The Keeper

by David Baldacci

  “Hello!” I called out. “Who’s there?”

  Next moment the mumblings stopped. I did not take this as a good sign. My hand tightened on the Elemental. I crept forward with my canine next to me. The cave was deep and the farther we went into it, the higher and wider it became, until I could easily stand straight up.

  “Hello?” I said again.

  Something raced across the passage in front of us and plunged into darkness on the other side.

  I dropped the lantern and aimed the Elemental. “Come out right now or else I’ll … I’ll hurt you,” I said, my voice cracking embarrassingly.

  Inch by inch the thing came back into view. I picked up my lantern, holding it high and lighting the passage more fully. The creature was small and it wore a hooded cloak.

  “Who are you?” I said breathlessly.

  “They calls me Seamus,” it replied in Wugish. “What be you, dearie, dearie?” He curiously eyed the Elemental cocked in my hand.

  “I’m Vega Jane.” I added, “Could you tell me what you are?”

  He lowered the hood. “Me’s a hob, me is.”

  I knew this as soon as he dropped the hood. I’d read about hobs in Quentin’s book on the Quag. And there had also been a picture. The hob was about half my height, thick in figure with a small but wide jaw, a stout nose, and brown eyes set close above the nose, peaked ears like my canine, only longer and fuller and pinker on the inside. The fingers that had lowered the hood were long, curved and spindly with sharp-looking nails. The bare feet revealed at the hem of the too-short cloak were large and hairy. His cloak was ragged and dirty, and his face, hands and feet not much cleaner.

  “I’m a Wugmort,” I said.

  He inched closer and once more eyed the Elemental. I had forgotten I was still aiming it at him. I lowered it.

  “Why’s you want to hurt things, dearie, dearie?”

  “I don’t, unless they want to hurt me.”

  “Hobs don’t hurt nobodys.”

  Quentin’s book had said hobs would help you. All you had to do was give them little presents from time to time, though I had no inkling what an appropriate gift might be. “I’ve heard that of hobs,” I said. “Do you live in this cave?”

  “Till I moves on.”

  “It’s stormy outside,” I said.

  “Storms and storms let a hob roams and roams,” he said nonsensically.

  “Do you live in the Quag?”

  “What, this here place, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave me a crooked grin, revealing misshapen teeth. “Where else would I live, dearie, dearie?”

  “You can just call me Vega.”

  “I could if I would if I could.”

  My head started to throb.

  “You says you’s a Wugmort? What’s that, dearie, dearie?”

  “Wug for short. It’s what we call someone from Wormwood. It’s a village. The Quag surrounds it.”

  He nodded, though I wasn’t sure he even knew what I was talking about.

  “Look,” I said, “I have a friend, Delph. We were sitting together a ways from here when a dark cloud came down and covered us. When it lifted, he was gone. Can you help me find him? I have to find him. I have to.”

  Instead of answering, the hob turned his back on me and ventured farther into the cave. I hurriedly grabbed my tuck and lantern and Harry Two and I followed him deeper into the bowels of the place.

  We came to a little chamber that was outfitted with a couple of crates, a rolled-up blanket, a bucket and two lighted candles perched on rocks.

  I looked around and set my tuck and lantern down and then sat on a crate. It was cold in here and winds from the storm were managing to reach us even this far, causing the candles to flicker. I shivered and drew my cloak closer around me. The next moment I felt terrible guilt. Poor Delph might be out in the storm with nothing over his head.

  “You cold, dearie, dearie?” asked Seamus.

  I nodded.

  He sat down on a crate, drew his hand in his cloak pocket, and what he pulled out of it made me fall backward off my seat and caused Harry Two to start barking.

  Seamus ignored this commotion and placed the small ball of blue fire he held in his hand on the dirt, sprinkled a bit of something he had pulled from his other pocket on the tiny tendrils of flames, and they immediately grew to over a foot in height.

  I regained my seat and said, “How did you do that?”

