Summon the Keeper

by Tanya Huff

  Dean reached past the cat and opened the wardrobe door. It was dark inside, much darker than it should have been. Another distant roar drifted out into the room. He squared his shoulders, flexing the muscles across his back, and bounced a time or two on the balls of his feet. Claire needed his help. Cool. “What do I do?”

  “Step up inside and pull the door closed behind you, but don’t latch it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Only idiots lock themselves in wardrobes.” His tone suggested any idiot ought to know that. “Once you’re in there, think about Claire. Holding an image of her in your mind, walk toward the back wall. When you get to where you’re going, keep thinking of her.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “I have no idea. Once you arrive, look and listen for anything out of the ordinary. She’ll be in the middle of it. Oh, and don’t eat or drink while you’re in there. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.”

  About ready to step inside, Dean paused. “Why not?” he asked again.

  “Did you not read when you were a kid?”

  “I, uh, played a lot of hockey.”

  Austin snorted. “I guessed. If you eat or drink inside the wardrobe, it holds you there.”

  The door half closed, he stuck his head out into the room. “How do I come back?”

  “Think of this room and go through any opaque door.”

  “But do not return here without Claire,” Jacques told him, “or I will make of your life a misery.”

  Dean accepted the warning in the spirit it had been given. “Don’t worry. I’ll save her.”

  As the wardrobe door swung shut, Austin leaped up onto the bed. “I hate waiting.”

  “You know,” Jacques said thoughtfully, drifting over to join him. “If you are wrong and she does not need saving, she is going to be not happy with you.”

  “Excuse me? If I am wrong?”

  The inside of the wardrobe smelled faintly of mothballs. Dean found it a comforting smell as he turned away from the door and the argument gaining volume on the other side. It reminded him of the closet in the spare room at his grandfather’s house. Unable to see, he took a tentative step forward, expecting, in spite of everything to whack his face on the back wall. Another step, and another. Still no wall.

  A new odor began drifting in over the mothballs.

  His grandfather’s pipe tobacco?

  He stopped and closed his eyes, suddenly remembering that he was supposed to be thinking of Claire, not of home.

  “Holding an image of her in your mind…”

  It was hard to hold a single image, so he cycled through the highlights of their short association as he took another step. Claire walking into the kitchen that first morning; Claire explaining how magic worked; Claire going up the spiral stairs to the attic. The smell of the pipe tobacco began to fade. She was his boss; she was a Keeper; she had a really irritating way of assuming she knew best or, more precisely, that he knew nothing at all. When he opened his eyes, he could see a gray light in the distance.

  Approximately thirty-seven steps later—he wasn’t sure how many he’d taken before he’d started counting—he stood on Princess Street looking down the hill toward the water. Prepared for the strangest possible environment, he was a little disappointed to find himself in a bad copy of the city he’d just left. Everything was vaguely out of proportion, the street had been paved with cobblestones, and, although there were a few parked cars, there was no traffic. The half dozen or so people in sight paid no attention to him.

  He could hear church bells in the distance and the cry of gulls circling high overhead.

  There was no sign of Claire.

  Hoping for a clue, he pulled out the card.

  Aunt Claire, Keeper

  Your Accident is my Opportunity

  (could be worse, could be raining)

  The skies opened up, and it began to pour. Dean stuffed the card back into his wallet, noting that magic had a very basic sense of humor.

  Fortunately, he seemed to have passed from October into August. The air was warm, and the rain was almost tepid. Pushing wet hair back off his face, he drew in a deep lungful of air and frowned at yet another familiar smell. Hoping he hadn’t screwed everything up by thinking of home, he started running downhill toward the harbor. Look and listen for anything out of the ordinary, Austin had told him. Well, as far as he knew, there were no saltwater harbors on the Great Lakes.

