“He is looking, he is looking, and . . . ah-ha, he is finding. There is a way out of the darkness. A way back to the girl of his heart.”
How? I felt my mouth shape the word, but I held my breath instead of giving it life.
The message must have been clear, because Valerie nodded sagely and answered. “How does anyone go from place to place? Through the door.”
“But there isn’t a door,” I blurted out, unable to stay silent another moment. “Dante said he looked, but there wasn’t a door!”
Valerie slouched out of her pose and rolled her eyes. She blew out her breath in exasperation. “Well, duh, darling. Of course the old door isn’t there. He wants to go someplace new, right? So he’ll have to go through a new door.”
The change in her posture and in the tone of her voice was so sudden it made me blink. For a moment, I could have sworn that the old, friendly Valerie sat next to me. The next moment, though, she was gone, and the light I saw flickering in her eyes was unfamiliar.
Then her words caught up with me. “A new door?” I repeated, a flurry of thoughts cascading in my mind. Was it possible? The blueprints Dante had given me were for a door that would open onto the bank—that was what it was designed to do. But could those plans be changed, twisted somehow, to open into the dark space where Dante was trapped? Change what needs to be changed.
Changed how? What would be the key that would unlock the blueprint and turn it from a time machine into something else? I didn’t know. But I was willing to bet Dante did.
Valerie had said it herself—Dante had found a way out of the darkness, a way back to me.
“Thank you, Valerie,” I said, reaching over to give her a hug. “That was the best story I’ve heard in a long time.”
She rested her head on my shoulder and sighed in contentment. “I always feel better when I can tell my stories. They don’t make so much noise in my head and then I can listen to the river better.”
The door to the conservatory opened and I heard the mouse-squeak sound of Dr. Blair’s hospital shoes on the tile. My time was up, but I had one more question.
“Valerie, how did you know I was coming today?”
“I drew you a picture. Didn’t the lady doctor show it to you?”
I started to withdraw the paper from my purse. “She showed me this—”
“No, no, no, don’t take it out!” Valerie pushed at my hands, her fingers fluttering like startled birds. “He’s not supposed to know you have it.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you think? Because if he did, he would steal it from you and then he would have the power—not you. And you’ll need the power. The picture is power.”
“What about the note?” I asked. “Why did you write me that note?”
“To give you permission. So you could do what you needed to do without fear.” She looked from side to side, her forehead wrinkled in paranoia. “But don’t tell anyone, okay?”
I mimed drawing a zipper across my lips, turning the key, and tossing it away.
Valerie pretended to catch the key, slipping it into the pocket of her bathrobe. She looked even more troubled than before. “Keys are important. You shouldn’t just throw them away. You might need that one day. When you do, you can come back to see me and I’ll give it to you, okay?”
I nodded, my eyes darting to her pocket, strangely unsettled by her words. I’d have to think about them later, though. Right now, I had to focus on Dante. He needed me more than I needed a cartoon picture and a pretend key.
Dr. Blair emerged from the plastic foliage and folded her arms across her chest. “And how are we doing?” she asked.
Valerie sprang up from the fountain and danced over to Dr. Blair. She pirouetted on the balls of her feet, turning in small circles around where Dr. Blair stood. While she danced, she cupped her hands around her mouth and spoke into the hollow like it was an intercom. “Dr. Blair. Dr. Blair. Dr. J. Hamilton. Dr. J. Hamilton.”
“Thank you for letting me visit,” I said to the doctor. Standing up, I slipped the strap of my purse over my shoulder, Valerie’s picture tucked inside. “Could I come back? Maybe in a few days?”
Dr. Blair thinned her lips and pointedly didn’t look at her patient. “Perhaps. I’ll discuss it with Dr. Hamilton.”
Valerie continued to dance, humming the same three rising notes in an endless loop. I recognized them as the opening tones of “Into the River,” and a shiver drew a shadow over my thoughts.
Valerie sidled up to me and shot a venomous glance at Dr. Blair, who was standing motionless, waiting for me to leave. “They are always watching me, you know. Always. Even when they don’t think they are. But they can’t watch me when I’m sleeping. That’s when I’m free to go sailing with my Pirate King.” She sighed with longing. “Such sweet dreams. I hope you have sweet dreams, too, Abby.” She kissed my cheek, then drifted away from me past Dr. Blair, past the neon green plastic trees, until the scuff of her soft, slippered feet was swallowed up in the sound of the invisible river that filled the room.
Chapter
9
I climbed into my car, my nerves humming with plans. There was so much to do. Hang on, Dante, I thought. I know what to do. We can do this.
I made a series of quick calls. First, I called Leo at the number he’d left for me on his card to make arrangements to meet for—I checked the clock in my car—a late lunch (Helen’s—two o’clock). Then I called Natalie to see what her plans were for the day (nothing much, maybe some shopping or watching a movie). Finally, I called Jason. I told him I was sorry for bailing on him at the Devil’s Pit and promised I would make it up to him. I made sure to mention that while I had to take care of some stuff today, I knew for a fact that Natalie was free and that if the two of them wanted to do something—say, go to the movies?—I’d love to catch up with them later.
