The Secret Keepers

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  The two hemispheres parted easily, smoothly, without a sound, as if their hidden hinge had been carefully oiled not a minute before. The interior of one hemisphere was hollow, like an empty bowl. It served as the cover for the other hemisphere, which contained the face of a clock. What Reuben had found, evidently, was a pocket watch.

  And yet it was a pocket watch of a kind he’d never seen, to say nothing of its quality. Its face was made of a lustrous white material, perhaps ivory, and the hour hand and the Roman numerals around the dial gleamed black. It was missing a minute hand, but otherwise the parts were all in such fine condition the watch might have been constructed that very morning, though Reuben felt sure it was an antique.

  A wild fluttering started up in his belly. His pulse boomed in his ears. How much, Reuben wondered, might such an exquisite device be worth? Indeed, the watch seemed so perfect—so perfect, so unusual, so beautiful—that he almost expected it to show the correct time. But the hour hand was frozen at just before twelve, and when he held the watch to his ear, he heard no telltale ticking.

  The key! he thought. Reuben’s mom had a music box that his father had given her before Reuben was born. You had to wind it up with a key. It must be the same with this watch. A closer inspection revealed a tiny, star-shaped hole in the center of the watch face. Could that be a keyhole?

  A glance confirmed his suspicion. The key lacked the large rectangular teeth of normal old keys, but rather tapered to a narrow, star-shaped end, small enough to insert into the hole. This was the watch’s winding key, no question.

  Reuben was tempted. He even laid a finger on the key in its snug compartment. But once again a warning voice was sounding in his head, and this time he listened to it. He might fumble the key, drop it, lose it. Better to wait until he was in a safe place. Better, for once, to resist his impulses. This was far too important.

  Reluctantly he closed the watch cover and put the watch back inside the case. He was about to close the lid when he noticed an inscription on its interior: Property of P. Wm. Light.

  “P. William Light,” Reuben muttered, gazing at the name. “So this once belonged to you, whoever you were.” He closed the lid, fastened the clasp. “Whenever you were.” For whoever P. William Light was, Reuben felt sure he’d stopped walking the earth long ago.

  Reuben rebundled the case and tucked it back inside the pouch, then stuffed the pouch into the waist of his shorts—no small feat in such an awkward, precarious position. Now he was ready to move.

  He took a last look at the hole in the wall, wondering how long the watch had been in there. It had been put there by someone like him, someone who found places that were secret to others. It could only have been found by someone like him, as well, which made its discovery feel very much like fate.

  Just don’t blow it by falling, Reuben thought. Boy finds treasure, plummets to his death. Great story.

  It was with exceeding caution, therefore, that he began to inch sideways along the ledge. A wearisome half hour later he reached the back of the building, only to find that there was no fire escape. No windows, either, and no more ledge.

  “Seriously?” Reuben muttered. He felt like banging his head against the brick.

  His bottom and the backs of his thighs were aching and tingling. Another hour on this ledge and he’d be in agony. Yet it would take at least that long, and possibly longer, to reach the front of the building.

  There was, however, a rusty old drainpipe plunging down along the building’s corner. Reuben eyed it, then grabbed it with his left hand and tried to shake it. The pipe seemed firmly secured to the wall, and there was enough room between metal and brick for him to get his hands behind it. He peered down the length of the pipe; it seemed to be intact. He had climbed drainpipes before. Never at anywhere near this height, but if he didn’t think about the height…

  It was as if someone else made the decision for him. Suddenly gathering himself, Reuben reached across his body with his right hand, grabbed the pipe, and swung off the ledge. His stomach wanted to stay behind; he felt it climbing up inside him. Now that he’d acted, the fear was back in full force.

  Clenching his jaw, breathing fiercely through his nose, Reuben ignored the lurching sensation and got his feet set. Then, hand under hand, step after step, he began his descent. He went as quickly as he could, knowing he would soon tire. The pipe uttered an initial groan of protest against his weight, then fell silent.

