The Archived

SIXTEEN

I CAN’T EVEN TELL if the sun is up yet.

Rain taps against the windows, and when I look out, all I see is gray. The gray of clouds and of wet stone buildings and wet streets. The storm drags its stomach over the city, swelling to fill the spaces between buildings.

I had a dream.

In it, Ben was stretched out on the living room floor, drawing pictures with his blue pencils and humming Owen’s song. When I came in, he looked up, and his eyes were black; but as he got to his feet, the black began to shrink, twist back into the centers, leaving only warm brown.

“I won’t slip,” he said, drawing an X on his shirt in white chalk. “Cross my heart,” he said. And then he reached out and took my hand, and I woke up.

What if?

It is a dangerous thought, like a nag, like an itch, like a prickle where my head meets my neck, where my thoughts meet my body.

I swing my legs off the bed.

“All Histories slip,” I say aloud.

But not Owen, whispers another voice.

“Yet.” I say the word aloud and shake away the clinging threads of the dream.

Ben is gone, I think, even though the words hurt. He’s gone. The pain is sharp enough to bring me to my senses.

I promised Owen a day, and as I get dressed in the half dark, I wonder if I’ve waited long enough. I almost laugh. Making deals with a History. What would Da say? It would probably involve an admirable string of profanity.

It’s just a day, whispers the small, guilty voice in my head.

And a day is long enough for a grown History to slip, growls Da’s voice.

I pull my running shoes on.

Then why hasn’t he?

Maybe he has. Harboring a History.

Not harboring. He’s not on my—

You could lose your job. You could lose your life.

I shove the voices away and reach for the slip of Archive paper on my bedside table. My hand hovers above it when I see the number sandwiched between the other two.

Evan Perkins. 15.

Susan Lank. 18.

Jessica Barnes. 14.

As if on cue, a fourth name adds itself to the list.

John Orwill. 16.

I swear softly. Some small part of me thinks that maybe if I stop clearing the names, they will stop appearing. I fold the list and shove it in my pocket. I know the Archive doesn’t work that way.

Out in the main room, Dad is sitting at the table.

It must be Sunday.

Mom has her rituals—the whims, the cleaning, the list-making. Dad has his too. One of them is commandeering the kitchen table every Sunday morning with nothing but a pot of coffee and a book.

“Where are you off to?” he asks without looking up.

“Going for a run.” I do a few impromptu stretches. “Might go out for track this year,” I add. One of the keys to lying is consistency.

Dad sips his coffee and offers an absent nod and a hollow “That’s nice.”

My heart sinks. I guess I should be glad he doesn’t care, but I’m not. He’s supposed to care. Mom cares so much, it’s smothering; but that doesn’t mean he’s allowed to do this, to check out. And suddenly I need him to care. I need him to give me something so I know he’s still here, still Dad.

“I’ve been working on those summer reading books.” Even though it’s a crime against nature to do homework in July.

He looks up, face brightening a little. “Good. It’s a good school. Wesley’s been helping you, right?” I nod, and Dad says, “I like that boy.”

I smile. “I like him too.” And since Wes seems to be the trick to coaxing signs of life out of my father, I add, “We’ve really got a lot in common.”

Sure enough, Dad gets brighter still. “That’s great, Mac.” Now that I’ve got his attention, it lingers. His eyes search mine. “I’m glad you’re making a friend here, honey. I know this isn’t easy. None of this is easy.” My chest tightens. Dad can’t voice what this is any more than Mom can, but it’s written across his tired face. “And I know you’re strong, but sometimes you seem…lost.”

It feels like the most he’s said to me since we buried Ben.

“Are you…” he starts and stops, searching for the words. “Is everything…”

I spare him by taking a breath and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. Noise fills my head, low and heavy and sad, but I don’t let go, not even when he returns the hug and the sound redoubles.

“I just want to know if you’re okay,” he says, so soft I barely hear it through the static.

I’m not, not at all; but his worry gives me the strength I need to lie. To pull back and smile and tell him I’m fine.

Dad wishes me a good run, and I slip away to find Owen and the others.

According to my paper, Owen Chris Clarke doesn’t exist.

But he’s here in the Narrows, and it’s time to send him back.

I wrap the key cord around my wrist and look up and down a familiar, dimly lit passageway.

It occurs to me that I need to find him first. Which turns out not to be a problem, because Owen isn’t hiding. He’s sitting on the ground with his back against a wall near the end of the corridor, legs stretched out lazily, one knee bent up to support an elbow. His head is slumped forward, hair falling into his eyes.

He’s supposed to be distressed, supposed to be banging on the doors, tearing at himself, at the Narrows, at everything, searching for a way out. He’s supposed to be slipping. He’s not supposed to be sleeping.

I take a step forward.

He doesn’t move.

I take another step, fingers tightening around my key.

I reach him, and he still hasn’t budged. I crouch down, wondering what’s wrong with him, and I’m just about to stand up when I feel something cool against my hand, the one clutching the key. Owen’s fingers slide over my wrist, bringing with them…nothing. No noise.

“Don’t do that,” he says, head still bowed.

