Gatekeepers

by Robert Liparulo

  “Dad told me, ‘Time is God’s way of preventing everything from happening at once,’ ” he said. “But it is all happening at once: We have to rescue Mom from a world that’s trying to kill us. We have to figure out how to get Dad out of jail without letting them arrest us too. We have to watch out for Taksidian and the fifty ways he’s trying to capture us, murder us, or other-wise get us out of the house. We should be picking Jesse’s brain for everything he knows.”

  “Picking his brain?” Toria said. “Eew.”

  “It means learning what he knows, Toria,” David said. “My point is, it’s too much, all at once.”

  Xander smiled at him. “Like I said, maybe that’s our nor-mal . . . now that we’re in this house.”

  “I wish we’d never laid eyes on it,” David said.

  Xander flipped the bacon. He said, “I’m not sure we ever had a choice, Dae.”

  “What do you mean?” David said. “Like it’s our destiny to be here?”

  Xander shrugged. “I’m just saying. With Dad kind of making it happen, and the reason he did going back to when he was a kid. And remember, we were excited about this place . . . attracted to it, even though it was scary. Doesn’t all of that feel like destiny to you?”

  “What about Hollywood? You said you were going to make movies.”

  “I am. This is today’s destiny. Filmmaking is tomorow’s.”

  The second round of toast popped up behind David. He said, “I don’t know what destiny feels like, but if this is it, I don’t like it. I want to un-destiny this place from my life.”

  “That’s why Toria should go over,” Xander said.

  David wanted to punch him. “Xander, it’s too—”

  Xander waved his hand at him. “Never mind, never mind. You know those noises last night, the ones coming from the third floor?”

  “Creepy,” Toria said.

  Xander began using the tongs to pull the bacon from the grease and lay the strips on folded paper towels. “David, you said you’d rather not know what was causing them than go up there and die.”

  “And you said, ‘No, really?’ ” David reminded him. He put the new toast on top of the mangled slices, then cut thin pat-ties of butter from the stick and set them on the edge of the plate. He carried his breakfast contribution into the dining room.

  Toria followed with the eggs, and Xander with the bacon.

  Xander said, “What if I figured out a way to know what’s happening without having to go up there?”

  David gave him a puzzled look. “Okaaaay . . . ?”

  “A camera,” Xander said. A big grin stretched out on his face. “We put one right at the beginning of the hallway, just inside the landing.”

  David followed Toria back into the kitchen. Xander was right on him, wanting David to tell him what a brilliant idea it was.

  Instead, David said, “Will a camera work up there? Your video camera didn’t work when I took it over into that jungle world.”

  “That was through a portal,” Xander said. “Who knows why it went wacky? I’ve filmed all over the house. It works.”

  Toria brushed past them, carrying three glasses of OJ. David picked up a stack of plates, and Xander plucked forks out of a drawer.

  “So what?” David said. “You start filming when we go to bed, then check it in the morning?”

  “That’s no good,” Xander said. “It doesn’t record that long, and I want to know what’s happening when it happens, not later.”

  “So what are you thinking?” David passed out the plates and sat down.

  “Security cameras,” Xander said. “Those wireless ones that show the camera’s perspective on a TV or computer monitor.”

  Thinking about it, David scooped eggs onto his plate and dropped three strips of bacon beside them.

  A forkful of eggs was halfway to his mouth when Toria said, “David . . . ?” She was reaching her hands out to him and Xander.

  David set the fork down and clasped his siblings’ hands. When no one said anything, David gave Xander’s fingers a squeeze.

  Xander said, “Heavenly Father, thank You for this food. Please keep Mom safe and bring her home soon.”

  David stepped in before Xander could close the prayer. He said, “Dad, too.”

  Xander said, “And make us strong and courageous. Amen.” He smiled. “Last night, when I saw Dad in jail, he said that’s what we have to be.”

  “He always says that,” David said, nodding. He leaned over his plate and began shoveling scrambled egg into his mouth like coal into a furnace.

