“You should convince her to open up an ice cream parlor in some awesome beachside town.…” I slide my ring to the edge of my finger, then roll it back over my knuckle as Lynds adds, “Oh, or in, like, Russia. Get out, see the world at least.”
Lyndsey has a point. My parents may be running, but I think they’re scared of running so far they can’t look back and see what they’ve left. We’re only an hour from our old home. Only an hour from our old lives.
“Agreed,” I say. “So when are you going to come crash in the splendor that is the Coronado?”
“Is it incredible? Tell me it’s incredible.”
“It’s…old.”
“Is it haunted?”
Depends on the definition of haunted, really. Ghost is just a term used by people who don’t know about Histories.
“You’re taking an awfully long time to answer that, Mac.”
“Can’t confirm ghosts yet,” I say, “but give me time.”
I can hear her mother in the background. “Come on, Lyndsey. Mackenzie might have the luxury of slacking, but you don’t.”
Ouch. Slacking. What would it feel like to slack? Not that I can argue my case. The Archive might take issue with my exposing them just to prove that I’m a productive teen.
“Ack, sorry,” says Lyndsey. “I need to go to practice.”
“Which one?” I tease.
“Soccer.”
“Of course.”
“Talk soon, okay?” she says.
“Yeah.”
The phone goes dead.
I sit up and scan the boxes piled around the bed. They each have an M somewhere on the side. I’ve seen M’s, and A’s (my mother’s name is Allison) and P’s (my father’s name is Peter) around the living room, but no B’s. A sick feeling twists my stomach.
“Mom!” I call out, pushing up from the bed and heading back down the hall.
Dad is hiding out in a corner of the living room, a box cutter in one hand and a book in the other. He seems more interested in the book.
“What’s wrong, Mac?” he asks without looking up. But Dad didn’t do this. I know he didn’t. He might be running, too, but he’s not leading the pack.
“Mom!” I call again. I find her in her bedroom, blasting some talk show on the radio as she unpacks.
“What is it, love?” she asks, tossing hangers onto the bed.
When I speak, the words come out quiet, as if I don’t want to ask. As if I don’t want to know.
“Where are Ben’s boxes?”
There is a very, very long pause. “Mackenzie,” she says slowly. “This is about fresh starts—”
“Where are they?”
“A few are in storage. The rest…”
“You didn’t.”
“Colleen said that sometimes change requires drastic—”
“You’re going to blame your therapist for throwing out Ben’s stuff? Seriously?” My voice must have gone up, because Dad appears behind me in the doorway. Mom’s expression collapses, and he goes to her, and suddenly I’m the bad guy for wanting to hold on to something. Something I can read.
“Tell me you kept some of it,” I say through gritted teeth.
Mom nods, her face still buried in Dad’s collar. “A small box. Just a few things. They’re in your room.”
I’m already in the hall. I slam my door behind me and push boxes out of the way until I find it. Shoved in a corner. A small B on one side. It’s little bigger than a shoe box.
I slice the clear packing tape with Da’s key, and turn the box over on the bed, spreading all that’s left of Ben across the mattress. My eyes burn. It’s not that Mom didn’t keep anything, it’s that she kept the wrong things. We leave memories on objects we love and cherish, things we use and wear down.
If Mom had kept his favorite shirt—the one with the X over the heart—or any of his blue pencils—even a stub—or the mile patch he won in track, the one he kept in his pocket because he was too proud to leave it at home, but not proud enough to put it on his backpack…but the things scattered on my bed aren’t really his. Photos she framed for him, graded tests, a hat he wore once, a small spelling trophy, a teddy bear he hated, and a cup he made in an art class when he was only five or six.
I tug off my ring and reach for the first item.
Maybe there’s something.
There has to be something.
Something.
Anything.
“It’s not a party trick, Kenzie,” you snap.
I drop the bauble and it rolls across the table. You are teaching me how to read—things, not books—and I must have made a joke, given the act a dramatic flair.
“There’s only one reason Keepers have the ability to read things,” you say sternly. “It makes us better hunters. It helps us track down Histories.”
“It’s blank anyway,” I mutter.
“Of course it is,” you say, retrieving the trinket and turning it over between your fingers. “It’s a paperweight. And you should have known the moment you touched it.”
I could. It had the telltale hollow quiet. It didn’t hum against my fingers. You hand me back my ring, and I slip it on.
“Not everything holds memories,” you say. “Not every memory’s worth holding. Flat surfaces—walls, floors, tables, that kind of thing—they’re like canvases, great at taking in images. The smaller the object, the harder it is for it to hold an impression. But,” you add, holding up the paperweight so I can see the world distorted in the glass, “if there is a memory, you should be able to tell with a brush of your hand. That’s all the time you’ll have. If a History makes it into the Outer—”
“How would they do that?” I ask.
“Kill a Keeper? Steal a key? Both.” You cough, a racking, wet sound. “It’s not easy.” You cough again, and I want to do something to help; but the one time I offered you water, you growled that water wouldn’t fix a damn thing unless I meant to drown you with it. So now we pretend the cough isn’t there, punctuating your lectures.
“But,” you say, recovering, “if a History does get out, you have to track them down, and fast. Reading surfaces has to be second nature. This gift is not a game, Kenzie. It’s not a magic trick. We read the past for one reason, and one alone. To hunt.”
I know what my gift is for, but it doesn’t stop me from sifting through every framed photo, every random slip of paper, every piece of sentimental junk Mom chose, hoping for even a whisper, a hint of a memory of Ben. And it doesn’t matter anyway because they’re all useless. By the time I get to the stupid art camp cup, I’m desperate. I pick it up, and my heart flutters when I feel the subtle hum against my fingertips, like a promise; but when I close my eyes—even when I reach past the hum—there’s nothing but pattern and light, blurred beyond readability.
I want to pitch the cup as hard as I can against the wall, add another scratch. I’m actually about to throw it when a piece of black plastic catches my eye, and I realize I’ve missed something. I let the cup fall back on the bed and retrieve a pair of battered glasses pinned beneath the trophy and the bear.