Da would call that an extrapolation. It’s easier than a straight lie because it contains seeds of truth. Not that Mom would be able to tell if I told her a blatant lie, but it makes me feel a fraction less guilty.
“Oh. That was…sweet of you,” she says, looking wounded because I’d rather have tea with a stranger than talk to her.
“I should have kept better track of time”—and then, feeling guiltier—“I’m sorry.” I rub my eyes and begin to lean toward the bedroom. “I’m going to go unpack a little.”
“This will be good for us,” she promises. “This will be an adventure.” But while it sounded cheerful coming from Dad, it leaves her lips like a breath being knocked out of her. Desperate. “I promise, Mac. An adventure.”
“I believe you,” I say. And because I can tell she wants more, I manage a smile and add, “I love you.”
The words taste strange, and as I make my way to my room and then to my waiting bed, I can’t figure out why. When I pull the sheet over my head, it hits me.
It’s the only thing I said that wasn’t a lie.
I’m twelve, six months shy of becoming a Keeper, and Mom is mad at you because you’re bleeding. She accuses you of fighting, of drinking, of refusing to age gracefully. You light a cigarette and run your fingers through your shock of peppered hair and let her believe it was a bar fight, let her believe you were looking for trouble.
“Is it hard?” I ask when she storms out of the room. “Lying so much?”
You take a long drag and flick ash into the sink, where you know she’ll see it. You’re not supposed to smoke anymore.
“Not hard, no. Lying is easy. But it’s lonely.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you lie to everyone about everything, what’s left? What’s true?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“Exactly.”
The phone wakes me.
“Hey, hey,” says Lyndsey. “Daily check-in!”
“Hey, Lynds.” I yawn.
“Were you sleeping?”
“I’m trying to fulfill your mother’s image of me.”
“Don’t mind her. So, hotel update? Found me any ghosts yet?”
I sit up, swing my legs off the bed. I’ve got the bloodstained boy in my walls, but I don’t think that’s really shareable. “No ghosts yet, but I’ll keep looking.”
“Look harder! A place like that? It’s got to be full of creepy things. It’s been around for, like, a hundred years.”
“How do you know that?”
“I looked it up! You don’t think I’d let you move into some haunted mansion without scoping out the history.”
“And what did you find?”
“Weirdly, nothing. Like, suspiciously nothing. It was a hotel, and the hotel was converted into apartments after World War Two, a big boom time moneywise. The conversion was in a ton of newspapers, but then a few years later the place just falls off the map…no articles, nothing.”
I frown, getting up from the bed. Ms. Angelli admitted that this place was full of history. So where is it? Assuming she can’t read walls, how did she learn the Coronado’s secrets? And why was she so defensive about sharing them?
“I bet it’s like a government conspiracy,” Lynds is saying. “Or a witness protection program. Or one of those horror reality films. Have you checked for cameras?”
I laugh, but silently wonder—glancing at the blood-spotted floor—if the truth is worse.
“Have you at least got tenants who look like they belong in a Hitchcock film?”
“Well, so far I’ve met a morbidly obese antiques hoarder, and a boy who wears eyeliner.”
“They call that guyliner,” she says.
“Yes. Well.” I stretch and head for the bedroom door. “I’d call it stupid, but he’s rather nice to look at. I can’t tell if the eyeliner makes him attractive, or if he’s good-looking in spite of it.”
“At least you’ve got nice things to look at.”
I step around the ghostly drops on the floor and venture out into the apartment. It’s dusk, and none of the lights are on.
“How are you doing?” I ask. Lyndsey possesses the gift of normalcy. I bathe in it. “Summer courses? College prep? Learning new languages? New instruments? Single-handedly saving countries?”
Lyndsey laughs. It’s so easy for her. “You make me sound like an overachiever.”
I feel the scratch of letters and pull the list from my jeans.
Alex King. 13.
“That’s because you are an overachiever,” I say.
“I just like to stay busy.”
Come over here, then, I think, pocketing the list. This place would keep you busy.
I distinctly hear the thrum of guitar strings. “What’s that noise?” I ask.
“I’m tuning, that’s all.”
“Lyndsey Newman, do you actually have me on speaker just so you can talk and tune a guitar at the same time? You’re jeopardizing the sanctity of our conversations.”
“Relax. The parents have vacated. Some kind of gala. They left in fancy dress an hour ago. What about yours?”
I find two notes on the kitchen counter.
My mother’s reads: Store! Love, Mom.
My father’s reads: Checking in at work. –D
“Similarly out,” I say, “but minus the fancy dress and the togetherness.”
I retreat to the bedroom.
“The place to yourself?” she says. “I hope you’re having a party.”
“I can barely hear over the music and drinking games. I better tell them to quiet down before someone calls the cops.”
“Talk soon, okay?” she says. “I miss you.” She really means it.
“I miss you, Lynds.” I mean it too.
The phone goes dead. I toss it onto the bed and stare down at the faded spots on my floor.
Questions eat at me. What happened in this room? Who was the boy? And whose blood was he covered in? Maybe it’s not my job, maybe it’s an infraction to find out, a misuse of power, but every member of the Archive takes the same oath.
We protect the past. And the way I see it, that means we need to understand it.
And if neither Lyndsey’s search engines nor Ms. Angelli are going to tell me anything, I’ll have to see for myself. I tug the ring from my finger, and before I can chicken out, I kneel, press my hands to the floor, and reach.
NINE
THERE IS A GIRL sitting on a bed, knees pulled up beneath her chin.
I run the memories back until I find the small calendar by the bed that reads MARCH, the blue dress on the corner chair, the black book on the table by the bed. Da was right. Bread crumbs and bookmarks. My fingers found their way.
The girl on the bed is thin in a delicate way, with light blond hair that falls in waves around her narrow face. She is younger than I am, and talking to the boy with the bloodstained hands, only right now his hands are still clean. Her words are a murmur, nothing more than static, and the boy won’t stand still. I can tell by the girl’s eyes that she’s talking slowly, insistently, but the boy’s replies are urgent, punctuated by his hands, which move through the air in sweeping gestures. He can’t be much older than she is, but judging by his feverish face and the way he sways, he’s been drinking. He looks like he’s about to be sick. Or scream.