Chapter 10 #2
He had a larger rock over his right foot and couldn’t shift it. But I was free. I was free to drag myself until I was close enough to push the piece of rock off his leg. I couldn’t even tell if it was heavy or not—it could have weighed a ton and I still would have moved it, fueled by sheer panic.
Suddenly March was on his feet, pulling me up, wiping my face with his hands before I even realized that his was almost completely gray, too. Covered in dust.
Just like everyone else.
“Is everyone alive?” someone called from farther behind me—could have been Mimi.
I wanted to turn, to look around, to count, but March took my face in his hands and didn’t let me. “They are. Everyone’s moving. Stand still,” he told me and proceeded to wipe my face and hair as well as he could.
I nodded absentmindedly, then reached for his cheeks, too, to clean them up—which was impossible to do since we were all covered in dust, especially our hands. All I managed to do was move the dust around, when—
“Hey! Don’t move!”
Up.
The voice was coming from somewhere above—from the massive hole in the ceiling over us, completely ruined.
It was the Timekeeper woman who’d stuck out her head from upstairs, her eyes bloodshot, clearly mad.
“Don’t move!” she shouted again, and…
“Run, run—RUN!” Russ called.
We didn’t need to be told twice. I grabbed March’s hand and pulled him to the left, where everyone was already running to, jumping over the rubble, raising the dust in the air once more.
There was no time to think. There was no time wonder what had happened, how the floor had caved in like that so suddenly, how it had taken us down—only us. Only the former Hands, not the Timekeepers or the maids.
Someone screamed and shouted from the floor above.
Someone laughed and cheered as we ran, away from the rubble and down a wide hallway with doors and doorways on either side, until we came to a junction with a large structure in the very middle—a grandfather clock made of polished dark wood and gold.
We stopped running on instinct right there by the doorway—except for Mimi, who continued to walk all the way to the clock, her unblinking eyes glued to it.
“Holy Hour, guys—did you see that? The floor just caved!” Seth whispered.
“How? Did any of you do that?” asked March, his hand still in mine—and it occurred to me that that was a possibility, since we all had chronobanks full of Sparetime, but…
No; nope; not me; wouldn’t know how; would love to take credit but nope; wasn’t me…the others said, speaking at the same time.
“It was the palace.”
We all stopped and looked at Mimi, who was still in front of that grandfather clock, staring at it like it had all the answers she’d ever need.
“What do you mean, it was the palace?” asked Levana, and we all slowly went closer to her, to inspect the clock, too.
“It was,” the Club said. “It caved the floor to get us away from them. Look. I think I’ve seen this before.” And she reached out her hand, touched the glass of the clock with her fingertips. Shivered visibly.
“I think her gears need a good oiling,” whispered Russ from behind, only to earn an elbow to his side from Anika, who then went around us and to Mimi’s side.
“Mimi, do you…do you remember something?”
We held our breaths again, waited…
Mimi turned to Anika like she was surprised to find her there. “I remember this. I remember it.”
It was like she’d unlocked a door I hadn’t known was locked in my head, and when it opened a little bit, sunlight peeked through.
For a moment there, we were all speechless, lost in our own heads, because we all knew what that meant. If Mimi really remembered this clock, there was hope. Maybe we would remember something, too. Maybe we all would remember by the end of this.
“I think I want to lie down now,” Mimi then said, looking around at all of us, and maybe it was just me, but she looked…lighter. Calmer. Still white in most places, but all that running had shaken some of the dust loose.
“Where would we do that?” asked one or the other.
“Third floor.”
The words sprang from my own lips, and they took all of us by surprise. It was like they’d been tucked right underneath my tongue waiting for that question, relieved to finally be out.
Then Seth said, “This way,” and he started walking toward the third corridor from our left, like he knew exactly where he was going.
We went after him, one after the other, and at that point it had become normal to have my hand in March’s—as natural as walking on my own. I didn’t even consider letting go, even when Seth led us to a stairway, took us to the second floor, and then the third.
None of us was afraid that the Timekeeper woman or a maid would find us. None of us looked behind once as we went, and I couldn’t even put my finger on the why.
Mimi claimed that the palace itself had caved that floor, had made us fall—and Kohen’s words still spun around in my mind as we climbed the stairs in silence.
Almost sentient. A building that knew us.
Well enough to cave floors to get us away from those Timekeepers?
How curious, I thought. How absolutely, ridiculously curious.
Yet there was a part of me that believed it.
Then we reached the top of the stairs and spilled into a hallway.
I stopped as if my strings had been pulled. My lungs burned now, and my legs shook, but my eyes…
My eyes knew exactly where I was.
Wide corridor. Twelve doors. Six on each side.
“Time’s Teeth, I know this place,” someone whispered—could have been Cook. His voice broke like he was on the verge of tears.
My mouth opened. March’s mouth opened. A lot of mouths opened and a lot of eyes filled with tears, but nobody else said a single word. We all just…walked ahead.
I couldn’t tell you when I let go of March’s hand—I didn’t really feel it. I couldn’t tell you how I knew to walk all the way to the end of the hallway and go for the last door on the right.
Everyone was opening doors at that point. Nobody asked questions or wondered.
My hand knew the handle before my fingers closed around it—the weight, the slight resistance, the way the door swung inward with a whisper instead of a creak. All of it stored somewhere beneath whatever veil covered the part of my mind I couldn’t reach.
Then I stood on the threshold of a room.
A wide room with a bed and a wardrobe, a vanity table and three windows that showed me the dark sky with its twinkling stars, the moon nowhere in sight.
A long, loud sigh escaped my lips. It wasn’t…home exactly, but it was…coming back. I didn’t have the words to properly explain the feeling yet, but I had hope.
Then I looked to the side—to March, who stood there next door, the handle still in his hand. I don’t know what he saw when he looked ahead of him, but the expression on his face matched my feelings perfectly. Coming back.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Doors closed. March looked at me, and I looked at him. Smiled and nodded.
Then I walked into the room and closed the door behind me.