Gatekeepers

by Robert Liparulo

  “Do you know what’s going on?” Xander asked Keal.

  “With the house? Him and the house? Some.”

  “What about him and the house?” David said.

  “He built it,” Keal said, as though they should have known. “His father and brother and him.”

  David swung his head toward Xander. Both of their mouths hung open, both of their brows furrowed tight.

  “He should have said that in the first place,” Xander said.

  “He’d have gotten around to it,” Keal said. “This man’s head is like a library—especially when it comes to this house. But you can only read one book at a time.”

  “When did they build it?” David said.

  Keal tightened his face, trying to remember. “I think . . . 1932, ’33? He was a teenager. About your age, Xander.”

  “He must know everything about the house,” Xander said. “All of its secrets.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Keal said. “The way he talks, it’s like . . . like the house has a life of its own. Your mom and dad know a lot about you, but not everything. And the older you get, the more things you take on that are your own: experiences, dreams, fears. Seems to me this house is like that.”

  David didn’t want to hear that. They needed for the man who built the house to know all about it, to tell everything they needed to know to beat it.

  A hint of disappointment must have shown on his face.

  Keal said, “But between the building and the living in it, he’s gotta know something, don’t you think?”

  “How long was he here?” Xander said.

  “I think something like . . . forty-five, fifty years.”

  “In this house?” David couldn’t even imagine being here that long. He studied Jesse’s sleeping face. The adventures he must have had.

  The house groaned again, and David knew immediately it wasn’t simply “old bones.” The sound grew louder and deeper, like the start-up of an engine big enough to power a city. Sharp sounds seemed to signal the splintering of wood, the cracking of glass, but he saw nothing like those things.

  Jesse startled awake. His eyes darted around. His hair was buffeting around his head. It snapped out and froze, pointing past his face at the foyer. It unfroze and billowed, as if in a strong breeze. His shirt collar started to flap.

  David was kneeling beside Jesse’s wheelchair, and he didn’t feel a thing. He raised his hand and moved it in front of Jesse. Nothing. He touched his own hair: flat on his head as it should have been. Xander’s too: shaggy and uncombed, but not moving.

  Jesse said, “I have to leave.”

  “What? No!” David said.

  Jesse’s hair went limp.

  The groaning and cracking faded until the house was silent again.

  “What was that?” Toria said. She blinked sleepily.

  The old man said, “The house is talking to us.”

  “What’s it saying?” David said.

  Jesse looked down at him. He put his hand on David’s arm, which David had draped over a wheel of the chair. His eyes were intense, fire blue, like Mom’s and Xander’s.

  Jesse said, “It’s hungry.”

  CHAPTER

  twenty -two

  WENDNESDAY, 2:07 A.M.

  Oh, come on! That was the last thing David wanted to hear: It’s hungry.

  Jesse laughed, an airy wheeze. He patted David’s arm. “Don’t look so scared, son. It’s not just an ordinary house, but I can tell you that you’re more than an ordinary boy. You and Xander—your family—you’re meant to be here.”

  David shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “This house, those rooms upstairs,” Jesse said. “It’s what we do. It’s in our blood. Our society has grown away from it, but there was a time when whole families, generation after generation, knew what part they played on life’s stage. Hunter, leader, blacksmith . . . we’re all gifted to do some-thing very specific. Not everyone finds out what that is, but it’s true. In some cases, like ours, it’s in our lineage, it’s what this family is supposed to do.”

  “What?” David said. “What are we supposed to do?”

  Jesse leaned closer. “We’re gatekeepers, David. The way gate-keepers of old allowed into the city only those people meant to be there . . . so we do here.”

  “We do what?” David said.

  “We make sure only those events that are supposed to hap-pen get through.”

  “To where?” David said.

  “To the future.”

  David looked to Xander, but his brother looked as baffled as David felt.

  The house groaned mournfully.

  Jesse’s hair fluttered. “I have to leave,” he said again.

  “But . . .” David gripped the old man’s shoulder. It felt like nothing but bone under the jacket.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Jesse said. “I promise.”

  “I was hoping . . .” David said. “I was hoping you’d stay. I mean, in the house with us. Sleep here. We have room.”

  “I wish I could,” Jesse said. “But I’ve been into those other worlds so many times, they think I’m theirs.”

  “Theirs?” David said.

  “The worlds’. Time’s.” Jesse scanned the ceiling. He said, “I can feel the pull. I can feel it wanting to drag me back into the stream, the stream of Time. That wind blowing my hair? That’s it, grabbing at me. If I stay in the house too long, it’ll just—”

  He snapped his fingers, inches from David’s nose, making him flinch.

  “Snatch me away, just like that.”

  “But we need your help,” David said.

  Jesse put his hand on David’s head and brushed his hair back. “And you have it,” he said. “I’ll be here as much as I can, for as long as you want me. But when I feel the pull, I’ll have to go away for a while. Not long: few hours, few days—I don’t know. That’s the way it has to be.”

  David frowned. “Okay . . . I guess.”

  Somewhere in the house a door slammed. All of them jumped, and Toria let out a quick scream.

