The Secret Keepers

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  “You think I’d be foolish enough to show up here with a fake warrant?” Officer Warren coolly replied.

  “I don’t know!” the Direction cried, looking to his associates for help and receiving none. “I mean, even if it’s real, do you not realize whose home this is? Why on earth would you want to risk this?”

  “I’ll tell you why!” shouted a voice from the crowd. The person who had shouted was jostling to get through the packed group, which, after making way for Officer Warren, had immediately closed in again. Now, however, everyone leaped aside, including Officer Warren himself, as a woman surged forward and thrust her hand through the bars of the gate to point furiously at the man who had spoken. “Because my son is in there! The Counselor has my child!”

  Reuben’s jaw dropped.

  Penny gasped. “Reuben! Is that your mom?”

  “I like her,” Jack said with an approving grin. “She’s spunky!”

  The next half hour passed in near-total confusion—Reuben bursting out the front doors, forgetting all caution and plans, all hopes of avoiding trouble, letting go of everything but his mom, who was charging through the gates now—one of the Directions (who turned out to be Lookback) having hurried forward to open it at her words—and throwing her arms around Reuben as if he were life itself. Which, to her, he was, and Reuben felt it in a great rush of warmth from head to toe.

  He clung to her, burying his face in her neck, and began at once to weep. Everything—his fear, his guilt, his relief, his love for her, everything—it all came gushing out in the form of tears.

  “Are you hurt?” his mom kept asking him. “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Reuben kept answering her, and “Yes, I’m okay!”

  “You’re fine?”

  “I’m fine!”

  But for several minutes he continued to cry. It ought to have been embarrassing. But Reuben didn’t care.

  Eventually, Reuben would ask his mom how she had found out, and she would tell him that Mrs. Genevieve had called her. “Evidently,” she said, “you sent her a letter with our phone number in it?”

  Reuben was dumbfounded. So the letter had taken only a single day to be delivered from Point William. He’d had no idea that was possible. He recalled Jack walking into Mrs. Genevieve’s sitting room with the pile of envelopes he’d found in her mail slot. They had been set aside, and as the watchmaker would later confirm, she did not find his letter until this morning, when she’d been preparing to go out. That was what had bolstered her courage: she’d been able to call Reuben’s mom and tell her everything, including her plan to lead a crowd to the mansion gates. And Mrs. Pedley, ferocious in her fear for Reuben, had urged Mrs. Genevieve to hurry.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she’d said, speaking through anxious tears, “and I’ll be bringing help. I am going to rain holy fire on these people.” Then she had slammed down the phone, and Mrs. Genevieve, startled, had felt her spirits soar.

  “Did she really say that?” Jack wanted to know. “Did she really say she was going to ‘rain holy fire on these people’? I think I want to marry her.”

  Reuben shot him a warning look.

  “Easy, easy.” Jack laughed. He raised his palms. “Just a manner of speaking, kid. Believe me, I don’t want to marry anybody. Not even your mom.”

  These conversations were all pieced together over the coming hours and days, with Reuben hearing different accounts from Mrs. Genevieve and his mom, then relating to Penny and Jack any details they’d missed. For instance, although the mansion grounds were soon swarming with police officers, it would be quite some time before Reuben understood that his mom was responsible—that she had gone straight to Officer Warren, whom she trusted, and that Officer Warren had immediately called a dozen other officers, scattered about the city, with whom he had been in secret communication. The officers—as well as a single trusted judge—were all men and women without families to worry about, only themselves. Men and women who felt free to be brave, given the chance.

  “The plan was always to wait for the moment,” Officer Warren had told Reuben’s mom. “We never knew if it would come, or even what it would look like. But if it did come, we swore to one another that we’d be ready to act. One officer might have no chance, but a dozen? We thought we could turn things. We just needed the opportunity—and now you’ve given it to us.”

  In the end it was far more than a dozen officers who came. Others followed their lead, and still others followed theirs, until at last almost the entire police force descended upon Westmont. The streets were filled with blue uniforms, as if the neighborhood were hosting a parade.

