The Secret Keepers

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  His plan had been to pry it open and study how its spring mechanism worked. But as he dug through the box looking for something to use as a prying tool, he came upon an old jack-in-the-box and had a sudden inspiration. Mrs. Genevieve had seen no way to open the watch from the outside, but what if something made it open up from the inside? What if it was like the jack-in-the-box, which opened unpredictably when you turned its crank?

  Maybe there was something valuable inside the watchcase, and the only way to get to it was to set the watch to a certain time and then wind it up—rather like the combination lock on a safe. Why not? The more Reuben thought about it, the more convinced he felt he was right. He jammed the cardboard box into the closet and sat down on his bed.

  Taking a breath to steady himself—his heart was racing now—Reuben eased the watch’s winding key back up into its setting position and turned the hour hand from one o’clock to two o’clock. He pushed the key all the way in again and wound the watch. Then, tense with expectation, he pulled the key back up to allow the spring to unwind. Nothing happened. He held the watch to his ear and confirmed that it was ticking. Perhaps the secret mechanism would be triggered at some unpredictable point during the unwinding.

  And so Reuben stared at the watch in his hand, waiting. A minute passed, then two. He found himself growing more and more excited. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. He hated even to blink for fear he’d miss something, and he began to feel jittery and hot. The purpose of a jack-in-the-box, after all, is to fill you with mounting anticipation, the tension increasing second by second as you wait for that startling moment when the hidden figure pops up—and Reuben was waiting for something far more dramatic than a little clown puppet. By the time ten minutes had passed, the tension had grown almost unbearable. After fifteen he felt ready to collapse. And indeed, when the watch stopped ticking, he sank back onto the bed with an exhausted and disappointed sigh.

  Ten more positions to try. What if nothing happened until the last attempt? He would have to endure over two hours of nerve-racking waiting. And of course it was possible that nothing would happen at all. Reuben didn’t choose to believe that, however.

  He turned his head toward the wooden box sitting open on the bed. He gazed at the inscription inside the lid. “Hey, Mr. Light,” he mumbled, “what’s the secret?” For he felt sure now that P. William Light had known it, whatever it was. But if the man’s ghost was hanging around the watch, it certainly wasn’t whispering any hints to Reuben. He was going to have to do this the hard way.

  He rolled onto his belly, set the watch to three o’clock, and tried again. Again nothing happened. Fifteen minutes of pointless ticking, that was it. Reuben groaned and pressed his face into the mattress.

  By the time he’d tested all the positions through ten o’clock, Reuben’s eyes were bleary from staring, his entire body ached from the tension, and his hand was cramped from squeezing the watch too tightly. He hated to stop with only two positions left to try, but he desperately needed a break.

  Returning the watch and key to their box, Reuben flopped over onto his back. Despite the mounting disappointments, he still felt strangely confident that he was right about the watch’s secret, and he wondered what might be hidden inside it. He closed his eyes and imagined a tiny velvet pouch stuffed with diamonds. Or rubies. Something small but precious. Something he could sell. His dream of riches wasn’t over, he thought, not by a long shot.

  He woke to the sound of someone at the apartment door. A muffled thump, the scrape of a key. Reuben sat up with a gasp. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. What time was it? How long had he slept? His eyes shot to the alarm clock. Almost six. But it couldn’t be his mom at the door—she had to work in Ashton that evening. And yet there was no mistaking the familiar squeak of the lock turning.

  Reuben leaped up, snatched the wooden box, and shoved it under his bed. He was groggy, disoriented, wondering if he should hide. He was still trying to decide, watching with dread through his bedroom doorway, when the apartment door swung open.

  “Hey, kid, guess who’s home?” called a familiar voice, and Reuben almost collapsed with relief.

  His mom stepped in, closing the door with her foot. She had her purse slung over one shoulder, a larger handbag with her change of clothes in it over the other, and grocery sacks in both hands. She turned and saw him gaping at her. “Oh, hey! Change of plans. I’m off tonight.” She cocked her head to the side. “Reuben? Are you okay? Hello?”

