Infinity Bell: A House Immortal Novel

by Devon Monk

“My wife,” he whispered. “My son.”

  I place my hand over his, my palm just wide enough to cover his knuckles. “I am so sorry for your loss. I know you need time to grieve. My family . . .”

  The image of Quinten ripped apart, dead, filled my mind, and I couldn’t breathe past my sorrow.

  “My family is dead too,” I finally said. “Except for Dr. Case. Please, please help me find him.”

  “Go,” he said. “Run home. The night is dark and cold, and morning will be here soon.” He turned away from me and lowered the lantern to the ground. Then he sank the shovel into what remained of the freshly dug ground, spreading muddy soil onto the graves. The lantern caught rain in gold sparks falling like a veil across the graves.

  But the light did not touch his face, as if the shadows of his grief were too dense to pierce.

  “I know when the world is going to end,” I said.

  He just kept digging, dirt falling in steady rhythm on top of a grave already buried too deep.

  “My world has already ended,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “You are going to live a long life. Much, much longer than any man should, and it’s going to be filled with pain. But at the end . . . way at the end, you are going to be among your friends, among the other thirteen people who survive the disaster that’s going to hit this town in just a few hours.”

  He stopped shoveling. “What disaster?”

  “Dr. Case is a scientist. He’s going to experiment with . . . time. It will kill everyone in a hundred-mile radius.”

  “What will kill people? Fire? Flood? Landslide?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Not exactly.”

  He shook his head. “Who has been telling you stories?”

  “No one. The disaster will happen. I can prove it.” I wanted to yell at him. Wanted to tug him with me, make him run, make him help me find the tower before it was too late.

  Maybe I couldn’t talk him into helping me. Maybe his grief was too deep and my story too fantastic.

  “Please,” I said, my voice soft but steady. “He built a tower that houses a great machine. He built a machine to break time. He wants to find a way for man to travel in time.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “Because he did it. Only he did it wrong. His calculations were wrong. I’ve traveled back in time. To now, to stop it and try to change what he did before people die. Before my family dies.”

  Another long pause while he considered me. “What is your name?”

  “Matilda Case,” I said.

  He bent, picked up the lantern, and rested the shovel over one shoulder. He started walking, the lantern swinging in his hand. Dawn was just starting to thin the fabric of night. The rain had stopped.

  “Come with me, Matilda Case,” he said. “You are soaked to the bone.”

  I hurried to catch up with him, and realized I was shivering. Evelyn hadn’t been wearing a coat out here, huddled on her parents’ grave. Maybe there was a reason she’d assumed I was an angel who could take her to heaven. Maybe she was hoping to die.

  Foster’s stride was impossibly long, and I had to jog to catch up. Soon we were out of the tall grass and onto a trail that wound past a church to our left and then opened on a narrow lane.

  A horse-drawn wagon waited there, trees lining either side of the lane. Foster pulled back a canvas tarp under which I caught a glimpse of saws and hammers and other tools. He set the shovel in with those tools, covered them, and hooked the lantern to the front of the wagon. He swung up easily into the driver’s seat and I stood there, feeling tiny and cold and lost.

  “Go around the back to the other side,” he said.

  I did so, and got a foothold on the passenger’s side of the wagon. I pulled myself up. He reached over and gripped my arm, his hand warm, work hardened, and blistered, and helped pull me onto the plank of wood that served as a seat.

  I braced my foot on the front edge of the wagon and held on tight.

  Foster snapped the reins and clicked his tongue. The horse started off at a slow walk.

  Too slow. At this pace, I’d never find the tower in time. I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering in the wind but keeping my eyes open for any horizon line where I might spot the tower.

  “Is that what you’re looking for?” he asked.

  The wagon broke out from the cover of trees. We were on a slight rise, the lane leading into the town, where little flickers of light—lanterns and candles—shone from the windows of a dozen houses.