I hung up before Jason could ask too many questions. I could only hope that he would take the hint and call Natalie. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.
I sped home and was in my room at my desk in ten minutes flat. With swift and sure motions, I unlocked the drawer and wrapped my hand around the binder containing the copy of Dante’s blueprints.
The world flashed black to white and back again. I had time to think, Oh, no, not again, before the shock made my knees buckle and I dropped hard into the chair. A sour churning bubbled in my stomach and I tasted the hot green sting of nausea. I rubbed at my eyes, trying to scrub color back into my world.
I was really starting to hate Zo’s interference with the river.
Wiping a layer of cold sweat off my forehead, I blinked until my vision slowly returned. The nearby clock warned that it was almost two o’clock. My heart hardened like a rock. It was bad enough that the changes in the river made me feel like vomiting, but now it appeared I was losing time, too.
I grabbed the binder and leaned forward, ready to stand up, when the second binder—the one containing the original plans—caught my eye. The fortune cookie slip that I had taped to the outside bore a new message, a different message: “The eyes may lie, but the heart is always true.”
The rock in my chest cracked and tumbled into the pit of my stomach, threatening to pull all my bones with it.
“No, no, oh, no, not this. Not now. Anything but this . . .”
I clutched the binder to my chest as though I could ward off the changes with my body and protect what was inside by mere contact.
The clock ticked past two o’clock.
I shoved both binders into my bag and ran.
But I feared I was already too late.
***
When I walked into Helen’s fifteen minutes later, Leo was waiting for me in a corner booth.
“It’s good to see you, Abby,” he said, standing up by the edge of the table. “I took the liberty of ordering; I hope you don’t mind.” He gestured to two plates, one with a turkey club sandwich, the other piled high with the pale green lettuce of a chef’s sala
d.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. I immediately grabbed a glass of ice water and drank it without stopping or sitting down. The water seemed to help clean out my system, washing away the residual effects of a changing reality.
“Is everything all right?”
“Probably not.” Grimacing, I slid onto the bench, pushing my bag ahead of me. I hadn’t dared look inside the binders. Not yet. “Nice glasses,” I noted.
Leo touched the wire frames, needlessly readjusting them. He was back in his Emery College “disguise,” wearing the same suit from graduation day. His hair wasn’t quite as dark as before; I could see the silver threads starting to reappear at the temples.
“I thought it best since we were going to meet in public.”
I looked around the nearly empty café. There wasn’t much of a lunch rush at Helen’s. “Um, I don’t think we’re in any danger of eavesdroppers.”
“I’ve learned it’s always better to be safe.”
Considering he had lived more than five hundred years without anyone discovering his secret, he had a point. Being careful was all well and good, but I had more important things to talk about.
“I looked for him,” Leo said before I could start. “But, as I told you before, he’s not there.”
“I know. I talked to him Saturday night.” I lifted Leo’s glass of water and drank that one, too.
Leo raised an eyebrow.
“But thanks for looking,” I added hastily, wiping the ice off my lips and offering Leo a quick smile in apology. “The good news is that he’s okay for now, but the better news is that I think I know what to do. How to bring him home. You’re the only person I can talk to about this who won’t think I’m crazy.”
“I’ve never thought you were crazy. Tell me what you need to.”
I quickly recounted Valerie’s two stories of the Pirate King and the River Policeman, as well as my two conversations with Dante. Leo listened intently without interrupting. When I mentioned that Tony was with Dante—and that he was rapidly disappearing—Leo’s brows drew down in sharp slants. When I added that Dante feared he would be next, a dark flush crept up Leo’s neck.
“Valerie said the River Policeman could escape through a new door. That’s the key, don’t you see? If Dante is going to leave that in-between space, he certainly can’t open a door he built from the inside. There’s nothing there. So it has to be a door that someone else builds for him. And that someone is me.” Digging in my bag, I pulled out the binder containing the copy of the blueprints, setting it down carefully in front of me. I pressed my palms flat against the outside. “It has to be me. I’m the only one who has the plans.”
“You what?” The dark flush raced from Leo’s neck all the way to his hairline.
I sat back, startled at his reaction. “The plans. For the door. I have them. Dante gave them to me. Before he left.” My words tripped over themselves in an effort to explain.
Leo placed his hand on the tabletop; I could see the slightest tremble in his fingers. “So that’s what he asked me to deliver. And why he wouldn’t tell me what it was.” He flicked a masked glance at me. “If I had known . . .”
I forged ahead, though I was curious as to how Leo had planned to finish that statement. “Dante said there was a fail-safe built into the door—a trap. Tony must have activated it when he touched the door. Since Dante left me the same blueprints for the same door, I thought perhaps the same fail-safe is written in my version of the plans. If we can figure it out, then maybe we can figure out how to reverse it or modify it or something and build a door that he can use.”
Leo shook his head, his focus still elsewhere. “Not like this. It’s too soon.” His low voice sparked a shiver at the base of my spine. I didn’t think he had intended for me to hear those last few words.
“But there’s a problem.”
Leo’s attention snapped back to me. “Just one?”
