The Keystone: Finding Home

by Seren Goode

  “What—”

  “Nope, no questions until the end, and I won’t answer that one anyway.” He quickly shot down Shim and turned to me.

  “Now your mother, Amé.” He pulled out the last syllable of her name like it was a sigh. “Ahhh, she was the sweetest little thing.” His mouth turned down in the corners. “I’m so sorry she gone. I sure do miss her terribly.” He had trouble meeting my eyes, like it was uncomfortable for him to acknowledge pain. My chest ached at reopening the wound. “Amé was so scared and homesick when I met her. She hid it, but everyone knew she cried herself to sleep most nights. Still, she gave everything she had to the family, and they were very protective of her…” He paused. “Something bad had happened, I don’t know what, but there wasn’t any one in that group that wouldn’t have done anything for her. It was almost like she was their talisman. She brought out the best in each of them and gave them something to be strong for.”

  I sniffled and swiped at the tears running down my chin, surreptitiously brushing them away. I was crushed at how vulnerable she had been, relieved to know she had friends and family that cared for her, and surprised that Waters knew her the way I remembered her, as bringing out the best in everyone.

  Waters nodded, a faint smile on his lips as he talked. He grew silent and repositioned his head on the chair behind him, sighing deeply, his wrinkled face a scuffed leather stretch over his domed head. The lines on his face deepened like all the years had suddenly snuck up on him. He looked tired, old, and sad. He half closed his eyes, resigned, but not completely trusting.

  “All right, one question each. Think about it before you ask. No take backs.”

  Jaxon blurted out his question first, “What the hell you got against our mother? What’d she ever do to you?” he demanded.

  “Nothin’. She’s my favorite. I love her visits. Kindle’s a real firecracker. One minute she is cracking balls and taking no prisoners, the next she is smooth talkin’ someone around to her point of view. Tough as nails and not afraid to show it. In fact, there ain’t much she is afraid of, and if something scares her, you should really ask yourself”—his feet hit the floor as he leaned forward, hands to his knees, eyes flying open and drilling into Jaxon, “—why?”

  Jaxon tried to say more, but Waters shook his head. “Uh, uh, you had your one question.” As Jaxon sputtered, Waters gave a dark chuckle. In any other situation, Jaxon would have protested, but some sense of goal preservation held him back.

  “You said our parents were homesick and like refugees. How so? And refugees from where?” Breeze’s question was tentative and worded carefully.

  Waters twisted his face up. “Don’t know where they came from. They never said anything about their family or their home. Nothing. Think about it, what young kid says nothin’ about their family? Or home? Just wasn’t right. Then there were little things, like them knowing nothing about any holidays, Christmas, Easter, and the like. I thought maybe they were from overseas. They had funny accents. But one day, a plane went overhead, and Kindle asked me what it was. How did they get here and not know about planes? Your parents, they were just—odd.”

  Okay, that was weird. I glanced around, and the others looked as perplexed as I felt.

  Skylar went next. “What were they scared of, and what did you mean we aren’t nearly scared enough?”

  “Your parents were scared spitless.” He pinned us with an intense stare. “I think they were rich kids, well-educated at least, probably all kind of resources at home, but they weren’t going home for help. Made me think they couldn’t go home.

  “They came to me because they needed skills to survive. They weren’t on some adventure. They had something real ugly chasing them.” He hesitated, and the room throbbed with silence until, finally, brow tight, he spoke in a hushed whisper, “One night, Micah was upset. He was talking more than he usually did, so I asked him why they all just didn’t go back to their parents. He said it was impossible. They had tried. There was a person who might have been able to help, but what was chasing them got there first and had killed him.”

  The air sucked out of the room, and the fear that had kept us running since the kidnapping amped back up, along with a blistering case of anxiety with a chaser of panic. Looking around, I saw the emotion mirrored in the other’s eyes. What was chasing them?

