Behind the Bookcase Page 6

  Sarah hesitated. If the key fit the lock and her parents opened the door and discovered Penumbra, then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore and everything that Balthazat had warned her about would actually happen. Everything would be ruined.

  “Sarah?” Dad said, his voice getting sharper. “You do realize how much trouble you’re already in, right?”

  “For what?”

  “You can’t take things that don’t belong to you.”

  “That’s what he did.”

  “No!” Billy shouted. “I was taking it down to Mom and Dad.”

  “You’re such a liar.”

  “Sarah!” Dad shouted, and he suddenly had that “I’m going to give you a piece of my mind” look on his face.

  Realizing she had no choice, Sarah started to bring the key out from behind her back when Balthazat leaped through the air and scratched her arm. She shrieked in pain and dropped the key. It clattered to the floor and slid to a stop in front of Billy. But before he could bend over and pick it up, Balthazat hissed at him. Billy jumped away. Even Dad took a step backward. Then, like a dog, Balthazat picked the key up in his mouth and ran out of the room.

  “What the—?” Dad said.

  “Hey,” Billy yelled, “come back here!” Then he ran after the cat. Dad yelled at him to stop and then Sarah pushed past him and ran ahead. She reached the top of the stairs just in time to see Balthazat dash around the corner into the kitchen.

  Then she heard Mom yell and something crash and the cat yowl.

  When Sarah rounded the corner, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Mom was on the floor, a whole drawer’s worth of silverware scattered around her. In the middle of it, stuck to a fork, was the key. Balthazat, his tail as bushy as a bottle brush, was in the back corner. Sarah couldn’t move. Not until Dad came down the stairs and pushed her aside as he hurried to help Mom to her feet. Billy came in next and dashed forward to grab the key. No sooner had he stood up straight than Dad snatched the key from his hand.

  “Enough!” he shouted. “Billy, I want you to sit down at that table and don’t move. Sarah, I want you to go upstairs and stay in your room until lunch.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t make it any worse than it already is.”

  “Come on, Balthazat,” she said.

  “No,” Dad said. “You go to your room alone. And I am having serious second thoughts about keeping this cat here for even one more day.”

  “But Dad—” Sarah pleaded.

  “That does it!” Dad said, shouting louder. “Now you can stay in your room until dinner.”

  Sarah stared at Balthazat, but he looked away. She looked at Billy, but he just stuck his tongue out at her. She opened her mouth to tell Dad what he had done, then decided she should quit while she was ahead. She didn’t want to get in more trouble. She hung her head, then went up to her bedroom and closed the door.

  She flopped onto her bed, and as she stared at the ceiling, it occurred to her how long it had been since she had been in trouble like this. She started to get angry. First with Billy because he was so annoying. Then with herself for taking the key and then talking back to her dad. If only she had waited, she probably could have traded Billy something for it and avoided the whole scene. Then she got mad at her dad for making her punishment so severe. Dinner was hours away! And then she realized she was even mad at Balthazat. This was really all his fault. Some friend he is, she thought. This simply wasn’t fair.

  And then, all at once, she realized it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to stay in her room if she didn’t want to. Not when the door to Scotopia was right behind her bookcase. She sat up and smiled. “Yeah,” she whispered. Once she was there, she could find Lefty. She was sure he could take care of her and hide her from the sentinels. Maybe she could even go to Balthazat’s cabin and see if Jeb could take care of her—if he was still there. And if he wasn’t, maybe she could take over the cabin. After all, without her help, Balthazat couldn’t go home. So maybe she would just stay in Scotopia and never come back here at all.

  Sarah nodded and got to her feet. After pulling the bookcase out of the wall, she slipped behind it. She started toward the hole, then stopped. If anyone came into her room now, they would see the bookcase open and Scotopia wouldn’t be a secret anymore. Sarah went back and carefully pulled the bookcase into the wall behind her. Once she was sure it was tight, she went to the wooden ledge and jumped into the darkness.

