“If you’re looking for the door, it’s right there around that corner. We can help you. We can take you out of here.” Russ.
“We can give you food. We know where the kitchen is.” Erith.
If you could just talk, if you could just look at us—if you could just tell us what the proof is—if you could just tell us how you know us…
The Timekeeper didn’t say a single word.
“He’s not going to help us,” March finally said with a sigh.
“We should just gather all these papers and take them tothe Timekeepers,” said Russ, moving for that room again. “Maybe we tell them about him! Maybe we just?—”
“Missing things,” said the Timekeeper—whispered it so low we barely heard it.
“What did you say?” said Mimi, leaning closer.
“Missing things don’t have edges.”
And the Timekeeper ran.
We all jumped back on instinct, and shouted for him to stop, to tell us how to help him, to turn around and look at the corner—that’swhere the door was. He couldn’t just get out of here blasting through walls like he’d done with those doors!
We tried. We really did, but the Timekeeper didn’t listen.
Eventually, we stopped trying to make him stop. All we could do was watch him slamming against the wall, then turning back and trying again, and again, and again…
“He’s…he’s not stopping,” said one or the other, voice shaking, clearly crying. “He won’t stop…”
Three times, seven, ten. The thudding was so precise, in such a perfect rhythm it made me wonder if maybe I was making this whole thing up. The way he moved, the way he looked, the way he went at it again and again…It can’t be real,whispered the voices in my head. This couldn’t possibly be real.
And then something moved.
Somethingelseother than the perfect, clockwork movements of the Timekeeper slamming against the wall.
Another came right around the corner of the wall, right wherewe’dcome from minutes ago. Another Timekeeper with a round belly, wide blue eyes and an orange beard that almost touched the plate he held in his hands.
And he was just as shocked to find us there as we were to see him.
13
We continued to stand there against the walls, unmoving, barely blinking, never making a single sound—just staring at the bearded Timekeeper while he stared at us.
Meanwhile, the mad one kept slamming against the wall in his perfect rhythm—one shoulder, then the other.
A thousand thoughts crossed my mind. He was going to run now—turn around and run and alert the people from last night.
Or he was going to lock us down here to make sure we didn’t run first.
Or even attack us himself while he had the chance.
Or—
“I’m just here to deliver his food.”
The bearded Timekeeper slowly lowered on one knee and put the plate on the floor. A plate with a banana, an apple, bread and cheese and meat, all crammed together.
Food.
Then the man stood up again and backed away toward the wall.