  He looked up at me with an innocent expression. “Do what?”

  “Pull fire from your pocket?”

  “I pulls it, I does. Does yousey?”

  “No, I does notsey,” I said before catching myself. “I mean I do not. I can’t. Where did you learn to do it?”

  “All hobs cans pull fires from their pockets. We just cans, dearie, dearie. We just cans.” He finished this statement off with a cackle.

  I drew closer to the flames and felt immediate and deep warmth even though it was not a large fire. Flashing through my mind was a remembrance from many sessions ago.

  My mother and father and my brother were sitting in front of the fire back at our modest digs in Wormwood. We had eaten our usual small meal. We never had much in terms of things. But I remember sitting on the floor in front of that fire and looking around at each of them, my father with his ready smile, my mother with her kind ways, and my brother staring at a spider in the corner of the ceiling and silently counting its legs, and thinking I was the luckiest Wug there ever was.

  The memory faded and I refocused. “Can you help me find my friend?” I said again. I pulled some tins of food and a jug of water from my tuck. “Would you like some of my food and water?” I asked. I had no idea if this would constitute a proper gift, but I had to try.

  “What you gots, dearie, dearie?”

  “Smoked meat, cheeses, breads, fried pickles, vegetables and some apples and pears, among other things.”

  He looked disappointed. “Is that alls?”

  I looked down at my foods and wondered how there was nothing he fancied. I rummaged around in my tuck and, in doing so, brought out a tin of chocolates that I had purchased from Herman Helvet’s shop back in Wormwood. Quick as a flash, Seamus seized the tin and sniffed it.

  “This be what Seamus wants, dearie, dearie.”

  “The whole tin?” I said, stunned.

  He answered by using one of his fingernails to slice right through the metal top. He plucked out the chocolate on top and bit into it. He smiled, showing off his pile of crooked, darkened teeth. He devoured that chocolate and then finished off another. “Onesy-twosey for Seamus, saves the resties for later, I will.”

  He put the tin down and held his hands over the flames. I stared warily at those quite sharp fingernails that had so easily cut through my tin top.

  His eyes became more hooded still as he leaned back against the wall and huddled in his cloak. I listened to the storm raging outside and drew closer to the flames. Could Delph find shelter? Would something find him first? I shivered.

  “Can you help me?!” I said. “Please!”

  He said nothing but continued to stare at me with half-lidded eyes. Though the look was a bit creepy, I decided to carry on.

  “Seamus,” I said, “I’ve given you sweets.” When he still didn’t say anything, I drew out my Quag book and opened it to the page on hobs.

  I read, “A hob is a force for good. It will befriend those in need. All one has to do is be kind to the hob and provide it a gift and it will serve the giver faithfully.”

  I stopped reading and held up the book so he could see the drawing.

  “Where did you gets such a thingy?” asked Seamus as he stared curiously at the picture.

  “From someone who’s been in the Quag and knows of blokes like you,” I shot back.

  His gaze darted to the tin of chocolates that sat next to the crate. As his hand reached out for it, Harry Two shot forward to perch in front of it, his fangs bared.

  Seamus quickly
withdrew his hand and said sullenly, “No needs to be like that. Seamus is a good hob, he is. Like the wordsies say.”

  “So you can help me, right?” I eyed the tin of chocolates. “I’m really worried about my friend.”

  Seamus clucked. “You should be, dearie, dearie.” And then he added without a trace of his claptrap, singsong speech, “For ’tis a dangerous place, this is.”

  We stared at each other over the smoky flames of the ball of fire. It was suddenly so silent in the cave that I thought the storm must have ceased.

  “He disappeared in a cloud,” I said again. “What might you know about that?”

  Seamus put a finger up to his mouth as though signaling he was deep in thought. I watched him through the smoke of the conjured flames.

  “There’s a place,” he said. “There’s a place rounds here.”

  “What place?” I snapped, my fear of what might be happening to Delph growing with each breath I took.

  “A cottage.”