  Sarah was ready for the drop this time and managed to stay awake even as she fell onto the black sand and rolled over. She got to her hands and knees as fast as she could and peered through the forest, straining to spot any sign of a sentinel. The last thing she needed now was to be caught by one of them and sent on a one-way trip to see the King of Scotopia.

  Once she was sure she was alone, she got to her feet, dusted off her hands, and started along the path. Without Lefty or Balthazat to guide her, however, she was unsure whether she was going in the right direction. Finally, she turned right and kept walking until she reached the edge of the silver stream. She was surprised at how far away from it she had gotten—and so quickly. She adjusted her path and continued walking.

  At last, she emerged from the forest into the clearing, although at a different place from where Lefty had originally brought her. She was farther to the right, facing the side of Balthazat’s cabin instead of the front. She was eager to reach the cabin, but she was afraid that perhaps the sentinel was still there. She even considered the possibility that there might be more than one and that they had Jeb—and Lefty, too, perhaps—held against their will and were hurting them until they confessed what Balthazat had done. She crouched down as she neared the cabin, hoping to get close enough for a look through the side window before she went to the door.

  Sure enough, she saw the sentinel and Lefty inside the cabin. To her surprise, however, the sentinel wasn’t hurting Lefty. In fact, they were sitting in front of the fire together. Before she could figure out what was going on between them, the sentinel broke into a thunderous laugh, slapping Lefty on the back. Sarah was terribly confused. It looked to her like Lefty and the sentinel were friends. Maybe Lefty had tricked the sentinel into believing that Lefty was bad like him.

  Sarah couldn’t be sure of anything except that she had to stay clear of the sentinel. She decided she should go back across the clearing to hide in the forest and watch the cabin until the sentinel left. Maybe then she could find Jeb, or get Lefty to help her find him.

  She moved carefully around the front of the cabin, then headed back into the shadow trees. A short way into the forest, she turned around and got down on the ground. She was in a perfect position to see the front door, and she was sure she could not be seen herself.

  She hadn’t been there for five minutes when she heard a cracking sound, like two rocks hitting each other. Reflexively, Sarah snapped her head to the left. She squinted through the trees and spotted a sliver of white moving behind them. The cracking sound came again, and Sarah decided she should get a closer look. After all, if it was another sentinel, she wanted to know so she could find a new hiding place.

  She moved through the trees slowly. The cracking sound came more frequently. As she edged closer to the mysterious figure, she saw that it wasn’t a sentinel—it was Jeb. He held a rock high over his head and brought it down on something at his feet. This was the cracking sound. She waited until she saw him lift the rock over his head again, then called out in a loud whisper, “Jeb.”

  Jeb was so startled he nearly dropped the rock on his own head. He whipped around and squinted at the trees. Sarah lifted her hand and stepped out.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Jeb’s face—the half he had, anyway—went limp and he dropped the rock. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Did his plan work already?”

  Sarah took another step forward. “So you can talk?”

  “Of course I can talk,” Jeb said, and turned away, as if suddenly remembering what he looked like. “I�
�m just not the kind of thing you want to look at for too long.”

  “That’s not true,” Sarah said. “Besides, if you don’t let people look at you, how do you expect to look at them?”

  Jeb faced her slowly. “You didn’t answer my question: did his plan work already?”

  “Whose plan?”

  “Balthazat’s. The King of the Cats. That’s what he told you he was, right?”

  Sarah frowned. “Yes,” she said. “Isn’t that what he is?”

  Jeb shook his head. “No. He lied to you.”

  “What?” Sarah said, more confused than ever.

  “Everything he told you was a lie.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure if she should smile or frown. “What do you mean everything he told me was a lie?”

  “Exactly that. For starters, he’s not the King of the Cats.”

  “Then who is he?”

