The directories fill a shelf, a block of red, then a block of blue. I swipe the oldest blue directory, the one from the first years of the conversion, shuffling the books a bit to hide the gap. And then I head upstairs to find Mom experimenting in the kitchen, Dad hiding in a corner of the living room with a book, and a box of pizza open on the table. I field a few questions on the length and quality of my run, finally enjoy a glorious shower, and then sink onto my bed with a slice of cold pizza and the Coronado’s log, flipping through as I eat. There has to be something. Names fill the inaugural year, but the three missing years that follow are a wall of white in the middle of the book. I scan 1954, hoping that some clue—one of the names, maybe—will catch my eye.
In the end it’s not the names that strike me as odd, but the lack of them. In the inaugural year, every room is rented out, and there’s a wait list at the back of the section. The year the records come back, the word Vacant is written into more than a dozen spots. Was a murder enough to empty the Coronado? What about two murders? I think of Marcus Elling on his shelf, the stretch of black where his death should have been. His name is among the ones that fill the original roster. Three years later, his room is among the ones marked Vacant. Did people leave in reaction to the deaths? Or could more of them be victims? I dig up a pen and pull my Archive list from my pocket. Turning it over, I scribble out the names of the other residents whose apartments were marked Vacant when the records resumed.
I sit back to read over the names, but I’ve only reached the third one when they begin to disappear. One by one, from top to bottom, the words soak into the paper and fade away until the page is blank, erasing themselves the way names do when I’ve returned the Histories. I’ve always thought of the paper as a one-way street, a way for the Archive to send notices, not a place for dialogue.
But a moment later, new words write themselves across the page.
Who are these people? — R
After a brief period of stunned silence, I force myself to scribble out an explanation of the directory: the missing pages and the vacancies. I watch as each word dissolves into the paper, and hold my breath until Roland responds.
Will investigate.
And then…
Paper is not safe. Do not use again. — R
I can feel the end of the discussion in Roland’s handwriting as it dissolves. As if he’s set the pen aside and closed the book. I’ve seen the ancient ledger they keep on the front desk, the one they use to send out names and notes and summons, a different page for every Keeper, every Crew. I hold my slip of Archive paper, wondering why I never knew that it could carry messages both ways.
Four years of service, and the Archive is still so full of secrets—some big, like altering; some small, like this. The more of them I learn, the more I realize how little I know, and the more I wonder about the things I have been told. The rules I have been taught.
I turn the Archive paper over. There are three new names. None of them is Owen’s. The Archive teaches us that Histories share a common want, a need, to get out. It is a primal, vital thing, an all-consuming hunger: as if they are starved and all the food is on the other side of the Narrows’ walls. All the air. All the life. That need causes panic, and the History spirals and shatters and slips.
But Owen isn’t slipping, and when he asked for one thing, it wasn’t a way out.
It was time.
Don’t make me go back.
Promise me you won’t.
Please, Mackenzie. Give me one day.
I press my palms into my eyes. A History who’s not on my list and doesn’t slip and wants only to stay awake.
What kind of History is that?
What is Owen?
And then, somewhere in my tangled, tired thoughts, the what becomes a far more dangerous word.
Who.
“Don’t you ever wonder about the Histories?” I ask. “Who they are?”
“Were,” you correct. “And no.”
“But
…
they’re people
…
were people. Don’t you
—
”
“Look at me.” You knock my chin up with your finger. “Curiosity is a gateway drug to sympathy. Sympathy leads to hesitation. Hesitation will get you killed. Do you understand?”
I nod halfheartedly.
“Then repeat it.”
I do. Over and over again, until the words are burned into my memory. But unlike your other lessons, this one never quite sticks. I never stop wondering about the
who
and the
why
. I just learn to stop admitting it.
SIXTEEN
I CAN’T EVEN TELL if the sun is up yet.
Rain taps against the windows, and when I look out, all I see is gray. The gray of clouds and of wet stone buildings and wet streets. The storm drags its stomach over the city, swelling to fill the spaces between buildings.
I had a dream.
In it, Ben was stretched out on the living room floor, drawing pictures with his blue pencils and humming Owen’s song. When I came in, he looked up, and his eyes were black; but as he got to his feet, the black began to shrink, twist back into the centers, leaving only warm brown.
“I won’t slip,” he said, drawing an X on his shirt in white chalk. “Cross my heart,” he said. And then he reached out and took my hand, and I woke up.
What if?
It is a dangerous thought, like a nag, like an itch, like a prickle where my head meets my neck, where my thoughts meet my body.
I swing my legs off the bed.
“All Histories slip,” I say aloud.
But not Owen, whispers another voice.
“Yet.” I say the word aloud and shake away the clinging threads of the dream.
Ben is gone, I think, even though the words hurt. He’s gone. The pain is sharp enough to bring me to my senses.
I promised Owen a day, and as I get dressed in the half dark, I wonder if I’ve waited long enough. I almost laugh. Making deals with a History. What would Da say? It would probably involve an admirable string of profanity.
It’s just a day, whispers the small, guilty voice in my head.
And a day is long enough for a grown History to slip, growls Da’s voice.
I pull my running shoes on.
Then why hasn’t he?
Maybe he has. Harboring a History.
Not harboring. He’s not on my—
You could lose your job. You could lose your life.
I shove the voices away and reach for the slip of Archive paper on my bedside table. My hand hovers above it when I see the number sandwiched between the other two.
Evan Perkins. 15.
Susan Lank. 18.
Jessica Barnes. 14.
As if on cue, a fourth name adds itself to the list.
John Orwill. 16.
I swear softly. Some small part of me thinks that maybe if I stop clearing the names, they will stop appearing. I fold the list and shove it in my pocket. I know the Archive doesn’t work that way.
Out in the main room, Dad is sitting at the table.
It must be Sunday.
Mom has her rituals—the whims, the cleaning, the list-making. Dad has his too. One of them is commandeering the kitchen table every Sunday morning with nothing but a pot of coffee and a book.