  Behind those houses, not by more than half a mile, rose an eighteen-story tower that I would have guessed was a lighthouse, except the top of it was a rounded dome—an enormous bowl tipped upside down and balanced on top of the tapered column.

  Dawn was smearing muddy yellow light low in the sky, and the sound of living and moving—a rattle of wooden wheels, the clanging of a hammer on metal, the thunk of an axe in wood—filled the air.

  “That must be it,” I said. “Is there a building below it or near it? Do you know where Dr. Case might be? I need to go there now.”

  “First we’ll get you dry,” he said.

  “No. I don’t have enough time. I need to get to that tower.”

  “I am taking you home,” he said, sending the horse down toward town.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  His face was illuminated by the pale sun rising. From his slightly annoyed expression, I knew the answer to my question.

  “I can prove everything I said.”

  “That you are from the future?” He slipped a look my way.

  I held out the pocket watch.

  He took it out of my hand, stared at it, then rubbed his thumb over the face and frowned. “What is this?”

  “A pocket watch that has been in my family for a long time. My brother modified it—changed it—so it would count down how much time I had before Dr. Case’s experiment triggers the disaster.”

  “How is this powered? How is it lit?”

  “Batteries and light-emitting diodes. Future stuff,” I said.

  “This is a countdown?”

  “Yes. And when all that time runs out, everyone in this town is going to die. That”—I pointed at the tower—“is going to do something. . . . Maybe it’s an electric pulse; maybe it’s sonic. I don’t know, but when the experiment is complete, we die.”

  “You told me I’d live a long life.”

  I took in a breath and shivered hard before letting it out. One thing Foster was right about: I was soaked to the bone and miserably cold. But cold was the least of my worries.

  “The experiment will begin soon. When that happens, everyone dies within a hundred-mile radius,” I said, “except for thirteen people. Those thirteen people live. Well, they go unconscious and are brought back to life by scientists in the future.

  “The thirteen become known as the galvanized—living creatures who were raised from the dead. You are one of them. The first of the thirteen galvanized who wakes. I’m one of them too. The last.”

  He shook his head. “Stories. This can’t be true.”

  “It is.” He didn’t believe me. I wasn’t sure there was anything more that would convince him.

  “How do these future scientists wake us?” he asked.

  “Painfully. They experiment on you, on us all, until they find a way to wake us. When they do, they’ll think we’re immortal. We’ll think we’re immortal. Until the time that is broken by Dr. Alveré Case finally mends.”

  “When does that happen?”

  “About three hundred years from now.”

  “And what happens when time mends?”

  “I’ll watch my brother die, my friends die. I’ll watch you die, trying to keep us safe. You all gave up your lives so I had a chance to come here, three hundred years in the past, to change the experiment. If I can change it, we don’t have to die. Millions of people in the hundred-mile radius of this experiment in the future won’t die. It’s important, Foster. This is imp
ortant.”

  “Mr. Sanders,” he said. “My proper name.”

  “This is important, Mr. Sanders. I promise you I am not making this up.”

  “Millions?” He frowned. “How old are you, child?”

  “In the future, I’ve lived twenty-six years. In the future, you’ve lived over three hundred.”

  He took in a deep breath and let it out. “Where are your parents? Tell me the truth. Now.”

  “They’re dead.”

  “You must live somewhere.”

  So much for trying to convince him I was telling the truth. Best to get off here and try to find Alveré Case alone.

  “There.” I pointed at the nearest house. “I live there.”

  “The jail?”

  Crap.

  “Behind it. That other house.”

  “Jacob Laine doesn’t have any children.”

  “Not that house. The other one.” I smiled. “You were right, Mr. Sanders. I was just telling you crazy stories. Thanks for the ride back to town. I’d better go now before I get in trouble. Can I have my watch back, please?”

  Okay, if being honest with him had been a mistake, I quickly discovered lying and trying to pretend to be an eight-year-old girl wasn’t working very well either.

