss the plume of smoking curling into the sky.
“See, it’s just a fire,” Dylan said. “I’m going to lock up the store.”
Aoife glanced at me, her eyes blazing gold now. “I don’t think this is just any fire.”
“What do you mean?”
“It feels…deliberate.”
“Do you think they started it?” I didn’t need to say who they were.
“I don’t know. Maybe. But, why?”
I shrugged. “Can you tell what building that is?”
Before she could answer, Aoife whipped her head around to stare in the opposite direction. “Gaige—”
Whatever she was going to say turned into a shout of alarm as the Earth heaved underneath us.
24
MR. MINOR
The ground felt like it was trying to jump a foot in all directions at the same time. I was caught off balance and thrown to the concrete parking lot, banging my knee hard. Aoife stumbled, but managed to stay on her feet while the Earth vibrated and played tug-o-war with itself.
Car alarms started blaring in the first few moments of the earthquake. A parking lot light pole came down near Dylan who was holding onto to a safety pole
outside the grocery store’s entrance. Trees shook so violently they dropped their leaves like falling snow. It went on for at least several minutes. In the final few moments, there was a loud crash from inside the store as the roof caved in on itself.
And it was over.
I had read books that described the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster as eerily quiet. It wasn’t. Car alarms blared all over the city, competing with each other to see who’s the loudest or whiniest.
I climbed to shaky feet, ignoring the pang in my scraped knee. My vision blurred a little. My eyes felt like they were still vibrating in their sockets. My heart thumped hard, though my chest cavity felt oddly hollow. It was like the earthquake had rattled everything loose and all my organs had fallen out somehow.
I turned to Aoife, blinking to try to settle my vision. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, though her eyes were wide and a brilliant shade of gold. They almost gave off a light of their own.
“Aoife?”
“There’s something going on at the gate,” she said, her voice low with fear.
The mention of the gateway stirred something in me. It wasn’t something recognized. Just an odd feeling after having my bones rattled down to the marrow. There was something else there, like somebody had pulled out my insides and filled my torso with sand.
“The gateway.” I turned. Everything looked wrong. Blurred. Dim. “We have to get there. Now.”
She nodded and looked around the parking lot. If we to try to get there on foot, it would take at least a half hour. The parking lot was empty, though. What if there was a car? What were we going to do? Hotwire it and steal it?
Dylan ran up to us. “Are you okay?” he asked his sister.
“We need to get to the park,” Aoife said.
“The park? Why?”
She didn’t answer. She turned to watch a car coming down the road in front of the store. Without a word, she ran across the parking lot to intercept it before it passed.
“Aoife!” Dylan called out.
She covered the ground to the road quicker than I thought she was capable of and stepped halfway into the road, waving her arms at the approaching car. I ran after her, catching up just as the car stopped. The window rolled down and Mrs. Simmons, our old social studies teacher from middle school, peered out with concern.
“Aoife. Gaige.” she said, “are you okay?”
“We need your car,” Aoife said in a rush.
“I…what?”
“Please. It’s an emergency.
Dylan caught up to us. “Aoife, what in the world are you doing?”
Mrs. Simmons eyes shifted to Aoife’s brother. “Dylan, thank goodness you’re here. You’ll keep these two safe, right?” She looked back to the road like she needed to keep going more than anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought the Earth was about to swallow the city whole.
“Please, Mrs. Simmons. It’s an emergency,” Aoife pleaded.
I felt my own sense of urgency grow. I started to twitch and fidget in agitation. We had to get the gateway. Right now!
Aoife glanced at me, her eyes shading gold, and I knew what she was doing. Like she had projected her fear when captured by the balataur, she was doing the same thing with her urgency. She was trying to compel Mrs. Simmons into giving us her car. It was strong. She apparently couldn’t control it directionally. Dylan shifted from foot to foot next to me. Mrs. Simmons looked like she struggled to not dive out of the car in an attempt to give it up to Aoife. I fought off the urge to yank her from it.
A horn blared from the other side of Mrs. Simmons’ car, snapping us out of a sort of trance Aoife’s urgency had put us in. I looked over our former teacher’s hood to see Mr. Minor sitting in his little Kia on the other side.
“Get in,” he said.
“Mr. Minor?” I said.
Aoife took one look at the retired dentist and stepped away from Mrs. Simmons’ window. “Thank you, Mrs. Simmons. We’ll get a ride with Mr. Minor. You should get out of town, though. These earthquakes lately, you know.”
“Yes. Of course. You’ll see the kids safe, right?” she said to Dylan, her window going up before he could acknowledge her. She pulled away, driving faster and with a renewed sense of urgency.
I followed Aoife across the road to Mr. Minor’s car. She rounded the front to get in the front seat. I climbed in back, scooting over to let Dylan in behind us.
Mr. Minor gave the car gas, turning at the end of the block. We were heading in the direction of the park.