  Jesse took his eyes off the foyer entrance to address the children. “Keal and I are going to a motel in town.” He frowned. “If you want, if you’ll feel safer, I can get a room for you there too. At least until your parents return.”

  “We can’t,” Xander said. “We can’t leave the house. Not now.”

  Jesse appeared disappointed. “Well,” he said, “I think it’s acting up because I’m here. You’ll be okay.” He smiled, pushing up the edges of his mustache.

  If he says “I think” now, David thought, I’m outta here. Motel, here I come.

  But Jesse said no more. He nodded at Keal, and the big man stood.

  David and Xander watched through the windows on either side of the front door. Jesse sat on the edge of the porch while Keal carried the wheelchair through the woods to the road.

  “His hair’s doing it again,” David said. It was billowing around his head the way it had done in the dining room. It snapped back toward the house, then forward, as though catching in the ebb and flow of a tide.

  “Look beside him,” Xander said.

  Within Jesse’s reach was an elm leaf. It was big and dry and papery looking in the porch’s light. On his other side was a clump of pine needles. Neither the leaf nor the needles so much as fluttered.

  “It’s only him,” Xander said, “feeling the wind.”

  David said, “The way his hair is blowing one way and then the opposite, it’s like the house is breathing.”

  “Great,” Xander said. “Like it’s not creepy enough. Now it talks and breathes.”

  “And it’s hungry,” Toria said from her perch on the stairs.

  David made sure the door’s dead bolt was locked. He said, “What do you think about what he said, our being gate-keepers?”

  “I think he’s crazy,” Xander said. “I’m not supposed to be here. We’re going to find Mom and get out of here. As soon as I’m old enough, I
’m heading back to L.A. to make movies. Maybe I’ll make one about this house. That’ll be all the gate-keeping I’ll do.” He looked up toward the second floor. “We gotta go get Mom.”

  “Now? ”

  “She’s waiting for us, Dae.”

  “I can’t, Xander,” David said. He was whining, and he didn’t care. “I’m beat. Let’s start again in the morning.”

  His brother glared at him. “It’s not fair,” he said. “We found her. She was right there. I thought all we had to do was get you in there to show her the way home.”

  “They chased me away,” David said.

  “I know, I know.” Xander slapped his hand on the ball atop the post at the base of the banister. “Then everything happened to keep us from getting back to her! It would have been better if we’d never seen her message.”

  “No, I’m glad about it,” David said. “It’s nice to know she’s safe, and she knows we’re looking . . . More than looking; we’re close. I don’t know how these worlds work. She went in one, came out and back in another, and now she’s in an even different one.

  But, Xander, she’s going to do everything she can to stay in the Civil War world until we get to her. I know it.”

  Xander nodded, looking at their sister sitting on the stairs.

  Toria’s eyes were closed. Her head rested in her hands, and it kept drooping to one side, then snapping back up.

  “Okay,” Xander said. “Tomorrow, for sure.”

  “For sure,” David agreed, already starting to doze off.

  CHAPTER

  twenty -three

  WEDNESDAY 2:42 A.M.

  David and his sister lay shoulder to shoulder in Toria’s bed. Xander was on the floor beside it. All three stared at the ceiling. The paint had peeled in spots, and a few water stains marred its surface. David was sure there was more damage to the ceiling than he could see by the dim glow of Toria’s Fiona nightlight. But it didn’t matter. What had them all unable to sleep, on edge and frazzled, was the clomping around up there. Footsteps pounded, objects clattered. For the umpteenth time, David lifted his head to make sure the chair was still wedged under the handle of the closed bedroom door.

  He rolled onto his side to see Xander and whispered, “We could move into our bedroom.”

  “Do you really want to go into the hallway?” Xander said.

  David didn’t answer. After a while he said, “Good thing we didn’t go up there to look for the Civil War stuff.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Xander said. “What if it’s Mom making that noise?”

  David listened to the heavy thumps. “That’s not Mom,” he said. “It’s the big man, the one who took her.”

  “Phemus,” Xander said.

  “What?”

  “There was a poster at school. It shows Odysseus being captured by a Cyclops. The Cyclops is huge and muscular, but a little flabby too. He’s naked, except for these animal pelts around his waist. And he’s bald.”

  “Sounds exactly like the big man,” David said, amazed. “Does the Cyclops have a beard?”

  “Naw, that part’s different.”

  “Plus, the big man has two eyes,” David pointed out. “He’s not a Cyclops. What’s Phay-mus?”

  “Phemus,” Xander corrected. “The Cyclops’s name is Polyphemus. I call him Phemus for short. That’s the guy who took Mom.”

  “Phemus,” David said, feeling it on his tongue.

  It sounded like something was being dragged through the third-floor hallway.

  “I’d like to know what’s going on,” Xander said.

  “You’re not thinking about going up there?” David got a cold chill just thinking about it.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I don’t want anything to do with that hallway when what-ever’s making those noises is there. Phemus or whoever. I’d rather never know what’s going on and live, than find out and die.”

  “No, really?” Xander said.

  David rolled away.

