by P. T. Hylton
She made it to Volunteer Park and spotted the gardening shed near some bushes. She wasn’t one hundred percent positive that was the place, but she couldn’t think of any other shed in the park. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw Willis leaning against the shed, smoking.
Wouldn’t you know it? After acting so superior, she could have used an Invisibility Cloak after all.
Still, there was a good chance she could remain unseen if she slipped around the back of the shed and was extra careful not to make noise.
She circled around the back of the shed, creeping slowly and softly. As she turned the corner and spotted the door, she saw it was shut, but not latched. Maybe Willis was supposed to be doing something in there and was out on a smoke break?
She reached for the door and gently pulled it open. What she saw inside was so unexpected it made her gasp.
A tree was growing right in the middle of the shed. And a thin man with black hair and a neatly trimmed beard was tied to that tree. His eyes were on the ground.
She stood frozen, just staring at him for a long time.
Finally, he looked up and saw her.
Surprise flashed across his face, but it was quickly replaced with a smile.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” she answered, her voice barely above a whisper.
“What’s your name?”
“Alice,” she said, and instantly wished she hadn’t. It was automatic, though, giving your name when someone asked for it.
“Alice,” the man said, “I have a bit of a problem. As you can see, I’m tied to this tree. Some very bad men put me here. I need your help to get out.”
She stood frozen, unsure of what to do.
“You know about bad guys right?” he asked. “Like Snidely Whiplash?”
She had no idea who Snidely Whiplash was.
“I just need you to come over here and untie the rope.”
Suddenly, Willis’ voice was coming from behind her. “Alice? What the hell are you doing here?”
She panicked and Pulled Back on the rope in her mind, just a little.
Then she was standing on the other side of the shed again, peeking around at the door.
She should leave now. She should Pull Back to when she was standing in her kitchen. She should enjoy the breakfast Mom had made and forget all about this man tied to the tree. But she couldn’t. She had to see one more time. Because that man had said bad guys tied him up. Her dad had been here this morning. Was her dad one of the bad guys? Was that why he hadn’t wanted to go?
She had to take one more look.
She crept around the corner and pulled the door open again.
And, again, she gasped. Because, for the first time in her long and storied history of Pulling Back on the rope in her mind, things were different this time. Not everything. Only one small detail. The man wasn’t looking at the ground. He was looking at her. And smiling.
“Clever girl,” the man said.
She froze. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t.
“That was a neat trick,” the man said. “A very neat trick. Surely someone as clever as you can untie a simple rope.”
She shook her head slowly and took a step back.
“If you like tricks, I have some I could show you. Lots and lots. I could teach you things that would make your little time refold look like kid’s stuff.”
Her heart was racing now. She wanted to run away, to Pull Back, but the man’s gaze seemed to be holding her somehow, making the rope in her mind too slippery to grasp.
“I’m a very good friend to have,” the man said. “But a very bad enemy.” His voice dropped to a lower register. “If you don’t help me, I’ll pop your eyeballs out of your head, and no simple time fold will save you. I was born in a place where time was no more than a color. You can’t fool me, and you can’t make me forget.”
She turned and ran out of the shed. She brushed past a shocked Willis, who yelled after her, “Alice? What the hell are you doing here?”
When she was fifty yards from the shed, she stopped and tried again. She was relieved, oh-so-relieved, to find she could grip the rope again. She Pulled Back.
A moment later she walked into her kitchen and sat down at the table.
Mom smiled at her. “Just in time.” She handed Alice a glass of orange juice.
Alice hoped her mother couldn’t see her hand shaking when she took it.
3.
Sophie was not a fan of libraries. All these books, wrapped in weird shiny plastic coating. And there was the musty smell. The decay of old paper. Even in a modern library like this one, with bright lights and dozens of computer screens lining the walls, they couldn’t hide that old-as-sin book smell.
Or maybe it was just the memories of Mrs. Wexel, her high school librarian who’d run detention. Mrs. Wexel had possessed impressively pungent body odor and a stare that could shame even the most shameless of note-passers and spitball shooters.
Mason didn’t seem to carry Sophie’s baggage when it came to libraries. He turned in slow circles as they made their way through the stacks. “My God,” he kept repeating. “So many books.”
Sophie was thinking much the same thing. How were they ever supposed to find the right one? What if it was hidden on a shelf? Were they supposed to look at every spine? Worse yet, what if it was wrapped in the dust jacket from some other book? What if the book that held the power to save the world looked like something by Danielle Steel? Would they have to pull every book off the shelf and look inside each one? How many days would that take?
Mostly, she was frustrated with Frank for ditching them. He’d been out there five minutes already. But when he came back in, she didn’t want him to find them standing around waiting for him to save the day. They had to take a proactive approach.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s assume for now it isn’t on one of the shelves. I mean, they wouldn’t want just anybody walking up and checking it out, right?” For the moment, she put aside the question of who they were.
Mason was still doing his slow spin, taking in the new sights and smells. It had to be an assault on his senses. Sophie felt a bit sorry for the guy. His voice was distant when he spoke. “Then we check the perimeter?”
