“Not really Maggie,” she said.
“Oh, no,” he said.
He should have seen it, but he hadn’t. The calm voice she’d been using hadn’t really been calm at all. It had been monotone. He’d been so stressed out about finding his things in the Maker’s box then the sudden appearance of the Peter and his friends that he hadn’t noticed that Maggie wasn’t Maggie.
She was a surrogate.
“How? Maggie’s not a bad person. How did you—” Then he remembered what Mr. Trouble said about Makers and surrogates, that on occasion, when several Makers worked together, they could turn someone good into their slave.
The headaches. Maggie had felt it coming on but just hadn’t realized it.
I’m so sorry! This is all my fault.
He should have insisted she stay home that first night when he’d gone with Mr. Trouble and Fiona. This was his problem, not hers.
Maggie turned him all the way around, so that his back was now to the door and he was facing in the direction of the voices.
“Maggie, I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, fight it.”
“Save your breath,” the surrogate Maggie said. “She can’t hear you.”
The gardener moved Fiona and Keira next to Eric, and Vice Principal Rose did the same with Eric’s mother on the other side.
“Take off their goggles,” the first woman said.
Maggie pushed the goggles down off Eric’s eyes and left them hanging around his neck. Everything he’d seen a moment before in green was now completely black. He then heard the gardener remove the Trouble sisters’ goggles, plunging them into the same darkness.
“I told you I’d do whatever you want,” Eric said. “Just let them go.”
The only sounds were the muffled protests of Fiona and Keira.
“Please. It’s me you want, not them.”
Still no response from the voices.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“We’re listening to you,” the first woman’s voice whispered into his ear.
Eric jumped, and the three voices laughed.
“Is this better?” the woman asked, a few feet away this time.
There was a scratching sound, then a sizzle as a match flared to life.
The hand that held it had long, elegant fingers and perfectly groomed nails. It moved the match closer to Eric’s face, until the only things he could see were the yellow flame and the darkness beyond it. He closed his eyes and turned his head, feeling the heat against his skin. More laughter, then the match moved away. After a second, he opened his eyes again.
The darkness that had filled the basement was gone, replaced by light from three camping lanterns spread across the room.
And standing a dozen feet away from him — the Makers.
28
There were nine of them. Five were in a semicircle in front of Eric, while the other four were huddled together behind them, their arms around each other, eyes closed.
They were beautiful. All of them. Painfully beautiful.
Their hair was perfectly cut, not a strand out of place. Their skin was as smooth as water on a still pond. Their eyes were big and dark, their lips full, and their teeth impossibly white. They could have been characters from Noriko’s Revenge or one of Eric’s other manga books.
Of the five directly in front of him, three were women and two were men. None looked like they were any older than Mr. Trouble, but Eric knew this was an illusion and their true age was nowhere near that.
There were others in the room, too — not Makers, surrogates, a half dozen of them standing against the far wall.
“Don’t say anything more,” Fiona whispered through her gag. At least that’s what he thought she said.
“I’m not going to let them hurt any of you,” he whispered back.
Her eyes widened in frustration and she said something else, but this time he didn’t catch it.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” the blonde female Maker at one end of the arc said.
The man next to her sniffed the air, much like Peter had done before. “He’s perfect. Can you smell it?”
“I can,” a brunette woman in the center said.
“But is he ready?” the other blonde woman asked. “He doesn’t seem ready.”
“Harlan?” the brunette woman said.
One of the men in the group of four in the back sucked in a deep breath then broke from the circle. As he did, Eric felt Maggie’s grip on his arms loosen a bit. It wasn’t enough so that he could break free, but at least he could feel his blood flowing again.
“He doesn’t need to be ready yet,” the man said. Eric assumed he was Harlan. “They have the box and have already released one drawer.”
Gasps and looks of horror from the five in the arc.
“Released?”
“Outrageous!”
“How do you know?”
Harlan looked at Maggie. “We’ve seen it through the girl.”
“We’ll have to start again.”
“Yes, again.”
“It will take time.”
“Yes, it will,” Harlan said. “But it will also give us time to prepare him properly, without the influence of these…others.” He moved back into his group, putting his arms around those next to him. He then bowed his head and closed his eyes.
Maggie’s grip tightened again.
“We need to do something about them.”
“Yes, we do.”
“They need to pay.”
“They have thrown off our timeline.”
“Yes, they definitely need to—”
Something crashed down on the boards above their heads. As one, the Makers in the arc looked up, then smiled.
“He should pay.”
“Yes, he should be the one.”
“Mr. Trouble.”
“Yes, Mr. Trouble.”
Another crash.
“Oh, this is delightful,” the first woman said. “He thinks he can break through like a superhero.”
The others smiled.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three heavy crashes with only seconds between each. This time, there weren’t just thuds, but the loud sound of wood cracking.
“Marvelous,” one of the men said.
“Move back,” the brunette woman told Eric and the others. “Unless, of course, you want him landing on you.”
Maggie, the gardener, and Vice Principal Rose pulled their hostages back until they were up against the china cabinet in front of the door. Peter and Tommy were now sitting off to the side, their heads bowed like they were asleep.
Everyone else, with the exception of the four Makers huddled together, looked at the ceiling in anticipation. Eric was pretty sure it would take only one more good hit for a hole to be punched through. But as he watched, the seconds of waiting grew to over a minute.
“Maybe he hurt himself,” a Maker said.
“Oh, yes. Maybe.”
“If we could sense him, we’d know.”
“Yes, if one of us could. But I see nothing.”
“I see nothing, too.”
“I see nothing.”
“Not a thing.”
“He’s like those before him.”
“Yes. Like those before. Unreadable.”
“Perhaps he’s left.”
“Perhaps,” the brunette woman said, “but I think we should check.” She turned her head to look at Peter and Tommy.
Instantly, Tommy’s eyes opened and he stood up.
“Check,” the brunette said.
Tommy nodded, then pushed the cabinet back just enough so that he could squeeze out the doorway.
The brunette closed her eyes. A moment later, her head began moving like she was looking around.
Above, they could hear Tommy move off the staircase and onto the main floor, walking toward where the sound had come from.
The brunette continued to move her head back and forth. “He’s not there,” she said. “I can’t see him.”