  “The King of Scotopia.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Sarah said. She was starting to get angry. Balthazat had told her the King of Scotopia was bad. “He said nobody knows who the King of Scotopia is.”

  “I know,” Jeb said. “He told me the same thing when I first got here.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?”

  “Because he’s been trying to find a way over for a very long time.”

  “A way over?”

  “To where we come from. I came through just like you did, two years ago. I found a secret passage in my aunt’s house and I went through it. When I got here, I wandered all over until I was caught by a sentinel, who took me to Balthazat. He told me he was the King of the Cats. All the same things he told you. He told me he wanted to come back with me and be my pet. The problem was, I couldn’t remember where I had come through, and no matter how much we looked, we couldn’t find it. Balthazat got very angry with me. He stopped pretending to be a cat and showed me what he really looks like. Then he took half my face and told me that I could have it back if we ever found a way over.”

  Sarah was stunned. “But he said you lost your face in a bet with the blemmyes.”

  “Another lie.”

  “But why would he take your face?”

  “To keep me here. He knows I can’t go back home with only half a face. Nobody would be able to look at me.”

  “Stop saying that. I don’t have a problem looking at you.”

  Jeb smiled slightly. It seemed to Sarah like he hadn’t smiled in a very long time. “Okay, so maybe you’d be nice, but I know the truth about other people. They would laugh at me and send me away to live someplace where no one would have to see me.” He bent over and picked up a glass box at his feet. He held it out to Sarah and she gasped when she saw the missing half of his face inside. “See? This is where he keeps it. In this box. I took it from where he hides it in the cabin. But I can’t get it open, no matter what I do. And I can’t break the glass, either. I’m sure he’s the only one who can open it. Besides, even if I could get it open, I’m not sure I could put my face back on.”

  Sarah frowned. “You said something about Balthazat having some kind of plan.”

  Jeb nodded.

  “A plan for what?”

  “To steal the sleepers and bring their souls back here so that the darkness can never be complete.”

  “Sleepers?”

  Jeb nodded. “People who die aren’t really dead, exactly. Their souls just go to sleep. And at the end of time, the souls of all the people who did bad things and never said they were sorry will come here, to Scotopia, where shadows and darkness come from. The darkness of their souls will make Scotopia completely dark. The souls of all the people who did good things without expecting reward will go to Ormaz, the place where light comes from. In Ormaz, they will shine like bright candles forever. Balthazat knows he can’t tell which sleepers are dark souls and which ones are light, but he figures if he takes a bunch, he ought to end up with a few lights and then it will never be completely dark here.”

  Sarah began to feel sick to her stomach. “What’s the place called? Where the dead go to sleep?”

  “Penumbra,” Jeb said.

  Sarah felt even sicker. “Balthazat told me that Penumbra had nothing to do with that.”

  Jeb laughed bitterly. “Of course he did. I told you: everything he says is a lie.”

  “So Penumbra really is where the dead go to sleep?”

  Jeb nodded grimly. “The house you’re staying in is like a train station, the place where the dead come after they’re dead but before they go to Penumbra.”

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  “My aunt was what is called a record keeper. I think she had plans for me to take over when it was her turn to go to Penumbra. But then I came here and forgot how to get back.”

  “Oh, no,” Sarah said, and started to cry.

  Jeb rushed toward her and put his hands on her shoulders. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Sarah wiped her eyes. “This is what you wanted to tell me yesterday, before we left, isn’t it?”

  Jeb nodded. “Of course I wanted to warn you. But I knew I couldn’t, not if I ever hoped to see my face again or have any chance of getting back home.”

  Sarah wiped the tears from her face. “I had no idea.”

  “But why are you crying?”

  In detail, Sarah explained how Balthazat had talked her into going to Penumbra. How she knew where the door was. How her brother had found a key but she had been sent to her room before they had tried it.

  “Did he have the journal, too?” Jeb asked.

  “What journal?”

