by Andy Marino
“So how about when somebody comes up to you on the street and starts ranting and raving about how there is no Ascension? What do you think then?”
Silence.
“You see?” her father said. “It sells itself. People want to believe it. All we do is give it a nudge in the right direction.”
“I have seen Watchers take people away,” Eri said, a slight note of panic entering her voice. “Countless times with my own eyes.”
“And what do you think happens to those fortunate souls?” Her father smiled like he was enjoying himself. A wave of nausea made Hannah clench her teeth. “They become Watchers. That’s the reward. The city’s a big place, and it’s getting bigger all the time. We’re always going to need more eyes.”
“I think I just figured out why you don’t care that we know all this,” Stefan said glumly.
“Congratulations,” her father said. “It’s your lucky lightday. Welcome to the City Watch.”
Instinctively, Hannah braced herself for the SHNK of Eri’s sword, for a blob of paint to gum up the glass. When nothing happened, she looked back. Stefan appeared shell-shocked, his mouth hanging slightly open. Eri was staring at the back of the pilot’s chair, as if she could see through it.
The fight had gone out of her friends.
“I have no wish to become a Watcher,” Eri said finally.
Her father enlarged the viewing circle. The ship had flown into a deep chasm. Far below, a meandering river spun a huge waterwheel attached to a complex of log cabins. The cliffs on either side of the chasm were packed with adobe dwellings and angular modern houses.
“Here we are,” her father announced. “Quophosh. Leanna’s safe house is just ahead.”
“I honestly don’t think I’m Watcher material,” Stefan said.
Her father flashed a broad, friendly smile. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Consider this my thanks for all the help you’ve given Hannah.”
“My answer is no,” Eri said.
“A lot of souls say that,” her father said. “At first.”
* * *
The Quophosh safe house was perched at the edge of an outcrop near the lip of the chasm. Here, the land had been sculpted into a suburban cul-de-sac. Hannah’s father set down on a grassy island in the middle of a horseshoe-shaped street. After they had all climbed out of the ship, he closed the hatch and pressed a button on his keychain. The hornet’s glass eyes blinked twice.
The next thing she knew, she was standing on the doorstep. Her father was smoothing his shirt and checking the reflection of his face in a narrow window. He took a deep breath and turned to Hannah.
“Do I have anything stuck in my beard?”
After every improbable thing that had happened to her in the city of the dead, this moment on her mother’s doorstep felt the most like a dream. There were nagging thoughts lurking at the edges of her mind, truths about the city she tried to shove away. The only truth that mattered was that her mother was behind this door.
She raised her hand to the bell.
“You know,” her father said quickly, before she could press the button, “I haven’t actually been to see your mother since she’s been in the city. So I guess I’m pretty nervous, too.”
Hannah paused. Her father looked down at his feet.
“You knew she was here and you never came? Not even once?”
He glanced back at Eri and Stefan, then studied a bit of peeling paint on the siding. “I got … caught up in things.”
That’s what happens when you become a Watcher, Hannah thought: The city itself gets to be more important than any of the souls who call it home. No beginning and no end. The Watchers, the banished, the Guild, the Institute — all of them were obsessed with a game that had no rules and no winners.
Her father was still explaining himself, but Hannah tuned him out and rang the bell.
The click of a latch, the turn of a knob, the creak of a hinge.
It should not have been possible for Hannah to jump so high without a running start, but she was beyond questioning how certain things were possible. All she knew was that her feet were off the ground and her chin was on her mother’s shoulder, arms and legs wrapped around, clinging, unwilling to let go.
“Hannah,” her mother was saying, again and again. “My little girl.”
When Hannah was finally able to pull herself away, she set her feet down on the doorstep and actually saw the person she’d traveled so far to find. Her mother looked beautiful, but a hint of sadness — that old coastal melancholy, gray as the north Atlantic — crept across her face.
“Oh, Hannah.” The corners of her lips played at a weary smile. “I didn’t expect to see you here so soon. You were supposed to live a very long life.”