  It wasn’t just a saltwater harbor. Signal Hill rose across the narrows where the Royal Military College should have been. Massive docks butted up against a broad thoroughfare and along the far side of it were the historic properties that should’ve been clustered around the Dartmouth ferry dock in Halifax.

  “Okay. This is weird.” But so far it didn’t seem dangerous. Even the rain was letting up.

  There were ships at nearly all the docks, most of them clippers and brigantines, but he saw at least two modern vessels as well. So which were out of the ordinary? While he stood there, undecided, someone bumped him from behind, muttered an apology, and kept moving.

  Dean turned to see a heavily muscled man in an old-fashioned naval uniform, carrying a human leg over one massive shoulder, weave his way through the crowd on the thoroughfare and enter a windowless green building on the other side. The sign on the building read “Man-made Sausages.”

  No one else, from the little girl selling matches to the one-eyed, peg-legged street artist with a hook, seemed to think anything of it.

  “Don’t eat or drink while you’re in there.…”

  “Not much danger of that,” he muttered. “I’ll just find the boss….”

  From somewhere in town came the enraged roar of an Industrial Light and Magic special effect followed closely by a woman’s scream.

  “Claire!”

  His work boots slipping on the wet cobblestones, Dean raced away from the harbor through a rabbit warren of narrow streets, all of them steeply angled regardless of the direction he was running.

  The roar sounded again. Closer.

  Just when he thought he was hopelessly lost, he pounded out from between two empty storefronts and into the intersection at Brock and King, across from the old city library.

  In the center of the intersection, stomping jerkily about like one of the old stop-motion models, was a dinosaur. A T-Rex. Off to one side, were the squashed and nearly unidentifiable remains…

  Dean clutched at his chest.

  …of a 1957 Corvette.

  “Oh, God, no!” Eyes wide behind his glasses, he staggered forward, hands outstretched. He was almost at the wreck when he felt the ground move, felt hot breath on the back of his neck, and had the sudden uncomfortable feeling he was a secondary character in a Saturday morning movie matinee.

  He dove out of the way just in time. Rolled immediately thereafter to avoid being smacked by the massive tail. Leaped over a crumpled fender…

  Sitting in the library, surrounded by reference material and a few of the more pungent if less literate clientele, Claire heard someone call her name. Loudly. One could almost say desperately.

  The voice, even in extremis, sounded very familiar.

  She’d been inside since the Historian’s new pet had shown up, figuring sooner or later it would get bored and wander off and, if it didn’t, she’d just go back out through the library door and home. Then, looking for a map, she’d gotten engrossed in the books. She had no idea how long she’d been in there.

  “CLAIRE!”

  “Dean?” Running her tongue over dry lips, she walked over to the window, wondering how the Historian had been able to copy Dean’s voice so exactly. She felt her jaw actually drop when she realized she was hearing the original. “Dean!”

  Had the T-Rex been animated better, Dean knew he’d have been dead and partially digested by now. Dodging a grotesque, chickenlike peck of the huge head, he found himself at the foot of the library steps.

  The massive tail whipped around.

  He jumped, cleared th
e tail, made a bad landing, stumbled back, and fell.

  About a dozen stairs behind and above him, he heard the library door open and, at the same time, a small herd of pigs appeared on the other side of the intersection squealing loud enough to wake the dead.

  Or attract the attention of the dinosaur.

  As T-Rex lumbered toward the pork, something grabbed Dean by the shirt and tried to haul him backward up the stairs with no notable success. Before the pressure of the seams across his armpits cut off all circulation in his arms, he managed to get his feet under him and stand.

  Claire released both handfuls of fabric as he turned to face her. Two steps apart, they were eye to eye. She went up one more step. “What are you doing here?”

  Struggling to catch his breath, Dean gasped, “I came in to save you.”

  “To save me? Oh, for…Whose bright idea was that?”