  “So, anyway,” Xander said, “the hardware store sells security camera kits.”

  “Aren’t they expensive?” David said.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Toria said. “Gross!”

  David opened his mouth wide.

  Toria lowered her eyes to her plate.

  “I’ve got money,” Xander said.

  “You do?”

  “Mom showed me some cash she’d set aside to buy me a car.”

  “You’re kidding.” Everything about that amazed David: that their parents had extra money and that they’d put it into a car for Xander.

  It wasn’t that they didn’t want to buy their kids things, but teaching—as Dad had done before accepting the principal’s position here in Pinedale—wasn’t exactly a high-paying career. And Mom had chosen full-time parenting over juggling a job and kids, so that’s what she had done since Xander was born.

  They were always pinching pennies for little extras, like David’s soccer equipment and Toria’s piano lessons.

  But a car? Wow.

  “She was so cool about it,” Xander said, remembering. “She wasn’t going to tell me until my birthday, but she knew the move was getting me down, and she hoped it would cheer me up.”

  David nodded. “That’s Mom.” He folded a piece of bacon into his mouth. “When were you thinking of doing it—put-ting the camera up there?”

  “Right away, now,” Xander said. “I don’t know how long it’ll take to set up, and I definitely want it working before we go to bed, in case whatever went on last night goes on again.”

  “The hardware store’s on the other side of town,” Toria said.

  She had gone there with Dad the other day to get locks for the third-floor doors—locks the house had shaken off the way a dog shakes off fleas.

  “That’s a long ride,” David said.

  Xander’s bike was a secondhand three-speed with a loose chain and a wobbly wheel.

  “I’ll take the car again.” Seeing David’s frown, he said, “If the cops see me, it doesn’t matter whether I’m walking or riding my bike or chasing poodles up Main Street in a Ferrari—they’re going to haul me away.”

  David considered telling Xander that getting a camera wasn’t worth leaving the house. It wasn’t worth risking being spotted by the police. Then he realized how much time it would take to buy it and then install it . . . time not spent finding the Civil War world. As much as David wanted to find Mom, he didn’t want Toria going over. By the time the camera was ready, and his brother started thinking again about sending their sister over, maybe Dad would be home to nix Xander’s stupid plan.

  David looked at his brother out of the corner of his eye. He said, “I would feel a lot safer knowing what’s happening up there.”

  Xander nodded. “I’ll go in a few minutes.” He snapped up a slice of toast, folded it, and stuffed it into his mouth. Chewing while he talked, he said, “Toria, you look for the Civil War world while I’m gone. If you find it, stay in the antechamber. That’ll keep it from shifting away.”

  David pulled in a breath, sucking egg down the wrong pipe. He started to choke and let food fall from his mouth onto the plate, not caring what it looked like. Xander stood and slapped him on the back, hard. Then again. Whatever was in there cleared. David swallowed and breathed.

  Toria ran around the table to rub his back. “Are you all right?” she said sweetly.

&n
bsp; He nodded, cleared his throat. His eyes had begun to water, and he wiped them. He took a swig of juice.

  Xander dropped back into his seat and watched David with big eyes. He said, “Wouldn’t it be a trip if you choked to death on eggs, after all the things you’ve survived lately?”

  David glared at him. “It would be sad,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “For us,” Xander said. “You wouldn’t care. You’d be gone.”

  David couldn’t help but smile. He said, “I’d care. Just before the lights went out for good, I’d be thinking Eggs? Eggs? You gotta be kidding! ”

  Even Toria laughed. The sound of it reminded David why he’d choked in the first place. He said, “Xander, we can’t look for the world while you’re gone. It’s too dangerous.”

  Xander frowned. He said, “We should get Mom first, then. That’s the most important thing.”

  “It is,” David said. “But what if it takes a while for the world to come back around? What if something keeps Toria from getting Mom? Then we’ll be back in bed tonight, wondering what’s happening on the third floor. Let’s just get that done and be covered.”