“I’m not dead!” Hannah wiggled her fingers as if that confirmed it. “I just came through the door to find you and take you home.”
Her mother knelt down to look her in the eyes. “You did what?”
Hannah swallowed. Her mother actually seemed angry. “I came to get you, through the lighthouse. What else was I supposed to do?”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Silver?” Stefan piped up timidly. “Is there any chance I could do some laundry while I’m here? I’ve got …” He indicated his sweater, which was covered in bits of Charlemagne.
Hannah’s mother blinked at him, stood up, then turned to Hannah’s father and put her hand to her heart. “Benjamin,” she said, exhaling the word.
“I, too, would be grateful for a wash,” Eri said.
Her mother didn’t take her eyes from her husband, who seemed to shrink from her gaze.
“Leanna, I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” he said, scratching a sideburn.
“Can we go home now?” Hannah looked from one parent to the other. “All of us?”
Her mother pushed a strand of hair away from her face. She placed a gentle hand against Hannah’s forehead, then her cheek, then her shoulder. “Why don’t we go inside and sit down,” she said.
Her father shuffled his feet anxiously. “I … I actually have to be going.”
The look on her mother’s face made Hannah want to kick her father in the shins.
“We’re right in the middle of an important case,” he said. “I have to get back to work.”
“Fine,” Hannah said. “Then go.”
“I’ll be back as soon as all this business with the banished is over with — and it will be soon. We’ve got them on the run — and then we’ll have our entire afterlives to catch up.” He turned to Eri and Stefan. “You two are coming with me.”
“We won’t be here when you get back,” Hannah said. “We’ll be at Cliff House.” She interlaced fingers with her mother. “Right?”
Her father flashed a quick smile, white teeth appearing within his beard. “I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work like that. Once you’re in the city, you’re in the city for good. You can’t go back.”
Hannah felt the future she’d constructed in her mind — the Silvers back together at Cliff House — decay and collapse as if it were struck by one of the banished weapons.
“But I’m not dead,” she said.
Her father couldn’t meet her eye. “I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.”
Her mother pulled her close without letting go of her hand. Hannah thought of the first time she’d ever met a Watcher, that night in the Tree Room. “But I’ve seen people cross over,” she protested. “I know it’s possible.”
Her father considered this. “Possible, certainly. But to get that kind of travel permit from the mayor’s office is no easy task.”
“Good thing you’re a Watcher, then,” Hannah said.
He frowned. “If I were just applying for me, just a solo pass, it would still take a thousand darkdays for the paperwork to go through. And there’s all the exams, the vaccinations….”
“Benjamin,” her mother said sharply, a tone Hannah knew well. “Our daughter came a very long way. And the Silvers are Guardians. That has t
o count for something.”
He looked at her as if she had just suggested they take a flying leap into the chasm. “You want me to take her to see the mayor? The mayor, Leanna?”
“She’s our daughter, Ben. She traveled through the door to find me.”
“I have a job here. I can’t just —”
“Take a little time out of your eternal afterlife to spend with your family.”
“I’m still trying to adjust to having a family again!”
“Well then, by all means.” Leanna crossed her arms. “Don’t let me keep you from your adjustment period.”
“You know what? Fine. You want to see the mayor?” he asked Hannah.
“Yes.”
“I don’t,” Stefan said.
Hannah gasped as her father’s face began to crackle and distort. The coarse hairs of his beard grew like vines to meet the hair on his head. A swampy halo of humid air covered the porch. She looked deep into the whirlpool of her father’s mask. His eyes flashed, and her feet left the doorstep once again, but this time she traveled much farther.
The mayor of the dead city was a hulking mahogany desk the size of a circus tent. Or else it was the green-shaded lamp on top of the desk, which could only be reached by a ladder. Or else it was tucked away somewhere in one of the hundreds of drawers that popped open and closed like an arcade game as attendants rushed between them.
