Leo made a show of checking his watch as he stood up from the desk. “I’m sorry, but I have another appointment to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.” He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a card, which he handed to me. “Welcome to your future, Abby. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me—anytime.”
I glanced down at the phone number printed on the
simple, white business card. Beneath the typed numbers was a handwritten addition:
Dungeon. 8:00.
I looked up, but Leo was gone.
Chapter
5
Mom and Dad wanted to take the whole family out to celebrate, but I managed to convince them to wait a day. I had a date with Jason that I didn’t want to miss. Or rather, I had a date with Jason that I didn’t want Natalie to miss. I wasn’t sure at all that what I had in mind would work, but I had to take the chance. Leo may have come back, but Dante was still gone and Zo was still loose. I couldn’t do much, but maybe I could do this.
There was a pretty big crowd at the Devil’s Pit. I waited in the front, keeping one eye on my watch and the other on the door. It would be tricky to get to the Dungeon by eight if Jason and Natalie were much later. And I didn’t want to miss meeting up with Leo. I still couldn’t believe he had waltzed back into my life as though nothing had happened. And what was up with that whole Emery College thing? I had a lot of questions, and Leo had a lot to answer for.
Natalie pushed through the front doors and I waved at her over the crowd.
“Nat, over here.”
“It’s crazy tonight,” she said when she reached me. “I think the whole school is here.”
“Probably because it’s the new place.” I winced as someone with sharp elbows wriggled past me. “I miss the Dungeon,” I sighed.
“Me too,” Natalie said. “There was way more room. And better music.” She wrinkled her nose at the heavy bass thumping through the air.
I checked my watch. “I wonder where Jason is. He’s not usually this late.”
“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here?” Natalie looked over her shoulder at the door. “I mean, it’s your date night and everything.”
“I want you to be here. We both do. It’ll be fun.”
Natalie twisted her mouth, unconvinced.
“There’ll be cheesecake,” I reminded her.
“Well . . .”
“Hi, Abby, sorry I’m late.” Jason slipped up behind me and placed his hand on the small of my back. He moved in to kiss me, but at the last minute hesitated and placed a kiss on my cheek. “Hi, Natalie,” he said carefully, looking at me. “Double-date night?”
Natalie’s expression darkened, and I jumped in before she could say anything. “Um, no, I, uh, I invited her to come with us.”
“Oh,” Jason said, catching on. “Oh, okay. That’s great.”
“Kimball, party of two.” The announcement cut into the music, crackling over the speakers.
“Party of two?” Natalie repeated and shook her head. “I can take a hint. Have fun—I’ll catch you later.”
“No, wait.” I held onto her arm. I groaned inside. I hated the tension that suddenly exploded between us. It didn’t use to be like this. We used to all get along just fine as one big group. “Look, I can’t explain right now, but trust me. It’s going to be okay. I have to go—”
“What? What about our date?” Jason asked, his eyebrows drawn down in confused frustration.
“Where are you going?” Natalie spoke at the same time.
I held up my hands, hoping I was doing the right thing.
“Last call for Kimball, party of two.”
“Right here!” I called out, waving at the hostess standing at her desk. “We’re coming!”
“Abby, what are you doing?” Jason asked, a sharp edge to his voice.
I met his hazel eyes. “What I have to.”
The hostess reached us, smiling, with menus in her hands. “Follow me, please.”
I took a step back and, at the same time, pushed Jason and Natalie closer together. “I’ll talk to you guys later.”
“Wait—” Jason reached for me.
But I was already gone, shoving my way toward the front doors, my heart in my throat.
I didn’t dare look back.
***
I parked my car at the curb and jogged across the street, heading for the dark lot on the corner, chasing my shadow as the sun slowly set behind me. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock yet, which was good. I’d raced from the Devil’s Pit; I hadn’t been to the Dungeon since the night of the fire and I wanted to be alone for my first visit back. I slipped my hand into my pocket to touch the card Leo had given me, running my fingers along the edges to the sharp corner points.
In my mind’s eye I could still see the somewhat plain two-story building that had been the hub of my social life for the last few years—Leo’s Dungeon—but the scorched wreckage that remained bore no resemblance to that familiar haunt. The inferno that had consumed the Dungeon had been insatiable, devouring walls, floor, and roof and melting the paved parking lot into a thick, black soup.
The lot should have been filled with cars and kids, laughter and music spilling out of the Dungeon’s open doors. The Dungeon itself should have been packed as the entire senior class gathered to celebrate graduation night. But the place was deserted, destroyed. All that remained was a desolate wasteland.
I stood at the edge of the yellow caution tape that fluttered in the breeze, a poor barrier against trespassers. I smoothed the tape between my thumb and my fingers, watching the light and shadow flickering in the jumbled heaps of stone and metal at my feet. The warmth of the sun felt like flames against my back. I closed my eyes briefly, remembering the last time I had been here.
The night of the fire. My memories of that night were chaotic, just fragments of image and sound. Mostly I remembered Leo: the strength in his arms as he carried me to safety, the sound of his voice rumbling through his chest as he said good-bye. By the time I woke up in the hospital four days later, he was already gone. That had been the last time I’d seen him. Until today.
