Brighton Street was the next stop. Reuben slowly moved his hands up the straps of his backpack, as if adjusting them. Then, just as slowly, like an extremely sleepy person who can barely bring himself to tie his shoes or rise from his seat, he took hold of the hood on his sweatshirt and eased it up and over his head. Slowly, slowly, he brought his hands back down to his sides. He slipped one hand into the pocket with the watch.
The train stopped, and the doors slid open. Reuben lowered his head and angled it slightly away from the Directions. He synchronized his step with that of the woman who’d been standing next to him, letting her shield him from view, but she was only moving to take a vacated seat, and so he instantly adjusted, matching his stride to that of the nearest man pressing toward the doors. Out on the platform he slipped behind a pillar and waited, listening. He had tuned himself to the Directions’ voices, though he couldn’t make out their words. If he noted a tone of exclamation or puzzlement…
He heard no such thing, and as the train pulled out of the station, he edged around the pillar to keep out of sight. The commuters streamed up the steps toward Brighton Street, leaving the platform mostly empty. Reuben leaned against the pillar. He hadn’t even used the watch, but already he felt worn out from the tension.
He withdrew the watch from his pocket and checked the setting. Still at twelve o’clock. He tucked it away again and proceeded, anxiously, to wait. Middleton, of course, was the last place that he wanted to be. He even thought he noticed some of the people on the platform looking askance at him. The Directions had probably already knocked on their doors, asking about a boy who met Reuben’s description. Or maybe he was imagining their sidelong glances. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to hide his face.
He hid his face regardless.
Ten minutes later Reuben greeted, with tremendous relief, the telltale wind that precedes approaching subway trains. It came blowing out of the tunnel, smelling of burned rubber and grease, followed by the train’s light suddenly piercing the gloom. Then came the train itself, squealing along the tracks. It was fairly crowded, and Reuben scanned the passing windows for the ideal car. Spotting a group of kids, he tracked the car down the platform and jostled his way aboard.
Judging from their matching T-shirts, the kids were part of a church group, accompanied by a couple of frazzled-looking adults. Reuben got in among them as if he belonged. By some miracle there was even an open seat, and after a split-second battle with embarrassment, he dropped into it and fixed his eyes on the floor. He sensed one or two of the kids giving him looks of surprise and annoyance. They quickly forgot him, though. They were all talking over one another, loud and boisterous.
The train lurched and began to move. Furtively Reuben checked his watch—still properly set. He put it away. He was perched a bit uncomfortably on the edge of his seat; his backpack took up most of the room, but the subway car was too crowded for him to take the pack off. He leaned back against it, trying to settle in as best he could. The train would make several stops, passing through Westmont and a few other neighborhoods before he needed to get off again. The kids around him were being obnoxious, teasing one another, vying for attention, repeatedly being shushed by their exasperated group leaders. Reuben was grateful for them; they were his camouflage. He let his eyes roam around the train car.
Beyond the church group were the usual throng of work commuters (it was still rush hour), one or two families, and a teenager clinging to a pole, wearing a dilapidated set of earphones. Reuben’s eyes drifted to the opposite end of the car: more commuters, as well as a few other isolated passengers whose purpose or destination he couldn’t guess from their manner. Among these, in the far corner of the car, with a satchel and some papers in his lap, sat an oddly fierce-looking man with hunched shoulders. There was something in the fixed concentration of the man’s gaze, an air about him of coiled tension, that made him seem very much like a cat that had just spotted a mouse.
For a moment Reuben wondered what the man was staring at so intently. And then, in the next moment, he stopped breathing, for he had just realized that the object of the man’s gaze was himself.
He wanted to be wrong, but he knew that he wasn’t. There was no mistaking it.
Reuben was the mouse.
Reuben jerked in his seat as if he’d been shocked, and quickly looked away. But the image was burned into his mind. The man had been sitting with a pencil in his hand, the satchel lying flat in his lap, a folded bundle of papers half-hidden beneath it. A casual observer might have thought the man was simply deep in thought, gazing out across the car without actually seeing anything. But he hadn’t been gazing at nothing. He’d been staring at Reuben.