Hannah wasn’t sure, and confusion seemed to be rampant among the attendants, too. The arena-sized office that housed the desk was full of crisis and commotion, made even worse by the tour groups that oohed and aahed their way through, cameras flashing.
“The mayor’s house is the oldest dwelling in the city,” explained a prim tour guide to a class of name tag–wearing students. “And they say the oldest souls still live here.”
A boy’s hand shot up. “Oooh! Where?”
The tour guide waved her hand dismissively. “Just … around.”
Hannah, her mother, her father, Eri, and Stefan had arrived in the midst of all this activity and found themselves promptly ignored. Her nerves were frayed. Each time a drawer slid open, there was a sound like shoes squeaking on a gym floor. Each time a drawer slammed shut, a dusty thud echoed off the distant ceiling. The attendants all looked nervous, sweaty, and overworked, with the ghostly pallor of those who spent all their time indoors. Hannah could only guess at their errands.
“What’s a guy gotta do to get some service around here!”
Her father was still in his Watcher mask, and his voice was a horrible croak that gave Hannah chills. The tour group scattered at the sound. An attendant came sprinting up.
“Shh! Are you mad?” The man had a patch over his right eye, but his left bulged at the affront. “His Honor doesn’t allow Watchers in his personal chamber! How did you even get in here?”
“He doesn’t allow” — Hannah winced at the ear-shredding sound of her father’s voice — “Sorry, just a second …” His beard unswirled and his face emerged. His voice returned to its normal state. “He doesn’t allow Watchers, but he allows tour groups?”
“Ah!” The attendant said ecstatically, as if he were glad Hannah’s father made this point so he could rebut it. He slid a paper from his folder. “That tour group had one of these” — he waggled the paper — “Application Q98 dash 119B. They filed thirteen lightdays ago, giving it adequate time to be routed through the proper channels for signatures, and then their permit appeared in my inbox with a full darkday to spare. Efficient, no?” He thrust his face forward, hands on his hips. “Where’s your application? Hmm? Did you even take the time to file? Do you even know what kind of permit you need? The information is available at any Watcher precinct. Shame on you, sir! Shame on you for taking matters into your own hands and simply showing up! This is not how governments are effectively run, you know!”
The attendant was out of breath.
“I’m here to see the mayor,” Hannah said.
The attendant peered down at her, lifting his patch to reveal a perfectly normal eye.
“Aha.” The attendant laughed drily. “Aha. The mayor. Of course. You can just walk in here and see the mayor. Oh!” He put his hands up in mock surrender. “By all means, be my guest. The mayor! Why didn’t you say so? There’s not a waiting list for that. No paperwork to be filled out for that. Why, you should feel free to — hey!”
Hannah, Eri, and Stefan all had the same idea at the same time. Together, they pressed through the crowd, making their way to the desk. They stood next to a ladder and knocked on one of the drawers.
“Mr. Mayor?” Hannah said.
An attendant wearing the white uniform of a milkman hopped off the ladder to confront them. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Hannah knocked again. “My name is Hannah Silver. I’m not dead and I really need to get home.”
“Young lady, I must insist you fill this out.” The attendant produced a thick binder full of papers.
Eri sliced it in two.
The drawer popped open with a screech, just as the first attendant arrived with Hannah’s mother and father. He was irate.
“Now you’ve done it, you …” He placed his mouth near the desk. “Your Honor, I am so, so sorry. These people just barged in and —”
A silkworm popped up from the drawer on a gilded platform and began to spin a sparkling thread.
“Is that the mayor?” Hannah asked.
But the attendants were focused on the silkworm. They took notes on identical pads.
“Uh-huh.” The first attendant nodded in response to the lengthening thread. “Okay. Right. Yessir.”
The silkworm’s pedestal descended and the drawer slammed shut with a bang. The drawer directly above it slid open and an elaborate paper airplane launched itself out. The man with the eye patch chased after it while the milkman addressed Hannah and her parents.