I opened my eyes to check the time, and a fracture of white in the field of black caught my attention. Perhaps something had survived the blaze after all.
I ducked under the tape, carefully avoiding the burnt beams and twisted metal that lay scattered on the blackened earth.
It wasn’t so easy to avoid the memories that flooded through me with each step.
Here was where the Signature Wall used to stand, collecting the names of my friends in their individual scribbles and scrawls.
Here was where Leo had tended bar, and where he had offered me his famous Midnight Kiss, filled with a story and a wish.
Here was the stage where Dante had recited his poem and where Zo and his band had played “Into the River” for the first time.
Here were the stairs that led to Dante’s room, where I had forced my way to the bank to save him—only to let him go.
A sliver of white glimmered like polished bone amid the wreckage of the Dungeon. I crouched down, carefully brushing away the gray ash that coated the ground.
A delicate face smiled up at me. I recognized it immediately as the porcelain ballerina from Leo’s cabinet of curiosities. I was amazed that anything had survived the fire, especially something as fragile as this. I turned her over carefully in my fingers, wiping away the dust and ash from her pink skirt, frozen in mid-flare, and her tightly wound bun on the back of her head. She stood on one pointed toe, her long white arms curving in a circle above her head. Her other leg was extended, ending in a sharply pointed toe.
I felt the world tilt around me. I clearly remembered the moment when this very same ballerina had shattered into a thousand pieces. My memory called up the scene exactly: the afternoon sun slanting on the Dungeon’s floor; Dante’s features, drawn and tight with worry; the slight tremble in his gloved fingers as he opened the cabinet of Leo’s curios; the heft of th
e brass hinge that he dropped into my hands. I remembered the ballerina breaking. But now it was here in my hands, whole and unbroken.
How many more fragments of displaced time would I find?
I hated this horrible double vision. I hated looking at something but seeing something else. I hated not knowing what to expect, what to remember. I hated not knowing the truth.
Anger surged through me and I wrapped my fist around the figure, feeling how fragile it was. One sharp squeeze, that was all it would take. Just one fierce twist and the ballerina would fracture into pieces, snapping her off her precariously pointed toe.
Just like my life had been fractured into pieces. If Leo hadn’t opened up the Dungeon, then Zero Hour wouldn’t have played there, and Zo wouldn’t have gotten his claws into Valerie, and Dante wouldn’t have had to save her, and I wouldn’t have had to save him, and he wouldn’t have left—
The soft sound of music interrupted my thoughts. Tiny, metallic notes drifted up from the ballerina’s stand. I glanced down in surprise. I hadn’t known it was a music box. The dancer pivoted on her toe, turning in a tight circle.
“I’m glad she survived,” a voice said from behind me. “She was always one of my favorites.”
I turned, the ballerina cradled in my hand. “Leo!”
He had exchanged his suit and power tie for his more familiar white shirt and slacks. His once silver-white hair was still dark brown, though the glasses were gone. He smiled at me, and in the transition time of twilight, he looked so much like Dante—although a slightly older Dante—that I had to stop and catch my breath.
“I’m glad you came,” Leo said.
“Like I had a choice. Where have you been? Do you know what’s going on? Things are changing and it’s bad—”
“Slow down. One question at a time, please.”
I took a deep breath and focused my energy on the most important question.
“Have you seen Dante? I think he’s somewhere on the bank.”
Leo seemed surprised. “If he has been there, I haven’t seen him. He’s free of the bank now, remember? He doesn’t have to go there if he doesn’t want to.”
I shook my head before Leo stopped speaking. “He’s trapped somewhere. He said the door—I don’t know—collapsed around him before he could get out. I think he’s still inside.”
“Inside the time machine? That’s impossible.”
“I don’t think that word has much meaning anymore,” I said dryly.
Leo was silent a moment, his eyes unfocused in thought. “You spoke to Dante? When?”
“Last night. I was on the bank and I heard his voice. But I didn’t see him.” I wondered if I should mention his kiss, but decided against it. Some things were better kept private.
Leo frowned. “You were on the bank last night? By yourself?”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t there exactly. It was more like a dream—”
“The bank is dangerous. You shouldn’t have been there.”
“Believe me, I didn’t intend to go.”
“Something changed on the bank last night. The sky turned black. That’s never happened before.”
“I know. But what about Dante?” I looked at Leo, feeling frustrated and maybe a little desperate. “He’s not on the bank, he’s not in the river, and he’s not with Zo. Where else could he be?”
“But if he is trapped in the machine, and the machine is gone . . .” Leo trailed off in thought. “Where is he, exactly?”
“You don’t know? I thought you knew all about the door and how it worked.”
“I know a lot, but not everything. This is new territory for me too.”
“So, what do we do?”
Leo looked at me with sadness in his eyes. “We’ll have to wait. Until we know more, learn more, there isn’t much else we can do. But we’re not going to leave him, Abby. I promise.”
I looked down at the ballerina in my hands. I knew how she felt: fragile and alone, teetering on a point. I knew I had made the right choice in letting Dante go, even though it had been a hard choice, but now I wondered if I was partly to blame for the danger he was in. The thought twisted in my heart like a knife.