  Finally, Shim ask his question. “What was the real reason our parents sent us to you? And this man, Lincoln, how can we find him?”

  “Two questions”—Waters looked at each of the siblings—“but I’ll answer both of yours, too, because I think they are connected, as the others were.”

  “Your parents sheltered you. They wanted you safe—but not paranoid. I think they kept secret what they were scared of to keep you safe. Now, all that has changed. Now, they need you to know how to take care of yourselves, and they need you to learn their secret. That’s why they send you to me. That’s why I’m going to tell you how to contact Lincoln.”

  I sat back, surprised.

  I hadn’t expected Waters to agree to connect us with Lincoln. Shim leaned forward, elbows on his knees, looking pleased with Waters’ answer to his question. It was a relief, but I didn’t know why he was as committed to pursuing this as I was. I just wished there was someplace safe we could drop off the twins before we dove down the rabbit hole. It was funny. Jaxon was the youngest, but I was the least worried about him.

  “You’re up, sugar.”

  Surprised, I looked away from my contemplation of the twins to see Waters watching me.

  My mind raced with all the things I wanted to know. What had happened to my Mom? Where had she come from? Where did he think our parents were now? Who was Helios? What should we do next? But Waters couldn’t answer any of those questions. We couldn’t even trust that the story he had told us about our parents was true. I thought for a moment. This was a chess game. With Waters, it was always some type of game, and you had to think strategically.

  “What are you not telling us?” Waters cocked an eyebrow, and I fingered the metal at my throat. “For example, you know something about my necklace. I’ve caught you looking at it several times, but you haven’t mentioned it or tried to steal it.”

  Waters chuckled. “What I’m not telling you could fill a library.” Then he got serious. “I will tell you something your parents don’t know that I know. I overheard them talking one night about a stone, just like the one in your necklace.” He pointed to the vivid reddish-green rock with silver veins that sat at the center of my mother’s necklace “They called it the ‘Keystone.’ Mentioned a real fancy geologist they had just met who had told them all about it. He had been helping them, but then something happened, don’t know what, and they ran—again. Always on the run.” Waters snorted out an exasperated breath. “Remember that. They have always been on the run.

  “This happened when they was up in the Pacific Northwest. That’s where they met Lincoln and saved his life.” Waters finished talking and pushed back from the makeshift table, standing, joints popping and creaking. That was it. He was done talking. It was the most he had ever said to us, and it opened up a whole new world of questions.

  He held out his hand, and Shim put the piece of paper with the username and password in it. “I’ll get a word out to Lincoln to expect you.” And without another word, he headed out the front door and left us behind.

  ∞

  My mind raced, stuck in neutral with the tires spinning. So much had happened to us in the last few weeks, I felt like I was crossing through a cyclone in a foundering ship, with no time to contemplate what the right or safest thing to do next was, each course change sailing us into a new set of uncertainties.

  With Waters’ answers, even more questions were piling up in my head. I wanted to reach up to my necklace and talk to Shim to sort them all out. I don’t know why I felt I could do that through the link between the stones but I couldn
’t do it in person.

  The stones, we had a name for them now—Keystone.

  One answer, but still, I was swimming in questions, questions, questions. The race from the apartment as our parents were arrested. Why were they arrested? Why was the government holding them? How could we find them? Finding Jonas and learning about this strange watch. Where had it come from? What did it do? Why did Arie have it? The rooftop escape from the gallery. Who was chasing us? Was it the Helios? Was it the government? What would they do if they caught us? Water’s training program. Why did he feel we were in so much more danger than we knew? What had our parents been running from? Was it just the Helios, or were there others? Who were our parents?

  And crammed down at the bottom of the list, stuffed into the back of my subconsciousness with a “not the right time to examine” sign posted on the front were the questions: Who was I? Who was I becoming? A girl that jumps down construction escape chutes, picks pockets, and sneaks into buildings? Yeah, that’s something I would have to wait to have a heart-to-heart with myself about.