“Good a plan as any. Come on.”
She led him away from the east side of the library, where the fiction section and the banks of computers with free Internet access drew the majority of the weekday morning patrons. They walked past the graphic novel section and the travel books, and they reached the far wall. Small meeting rooms lined this side of the building. Each had a table and a couple chairs that looked entirely uncomfortable. All the rooms were empty and their doors were wide open as if waiting for someone to come into the municipally-provided comfort of their open arms.
Sophie tried to think who would use such rooms, and why, but she came up empty.
At the end of the room was a staircase leading to the second floor. Sophie paused, unsure if patrons were allowed up there, but Mason, who didn’t have her years of institutional brainwashing on following rules, didn’t pause and nearly ran into her back. She reminded herself the book was just as likely to be in an employees only section as anywhere else, and headed up the stairs.
In the end, she needn’t have worried. The upstairs was open to the public. The walls of the long hallway at the top of the stairs were lined with paintings which Sophie assumed were probably by local artists. Some of them were pretty good, but some were clearly hanging there because a library employee didn’t have the stones to say no to a desperate local artist.
They passed a pair of restrooms and a drinking fountain before reaching a set of glass doors. She glanced at the sign next to the door. The Rough-Shod Readers Book Club. Tuesdays 10 am. All welcome. Doughnuts provided.
Sophie felt Mason move next to her.
“What’s going on in there?” he asked.
“Book club. They read a book and then all try to sound smart while talking about it.
” She glanced at her watch. Ten-oh-three. She looked through the glass doors. There were maybe a half dozen people inside, and they appeared to be settling in. A number of distinct conversations were happening. One man was carrying two precariously balanced doughnuts back to the table. Everyone in the room appeared to be in their sixties, if not older.
She was about to turn away when something caught her eye. A familiar green paperback book sat in front of almost every seat. Sophie recognized it.
She’d never been much of a reader, but the weeks she’d spent in Sanctuary had included a lot of downtime. In her bored desperation, she’d dug into Jake Hinkle’s small collection of science fiction and fantasy books, and she’d been surprised to find how much she liked them. She’d even read a few more since she’d been back from Sanctuary. She had a harder time concentrating now, though. Every time she started to get lost in a story, some memory popped into her head, pulling her back to the real world. Mostly they were memories of her final fight with Taylor, her sister’s killer. But there were other things, too. Vee’s arms being pulled from his body. The Larvae burying itself in her friend’s arm. A man being turned into a tree. They came to her as still images, frozen pictures of the worst, most gruesome moments of her life. She had to close her eyes and put the book aside until it passed. It took her a long time to get through a book now.
Of all the novels she’d read in Sanctuary, her favorite was Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. It was the story of a future where the Earth was at war with aliens. For reasons unknown to most of the people on Earth, you weren’t allowed to join the fight against the enemy until your seventy-fifth birthday. If you decided to do so, you would be taken away to fight and never see Earth, your family, or your friends again.
Old Man’s War was the green paperback on the table.
Sophie looked at Mason. “Let’s go in.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
She nodded to the sign. “All welcome.”
“I mentioned I can barely read, right?” He looked toward the people inside. “How about I wait out here?”
“You fit the demographic better. Don’t worry, I’ll do the talking.” Without waiting for a response, she pulled the door open and walked inside.
She found two empty seats near the end of the table and sat down, motioning for Mason to join her.
She suddenly realized the conversations had stopped, and everyone was looking at her. After a moment, a man with a wide smile and thinning but neatly combed hair walked over, his hand out.
“I’m Joe Cantor. I’m the director of the library. Welcome.”
She shook his hand and introduced herself. After an awkward pause, Mason did the same.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what, er, brought you to our little group?” Joe asked.
Sophie tilted her head. “Book talk. Can’t get enough of it.”
“What he means to say,” an older woman on the far side of the table said, “is how’d you hear about our group?”
“Ah,” Sophie said, doing her best to turn on the charm. “Oddest thing. Mason and I were just hanging out, taking in the library, and we stumbled across your room here. I saw you were reading Old Man’s War and thought I’d join in.”
After a long moment, Joe said, “So, you’ve read the book, then?”
“One of my favorites.”
Though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, the tension in the air grew thicker.
Joe moved to his seat. “Okay, well, let’s…get started, I suppose.”
More silence.
Sophie glanced over at Mason and was surprised to see he looked like the most comfortable person in the room. He’d snagged a jelly-filled doughnut—probably while she was awkwardly engaging with Joe and his bookish oldsters—and was happily munching away.
After another long, heavy silence, Sophie said, “How’s this work? Do we just give our thoughts on the book?”
Joe’s smile widened a bit. “Yes! Excellent. Since you’re our guest, feel free to go first.”
She wasn’t expecting that. She was hoping to listen in a bit, maybe get a feel for the flow of conversation. And maybe pick up a few juicy bits about King’s Crossing. But she went for it. “Yeah, okay. I liked it a lot. It was funny, and sad, and exciting. My favorite part was when they first get into space. When there’s all the mystery about what’s actually going on.”
