Summon the Keeper

by Tanya Huff

  “It’s simple.” Dean flashed her a confident grin. “All you do is turn this level from the off position to either the right or the left. Right takes us up, and left takes us down.”

  Claire sighed. “That’s probably why they labeled it that way. I was asking on a more esoteric level, but never mind. Let’s get this ride over with, shall we?”

  “Anything you say, Boss.” Feet braced, Dean wrapped both hands around the gleaming brass lever and swung it to the right.

  Up in the attic, ancient machinery gave a startled jerk and wheezed into life, sending wave after wave of vibration through the stored furniture. The small, multicolored creature removing the last of the most recent marshmallows from the imp traps whirled around and fell to what served it for knees. In all of its short existence, it had never heard such a sound. Extrapolating from limited experience, it created a wild and metaphysical explanation that changed its life forever.

  But that’s another story.

  Claire pressed one hand flat against the wall as the elevator lurched upward. “It works.”

  “I never doubted it.” Looking like the captain at the wheel of a very small ship, Dean kept his eyes locked on the edge of the floor joists moving down on the other side of the iron gate. When the top edge of the first floor was almost even with the floor of the elevator, he lifted the switch back up into the off position. In the few seconds it took for the machinery to stop, the floors came level.

  “Good eye, Anglais,” Jacques muttered. “Such a pity you were born too late to make this a career.”

  “Yeah?” Stepping left, Dean hooked up the gate and reached for the latch on the outer door. “Well, it’s a pity you died too early for me to…”

  “To what, Angla…”

  Careful not to step over the threshold, Claire leaned out of the elevator and peered up and down the beach, eyes squinted against the ruddy light of the setting sun. “This doesn’t look like the lobby.” The touch of the breeze on her cheek, the sound of the waves curling and slapping into pieces against the fine, white sand, the smell of the rotting fish they appeared to have cut in half worked together to convince her it wasn’t illusion either. “I’m beginning to see why Augustus Smythe closed this thing up.”

  “Because he does not like to take the vacation? Perhaps because he did not have a beautiful woman to walk with by the sea.” Wafting past her, Jacques turned and held out his hand.

  Claire stared at him, horrified. “What are you doing out there? In fact, how can you be out there?” A quick glance showed that a doily taken from his old room remained crumpled in the back corner. “Your anchor’s in here!”

  “As to how, I do not know. As to what, I am inviting you to go for the walk.”

  “The walk? Jacques, I don’t think you quite realize where you are.” Had she been able to hold him, she’d have grabbed his hand and yanked him back into the relative safety of the elevator.

  “And where am I, cherie! Where is this place that gives me such freedom?”

  “I don’t know. And that’s my point!”

  “Ah, you are frightened of the unexpected. I understand, cherie, you are a woman, after all.” Lit from behind by the sun, his eyes gleamed.

  She folded her arms. “If you’re implying I’m not taking the same stupid chance you are because I’m only a woman, go ahead. I’m not going to fall for it.”

  “You wound me, cherie. I said I understood why you are frightened.”

  Dean moved out of the elevator too fast for Claire to grab him. “Are you saying I’m a coward?”

  “Am I saying that?” Jacques drifted backward, toward the edge of the water. “Non. I would never think of such a thing.”

  “You better not be,” Dean muttered. He drew in a deep lungful of air and smiled contentedly. “Man, this place smells just like home.”

  The ghost snorted. “If your home smells like this, Anglais, it is no wonder you clean so much.”

  The familiar salt air had put Dean in too good a mood to continue the argument. Shaking his head, he wandered down to meet the next wave coming in.

  “Excuse me!”

  Both men turned and, drawn by Claire’s expression, found themselves returning to the elevator considerably more quickly than they’d left it.

  “If you two are quite through exposing yourselves, maybe we could think about getting…now what?”

  Dean had disappeared around the doorframe.

  “This is some weird.” His voice came from directly behind her. “There’s just this door in the sand. From this side, you can’t see the elevator at all.”

