The Secret Keepers

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  For the first few feet the chute took a straight drop, and Penny was struggling to lower herself in a controlled way. Reuben guessed that the rope was hurting her hands. But then the chute banked sharply, and as she backed out of sight, she called up to him: “It gets easier here. It’s less steep.” Then she was gone, and Reuben stared helplessly into darkness, listening to the funneled sounds of her shuffling and pants of exertion.

  The rope trembled and jerked an inch this way, an inch that way, as Penny descended.

  “Be careful!” Reuben whispered after her, belatedly. He doubted she heard him. He remained on his knees, still sweating, every muscle tense as he stared pointlessly into the darkness. He wiped his brow, glanced around the ballroom, and looked back down.

  Even as he did so, Reuben’s stomach clenched violently, squeezing in upon itself like a tin can being crushed in the depths of an ocean. For as he directed his eyes downward again—in that exact instant—he realized that in his glance around the ballroom, he had seen someone.

  The afterimage was burned in his brain.

  Reuben raised his eyes again.

  Standing in the doorway, regarding him with an expression of predatory pleasure, was The Smoke.

  Standing in the doorway, regarding him with an expression of predatory pleasure, was The Smoke.

  “I’ll admit it,” said The Smoke, closing the door behind him. “I wish you hadn’t seen me just now.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that. The difference of a second.” He reached into his trousers pocket and took out a ring of keys, which were bound together with rubber bands and didn’t jingle at all. “Had you not looked up exactly when you did, you never would have seen me. You understand what I mean, don’t you? I know that you do.” He shrugged and turned to the door, locking it with one of the keys.

  “Normally I keep this unlocked,” said The Smoke, looking over his shoulder at Reuben, “for the sake of appearing careless. Under the circumstances, however…” He smiled and turned back toward the ballroom.

  Reuben hadn’t moved. His hand was in his pocket, fingers squeezing the winding key. His skin burned all over. His mouth felt full of cotton.

  The Smoke idly, strangely, tossed the keys onto the floor at his feet. He slid his hands into the pockets of his suit coat. “There’s no point in my vanishing now, is there? You’ve seen me, and you know how it works. You’ll creep away, try to make it hard for me to find you. It will waste time. Better that we come to an agreement.” His eyes traveled to the trembling rope. He smiled. “I see your brash friend has made another misstep. The last in a long series of missteps.”

  Reuben didn’t let himself look at the keys on the floor. Why had The Smoke simply dropped them there? Then he knew. Bait. Another trap. Even if he managed to reach the keys, he would never have time to get the door unlocked.

  The Smoke took a leisurely step toward him, then stopped and cocked his head. “Why do you look so surprised? Hmm?” He cocked his head in the other direction now, like a rooster eyeing an insect.

  “You…” Reuben started to speak without meaning to. He fell silent again. What would he say? Why are you here? How did you know? What will you do to us? It was pointless to ask anything.

  The Smoke shook his head and sighed. “Did you truly believe that I can’t tell when someone has been in my own home?” he asked, taking another casual step forward. “As if your footprints in the dust on the basement stairs weren’t enough, as if the slight disarrangement of my pillows didn’t so plainly announce the fact of your visit, as if I wouldn’t notice the subtle difference in the way my robe hung on the ladder, you left”—here The Smoke laughed, a short, harsh laugh—“you left a rope hanging from an upstairs window?” He shook his head as if in pity for Reuben and took another step.

  Their eyes were locked. Reuben dared not glance away.

  “Did you—what? Hope to hide under my bed, wait for me to fall asleep? Oh! I can see from your face that I’ve struck home. Now, now. You shouldn’t feel bad. For a child, you know, you’ve done quite well.” The Smoke continued to advance a step or two at a time, casually and slowly, as if simply to draw within easier speaking distance. They were separated now by perhaps twenty paces. “I believe you’ve puzzled out the secret of the ladders, for instance, though I’ve always taken pains to sweep the floor in here. Unlike you, I’m careful not to leave tracks.”