  There was one thing I was sure about—it was time to come clean.

  I cleared my throat.

  Since Waters had left, we had been going over everything we now knew. Turns out that what Waters told us was new to everyone. I wondered if my dad had known. He must have. He had mentioned the Helios and sent me to Waters.

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I feel—” I started.

  Jaxon burst out, cutting in, “—like my mom should have told us. She owed us.” There was a lot of nodding from the others.

  “Betrayed,” Shim supplied the word. More nods.

  “Lied to,” Skylar whispered. Heads bobbed.

  “My family used to be so close,” I continued, “but when it comes down to it, what do I really know about them?” I shrugged my shoulders like it was nothing, but really, it was everything.

  “Me too.” Breeze sniffed. “I was kinda angry with Dad after we got the info this afternoon. Then, talking to Waters and hearing how scared they must have been, I just wonder, why didn’t he tell us? We could have been more prepared. We could have helped.”

  “Yeah. All the secrets suck,” Jaxon agreed.

  I nodded to Shim. “That’s why I think we shouldn’t have any between us.” When Shim nodded back, I continued, “So, in the spirit of a day full of ‘startling discoveries,’ Shim and I have to tell you something else we discovered.”

  The other’s eyes were curious as they waited.

  Shim pulled the ring out of his pocket and turned to face his brother and the twins. “It’s about this.”

  I put a thumb under the stone on my mother’s necklace. “And this.”

  The others looked confused, and Jaxon swiped the ring out of Shim’s hand. “Give me that. What are you talking about?”

  “Put your finger on the stone in the center,” Shim directed. Jaxon rolled his eyes, then reluctantly complied, his lips twisted in a sneer.

  I touched the stone at my neck. “Hi, Jaxon.”

  “What the…” Jaxon snatched his finger back, accidentally flinging the ring across the room. I folded forward, trying to hold back a laugh. It was nice to have the mood lightened.

  Chuckling, Shim walked over and picked the ring up off the floor. He blew off the dust and rubbed it on his shirt before holding it out to Jaxon. “Try again.”

  Jaxon eyed him with a lot more suspicion this time, but in the end, his curiosity won out. Reaching for the ring, he put his finger on the stone.

  “Hi, Jaxon,” I repeated. “It’s okay. We were really freaked out the first time too.”

  “Hello?” Jaxon responded loudly. I winced at his volume.

  “Try again. This time, just think it.” I encouraged.

  “Hello?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Holy Sources, is this for real?

  “Yeah, it’s real.”

  “How did you figure this out?” Jaxon asked. I tried to explain.

  Breeze and Skylar were watching us stare at each other.

  “What’s going on?” Skylar looked confused at Jaxon, then me.

  “They are talking to each other.”

  “No way,” Breeze gasped out.

  “Let me try.” Skylar reached out for the ring. Reluctantly, Jaxon handed it over.

  “Hi, Skylar.”

  “This is sooooo amazing,” Skylar shouted in my head.

  I cringed at the volume. Unhooking the necklace, I gently unwrapped it from my neck and handed it over to Breeze. She hesitated, then took it, making an exaggerated motion of putting her finger on the stone.

  “Like this?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  She let out a loud squeal. I was glad I hadn’t heard that in my head. After a couple of silent minutes while the twins talked to each other, she started to cry. “I always knew that’s what you would sound like in my head.” Skylar got up and hugged her. They handed back the stones and sat close. Being as they could practically read each other’s minds, I guess they didn’t really need stones to talk to each other.

  “How is this possible?” Jaxon asked.

  “I have absolutely no idea,” Shim responded.

  We debated the scientific to the fantastic options for how the stones worked, but no one had an answer.

  “All right.” Shim sat down. “Now the secrets are out of the way, what are we going to do about the others? What are we going to do next?” They all turned and looked at me. Oh shit!

  In school, I had studied math, science, history, the regular stuff. Wouldn’t it have been nice if they could have focused on a something more useful, like Critical Decision Making in Crisis Situations 101? Now, that class would have been helpful.