  “Don’t step where it should be!” Claire shouted. She didn’t want to think about what could happen should three realities—elevator, beach, and Dean—suddenly find themselves sharing the same space. When Dean reappeared, she backed away from the door, leaving him room to get in. “Come on.”

  Jacques stepped between them, his long face wearing the half rakish, half pleading expression she found so difficult to resist. “Cherie, how often is there the chance to enjoy such a sunset?”

  “And how enjoyable will it be if I leave the elevator and it disappears?”

  “So before you leave, we prop the door open with a rock. If only the door is real here, then the elevator will go nowhere.”

  “You don’t know that,” Claire muttered, but she could feel her resolve weakening. It was a beautiful beach; brilliant white sand stretching down to turquoise water, the setting sun brushing the entire scene with red-gold light.

  “If I cannot convince you, cherie…” His eyes twinkled under lowered lids. “…then I dare you.”

  “You dare me?”

  “Oui. I dare you to enjoy yourself, if only pour un moment.”

  “You think I’m incapable of enjoying myself?”

  “I did not say that.”

  “Well, I’m not Dean…”

  Dean had already found a rock. He rolled it up against the open door and, telling herself that Jacques’ theory made a great deal of sense, Claire stepped over the threshold.

  After a few moments of anticipatory silence, when neither the elevator nor the beach seemed affected, Jacques threw up his hands in triumph. “You see,” he said, catching them again. “I am right.”

  Nearly body temperature, the water invited swimming, but both mortals contented themselves with tossing shoes and socks back into the elevator and wading through the shallow surf. Behind the open door, the beach rose up to become undulating dunes and finally a multihued green wall of jungle vegetation.

  “Austin would love it here,” Claire laughed, digging her toes into the sand. “It’s the world’s biggest litter bo…oh, my God! He’ll be frantic!”

  “I don’t think it works that way.”

  Fighting to keep her balance in the loose footing, she whirled to glare at Dean. “What makes you such an expert?”

  He held out his arm, watch crystal reflecting all the red and gold and orange in the sky. “The second hand hasn’t moved since we got here.”

  “Oh, I see,” she snarled, “time has stopped. Did it ever occur to you that it might be your watch?”

  Crestfallen, he shook his head.

  “Excusez-moi.” Jacques’ tone laid urgency over the polite form of the interruption. “Something happens in the water.”

  About twenty feet from shore, the waves had taken on a lumpy appearance. Bits of them seemed to be moving in ways contrary to the nature of water, rolling from side to side as they headed for the shore. Then the center hump of a wave kept rising past the crest, the mottled surface lifting up, up, until it became obvious, even staring into the sunset, that what they were watching wasn’t water.

  “If I didn’t know better,” Dean murmured, one hand shading his eyes, “I’d swear that was an octopus.”

  “Octopi do not come so big,” Jacques protested weakly.

  “Well, it’s not a squid.”

  A tentacle, as thick as Dean’s arm, broke through the surf no more than four f
eet from where they were standing.

  “Octopi, regardless of size, don’t come up on the shore,” Claire announced as though daring the waving appendage to contradict her.

  The twenty feet had become fifteen. Fourteen. Twelve. Ten.

  “On the other hand,” she added as a suckered arm fell short and gouged a trench in the sand at her feet, “I don’t think this is an octopus either. RUN!”

  Stumbling and falling in the loose sand, they raced for the elevator.

  A tentacle slammed into Claire’s hip, throwing her sideways into Dean. He caught her and held on, dragging her forward with him, her feet barely touching down.

  From the water’s edge came the sound of a large, wet, leather sack being smacked against the shore.

  Unaffected by the footing, Jacques reached safety first, turned, and went nearly transparent. “Depeche toi!”

  Gesture made his meaning plain.

