Gertie Milk and the Keeper of Lost Things

by Simon Van Booy

  “Listen,” he said, “you’ve lost your memory. So listen, because I’m going to remind you what happened during the Information War to our—”

  “Ignore them!” yelled Kolt. “He’s just stalling until reinforcements arrive! Let’s go!”

  “You’re from Los Angeles!” cried the boy.

  “What? How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m your brother, Gertie—we were rescued by Cava Calla Thrax after our parents were arrested for reading illegal books to us.”

  “Stop!” Gertie said. “Don’t say any more, you’re not my family, I’m going to find my real family, you don’t know anything about them.”

  “Gertie!” Kolt said.

  “Shut up, you old git!” snarled the girl. “Keeper scum!”

  The boy continued to talk. “The Library Police tried to defend them, but the government took our mom and dad away, and we were left in the ruined city to fend for ourselves. . . . I have your diaries to prove it!”

  “Where are they then?”

  “At base camp with Thrax, Gertie. The Losers gave us food, shelter, and the promise of a peaceful life in return for one favor, just one tiny thing—to help steal an old book and destroy it.”

  “My parents are alive? Where are they?”

  “That’s all we had to do, that’s all Thrax and the Losers wanted: get that other sword and destroy the book once and for all, for if humans lived in ignorance, there would be no Information War, and—”

  “Stop!” Gertie cried, advancing with her weapon until it was inches from the boy’s neck. “Stop lying to me!”

  Just then, there was a deep rumbling, and outside they heard screaming.

  The Loser girl laughed. “Peasant fools!” she said. “I’d like to see their faces now.”

  “It’s Doll Head!” shouted Kolt. “Gertie, we have to go!”

  But Gertie was still trying to wrestle truth from what the boy was saying.

  “Then how did you get me to Skuldark? Only true Keepers can do that.”

  Doll Head swooped down so low that piercing light from its eye sockets swept over the banquet hall, blinding everyone long enough for the Loser boy to turn and run. Gertie dropped the sword and gave chase.

  “Gertie!” screamed Kolt. “Gertie, come back! Let him go!”

  But she had to know. She had to learn the truth about who she was, even if it meant failing the mission.

  Gertie sprinted after him through the palace, their footsteps echoing over the plank floors.

  “Stop!” Gertie cried. “Wait!”

  Suddenly, they came upon the golden statue of a snake and triangle. As the Loser boy scooted past, the snake’s eyes opened, and an enormous triangular door in the floor flipped up. The boy disappeared through it. Gertie bit her lip and slid down into the darkness after him, the trapdoor slamming shut behind her.

  When she opened her eyes and sat up, she was surrounded by dozens of other Gertie Milks. She blinked hard in the milky light and realized she was in a hall of mirrors, where each face was a reflection in a polished triangle of rock.

  “It’s the Crown of Triangles,” whimpered the boy’s voice. “The king told us about it, and there’s no escape.”

  “Where are you?” Gertie said, noticing his face in several of the rock mirrors. “And what’s with all these weird reflections?”

  “It’s a pit,” said the boy, his voice trembling. “The Crown of Triangles is a snake pit. It’s where the king put his enemies to die.”

  Gertie looked down at her feet but saw only the shadow of her shoes in the dirt.

  “I don’t see any snakes.”

  “They’re coming. . . .”

  “Then we have to get out!”

  “There’s no way!” said the boy. “The king said it was impossible.”

  “Where are you anyway?” Gertie said, moving slowly through the maze of mirrored rocks. Then she saw his face, but when she approached, she realized it was just another reflection.

  “I can see you!” cried the boy, “But I can’t find you.”

  “It’s a hall of mirrors,” Gertie said. “Stay calm. It’s meant to frighten, like that idiotic doll head you fly around in.”

  Then Gertie saw something move. Her heart was pumping fast, but she knew if she panicked now, she would have no chance to get away.

  “Where are you?” screamed the boy. “Gertie! There’s something moving.”