She looked around the table as she spoke, and she noticed something odd. The copy of the book she’d read at Sanctuary had been beaten up, the spine lined with dozens of creases and the cover starting to tear. She could see three spines from where she sat. Not one of them had a single crease. The others looked to be in perfect condition, too. Their covers held the sharp edges of a book never once banged against anything. Either every person here was a super careful reader, or these books had never been read. One way to find out.
“I’m a little conflicted on the shark monster scene, though,” she said. “I guess I can see how it fit into the plot, but it was a bit graphic for me. Shark sex is not something I was really expecting.”
A murmur of agreement went around the table.
“That was very odd indeed,” an old woman said.
“And can we talk about the twist?” Sophie asked. “How it was all a dream? I was not expecting that! So original.”
The smile fell from Joe’s face. Clearly, he’d figured out she was messing with them.
Sophie had her hands folded on the table in front of her, and she noticed they were all looking at them. No, she realized, remembering the Roman numeral tattoos. Not her hands. Her wrists.
She unclasped her hands and laid them palms up on the table, exposing the untattooed skin of her inner wrists. “Show them your wrists, Mason.”
Mason grudgingly put down the doughnut, brushed the powdered sugar from his hands and followed her lead.
She looked at Joe. “Guys mind if I see yours?”
Joe slowly unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves, then showed his wrists. The others did the same. None of them had a tattoo.
Okay, so this wasn’t really a book club. What was it?
Joe buttoned his cuffs. “Why are you really here?”
The truth was she was here to talk about the book, but it might sound more impressive if she let them assume for the moment she’d uncovered their covert little group on purpose.
She took a deep breath before speaking. “I’m looking for a book. An old book. It might have a broken world on the cover. Like a sketch of the earth with a crack through it. Or it might have a cracked clock.”
“Like the compass Zed carries,” another man said. Joe shot him a look.
Sophie nodded. “I’m not sure exactly what it looks like. But most of the pages would be blank.” She decided to take a shot. They’d wanted to make sure she didn’t have the tattoo Zed’s followers had, so they weren’t likely to be Zed Heads, right? “Zed wants the book. We want to find it and keep it from him.”
The people around the table looked at each other. The mood in the room changed from suspicion to…maybe hope?
“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “I know every book in this library. There’s nothing like that here.”
Sophie found herself believing him. That wasn’t something that happened frequently with her.
“Who are you?” Joe asked.
“My name’s Sophie Porter. Me and my friends are here to stop Zed.”
“And how are you planning to do that?”
She shrugged. “We’ve had dealings with him in the past. You know Rook Mountain?”
“We do get CNN up here,” Joe said.
“Okay, well, Zed did that. He’s done it to other places, too. He’s got similar plans for King’s Crossing.”
They were still all looking at her, not saying anything.
Mason finished his jelly doughnut and wiped the excess powdered sugar on his shirt. “Okay, our turn. What’s this group really all about?”
Joe rubbed his chin for a mome
nt. “Strange things have been happening in King’s Crossing for a while now. Zed’s part of it, but not the only part. People here seem to know things—”
“Joe!” the old woman next to him barked. “You gonna reveal our secrets, we gotta vote them into the group.” Her voice was a strange combination of raspy and high pitched.
“Is that really necessary? They have information—”
“It is,” a man to Sophie’s left said. He’d been silent until now.
“Okay…” Sophie said. “Do we need to step out or something?”
“That won’t be necessary,” the woman croaked. “Hands of those who oppose allowing these two strangers into our group?”
Every hand but Joe’s went up.
The woman flashed her dentures at Sophie. “Sorry, dear. That means you’ll have to be going.”
Sophie put her hands on the table and pushed herself to her feet with agonizing slowness. “Fine.” She looked Joe in the eye. “If any of you change your mind and want to talk, we’re at the Holiday Inn. Sophie Porter and Mason Hinkle.”
“I highly doubt—” the woman began, but Sophie turned on her heels and marched out of the room, missing the rest of whatever snide sentiment the woman hurled at her.
When they reached the hall, Sophie turned to Mason. “Dude, I kinda miss the Larvae. I wasn’t cut out for this reconnaissance stuff. This is Frank’s thing.”
Mason nodded. “Good doughnut, though.”
They found Frank wandering the stacks. He hurried over when he saw them.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ve got a lead.”
Sophie nudged Mason with her elbow. “What’d I tell you?”
As they were about to exit the library, someone called Sophie’s name. She turned and saw Joe trotting toward them in a most un-librarian-like fashion.
When he reached them, he said, “Can we talk? It’s about what you said up there. About Zed.”
THE BOY WHO FOUND THE WATCH (PART THREE)
Charlotte, North Carolina
September 1948
A bright light shone into Zed’s eyes, and he woke with a start, blinking furiously against the powerful beam. His mind spun with disorientation.
