Chapter 12 #2
“It looks like it. Check this out,” Seth said from the far wall, where the papers were layered three deep. He peeled back the top sheet to reveal the one beneath, and the one beneath that.
Those papers had no drawings, and no numbers, but a single word written over and over in different sizes, different pressures—almost like the artist had been in different states of mind.
SILAS
SILAS-SILAS-SILAS
Some letters were neat, some barely legible. Some were scratched so deep into the paper the pen had torn through to the wall beneath.
“Who is Silas?” asked one or the other.
I couldn’t tell who because I was too busy falling—whether it was that hole I always fell down or another—didn’t really matter. That word kept me under, kept my ears full, my mind racing.
The others talked, shared their theories. I moved deeper into the room, stepped over piles of paper, crouched beside the bed as if possessed. There were more drawings there, of faces.
The same face, actually, drawn again and again with the left hand, judging by the angle of the strokes. No features. Just the outline—sharp jaw, long hair, hollow cheeks. No eyes or nose or lips, like the artist couldn’t quite see what he was looking for in his head.
I knew this because it had happened to me plenty of times, especially with Jinx’s face. I kept forgetting the details, and I always had to turn to pictures to remember.
But that wasn’t the reason why I was frozen in place so completely.
No—the reason was that I knew that face shape. Time’s Teeth, I knew it, and if I were to see a picture, just a glimpse, I’d remember everything about it.
“What is it?” March asked. He’d come close and had squatted down near me, and I hadn’t even realized it.
“It’s…it’s…” I shook my head, the words refusing to leave my lips at first. “It’s a face. I think I know it.”
He reached for one of the other identical drawings on the bed and analyzed it, thick brows narrowed, lips parted.
And while he did, I analyzed him—the shape of his jaw, the color of his skin, the curve of his nose.
How did I get everything right in my drawings? How had I known the exact shape of his nostrils? I hadn’t missed a single line. Not a single one.
Then March looked up at me, and I fell again, but this time in his eyes. In all the colors that made them. Sparetime save me, all of it was brand new to me, and ancient at the same time.
My own mind was running from me. I couldn’t catch my thoughts.
“Ora.”
His voice vibrated throughout me.
“Do you know where you know it from?”
He’d asked me a question, which made sense because his lips moved. I just hadn’t heard his voice at all, so lost in my own head.
“I don’t know,” I finally whispered.
“Is it him?” Seth was suddenly on my other side, taking the paper from my hand, for which I was thankful.
“How would we know?” said Levana.
“Could be. That’s the only name written here—Silas,” said Cook, then flinched. “It’s so familiar, that name. I just can’t figure out where I heard it.”
“Hey—what if this is it?” said Russ. “What if this is the proof the Timekeepers wanted us to find?”
It would make sense, wouldn’t it? There were numbers here and drawings that we didn’t understand, but maybe we weren’t meant to. And the guy who’d made them was clearly a Timekeeper himself but…
It didn’t feel like it. It wasn’t it.
This wasn’t it. My whole being said it. Every single instinct in my body.
For a second there, we all looked at the drawings of the face, lost in our own thoughts, when…
“You guys?”
Mimi.
“I think he’s…he’s waking up.”
Suddenly all of us rushed out of the room to find Mimi had stood up and had stepped away from the Timekeeper.
He was groaning low in his throat, and by the time we were close enough, his eyes opened.
Wild. Rolling in his skull like he was the one who was actually possessed now.
It was one of the strangest things I’d ever witnessed, and none of us had any clue what to do.
“Is he…okay?”
“Should we help him up?”
“This is a bad idea…”
“Let’s just leave—let’s just go before he stands up.”
“Shut up!”
“Hello? Can you see us here?” Anika even tried to wave her hands to get his attention, but…
Then his body moved.
He rolled to his side and was on his knees in the same motion—so, so strange, the way he moved—and then a massive back was in front of me, and a hand pushed me slightly back—March.
I had to raise on my tiptoes to look over his shoulder, to see the way the Timekeeper’s head snapped toward the wall like we weren’t even there.
Like he couldn’t even see us just five feet away from him.
“Time’s Teeth, he’s mad…” someone whispered, and the Timekeeper stood up and went for the wall (again, in the same motion).
“No—stop!”
March was suddenly there just before he hit the wall with his shoulder.
He wrapped an arm around the Timekeeper from behind and pulled him back with all his strength—which was entirely too much strength.
The man was practically skin and bones, so he flew back much easier than March imagined, but Russ and Cook were there to catch him by the arms before he hit the ground.
My mind was racing, my heart hammering, and everyone was speaking at the same time—stop, hold on a minute—you’re hurting yourself—you’re not well—who are you?—what are you doing here all by yourself?—just stop for a second, stop!
The man finally spoke.
“Through,” he said, and it was like the word hurt to leave his lips. “Through, through—through!” And he tried to break free from the grip of the boys, and he did. They let go, only because they were shocked to hear that voice, so dry and hoarse, but powerful at the same time.
The Timekeeper stood on his own, breathing heavily, hands fisted at his sides as he looked at the wall ahead. Always at the wall.
But his eyes blinked and his lips moved, though no sound left him now, and…
“I’ve seen him before,” I whispered absentmindedly.
Because I had.
And…
“No,” Levana said, shaking her head as we both moved a little to the side to see him better. “We’ve seen someone who looks like him. The Timekeeper who took us to the palace that day from the arena. Who…who put me in the carriage to leave.”
Every gear in me came to a halt as the name popped into my head. “Elida Hock.”
The Timekeeper’s eyes locked on mine while the others gasped and brought their hands to their mouths. While they all remembered.
Time’s Teeth, it was her face. The Timekeeper who’d given me the chronobank and the royal decree, who’d put me on that carriage that day and told me I’d be going home, and that soon everything would make sense.
It was the same face—almost identical. Her eyes had been blue, and the stubble hid the shape of this man’s jaw, but it was the same face.