The Keepers by Ted Sanders Read Free Book Online Page A

trilling birdsong began to rise again. Horace listened, swaying, feeling buoyant and loose and happy.
    â€œYour place in the world is changing, Horace. You feel this, yes?”
    â€œI’m not sure what I feel. I feel . . . like I’m falling. Like gravity is pulling me somewhere strange.” He looked down at the box, lost for words. “I know something is happening to me, but I don’t know what.”
    Mr. Meister nodded, his wide eyes warm and shining. “This is the first stage of the Find.”
    â€œThe Find? What is that?”
    â€œIt is a becoming.”
    â€œBecoming what?”
    â€œWhat you are. But do not overthink it. All you need to know for now is that this connection you feel—this pull toward the box—it is good and right and true. The rest will be revealed in due course.”
    Horace nodded. He didn’t really understand, and he had a habit of overthinking things, but he found that he could not quite summon up his usual curious urgency. The box was in his hands. He felt floaty and untouchable. He watched as Mr. Meister lifted the clockwork ball and the miniature earth from the OF SCIENTIFIC INTEREST bin, making them disappear into his vest. Up front, the birds kept sewing their river of song. “Those birds,” Horace said at last. “You sure do have a lot of birds.”
    â€œAh, the birds, yes,” said Mr. Meister. “They are a precaution.”
    â€œAgainst Dr. Jericho?”
    Mr. Meister’s face contracted, becoming hard and serious. “Just so,” he said, his voice like a hammer. “Against him, and others of his kind. You saw him this morning, yes? Was he alone?”
    The terror of Horace’s flight from the thin man had drifted apart, pushed by the easy waters of this new peace. The box was in his hands. Still, he recognized the anxiety on Mr. Meister’s face. “Yes. He chased me.”
    â€œChased you?” Mr. Meister said, clearly alarmed. “He was aware of your presence? But were you not carrying the leestone?”
    Horace rubbed his thumb across the engraving on the pouch, tracing the infinity symbol. “I was, but . . .” He tried to remember how it had happened, what he had done. “There was a girl, about my age, wearing a green hoodie. She helped me.”
    â€œA girl. What was her name?”
    â€œI have no idea. Bossy McSomething.”
    Mr. Meister didn’t laugh. He studied Horace, then began to rummage through his vest pockets. There seemed to be hundreds of them—pockets within pockets, even. The old man pulled out a tiny notebook and a stubby pencil. He began to scribble, muttering. He finished, tucked the notebook away, then dug through his pockets again. He produced a delicate white sphere, roughly leestone sized, but shoved it back with a grunt of impatience. He stalked off, scanning the shelvesof bins. Horace followed, still cradling the box. Mr. Meister stopped and stretched high to reach into a wooden bin marked RAVENS ’ EYES . He pulled out a small dark purple sphere and thrust it into Horace’s face. “This was the color of the leestone when it was presented to you, yes?”
    â€œYes,” Horace replied, glad that the leestone hadn’t been one of a kind.
    â€œAnd what color is it now?”
    â€œIt isn’t ,” he said. “The last I saw, it was almost clear all the way through.”
    Mr. Meister’s face went slack with shock. “A single day,” he muttered. Then his gaze grew sharp again. “I believe I am correct in guessing that you no longer possess the leestone.”
    Horace told him the whole story as best he could. It seemed like a thing that had happened to someone else. When he described the destruction of the leestone, Mr. Meister interrupted, “If I may ask, what prompted you to do this thing?”
    â€œI’m not sure. I guess I thought that if whatever was inside the leestone