  Reuben snapped to and rushed to help her. Her forehead was beaded with sweat. She thanked him as he carried the grocery sacks into the kitchen. “Whew,” she breathed, letting her purse and handbag drop to the floor. She kicked her shoes off to complete the pile. “Were you wondering why I didn’t call from the market?”

  “Sorry, no, I just woke up,” he said, hurrying back to lock the door. “I guess I fell asleep. I mean, I know I did—I just didn’t mean to.” He shook his head. He still felt rattled from waking up in such a fright.

  “I’m sure you needed it,” said his mom, with a tired smile. As usual, she looked as if she could use a long nap herself. “Well, I was afraid you’d worry when you didn’t hear from me, but I was rushing to make the first bus. Otherwise it would’ve been another half hour.” She beckoned him over for a hug. “I got asked to trade shifts. I’ll have to work Saturday, but it’s nice for tonight, anyway, right?” She kissed his head and walked into the kitchen.

  “Sure,” said Reuben, after a pause; he tried not to sound disappointed, but it had just occurred to him that now he was going to have to put off testing the watch.

  His mom, washing her hands, looked over her shoulder at him. “‘Sure’? That’s it? What, did you have big plans?”

  “Plans?” Reuben repeated, and almost winced. His tone sounded guilty even to him.

  His mom stopped scrubbing and narrowed her eyes at him. “Is something going on?”

  Reuben struggled to recover. She was about to start grilling him. “Of course not,” he ventured desperately—and then he had it. He lowered his eyes. “I mean yes. Yes. Sorry, Mom, but, well, I was going to throw a huge party.”

  She stared at him for several seconds, her expression blank. “A party,” she said at last, shaking her head. “And you weren’t going to invite your mother. I should have known.” She went back to washing her hands. “I’d say you were in hot water, but we still don’t seem to have any.”

  They were having omelets for dinner. Eggs were on sale, his mom said as Reuben helped put away the groceries, and she hadn’t felt up to facing one more fish today. Reuben responded agreeably as she talked, trying to do a better job of masking his impatience. He was thinking about the watch, however, only half listening, and was surprised when she suddenly grabbed his hands. Evidently, she had just asked him a question.

  “Did you put ointment on these today?” his mom demanded again. She was inspecting the scrapes on his arms.

  “Oh yeah.” Reuben shrugged. “I was going to.”

  She placed her hands on his cheeks and drew their faces together. “Put. Ointment. On. Your. Scrapes.”

  Reuben crossed his eyes. “Yes. Ma’am. I. Will.”

  “I’m going to jump in the shower,” his mom said. “Meet you back here in fifteen minutes.”

  Fifteen minutes! Reuben found the tube of ointment and went into his room, casually closing the door behind him. Then in a mad scramble he got out the watch, set it to eleven o’clock, wound it up, and placed it on his pillow. Slathering ointment up and down his arms, he stared at the watch as it sat there so beautifully, doing absolutely nothing.

  Reuben clenched his teeth. Through the thin walls he could hear the squeak of the shower faucets and his mom yelping something about the cold water. Her shower would be very short. He looked at the watch, the alarm clock, the watch again. Now the water was going off. He wiped his ointment-greasy fingers carefully on the inside of his shirt. A few more minutes. Nothing. He sighed and hid everything away again. Only o
ne setting left to try, and it had to be the one! But it would have to wait.

  Reuben set the table as his mom made the omelets. They did their usual tiny-kitchen dance, bumping each other with their hips and accusing each other, with pretend irritation, of hogging the space. But all the while Reuben’s mind was on the watch.

  “Guess what I got called at work today?” his mom said.

  “Employee of the year.”

  “I can understand why you’d think that. But no, this is something I don’t like to be called. I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with ‘monkey.’”

  Reuben scratched his head. “Gunky?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Fine, sure. I got called gunky. Because of all the gunk on me, I guess.”

  “I told you that you shouldn’t go crawling through all that gunk,” Reuben admonished.

  “And I told you that I didn’t have a choice,” his mom said, scowling. “If I don’t crawl through the gunk, how am I supposed to get to the goop?”