I squared the binder with my fingers. “Zo is changing things.” I felt a shudder ripple through me when I said his name. I remembered the last time I’d said his name and felt again the pressure of Valerie’s hand on my mouth, silencing me.
“I know,” Leo said. “And that is a big problem—”
I held up my hand to cut him off. “And I can tell when he does.”
Leo looked at me with concern, the lines around his eyes and mouth deepening.
“Even though it makes me feel like throwing up and my vision goes all weird, that’s not the problem. The problem is that when I touched the binder, it happened again.”
Leo paused before speaking carefully. “So those are not the plans Dante left you?”
I bobbed my head in a maybe-yes, maybe-no gesture. “I don’t know. I hope so, but so many other things have been changing, it’s hard to know. Leo, everything hinges on these blueprints. If they’re different, or wrong, then I can’t build the door that will release Dante. And if he stays there much longer—if the darkness comes for him—” My voice caught on a jagged exhale.
Leo reached out his hand, resting it next to mine on the binder. “We both know you won’t let that happen.”
“But what if the blueprints have changed?”
“Let’s find out if they have.” Leo slipped the binder from beneath my hand and opened it to the first page.
“That’s the copy I made. But I brought the originals, too, just in case.”
I pushed the plates, silverware, and empty glasses to one side of the table to make room. Pulling the second binder from my bag, I touched the changed fortune-cookie message like a talisman. I hoped and prayed that those stark red letters were all that had changed.
They weren’t.
I knew it the moment I opened the book.
The first page was supposed to be the schedule where Dante had meticulously outlined the precise times of when to start each phase of the building.
This page was blank.
“No, no, no,” I murmured in one long breath, heavy fear filling my bones with lead. I quickly fanned through the rest of the papers. Front to back; back to front. All blank. Every single page. All of Dante’s delicate drawings were gone. Erased. Lost.
I closed my eyes against the sight of so many smooth, white pages.
What was I going to do now?
“Abby, what is it? Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Leo’s voice seemed to come from far away. I opened my eyes in time to see him remove his glasses, folding them into his suit pocket. He leaned over the table closer to me. He looked so much like Dante that I felt tears burn my eyes. It wasn’t fair. I had figured it out; I was so close. I was going to fix it. And now it was over before it could begin. Without any kind of plans to follow, there was no way I could build the door. I was going to lose Dante to the ravenous darkness.
I turned the binder so Leo could see the unbroken expanses of white.
A frown creased his forehead. He looked down at the binder in front of him and then back at mine. “I don’t understand. I thought you said this one was a copy.”
“It is.” I dropped my head in my hands, massaging my
temples in a feeble attempt to ward off a headache.
“If the original is blank, then where did these plans come from?”
My head shot up. “What plans?” I pushed aside the blank binder and grabbed the one from Leo’s hands. There on the first page was the schedule I had expected to see. Turning page after page, I saw each one was filled to the edges with Dante’s drawings and notes. There were the sketches of the nautilus, the hinge mechanism, my locket. There were the lists of supplies and directions. Everything was right where it was supposed to be. Even better, everything was right.
My headache disappeared and a grin crossed my face. I laughed in surprise. “Leo, these are the plans! The right ones. They didn’t change!” I ruffled the pages again, inhaling the sweet scent of copied ink. “They’re still here.”
Leo didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm. He pulled the blank binder
toward him, idly flipping through the paper. His mouth thinned to a straight line as he reached the end of the stack.
“What? What’s wrong now?”
“I’m just wondering why the original changed, but the copy didn’t.”
I leaned back against the booth, tilting the binder toward me so I could continue to browse in comfort. “Does it matter?” I asked, grinning. “We have the plans. We can do what we need to do.”
“I think it matters a great deal.” Leo reached over and plucked the copy from my hands. He closed the binder, set it aside, then laced his fingers together on the tabletop. “You say you can tell when Zo has changed something. But here is an example of something that should have changed, but didn’t. If we can figure out why, maybe we can predict it. Control it.”
I couldn’t tell if the flutter in my stomach was from hearing Zo’s name or from the idea that we might have found a way to neutralize his power, maybe even strike back at him.
We were both quiet for a time, thinking. The waitress stopped by the table, cleared away our untouched plates, and left behind a slip of a bill.
I rattled the remains of the melting ice cubes in my glass. The sound reminded me of the invisible water fountain at James E. Hart Memorial Hospital. The memory of sitting with Valerie sparked an idea. I dug into my bag again, withdrawing the picture Valerie had drawn of me. Smoothing it out on the table, I studied it for a moment before saying quietly, “The picture is power.”
“What did you say?” Leo asked.
The small ember of an idea flared into life. “Maybe,” I started, “maybe it’s like a photograph. You know—if I take a picture of you, then even though you get older, the picture stays the same.”
Leo raised an eyebrow, a half smile curving his mouth.
“Okay, maybe that was a bad example,” I said, matching his smile. “But the idea is sound: the person—the original—changes.” I tapped my chest with my finger. “But the photograph—the copy—stays the same.” I pointed to the picture Valerie had drawn of me.