  Dean shoved Claire forward, over the threshold and bent to roll away the rock. A tentacle wrapped around his right leg but before it could tighten, he pulled free and stomped down hard. It might’ve been a more effective blow had he not been in bare feet, but it bought him enough time. He leaped inside, dragging the door closed with him.

  Claire slammed the gate shut.

  The deep blue/gray tip of a tentacle poked through the grill-work in the small window.

  Wrapping sweaty hands around the lever, Dean yanked it right.

  The floor joists nipped off an inch of rubbery flesh. When it dropped to the floor, Claire kicked it into the back corner and turned on Dean. “Why up?” she demanded, loudly enough to make herself heard over the pounding of her heart. “We came into this through the basement and that’s very likely the only way we’ll get out The basement is down!”

  The floor of the elevator level with the second floor of the guest house, Dean locked the lever into its upright position. “I guess up just seemed more natural,” he said. Grinning broadly, he sank down and reached for his shoes and socks. “Besides, we haven’t seen what’s on two or three.”

  Claire stared down at him in silence.

  After a moment, one sock on, the other in his hand, he lifted his head. “What?”

  “We haven’t seen what’s on two or three?”

  The grin slipped. “Well, yeah.”

  She could see her reflection in his glasses. “Are you out of your mind?”

  His brow furrowed. “We have to see what’s on two and three. We can’t quit now.”

  “Oh, yes, we can. We just got chased by a giant tentacled thing; that’s quite enough excitement for one day.”

  After a moment, he shrugged. “You’re the boss.” Sighing, he pulled on his other sock.

  “Do you believe him?” Claire asked Jacques, dusting the sand off her own feet. “He thought that was fun.”

  “Not fun,” Dean protested. “Exciting.”

  “Dangerous,” Claire corrected.

  “But we all got away. We’re all safe.”

  “We could have been eaten by something out of a bad Lovecraft pastiche!”

  “But we weren’t.”

  “Jacques.” She turned to the ghost. “Help me out.”

  “He has a point, cherie. No one was hurt. And we are at the second floor. It would be a shame not to look.”

  Arms folded, she sagged back against the elevator wall. “There’s just way too much testosterone in here.”

  “My watch seems to be working again, Boss.”

  “I’m thrilled.”

  Standing, Dean shot Jacques a “now what” glance, and received a “how the hell should I know” shrug in return.

  “All right.” Claire straightened. “A compromise. We’ll look through the grille, but we won’t actually open the door and we certainly won’t join in the fun.”

  “Fun?”

  “It’s a figure of speech, Dean. Together on three so that we all see the same thing…one, two, three.”

  A familiar hallway stretched off in both directions, the doors to rooms one and two clearly visible.

  “This is the second floor.” Shoving up the gate, Claire pushed the door open and barely managed to stop herself from stepping out onto a familiar starship bridge.

  “Make it so, Number One.”

  Slowly and quietly, she closed the door again. “And that wasn’t.”

  “But what was it?” Jacques asked, peering out in some confusion at the second floor hall. “It was a military vessel?”

  “It was an imaginary vessel, Jacques.”

  “What is an imaginary vessel? It is not real?” He shook his head. “But it was as real as the beach. And the not-a-squid.”

  “It was real here. And now. With the door open.” The scene through the door remained the second floor. “But everywhere else, except on those occasions when it’s a way of life, it’s a television show.”

  Dean shook his head, as though trying to settle himself back into reality. “I could’ve walked out onto the real bridge of the starship….”

  “No.” Claire reached out, intending to lock up, and found herself, instead, opening the door a crack. For one last look at the real bridge of the starship…

  It looked like a balmy evening on top of Citadel Hill in downtown Halifax. Except for the two moons riding low in the sky and the woman in the distance with an agitated shrub on a leash.

  Behind and above her right shoulder, Claire heard Dean murmur, “It changes every time you reopen the door.”

  “So the not-squid, it is gone? We could return to the beach?”

  “Sure. Except the beach is gone.”