  Toria was still standing next to David, pressing into his arm.

  He said, “Toria, I’m all right. Go finish eating.”

  “I’m not hungry anymore.” She was scrunching her nose, looking at the food that had fallen from David’s mouth.

  David covered the mess with a slice of toast. He said, “Just go sit down, okay?”

  “Yeah,” Xander said. “I think we can get a camera system up and running pretty fast. Let’s do that, then we’ll look for the Civil War stuff.”

  “Too bad we can’t put a camera in all the rooms up there . . . in all the antechambers,” Toria said, leaning back in her chair.

  David smiled. He could tell she was still trying to get a handle on that word antechamber. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever heard it before coming here. Now they used it like a thou-sand times a day. He felt his smile fade. He wished he didn’t know it, that they’d never discovered that stupid third floor.

  Xander’s eyes grew wide, his lips made a perfect O. He said, “Then we could see which items are in the antechambers any-time we wanted to.”

  David said, “It’d take a week to set up twenty cameras like that.”

  “But wouldn’t that be cool?”

  “It’d be cooler,” David said, “not to need the cameras. Let’s get Mom and get gone.”

  Xander pushed his lips sideways. “I’ll just get one extra camera to see if it even works in an antechamber.”

  “I wish Dad was here,” Toria said.

  “They took him at about seven thirty last night,“ Xander said. He wiggled his fingers, calculating. “That’s fifteen hours ago. He said he thought it was all a scam, that they didn’t dare hold him longer than a day.”

  “That’s nine more hours,” David said. He was more than a little upset that the house had made a few hours seem like an eternity, like they were holding on to the ledge of a cliff and their fingers were growing tired. He wished everything would just slow down so they could take a breath, so they could think.

  “After I put the camera up, we’ll go get Mom,” Xander told Toria. “If you’re still up for it.”

  David hoped she would drop her face, say something like, I changed my mind. I’m too scared.

  But she didn’t. She puffed out her chest and said, “I can do it!”

  “Okay,” Xander said. He lifted his glass of juice. “To being strong and courageous.”

  Toria and David picked up their own glasses and clinked them against Xander’s.

  Despite his feelings about Toria going over, David joined them. “Strong and courageous!” he said.

  CHAPTER

  twenty -six

  WEDNESDAY, NOON

  David sat in the Mission Control Center, his head bowed toward the PSP in his hands. His teeth pushed into his bot-tom lip as he clicked the buttons that caused his on-screen soccer player to make a bicycle kick for the goal: right past the tender and in! As the crowd roared and a teammate gave him a high five, he glanced up to a computer monitor on a desk in front of him.

  Xander’s face filled the screen. The camera he’d picked up at the hardware store after breakfast made his eyes appear unnaturally large. The pencil he held in his mouth looked more like a horse’s bit. He was squinting over the camera, so it seemed like he was staring at David’s hair. Xander looked over his shoulder at the crooked hallway of doors behind him, then wiggled the camera around. He was mounting it above the doorway between the third-floor landing and the hall.

  Static flashed on the screen, then a band of snow scrolled from the top of the screen to the bottom.

  “We’re getting interference!” David called over his shoulder.

  “What?” Toria called back from the base of the stairs leading to the third floor. She was roughly midway between David and Xander and was conveying their words back and forth.

  “We’re getting—” David started.

  More static broke Xander’s face across the screen.

  “Hold on!” David said. He pushed back from the desk and stepped out of the MCC.

  They had turned what Mom had called the servants’ quarters into their base of operations for her rescue. The room was off a short hallway that jutted back toward the rear of the house from the second floor’s main hallway. It was close to the staircase leading to the third level, where twenty doors led into twenty small rooms and, beyond them, twenty portals opened into different times, different “worlds”— all of them on earth, but so unlike the time and places the Kings knew, they might as well have been alien planets.