  Conspicuously absent were the Directions, every single one of whom had slipped away on his own—alone, not part of a group, so as to be less noticeable. Few had any idea what was going on. But it was obvious that everything was changing and that their best hope was to disperse, to go home, to be quiet as mice and cross their fingers that judgment wouldn’t follow them. Or that, if it did, it would at least be tinged with mercy.

  In the immediate, chaotic aftermath of the gate’s opening, though, and the sudden appearance of Reuben bursting out the front door of the mansion (an appearance wildly cheered by the crowd)—during this time, the only thing that concerned Officer Warren and his associates was the apprehension of one Cassius Faug. And to this end Reuben and his friends were hastily questioned as they gathered, Reuben still in his mom’s protective embrace, near the bottom of the front steps.

  Reuben was too emotional to help much, and Penny excused herself to run to the exhausted-looking Mrs. Genevieve, hugging her tightly, then taking her by the arm and leading her to one of the squad cars. (And in short order Mrs. Genevieve was whisked away and cared for with much kindness and appreciative admiration—for the watchmaker had already achieved a sort of legendary status among the swelling crowd.) In the meantime, therefore, it fell to Jack to explain things to the officers.

  That was when Reuben began to understand that Jack Meyer was every bit as good a storyteller as any Meyer who ever lived. The difference with Jack was that his stories weren’t always true. After years of keeping secrets from his own family—a family uniquely gifted with the ability to read people—Jack Meyer had become an expert. He had become, in other words, an incomparable liar.

  Given the urgency of the moment, Jack began with the truth, telling Officer Warren exactly where to find Cassius Faug, otherwise known as the Counselor, who also happened to be the infamous man known as The Smoke.

  “We know,” Officer Warren replied. “Mrs. Pedley told me. And to some of us, anyway, it explains a lot. But I’m not sure I heard you right, Mr. Meyer. The basement, you say? In a net?”

  “Strange but true,” Jack affirmed breezily. “And listen, you’ll want to tell everyone to look out for the traps.”

  “The traps?”

  “Oh yes. Here, I’d better explain.…”

  Jack’s easy authority and friendly manner was rather like Officer Warren’s own, Reuben realized. He positively radiated trustworthiness. In a matter of minutes, everything he said that could be proved true was indeed proved true—Cassius Faug was where he said Cassius Faug would be, as were the bizarre traps, as was the long-missing stolen painting Saint George and the Dragon—and without quite realizing it or saying so, the police officers all naturally trusted him. And so, over the next minutes, hours, and days, when Jack began to alter and even to fabricate significant details of the adventure, everyone was inclined to believe him.

  The tale Jack told was one of a well-intentioned boy who found an antique watch, a watch that happened to be coveted by a sinister and powerful man but actually belonged to the Meyer family of Point William. In returning the watch to its rightful owners, Reuben had unwittingly placed himself in danger, and Jack had committed to helping him out of it. Thus ensued a complicated tangle of events and negotiations and double crosses that had resulted in the loss of the watch (accidentally dropped into the river from the Southp
ort ferry) and, finally, this most unpleasant encounter with Mr. Faug, who had summoned Jack to his bizarre home only to attack him. Penny and Reuben—brave and impetuous children that they were—had slipped away from Mrs. Genevieve’s shop without permission, arriving at the mansion just in time to help Jack bind the hands and feet of Mr. Faug, who had stumbled into his own trap and—perhaps from the shock of it—fallen into the net unconscious.

  Reuben, listening along with the others, was as astounded as they were. More than that, he was grateful, for he never would have known what to say.

  But Jack Meyer certainly did, and over the coming days, though there were conflicting details in the various accounts of what had happened, the only verifiable evidence confirmed all of Jack’s most important assertions. Not only was Faug’s mansion stuffed with stolen paintings and other items, many of which bore his fingerprints, but it also reflected a devious and unstable mind. The maps! The traps! The fireman’s pole! All of it seemed too preposterous to be true, and yet the mansion itself proved otherwise. Cassius Faug had perpetrated the biggest fraud in the history of New Umbra, and he’d been doing it for years and years. How he had pulled it all off, no one could ever say. But nothing the man said would ever be believed.