  “The record keepers each have a journal. The names of the dead appear in this book when it is their time to go into Penumbra. When the dead arrive at the house, the record keeper checks their name off and then uses the key to open the door to Penumbra. But they must be used together.”

  Sarah blinked and sniffed. “What do you mean?”

  “The key won’t work without the journal and the journal won’t work without the key. I don’t know exactly how or why. But from what I understand, the only way you can see the dead when they arrive is if you’re holding the journal. That’s the only way the key works, too.”

  Sarah stopped crying. Maybe it wasn’t as hopeless as she had thought. “Does Balthazat know any of this?”

  Jeb shrugged. “If he does, he didn’t hear it from me. He kept asking me what I knew about Penumbra, but I always told him I didn’t know anything.”

  Sarah nodded. “Well, good on that,” she said.

  Jeb laughed. “So your brother didn’t have the journal?”

  “Maybe,” Sarah said. She explained how she had found Billy in her room with a big red book in his lap. She suspected that it might be the journal and that that was where he had found the key.

  Jeb nodded. “But if he doesn’t know they need to be used together …”

  “Exactly,” Sarah said. “That means we might still have time to stop him.” Now it was her turn to grab Jeb by the shoulders. “You have to come with me.”

  Jeb pulled away from her and shook his head. “I told you: I can’t. I can’t go back looking like this.”

  “You have to. I can’t do this alone.”

  Thunderous laughter echoed across the clearing, and they both crept to the edge of the forest. The door to the cabin was open and Lefty and the sentinel were standing on the porch.

  “So the sentinels really work for Balthazat?” Sarah whispered.

  Jeb nodded. “That’s right. Until you came through, they were searching for the way over.”

  “What about Lefty?”

  “Him too. I think he was once like me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think he was someone who found a way here and couldn’t show Balthazat the way back, so Balthazat changed him.”

  Sarah shook her head, worried about what Balthazat might do to her if he found out she knew the truth about him.

  “That whole routine where Lefty hid you from the sentinel was ju
st a trick to make you think he saved you from something bad.”

  “You know about that?”

  “I told you: everything he did to you he did to me first.”

  “Except show me what he really looks like,” Sarah said.

  “You can be thankful for that,” Jeb said.

  “I am,” Sarah said. “And I’m thankful I came back here and found you.” She looked in Jeb’s eye. “You’ve saved me, you know. Do you understand?”

  Jeb smiled for the second time and nodded. “Yes.”

  Sarah smiled back. “Good,” she said. “Then you’ll do it? Come with me and help me finish what I’ve started? Help me set things right?”

  Jeb nodded.

  They looked back toward the cabin, where the sentinel and Lefty still stood on the porch.

  “Come on,” she whispered to Jeb, “we better get moving. There’s no telling how long they’ll stay there.” Sarah got up and started back through the forest toward the black mountain.

  Only when they reached the breach did Sarah remember that they couldn’t get up without Lefty’s help. She looked at Jeb.

  “What do we do now?” she said.

  “Here,” Jeb said, locking his fingers together to give her a boost.

  “But then you can’t come with me.”

  “We don’t really have a choice, do we? Now hurry. Before the sentinel or Lefty finds us.”

  Sarah threw her arms around Jeb and hugged him tightly. “I’ll stop Balthazat and I’ll make him give you back your face. I promise.”

  “Hurry up,” Jeb said, and pulled out of Sarah’s hug. She lifted her foot and put it into his hands. He boosted her up high, but her fingers still couldn’t reach the ledge.

  “Not high enough,” she said.

  “Hold on,” he said, and grabbed her legs, pushing them up until he could get one foot in each hand. He pushed her up higher and higher. Her fingers stretched out farther and farther until she finally got hold of the ledge and pulled herself up. She sighed and collapsed onto the ledge, then looked back down into the forest. Her smile disappeared when she saw Lefty and the sentinel coming through the forest toward the mountain.