The Dark Water (9 page)

There's a voice down below, on another balcony, a loud laugh that makes me want to duck, as if we're in trouble

“My father once told me that my mother was ready to pass, and that the water allowed her to do so,” Lisa says quietly, looking over the railing to the inner garden below. “But he says that Feileen's life ended differently. That she had no choice in the matter. That she was killed.”

My mother wasn't ready to pass, and I wonder what I'd have given for some of this water to save her life. How could Lisa be so calm about her mom but so sad about Feileen? Down here, I guess, death is just a different thing. Either the water heals you of all illness and injury until you are ready for it to take your life or you go like Feileen, mysteriously and out of synch, an event big enough to throw the city in upheaval.

“Lisa,” Jo says, filling the gap in the conversation, “how does it all work? The water, the source, your dad being able to see that we arrived? If he can see so much, why does he have to keep us prisoner? Couldn't he just find us anyway?”

Lisa pauses. “He just wants to help. He
told
me about what the water could do Topside, about how much you need it.”

“And you believe that's the reason he suddenly wants to go Topside?” she presses, her voice angry enough that Lisa seems to shrink in on herself.

“Give her a break, Jo,” Rob says.

Lisa sighs, and for a moment she seems just like any other girl, annoyed by a text from a boy, or a question from her teacher. In fact, I kinda find myself liking her, despite who her dad is.

“I told you, my father does not tell me anything real. But I know for truth that he is watching the Topside now more than ever.”

“I get that the source is helping him do that, but not
how,
” I say. “What, is there a mirror he looks into that talks to him?”

Lisa sighs again, but then puts on a wry smile. “For all the wide world you live in, you know so very little. I guess I shall have to show you.”

FIRST LISA TRIES TO GET US TO CLIMB THE RAILING
AND
jump to another balcony, but only Jo seems up for the challenge. Poor Rob can barely watch her demonstrate, much less try himself.

“Okay then,” she says, thinking fast. “You say there are two guards?” I nod. “Give me a small moment.” And then she's gone, off the railing and down a floor like a parkour champ.

“Could you have done that?” I ask Jo.

“I'm a diver, not a gymnast,” she replies, bending over the ledge, letting her blond hair dangle in front of her face.

“What now?” Rob asks. He rubs his stomach, like he's in love with the soft fabric of the shirt.

I shrug. “We go inside and wait?” I slip through the door and grab the knife and remaining whole berries. There are two small pouches, lined with a plasticky material, sewn into the shirts we wear. Convenient for the berries, less so for the knife. They feel waterproof—maybe to store water?

I fumble with the knife, unsure what to do, and finally just cut a hole in the lining of my other pocket and fit it through, angling it so the blade doesn't butt up against my skin.

Suddenly, there's a voice outside the door, loud and commanding. Then an argument. The door pops open and for a moment it feels like we've been caught doing something wrong—but it's only Lisa who peeks her head in.

“I sent them home. Come now,” she says, and vanishes.

Jo lets out a shaky laugh.

“That easy?” I say.

“Well, she
is
the boss's daughter,” Rob replies.

We follow her at a jog through the halls, no sign of the other Keepers. It's like she disappeared them. We run up a flight, then another, back to the penthouse floor. At first, I wonder if we're going to the elevator, if this is a jailbreak.

But then we arrive at a marble alcove with a spiral staircase, a single corkscrew of iron steps that rises into the ceiling. The room is square and constructed entirely of glass; the stairs pop up directly from the middle of the floor. Lining every wall are shelves about four feet high, stacked so perfectly with scrolls that at first they look two dimensional, like wallpaper pocked with holes. But then Lisa pulls one, seemingly at random, from its place and the room settles into the third dimension.

It's a greenhouse of scrolls. The room's cooler than the rest of the building, maybe temperature controlled like the rare-book room at Westbrook's library. It smells the same, a comforting, musty tang to the air. Lisa unrolls the scroll on a large wooden table, spreading it out expertly and placing bright gems shaped like flat eggs onto the corners as paperweights. The gems must be a hundred carats.

I tear my eyes away because I notice something else: the art on the scroll is familiar. My breath catches.

“It's like the map,” I say, unable to help myself.

Lisa looks up at me sharply, making it clear that Randt has told her about it. “You have seen the map?”

