The Dark Vault

by Victoria Schwab

  Roland steeples his fingers. “Tell me.”

  “I…I lost time.”

  Roland sits forward. “What do you mean?”

  “I was hunting, and I…It was like I blacked out.” I roll my bad wrist. “I was awake, but one minute I was one place, and the next I was somewhere else, and I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. It was just blank. It came back, though,” I add, “after I calmed down.”

  I don’t say how shaky the memory was and how I had to fight to recover it.

  Roland’s gray eyes darken. “Is this the first time?”

  In response, my gaze escapes to the floor.

  “How many times?” he asks.

  “Just once. A couple weeks ago.”

  “You should have told me.”

  I look up. “I didn’t think it would happen again.”

  Roland shoves up from his chair and begins to pace. He should tell me it’s going to be okay, but he doesn’t bother lying. Bad dreams are one thing. Blacking out on the job is another. We both know what happens to a member of the Archive if they’re deemed unfit. There is no such thing as a leave of absence here.

  I look up at the cream-colored ceiling.

  “How many Keepers lose their minds?” I ask.

  Roland shakes his head. “You’re not losing your mind, Mackenzie.”

  I give him a skeptical look.

  “You’ve been through a lot. What you’re experiencing, it sounds like residual trauma and extreme fatigue, paired with the influx of adrenaline, are triggering a kind of tunnel vision. It’s a feasible reaction.”

  “I don’t care if it’s feasible. How do I make sure it doesn’t happen again?”

  “You need rest. You need to sleep,” he says, a note of desperation working its way into his voice as he slumps back down in his chair. His gray eyes are worried, a paler version of the fear that flashed through them when Agatha first summoned me to be assessed. “Please try.”

  I hesitate, but finally nod, slide off my shoes, and curl up on the daybed, resting my head on the folded blanket. I consider telling him that I think I’m being followed, too, but I can’t will the words out.

  “Do you regret it yet?” I ask. “Voting me through?”

  His mouth twitches, but I don’t hear his answer, because my body is already betraying me, dragging me down into sleep.

  When I wake, the room is empty, and for a split second I can’t remember where I am or how I got here. But then I hear the whisper of classical music from the device on the wall and remember that I’m in the Archive, in Roland’s quarters.

  I blink away sleep, marveling at the fact it doesn’t cling to me. No dreams. No nightmares. For the first time in days. Weeks. I allow a small, breathless laugh to escape. My eyes burn from the sheer relief of a few hours’ sleep without Owen and his knife.

  I fold the blanket Roland let me borrow and return it to the corner of the daybed before getting up. I switch the music off as I pad across the cloisterlike space. Behind a door left ajar on the far wall, I find several versions of his self-assigned uniform: slacks and sweaters and button-down shirts. I look around for a clock even though I know there isn’t one. My eyes go to the silver pocket watch, still on top of the side table. It doesn’t work, but I find myself reaching absently for it when my attention slides to the drawer beneath.

  It is barely ajar, just enough for me to see another glint of metal, and when I take the drawer in both hands and slide it open—the wood utters a soft hush—I find two worn silver coins and a notebook no larger than my palm. I lift the notebook. The paper edges are yellowed and fragile, and when I peel the cover back, I find a date written in elegant script in the bottom corner.

  The next several pages are filled with notes too small and old to read, and mingled with them, pencil sketches. A stone facade. A river. A woman. The name Evelyn runs in his careful script under her throat.

  The journal sings beneath my fingers, brimming with memories, and I hesitate to put the book back. Roland has always been a mystery. He never wanted to talk about the life he’d left behind, the one he claimed he’d go back to when he was done serving. But now I know he didn’t leave a life behind at all, not willingly, and he’ll never go back to it.

