The Keepers (The Alchemy Series)

by Donna Augustine

  The Keepers

  By

  Donna Augustine

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright 2013 Donna Augustine

  No part of this book may be reproduced.

  This one is dedicated to Jess.

  A special thank you to Dragonfly Editing.

  Chapter One

  “No, I can’t wait until tomorrow. You need to take her tonight.” I heard Maxine’s voice in the kitchen. I’d been living with her and Charlie for the last two months, and as far as foster homes went, it was one of the better ones. Charlie would watch Sesame Street with me in the morning, and Maxine baked cookies sometimes. She had even made me a cake for my seventh birthday.

  They lived in an apartment, but there was a park across the street that had a swing set. As far as homes go, it was the best I’d ever had, but now it was over.

  “I won’t have her here another night. There is something wrong with her,” Maxine continued. She spoke in a strange breathy tone that I’d never heard her use before.

  I peeked around the corner, keeping myself in the shadows of my still dark room. Maxine and Charlie were standing in the kitchen together. Charlie held one of Maxine’s hands as her other hand held the phone in a white knuckled grip. I’d just read that phrase in a book the other day and been looking for a fitting situation to use it. This seemed to be perfect. Only problem was, there was no one to say it to.

  “Tell them,” Charlie urged Maxine. Charlie was the one I usually liked to try out my flavorful verses on. He called me a savant the other day and smiled. I knew whatever it had meant had made him happy, but now he seemed to want me gone, too.

  Maxine covered the phone piece and then replied to him, “I can’t tell them everything. They’ll think we’re nuts. How are we going to ever get a child then?”

  It was nice while it lasted. I had liked them.

  “Fine, but if you’re not here by tomorrow morning, I’m bringing her to you.” I watched Maxine hang the phone back on its cradle on the mustard yellow kitchen wall.

  “Thank god, they’re coming. This kid is freaking me out,” Charlie said, and then hugged Maxine. “I’m sorry, I know you thought maybe she was the one. There are lots of other kids.”

  I knew what they meant. They wanted a normal kid, not me. I pulled my worn green suitcase out of the closet and grabbed Henry, my stuffed penguin off the bed. “It’s okay Henry, we don’t need them. We don’t need anyone.”

  Fifteen Years Later

  The knocking at the door awakened me. Squinting one eye, not having the energy to open both yet, I looked at my alarm clock. One of the minute lights had burned out, so I had to round to the nearest ten minutes. Who in their right mind would be banging on my door at ten to six in the morning? I groaned because I knew the answer already. It was Mrs. Harvey; no one would ever accuse her of being in her right mind.

  “Hang on!” I yelled toward the general vicinity of the door and started looking for pants. Even though I was sure it was Mrs. Harvey, answering the door in a t-shirt and underwear didn’t seem like a good idea. Leaning down, I groped along the cluttered floor in the dark trying to find a pair of sweat pants. I kept forgetting to buy light bulbs, so I had rotated the bedroom light bulb to the living room light, where I liked to do all my studying. After accidentally stepping on one of my text books and stabbing myself with a pen, my hand finally landed on familiar cotton.

  The knocking started up again and it felt as if my whole wall shook with the force of the old woman’s pounding. “I’m coming,” I said, as I made my way to the door of my small rented trailer. Swinging the door open, before she could lay her little fists to the paint chipped surface again, I greeted my neighbor.

  Mrs. Harvey was of an unknown age somewhere between eighty and a hundred, if I had to guess. She was very fond of baby blue eye shadow and bright red lipstick. She also liked to wear her hair in a bouffant. She owned the next trailer over with her husband, which looked like the Royal Palace compared to mine.

  “Mrs. Harvey, what’s wrong?”

  “Josephine, Mr. Harvey’s hip is still bothering him, can you come by later today?”

  “Mrs. Harvey, I told you, I’m a premed student, not a doctor. I don’t know how to do any of that stuff, yet.”

  “Can you come by later, anyway? It makes Mr. Harvey feel better.”

  Her sweet voice and the pleading look in her eyes were hard to turn down.

  “Okay, sure, I’ve got the breakfast shift at the diner, and classes after that, but I should be able to swing by around seven?”

  “I’ll make you a nice dinner.”

  “That sounds good,” I said, and I wasn’t lying either. It sounded great. Mrs. Harvey was one of the best cooks I’d ever met. I knew that this wasn’t so much about Mr. Harvey’s hip, as much as that I reminded them of their daughter who had died many years ago.

  After she left, I plopped down on my bed again. I lay there for about ten minutes before I looked at the clock, and I debated how many hours of sleep I could get. Problem was I hadn’t been able to fall asleep last night until I had lain there for two hours. I didn’t think my prospects were much better now.

  I gave up and took a quick shower, instead, then grabbed the cleanest work clothes I could find and my chemistry book. I headed toward the bus stop three blocks away, figuring I could get the morning cook to give me a free omelet for breakfast while I studied before my shift.