  The staircase itself was hidden behind the wall at the end of the short hallway. One evening David and Xander had spotted the big man—the one Xander dubbed Phemus—in their house. They’d followed him and found a secret door in the wall.

  Now, David stepped into the opening of that door. Six feet beyond it was another wall, this one coated in unpainted plaster. Even the unsanded swirls of the trowel that had applied the plaster were still visible. Whoever had built it wasn’t concerned about appearances: the wall was nothing more than a barrier to keep people out. Or more likely, David thought, to keep people in, to keep them from coming through the portals and into the main part of the house, as Phemus had done when he took Mom. Set in this second wall—not directly in front of the secret door, but off to the side—was another door, covered in metal.

  Lot of good the extra security did, David thought.

  The metal door was open, and Toria was leaning against its frame.

  “What?” she said.

  “Just looking,” David said.

  “What’s going on?” Xander called from the floor above.

  “We’re getting static,” David yelled. “I’m wondering if there’s anything between the camera and the monitor that’s causing it.”

  He scanned the area between the walls, about the size of a walk-in closet. The backside of the hallway wall was imperfectly finished, like the other one.

  David stepped past Toria to the base of the steps that rose straight up to the landing. He could hear Xander fiddling with something, but his brother was out of sight, in the hall-way to the left of the landing. He rapped his knuckles against this second wall, but the sound told him nothing about what was inside.

  “I can’t tell,” he said. “There might be wires running through the walls that are interfering.”

  “Get back to the monitor,” Xander said. “I’ll fiddle with the camera, see what I can do.”

  “Get back to the monitor!” Toria yelled into David’s ear, trying to be funny. They had told her to yell to the other whatever one of them said. “I’ll fiddle—!”

  David clamped his hand over her mouth. “I heard,” he said. He wiggled a fingertip into his ear, frowning at her. “That hurt.”

  He went through the secret door into the short hall and returned to the MCC. The room was coming along. D
ad had hung a timeline of history near the ceiling; it spanned the length of two walls. Tough guys from Xander’s movie posters—300, Gladiator, Remember the Titans—stared down at him. They were meant to psych them up to face the dangers of the other worlds. A series of colored index cards was taped to the wall, reflecting the times and places they’d already visited: the Roman Colosseum, the tiger-and-warrior-infested jungle, the French village during World War II, the Civil War, the peaceful world where Dad and Xander had first carved Bob into a tree. David still wanted to add cards that listed the items they had found in the antechambers and link the cards with string. He wondered if he’d ever find the time to do that.

  He dropped into the chair in front of the monitor. On the screen, a brief pop of static fluttered across Xander’s face. His brother’s mouth moved.

  “How’s that?” Toria yelled.

  Now that David knew what Xander had said, he recognized the way his mouth had moved to form the words. If they did this long enough, he might learn to read lips. That’d be sweet.

  “Better!” he hollered back to Toria. “But tell him to move it a little to the left!”

  She passed it along, and Xander nudged the camera angle the wrong way.

  “My left! The camera’s left!” David yelled. He heard his sister echo the words.

  Xander rolled his eyes. He adjusted the camera, raised his eyebrows in question.

  “That’s good!” David said.

  Xander nodded, took the pencil out of his mouth, and made a mark off camera. His head filled the monitor, then it dropped away. The camera was turned sideways, pointing down the hall. David realized Xander had set it on top of the stepladder while he went to get the screws and screwdriver. Xander moved away from the camera and squatted in front of a box.

  David picked up the PSP. The game was over, his team’s score in the toilet. He turned it off. He’d rather be kicking his ball around outside than doing this.

  Xander walked toward the monitor, screws in one hand, the tool in the other. The camera jerked and bounced around, then settled on the image David had seen a minute before: the hallway of doors over Xander’s shoulder.

  Xander said something. In the few seconds before Toria could relay it, David tried to guess what it was: Is the dog dead? I’m a raft? Want to fight?