  Gertie turned in all directions, seeing the boy’s distress reflected in every rock mirror.

  “If we’re going to die,” Gertie said, “you may as well tell me the truth: if I am your sister, and a Loser, then how did you get me to Skuldark with a Keeper’s key?”

  “B-b-because you are a Keeper,” the boy said fearfully. “A real Keeper! And the Losers knew you would eventually be sent to Skuldark, which is why your gown had tracking chips sewn into it. It was my idea to put your name on the outside, just in case you lost your memory—which is what Thrax said must happen to new Keepers, in order for them to fulfill their duties and accept their new lives.”

  “I was chosen?”

  “No, you were stolen from your life, as all Keepers are, Gertie—the B.D.B.U. is not your friend, it kidnapped aaarrgh!”

  “What is it?”

  “A snake! I just touched a snake!”

  Gertie heard shuffling, and then a heavy thud.

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “My head,” the boy whimpered. “I’m bleeding. I ran into the rock, and now I feel . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Hey!” Gertie cried. “I’ll find you. . . . Hang in there.”

  “Trapped forever,” he mumbled. “We’ll never escape.”

  Gertie was about to ask another question when the boy said something that made her think everything he’d told her was true.

  “At least we’ll die together, Gertie, as we always thought we would, back in the ruined city.”

  Gertie swam frantically through the dim light, feeling her way beyond the many versions of herself that were not real. Eventually she found her brother, curled up on the floor, blood leaking from a gash in his head.

  “Get up!” she screamed, noticing a dark line curl silently toward him. “Snake!”

  With a shriek, he leapt up off the ground and into her arms.

  “Help!” he wailed, trying to choke back tears of terror.

  Gertie steadied him by the shoulders, then couldn’t stop herself and pulled the boy into a tight hug.

  “I hate snakes,” he sobbed.

  “Then why did you choose to visit an evil king who keeps them as pets, you idiot?”

  “It was Thrax’s idea,” the boy said, breaking the embrace. “Based on Vispoth’s calculations. There are chemicals in the two swords that react to something in the B.D.B.U., creating an explosion big enough to incinerate it.”

  “Sounds like you were intended to be part of the sacrifice.”

  “Thrax wouldn’t do that. . . . He would have rescued us again, he’s a—”

  “. . . terrifying, evil, time-traveling Roman who destroys knowledge and murders people with the help of a totally insane supercomputer that makes hot chocolate?”

  “All I know,” the boy said, “is that he saved us, Gertie, just like you saved me by jumping down into the Crown of Triangles.”

  “But don’t you understand?” Gertie implored him. “We can’t destroy the book! I’ll die! The human race will be doomed.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” said the boy. “That one snake has probably gone to get the others—or some kind of snake king.”

  “Or queen . . .” Gertie said. “Like bees.”

  With the boy’s arm around her shoulder, they edged through the rock-mirror maze, looking for some form of escape.

  “So I’m re
ally a Keeper?” Gertie asked.

  “Yes, and you were supposed to steal the B.D.B.U. and that sword while Kolt was broken down in the dinosaur apple orchard. That’s why we were there in Doll Head—to pick you up. We sabotaged the Time Cat in Alexandria so that it would break down and you’d have a chance to be in the cottage by yourself, but you forgot, because you lost your memory, and so we had to do it by following the tracking beacon we had sewn into your gown, which was made to look like a rag.”

  “I don’t even know your name,” Gertie said, stopping to catch her breath.

  “You do,” said the boy. “You just forgot it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Gareth Milk.”

  “I had a feeling you knew me,” she confessed. “Because you didn’t stare at my birthmark, which means you were used to it.”

  “So you believe me?”

  “I think so.”

  “About everything?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t matter if we can’t find our way out of this place.”

  Gertie was just about to mention how surprising it was there were so few snakes—given how many snake signs there were in the village—when they turned into a room that was literally littered with human skeletons.

