The Archived

“I got it.” I could beg off, lie, but I’m still feeling shaky from last night and I wouldn’t mind a couple hours as M right now, a taste of normalcy. Besides, there’s a Narrows door in the coffee shop.

Downstairs, the overhead lights blink sleepily on. I drop the box on the counter, letting it regain its composure as I dig out the book. Dante’s Inferno. You’ve got to be kidding me. I consider the cover, which features a good deal of hellfire and proudly a

In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray…

No, thank you.

I toss Dante onto a pile of folded sheets by the wall, where it lands with a plume of dust. Cleaning it is, then. The whole room smells faintly of soap and stale air, and the stone counters and floor make it feel cold, despite the summer air beyond the windows. I throw them open, then switch the radio on, crank up the volume, and get to work.

The soapy mixture I concoct smells strong enough to chew right through my plastic gloves, to peel back skin and polish bone. It is beautiful bluish stuff, and when I smear it across the marble, it shimmers. I think I can hear it chewing away at the grime on the floor. A few vigorous circles and my corner of the floor even begins to resemble Mom’s.

“I don’t believe it.”

I look up to find Wesley Ayers sitting backward on a metal chair, a relic unearthed from beneath one of the folded sheets. Most of the furniture has been moved onto the patio, but a few chairs dot the room, including this one. “There’s actually a room under all this dust!” He drapes his arms over the chair and rests his chin on the arching metal. I never heard him come in.

“Good morning,” he adds. “I don’t suppose there’s a pot of coffee down here.”

“Alas, not yet.”

“And you call yourself a coffee shop.”

“To be fair, the sign says ‘Coming Soon.’ So,” I say, getting to my feet, “what brings you to the future site of Bishop’s Coffee Shop?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

“A dangerous pursuit.”

“Indeed.” He raises one eyebrow playfully. “I got it into my head to save you from the loneliness born of rainy days and solitary chores.”

“Oh, did you?”

“Magnanimous, I know.” His gaze settles on the discarded book. He leans, reaching until his fingertips graze Dante’s Inferno, still on its bed of folded sheets.

“What have we here?” he asks.

“Required reading,” I say, starting to scrub the counter.

“It’s a shame they do that,” he says, thumbing through the pages. “Requirement ruins even the best of books.”

“Have you read it?”

“A few times.” My eyebrows arch, and he laughs. “Again with the skepticism. Looks can be deceiving, Mac. I’m not all beauty and charm.” He keeps turning the pages. “How far in are you?”

I groan, making circular motions on the granite. “About two lines. Maybe three.”

Now it’s his turn to raise a brow. “You know, the thing about a book like this is that it’s meant to be heard, not read.”

“Oh, really.”

“Honest. I’ll prove it to you. You clean, I’ll read.”

“Deal.”

I scrub as he rests the book on the top of the chair. He doesn’t start from the begi

“‘Through me you pass into the city of woe.’”

His voice is measured, smooth.

“‘Through me you pass into eternal pain.…’”

He slips to his feet and rounds the chair as he reads, and I try to listen, I do, but the words blur in my ears as I watch him step toward me, half his face in shadow. Then he crosses into the light and stands there, only a counter between us. Up close, I see the scar along his collar, just beneath the leather cord; his square shoulders; the dark lashes framing his light eyes. His lips move, and I blink as his voice dips low, private, forcing me to listen closer, and I catch the end.

“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’”

He looks up at me and stops. The book slips to his side.

“Mackenzie.” He flashes a crooked smile.

“Yeah?”

“You’re spilling soap on everything.”

I look down and realize he’s right. The soap is dripping over the counter, making bubble-blue puddles on the floor.

I laugh. “Well, can’t hurt,” I say, trying to hide my embarrassment. Wesley, on the other hand, seems to relish it. He leans across the counter, drawing aimless patterns in the soap.

“Got lost in my eyes, did you?”

He leans farther forward, his hands in the dry spaces between soap slicks. I smile and lift the sponge, intending to ring it out over his head, but he leans back just in time, and the soapy mix splashes onto the already flooded counter.

He points a painted black nail at his hair. “Moisture messes up the ’do.” He laughs good-naturedly as I roll my eyes. And then I’m laughing, too. It feels good. It’s something M would do. Laugh like this.

I want to tell Wes that I dream of a life filled with these moments.

“Well,” I say, trying to sop up the soap, “I have no idea what you were reading about, but it sounded nice.”

“It’s the inscription on the gates of Hell,” says Wes. “It’s my favorite part.”

“Morbid, much?”

He shrugs. “When you think about it, the Archive is kind of like a Hell.”

The cheerful moment wobbles, cracks. I picture Ben’s shelf, picture the quiet, peace-filled halls. “How can you say that?” I ask.

“Well, not the Archive so much as the Narrows. After all, it is a place filled with the restless dead, right?”

I nod absently, but I can’t shake the tightness in my chest. Not just at the mention of Hell, but at the way Wesley went from reciting homework to musing on the Archive. As if it’s all one life, one world—but it’s not, and I’m stuck somewhere between my Keeper world and my Outer world, trying to figure out how Wesley has one foot so comfortably in each.

You use your thumbnail to dig out a sliver of wood from the railing on the porch. It needs to be painted, but it never will be. It’s our last summer together. Ben didn’t come this year; he’s at some sleepaway camp. And when the house goes on the market this winter, the rail will still be crumbling.

You’re trying to teach me how to split myself into pieces.

Not messy, like tearing paper into confetti, but clean, even: like cutting a pie. You say that’s you how you lie and get away with it. That’s how you stay alive.

“Be who you need to be,” you say. “When you’re with your brother, or your parents, or your friends, or Roland, or a History. Remember what I taught you about lying?”

“You start with a little truth,” I say.

“Yes. Well, this is the same.” You throw the sliver of wood over the rail and start working on another. Your hands are never still. “You start with you. Each version of you isn’t a total lie. It’s just a twist.”

It’s quiet and dark, a too-hot summer even at night, and I turn to go inside.

“One more thing,” you say, drawing me back. “Every now and then, those separate lives, they intersect. Overlap. That’s when you have to be careful, Kenzie. Keep your lies clean, and your worlds as far apart as possible.”

Everything about Wesley Ayers is messy.

My three worlds are kept apart by walls and doors and locks, and yet here he is, tracking the Archive into my life like mud. I know what Da would say, I know, I know, I know. But the strange new overlap is scary and messy and welcome. I can be careful.

Wesley fiddles with the book, doesn’t go back to reading. Maybe he can feel it, too, this place where lines smudge. Quiet settles over us like dust. Is there a way to do this? Last night in the dark of the garden it was thrilling and terrifying and wonderful to tell the truth, but here in the daylight it feels dangerous, exposed.