  She was being pretty funny, but Reuben was still finding it amazingly difficult to concentrate.

  After dinner his mom glanced at the clock and said that an old movie was about to come on. “Looks straight-up silly,” she said, “but it might be fun. What do you think? Movie or dream house?”

  Reuben’s scalp tingled. Just like that, he had his opportunity! “Do we have popcorn?” he asked, knowing that they did. “If we do, I vote movie.”

  His mom nodded, stifling a yawn. “We do indeed. I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “Do you care if I miss the start, though?” Reuben asked. “I kind of want to finish a book I’m reading. I only have a few pages left.” It was a thin excuse but plausible. He usually did have a book going.

  His mom patted his cheek. “Go read. I’ll fill you in.”

  Reuben retreated to his room and closed the door. He found a library book he’d already finished, opened it to the last chapter, and laid it on his bed. Beyond the door he could hear his mom switching on the television, then moving about the kitchen, pouring popcorn kernels into a pot. He knew he should wait until she went to bed. But it was the last test. He had to know.

  He got out the watch and key. From the television came the muffled sounds of movie dialogue; he heard his mom groaning at some feeble joke. He set the watch to twelve o’clock. “Midnight,” he whispered, and felt a shudder run through him. He had a sudden conviction that he ought to have tried the twelve o’clock setting first. Wasn’t midnight always the magical hour?

  Then he had to laugh at himself. What was he expecting, anyway? Certainly not magic. It wasn’t as if he believed in fairy tales. Besides, he was thinking of twelve o’clock as midnight, but of course it could also be noon. Nonetheless, it was with a sense of powerful expectation that Reuben wound the watch.

  Moment of truth, he thought, easing the key out of its winding position.

  And everything went black.

  Reuben yelped. That was the sound he made—a yelp, like that of a dog being kicked. Which was exactly how he felt, as if he’d been kicked, hard, in the gut. He thought he might throw up. He closed his eyes and opened them again and still saw nothing but darkness. He squeezed them tightly, opened them again. Nothing. His skin burned with panic.

  His mom knocked on the door. “Reuben? Are you okay?”

  Reuben looked toward the door but saw nothing. He opened his mouth to answer but found himself speechless with horror. The door opened. His mom’s voice said, “Reuben? Reuben?”

  Then, to Reuben’s even greater shock, her voice retreated. He heard her walking to the bathroom calling his name, then into her bedroom. He couldn’t make sense of it, was still in too much of a panic to think. His thoughts were a terrifying jumble. It took him several seconds to remember the watch in his hand. The watch! He flung it down onto the bed as if it were a burning coal.

  The instant he did so, he could see again. His relief was so powerful that tears started to his eyes. He bent forward, covering his face with his hands, trying not to weep. For some sliver of awareness in him understood that he needed to protect this terrible secret, to keep it from his mom at all costs.

  “Reuben?” His mom was in the living room again. She sounded half-concerned, half-suspicious. Not alarmed, though. He had hidden from her too many times for her to be truly alarmed. “I swear, if you jump out and scare me, I’m going to scream. You know you hate it when I scream.”

  Reuben tossed a pillow over the watch, which he dared not touch, and in a faltering voice he called out, “In here.” If he’d been thinking clearly, he would have waited until he’d composed himself, but he was too shaken up. All he knew was that he desperately wanted his mom to come back.

  When she appeared in the doorway, he threw his arms around her, burying his face against her chest. She held him tightly. “Oh, honey, what’s the matter? Are you okay? What happened?”

  Reuben shook his head, not looking up. He had no idea what to say.

  “I heard you cry out—I thought you’d seen a rat or something. Where were you? I looked in here and didn’t see you.”

  “You did?” Reuben said, utterly confused. But of course she had. He’d heard her.

  “Well, I just poked my head in, but you weren’t on your bed.”

  For a moment Reuben felt as if his brain were out of focus. Then, suddenly, realization thundered inside his head. It crashed and hammered and pounded like a violent storm: She couldn’t see you! She couldn’t see you! She couldn’t see you!

