Chapter 12 #3
I stepped forward, not entirely sure what to expect, but he’d looked at me for that second. He’d looked at me, and that had to mean something.
“C-C-Calren?” My voice shook, but the name made it out.
The entire room held their breath when the Timekeeper turned those dark brown eyes toward me once more. Paused, and for that fraction of a second, I could have sworn he was…himself.
Which wasn’t this.
Whatever he’d become, whatever he became again before my heart completed a beat, it wasn’t him.
“Through,” he whispered again, and then he moved.
He ran, and he slammed his shoulder right into the wall while we screamed and gasped and covered our faces. March was there to pull me back again, and he and Seth grabbed the Timekeeper by the arms before he could slam himself onto the wall a second time.
“Don’t let go, don’t let go!” someone shouted, and I was shaking from head to toe, but not with fear. I wasn’t afraid of this man, and that alone was madness.
“Just hold on—stop slamming onto the wall—what are you doing?!” Mimi was shouting, getting in front of him with both her hands raised.
“Late,” the Timekeeper rasped. “Late, Mim-Mim, late.”
Just like that, Mimi froze. She froze, became as still as the wall behind her, and to look at her face, you’d think she saw a ghost.
“How…how do you know that name?” she breathed, stepped back, shook her head. “My…my sister calls me that. How do you know that name?”
Of course, the Timekeeper had no answer. He just went back to trying to free himself from the boys’ grip with all his energy—which was fascinating to me all on its own.
Where was he getting that energy? And how long exactly had he been down here?
“Calren, look at me,” I said, and now I was in front of him, too.
“Ora, don’t,” March said through gritted teeth, but I really wasn’t afraid of him. I didn’t think he’d hurt me even if they hadn’t been holding him back.
“It’s okay. He’s in there somewhere. Calren, what are you doing?” I tried again, but the Timekeeper only had eyes for the wall. He looked right over my head like I wasn’t even there.
“We want to help you,” said Erith as she came to stand beside me. “Just…just tell us what you’re doing.”
“Do you know Elida?”
“We saw her before.”
“Do you know us?”
“How did you know her name?”
“Do you have the proof we’re looking for?”
Most of us were standing in front of him again, speaking together at the same time, and the Timekeeper was no longer trying to free himself from the boys.
We talked, we asked him questions, we tried to make eye contact, and even though he sometimes looked our way, he didn’t really see us, not the way he saw me just a few moments ago.
This man was awake, blinking and breathing and moving, but it didn’t look like anybody was home.
The boys let go of him eventually, stepped back. The others kept talking, kept asking questions.
“Just tell us, we can help you.” Cook.
“Are you trying to break free from this room? Because there’s nothing there, just a wall.” Anika.
“If you’re looking for the door, it’s right there around that corner. We can help you. We can take you out of here.” Russ.
“We can give you food. We know where the kitchen is.” Erith.
If you could just talk, if you could just look at us—if you could just tell us what the proof is—if you could just tell us how you know us…
The Timekeeper didn’t say a single word.
“He’s not going to help us,” March finally said with a sigh.
“We should just gather all these papers and take them to the Timekeepers,” said Russ, moving for that room again. “Maybe we tell them about him! Maybe we just—”
“Missing things,” said the Timekeeper—whispered it so low we barely heard it.
“What did you say?” said Mimi, leaning closer.
“Missing things don’t have edges.”
And the Timekeeper ran.
We all jumped back on instinct, and shouted for him to stop, to tell us how to help him, to turn around and look at the corner—that’s where the door was. He couldn’t just get out of here blasting through walls like he’d done with those doors!
We tried. We really did, but the Timekeeper didn’t listen.
Eventually, we stopped trying to make him stop. All we could do was watch him slamming against the wall, then turning back and trying again, and again, and again…
“He’s…he’s not stopping,” said one or the other, voice shaking, clearly crying. “He won’t stop…”
Three times, seven, ten. The thudding was so precise, in such a perfect rhythm it made me wonder if maybe I was making this whole thing up. The way he moved, the way he looked, the way he went at it again and again…It can’t be real, whispered the voices in my head. This couldn’t possibly be real.
And then something moved.
Something else other than the perfect, clockwork movements of the Timekeeper slamming against the wall.
Another came right around the corner of the wall, right where we’d come from minutes ago. Another Timekeeper with a round belly, wide blue eyes and an orange beard that almost touched the plate he held in his hands.
And he was just as shocked to find us there as we were to see him.