  I gaped at him. “What is a cottage doing in the Quag?”

  On this he fell silent and closed his eyes completely.

  “Seamus, what is a cottage doing in the Quag? Does someone live there?”

  “Maybe someones does and maybe someones doesn’t.”

  “Are you a good hob or not?” I said heatedly.

  “I is a good hob.”

  “So answer my question. Please.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at me grumpily.

  “ ’Tis a female that lives there,” he said, again with none of the claptrap.

  “Dearie, dearie?” I said, my eyebrows hiked.

  He sat up and looked at me. I mean he looked at me for what seemed like truly the first time.

  “Who’s the female in the cottage?” I asked.

  “Why you be here?” His tone was suddenly both aggressive and accusing.

  “I asked first. And you’re a hob who has yet to show me kindness, despite the tin of chocolates.”

  He pointed at the flames. “You were cold and now you’re not!”

  “And you’ve had two of my chocolates.” I picked up the can and tossed it to him. He caught it neatly. “And nearly a full tin to spare.”

  He considered this, his features turning sulky.

  “Don’t know her name,” he said finally.

  “Is she kind?” I asked.

  “Kind enough,” he commented in a pouting tone.

  “How does she survive in the Quag with so many dangerous creatures?”

  “They leave her alone, don’t they?”

  “Why?”

  “They just do,” he said with finality.

  “And can she help me find Delph?”

  He shrugged. “If she can’t, no one here can.”

  “Can you show me the way there?”

  “What! In this bloody storm?” he said in a protesting voice.

  “I can fly,” I added.

  His eyes widened. “Fly? What rubbish!”

  I strapped Harry Two into the harness.

  “I’ll show you. Come on. We haven’t a sliver to lose.”

  He rose and followed me to the cave entrance. The rain was still bucketing down and Seamus gazed out ruefully, but I didn’t care. I just needed to find Delph. Though it wasn’t night, it was dark because of all the black clouds. Clouds. Like the one that had taken Delph.

  I said to Seamus, “That flame you conjured, can we use it to see?”

  He seemed surprised by my request but nodded, reached in his pocket and pulled out another little blue ball of fire.

  “Climb on my shoulders,” I said.

  He drew back. “I’m too heavy.”

  I hoisted him up effortlessly.

  “Now, when we fly you can hold on to the straps of the harness, okay?”

  “Up there is where we’re going?” he said fearfully.

  I nodded and said, “But don’t worry, I’ve never had a crash that killed me.”

  I stepped out into the rain, slid my goggles on, kicked off, and we went in search of the one Wug I could not live without.

  THE STORM HAD grown in intensity. Even with my goggles, I was flying half-blind. Yet Seamus was holding the ball of blue fire out in front of us, and the rain and wind had no effect on it.

  “That way,” roared Seamus over the fury of the storm that caused me to roll uncontrollably every few slivers. He pointed to his left and I veered that way.

  “How much farther?” I yelled. From his earlier words I imagined the cottage to be far closer.

  “Well, it’s moved, ain’t it?” said Seamus.

  “That’s bloody wonderful!” I shrieked.

  “Down there!” he suddenly shouted.

  I looked through my fogged and smeared goggles and beheld a sight that even in the Quag seemed extraordinary.

  It wasn’t a cottage. It was a dome of emerald green. And it didn’t seem solid. It was … well, it looked to be simply a glow, like a pulse of a huge heart. But it was unmistakable and it shone clear through the utter madness of the stormy darkness.

  I shot downward and saw a landing path next to a small stand of ash trees. I swung my legs down and touched feetfirst. I could hear Seamus mutter, “Never again will me feet leave the ground, so help me, hobsey.”

  I freed Harry Two from the harness as Seamus gingerly climbed down from his perch on my shoulders. We three stood there staring at the green glow. I looked at the hob.

  “So how does one get in?”

  “Tricky, tricky, dearie, dearie.”