  “You mean like the scuffed wood on that table?” Reuben blurted out, though he didn’t feel as defiant as he sounded. On the contrary, he only wanted to say something, anything, that would make him feel less helpless, would make the outcome of this situation feel less inevitable. “Or the mark on the wall where the light switch used to be? Or the banged-up floor right there? You think those aren’t tracks?”

  The Smoke had stopped walking. His eyes narrowed. For a moment he said nothing. Then he seemed to gather himself, his face relaxed, and he drew a little closer. The nearer he came to Reuben, the more stoop-shouldered he seemed. Was he trying to appear less threatening?

  “You’re right, of course,” he said calmly. He offered up a shrug. “What can I say? Am I perfect? No. Yet here I stand, in my own home, outside of which is a group of men who follow my orders. I control this entire city. And you, meanwhile, are a nameless boy, desperately wishing now that you were anywhere but here. Do you see the difference between us? You are a child, and you are an amateur. The watch, for you, is a novelty, a plaything that has made you feel briefly larger than you are. Whereas for me, the watch has been an entire life.”

  At first Reuben scarcely registered any of The Smoke’s words. He was trying to decide where to run. He settled on the piano. Any moment now, probably. What he would do after that, he had no idea. Even if Penny managed to get the rope untangled, it would take a while for Jack to climb back up.

  Reuben noticed a faint look of disappointment pass over The Smoke’s face—the man had come within a dozen steps now, close enough for Reuben to discern the subtle shift in his expression—and he realized that The Smoke’s speech had not produced its desired effect, whatever that was. Perhaps he’d expected Reuben to say simply, You’re right, you’re better than me, I give up. Instead, something about the man’s words provoked a question in Reuben, another possible way to stall. “Why a mansion?”

  The Smoke took another step, then stopped. He frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

  Reuben’s parched mouth made it an effort to speak, but he forced out the words, croaking in much the same way The Smoke did in his guise as the Counselor. “Why do you live in this great big mansion, and why do you care about running the city, if the watch is your life? If the watch is all you really care about?”

  The Smoke looked as if Reuben had just asked him where the sky was located. “But it’s all the same! Do you really not see that? I’ve always known that the other watch was somewhere here in New Umbra. What better way to find it than to throw my arms around the entire city, to have eyes in every corner?” He gestured about the ballroom. “And if my enemy should come, what better place to capture him than this?”

  “You didn’t expect your enemy to be a boy, though.”

  “It’s true. Perhaps I overprepared.” The Smoke gave Reuben a thin smile. “But now to business. This doesn’t have to be difficult. If you hand over the watch, I will let you go, as simple as that. Oh, I’ll expect you to keep this between us, of course. Which is not unreasonable, I think. No one would believe you, anyway.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Reuben croaked.

  “You should,” The Smoke replied evenly. “It’s your best option. And you should also believe that if you give me difficulty, I will punish you. There are places in this city for incorrigible children who have committed crimes. Locked facilities.” Glaring at Reuben now, he began to gesticulate, anger and menace creeping into his voice. “Do you have a family? Would you care to see them again? Are you aware that I can arrange for you not to? Ever? What about your friend in the basement, clinging to that rope? Would he care to
spend the rest of his life serving out a sentence for the crimes I attribute to him?”

  The Smoke spat out these words with such venom that Reuben knew the moment was at hand. There was no changing course now. “I think that’s what you’re planning to do anyway,” he challenged. “So why should I make it easy for you?”

  The Smoke was trembling, his face dark with anger. “Because if you don’t,” he hissed, “it will hurt more.”

  And then he vanished.

  Reuben ran for his life. He made for the grand piano, agonizingly aware of the sound of his sneakers striking the ballroom floor. Glancing back, he saw The Smoke flicker into view near the hole in the floor, then flicker into view again a few steps closer, running at a crouch, his eyes fixed on Reuben. Despite himself, Reuben yelped. It was a terrifying vision.