  Was our priority to take the next step and find Lincoln? Or should we keep trying to find our parents—at the risk of getting captured ourselves? Would finding out the truth of our parents’ past help us find them? Maybe we should just find a place to hide until this all went away. But I knew that wouldn’t work.

  Taking a deep breath, I told them what I thought should happen next.

  Chapter 14

  Finding Lincoln

  “I got something.” Jaxon punched my arm, jostling the white mug in my hand, and burning pain followed the trail of scalding tea that slopped over the edge, soaking my arm and shirt. Quickly, I put down the mug and hooked my thumbs through the holes I had worried into the ends of the sleeve, rubbing the hot liquid off my skin. Shaking the dripping tea off my hands, I took the wad of napkins Jaxon handed me and tried to clean up the mess.

  “I think I found one of them.” Jaxon skipped the punch this time. I summoned a smile, which I suspected looked more like a grimace.

  Three days ago, we took the forty-five minute bus ride from San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, to Sausalito. We wanted to take a ferry, which would have been half the time, but we were concerned they would require ID. The fewer people that knew we had left the city, the better.

  Since then, we had been sitting in Sausalito, staring out this window, watching the Vina Del Mar Park.

  Waiting.

  Waiting for something to happen. For someone to contact us.

  Waiting.

  Did I mention waiting? I was about to lose my mind. We all were.

  Of course, the time hadn’t been completely wasted. While we watched the park, we also searched for the geologist Waters told us about, the one in the Pacific Northwest who had examined the rock—the Keystone—for our parents.

  At least we knew a little more about the rock than Waters did. While we didn’t know where it came from, we knew there were at least three pieces: I was wearing my mother’s necklace with the stone mounted on the front; Breeze had Arie’s cuff with the stone set in it; Shim had Kindle’s ring. I wonder it Trystal and Micah each had pieces
?

  I checked the park across the street. Still no change.

  While Jaxon had hunted for the geologists like a bulldog, the rest of us had been focused on finding Lincoln. Waters had set up a meeting place but hadn’t given us a time. We had staked out the place and set up patrols. Shim had organized us. While one person sat in the park waiting for Lincoln to turn up, two people would watch the sitter, and the other two would scout the town. Currently, Jaxon and I were on patrol, and he had talked me into taking a break in the coffee shop so he could use their computers to do more research. Breeze was in the park, and Shim and Skylar were across the street in our hotel room where they could take turns watching her from the window.

  It wasn’t really a park, just a triangle of green space carved out of the expensive real estate of the trendy, waterfront tourist mecca. In the center, there was an enormous fountain dedicated to the city’s Chilean sister city that was surrounded by a few yards of grass and trimmed squat palm trees. The whole park was ringed by a dense growth of finely manicured, shoulder-high bushes. The street behind the park had been closed off to provide an enormous bike parking lot and, behind that, a one-way shuttle bus stop. All this was done to accommodate the large number of visitors the city received thanks to its California charm and panoramic views across the San Francisco Bay. The crowds worked in our favor, helping us to blend in and distracting from our loitering during our long vigil.

  When Waters had given us Lincoln’s name, I thought, great, we would contact this guy and, bam, have what we needed, right? Not right. Waters only had a number to leave messages on and a meeting place. He had called and explained who we were and set up a meet. That was how the men usually connected.

  That had been three days ago.

  “Time to switch,” Shim’s voice came into my head. I hadn’t even realized I was rubbing the stone.

  After the first day of sitting in the park waiting for something to happen—that never did—we realized we needed a strategy. We dug into our envelope of bills and checked in to the Hotel Sausalito, getting a room with a park view. That was when we discovered that cash goes a long way to ease concerns over minors checking in on their own. Splitting up, we set up an irregular rotation schedule so none of the locals would get suspicious seeing any one of us for too long. Waters’ training was turning out to be very useful.