  Flakes of rust broke off beneath his fingers and scattered in the wind. Sweat trickled into his eyes again, then into his mouth. He blew it from his nose. Every single part of him seemed to hurt. He didn’t dare look down. He concentrated on his hands and his feet and nothing else.

  And then the heel of his right foot struck something beneath him, and Reuben looked down to discover that it was the ground. Slowly, almost disbelieving, he set his other foot down. He let go of the pipe. His fingers automatically curled up like claws. He flexed them painfully, wiped his face with his shirt, and looked up at the ledge, so high above him. Had he actually climbed all the way up there? He felt dazed, as if in a dream.

  Reuben withdrew the pouch from the waistband of his shorts and gazed at it. This was no dream. He began to walk stiffly along the narrow alley, heading for the street. One step, three steps, a dozen—and then he felt the thrill begin to surge through him. He’d made it! He was alive! He’d taken a terrible risk, but he’d come back with treasure. It seemed like the end of an adventure, and yet somehow Reuben knew—he just knew—it was only the beginning.

  In the alley behind his apartment building, Reuben once more stuffed the pouch into his waistband. He climbed up and over the iron railing around the storage-room window and peeked in through the grimy glass. All clear. He scrambled down into the window well, stuck his legs through the slightly raised window, and worked his way forward, arching his torso as if doing the limbo. His toes found the floor just as his head cleared the window. It was all routine.

  After stealing up the empty stairs to his apartment, a small two bedroom on the fifth floor, Reuben emerged minutes later wearing clean shorts and carrying his school backpack. This time he left the building by way of the lobby, where three people stood in line at the desk, waiting for their turn to complain to the nervous young building manager. She kept saying, “Sorry, I know. I know. Sorry.” Evidently, there was a problem with the hot water again. Or possibly just the water, period.

  Reuben passed through the lobby unseen. He didn’t even have to make an effort.

  He spent the entire time at the laundromat sitting in a corner, gazing into his backpack. If anyone noticed him, the way he sat with his hands plunged into the open pack, staring fixedly at something hidden inside it, they probably thought he was reading a book he wasn’t supposed to be reading. When the buzzer sounded on his washing machine, Reuben carefully closed the pretty wooden box, rewrapped it, put it back inside its pouch, and zipped up the backpack, which he carried with him to the washer. He had never been so careful about anything in his life.

  When his clothes were dry, he stuffed them into his backpack and went out into the late-morning sunshine. He was only a few blocks from the community center. Along the way Reuben passed few stores open for business, and even fewer people. There weren’t a lot of employment opportunities in the Lower Downs; most people who had jobs or were looking for them spent their days in other neighborhoods. The market where Reuben’s mom worked, for instance, was situated near the Southport ferry dock in Riverside, and her part-time evening job took her to a neighborhood called Ashton.

  “It’s all part of my master plan,” she’d told him once, with a scheming look. “After I’ve memorized every single bus route in the city, I can get a job as a substitute driver. They’d be fools to turn me down! Ha-ha!” And she had raised her fists triumphantly, as if becoming a substitute bus driver were the surest path to riches.

  “Have you ever driven a bus?” Reuben had asked.

  She’d waved him off. “Don�
��t get bogged down in the details, kid.”

  The community center was a two-story brown-brick building that housed a dingy basketball court with perpetually bent rims, a few warped Ping-Pong tables, a reading room with out-of-date magazines, and other similarly depressing features. Reuben usually spent his time there gliding along the walls and hanging about in quiet corners, observing without being observed. But sometimes, like today, if he determined that the staff office was empty and all the staff members scattered throughout the center, he slipped into the office, snatched a key from a nail behind the door, and snuck up onto the roof.

  Nobody ever disturbed him up here. They couldn’t. The door locked automatically behind him, and he had the key.

  A featureless plain of asphalt and sun-bleached gravel, with a bank of air-conditioning apparatuses that roared continuously, the roof, Reuben thought, was an ideal place to do some serious thinking. Though he often peeked down over its low perimeter wall in search of anything or anyone of interest to watch, today what he wanted to think about was right here with him, hidden inside his backpack.