  The question “Who is Roland?” has become “Who was Roland?” and before I can stop myself, I close my eyes and reach for the thread of memory in the notebook. I catch hold, and time turns back. It rolls away, and darkness ripples into an alleyway at night: a young, smudged Roland standing beneath a pool of flickering lamplight. He’s cradling the notebook in one hand as he shades in the woman’s hair with a short stub of pencil and pins a slip of paper to the opposite page with his thumb. As he draws, letters bleed onto the slip. A name. He snaps the notebook shut and checks his pocket watch, three Crew lines spreading like a shadow across the inside of his wrist.

  The sound of voices draws me out of the memory, and I set the notebook back into the table drawer as the door groans a little under someone’s weight, but doesn’t open.

  I hold my breath as I ease the drawer shut and step toward the door and the voices on the other side. When I press my ear against it, I can hear his melodic voice and just the edges of Lisa’s soft, even tone. And then my chest tightens as I realize they’re talking about me.

  “No,” says Roland quietly, “I realize it’s not a permanent solution. But she just needs time. And rest,” he adds. “She’s been through a lot.”

  Another murmur.

  “No,” replies Roland. “It hasn’t come to that yet. And it won’t.”

  I force myself away from the door as he echoes, “I know, I know.”

  When Roland comes back into the room, I’m sitting on the floor, lacing up my shoes.

  “Miss Bishop,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like a new person,” I say, getting to my feet. “How long was I out?”

  “Four hours.”

  Four hours, and I want to cry. How mended could I feel with eight? “It’s amazing,” I say. “The difference. To be free of Owen for a night.”

  Roland crosses his arms and looks down at them. “You could be free of him for longer.” His gray gaze slides up. “You don’t have to live with it, the weight of what you’ve been through. There are options. Alterations—”

  “No.” Alterations. The word for when the Archive carves out memories from someone’s mind. Cuts their life full of holes. I think of Wesley, missing a day of his life. I think of his great-aunt, Joan, stripped of years when she retired, just as a precaution.

  “Miss Bishop,” he says, reading my disgust, “alterations are not carried out solely on those who leave, or those who need to be kept in the dark about the Archive’s existence.”

  “No, they’re also for those deemed unfit—”

  “And for those who want to forget,” counters Roland. “There’s no shame in it, Mackenzie. Wanting to be free of certain memories. The bad ones.”

  “The bad ones?” I echo. “Roland, they’re all tangled up. Isn’t that the idea? Life is messy. And even if it weren’t, I said no.” The truth is, I don’t trust them to stop with the memories I’m willing to lose. And even if I did, it feels like running. I need to remember. “We’ve had this conversation already.”

  “Yes, we have, back when you were only fighting bad dreams. But if you keep having tunnel moments—”

  “Then we’ll handle it,” I say, making it clear the conversation is over.

  Roland’s shoulders slump, his arms falling back to his sides. “Very well.” He lifts his silver watch from the side table and slips it back into his pocket. “Come on, I’ll lead you out.” I notice, as I follow him, that the halls don’t seem to shift around us. Unlike the twisting corridors of the stacks, the path to the Librarians’ quarters is a straight and steady line.

  We reach the front desk, and I cringe when I see Patrick sitting there. His eyes flick up, cold behind their black-framed glasses, and his mouth draws into a tight line. Roland antici
pates a remark and speaks first.

  “It’s come to my attention that Miss Bishop’s predecessor did not adequately prepare her before his demise.”

  “Pray tell,” says Patrick, “in what ways is she lacking?”

  I frown. Nobody likes being talked about like they’re not in the room, especially when the talk centers on their shortcomings.

  “Stillness,” says Roland. “She’s more than competent when it comes to combat, but lacks the patience and conservation of energy that comes with proper training.”

  “And how do you plan to assist her?”

  “Meditation,” answers Roland. “It’ll benefit her, anyway, when she makes Crew and—”

  “If she makes Crew,” corrects Patrick, but Roland continues.

  “—and she’s a quick learner, so it shouldn’t take long for her to pick it up. In the meantime, when she comes, send her back.” He straightens, flaunting his full height. “And do it without interrogation, please. I’d like to make the most of everyone’s time.”

  I forget sometimes what a good liar Roland is.