“Yes, we've seen it,” I say hurriedly, reminding myself that the Keepers don't realize we have a copy of the map on Rob's phone, “I just don't remember most of it. That's why your dad's looking for mine. Wait, how much do you know about it?”

She's mollified and motions to the scroll. “My father speaks of the map often. Many, many cycles ago, instead of the Three that rule Capian, there were Ten. Ten Keepers who had partaken of the source. My father was one. My father says he did not want to leave; he thought some of them should stay below and keep. So did Arcos and Feileen, and the others did not disagree, but they themselves wished to explore. We do not know what happened to them, only that once they were Topside they were supposed to each go their own way to explore, and then return in one cycle. But they did not.”

“Why doesn't someone else drink the source?” I ask.

“Because there cannot be more than the Ten. The source will not allow it. And because no other Keeper can take the source—they tried—the other Seven must be alive,” Lisa says. “My father says he believes the Seven found their answers but refuse to share with us, that they live happily in their lives, knowing the purpose of the source and of us and of everything. He was angry at them for this. Furious.” She frowns. “But when he began to sense the map, his mind changed; he believes the Seven are trying to communicate with us. He says they left us the map as a guide to them.” She's staring into the scroll but her eyes are glazed. “This scroll,” she thumbs the parchment, “this is how my father uses the source, how he watches the Topside and how he first felt the map.” The scroll's a rendering of a mountain carpeted with pine trees. Sun, clouds. A rough drawing of a summer's day in the Rockies. Topside.

“I thought you didn't go Topside,” Rob says. “How do you have a painting of Colorado in the summer? This is like that image of the aqueduct you have near the elevator.”

“I do not understand everything you say,” Lisa responds, her brow furrowed. “ ‘Colorado,' ‘summer,' I do not know every word. But the paintings on these scrolls, like your English, are brought to us through the water.”

“The water taught you English?” I exclaim, incredulous.

“Yes and no,” Lisa replies. “The source connects to the Topside, and the Three are connected to the source. Randt and the others have been listening for a very long time, recording, tracking, looking for the Seven, watching you. When the gates are open, they hear much. When they are closed, only impressions.” She pauses, motions to the painting on the scroll in front of us, as if to say
this
is merely an impression painting. “But the Three are very talented at understanding the impressions. It is their duty.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why do they care?”

“We are the Keepers,” she says, as if that explains everything. And maybe, to her, it does.

“Wait a minute, your dad painted all of these? There must be thousands. He just sits here and paints watercolors?” Rob asks.

“For a time every day, yes,” Lisa replies. “It is his greatest task.” She's defensive, but proud of her father. I understand. My dad has strange hobbies too. Lisa starts rolling up this scroll, and we all stand there awkwardly for a moment. Then she smiles. “And ten cycles ago he made everyone learn as many Topside languages as they could.”

“Your father's progressive, huh?” I say, not really asking. I imagine Keepers sitting at tiny desks with their massive bodies, learning the present perfect tense.

Lisa doesn't seem to understand the word and shrugs, an act that seems odd on her tall frame. “You cannot spend your days faithfully reproducing another world's reality and not become obsessed with it to the point of mimicry.
I
am obsessed. My father believes that one day we Keepers will see you Topsiders, know you, be among you, and we must ready.”

“Why didn't Randt go Topside before?” Jo asks. “I mean, I get that now's not the best time, but what about before Feileen died?”

Lisa stares at her as if she's stupid. “I do not understand what you do not understand. My father is a leader of the Keepers, his entire duty is to remain here and rule Capian in a balance of Three. If he went Topside, how could this continue?” She gestures at the maps around her. “The Seven left and he watched, and waited, doing as he should for our people. It was only of late, with the map, that his mind was changed. Now, to him, it is just as much his duty to find the Seven as it is to keep the source.”

I think of Randt, the looming, threatening man who's holding us hostage, and wonder if Lisa knows that side of him. Or if it even matters to her. If Sutton had kids, would they see him as a monster?

I walk alongside one of the shelves, running my finger along the scrolls. “Which one tells us about the water?”

“All of them,” Lisa replies.

Rob laughs and Lisa's eyes drop to the floor, embarrassed. Maybe she doesn't get that Rob likes her answer, and isn't making fun of her.

“Come on, Lisa,” Jo says, turning serious. “You brought us here for a reason. Why?”

“Because I have seen the sickness you face in these scrolls.” Lisa motions to a pedestal on the far side of the room. There, a scroll is already unfurled. “My father has felt the sickness, he has made impressions of it.”