“Where are we going?” I asked anyways.
“The gateway,” he said in his slightly high-pitched voice.
“The gateway?” I asked. “What are you talking—”
“Now Mr. Porter, there really is no time for us to feign ignorance anymore.”
“Oh, he’s not faking it,” Aoife said.
“You know about the gateway?” I asked, ignoring her.
“Of course, I do. I trained your mother.”
That hit my brain like a baseball to the skull. I wanted to say something, but there really was nothing I could think of to spit out.
“Lovely woman, Grace,” he said.
“Gateway?” Dylan asked. “What in the world are we talking about?”
Aoife turned in her seat to look at me. “We really should have left him behind. I’m sure he doesn’t need to get caught up in this mess.”
“Having your brother along isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Ms. Connelly,” Mr. Minor said as he made a turn. “Your unique gift can only take you so far in life, you know. A little support won’t kill you.”
Aoife’s head whipped around to the former dentist. Her eyes flared to life.
“What do you know about it?” she hissed.
“Whoa,” Dylan said, leaning forward. “What’s up with your eyes, Aoife?”
“How in the world did you keep this from everybody?” I asked. “Even family?”
“I asked you a question,” Aoife demanded.
Mr. Minor’s skinny neck turned only a fraction of an inch, but his eyes slid to glance at her. He shrugged a slight shoulder. “Oh, I know enough, I suppose. Tell me, what do you see when you look at me?”
Aoife was quiet a moment. Her eyes bore into the little man. My own skin crawled by association. I knew exactly what it was like to have her look at me like that. It always made me felt stripped bare. Naked and vulnerable. I couldn’t believe Mr. Minor had invited it.
“Calm. Determination. Genuine concern.” She narrowed her eyes and added, “For us.”
Mr. Minor contemplated this diagnosis a moment before nodding. “Fair assessment.”
“Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?” Dylan said, more anger than pleading in his voice.
“Later,” Aoife said. “Tell me how you know about my ability.”
“I know a great deal about what goes on in Gate City,” Mr. Minor said.
“I don’t care what you know about this stupid city,” Aoife snapped. “I want to know how you know about me.”
“Have you ever wondered why you parents moved here when you were a kid?”
“Dad got a job here,” Dylan put in.
“How funny that is. You Connellys lived in L.A. and yet you come here to tiny little Gate City, Colorado for a job?”
“I’m going to punch you if you don’t stop talking in circles and riddles,” Aoife threatened.
The conversation slipped from my mind as nausea settled in my stomach. One minute I was fine—besides the bumps, bruises, scrapes, and bones deep weariness—and the next I felt like I should tell Mr. Minor to stop or I was going to puke in his car. I struggled to swallow. It felt like the sand that had filled my gut earlier had worked its way up my esophagus. I opened my mouth to warn them, but closed it, too afraid I’d only throw up instead of get words out.
“How do you know my family?” Aoife’s voice sounded muffled like a conversation overheard from the next room.
&nb
sp; Mr. Minor said something, but I couldn’t make out what. It sounded like the adults from the Peanuts cartoon my dad used to make us watch every Halloween and Christmas. Wooh wooh wooh.
“You okay?”
I turned to Dylan who looked at me with concern. I had no doubt his concern wasn’t for my health, but whether I was going to puke in the car or not.
“Something’s not right,” I slurred around the nausea.
Aoife turned in her seat again to look at me with those golden eyes. They widened as she gazed into me. “The gateway,” she muttered.
I nodded as understanding hit me. The first earthquake of the morning was the gateway opening enough to let those four creatures through. What would an earthquake ten times stronger mean? I didn’t want to think about it. I couldn’t think about it. I could only hope I was wrong.
We turned another corner and Mr. Minor slammed on the brakes. His Kia skidded to a halt with a squeal of its tires.
The four of us stared out the windshield at the park just down street. Well, what was left of the park. I had hoped I was wrong. I wasn’t.
25
THE RETURN OF BRIAN
I leaned between the front seats and stared with my mouth open wide. Gate City Park as I knew it was gone. The playground equipment was barely recognizable, crumpled and laying twenty yards from what was left of the mulch covered ground that made up its home. The swing I sat on before the first time I went through the gateway-nothing more than tangled mess of metal and chain. The lush grass was scared and withered, now littered with boulders and rock.
That wasn’t even the most shocking thing, though. The ridge that led up to the upper park was gone. It had crumbled in on itself. The building that housed bathrooms and a couple vending machines lay scattered in pieces down the slope that used to lead down to the lower park.
The ridge wasn’t completely gone, though. One piece remained, holding the gateway aloft. The gate itself was wide open, an inky black hole in the sky twenty-five feet in the air. Creatures poured out of it by the dozens. They climbed down the narrow cliff like a colony of bugs tentatively testing their surroundings and gathered at the base of what was left of the cliff.
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 48