  And everything now was going to change.

  Not long after Jack gave his first account to Officer Warren by the front steps, he and Reuben and the others watched as paramedics exited the mansion. Accompanied by several officers, they were bearing a still-unconscious Cassius Faug on a stretcher. Officer Warren went to make sure that Faug would remain well guarded in the ambulance, and for a time the little group was left alone by the steps.

  The instant they were alone, Jack murmured to Penny, who was holding him by the arm, “You told her what I said? And she agreed?”

  Penny nodded. She was still quite shaken—even her freckles were pale—and Jack leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You did great, redbird. You really did.”

  “Told who what?” Reuben asked.

  “Yes, what are you talking about?” his mom asked. “And what in the world is going on? All of this that you’ve been telling Officer Warren and the others—it isn’t what Mrs. Genevieve told me on the phone.”

  “I had to change a few details,” said Jack, turning to her with a wry smile. “This son of yours just did something a whole lot more important than anyone else will ever know, Mrs. Pedley. And he’s going to explain it all to you later, aren’t you, Reuben? In the meantime my version needs to be the official one. I’m doing my best to manage it. After Reuben ran out to meet you, I asked Penny to go to Mrs. Genevieve and tell her not to speak with anyone until we’ve had a chance to talk.”

  Reuben’s mom shook her head in bafflement. She kept looking at Reuben, who was still so relieved and grateful—and, like Penny, so shaken up by all that had happened—that he couldn’t find any words that seemed suitable for the moment. Instead, he just hugged her again, which, as it happened, was all that his mom seemed to expect or want.

  Officer Warren returned to inform them that Faug was coming around. He was conscious but evidently delirious, for he was babbling about his watches, going on and on about them, saying that he needed them, he needed them, they were his.

  “We’ll get it all sorted out eventually,” Officer Warren said with a sigh. “In the meantime it seems that there are more traps than the ones you indicated, Mr. Meyer. Four different officers have fallen into that net in the basement. Between you and me, I think a couple of them did it on purpose, just to see what it was like. I know for a fact that some have been trying out the fireman’s pole.” He chuckled and shook his head. He appeared to be in an excellent mood.

  Reuben found his voice. “Thanks for everything, Officer Warren. Thanks for coming when you did.”

  Officer Warren put his hands on his hips and regarded Reuben. “Can’t thank me for doing my job, young Pedley, any more than I can thank you for trespassing and worrying your mother to death. But I do appreciate the courtesy. And I will say that you have really brightened my day. Yes, you have. Speaking of which”—the young officer removed his sunglasses and extended them to Reuben—“I believe I promised to lend you these when I got a new pair, which I intend to do this very afternoon. Go on, take them. Let’s see how you look in them.”

  Reuben put the sunglasses on and smiled up at Officer Warren. And it was strange: despite everything he had accomplished, and despite Jack’s wondrous storytelling that promised a happy conclusion to his harrowing adventure, only now as he and Officer Warren exchanged appreciative glances did Reuben feel that everything, after all, was going to be okay.

  Officer Warren smiled approvingly, then shaded his eyes and looked up toward the sun, which until a few minutes ago, it was true, had been hidden behind a mass of clouds. “Yes indeed,” he said. “Things are getting brighter, aren’t they, young Pedley?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Reuben, still grinning. “Yes, sir. I think they are.”

  The light had changed. Autumn was coming on, and in Point William, just as he had in New Umbra, Reuben felt the difference not only in the temperature but in the quality of light, in the cast of shadows, in a hard-to-describe change in the colors of an afternoon sky. The trees along the sidewalks had begun to appear more golden than green, and the streets and boardwalks were roamed by restless local children wishing they could cling to summer. Penny had already introduced Reuben to a few of these, and when school started next week, he would meet many more, for he was now a local child himself.

