The Specter Key (12 page)

The Shadow of Her Memory

The feeling of numbness did not leave Bran in the hours that followed. It was as if his mind had built a wall to protect him from being hurt anymore. He heard voices, but he did not know who spoke; he saw faces, but he did not recognize who they were. Many doctors came and left, speaking to Adi and to him and to others, but the only word he seemed to catch was “Astara”—the name that had once been hers.

Things became a blur as the pain sank deeper into his soul. Adi forced him to eat, though every bite of food made him sick inside. When the Wilomases showed up at the hospital, he covered his face with the blanket and let Adi tell them he would be spending the night in the lobby with her. She had tried to convince him to go back with them, but he did not want to leave that chair.

His mind didn’t believe that she was really gone, even when Adi finally got him out of the hospital and loaded him into the car. He stared out the window, saying nothing as Adi drove away. He didn’t even know how much time had passed. As he watched the building disappear, he knew that somewhere inside was Astara’s lifeless body.

“I hope they don’t put her in a freezer,” Bran said. “She doesn’t like the cold.”

His words made no sense—they just fell out. Adi didn’t reply; she stared tearfully at the dark, rainy streets of Dunce.

Bran stayed at Adi’s house and slept in the spare bedroom. He saw Polland once when he came inside, but Polland didn’t say anything—or if he did, Bran didn’t notice. He crawled into the bed and held tightly to a pillow at his side. He fell asleep and remembered nothing more.

His senses slowly began to come back as the numbness wore off, and he found himself days later standing outside with other people in suits and formal clothes. He realized that he was also in a suit, though he had no memory of putting it on, or the black tie either, or even riding in the car there. His eyes were trained on a deep hole in the ground. Beside it rested a dark, wooden casket with the lid already closed.

He slowly began to recognize the faces of those around him: Sewey and Mabel and the children standing across from him; Mr. Cringan, his rough face haggard and unshaven and his eyes red with tears; two other women Bran didn’t recognize. They were all holding umbrellas to block out the light rain that drizzled down from the branches of the trees. He looked to his right and saw Adi standing beside him, holding an umbrella for the two of them.

His mind registered who was in the wooden casket, though it didn’t quite wrap itself around the fact that it was Astara who was being buried. It felt wrong that he wasn’t crying as he stared ahead in stony silence like the Wilomases, who were there simply because she had died in their home and it was the respectable thing to do.

Some men came forward to place the casket into the ground. Bran started.

“Wait,” he whispered. “I didn’t get to tell her good-bye.”

“You did, Bran,” Adi said, swallowing hard. “You don’t remember.”

“No, you need to stop them,” Bran said desperately.

“Please, Bran,” Adi said, her voice filled with pain. “You don’t want to see her like this. I promise you.”

Bran stood silently for the rest of the burial. When the men filled the hole in with dirt, everyone stood around for a few minutes before slowly drifting off. As the others walked away, Bran started to tell Astara how chilly and wet it was that morning, and how he hoped it didn’t put Sewey in a bad mood, and how it sometimes made the brakes on his bike slippery, which was actually fun because it would make the tires skid—but he just shut his mouth again, because she just wasn’t there.

Sewey came their way, and Bran ducked down so Sewey wouldn’t notice him.

“Erm…” Sewey stammered, not sure what to say. “I’m…sorry, Bran. About your friend.”

Bran didn’t say anything.

“He’s doing all right,” Adi said to Sewey for him.

“And he’s all right at your place?” Sewey said, his voice taking on a strange, foreign tone of sympathy. “Ours is in a bit of a…situation. We’re sending the children off to relatives while things get fixed, and we can send Bran off as well.”

“He’s no trouble with me,” Adi said. “I think he’s better staying with me anyway.”

“It’ll be a few weeks,” Sewey said.

“We’ll be all right,” Adi replied.

Sewey twisted his face up as he deliberated. “If you say so. I can take Bran back to the house to get what’s left of his things from his room, and then you can pick him up this evening.”

Adi agreed, and Sewey turned for the car. When he left, Adi looked down at Bran.