  He acted almost without thinking. Darting around the piano, he vanished, ripped off a shoe, and tossed it in a high arc toward the corner. Then he yanked off the other shoe and carried it with him, padding silently in the direction of the balcony. His first shoe had landed with a soft but distinctive clattering, and now from the corner into which he’d tossed it, he heard a sharp exhalation, followed by The Smoke’s irritated voice: “You must think yourself so clever! Tell me, how many shoes do you have?”

  Reuben stuck the shoe under his arm and waved his free hand before him. He hoped to find one of the balcony pillars and get behind it. He might be able to peer out and spot The Smoke without being spotted himself. He had no plan other than to keep as much distance between himself and the man as possible, for as long as possible. He thought he should be getting close now. He slowed down, feeling the air with his fingers.

  Another step, and he felt the side of his hand come up against not the hard stone of a pillar but the scratchy fiber of rope. He jerked his hand away as if he’d been burned. He knew it was too late, though. It was as if he’d plucked one of the strands of a giant spiderweb. If The Smoke was scanning the ballroom, there was no way he’d have missed the twitch of the rope ladder. Reuben turned and fled.

  Sure enough, moments later he heard another sound of exasperation from beneath the balcony. He skidded noiselessly to a stop. He was somewhere near the middle of the ballroom floor. He considered going for the keys. That was what The Smoke wanted. He thought about the bar in the corner. He could go and hide behind it, but then what?

  “I know you’re close,” The Smoke murmured from a few feet away. Reuben’s arms prickled with fresh goose bumps. By some miracle he managed not to gasp. “I can sense you. Perhaps you should run, so I can listen to your clothes swishing. What do you think? I wonder if you realize that if I get close enough, I can see—”

  Reuben threw his shoe, hard, in the direction of The Smoke’s voice. He heard it smack against the man’s face, heard him cry out in surprise and pain, then roar with fury. He may have lunged forward, but Reuben had already backed away, taking great, shuffling giant steps. He kept moving until he sensed that he had drawn close to the hole in the floor. He could hear the faint scratching of the rope as it jerked back and forth, and the sounds—the much too distant sounds—of someone struggling in the chute far below him. He backed away a few steps and froze, listening.

  He heard nothing except the same silent scratching of the rope, now several paces in front of him. He wanted to reappear and look around, but he was utterly exposed. He listened and listened. Was The Smoke doing the same thing? Reuben wondered whose ears were better. The moments passed, each of them unbearable.

  Suddenly a soft clatter sounded off to his left, and Reuben, every nerve jangling, moved quickly away from it. Yet even as he did so, he realized his mistake, recognized the sound he’d heard: his own shoe.

  His own trick.

  “You might as well stop right there,” said The Smoke. His voice came from only a few steps away. It was moving as Reuben moved, maintaining the same distance. “I have you now. I can see you.”

  Reuben stopped moving. Bile rose in his throat, as bitter and horrible as the truth. For he understood that The Smoke really did see him. The man had gotten close enough that his discerning eyes could make out the faint shimmer in the air that was Reuben’s invisible form, or else a certain distortion in the floor beneath his feet, or perhaps both. No one else would ever have noticed these—no one but The Smoke, who’d been looking for them. And now, no matter what Reuben did or where he went, The Smoke would follow.

  “I really can hear the swish of your clothing, you know,” The Smoke said. His anger seemed to have drained away, replaced by a swelling triumph. “Once I’m close enough. I only needed you to move a bit. Your shoe was very helpful in that respect, thank you.” He waited for a response. When Reuben made none, The Smoke sighed and said, “I did give you options, you know. And you still have a choice. I need you to look at me so that you understand.”

  The last thing Reuben wanted was to look at The Smoke standing so close to him. He wanted to believe that this was all a dream. But his fingers seemed to act of their own accord, and, pushing in on the winding key, they returned him to the world of the visible. The waking world; there was no denying it.