  Toria’s eyes were closed, her mouth slightly parted.

  He settled onto his back. A minute later he whispered, “Good night, Xander.”

  “’Night, Dae.”

  David’s eyes felt heavy in his head, grainy as though sand had gotten in. Every time he blinked, it took more and more effort to open his lids again. Toria’s slow, deep breathing lulled him closer to sleep. The noises from the third floor faded—in real-ity or only in his own ears, he didn’t know, and didn’t give it much thought.

  His eyes closed and stayed that way.

  CHAPTER

  twenty -four

  WEDNESDAY,9:48 A.M.

  His mother woke him. Her hand gently shook his shoulder.

  His eyes fluttered open. There she was, leaning over him.

  The morning light radiated behind her.

  “Mom?” With consciousness came excitement: She was here! She had found her way home!

  “David?” she whispered.

  “Mom!” He sat up, throwing his arms around her. I missed you! I love you! Are you all right? But none of these things came out.

  He just wanted to hold her, squeeze her, feel her in his arms.

  “David.” She pushed him away.

  His eyes found her face, longing to see it.

  He blinked. The corners of his mouth dropped, as did his heart.

  Toria sat in front of him, her face contorted by concern. She said, “Are you all right?”

  “I—” Unwilling to let his mother go, he looked around the room. Daylight through the window made everything clear—and it was clear his mother was not there.

  “You’re crying,” Toria said. She brushed her fingers over his cheek.

  “I thought . . .” He blinked, wiped his eyes.

  “I know. You thought I was Mom,” Toria said. “You were dreaming.”

  He tried to smile but couldn’t.

  His sister’s face brightened.

  “What?” he said.

  “I want to go,” she said.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He shook his head. “Until Dad sorts things out with the police, we can’t leave the house. They might grab us and not let us back in.”

  “No,” she said. “I mean, I want to go get her. I want to go over.”

  He glared at her. “Who? You? You said last night you didn’t want to go through a portal.”

  “I changed my mind. For Mom. You said they chased you out.”

  David said, “The first time we went to the Civil War, I was wearing Confederate gray.” He saw that she didn’t understand. “Xander and I—and Mom—were in Union territory. They thought I was an enemy soldier.”

  “Xander too?”

  He shook his head. “I guess they thought he was a Union soldier trying to run away. They don’t like that much.”

  “But they don’t know me,” she said, “and I’m a little girl. What are they gonna do?”

  “You don’t know these worlds, Toria,” David said. “It’s almost like the people over there look for reasons to not like you, to want to hurt you.”

  “But I have to go, Dae.”

  “Go where?” Xander said. He put his hand on the bed and lifted himself up to sit beside Toria.

  “She wants to go over.”

  “No way,” Xander said. He gave their sister a little push. He squinted at David. “Were you crying?”

  Again David wiped his eyes, his face. He said, “That’s . . . something else. Toria knows we can’t go back, but she thinks she can.”

  Xander stared into the corner of the room, thinking. He nodded.

  “Xander, no,” David said.

  Xander raised his eyebrows. He said, “Maybe she’s right.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “We made it out alive.”

  “Barely,” David reminded him.

  “Look at her,” his brother said. “Who’s going to hurt anything so cute?”

  Toria grinned.

  “Dad would kill us,�
� David said.

  “Not if everything goes all right,” Xander said.

  “Yes!” David grabbed Xander’s arm. “In this case, even if she gets Mom and comes back without a scratch, he’d kill us. You know he would.”

  CHAPTER

  twenty -five

  WEDNESDAY, 10:30 A.M.

  The argument continued in the kitchen.

  David dropped bread into the toaster. He said, “It’s never gone smoothly for us when we go over. It’s always about fighting, running, survival.”

  “Not all the time,” Xander said. He was scrambling eggs in a frying pan. “There was that one peaceful world. Beautiful meadows. Even the animals weren’t afraid of me. Dad and I threw rocks into a river.”

  “That sounds nice,” Toria said. She was opening a pack-age of bacon for Xander to fry up.

  David watched the coils inside the toaster turn orange. He said, “One place where people weren’t trying to kill us. One. And we know the Civil War world. It’s not a peaceful meadow.”

  Xander scooped the eggs onto a plate and started laying strips of bacon into the pan. The sizzling meat sounded like gale-force rain striking the windows.

  The smells reminded David how hungry he was. The night before, he had choked down maybe three bites of clumpy spaghetti, which had sat in his stomach like Play-Doh.

  Tongs in hand, Xander watched the bacon. He said, “Crispy or fatty?”

  “Crispy,” Toria said.

  David said, “I don’t know about ‘fatty,’ but I don’t like crispy.” The toast popped up, and he transferred the slices to a plate. He put more bread in the toaster, levered them down, and began buttering the finished ones. He said, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

  “Arguing?” Xander said. “Hey, you’re the one who won’t listen to reason.”

  “I mean making breakfast,” David said. “Like it’s just some normal day.”

  “Maybe it is,” Xander said. “For us.”

  The toast kept tearing under David’s butter knife. Every stroke made the bread uglier. He turned away from it.