  Silky black creatures wriggled through the fleshless white bones.

  Gareth held on to his sister, too terrified to even scream.

  “I guess this is the cafeteria,” Gertie said, surprised by her calm toughness. Then the longest, fattest, most terrifying snake in the room released an almost-meatless skeleton and slithered toward them.

  Gertie grabbed hold of her brother and began to backtrack.

  “Don’t look!” she cried. “Just keep moving.”

  For what seemed like an eternity, they sidestepped, shuffled, and shimmied through the deadly Crown of Triangles, where everything and nothing were real.

  “Here!” Gareth called, feeling a space between two polished rock mirrors. It was a small chamber and they crawled in.

  “Let’s stay in here for now,” Gertie said, hoping that Kolt and Robot Rabbit Boy were looking for them and not still ogling the buffet table. The cramped space was so dark, it was the first time since falling into the evil king’s dungeon they could no longer see themselves, or any versions of themselves.

  “We’re just voices now,” Gareth said somberly. “Like we’re losing ourselves piece by piece.”

  “Tell me something. . . .” Gertie whispered.

  “What?”

  “How did you get into the tower with the B.D.B.U.? Your stolen Keeper’s key didn’t work on any of the other doors.”

  “We took imprints of your hands before you departed for Skuldark, just in case you forgot what you were supposed to do.”

  “So I guess I really am a Loser?”

  “Through and through.”

  Gertie felt dizzy, as though her thoughts were being pulled apart. This boy, her brother, had to be right. It all made sense. Even Johnny the Guard Worm, she realized, was trained only to catch Losers.

  “Hey!” Gareth said, taking Gertie’s hand and rubbing it on the ground. “The earth here is soft!”

  “You’re right!” she said, digging her fingers into it.

  As they clawed at the loose dirt, Gareth confessed to Gertie how much he had missed her, and how he had told the Losers so many stories about their lives growing up together in Los Angeles before the Information War.

  “I knew you’d remember me sometime,” he said.

  “I don’t remember you! And I’m still confused about everything.”

  “Well, ask me anything. I’ll help you find your memories.”

  Gertie wanted to ask what she was like before her trip to Skuldark. But part of her was afraid to know. Then she remembered what Kolt had told her about Mrs. Pumble putting truth spice in a Loser’s moonberry juice, and although it made her feel guilty, and sly, and disloyal, she decided to ask her brother something that might help the Keeper cause.

  “How did Thrax know I was a Keeper before I disappeared?” she said, turning to check they were still alone. “How do the Losers know which children are going to be called to Skuldark?”

  “That’s simple! Vispoth analyzes missing children lists. And so it’s just a matter of going to the point in time when the child goes missing. . . . Those who disappear in a flash of orange light are Keepers.”

  “So why are there so few of them on Skuldark?”

  “Because,” Gertie’s brother boasted, “the Losers have been traveling through time and kidnapping them before they disappear, hiding them in towers, dungeons, jails, and on snow-capped mountains!”

  “But wouldn’t they just disappear anyway?” Gertie said. “It’s fated to happen. . . .”

  The boy laughed. “Not with the magnetic cuff we slap on their wrists.”

  Gertie remembered what Kolt had told her about staying away from magnets.

  “So all the Keepers who should be on Skuldark helping return lost things,” the boy went on proudly, “are rotting away in prisons throughout time where no one can find them!”

  “And you think that’s good!” Gertie hissed. “It’s the most horrible, evil thing I’ve ever heard! If we both die in here, it serves us right!”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Gertie. . . . Cava Calla Thrax came for us, he helped us! When we were alone and starving during the worst, most violent years of the Information War!”

  “He used us, more like,” Gertie said. “If I wasn’t fated to be a Keeper, he’d never have come for us, you must know that.”

  “So what?” said her brother, beginning to lose his temper. “He helped us, so we could help him—it’s what happens in a family.”

  “A family of psychos!” Gertie said with a long sigh. “Just keep digging!”