“Are you doing OK?” she asked. Bran didn’t reply.

“Bran, I need to talk to you,” she said. “It’s very serious. I know you’re hurt, but we have to talk. I need to know what happened back at your house.”

“I don’t know,” he choked.

“Bran, it’s the box, isn’t it?” Adi said, her voice catching. “I knew something like this would happen. Whatever magic kept that box locked must have been unstable—it must have lost control or broken free. I’m sorry, Bran, I should never have let you keep it.”

Bran pressed his face against her shoulder and let her hold him tightly.

“I’m going to get rid of it,” Bran said. “I’m going to bury it.”

“Bring it to me,” Adi pressed. “I’ll make sure it’s gone for good.”

“No,” Bran said strongly. “I’m going to bury it. Whatever my mother left inside isn’t worth it.” He left her embrace and walked through the rain toward the Schweezer.

On the way home, Bran hardly heard a word, but he managed to pick up that Sewey had somehow convinced the police that the dramatic green lights were caused by radioactive paint reacting to fireworks that had exploded through the ceiling and windows. It was actually quite a grand excuse for Sewey, and Bran figured that it had taken all the Wilomases’ brains put together to come up with it. The pandemonium of the whole event had rattled the officers so much they had either forgotten all about the Nigels’ robbery, or were simply too frightened to go after Sewey.

When they reached Bolton Road, Bran paid little heed to the state their yard had been left in. A path had been cleared to the house through the mess of broken boards, but Bran’s shoes still crunched against splinters and wood chips.

He paused at the door for a moment, reminded that Astara had died in that very spot. Bran had to step around the fallen table and chairs. He made his way upstairs and climbed up the ladder to his room but didn’t have good footing and slipped and hit his head.

His vision was filled with bursts of stars for a second, and he fell again, dizzy with pain. It seemed to break him out of the stupor he had been in for so many days, so that he blinked and realized that he was back in his room. He managed to look up and saw that part of the roof had broken inward, so that many of the boards were scattered about and some hung precariously from the ceiling by weak, bent nails.

He climbed up again and felt his way, the only guiding light coming from the hole in his ceiling. Everything was very wet from the rain, and the wind from outside was cold on his face as he looked at what remained of his things.

His chair was there, as was his bed, though they were covered in boards and nails and a sludgy dust. His pillow was in shreds, having taken a nail-covered board through the middle. His drawings were partially protected by a fallen piece of plywood. They were not completely destroyed. The desk was untouched. Every item that had sat on the desk was scattered on the floor—all except for one object, which still sat in its center, uncovered once more like a phantom that had chosen to show its face.

“The box…” Bran said aloud. But from the box there came no reply. It just sat there, as if by consuming Astara, its voice and hunger had been placated.

In a moment, Bran was seized with a fiery rage. He leapt to the box as if it were his enemy, throwing it to the floor so that its contents rattled abruptly. The box did not give nor break, as he greatly wished it to. It gave no defense of itself, even as he lifted it again and threw it against the wall, where it smashed in one of the broken boards but fell to the floor unscratched. If it had had a voice, it might have laughed in his face at the tears that fell down his cheeks.

Bran had no strength remaining, so he fell upon his bed, getting his suit covered in splinters. He stared through the giant hole in his ceiling at the gray cloudy sky encircled by broken nails and splintered bits of wood. He had no answers—he only knew Astara was gone and that somehow the box was at fault.

“What do you want from me?” Bran asked, staring at it from across the room. He watched it for a long while, and the anger began to boil within him even hotter, so that he leapt up again and took hold of the box. He clattered down the ladder and toward the front door in bitter silence, holding the box tightly to his side.

“Wait, Bran,” Sewey commanded, coming from the dining room. “You need to pack your things and be ready in—”

“Shut up for once, Sewey,” Bran hissed, and his voice was so sharp that Sewey took a step back and obeyed. Bran went outside and grabbed his bike from the yard—still in the same spot the officers had dropped it—and started to pedal down the street.

