The Unbound: An Archived Novel Part 6

"I don't know, Colleen," she says.

I roll my eyes. Her therapist. Mom's been seeing Colleen since Ben died last year. I'd hoped the sessions would end with the move. Apparently, they haven't. Now I brace my hands on either side of the doorway and listen to one half of the conversation. I know I shouldn't leave the Narrows door open, but my list is clear and my curiosity is piqued.

"It hasn't come up," says Mom. "Yes, okay, I haven't brought it up. But she seemed better. Seems. Seemed. It's so hard to tell with her. I'm her mother. I should be able to tell, and I can't. I can tell something's wrong. I can tell she's wearing this mask, but I can't see past it." My chest tightens at the pain in her voice. "No. It's not drugs."

I clench my teeth against a curse. I hate Colleen. Colleen's the one who told Mom to throw out Ben's things. The one time we met face-to-face, she saw a scratch on my wrist from a p.i.s.sed-off History and was convinced I did it to myself to feel things.

"I know the symptoms," says Mom, ticking off a list that pretty well sums up my current behavior-evasion, moodiness, troubled sleep, being withdrawn, inexplicable disappearances...though in my defense, I do my best to explain them. Just not using the truth. "But it's not. Yes, I'm sure." I'm glad she's sticking up for me, at least on this front. "Okay," she says after a long pause, starting down the hall again. "I will. I promise." I listen to her trail off, wait for the jingling sound of her keys, the apartment door opening and closing, and then I sigh and step out into the hall.

The Narrows door dissolves behind me as I slide my ring back on. The skirt and the bag seem undisturbed behind the table, and in a few short steps I've transformed back into an ordinary Hyde School junior. My reflection stares back at me, unconvinced.

I can tell something's wrong. I can tell she's wearing this mask, but I can't see past it.

I practice my smile a few times, checking my mask to make sure it's free of cracks before I turn down the hall and head home.

That evening, I put on a show.

I picture Da clapping in his slow, lazy way as I tell Mom and Dad about my day, injecting as much enthusiasm into my voice as I can without tipping my parents from pleasant surprise to suspicion.

"Hyde's pretty incredible," I say.

Dad lights up. "I want to hear all about it."

So I tell him. I'm basically feeding the pamphlet propaganda back to him, line by line, but while I may be amping up the excitement, the sentiment isn't a total lie. I did enjoy it. And it feels good to tell something that even vaguely resembles the truth.

"And you'll never guess who goes there!" I say, stealing a carrot as Mom chops them.

"You can tell us during dinner," she says, shooing me away with a pile of placements and silverware. "Set the table first." But she smiles as she says it.

Dad clears some books from the table so I can set it and retreats to the couch to watch the news.

"Who's closing the coffee shop tonight?" I ask.

"Berk's got it."

Berk is Betty's husband, and Betty is Nix's caretaker. Nix is ancient and blind and lives up on the seventh floor and won't come down because he's wheelchair-bound and doesn't trust the rickety metal elevators.

Berk and Betty moved into one of the vacants on the sixth floor two weeks ago after Nix finally succeeded in lighting his scarf on fire with his cigarette. I was shocked-not about the fire, that was inevitable, but that they would move in for him, not being related in any way. But apparently Nix was like a father to Betty once, and now she's acting like a daughter. It's sweet, and it all worked out because Berk-who's a painter-was looking for a social fix, and Mom was looking for a hand at Bishop's. She can't pay him yet, but he doesn't seem to mind. He only asked to be able to hang his pieces in the coffee shop for sale.

"I'll take him down some dinner later," says Mom, setting aside a plate.

I'm carrying water gla.s.ses to the table when the headline on the TV catches my attention, and I look over Dad's shoulder at the screen. It's the same news story from early this morning, about the missing person. A room in disarray flashes across the screen, and I'm about to ask Dad to turn the volume up when Mom says, "Turn that off. Dinner's ready."

Dad obediently clicks the TV off, but my eyes linger on the blackened screen, holding the image of the room in my mind. It looked familiar....

"Mackenzie," Mom warns, and I blink, losing the image as I turn to find my parents both already at the table. They look like they've been waiting.

I shake my head and manage a smile. "Sorry. Coming."

But sitting down turns out to be a bad idea.

The moment I do, the fatigue catches back up, and I spend most of dinner rambling about Hyde just to stay awake. As soon as the dishes are cleared, I retreat to my room in the name of homework, but I've barely gotten through a page of reading before my eyes unfocus, the words on the paper blurring together. I try standing, then I try pacing while holding my textbook, but my mind can't seem to grab hold of anything. I feel like my bones are made of lead.