  Since she was obviously not thrilled by the thought of a rescue attempt, he squared his shoulders. “Mine.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Claire snorted. “It was Austin, wasn’t it? That cat is fussier than…”

  A roar from the T-Rex jerked their attention back into the intersection. Ludicrously small arms raked the air, then it charged.

  “Come on!” Grabbing another handful of Dean’s shirt, Claire ran for the library door.

  “It didn’t take long with the pigs.”

  “That’s because they weren’t real. Only the Historian can do substance in here, all I can manage is illusion.”

  “Oh, great, so you’ve pissed it off?”

  “Try to remember who’s saving whose ass.”

  The solid stone steps shuddered as the dinosaur started up after them.

  “Think about the bedroom!” Claire yelled as they reached the top step. Still clutching his shirt, she thumbed the latch and dragged him through the door after her.

  The wardrobe shuddered to a mighty impact as they flung themselves out into the worried presence of Austin and Jacques.

  Breathing heavily, Claire lay where she’d fallen, staring under the bed at a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers that weren’t hers. Four paws, propelled by a ten-pound cat, landed on her kidneys and a moment later Austin’s face peered into hers from over her right shoulder.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just a little thirsty.” She rolled over, cradled him in her arms, and sat up. Dean had gotten to his feet and was busy trying to pull his T-shirt back into shape. “What,” she asked the cat, “was the idea of sending him in after me? If I hadn’t shown up in time, he’d have been killed.”

  “I heard roaring.”

  “You’ve heard worse.”

  “You’d been gone for over an hour.”

  “I lost track of time. I was reading.”

  “Reading?” Austin repeated, squirming free and jumping up onto the bed. “You were reading!”

  About to mention the dinosaur, Dean’s vision suddenly filled with an extreme close-up of a ghost. “Get my cushion,” Jacques whispered, “quickly, and we will leave.”

  “But Claire…” Dean whispered back, trying to see around Jacques’ translucent body.

  “This you cannot rescue Claire from. And as much as I would like my cushion to remain, pick it up. We are leaving.”

  “I was worried sick and you were reading?” Austin repeated.

  Something in the cat’s tone suddenly got through. Eyes wide, Dean stared at Jacques who nodded frantically toward the cushion.

  “It wasn’t like that, Austin.”

  “It wasn’t like what? It wasn’t like you never even considered my feelings? Is that what it wasn’t like?”

  Careful not to break into the line of sight between cat and Keeper, Dean scooped up Jacques’ anchor and the two of them raced into the sitting room.

  “So what was it Claire save you from?” Jacques asked as they slowed.

  Dean shrugged, the material stretched by Claire’s hands riding on his shoulders like tiny wings. “A dinosaur.”

  “A what?”

  “A very big carnivorous lizard.”

  “Ha! If I can go through the wardrobe, she would not have to rescue me from a big lizard. She would not have to rescue a real man.”

  “Real men admit it when they need help.”

  “Since when?”

  “I think it started around the mid-eighties.”

  “Ah. Well, it did not start with me. I would have did what I went into the wardrobe to do.”

  “You would have done what you went into the wardrobe to do.”

  “That,” said Jacques, staring down his nose at the living man, “is what I said.”

  “Okay.” Dean half-turned toward the bedroom, gesturing with the hand holding the cushion. “If you’re so brave, go back in there.”

  Austin’s voice drifted out through the open bedroom door. “…consider more important than…”

  Jacques looked thoughtful. “How big did you say was that lizard?”

  Later, after tempers had cooled and apologies had been offered and accepted, Austin rested his head on Claire’s shoulder and murmured thoughtfully, “Maybe it had nothing to do with either of us. Maybe it only had to do with Dean.”

  Claire stopped halfway across the sitting room and shifted her hold on the cat so she could see his face. “What are you saying?”

  “Maybe he needed to go into the wardrobe; to begin tempering.”

  “Tempering?” Her eyes widened as the implication hit her. “Oh, no. Forget it. We don’t need another Hero. They’re nothing but trouble.”