He was still in his suit and tie, but he hardly noticed. He stared straight ahead until he finally came to the bridge he crossed on his way to the Third Bank of Dunce. He stopped his bike halfway across and dropped it against the side, going to the edge and looking over.

The water gushed beneath the bridge, flowing harshly because of the recent rain. Bran could hear it crashing against the rocks and the pillars that held up the bridge, and as he stared down into the water he breathed in the misty air.

He looked at the box, now cradled in his arm, and he realized that just before Astara had died, she had suggested that they bury it. Remembering their last evening together on the water tower sent pain racing through Bran’s heart, but it was such a familiar pain that it almost didn’t affect him. He remembered convincing her that they should go on fighting and should try to open the box

“But I’m done with you,” Bran said under his breath. “I’ve done nothing but try to help you, and you’ve done nothing but hurt me. So I’m finished.”

He took the box with both hands and, with a mixture of anger and heartbreak, threw it over the edge as hard as he could, so that it plummeted down to the water. He pressed himself against the edge of the bridge, looking down until he saw its shape splash against the surface. He watched until it was dragged underneath the waves.

He thought that as it disappeared, he should have felt a weight lift from his shoulders. But instead he only felt more lost than before, and he trudged alone and bitter back to his bike and started home.

A Place under the Bridge

Three days passed, though Bran remembered little of it. He slept in the spare room at Adi’s house, which only reminded him of Astara since she had been staying there. Adi and Polland had thoughtfully moved all of Astara’s things into the hall closet so that Bran didn’t have to look at her records and CDs and tapes and think of her. But even if he had been in a blank, empty room with no color on the walls and no doors or windows, he would still think of her every morning.

The Specters did not haunt his dreams nor visit him, though he kept expecting to see some sign or message. He didn’t leave the room much at all, and Adi would bring him meals at different times of the day just to make him sit up from the bed. It wasn’t until the third day that he awoke on his own and looked out the window behind the headboard. It faced out into Hadnet Lane, and the sun was burning brightly through the opened curtains, spilling golden light across the lawns and the cars parked down the street. Bran took a deep breath and dragged himself out of bed and down the stairs.

“Bran?” He heard Adi’s voice as he came down. She was in the kitchen, pouring some milk into a bowl of cereal. Bran nodded at her.

“Feeling any better?” she asked. He didn’t answer. She looked deeply saddened as well, though her eyes were not red anymore. She pushed some food at him, and he ate just because it was there.

Afterward, he decided he wanted to head home for a bit, just to get out of that house. So he went outside and got his bike and took a deep breath of the outside air. It didn’t feel right for it to seem so fresh.

Bolton Road was strangely a welcome sight for him after so many days of being gone: just something familiar, passing the same houses he had been seeing all his life. Mabel was downstairs when he came through the door, with a giant glass hat like a fishbowl over her head, covering everything down to her shoulders with a rubber seal around her neck and a grille for her to breathe through.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, though it was hard to understand through the glass.

“I’m picking up some of my stuff from my room,” Bran told her.

“Where’s your mask?” she demanded, tapping the glass hat.

“I haven’t got one,” Bran said.

“Well, if you end up getting the Bee Flu from all these protosynthisites,” Mabel said, “don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She carried on about how all Bran’s future children would have wings and stingers, but Bran wasn’t at all in the mood for it, so he left her at the bottom of the stairs mid-rant. He could still hear her talking to herself when he got to the top.

This time, Bran was careful to avoid the broken beams as he climbed the ladder to his room, though it was admittedly far easier now that sunlight was shining through the hole. The entire attic was lit up in a spectacular manner, so that he could see into corners he had never gazed into before. When he walked forward, his steps threw dust into the air, and it swirled around in the sunlight like tiny floating monsters riding around the room.

He sat upon the edge of his bed, and the rain-drenched mattress squished inward disgustingly. Still, as he let his eyes survey his room and he saw again what a miserable mess it had become, he didn’t really care how dirty his bed was and only felt like lying back against it and staring across the room and trying to forget everything that had happened there.

Suddenly, he heard a familiar sound and turned his head in its direction.