  Still, for a moment he stood gazing over the main thoroughfare in the direction of Riverside, where his mom worked, where the buildings were somewhat taller and less decrepit than those in the Lower Downs and where occasionally, on very clear days, he would spot the huge Southport ferry gliding eerily along the river. From this distance it looked like a building that had come unmoored and was drifting among the other buildings. Which, in a way, it was, Reuben supposed. A sort of floating parking deck. His mom had told him that from the market she could hear its horn blast at full volume, twice every hour, all day long. That never got old, she’d said.

  “Not even a little?” Reuben had asked, and to clear things up, she’d followed him around the apartment like a demented goose, imitating the horn while he covered his ears, fleeing in circles and giggling. “You’re right!” he’d cried. “How could that ever get old?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you!” his mom said, honking again. Then their neighbor had banged on the wall, and they’d had to quiet down.

  Standing on the roof, Reuben could hear that faraway horn now, its sound rendered soft and spooky by distance, like the lowest note on an organ. He settled down with his back to the perimeter wall and the backpack between his knees.

  With laborious care, Reuben removed the wooden box from its pouch and its wrapping, then took the watch from the wooden box. The sunlight on the coppery metal was absurdly brilliant, making him squint. He opened the cover. The black numerals on the watch face glistened like freshly applied ink. He wondered what had happened to the minute hand, for in all other respects the watch was perfect, unblemished, gorgeous. He loved the weight and solidity of it in his palm, where it fit snugly, as if custom-made for his small hands.

  Reuben felt another shudder of excitement. He couldn’t stop wondering how much he might sell the watch for. It was surely worth a great deal of money, he thought—maybe even enough to turn things around for him and his mom. Why not? There was no harm in dreaming. Yet the thought of parting with his secret treasure already gave him a pang of regret, so he let himself daydream about vast sums of money without dwelling on the part about handing the watch over.

  What was it his mom had said? Don’t get bogged down in the details.

  Twice Reuben took the key from its velvet compartment and examined its elegant bow, somewhat clover-shaped, its metal finely twisted like wrought iron. Both times he held the other end just over the star-shaped hole in the center of the watch face, then shook his head and put the key away. He felt nervous about winding the watch. He worried he would break something.

  When at length the muted sound of the ferry horn broke in on his thoughts, Reuben blinked, stretched his neck, and noticed how much warmer it had gotten on the roof. He had a vague realization that he’d heard the horn a little while ago, too, perhaps more than once, without consciously registering the fact. His bottom was sore, his legs were stiff, and his stomach growled insistently. Could it be lunchtime already? He put everything away and stood up. The first thing he noticed was a group of four men walking along the main thoroughfare. He crouched down again, clutching his backpack. The Directions.

  Now Reuben knew what time it was. Today was Wednesday, so it must be noon. That’s when the Directions visited the businesses along this stretch. He had observed them any number of times. Always nervously, though. It was tricky to spy on Directions.

  For this was how the Directions had come by their nickname: in every group of four, each man was always looking a different way. One looked ahead, one looked left, one looked right, and one kept an eye out behind them. They chatted as they walked along and would glance at one another as they spoke, but always their gazes drifted back to their appointed directions. They were like sets of wandering eyes, seeing everything there was to see.

  They had other nicknames, too. Even though you weren’t really supposed to talk about them, at one time or another Reuben had heard them referred to as Wanderers, Rounders, Gatherers, Compass Men, Knockers, and Boots. Every now and then, someone dared to call them simply “the Counselor’s men,” since it was to the Counselor that they reported. This was considered unwise, however, and was especially frowned upon by superstitious types, who feared that even whispered conversations would draw unwanted attention. Certainly no one wished to receive a summons to the Counselor’s mansion. A meeting with the Counselor almost guaranteed that he would mention you to the man he worked for—the very last man on earth you would want to be thinking about you, for any reason, ever in your life. The Smoke.