  Hours later, when I was sitting in my final lab class for the day, I felt like I was dead on my feet. My lab partner, Lacey, stood next to me. She was the one person I knew whom I considered almost a friend. Not because I saw her outside of school, because I didn’t see anyone outside of school, I didn’t see anyone outside of work, either, for that matter. I wasn’t your typical twenty-something year old. When people realized I was a freak of nature, they usually didn’t stick around for long. And when they couldn’t run, they found a way to push me out. I’d learned that over and over again as a child, being shuttled from one foster home to the next. Every now and then I’d become friendly with someone like Lacey, or the Harvey’s, but I always knew somewhere deep inside it wouldn’t last.

  When I was a child, I used to think that every new home would be the one. My case counselor told me that it was just a matter of finding the right fit. I still remembered the day when I realized that this time wasn’t going to be any different. The day I’d lost hope.

  I had been six and living with one family for five months, an all time record, when the counselor picked me up at school. She had a list of excuses why they hadn’t wanted
me, but I knew she lied. I always knew a lie when I heard one. That wasn’t why I was a freak. It’s not some sort of gift, I think I’m just perceptive, and people always give a tell. That’s what they call it in poker when people give up their hand. A tell.

  “Jo!” Lacey was hitting me in the side. “I’m not doing this shit all by myself!”

  Lacey’s voice jolted me out of my half sleep just in time to see my pen floating in front of my face. I grabbed it and shoved it in my pocket before anyone else noticed.

  “What?” I asked, now fully awake.

  “You aren’t helping.” Lacey never lied. She might be a little hard on the senses sometimes, but she was painfully honest.

  “Sorry, I’m just beat. I had the breakfast shift.”

  “Why don’t you let me get you in with me at Lacard? My uncle got promoted to pit boss. I’m positive he can get you in as a cocktail waitress. He already got me in and is going to get me some shifts in the high rollers pit. I bet he could get you in too.”

  The Lacard was the newest and most expensive casino on the Vegas Strip. When I did have free time, which was almost never, I liked to stroll through their high-end mall and imagine all the things I’d buy when I was a doctor one day.

  “You wouldn’t have to work as much then,” Lacey added.

  “I don’t want…”

  “Don’t even start! I know! You hate favors. You can do it for me then, because when you work the morning shifts, you’re barely human, and I find it to be a hostile work environment.” Lacey had started prelaw before she switched to premed. According to her, she would’ve been a brilliant lawyer, but she decided her genius was better spent curing cancer.

  I sat back and looked at her big pleading brown eyes. They were strikingly dark compared to her bleached blond hair, a combination that might have been harsh on someone else but somehow worked well for her.

  I’d had classes on and off with Lacey for the last two years. She had gotten to know me pretty well, or as well as anyone could. She was right, I did hate favors, but I’d be stupid not to take the opportunity. I was holding on to my three point eight GPA by the skin of my teeth, and med schools were fiercely competitive. If I slipped even a little, it would be hell trying to get in a good one, and I could forget about a scholarship of any sort. I had always been a fast learner, rarely having to read something more than once, but I couldn’t keep up with the class work, and the diner to pay the bills, without something taking a hit.

  “Are you sure?” I asked hesitantly.

  Lacey let out a sigh of relief and smiled a Marilyn Monroe smile. I knew she had been practicing those. “Are you kidding? My uncle is going to be thrilled. The casinos are always looking for pretty girls. It is going to be fantastic. You’ll see.”

  Chapter Two

  “Lacey, I don’t know about this.” I smoothed my hand over the black satin of my new uniform. Lacey, true to her word, got her uncle to get me a job. She’d pulled some strings with her boss, who had a crush on her, to get me on her shift.

  “You look stunning, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m naked.”

  “No, you aren’t, silly.”

  “I feel like I’m going to be serving drinks in a bathing suit.”

  “You don’t wear heels and stockings with a bathing suit. Now smush your boobs in a little so I can zip this up for you. I always thought you wore a push up bra. I can’t believe how big your boobs are.”

  “Lacey, if you keep talking, I’m never going to be able to leave this room.”

  “Sorry. Come on. We’ve got to get out on the floor. Just try to be nice, okay?”

  “I’m always nice!”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  I couldn’t have been more out of my comfort zone if I’d been wearing a big red rubber nose and a rainbow wig. My diner uniform was black pants and a white blouse and I blended perfectly into the background. I didn’t want the attention an outfit like this would attract.

  “It feels weird to have my hair down while I’m working.”

  “You’re serving drinks, not food. Plus, we are supposed to be attractive, not look like milk maids. And if I had hair like yours, I wouldn’t put it up in that ugly ratty pony tail all the time.”

  “It’s irritating, and it’s getting too long. I’m just too cheap to get it cut.”

  “You’re lucky you’re a natural blonde and don’t have to dye it all the time. God only knows how bad you’d let your roots get. You have no idea how expensive this gets to be, too,” Lacey said as she pulled a lock of hair forward over her shoulder. “Now, Jonny, the bartender, is kinda creepy, but he gives me free shots when it’s slow, so be nice to him.”