  He did not give me the watch back. “Where do you live?”

  “Fine,” I said, cold, exasperated, and out of patience. “You know what? I’m sorry I asked for your help. I don’t care what you believe, and I am very sorry for your loss. Really, I am. But that watch is my property. Give it back to me, and I’ll just find my way home on my own.”

  He stopped the wagon next to a small house and jumped down to the ground. I scrambled out of the seat, my boots hitting the hard dirt of the road, and stumbled. I caught myself and ran around the back of the wagon.

  “That is mine,” I said, running after him as he strode toward the house. “Give me back my watch, Foster. Now. You can’t steal that from me.”

  A few people were out on the street, but I didn’t care if they heard us. As a matter of fact, maybe a commotion would make Foster give me back the watch.

  “Come inside and get dry,” he said. “We’ll find your family.”

  “I don’t want to find my family. I want my watch.”

  “Matilda,” he warned sternly, as I suppose any adult would when facing down a strong-willed, and probably delusional, eight-year-old. “Come inside. Now.”

  “Not unless you give me my watch.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Matilda,” he said again, louder. “Inside.”

  “Matilda?” a voice asked.

  I turned.

  Standing near the wagon was a boy—well, he was physically older than me. I’d say fifteen or so. He had sharp features and thin brown hair that was wet against his head. His eyes were blue enough I noticed it from a distance. There was something all-around familiar about him.

  “Do you know this girl, Robert Chapman?” Foster asked.

  “Robert?” I said.

  The boy smiled, but there was no kindness in that grin.

  And that’s when I knew exactly who it was. Robert Twelfth, Abraham’s friend. Only it wasn’t Robert behind those eyes. It was Slater. Slater Orange.

  26

  It has been too long since I’ve written. Quinten is keeping secrets from me. I just hope the Houses haven’t discovered what he’s been doing.

  —from the diary of E. N. D.

  I’d been thrown back in time, riding Evelyn’s body, my thoughts and personality woven into her mind. There were only two people who had ever had their minds, thoughts, memories transferred into a galvanized’s body.

  Me and Slater Orange.

  Slater had been pulled back in time like me.

  “Do you know me?” I asked, hoping a bit of Robert was still in there, just as Evelyn was still in me. “Matilda Case?”

  “Yes, of course I know you, little girl.”

  That wasn’t Robert. Not at all. The cruelty in his smile was all Slater.

  Hell.

  “Do you know where her family is?” Foster asked.

  “Indeed I do.” Slater sauntered forward. He had a rifle resting over one shoulder, but Foster didn’t even blink at it. “I was hunting for you, Matilda,” Slater said.

  “Why?” Foster asked in a dubious tone.

  Slater ignored him. “You and a dozen of our acquaintances. Why don’t you be a good little girl and come along with me to find them?”

  “No.” I backed up until I ran into Foster, then clutched the edge of his long, wet coat. “I don’t know you. I don’t know him,” I repeated for Foster’s benefit. “Don’t make me go with him. I won’t go with him.”

  “That’s too bad,” Slater said. “Because I was just going to hunt down a friend of yours: Abraham. Remember him?” He shifted his grip on the hunting rifle. “He and I are going to have a grand time.”

  He was going to kill him. Slater was going to shoot Abraham before the Wings of Mercury experiment went off. Abraham wouldn’t survive the experiment because he’d be dead.

  “Where is he?” I whispered.

  “You don’t know?” He shook his head slowly. “If you come with me, I’ll take you to him.”

  My heart was pounding so hard, it was throbbing in my ears. Four hours left before time would break. If Slater found Abraham—worse, if he already knew where he was—Abraham would be dead.

  He must be bluffing. I didn’t know where anyone was in this time. He couldn’t know either, could he?

  Or maybe Robert was in there, in his head, telling him things. I could feel Evelyn still curled in the back of my thoughts. She was little and sad and missing her parents.