  “Ah, there we are,” said The Smoke. He stood regarding Reuben in a half crouch, his awful tie hanging like a stilled pendulum, his right hand at his hip, expertly cradling the open watch. His left hand he held out from his side, as if for balance. Then, with a quick jerking motion, as if impulsively flinging something away from him, he summoned the black club from within his sleeve. The effect was that of a man snatching an invisible serpent, his touch rendering it suddenly visible, its neck black and shiny in his grip.

  Reuben flinched at the movement, then held still. For some reason The Smoke hadn’t attacked him already, even though he’d had Reuben dead to rights. Why was that? The question seemed of vital importance. Reuben stared at the club, which The Smoke was now pointing at him like the extension of a finger, and tried to concentrate on finding the answer.

  “Use your brain,” The Smoke said. He lifted the club and tapped it against his own head. “I know you have one, so use it. You can see there’s no escape from me now. Hand me the watch and avoid pain. It’s really quite simple.”

  Reuben tried to speak and failed. He tried again. “What happens then? If I give you the watch?”

  “We’ll discuss the future like civilized men,” said The Smoke, whose eyes had lit up at Reuben’s words. “But only after you hand me the watch. That will be your gesture of good faith. If I have to take it from you, there will be no discussion, and I will not be civilized. Do you understand?”

  Suddenly Reuben understood—not what The Smoke was trying to tell him, but rather what he was trying to keep hidden. He didn’t want to attack while Reuben was still in possession of the watch. He was afraid of a struggle, afraid that the watch would be dropped and damaged. After a lifetime of searching for it, The Smoke didn’t want to risk losing it in the very moment of victory.

  “Yes,” Reuben answered after a long pause. “I think I understand.”

  The Smoke held perfectly still, but his eyes seemed to dance. “And so? What will it be? Are we to be civilized or not?”

  Reuben moved his mouth as if about to speak, but hesitatingly, as if trying to find the right words. What he wanted to find was a way out, but he didn’t see how. His realization had bought him a minute, that was all. He couldn’t get away. The Smoke would seize him if he had to; Reuben felt sure of it. And then he would be one swing of the club away from the end. He wouldn’t be conscious to feel the man lowering him gently to the floor—gently, for the sake of the watch, which after all these many years he would finally claim for himself.

  The Smoke lifted his eyebrows impatiently. “Well?”

  “I… I…” Reuben looked down at the watch in his hand. So beautiful. He tried to give the impression that he was making his peace with handing it over. Running was out of the question. All he could do was stall and hope for a miracle to occur.

  “Answer me!” The
Smoke snapped. “It’s a simple question. Yes, you will hand over the watch now, or no, you prefer that I use force. Answer me at once or I will assume the latter.”

  Reuben glanced up at The Smoke’s face, the anger and anticipation barely suppressed in his expression now, and looked away again. It was a dangerous game, one that could not go on for long. The longer Reuben held out, the angrier The Smoke would get. At some point the man would simply snap.

  “I know I should give it to you,” Reuben said, for he knew he had to say something. “It’s just hard, you know, to…” He gave a helpless shrug, trying to present a picture of painful indecision.

  “Of course it’s hard!” The Smoke barked, so loudly that Reuben started and looked up. The man’s face was dark and twisted with anger. “But it’s over! Do you understand? It’s over! Now give… the watch… to me.”

  The Smoke was sweating. He was trembling. He could barely contain his fury that Reuben might compel him to attack, and yet the fury itself made the attack seem inevitable.

  “Okay,” Reuben said quickly. “Okay, I’ll give it to you. But first—”

  “No!” The Smoke shouted. He jabbed the club toward Reuben, punctuating his words. “No, no, no! No more stalling! Hand it over immediately or pay the price! No more words!” His face had gone crimson; flecks of white spittle flew from his lips. “One!”

  A countdown. So this was it. Reuben found himself cringing, crouching even lower than usual. He tried to straighten, tried to look defiant, but he knew he looked terrified.

  “Two!” The Smoke was shaking his head, furious, unable to believe that the boy was going to force him to do this.

  Reuben tried to brace himself. Was he really going to let this happen? But what could he do?

  The Smoke took a deep breath. “Thr—”