  “I was… under it,” he muttered, trying, despite the crazy tumult in his mind, to think of an excuse. “I was… getting my book out from under it and then I thought I saw something—or, well, I thought I heard something, and then I looked over and thought I saw a person in my closet.…”

  “You poor thing. Did you bang your head?” his mom asked, gently feeling the crown of his skull for a bump.

  “No, I’m fine. I just panicked, I guess. It was… only my jacket.”

  His mom rubbed his back soothingly. “Believe me, I’ve had my mind play tricks like that plenty of times. It’s no fun, I know. Scary stuff.” There was not a hint of doubt in her voice, only sympathy.

  “I’m okay now.” Reuben looked up and managed a smile. “I’m fine. Really. I just need a minute.”

  She kissed his forehead. “You’re pretty good, kid. This time you scared me without even trying.”

  “Sorry,” Reuben said again.

  “You should be,” she said, and winked. “Just come out when you’re ready, okay?”

  He closed the door behind her. Then, as quietly as he could, he locked it. He stood with his hand on the doorknob, his mind still whirling. She hadn’t seen him. She had looked at his bed and hadn’t seen him sitting right there. He turned to look at the bed, to see what she had seen—what she hadn’t seen. It was impossible. But it had happened.

  He stood there, perfectly still, trying to think of what to do. His heartbeat was galloping. He had an idea and ran to his closet. Once again he pulled out the box of toys. A few years earlier his mom had given him a toy digital camera for Christmas. He had loved it at the time, though he was pretty sure it was a factory reject she’d gotten on deep discount. It took terrible photos, and you couldn’t print them or anything, only look at them on a miniature screen. But it would serve his purpose now.

  In a moment Reuben had the camera out. Was there any chance the batteries weren’t dead? He pressed the pale green power button. The camera emitted a barely audible whine. The little display screen flickered on. Yes!

  Reuben went to the bed and uncovered the watch. A chill of dread ran through him, but he ignored it. He had to know. He held the camera out at arm’s length, pointing it back at himself. Then he took a deep breath and reached for the watch. At the last instant, he closed his eyes—he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he felt it would be less frightening if he didn’t actually experience that first moment of blindness. But even with his eyes closed, as soon as his fingers t
ouched the watch, Reuben sensed the light beyond his eyelids being extinguished. The imperfect darkness was made perfect. He shuddered and snapped the picture.

  He opened his eyes onto blackness, then let go of the watch. Instantly the room rematerialized around him, as if he’d thrown a switch.

  “Wow,” he whispered.

  And then again, “Wow!”

  Bracing himself, Reuben turned the camera around and looked at the display screen. There was his bed. There was his closet door. A little fuzzy, both of them, but clearly there.

  Reuben, however, was clearly not.

  He quickly got used to the blindness. Again and again he grabbed the watch, snapped a picture, let go of the watch, checked the display screen. He soon learned that if he held the camera and the watch too close together, the picture would be totally black. If he held the watch out away from him with one hand, though, and extended the camera in the opposite direction with his other hand, the display revealed pictures of his lamplit room. And in those pictures, Reuben was never there. He was so amazed by this, so enthralled, that he forgot everything else and just kept taking picture after picture until, out of the blue, the watch abruptly stopped working.

  It happened as he was lying back on his bed (despite his excitement, he felt incredibly tired now), staring blindly up toward the camera in his hand and squeezing the watch in his other, his arm flung out to the side. He was just about to click another photograph when the light returned and the camera and his hand appeared before him—as did the ceiling, the light fixture, the whole room. With an effort, Reuben sat up. He blinked at the watch, still in his hand. He held it to his ear. The ticking had stopped.

  His mind, as if slogging through mud, came very slowly to understand. Fifteen minutes. You had to wind the watch up, and then you got fifteen minutes of invisibility. Reuben set the watch and the camera down and rubbed his eyes. Then he dropped his arms and simply sat for a while, gazing at nothing. He felt the way he did some mornings when he was not yet fully awake. The morning stares, his mom called it. Zoning out.