  He felt the familiar flutter of nerves in his belly whenever he thought about going to the new school. But having Penny there would make a world of difference. And considering what he’d been through that summer, being a shy new kid at school seemed like an easy-enough challenge. In fact, Reuben welcomed it. He was nervous, but he was ready.

  He felt the same way about today’s task, which in comparison was far more momentous. Although with the passage of time he might come to forget the details of meeting new classmates and teachers, Reuben knew he would never forget a single detail about today.

  After yet another boisterous meal in the great room—another crowded affair with at least a dozen Meyers present—Reuben and Penny, clearing the table, came into the kitchen to find Jack waiting for them. He had entered quietly through the back door. Reuben thought he struck quite a figure. He was wearing a wool jacket and fisherman’s cap and had grown, with remarkable swiftness, a bushy red beard. Something about all the extra red around his face made his eyes seem more piercingly blue, like marbles in a fire.

  “It’s time,” he said in a low voice. “Are you ready?”

  Penny looked anxiously over her shoulder. “Let us finish bringing in the dishes,” she said. “Otherwise they’ll notice.”

  “They’ll notice regardless. We need to move. The suits are on their way.”

  “Already?” Reuben said. “I thought they were coming this evening.”

  “So they said. I think they like to show up early and catch people off guard. Penny?”

  Penny was peering out into the great room, looking fretfully at the half-cleared table. Her mom and Reuben’s mom were laughing about something, exchanging amused glances like old friends or sisters might. Luke was telling a story to one of his little cousins, and everyone else seemed to be talking over one another. This was exactly how every meal had gone since their return. Pandemonium, served up three times a day.

  Penny turned. “Right. Okay. I’m ready.”

  She and Reuben grabbed jackets in the anteroom, and they all slipped out the back door. Penny ran to the oil house and returned with her backpack. Then they made their way down over the granite boulders and into the rowboat, which Jack had left tethered near the hidden entrance to the smugglers’ tunnels. No one spoke.

  Jack rowed them out into deeper water, to a mallard-green fishing boat he had anchored there. Even before they’d climbed aboard, Reuben was struck by the strong smell of fish. It reminded him of his mom, tho
ugh it had been well over a month since she’d stopped working at the market. These days she just smelled like soap and lotion, which Reuben loved. But the smell of fish would probably always remind him of her and of all those dinners together in the Lower Downs.

  Jack rowed them out into deeper water, to a mallard-green fishing boat he had anchored there.

  That part of their old life, anyway, had been nice. And fortunately, it could also be part of their new life. They’d been staying with the Meyers in the keeper’s house, but they were going to move soon, into a little cottage that Mr. Meyer had arranged for them to rent at an affordable price. Dinners with the Meyer family were raucous affairs, very entertaining to Reuben and his mom alike, but they were looking forward to some quiet dinners alone. Curiously enough, the kitchen in the cottage resembled almost exactly the one in their old apartment. They had both laughed when they saw it.

  “The more things change…” his mom had said, shaking her head. “But I’ll bet the stove works better.” It did. So did everything else. And when they had finished looking around the place (which took only a minute), she’d asked Reuben what he thought of it.

  “I think it’s my dream house,” he’d replied with a grin.

  “Oh yeah?” said his mom, and she grinned, too. Reuben had never seen her so happy. “Even though there’s no trapeze?”

  “Well, I assumed we’d be getting one.”

  “Okay, good. Because I think a trapeze would really tie this place together.”

  Although she’d often been upset during the weeks that followed that fateful day at The Smoke’s mansion, these days Reuben’s mom was in high spirits almost all the time. Not only were they going to have the cottage, but they could afford to pay for it because she’d been given a good job in town. As with the cottage, the job had come to her by way of the Meyer family. Despite the recent controversies, the Meyer name still counted for a great deal in Point William; virtually every family in town had at one time or another—in the current generation or in generations past, and often in both—been helped in some significant way by the Meyers. So it was that on the strength of the lighthouse family’s recommendation (not to mention a few favors called in) Reuben’s mom had been offered not just a fine job but a choice of fine jobs.