The Eighth Guardian by Meredith McCardle Read Free Book Online Page B

now I don’t think I could spell my name correctly on the first try. YMD . Yeapons of Mass Destruction?
    “Mark my words,” the first man says, “the Centennial will dawn, the dome will be half completed, and the cost to us all will be five thousand dollars.”
    The other man laughs again. “The Centennial! Morrison, you’re mad! Simply mad. That’s a year and a half away. The remainder of autumn, perhaps, but it will be gilded by new year.”
    The owl necklace slips from my fingers and thumps into my chest. The Centennial is a year and a half away. Even a first grader could tell you the country was founded in 1776, so that means the Centennial is in 1876. Which then means I’m in 1874. It’s fall 1874. I want to leap on both of these men and kiss them, but instead I turn away and start walking back toward the alley.
    I’m close. So close. I know the year, and I know the season; but I still need to figure out the month and the day.
    I stop in my tracks.
    YMD . Of course! Year Month Day .
    I’m already turning the knobs on the watch before I’m the whole way back. Today in the present is October 21, and I’m willing to bet anything that today in the past is October 21, too. That’s why the month and day buttons won’t budge. The mission was to get back. And that means only figuring out the year.
    I turn the Y knob, and the big hand flies around the clock, clucking like a chicken. One whole turn. I bet that’s sixty years. Another turn. And that’s a buck twenty. I slow down and count each tick after that. I can’t screw this up.
    And then I remember Alpha’s instruction. Leave from the place you started. That alley? The broom closet? But I’m locked out, and I don’t have—a key!
    I shove my hand in the knapsack as I run down Beacon Street. I zip to the right at the first street and find the door. Sure enough, there’s a lock on the outside, and the key slides right in.
    “Yes!” I shout to no one. But then there are footsteps. I turn to find the guy and the girl coming toward me. The girl has that look on her face again, like she’s about to pull out a dagger and knife me. What the hell is her problem?
    Guess I’ll figure it out later. I open the door, jump into the tiny closet, and snap the lid of the watch face shut. Here goes nothing.

There’s a ride at Six Flags New England. Scream. You’re strapped into your seat at ground level, and then with no warning at all you’re shot straight up, twenty stories in the air at sixty miles an hour.
    This is what’s happening to me now. My empty stomach soars and lodges itself into my esophagus, and I don’t have time to scream as my hair is plastered to my face, my arms fly to my sides, and I’m shot up.
                         Up.
              Up.
    Up.
    How much longer?
    And then I stop, midflight. There’s a ziiiiiiiiip sound from below, and I crumple to the ground. My elbow slams into a metal grate on the floor, and I groan.
    “Welcome back,” a voice says from above. It’s Alpha. He reaches down a hand, then immediately draws it away when I reach for it.
    “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he says. “Which I assure you is a statistical certainty should you try to escape from me again. So tell me, are we past all that?”
    I don’t answer the question. Instead I decide to call his bluff. Here. Now.
    “I don’t know. Is Testing Day over now?”
    Alpha’s honey-brown eyes narrow into a look of pure puzzlement. “Testing Day has been over for hours. You graduated. Did you not believe me?”
    I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. His tone is one of finality; his eyes seal my fate. In this instant I know. This is real. And now I’m drowning in an ocean of disappointment, pulled under by a rogue wave of reality. I’m really done at Peel. I can feel it. And that means I’m really done with Abe.
    I start to push myself up, but Alpha grabs both of my shoulders and pushes me back to the floor.