  I whirled on him. “If you start that load-a tosh with me again, you’re going to see a dicky fit, Seamus the hob, that you will never bloody forget!”

  His face fell and he said tersely, “All right, all right, don’t wad your knickers. Follow me.” We strode single file toward the glow. We stopped within a foot of it and even in the dark I could perceive the outline of a structure within.

  “The cottage?” I said, glancing down at Seamus.

  He nodded and said with a heavy breath, “The cottage.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  I watched as Seamus took a tentative step forward, but then he stopped and turned to look back at me.

  “Well?” I said expectantly. “Budge along.”

  “Give me a mo’,” he said. “Why are you in such a bleedin’ hurry anyways?”

  “Oh, I dunno, maybe because we’re standing in the middle of a raging storm IN THE BLOODY QUAG!”

  “Okay, okay, I sees your point.” He took several deep breaths.

  “Oh, for the love of Alvis Alcumus!” I walked straight into the green glow.

  “Oi! Wait!” he shouted.

  Harry Two instantly followed and we passed clean through. I turned and looked back at Seamus, who was jumping up and down and gesticulating madly. I reached back through the greenish glow, gripped his hand and pulled him through so he stood next to us inside the emerald dome.

  I let go of his hand and stared down at him. His eyes were scrunched closed and he was shivering like he’d been pitched into icy water.

  “Uh, Seamus?” I began.

  He made a frantic motion for me to shush. Then, little by little, he opened his great, bulbous eyes and stared around. When he realized where he was, he exclaimed in a scolding tone, “Now look what you gone and done.”

  “You brought us here.”

  “But I didn’t tell you to just barge right in. Why, when I think what coulda —”

  “What exactly was I supposed to do?” I interrupted sharply.

  “Why, you barmy git, wait while I got things sorted out, that’s bloody what.”

  “Well, they’re sorted out. We’re inside. Now, where’s the cottage?”

  I had been looking around, but the outline of the structure I had seen from outside the green glow was no longer evident from inside it.

  He pointed to his left. “Let’s try over there.”

  “Try over there?” I said blankly. “I thought you’d been here before.�
�

  “Well, I have. I mean I been to the green glow, o’course.”

  “Wait, are you telling me you’ve never been inside the green glow?”

  “G’on with ya, what cheek. Why, I ask you.”

  “I am asking you. How many times have you been inside the green glow?”

  He looked upward and seemed to be counting off something in his head. He held up a solitary finger. “Well, countin’ this time, it comes to, um, one.”

  “One!” I roared.

  He leapt back at my shout. “Well, did you give me a chance? No. You just charged on in. Coulda killed us all.”

  “So when I walked through the green glow, I could have been killed?”

  “And on your head it would have been too.”

  “Oh, bugger off!” I cried out, and went in search of a cottage that may or may not contain a “nice” female who might or might not eat us the sliver she laid eyes on us.

  “You’re a right shonky git, Seamus,” I called back over my shoulder.

  “Trog!” he yelled back.

  “Pillock,” I screamed in return before hurrying along. Then I stopped. I had just realized something. It was not raining in here. I looked up. There was no storm. No wind. I felt like I was walking along a heated path. It made me feel … comforted. We kept walking and cleared a knoll. When we raced down its other side, I saw it.

  The cottage. It had a thatch roof, mortared stones for walls and an oval solid-wood door with a light shining through the small square opening at the top of it. There was a short, crazy-angled flagstone path that led to the door.

  Gathering my courage, I stepped up onto the block of old blackened stone that formed a rough porch and looked cautiously through the window in the door. Then I suddenly leapt back off the stone and stood there shivering. The door had opened, apparently all by itself.

  When I thought things could not get stranger, I heard an imperious voice.

  “You may enter,” it said. I looked around for the source of the voice, but saw nothing. Still, the voice hadn’t sounded particularly threatening. I looked behind me once more and there was a goggle-eyed Seamus standing barely ten feet away. The bloke looked ready to vomit. I probably looked the same.