Maybe it’s nothing, Reuben told himself, trying to believe it. His heart was racing. Calm down. You’re being paranoid. He snuck another glance.
The man was still staring at him. And that was definitely the word for it: staring. Not a casual or absent gaze, but a look of searching intensity. Their eyes met, and Reuben looked away again, a sour, acid taste rising in his throat.
You took the watch out, he thought. He saw you get on by yourself, and he was watching you, and he saw you glance at the watch. Reuben swallowed hard. He needed to be calm, try to think clearly. He had been careful, hadn’t he? Bending over the open watch, shielding it with a cupped hand? It was almost impossible for the man to have seen it from all the way across the car. But then why was he staring at Reuben? Who was he?
Reuben pretended not to be unnerved. Let the man think himself mistaken; let him come to the conclusion that this boy with the backpack was just a member of the church group, just a random kid with nothing to hide. He allowed his eyes to drift casually in the man’s direction, not looking directly at the man, but near enough to take in his appearance. The man wore a very old dark blue suit that seemed too tight for him, bunching around his hunched shoulders, while the knot in his brown tie seemed entirely too large—it looked like a bread roll held in place by his chin. His brown-and-gray hair looked greasy even from a distance, possibly slicked with hair oil, and was combed across a large pale bald spot in the center of his head. His eyebrows were gray and owlish and gave the man a ferocious aspect. Or perhaps that was simply the effect of his glare, the horrible glare that Reuben was pretending not to notice.
The train pulled into a station. Passengers moved toward the doors; a few seats opened up. The man rose, clutching his belongings awkwardly against his belly, and moved to a seat near the middle of the car. He was now much closer to Reuben, and Reuben felt thoroughly sick.
He told himself that the man might just be strange. There were plenty of strange people in this city. What was that folded bundle of papers under his satchel? It looked like a map, covered with scribblings. Yes, it was, a map of the city. Maybe the man was a tourist. A very weird tourist. Maybe Reuben reminded him of a boy he knew, a nephew or grandson. Maybe he thought Reuben was a boy he knew, and was just waiting for Reuben to recognize him and say hello.
Reuben told himself these things, but he didn’t believe any of them.
The train made more stops. More people got off and on. Sometimes passengers obscured the man from Reuben’s view; sometimes Reuben was conscious of his unwavering gaze from across the car. Several times Reuben, in his nervousness, came close to peeking at the watch without thinking about it. Exactly the opposite of what he needed to do, which was to look normal, as if he belonged to this group of kids, and keep the watch hidden at all costs.
Reuben was so preoccupied by the creepy stranger, so intent on trying to act as if he didn’t notice the man’s stare, that he almost missed his stop. He had lost track of the stations along the line, and the conductor’s loudspeaker announcements were always unintelligible, so he had no idea where he was until the children around him began gathering themselves to disembark. Reuben looked up, startled into focus—and felt a warm rush of relief. This was his stop, too! He could get off with the church group!
When the doors opened, he thrust himse
lf among the other kids, ignoring their skeptical and annoyed looks, and stayed with them as their group leaders herded them out onto the platform and up the stairs. He hoped they would be changing trains, just as he was. But it soon became clear that this was their last stop, and Reuben was forced to separate from them. He glanced around the crowded station. No sign of the stranger. Maybe he hadn’t even gotten off the train.
Reuben latched onto a family headed for his platform. It was a young couple with three young children, one of whom was carrying a balloon. Reuben followed them so closely that the balloon kept bumping him in the face. The kids noticed him and gave him curious looks, but their parents were concentrating on keeping them close in the crowd, making sure they were all holding hands. Yes, they were indeed catching the same train. Reuben would stick to them like glue, pretending to be an older brother.
Waiting on the crowded platform, he began to calm down. He still hadn’t seen the stranger, and the more he considered, the more he thought that he probably wouldn’t. Most likely the man had simply been odd, and Reuben simply paranoid.