  Claire quietly eased the door shut, so as not to further agitate the shrub, and latched the gate. “All right,” she sighed, her head falling forward until it rested against the fifty-year-old paint. “We’re in this so far now we might as well see what’s on the third floor. But…” Straightening, she folded her arms, turned, and fixed each of her companions with her best I’m a Keeper and you’re not stare. “…no one gets out. Understand?”

  “But what if…”

  “I don’t care. No one leaves the elevator.”

  Through the grille, it was the third floor. It even smelled like the third floor.

  “Do you think that she might have an effect?” Jacques asked nervously as Claire locked back the gate.

  “Do I think that proximity to her could affect the elevator’s destination? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Those are strong shields.” A puff of noxious air wafted in as she opened the door and stared out at the piles of blasted rock and steaming lava pools. “And then again, I suppose it’s possible that…”

  A terrified shriek cut her off.

  Dean pushed forward, allowing himself to be stopped by the flimsy barricade of Claire’s arm only because he wasn’t certain of where the sound had originated.

  A second scream helped.

  Off to the right, close to one of the steaming red pools, two large lizardlike creatures held a struggling shape between them, snapping and snarling at each other over their captive’s head. While accumulated filth and long dreadlocks made guessing age difficult, they did nothing at all to hide the gender of what seemed to be a completely naked twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy.

  Captured. About to be devoured. Pushing Claire aside, Dean leaped forward, the porous surface of the rock crunching under his work boots. He heard her yell his name, felt her grab at his shirt, and kept running, throwing, “Stay where you’re at!” back over his shoulder. With any luck she’d see that there was no sense them both going into danger. If he concentrated on speed rather than concealment, he’d could reach and rescue the kid before the two lizards finished quarreling over their catch.

  The closer he got, the more the snarling began to seem like…

  “Because it’s my nesting site and I don’t want the dirty little egg-sucker cooking right beside it. That’s why!”

  “So I have to carry it out of the nursery, all the way to cool ground? Is that it?”
/>
  “You caught it!”

  “Crawling into your nest!”

  “So now it’s my nest, is it? And I suppose they’ll be my hatch-lings? My responsibility while you’re off hunting with your friends.”

  …words.

  And familiar words at that. Through a thick sibilant accent it sounded remarkably like an argument his Aunt Denise and Uncle Steve’d had about dispatching a rat caught live in the kitchen. Which didn’t actually change anything.

  “Our nest sweetie. I meant to say, our nest.”

  “You say that now. You don’t mean it.”

  Through eyes beginning to water from the volcanic fumes, Dean noticed that the lizard with his aunt’s lines was the larger by a significant margin. Sucking warm air through the filter of his teeth, he altered his path slightly so that he’d enter the smaller lizard’s space.

  The boy screamed again and lashed out with one filthy, callused heel. The smaller lizard howled and lost his grip. For a moment the boy twisted and kicked, dangling only a foot or so off the ground then, just as it seemed he might get free, the larger lizard grabbed his ankle with her other hand.

  “Honestly. You can catch them, why can’t you hold onto them?”

  “It kicked me!”

  “Stop acting like such a hatchling and remember you’re about to be…” The lizard’s amber eyes widened. “Behind you, Jurz! It’s another one!”

  Belatedly, Dean realized that the “other one” she was referring to was him. He realized it when Jurz, moving much faster on his bulky back legs than he’d expected, whirled around, pushed off with a thick tapering tail, and landed behind him, grabbing both his upper arms in a painful grip. He froze as talons pierced his shirt and punctured the skin. Even if he’d been able to turn, the lizard’s body would have blocked his view of the elevator.

  “Good gorg, Coriz, this one’s huge!”

  Coriz leaned forward and peered nearsightedly down at him, holding the boy tighter against her chest. “And it’s a funny color.”

  Dean felt his hair being lifted by the force of Jurz’ inhalation.

  “And it’s clean! Maybe,” he added thoughtfully, “we could eat it.”