“Why did you leave me?” I didn’t mean for the pain I felt to come through so clearly. Once I’d started, though, I couldn’t stop. “You just vanished. Do you know what it’s like to wait for someone who isn’t coming back? It was bad enough to know that Dante was gone, but I was counting on you still being there. Then you were gone too.”
Leo’s face crumpled. “Ti chiedo perdono, mia donna di luce. Mi dispiace di averti causato pena.”
“I don’t want your apologies,” I said, recognizing some of the words from Dante’s brief lessons in Italian. “I want an explanation.”
“Would you believe me if I told you I left to make it easier for you?”
“Easier? Nothing about this has been easy.”
Leo exhaled slowly, and the lines around his eyes and mouth seemed to deepen, aging him as he stood there. “You’re the only one who knows my story,” he said quietly, not looking at me. “You know I’ve lived a long life—a life of sacrifice. I don’t say that for sympathy or to make myself into some kind of martyr. I say it because it’s the truth. My life has been a constant series of good-byes. I can settle down in a place for only so long before I have to say good-bye. When I moved here
and built the Dungeon, I did so with the knowledge that
eventually I would have to leave it all behind. I’ve gotten very good at leaving. Maybe too good.”
He stooped and gathered up a handful of ashes and dust, letting the gray shadows slip through his fingers.
“When the Dungeon burned, I knew it was time to leave. I couldn’t stay.”
“But why not? You knew I needed your help.”
“If I had stayed, there would have been questions. Awkward questions. How would I have explained Dante’s absence? What would I have done about the Dungeon? Rebuilt it? It’s difficult enough to hold down a regular nine-to-five job with my . . . condition. I lost my home. And it’s not like I have family I could stay with.” Leo shook his head. “My life here was over, I could see that clearly.”
“So where did you go?”
A ghost of a smile appeared on his weary face. “Nowhere.”
I drew my eyebrows together in confusion.
The smile solidified. “I packed up; I told everyone I was moving away. I had to appear to leave, but I never left you, mia donna di luce. I couldn’t.” He looked out over the quiet houses. A soft breeze ruffled his hair. “I stayed on the bank for as long as I could. When I’d come back, I was careful to stay hidden, isolated. I had time; I could wait.”
“What were you waiting for?” My voice was low, weighed down by the magnitude of Leo’s actions.
“You.” His voice caught on the word. “I knew that eventually the time would come when you’d need my help. And then last night, things changed.”
“Everything’s changed,” I murmured. “And I don’t know how to fix it.”
“That’s why I came back. Whatever is happening, it’s too much for one person to handle alone. I’m here to help.”
“How?”
“However you need me to.” He squared his shoulders, lifting his chin. Then he bowed low, his hand over his heart. “Faró quello che desidera, donna mia.”
Even though I didn’t understand the words, the message was clear. The air was thick with expectation and I was reminded that long ago, in his other life, Leo had been a soldier and a warrior. He had been a hero.
He remained still, waiting for me to respond.
Time seemed to slow and thicken like it did when I was with Dante. I was acutely aware of the breeze slipping past, of the crunch of dirt beneath my feet. I took a step toward him, touched his shoulder. “Thank you, Leo. I will honor your vow.” I wasn’t sure where the words came from, but they felt like the right ones to say.
He stayed motionless for another moment, then straight
ened quickly. He moved his fingers from his heart to his lips and then held out his hand to me, palm up.
The gesture felt formal, almost as though it had been rehearsed from a long-ago ritual. I placed my hand atop his. Again, it felt like the right thing to do.
“Grazie,” he said simply.
“Lel e benvenuto,” I replied, a little surprised at how easily the Italian came to me.
Leo smiled then, a complex emotion crossing his face. It looked like pride, but with a touch of sadness beneath.
I withdrew my hand and closed my fingers. I wasn’t quite ready to let go of the warmth of his touch. The entire moment had felt strangely familiar, like waking up from a dream you can almost remember, but as soon as you try, it’s gone.
I tried to marshal my thoughts back in line. “So what was all that business with Emery?” I asked. “If you never really left, I guess that means you don’t really work for the college, does it? And why didn’t my parents recognize you?”
“No one expects to see someone they’re not looking for,” Leo said. “A fast dye job, some reading glasses, and a nice suit are usually enough for a quick meeting. I said I worked for the college; they expected to see someone from the college. As a result, they didn’t see me.”
“It seems like a lot of work for you to do.”
“After what happened last night, I knew I needed to get in touch with you as soon as possible. I knew you would be at graduation and I thought it would be the best way to reach you. I called Principal Adams this morning, told him the story of the scholarship to Emery, and asked if he could arrange a meeting.”
“So, that’s all it was—just a story? I don’t really have a scholarship?”
“I told the truth. There is a scholarship, and it’s yours if you want it.”
“In my real life—the life I had yesterday—I had earned a place at Emery fair and square, but this morning I found out that they had rejected my application. And then you showed up.” I shook my head. “It’s all so messed up. It’s all happening so fast. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”