We gather round the scroll, eyes wide. The scroll is painted green, and in the center is a splotch of black with tendrils snaking everywhere. Like a mutated spider. She rolls the scroll forward, and there are a hundred bodies piled on top of each other, hair long, eyes closed, blood dripping from their mouths. Just like the infirmary back at school. How can this be possible?

“The virus,” Jo says, grim.

Lisa looks at her for a moment, then nods. “I think it is a sickness, yes.”

“Can you zoom in somehow?” Rob asks. “Can you see what's going on with our friends right now?”

She shakes her head. “Maybe my father could. But I have not drunk the source. I cannot say precisely what he knows.”

“But what's the point of showing us this, then?” Jo asks, getting flustered. Her pale lips tremble in anger. “We're stuck here. We can't do anything about it.”

“You wanted to know how my father used the source,” she says, confused. “This is how. You can find yourself here, if you look hard en—” Lisa freezes, remembering something.

“Lisa?” Rob asks, but she ignores him and runs to the wall, where she pulls a scroll, seemingly with purpose, but heck if I see a cataloging system. She unfurls it fast, flinging it open with a
crack.
There's no dust that I can see, but it
smells
old. The scroll is stitched together with sheets full of color.

The image is of a Keeper on his knees, bent over. It would look like he was praying if not for the blood gushing from his head.

“What does this have to do with anything?” I ask.

“I found this scroll many dreams ago,” she replies, speaking fast. “I thought nothing strange of this except that it was old and my father might not have painted it.” She thumbs the edge of the parchment. “Maybe made before the Seven left, when there were still ten, when those who drank the source could see far more. But then,” she continues, moving forward a number of panels in the scroll with an eager hand, “I found an image of myself.”

Alone on the scroll is a Keeper, small and female with spiky blue hair. The rendering is generalized, it could probably fit a number of Keepers, except for that hair. That definitely narrows it down.

“So,” Rob says, speaking slowly, frowning his way through the logic, “if this old scroll has an image of you, then it can tell the future?”

She bounces on her feet, frustrated. “You do not understand! It speaks in riddles. I have studied all the scrolls and could find nothing more about me.” She rolls the scroll back to the image of a bloody Keeper. “But I just remembered this, and that Straoc went to the Lock to gather your father . . .” She indicates the page and a new image, runs a finger on the parchment, tracing the edge of a doorway behind the fallen Keeper. “There are bars here, closed doors, dark. That is the Lock. And this Keeper is Straoc.”

“We have to get there,” I say, a cold creeping into my stomach. “If Straoc's hurt, then something bad has happened. Then Dad isn't coming back here.”

“I have to tell my father.”

I shake my head. “There's no time.”

Lisa hesitates.

Jo pushes her. “If you want to help Straoc, we need to get out of here
now.
”

Lisa frowns, but grabs one more scroll, and as soon as she opens it I see that it's a cross section of Capian, complete with the tunnels and gastrain tracks. There's a key in the corner, and corresponding symbols over various buildings. Blueprints to the city.

I catch my friends' eyes, surprised and pleased. I'm feeling an energy thrum through me, and I'm suddenly impatient. We're not stuck here anymore and now I'm eager to leave.

There's a shout downstairs, still far away, but we all jump.

“The guards discovered my deceit,” Lisa says. “They will check your room and then everywhere.” She tugs a small bag free from where it was attached to her belt. She dips her fingers in and licks the water from them.

“You take water everywhere?” I ask.

“We are never far from the water,” Lisa says. “That is why you are so different from us. You are separated from the water. Your life is quick and scary and is like climbing too high. If you fall, you cannot be healed.”

“Let's just hope we don't have to climb any balconies to get out of here, then,” Rob replies.

“Lisa,” I say. A part of me is feeling guilty all of a sudden. “This isn't some prank, you know, sneaking us out?”

“Mia, friend. I will be fine. Straoc and your father need us, and I say my father would want me to help you.” She takes my hand, her skin warm and clammy. “Now follow me and trust. I have not been from this tower before but I am the daughter of Randt and I will see you safe.”

Lisa brushes past me and down the stairs, her shock of blue disappearing from view last, leading the way. Jo and Rob run after her, and so do I, but it's hard not to take one more look at the image of Straoc, his body broken and exactly where we're running to.