  Patrick considers us both, clearly trying to pick apart the ruse, but in the end his mouth only twists into a mean smile, his eyes hanging on me as he addresses Roland. “If you think you can teach Miss Bishop to be quiet and still for once, then best of luck.”

  I bite my tongue as Roland nods to us both and vanishes back into the atrium, leaving me alone with the sentinels and Patrick, who appraises me coldly. Neither one of us has forgotten that he was the one who summoned Agatha in the first place. That he petitioned to have me removed. Now he says nothing, not until I’ve passed between the sentinels to the Archive door and my key is slotted in the lock. Only then does Patrick add a low but audible, “Sleep tight.”

  I’m halfway back to my numbered doors, trying to swallow the bad taste Patrick always leaves in my mouth, when my eyes drift to a chalk marking on the wall.

  It’s not on one of the doors, but on a stretch of dark stone. I drew it two and a half weeks ago to mark the spot where it happened. Some days I walk past it, but others I stop and force myself to remember. To relive. Roland would be furious. I know I should be moving on, should be doing everything I can to put the memory behind me, or let the Archive take it away, but I can’t. It’s already scarred into my mind a dozen ways, all of them twisted, and I need to remember—not the nightmarish distortions that have followed, but what actually happened. I need to remember so I can be better, stronger. Da used to say mistakes were useless if you tried to forget them. You had to remember and learn.

  My hand drifts to the wall, and I barely have to reach before the memories rush up beneath my fingers. I spin them back, away, until I find that day—and even then, past the blinding light of the Returns door being thrown open, past our tangling bodies and the key and all the way back to the moment when I thought I had a chance. I know exactly where it is and when to stop, because I’ve watched the scene so many times, studying his strength and my weakness. Watching myself lose.

  I drag the memory to a stop and hold it there, in the second before the fight starts. Owen’s hand is outstretched as he asks for the ending of the story; my hand is about to reach for my hidden knife. I know what’s going to happen.

  And then it does.

  There is no sound, no color, only a blur of motion as I go for the knife against my leg and Owen lunges forward. Before my blade can reach his chest, his hand closes around my wrist. He slams it back into the wall, forcing his body against mine.

  Phantom pain drifts into my fingers as I watch his grip tighten. The knife tumbles to the floor. I try and fail to get free as he catches the blade and spins my body back against his, the glinting metal coming to rest beneath my chin.

  He frees the final piece of the story—and with it the final piece of his key—from my pocket and shoves me away so he can assemble it. I don’t run. I don’t do anything but stand and watch and cradle my broken wrist. Because I still think I’m going to win.

  I attack and manage to send the knife skating into the dark—even manage to send Owen backward, too. But then he’s up again, catching my leg and slamming me back onto the hard floor. I curl in on myself in pain, struggling to force air back into my lungs.

  It’s obvious now that Owen was playing with me.

  My recovery is too slow, but he waits for me to get to my feet. He wants me to believe that if I can, I stand a chance.

  But when I finally summon the strength, he is there: too fast, a blur as he wraps his hand around my throat and pins me against the nearest door. I watch myself gasp and claw at his grip as he reaches up and takes hold of the key wrapped around my good wrist, snapping the cord with a single sharp tug. He unlocks the door behind me and showers both of us in glaring white light. I watch him lean in, watch his lips move, and I don’t need sound to know what he’s saying. I remember just fine.

  “Do you know what happens to a living person in the Returns room?”

  That’s what his lips are mouthing. And then, when I don’t answer—can’t answer—he adds, “Neither do I,” before he shoves me backward into the blinding white, closes the door, and walks away.

  My hand slips from the wall. A now-familiar numbness spreads through me in the memory’s wake.

  The Owen in my nightmares is drawn in color and sound, and even when I know I’m dreaming, it feels so unbearably real, here and now and terrifying. But watching us this way, I don’t feel any of the fear. Frustration and anger and regret, maybe, but not fear. This scene is faded and gray like an old movie, so clearly a moment in the past. It doesn’t even feel like my past, but one that belongs to someone else. Someone weaker.