“The mayor says he knows who you people are.” The attendant checked his notes. “The Silvers. He says you’ve got a lot of nerve showing your faces in here after what happened with the door in the lighthouse.” The milkman cleared his throat. “The mayor wants to know how hard it could possibly be to be a Guardian. He wishes for me to remind you that it consists of exactly one job: not letting people walk through a door.”
Hannah grabbed the handle of the silkworm’s drawer and pulled it open. The attendant screamed and covered his head as if she’d just tossed a grenade.
“I want to go home!” she yelled into the drawer, but the worm was nowhere to be seen. Frustrated, she slammed it shut and opened another one. Empty. “Where is it?” she asked the attendant, who was cowering on the floor.
“You’re not supposed to be able to do that,” he said quietly.
Hannah didn’t understand what he was talking about. Then Eri tried to pull open the same two drawers. They didn’t budge. She even placed her feet against the desk and leaned back, throwing all her weight behind it. Nothing.
“Huh,” Hannah’s father said, looking at her curiously. “How about that.”
She felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder.
A drawer popped open and the attendant jumped to his feet, composing himself in time to receive an origami flower. Carefully, he smoothed the paper and began to read aloud.
“The mayor says you have an intriguing bloodline and he apologizes for belittling your contribution to the safety of the city.”
“So can we go home now?” Hannah asked. She wasn’t even surprised at her ability to open the desk drawers. By now she was pretty sure the Memory Keeper had been telling the truth — one way or another, she had been here before. The city itself seemed to recognize her.
“Uh …” The attendant scanned the paper. “The mayor says on one condition. There’s a door in the basement. If you can open it, you’re free to go.”
“A door to Cliff House?” Hannah asked.
“It could be Ascension,” Stefan said.
“Why can’t the mayor open it himself?” asked Hanna
h’s mother.
The attendant waited patiently for them to quiet down. “Basically — and he didn’t say this, but I know him pretty well …” He lowered his voice. “The mayor’s a very busy old soul and he doesn’t really care what happens to you.”
The attendant with the eye patch suddenly reappeared, panting. He handed the unfolded paper airplane to Hannah’s mother. “Sign at the X. This document certifies that you do not hold the city, the office of the mayor, or the mayor himself responsible should you fail to open the door and blink out of existence for all eternity. It’s standard boilerplate stuff.”
Stefan handed his paintbrush to Hannah, who took the paper before her mother could object and whisked her name onto the line. The attendant frowned at the wet paint and shook the paper in the air to dry it.
He sighed with displeasure. “Right this way, people, I’d like to get off work while it’s still lightday….”
* * *
The stone staircase led down into the basement of the mayor’s house. They stood at the top while the attendant flipped on the light. Halfway down the stairwell a bare bulb flickered.
“This is the oldest known part of the city,” he said, bored and in a hurry. “This particular stairway was here long before anything else.”
Hannah squinted down into the gloom. At the bottom she could just barely make out a door.
“Good luck,” the attendant said. “I’m fairly sure we won’t be seeing each other again, so … that’s that!” He strode briskly away down the hall.
Hannah sneezed. It was very dusty.
“Bless you,” her father said. “Listen, Leanna, I’ve got a funny feeling about this.”
“Well, the timing of your feeling is just perfect, Ben,” her mother said. “What have you gotten us into?”
“Hey, it was your idea to go see the mayor.”
Hannah thought of Albert, Belinda, and Nancy, and what they had sacrificed to bring her to this moment. She wondered if it could have happened any other way. “It’s okay, Mom. I can open it.”
“Hannah … I don’t want to lose you again.”
The Hannah her mother knew was distracted and unsure of herself, always second-guessed by the voices in her head. But Hannah had left that girl behind, and she wasn’t going to stand around arguing. She sidestepped her mother and put her foot down on the second step, skipping the first. She pictured the lighthouse staircase side by side with the stairs down to the Tree Room: two stained-glass memories, lined up, letting in the light. She brought her other foot down on the step. Trapdoors to the pit, she thought.