“Nim?” he said, but no answer came. His eyes scanned the remains of his room, but the only things that moved were the papers and the dust. He listened intently but only heard Sewey grumbling into a telephone about replacement windows and warranties. He sighed and lay down, looking back toward the hole in the ceiling. Suddenly he sat up straight again.

“Nim?” he said in an excited whisper. He squinted in the bright sunlight, and then he could see her, standing up on one of the jagged boards, looking down at him with her large, blinking green eyes filled with curiosity.

“Come down here!” Bran said, and she leapt off the beam and danced through the air toward him, spinning around his head as she did before. He turned in a full circle, trying to catch her.

“Stop, now!” Bran hissed sharply, and she did, darting down to the front of his shirt and crawling up it. Bran seized her immediately, and she crumpled over into his hand.

“How in the world did you get away?” he demanded, not sure if he was happy to see her. He could hardly believe his own eyes as she struggled to her feet.

“Nim,” she said to him, in her melodic voice that made his heart leap. His hands were shaking so much that she fell over again and quickly leapt back to his shirt. He looked up to the hole in his ceiling and then around the room again, struggling to understand what was happening.

“How did you escape Thomas?” he asked. But she didn’t seem to hear him. She began to tug on his shirt, pulling him toward the ladder. He was startled for a minute, but she flew up to his face and started to point frantically down toward it.

“You want me to leave?” Bran asked. She pulled on the front of his shirt again and pointed down the ladder.

“We’re going somewhere?” he asked, and she nodded quickly. She was very insistent, which made Bran wary, but he followed her instruction outside to where his bike lay against the bricks.

“Are we going far?” Bran asked, and she nodded quickly, so he grabbed his bike and started moving. She darted away, and Bran pedaled hard to keep up.

“Where are we going?” he asked, though there was really no point in it because she couldn’t respond. He was so frustrated that he couldn’t understand her, he considered trying some Comsar magic to get into her mind, but she was too far away for him to get her attention.

She took him a long way from his house, and he lost all track of where he was.
Am I really following Nim somewhere?
His good sense came roaring back, and he slammed on the brakes of his bike, causing the tires to skid on the dirty pavement. Nim immediately spiraled back to him, pulling frantically on his shirt.

“Wait,” Bran commanded, and she stopped but stared pleadingly into his eyes.

“I want to go back,” Bran said, picking up his bike and turning it around. Nim immediately followed his face, waving her arms and pointing down a road that led farther into the woods that bordered it. Bran looked up and down the street, which only had a few cars coming from either direction.

“No, I’m not going down that way,” Bran said. “This is getting weird. How did you even escape Thomas?”

Nim just kept blinking at him. It made him wonder if she even knew what transpired while she was under the strange control of the music box. Nim only shook her head and begged him with her eyes to go on a little farther. It went against every instinct that told him to head back home, but finally, he turned his bike around again and started off down the side road. Nim stayed closer to him until they got to a low concrete bridge that crossed over a tiny creek, where she stopped. Bran slowed his bike halfway across.

“Is this it?” he asked, setting his foot down and looking around. There was no one there. He let his senses go free, trying to detect if Thomas or anyone else was there and he had been led into a trap, but he couldn’t feel any danger nearby at all. It surprised him that she had led him to this empty place, and even as he peered over the bridge, he saw that it was mostly dry, and only a thin trickle of water still flowed down that way. It was wet and muddy along the bank, however, so he knew the rainwater had filled it recently.

“See anything special?” he asked, turning to Nim. She was standing on the railing of the bridge, peering over into the little bit of water, looking around quickly before leaping up and crossing to the other side of the bridge. She came back to him and pulled on his shirt again.

“All right, all right,” Bran said, getting off his bike. She led him off the road and down toward the water bank.

It wasn’t far, but it was steep. He caught hold of gnarly tree limbs as he slid down, keeping his balance against the side of the bridge. They kept going until they were at the bottom. The bridge was quite solid, except for a large tunnel that let the water pass through. The sides of it sloped inward and were made of solid concrete. Nim left him behind and shot into the tunnel. Bran followed, still trying to catch his breath. He cautiously stepped into the shade of the bridge but remained outside, leaning against it.