My gaze wanders to the bed. All I can think of is how much I want to lie down...

The book slips through my fingers, hitting the ground with a soft thunk.

...how badly I want to sleep...

I reach the bed.

...how certain I am...

I tug back the covers.

...that when I do...

I sink into the sheets.

...I won't dream of anything.

SEVEN.

THE ROOF IS full of monsters, and they are all alive.

They perch on stone claws and watch with stone eyes as Owen stalks me through the maze of bodies.

"Stop running, Miss Bishop," his voice echoes across the rooftop.

And just like that, the concrete floor crumbles beneath me and I plunge seven stories through the bones of the building to the Coronado lobby, hitting the floor so hard my bones sing. I roll onto my back and look up in time to see the gargoyles tumbling toward me. I throw my hands up, bracing for the weight of stone. It never comes. I blink and find myself in a cage made from the broken statues, a web of crossing arms and legs and wings. And standing in the middle is Owen, his knife dangling from his fingers.

"The Archive is a prison," he says calmly.

He comes toward me, and I scramble to my feet and back away until I'm pressed up against the stone bodies. Their limbs jerk to life and shoot forward, grabbing my arms and legs, snaking around my waist. Every time I struggle the limbs tighten, my bones cracking under their grip. I bite back a scream.

"But don't worry." Owen runs a hand over my head before tangling his fingers in my hair. "I will set you free."

He draws the flat side of the knife down my body, bringing the tip to rest between my ribs. He puts just enough weight on the blade to slice through my shirt and nick my skin, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to get away, trying to wake up, but the hand tangled in my hair tightens.

"Open your eyes," he warns.

I drag them open and find his face inches from mine. "Why?" I growl. "So I can see the truth?"

His smile sharpens. "No," he says. "So I can watch the life go out of them."

And then he drives the knife forward into my chest.

I sit up in the dark, one hand clutching at my shirt, the other pressed over my mouth to stifle the cry that's already escaped. I know it's a dream, but it is so terrifyingly real. My whole body aches from the fall and the gargoyles' grip, and the place on my chest where the knife drove in burns with phantom pain.

My face is damp, and I can't tell if it's from sweat or tears or both. The clock says twelve forty-five, and I draw up my knees and rest my head against them, taking a few slow, steadying breaths.

A moment later, there is a knock on my door.

"Mackenzie," comes my father's quiet voice. I look up as the door opens and I can see his outline in the light spilling from my parents' bedroom into the hall behind him. He comes to sit on the edge of my bed, and I'm grateful to the dark for hiding whatever is written across my face right now.

"What's going on, hon?" he whispers.

"Nothing," I say. "Sorry if I woke you guys up. Just had a bad dream."

"Again?" he asks gently. We both know it's been happening too often.

"It's no big deal," I say, trying to keep my voice light.

Dad tugs his gla.s.ses from his face and cleans them on his T-shirt. "You know what your Da used to tell me about bad dreams?"

I know what Da used to tell me, but I doubt it's the same thing he told my father, so I shake my head.

"He used to tell me there were no bad dreams. Just dreams. That when we call them good or bad, we give importance to them. I know that doesn't make it better, Mac. I know it's easy to talk like that when you're awake. But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off."

Not trusting myself to speak, I nod.

"Do you want to...talk to someone about it?" He doesn't mean talk to him or talk to Mom. He means a therapist. Like Colleen. But I've got more than enough people trying to get inside my head right now.

"No. Really, I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

I nod again. "Trust me."

My heart sinks, because I can see in my father's eyes that he wants to, but doesn't. Da used to say that lies were easy, but trust was hard. Trust is like faith: it can turn people into believers, but every time it's lost, trust becomes harder and harder to win back. I've spent the last four and a half years-since I became a Keeper-trying to cling to my parents' trust, watching doubt replace it little by little. And doubt, Da warned, is like a current you have to swim against, one that saps your strength.

"Well, if you change your mind..." he says, sliding to his feet.

"I'll let you know," I say, watching him go.

He's right. I should talk to someone. But not Colleen.

I listen to the sound of his receding steps after he's closed the door, and to the murmur of my mother's voice when he returns to their room. I let the whole apartment go quiet and dark, and only when I'm sure that they're asleep do I get up, get dressed, and sneak out.

I step into the Archive, and I shiver.