  After several more handfuls, a powerful line of white light lit up the small chamber of rock they had squeezed into.

  “That’s it!” Gareth exclaimed. “It must be outside! Help! Help!”

  “Shut up!” Gertie barked, pushing him away from the crack. “If the snake finds us, we’re done for!”

  “But I hear voices,” Gareth said, laying his ear flat against the stone, “like someone is saying ‘eggcup’ over and over again.”

  35

  The Meaning of Loyalty

  GERTIE RIPPED A BUTTON from her sleeve and shoved it through the hole. “Keep listening!” she told her brother.

  Then from behind came the stench of foul, rotting air, and the grating sweep of scales dragged over dirt.

  “Oh no,” Gertie said.

  Gareth still had his ear to the cold stone. “What’s so special about the little X below a rabbit’s nose?”

  Gertie realized what was about to happen and grabbed her Loser brother, pulling him out of the chamber and back into the Crown of Triangles where they came face-to-face with the giant maze snake.

  “What are you doing?” Gareth cried. “Are you mad? It’s right there?”

  The snake stared at the boy and girl, its forked tongue pulsing in and out of its mouth.

  C’mon . . . Gertie thought, waiting for the thunder of an explosion that would mean they were free, do it . . . but nothing was happening.

  Then suddenly she remembered something Kolt had told her about Johnny the Guard Worm, and had an idea. As the snake slithered toward them, Gertie pulled out the peacock feather her friend had given her in London, and began waving it in the air. The snake stopped, entranced by the dazzling blue eye and shimmering green.

  Then she stepped toward the enormous serpent and swept the peacock feather gently over the snake’s scales.

  Her Loser brother stood paralyzed as Gertie tickled the deadliest jewel in the Crown of Triangles. After a moment the black snake rolled onto its back, so that Gertie could tickle its belly.

&nbs
p; “So much for the Crown of Triangles,” Gertie said, as a massive laser blast tore open the rock wall of the nearby chamber. The snake pulled back in fright and retreated to its lair. Gertie put the feather back in her pocket, grabbed her Loser brother, and ran through the dust and over the pile of rubble.

  Robot Rabbit Boy was so happy to see them, he jumped into Gertie’s arms with such force that he knocked her and Gareth Milk to the ground.

  “Thank goodness you’re alive,” Kolt said. “The Loser girl escaped into her ship, just in case you were wondering what happened to the—”

  Gareth jumped to his feet. “C’mon, Gertie, forget the rabbit and the old man—let’s destroy that book!”

  They were out in the open, somewhere near the palace. In the distance, the Losers’ ship was hovering over the villagers who were dashing about with spears and swords, perhaps wondering why the prophecy hadn’t mentioned flying doll heads.

  Gertie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Didn’t you learn anything about me in that weird snake mirror place?”

  Her brother was amazed. “You said you believed me!”

  “I do believe you, but I’ve changed, Gareth. Maybe it was losing my memory of the Information War that did it, but I don’t believe in destroying things now, I believe in returning them to the world. Don’t you see? It’s not the knowledge that matters, but what people can do with it, the hope it gives them . . . that’s what counts.”

  “But I’m your family, Gertie! Your brother, we’re Losers.”

  Doll Head swooped viciously over where they were standing, its engines whirring.

  “I know!” Gertie said, looking at Kolt and Robot Rabbit Boy. “I want to come with you, I really do, but—”

  “You’re not the sister I grew up with!” he growled.

  “Well, it’s who I am now!” Gertie said, defending herself, “which is why I can’t go with you, and why I’m not going to let you destroy that book. What will happen to Kolt and Robot Rabbit Boy? To humankind?”

  Her brother’s face flashed with savagery. “Who cares about some dotty old Keeper and his tin-can animal freak. And human beings are like a disease that keeps spreading! Once the stupid Keepers can no longer return items to the world, the Losers will be in control of everything, even history itself, even the universe!”