The sunlight kept him from seeing well through the tunnel, but he heard Nim clambering about inside, every noise echoing. He took deep breaths and hesitantly stepped through, careful for spiders or whatever else might be lurking under the bridge.

“This is nice,” he said, unable to think of a reason why Nim would bring him there. She was acting odd and darting from one side of the tunnel to the next. Bran let his eyes adjust, looked about, and saw that the roof was covered in chalk drawings and names: kids from the schools and from camps, scribbling out notes and hearts and messages years old. He had to bend over just a little so that he didn’t hit his head. Nim came back to him again, insisting that he go in farther.

“No, Nim, I think I’m fine here,” he said, a bit fearful of going in deeper. He cautiously sat down against the side slope of the tunnel and let the quiet sink in around him. It was very peaceful for a change, even as Nim tried to get his attention.

“No, really, it’s very nice here,” he said to her, but that didn’t appease her at all, because she shot away from him to the other side of the tunnel. Something was there, washed up on the side of the concrete where the water had been flowing days before. Nim landed on it, and it scraped down a few inches under her. Bran started and almost fell over.

“What—” he gasped out, the moment he recognized what Nim had found. He stumbled to his feet and hit his head on the roof. Doubled over in pain, Bran shuffled across the tunnel toward Nim.

“The box!” he said. Nim leapt from it, and Bran could see the emblem of the moon on the top, just as dark and deep as it had been before. It didn’t even seem wet or the slightest bit damaged: it just sat there, waiting.

Bran didn’t know how he should approach the box, for he was afraid to touch it and yet he was in a shocked state of awe that, despite his efforts, it had turned up yet again. It made hot tears spring into his eyes once more, so that as he fell toward it he felt the energy drain from him as all the pain came rushing back. He cursed himself for coming out there, and he cursed the box as well.

“I didn’t want to see this again!” he seethed, spinning on Nim, but she darted out of the way in terror. He wanted the box to go away and never return, because simply seeing it there caused the strength he had built over the past days to crumble until he collapsed, sobbing into his knees as he hugged them close to his body.

“What do you want from me?” he asked aloud, and Nim came to comfort him, but he hit her away. She spun against the side of the tunnel and dashed away in fear again, hiding behind the box. Bran clenched his fingers into fists, hardly able to look at the box even though it seemed to silently call to him.

“Why won’t you go away?” Bran asked. As always, there came no reply. He wanted to throw it back into the water or throw it deep into the woods, but he knew it would make no difference.

“You’ve got to tell me something!” he screamed, anger and frustration boiling over. He took hold of the box and set it in front of him, gripping the sides of it tightly.

“Why did you kill her?” he demanded of it. “Why did you have to take her? Why didn’t you take me instead? Isn’t it me that you wanted?”

Taking Astara had to have been a grave mistake. He was the one whose mother had been a criminal. Astara was just a girl. It seized him, wishing to know why, so that his senses broke free at once and he felt magic reaching through his hands, toward the box in a way he had not done before. He knew immediately that it was the Comsar side of his subconscious trying to communicate with the box as if it were a sentient being—and though he pulled his untamed powers back, it momentarily scraped against whatever inhabited the box. Just that one, simple scratch sent a start through Bran, as if he had connected with something for an instant, and it caused him to drop the box with a crash that echoed throughout the tunnel.

“What…?” he whispered, and everything was silent again, and he realized there had been a noise or a voice in his mind. It was as if someone had tried to speak but had been cut off.

He grabbed the box again, squeezing it between his hands and reached for his powers once more, driving them into the box with such fervor they leapt from his palms. The feeling returned with an overwhelming flash of green light that surrounded him, throwing the tunnel and Nim and everything around him aside as if they had become water.

He gripped the box and refused to let go, even as the light forced him to close his eyes. He felt wind on his face: a strong gust of hurricane force that should have knocked him over if not for the strange strength that kept him rooted in place. It was oddly exhilarating, a blast of pitch-black darkness and then green light again, and suddenly he was somewhere else.