  If indeed The Smoke was a man at all. A lot of kids believed that he was something else. Exactly what, no one knew. Something bad, though. Something terrible. Because it was forbidden to talk about it, naturally when children were alone there was a great deal of discussion on the subject, and Reuben had overheard countless conflicting rumors and speculations. One story that everybody seemed to agree on, however, was that once, years before Reuben was born, a madman had run screaming through the streets of the Lower Downs. He had been, by all accounts, terrified, and it was widely accepted that his terror—and perhaps even his madness—had had something to do with The Smoke.

  This was all Reuben knew about that particular story, but it was more than enough to give him the shivers. As a general rule, he tried not to think about The Smoke. He was generally successful, too, except at times like these, when he saw the Directions making their rounds.

  Every neighborhood had its own set of Directions; some of the larger ones had two or even three sets. The Counselor’s decrepit mansion in Westmont had a crew all to itself, or so Reuben had heard. In the Lower Downs there was only one. Reuben didn’t know their names, even though supposedly they all lived somewhere in the neighborhood, but he’d given them nicknames. Lefty and Righty were brothers, both of them short and blond and fidgety. Frontman, tall and lanky, set the group’s pace at a saunter and wore a sardonic smile. Lookback, bringing up the rear, had a fleshy, bored face that contradicted the way he checked over his shoulder every few seconds. If you never saw his expression, you’d think he was paranoid. But keeping an eye out behind him was simply his job (and no doubt also a long-ingrained habit, as he’d been doing it for years). He never looked as if he actually expected to see anything of interest. Perhaps he never did.

  Supposedly they had families. Supposedly they were just regular men. Still, to Reuben that seemed hard to fathom. Once, in a grocery store with his mom, he thought he saw Frontman picking through the wilted produce. Seeing Frontman alone there, without his three associates, was like coming across a disembodied head living a life of its own. And what was it doing in a grocery store, anyway? Reuben had doubted his eyes, and his mom had abruptly turned down a different aisle, preventing a closer look.

  (Only much later did he recall how crowded most of the store’s aisles had been, yet how utterly empty the produce section was. His mom hadn’t been the only one whippin
g her cart around, pretending to have missed some item on her list.)

  A lot of kids his age probably didn’t know what the Directions really did, didn’t know how it all really worked. But Reuben had known since the previous summer, before the rent had gone up and he and his mom had been forced to move.

  Their old building had been just around the corner from a little bakery, which they’d liked to visit on Saturday mornings. Reuben would have a doughnut, and his mom would drink coffee with extra cream. They always took their time, nibbling and sipping at a tiny table in the corner. They loved the bustle of the place, which did a brisk business, and even more so the smell, which was indescribably wonderful.

  (“Like being tucked into a warm bed by an angel,” his mom had ventured, and Reuben had suggested it was like sipping from a pool of honey at the end of a rainbow. But they had to admit that their descriptions fell short.)

  The baker was a friendly man, always winking at his customers and loudly teasing the nieces and nephews who worked for him. He even remembered Reuben’s favorite doughnut (Bavarian cream), and whenever Reuben approached the counter, the baker would raise his wiry eyebrows and say, “The usual for you today, young man?”—which saved Reuben from having to speak up in front of a lot of people. For a time, because of this man and his heavenly shop, Reuben had wanted to become a baker himself.

  One day when his mom was at work, Reuben was sneaking along the alley behind the bakery and its neighboring businesses. Alleys are not generally the best-smelling places on earth, but thanks to the bakery this one always had a pleasant aroma, and Reuben spent more time there than he did in others. He liked to creep up to the screened back doors and listen to the murmur of voices inside, trying to make out what was being said, darting off to hide behind trash cans whenever he sensed someone coming out. On this day, though, he discovered a rusty, industrial-sized metal sink lying upside down behind the bakery. Milk crates had been arranged around it like stools, and on top of it rested a deck of cards, a portable radio, and three hands of cards lying facedown. He had come upon an interrupted game.