  “Granted, but he fits the parameters. No parents, raised by a stern but ethical authority figure, big, strong, naturally athletic, not real bright, modest, good looking…”

  “Myopic.”

  “What?”

  “He’s nearsighted,” Claire said, feeling almost light-headed with relief. “Who ever heard of a hero in glasses?”

  Austin thought about it for a moment “Clark Kent?”

  “Fake prescription.”

  “Woody Allen?”

  “Get serious.”

  “Still…”

  “No.” She stepped out into the lobby, closing the door to her suite behind her. Patting the gleaming oak counter with her free hand, she headed for the kitchen. Since the unsuccessful search for the Historian had taken most of her energy, she had no memory of Dean actually finishing the work, but it sure looked good. Granted it would look better if they refinished the lobby floor, painted and recarpeted the stairs…

  “No. I’m a Keeper, not an interior decorator, I have a job. If I can’t find the Historian,” she muttered, stepping into the kitchen, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

  Austin jumped out of her arms, landing by the sink and whirling around to face her. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Sorry.”

  He washed a shoulder. “I should hope so.”

  Hardly daring to breathe, Claire pulled the plastic container holding the site journal out of the fridge. Faint fumes could be detected seeping through the seal.

  “Do you have to do that now?” Austin demanded. “It’s twenty-five to ten. I thought we could have breakfast first.”

  “I have no intention of opening this when I have food in my stomach.”

  “That’s probably wise, but factoring in wardrobe time, you haven’t eaten for nearly twenty-four hours and, more importantly, I haven’t eaten for two. After you deal with that you’re not going to want to eat for a while.” He sneezed. “If ever. It’s worse than the last time!”

  “But the lid’s still on.”

  “My point exactly.” His first leap took him nearly to the dining room. Ears back, he headed for the hall. “If you want me, I’ll be doing canine therapy next door. Out of my way, junior.”

  “Junior?” Dean repeated, flattening against the wall to avoid being run over by the cat. Still shaking his head, he turned the corner into the dining room and coughed. “What in…”

  “If y
ou want to do something useful,” Claire told him a little breathlessly, setting the lid to one side, “you can find me a lifting thingie.”

  “A what?” he asked, noting with dismay that she was reaching for another fork.

  “Something to lift the journal out of the liquid with.”

  Reminding himself that it was her hotel and she could therefore destroy as much of the cutlery as she wanted, Dean took his least favorite spatula from the spatula section of the second drawer and handed it over. “Did you and Austin work out, well, you know…”

  “Yes. We did. Just so you don’t worry in the future, we always do.”

  “You guys, you have a interesting relationship.”

  “Of course we do.” She wiped one watering eye on the back of her hand. “He’s a cat.” Carefully, she slid the spatula under the journal.

  Once again, the onions had turned indigo but, this time, there was still about an inch of brine sloshing around in the bottom of the container.

  “Boss, I, uh, just wanted to say…”

  “Not now, Dean.”

  “Okay.” Left hand cupped over his mouth and nose, he walked over to the dining room side of the service counter. “How can you stand over it like that?”

  “I do what I have to.”

  “And what do you have to do, cherie?” Jacques asked, appearing by her side.

  “Watch.” Holding the journal just up out of the brine so that none of the solution splashed out of the container as it drained, Claire carefully used the fork and flicked it open to the first of Augustus Smythe’s entries. Although the paper remained a blue barely lighter than the letters, the writing was finally readable.

  August 18th, 1942. I find myself summoned to a place called Brewster’s Hotel. The most incredible thing has just taken place here. The Keeper who was, and who indeed continues to seal the site, attempted to gain control of the evil for her own uses.

  Smiling broadly, Claire glanced up at Dean. “Isn’t this wonderful!”

  “Wonderful,” he agreed, but he was referring to the little crinkle the smile folded into the end of her nose.

  Jacques followed his line of sight, and snorted.