  “I know; I’ve got to be nice. You told me five times already.”

  “Ugggh.”

  “What? I said I’d be nice.”

  “No, not you. See over there?” I looked where she was pointing to the corner of the bar where the bartender, a nice looking dark Italian guy whom I guessed was Jonny, was leaning forward talking to another waitress. She looked to be in her early twenties, with black hair and a slightly Asian appearance, and was dressed like us.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “That’s Vicky. She doesn’t normally work this shift. She must have switched. She thinks she’s boss because she’s sleeping with the owner.”

  “She’s the owner’s girlfriend?” I thought it a little odd that the owner’s girlfriend would be pushing drinks with the rest of us.

  “No, she’s not his girlfriend. She just doesn’t seem to realize that, or doesn’t want to.”

  “She’s pretty. She looks kind of like Lucy Liu.”

  Lacey jumped in front of my path and held her hand up, eyes round as saucers. “Whatever you do, don’t say that to her. She’s already about to explode from the size of her ego.”

  “Lacey!”

  We both swung around to where a bear of a man was standing about ten feet to the side of us. His hair was crazy thick and bushy, even cropped as close to his head as it was. He wore a nice suit, but he looked like a thug. He was also a complete softy and my new boss.

  “Hi, Arnold,” we greeted him together.

  “You’re both late.”

  “I’m sorry, Jo felt funny in her new uniform.”

  I gasped in indignation at being thrown under the bus so blatantly, then followed up with an elbow to her ribs.

  “Like it wasn’t true? You were being prudish.”

  I didn’t say a word, not wanting to prolong the subject.

  He just shook his head and sighed. “Show Jo around. And, Lacey, you have to start showing up on time.”

  “I’m sorry, Arnold.” Lacey smiled her Monroe smile and the big bear looking thug visibly melted.

  “Just try not to do it, again,” he said. Lacey was late every day of the week. I knew this because she told me in the locker room just thirty minutes ago. “I need someone to run Mr. Hawking up a bottle of the scotch he likes. We’re slow, so you can bring Jo with you while you show her the ropes.”

  “Where’s Perry?”

  “Lacey, can’t you just do something when I ask you?”

  “But that’s not my job. Make Vicky do it, you know she’d be quite happy to.” Lacey put just enough extra inflection on the word happy to make it more than obvious what she was insinuating.

  “If I send Vicky, she won’t come back tonight, and I can’t exactly call the boss and complain. I’m already down a girl.”

  “Fine.” Lacey stalked off in a pout, and I had no choice but to follow her having no idea what else to do. I started to remember quickly why I had no friends. I hadn’t wanted any.

  “What’s the big deal if we run an errand?” I asked her after we had gotten out of earshot of Arnold.

  “Because Mr. Cormac Hawking is the owner, and he makes me nervous.”

  She stepped up to the bar, made a face at Vicky, and introduced me to Jonny. He smiled flirtatiously, and I had the distinct impression that he would have made a move on me
if Lacey hadn’t sent him off quickly to go fetch the scotch for Mr. Hawking.

  “Is he sleazy or something?” I asked Lacey, still wondering how somebody made her unsettled. No one unsettled her.

  “No, he’s actually really hot. He’s just… I don’t know how to explain it.” She hesitated and looked back at me. “It’s hard to put into words. If he’s up there when we bring this, you’ll see.”

  Jonny plunked down a bottle of scotch on the bar and threw me another smile.

  “Stop looking at her like that. It’s just creepy!” Lacey said as she grabbed the scotch in one hand and my arm in the other. “Don’t sleep with him. He gets around and from the tally I’ve got, has given at least four waitresses an STD,” she told me as we headed up to the private elevator that went to the private top floors. The door men that kept the general population of the casino out, held the doors for us.

  We got out at the fiftieth floor. A large sumo wrestler look alike, with his sparring partner by his side, was standing in front of the elevator doors when they slide open. They nodded to us as we passed.

  “This floor is Mr. Hawking’s only. If we were strangers, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum back there, would have ripped us to pieces. I’ve heard there are about fifty more of their type lurking around this floor.”

  My heels sank into the thick cream carpet surrounded by tan walls. It was set up like a gallery, with paintings on either side, lighting above each piece of artwork.

  “Is that a real Monet?” I asked, as I paused in front of oil painted water lilies. I was far from a connoisseur of art, but on my eleventh birthday, Rick, one of the foster kids who had been living at the same house I was, had given me a used book of Monet prints. I’d had to tape the binding back together last month, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out.

  “Probably, he’s a huge art collector.”

  When we reached the end of the hallway, we came to a massive, carved wood door. The grain swirled underneath a thick coat of clear lacquer that accentuated the warmth and highlighted the skill of the artisan who had made it. Lacey reached her hand up to press the doorbell to the right, and I saw a slight tremor as her fingers hovered over the button for a moment. She pressed it, and the doors swung open before her arm had dropped back to her side.