  I think of Roland’s offer—of letting the Archive go in and hollow out everything that Owen touched and ruined—and I can’t help but wonder if this is how I’d feel about him after that. If he were only this, a memory in someone else’s life, would he be able to hurt me in my sleep? Or would I be free?

  I shove the thought away. I’m not going to run away. That isn’t the way to be free. And I’m never going to let the Archive into my head, when it would be so easy for them to erase more of me. Erase everything.

  I need to remember.

  NINE

  I FETCH THE DISCARDED book from my bedroom floor and manage to finish the reading for my government class as the Thursday morning sun peeks over the horizon. At least it will be fresh in my mind, I reason as I pack up my school bag. As long as I can get through three chapters of lit theory and a section of precalc during lunch, I’ll avoid falling behind on the second day of school.

  Dad knocks short and crisp on my door and says, “Up!” and I do my best to sound groggy as I call back and zip my bag closed. I’m halfway through the living room when the TV catches my eyes. It’s that same story. Only this time, in addition to the photo of the trashed room, there’s a title in bold on the bottom of the screen.

  Retired Judge Phillip Missing

  A photo goes up beside the anchor’s face, and I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I recognize the room now, because I know the man they’re talking about.

  I met him two days ago.

  Mr. Phillip likes to keep things neat.

  I notice before he even lets me in. His welcome mat is straight, and the planters on the porch are evenly spaced, and when he opens the door I can see the order carrying through into the entryway, where three pairs of shoes are lined up, laces out.

  “You must be from Bishop’s,” he says, gesturing to the box tucked under my arm. It has a blue cursive B on the top. Until school starts, Mom has me running deliveries as payment for the new bike. Not that I mind. The fresh air helps me stay awake, and the riding helps me learn the city grid—which isn’t a grid at all here on the edges, but a mess of veering streets and neighborhoods, apartments and parks.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, holding out the box. “A dozen chocolate chip.”

  He nods and takes the box, patting his back pocket and then frowning a little. “Walle
t must be in the kitchen,” he says. “Come on in.”

  I hesitate. I was raised not to take candy from strangers or climb into vans or follow older men into their homes, but Mr. Phillip hardly looks threatening. And even if he is, I’m willing to bet I could take him.

  I roll my wrist, listening to the bones crack as I cross the threshold. Mr. Phillip is already in the kitchen—which is clean enough to make me think he doesn’t use it—arranging the cookies on a plate. He leans in and inhales, and his eyes turn sad.

  “Something wrong?” I ask.

  “Not the same,” he says softly.

  He tells me about his wife. She’s dead. He tells me how, before, the house always seemed to smell like cookies. He doesn’t even like to eat them. He just misses the smell. But it’s not the same.

  We stand there in this unused kitchen, and I don’t know what to do. Part of me wishes Mr. Phillip had never asked me to come in, because I don’t need his feelings on top of mine. But I’m here now and I might be able to fix him, or at least glue a couple pieces back together. Finally I hold out my hand.

  “Give me the box,” I say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Here,” I say, taking the empty container from his hands and dumping the tray of cookies inside. “I’ll be back.”

  An hour later I’m there again, and instead of a box I’m holding a Tupperware of cookie dough: about twelve cookies’ worth. I show him how to heat the oven, and I scoop a few clumps of dough onto a sheet and slide the sheet in. I set the timer and tell Mr. Phillip to follow me outside.

  “You’ll notice the smell more,” I say, “when you go back in.”

  Mr. Phillip seems genuinely touched.

  “What’s your name?” he asks as we stand on the porch.

  “Mackenzie Bishop,” I say.

  “You didn’t have to do this, Mackenzie,” he says.

  I shrug. “I know.”

  Da wouldn’t like it. He wasn’t a fan of looking back, not when time was still rolling forward, and I know at the end of the day I haven’t done anything but give a man in an empty kitchen a way of clinging to the past. But people like me can reach out and touch memories with only our fingers, so we can’t really fault everyone else for wanting to hold on, too.