  Robert would be older. He would know the people in this town. Maybe Slater had mentally overpowered him. Maybe Slater had locked him away at the back of his mind and was forcing him to give him information.

  I was breathing too fast, panic strangling all the air out of my air, my head gone dizzy. A small, fearful, childish noise escaped me.

  Foster’s wide hand rested against my chest, pulling me closer against him. He was a warm, safe, solid barrier between me and Slater.

  “Don’t worry yourself about her,” Foster said. “I’ll get Matilda home. Go on now, Robert. I’m sure your father is looking for you.”

  The rage that twisted Robert’s face was sharp and sudden. He swung the rifle down and pointed it at me. “You aren’t going to be there to get in my way this time. House Brown won’t be there, because I won’t let it. Abraham won’t be there to start the Uprising for it. And I will kill every last galvanized I can find.”

  Foster stepped fully in front of me and took the distance between me and Slater so fast, the younger man had time to get off only one shot.

  It went wide, maybe because Slater wasn’t familiar with the weapon or the younger body. Maybe because he carried the memory of what had happened the last time the huge man had come at him.

  Foster snatched the rifle out of Slater’s hands and emptied the bullets into his palm. “What has gotten into your head today, Mr. Chapman? You get on home before I tell your father what you’ve done. Go on.”

  He held the rifle at his side, barrel pointing down, bullets in his other hand. “Go.”

  Slater glared at the gun and then up at Foster.

  “I killed him, you know,” Slater said. “Your precious Welton. Bashed him over the head and watched him bleed. And I will kill you too. All of you. Your parents, Matilda? When I find them and your brother, I will kill them too.”

  Foster took another step toward him, but Slater backed away fast, almost tripping over his feet as he ran away, disappearing around the corner of the nearest building.

  I wasn’t filled with panic anymore. I was filled with anger. If Slater had found one gun, I was sure it wouldn’t be all that difficult to find another. He remembered the future and he was planning for his long life inside a galvanized body. Maybe he was planning a long life where he was the only g
alvanized who survived.

  No. I’d get the calculations to the tower. I’d make Alveré listen to me. Then I would come back here into town and stop Slater before he found Abraham and the others. There was still time. There had to be time to save the people I loved.

  “Please,” I said to Foster’s back. “I just need my watch.”

  “He knew what you know,” Foster said. “Galvanized. The experiment.” He turned, the watch held loosely in one hand. “Who is Welton?”

  “A dear friend of yours. He was sick as a child. You cared for and helped raise him, then stood beside him as he took over ruling a very powerful . . . um . . . business.”

  He stared off into the distance for a long moment. Then seemed to make up his mind.

  “I know Alveré Case,” he said. “I helped build that tower.”

  “What?” I said, stunned.

  He ushered me toward the house, opening the door and stepping in behind me.

  “I know Dr. Case’s work,” he said. “I also know what his experiment is intended to do: time travel. I thought someone had been telling you his secrets—a parent, a family member. But you know it and Robert knows it, though he has revealed his intentions to no one. How?”

  “This girl.” I pressed my palm against my chest. “Her name is Evelyn Douglas. She fell into a deep sleep—a coma from which she never woke when that experiment went off. But her body was preserved by scientists. I, Matilda Case, was born in the future. When I got sick, my brother transferred my mind into Evelyn’s body.”

  “And Robert?”

  “He was tricked. A powerful man named Slater forced my brother to transfer his mind into Robert’s body, which killed Robert. Slater hates the galvanized, but wanted the immortality our bodies possess. Or will possess if I can convince Dr. Case to change his experiment.”

  Foster glanced down at the watch in his hand. “Who is Abraham?”

  “Abraham Vail is a galvanized who stood up for liberty and justice when the world was falling beneath cruel dictators. He started an uprising for freedom that eventually became a peace treaty between men like Slater and us common people.”

  “Robert wants to destroy Abraham because he will take away Robert’s power in the future?” he asked.