The train came, and Reuben followed his adopted family aboard. Again the car was crowded, but a couple of men gave up their seats for the mother and her youngest child, who had begun to cry about something. Reuben stayed close to the father and the other two children, holding on to the same pole. Once again he had a balloon in his face. He began to think the child was doing it on purpose. Well, it was only a few stops to the Grand Avenue station. He could put up with it for that long.
At the last stop before Grand Avenue, the family got off, along with several other passengers. The balloon trailed away. Turning slightly—very slightly, for the car was still crowded and his backpack limited his movement—Reuben looked around for another potential family. Mostly he was surrounded by sleepy-looking grown-ups without children. There was also a very old couple, each cradling a tiny dog, and a construction crew wearing dusty coveralls. Reuben shifted the other way and craned his neck.
Seated in the far corner was a man in a very old, ill-fitting blue suit.
Reuben gasped and looked away, as if by looking away he could make the man not be real. It might still be a coincidence. It really might be. The Grand Avenue station was the city’s busiest terminal. Lots of people would be headed there this morning. Lots of people would have needed to change trains, just as Reuben had. This strange man, too. It was just a coincidence that he’d gotten on the same car.
The train pulled into the Grand Avenue station. The doors opened. Reuben, watching the man out of the corner of his eye, stepped out onto the platform with a dozen other passengers. The man exited the car through the other door. Reuben froze. People pushed past him, muttering. Some were disembarking, others boarding. Reuben had lost sight of the man in the crowd, but he was taking no chances. He jumped back onto the train and grabbed the nearest pole.
As the doors were closing, a pale hand with yellowish, badly bitten fingernails grabbed the pole a few inches above his own. Reuben looked up into the eyes of the stranger. The man must have been right behind him. His staring brown eyes were bloodshot. He was a small man, or rather an average-sized man whose hunched shoulders made him seem shorter than he was. Nonetheless, he towered over Reuben.
“What are the odds?” the man murmured. His breath smelled powerfully of mint. “I keep seeing you on the same trains. Did you get off at the wrong stop, too? Funny, isn’t it? How easily one grows confused among these crowds.” His mouth moved as if he were trying to smile but not quite managing it. He was being cagey now, trying not to seem menacing. His voice was eerily familiar, like something from a scary radio program.
Reuben’s tongue felt dry and strange in his mouth; it might have been a leather strap. His scalp tingled. He had to get away, and he didn’t know how. He tried to put the pole between himself and the stranger, but the car was too crowded for him to move far.
“You aren’t lost, are you?” the man said, knitting his brows together into an expression of concern, a simple change of aspect that nonetheless made him seem almost handsome. Perhaps he actually had been handsome once. “Do you need help?”
Reuben shook his head, avoiding the man’s gaze. His mind bounced around crazily, searching every corner for an answer. He was dimly aware that a few of the adults nearby were casting sidelong glances at him and the stranger, having heard what the man said. Then his awareness of this fact crystallized, and Reuben felt a rush of hope, because of course that was his answer: other adults.
The train was pulling into the next station. Reuben grabbed the arm of a woman near him. “Please!” he cried, looking up into her startled face. “This stranger is following me! He’s been following me all morning! Please help!”
For a second the woman looked annoyed at being grabbed. Then, as Reuben’s words sank in, she scowled at the stranger, whose bloodshot eyes grew very wide. Other people were turning toward them. Suddenly there erupted a great commotion of inquiring and angry voices. Reuben saw the men from the construction crew pushing through the crowded car.
“What did he say?”
“The kid says this guy is following him!”
“Which kid? Which guy?”
The doors opened, and Reuben yelled, “Please stop him! Please stop him! Help me!” He bent double and bulled his way forward, pushing as hard as he could, squeezing through the rising tumult and out the door. He looked back to see the grown-ups pushing and pulling, seeming to grab hold of one another at random, calling out in louder and louder voices. The stranger was lost among them.
