The Archived

Wesley shrugs. “The same way you read anything else.”

“But they’re not in order. They’re loud and tangled and—”

He shrugs. “They’re alive. And they may not be organized, but the important stuff is there, on the surface. You can learn a lot, at a touch.”

My stomach turns. “Have you ever read me?”

Wes looks insulted but shakes his head. “Just because I know how doesn’t mean I make a sport of it, Mac. Besides, it’s against Archive policy, and believe it or not, I’d like to stay on their good side.”

You and me both, I think.

“How can you stand to read them?” I ask, suppressing a shudder. “Even with my ring on, it’s awful.”

“Well, you can’t go through life without touching anyone.”

“Watch me,” I say.

Wesley’s hand floats up, a single, pointed finger drifting through the air toward me.

“Not fu

But he keeps reaching.

“I. Will. Cut. Your. Fingers. Off.”

He sighs and lets his hand drop to his side. Then he nods at my arm. Red has crept through the bandage and the sleeve where the bottom of the oven dug in.

I look down at it. “Knife.”

“Ah,” he says.

“No, it really was a teenage boy with a really big knife.”

He pouts. “Keeper-Killers. Kids with knives. Your territory was never that much fun when I worked there.”

“I’m just lucky, I guess.”

“You sure I can’t give you a hand?”

I smile, more at the way he offers this time—tiptoeing through the question—than the prospect; but the last thing I need is another complication in my territory.

“No offense, but I’ve been doing this for quite a while.”

“How’s that?”

I should backtrack, but it’s too late to lie when the truth is halfway up my throat. “I became a Keeper at twelve.”

His brow furrows. “But the age requirement is sixteen.”

I shrug. “My grandfather petitioned.”

Wesley’s face hardens as he grasps the meaning. “He passed the job to a kid.”

“It wasn’t—” I warn.

“What kind of sick bastard would—” The words die on his lips as my fingers tangle in his collar, and I shove him back against the stone bench. For a moment he is just a body and I am a Keeper, and I don’t even care about the deafening noise that comes with touching him.

“Don’t you dare,” I say.

Wesley’s face is utterly unreadable as my hands loosen and slide away from his throat. He brings his fingers to his neck but never takes his eyes from mine. We are, both of us, coiled.

And then he smiles.

“I thought you hated touching.”

I groan and shove him, slumping back into my corner of the bench.

“I’m sorry,” I say. The words seem to echo through the garden.

“One thing’s for certain,” he says. “You keep me on my toes.”

“I shouldn’t have—”

“It wasn’t my place to judge,” he says. “Your grandfather obviously did something right.”

I try to shape a tight laugh, and it dies in my throat. “This is new to me, Wes. Sharing. Having someone I can share with. And I really appreciate your help—That sounds lame. I’ve never had someone like… This is a mess. There’s finally something good in my life and I’m already making a mess of it.” My cheeks go hot, and I have to clench my teeth to stop the rambling.

“Hey,” he says, knocking his shoe playfully against mine. “It’s the same for me, you know? This is all new to me. And I’m not going anywhere. It takes at least three assassination attempts to scare me off. And even then, if there are baked goods involved, I might come back.” He hoists himself up from the bench. “But on that note, I retreat to tend my wounded pride.” He says it with a smile, and somehow I’m smiling, too.

How does he do that, untangle things so easily? I walk with him back through the study and into the lobby. As the revolving doors groan to a stop after him, I close my eyes and sink back against the stairs. I’ve been mentally berating myself for all of ten seconds when I feel the scratch of letters and dig my list from my pocket to see a new name scrawl itself across my paper.

Angela Price. 13.

It’s getting harder to keep this list clear. I am heading for the Narrows door set into the side of the stairs when I hear a creak and turn to see Ms. Angelli coming in, struggling with several bags of groceries. For an instant, I’m back in the Archive, watching the last moment of Marcus Elling’s recorded life as he performed the exact same task. And then I blink, and the large woman from the fourth floor comes back into focus as she reaches the stairs.

“Hi, Ms. Angelli,” I say. “Can I give you a hand?” I hold out my hands, and she gratefully passes two of the four bags over.

“Obliged, dear,” she says.

I follow her up, choosing my words. She knows about the Coronado’s past, its secrets. I just have to figure out how to get her to share. Coming at it head-on didn’t work, but maybe a more oblique path will. I think of her living room, brimming with antiques.

“Can I ask you something,” I say, “about your job?”

“Of course,” she says.

“What made you want to be a collector?” I understand clinging to one’s own past, but when it comes to the pasts of other people, I don’t get it.

She gives a winded laugh as she reaches the landing. “Everything is valuable, in its own way. Everything is full of history.” If only she knew. “Sometimes you can feel it in them, all that life. I can always spot a fake.” She smiles, but then her face softens. “And…I suppose…it gives me purpose. A tether to other people in other times. As long as I have that, I’m not alone. And they’re not really gone.”

I think of Ben’s box of hollow things in my closet, the bear and the black plastic glasses, a tether to my past. My chest hurts. Ms. Angelli shifts her grip on the groceries.

“I haven’t got much else,” she adds quietly. And then the smile is back, bright as her rings, which have torn tiny holes in the grocery bags. “I suppose that might sound sad.…”

“No,” I lie. “I think it sounds hopeful.”

She turns and heads past the elevators, into the north stairwell. I follow, and our footsteps echo as we climb.

“So,” she calls back, “did you find what you were looking for?”

“No, not yet. I don’t know if there are other records about this place, or if it’s all lost. It seems sad, doesn’t it, for the Coronado’s history to be forgotten? To fade away?”

She is climbing the stairs, and while I can’t see her face, I watch her shoulders stiffen. “Some things should be allowed to fade.”

“I don’t believe that, Ms. Angelli,” I say. “Everything deserves to be remembered. You think so too, or you wouldn’t do what you do. I think you probably know more than anyone else in this building when it comes to the Coronado’s past.”

She glances back, her eyes dancing nervously.

“Tell me what happened here,” I say. We reach the fourth floor and step out into the hall. “Please. I know that you know.”

She drops her groceries onto a table in the hall and digs around for her keys. I set my bags beside hers.

“Children are so morbid these days,” she mutters. “I’m sorry,” she adds, unlocking the door. “I just don’t feel comfortable talking about this. The past is past, Mackenzie. Let it rest.”

And with that, she scoops up her groceries, steps into her apartment, and shuts the door in my face.

Instead of dwelling on the irony of Ms. Angelli telling me to let the past rest, I go home.

The phone is ringing when I get there. I’m sure it’s Lyndsey, but I let it ring. A confession: I am not a good friend. Lyndsey writes letters, Lyndsey makes calls. Lyndsey makes plans. Everything I do is in reaction to everything she does, and I’m terrified of the day she decides not to pick up the phone, not to take the first step. I’m terrified of the day Lyndsey outgrows my secrets, my ways. Outgrows me.

And yet. Some part of me—a part I wish were smaller—wonders if it would be better to let it go. Let her go. One less thing to juggle. One less set of lies, or at least omissions. I hate myself as soon as the thought forms. I reach for the phone.