I let the key slide from my grip, back to the end of its length of cord, and straighten, looking down at him.

He tips his head up. “Good evening, Mackenzie.”

A bead of cold sweat runs down my spine. He hasn’t slipped at all. If anything, he seems calmer. Grounded and human and alive. Ben could be like this, the dangerous thought whispers through my mind. I push it back.

“Morning,” I correct.

He stands then, the motion fluid, like sliding down the wall but in reverse.

“Sorry,” he says, gesturing to the space around us. A smile flickers across his face. “It’s kind of hard to tell.”

“Owen,” I say, “I came to…”

He steps forward and tucks a stray chunk of hair behind my ear. His touch is so quiet I forget to pull back. As his hand traces the edge of my jaw and comes to rest beneath my chin, I feel that same silence. That dead quiet that Histories have…I’ve never paid it any mind, always been too busy hunting. But it’s not just the simple absence of sound and life. It is a silence that spreads behind my eyes, where memories should be. It is a silence that doesn’t stop at our skin, but reaches into me, fills me with cottony quiet, spreads through me like calm.

“I don’t blame you,” he says softly.

And then his hand falls away, and for the first time in years, I have to resist the urge to reach out and touch someone back. Instead, I force myself to take a step away, put a measure of distance between us. Owen turns toward the nearest door and brings both hands up against it, splaying his fingers across the wood.

“I can feel it, you know,” he whispers. “There’s this…sense in the center of my body, like home is on the other side. Like if I could just get there, everything else would be okay.” His hands stay up against the door, but he turns his head toward me. “Is that strange?”

The black in the center of his eyes stays contained, the pupils small and crisp despite the lack of light. What’s more, there’s a careful hollowness in his voice when he speaks about the draw of the doors, as if he’s skirting strong emotion, holding on to control, holding on to himself. He looks at the door again, then closes his eyes, brings his forehead to rest against it.

“No,” I say quietly. “It’s not strange.”

It’s what all Histories feel. It’s proof of what he is. But most Histories want help, want keys, want a way out. Most Histories are desperate and lost. And Owen is nothing like that. So why is he here?

“Most Histories wake up for a reason,” I say. “Something makes them restless, and whatever it is, it’s what consumes them from the moment they wake.”

I want to know what happened to Owen Chris Clarke. Not just why he woke, but how he died. Anything that can shed light on what he’s doing in my territory, clear-eyed and calm.

“Is there something consuming you?” I ask gently.

His eyes find mine in the semidark, and for a moment, sadness dulls the blue. But then it’s gone, and he pushes off the door. “Can I ask you something?”

He’s redirecting, but I’m intrigued. Histories don’t tend to care about Keepers. They see us only as obstacles. Asking a question means he’s curious. Curious means he cares. I nod.

“I know that you’re doing something wrong,” he says, his eyes brushing over my skin, working their way up to my face. “Letting me stay here. I can tell.”

“You’re right,” I say. “I am.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

Because you don’t make sense, I want to say. Because Da told me to always trust my gut. Stomach tells when you’re hungry, he’d say, and when you’re sick, and when you’re right or wrong. Gut knows. And my gut says there’s a reason Owen is here now.

I try to shrug. “Because you asked for a day.”

“That man with the knife asked for your key,” says Owen. “You didn’t give it to him.”

“He didn’t ask nicely.”

He flashes me that ghost of a smile, a quirk of his lips, there and gone. He steps closer, and I let him. “Even the dead can have manners.”

“But most don’t,” I say. “I answered your question. Now answer one of mine.”

He gives a slight obliging bow. I look at him, this impossible History. What made him this way?

“How did you die?”

He stiffens. Not much, to his credit; but I catch the glimpse of tension in his jaw. His thumb begins to rub at the line I made on his palm. “I don’t remember.”

“I’m sure it’s traumatic, to think—”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s not that. I don’t remember. I can’t remember. It’s like it’s just…blank.”

My stomach twists. Could he have been altered, too?

“Do you remember your life?” I ask.

“I do,” he says, sliding his hands into his pockets.

“Tell me.”

“I was born up north, by the sea. Lived in a house on the cliffs in a small town. It was quiet, which I guess means I was happy.” I know the feeling. My life before the Archive is a set of dull impressions, pleasant but distant and strangely static, as if they belong to someone else. “And then we moved to the city, when I was fourteen.”

“Who’s we?” I ask.

“My family.” And there’s that sadness again in his eyes. I don’t realize how close we’re standing until I see it, written across the blue. “When I think of living by the sea, it’s all one picture. Blurred smooth. But the city, it was fractured, clear and sharp.” His voice is low, slow, even. “I used to go up on the roof and imagine I was back on the cliffs, looking out. It was a sea of brick below me,” he says. “But if I looked up instead of down, I could have been anywhere. I grew up there, in the city. It shaped me. The place I lived…it kept me busy,” he adds with a small private smile.

“What was your house like?”

“It wasn’t a house,” he says. “Not really.”

I frown. “What was it, then?”

“A hotel.”

The air catches in my chest.

“What was it called?” I whisper.

I know the answer before he says it.

“The Coronado.”