He bent double and bulled his way forward, pushing as hard as he could, squeezing through the rising tumult and out the door.
Reuben kept moving, his ears attuned to the excited cries behind him.
“I have him!”
“Was the boy telling the truth? Hey, kid!”
“What the hey? Where’d he go?”
More cries of “Where is he?” and “Where’d he go?” followed Reuben to the stairs.
Anywhere but here, he thought. That’s where he was going.
He flew up the steps as fast as he could, running awkwardly because of his backpack and because he had one hand in his sweatshirt pocket, clutching the watch. Out on the busy street he asked a hot dog vendor the way to the Grand Avenue station. He set off at a gallop, already out of breath.
Every few steps Reuben glanced over his shoulder. No sign of the stranger. After a couple of blocks he slowed to a fast walk, gasping, his side aching. Finally he arrived at the Grand Avenue station.
Normally, Reuben, who had never traveled anywhere outside the city, would have found an out-of-the-way corner in which to stand quietly, reading signs and watching other travelers until he figured out what to do. But a glance at the huge clock suspended above the gallery told him he hadn’t a minute to lose. He approached a young woman reading a train schedule, and she directed him to the right ticket counter. There was a long line.
In a state of agitated confusion, Reuben waited. He had too many things to think about all at once. Checking the clock, checking the street entrances for a sign of the stranger, checking his progress in line. He had no thought of anything else. And then, all of a sudden, he was at the counter, paying for his ticket; then racing to the platform, from which his train was about to depart; then sliding into an empty seat—sweating, gasping, and frazzled—just as the train heaved forward.
The old man across from Reuben gave him a sleepy glance and closed his eyes again. Reuben took off his backpack with relief, dropping it onto the floor between his feet. Still panting and terribly thirsty, he watched out the window as the train left the station, passed through a final subway tunnel, and emerged into open air. It rattled along the tracks through a neighborhood Reuben had never seen, veering toward the coast. His thoughts were still wildly scattered, flying out in every direction like birds startled from a tree.
Not until he had caught his breath, cooled down, and handed over his ticket did those birds begi
n to settle back onto their branches. The train had passed into a new neighborhood now, and would soon leave that one behind as well. And Reuben knew that, for the moment, he was safe. Safe from the Directions, safe from the stranger.
He also understood—not with any sudden burst of realization, but rather a gradual awareness of something he’d known right away—why the stranger’s voice had sounded familiar. He had heard it on the library pay phone. He was sure of it. And now that he’d met the voice’s owner, he was at a loss for what to think. The man, with his outdated suit and stooped shoulders, did not seem powerful, and yet, at the same time, he seemed dangerous—more dangerous by far than the Directions ever had.
And Reuben had something the man desperately wanted, and now the man knew what he looked like.
Reuben shuddered and stared out the window, straining for a glimpse of the distant ocean. He needed to see it, needed to know that he truly had left the city behind. And soon he did see it—a light, glittery blue, bright and promising, and Reuben felt his shoulders relax ever so slightly. He realized how badly he’d needed this, needed a chance to figure some things out without constantly worrying about being identified. No wonder he’d leaped at the idea of going to Point William. Yes, he’d wanted answers, but he had also wanted out of New Umbra.
He kept staring at the ocean in the distance, that broad sparkling of blue. Even now, his mom was icing down fish at the market in Riverside—a job she hated, but hated even more to lose. Her head was full of worries, and it was only going to get worse. Reuben was going to fix that, though. He’d be going back for her, and the next time he left New Umbra, he’d be leaving for good.
He was practicing his escape.
By the time the conductor announced Point William as the next stop, Reuben had long since finished writing one letter to Mrs. Genevieve—a rambling, anxious one—only to crumple it up and write a substantially different letter, a shorter, calmer one that reflected the improvement in his outlook. For the long train ride from the city had done much to dispel his feelings of anxiety and gloom. With every little town station that Reuben had passed through, with every glimpse of the sparkling ocean in the distance, he had felt an increased sense of confidence, even optimism.
The Secret Keepers Page 13