My sleep hasn't been the only thing affected by Owen and Carmen's recent attack. The Archive has changed, too. It has always been marked by quiet, but where the lack of noise used to feel peaceful, now it feels coiled and tense. The silence is heavier, enforced by hushed voices and warning looks. The ma.s.sive doors behind the antechamber's desk have been pinned back like b.u.t.terfly wings, held open to make sure that the newly installed sentinels have full visibility and immediate access to the atrium and the network of halls beyond. The two figures are the most striking addition-and the most loathsome. Dressed in solemn black, they flank the entrance to the Archive. The sentinels are Histories, like everyone else who works within the Archive walls; but unlike the Librarians, they wear no gold keys and do not seem fully awake.

Roland told me that they've been implemented in every branch in his jurisdiction, though he himself had no say in the matter of their presence. The order for increased security came from over his head. I'm guessing that means it came from Agatha.

Agatha, the a.s.sessor, who I haven't seen again since the interrogation, but whose presence seems to haunt this place the way Owen's haunts me.

Roland wasn't happy about it. As far as I can tell, no one was. The Librarians are not used to feeling watched. Agatha can claim the sentinels are there in case of another Owen; the fact is, they're also there in case of another Carmen. It's one thing to be betrayed by a known traitor. It's another to be betrayed by someone you thought was a loyal servant.

The sentinels' eyes follow me as I step through into the antechamber.

I force myself not to look at them. I don't want them to see that they give me the creeps. Instead I focus on the desk and how relieved I am to see Lisa sitting there behind it with her black bob and her green horn-rimmed gla.s.ses. Lately it feels like a gamble every time I step through. Will I be met by Roland's calm gray eyes or Lisa's cautious smile, or will I be confronted with Patrick's disapproving glare? Or will Agatha herself be waiting?

But tonight, I'm lucky enough to have Lisa. Her head is bent forward over the Archive's ledger, and I can't help but wonder who she's writing to. The book that always sits on the desk holds a page for every Keeper and every Crew in the branch, the partner to the paper in my pocket, and its thickness is a strange reminder that even though I often feel alone, I'm not. I'm only one page in a thick old book.

Lisa stops writing and looks up long enough to see my tired eyes. The strain of the past few weeks shows in her eyes, too, the way they flick to the figures behind me before coming back to me. She gives me a nod and says only, "He's in the atrium, toward the back."

Bless her for not making me stand there and state my business in front of the sentinels, who may look like statues, but no doubt hear and see everything that happens here and feed it all back to Agatha.

I mouth the words thank you and round the desk, pa.s.sing through the archway and into the atrium. The central room is still as grand as ever, the high, arching ceilings and stained gla.s.s of a church, broken by aisles of shelves instead of pews, ten halls branching off like spokes.

I cross the vast hall in silence and find Roland tucked in between two aisles, his red Chucks a spot of color on the pale floors. His back is to me, head bowed as he looks over a folder. There's tension in his shoulders, and I can tell from his stillness that he's stopped scanning the page and is now staring past it, lost in thought.

I've had four and a half years to study Roland's postures and moods, ever since Da offered me into his care and he accepted. The constancy of him-his tall, thin, unchanging form-has always been a comfort, but now it's also a reminder of what he is. The Archive tells us that Librarians don't change as long as they're here, their suspended age a trade for their time, their service. And up until a few weeks ago, I bought it. And then Carmen told me the truth: that Roland, along with every other Librarian who staffs the Archive, comes not from the Outer, but from the shelves here. That they are all Histories, those of past Keepers and Crew woken from their sleep to serve again. It's still so hard for me to believe that he's dead.

"Miss Bishop?" he says without looking up. "You should be in bed." His voice is soft, but even at a whisper I can hear the lilt in it. He closes the folder before turning toward me. His gray eyes travel over my face, and his brow furrows.

"Still not sleeping?"

I shrug. "Maybe I just wanted to tell you about my first day of school."

He hugs the folder to his chest. "How was it? Learn anything useful?"

"I learned that Wesley Ayers goes there, too."

A raised brow. "I a.s.sumed you already knew that."

"Yeah, well..." I say, trailing off into a yawn.

"How long has it been, Mackenzie?"

"Since what?"

"Since you slept," he says, looking at me hard. "Really slept."

I run a hand through my hair and tally up the time since the rogue History of a deceased Crew member tricked me into trusting him, stole my key, threw me into a Returns room, stabbed Wesley, tried to kill me, and nearly succeeded (with a Librarian's help) in tearing the entire branch of the Archive down. "Three weeks, two days, and six hours."

"Since Owen," says Roland.

I nod and echo, "Since Owen."