The Soul Keepers Series, Book 1 Page 2

  “It takes a while to get used to, mate!” Basil called over his shoulder.

  “What does?”

  “Walking. Running. Eating. Anything, really. You’re essentially an apparition now. It’s all sensation and no feeling. Anything you think you feel is just made up in your head.” Basil said all this over his shoulder while dodging the confusion that had overtaken the highway.

  Behind him, Rhett was still trying to match Basil’s pace. They were moving up a short hill now, with the halted traffic beside them and the clear, glimmering night sky above them. Rhett felt like he should be out of breath—and was almost acting the part—but he didn’t feel anything. Basil was right. He expected to feel the walk, the aching muscles, the burning lungs. Even though he was a mostly healthy teenager—or had been—Rhett was sure that by now he’d be running out of juice. And yet … nothing. Not even his bad ankle, which he’d broken in the sixth grade and had always bothered him after long walks through the city, was giving him any trouble. It was a weird sort of miracle.

  Or maybe it was a curse.

  After a while they came to the top of the hill and, finally, to the place where the traffic was thinning out. The honking horns and humming engines faded, replaced by the sound of rustling leaves and chatting night-birds. The highway stretched away from them, slipping into shadows, pointing the way toward the city skyline, which hung like an electric splash on the horizon.

  “Nearly there,” Basil muttered, and continued down the hill.

  They went on for so long that Rhett began to believe they would make it all the way back to New York City before getting to wherever Basil was taking them. But finally, at some seemingly random spot on the side of the highway, Basil turned off and trudged into the smothering darkness of the woods. Rhett stopped and stared after him, listening to the crunch of his feet.

  Basil must have realized that his new travel companion was no longer behind him, because he stopped and turned back.

  “Coming?” he said. His face was only a flicker in all the black.

  Rhett hesitated, but only for a second, before wading down through the detritus of the forest to where Basil stood waiting. He thought to ask questions. He thought to throw Basil into a tree and pummel him with his fists until Basil simply told him what he wanted to know. He thought to run.

  But he didn’t do any of those things.

  The highway quickly vanished behind them, lost for good behind thick trunks and waving branches. Ahead of them there was only more woods … and what else, Rhett had no idea.

  Until he watched Basil step through a curtain of branches into an open area, thick with tall brown grass and dominated by what at first looked like an ancient ruin. In a way, that’s exactly what it was, but Rhett soon realized that it wasn’t as ancient as he’d first thought.

  It was the collapsed shell of an old brick house, thick wooden beams creating an empty box in the middle of the clearing, with puzzle-works of moss-smothered bricks filling in the squares. The only mostly intact part of the house was the northern wall, the one facing Rhett and Basil, and the chimney, sad and crooked and pocked with holes. There was a wooden door in the one good wall, hanging on by only one rusted hinge.

  Rhett was suddenly afraid that he’d made the wrong choice to follow Basil.

  “Ready, mate?” Basil said, dusting off the arms of his blazer as if they were about to make a grand entrance at some party.

  “If I knew what I was supposed to be ready for, I’d tell you,” Rhett responded.

  Basil only grinned, then kicked the old door in.

  It swung away with a brittle crack into strange, murky light. Rhett saw bits of the door fly off and go spinning away. He expected a dusty, must-scented puff of warm air. What he got was a stormy breeze and a spray of brackish water. Behind the door, where more weeds and dirt and fallen bricks should have been, there was instead a craggy stretch of rock ending in a jagged cluster of stones. Beyond that: ocean and sky, gray and churning both, for as far as he could see.

  Rhett opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. Whatever words he might have had to describe what he was seeing, they were lost on him now. His head swam. He looked around at the woods, the trees only standing there, bathing in the moonlight, uninterrupted by the bizarre wonder taking place right in their midst. If there had been any other person here—any other living person—he wondered if they might see the open door, hear the waves smashing hard in a burst of white foam against the rocks, feel the cold mist that came floating through.

  “You’re not crazy, mate,” Basil said. It sounded like he was trying to be comforting, and it was surprisingly effective. “You might feel like you are right now. You just have to give it some time. Are you ready? We have a very small window of opportunity here, and if we don’t make it through in time, we’ll get left behind. I assure you.”

  Back in the direction they had come from, Rhett could hear the far-off wail of sirens again. They were for him, for the body he’d shed and left in a broken heap inside his parents’ mangled car. He stared through the door, at the endless ocean and endless sky that met in a dark line at the horizon. It wasn’t what he’d expected—it was no light at the end of a tunnel—but this was what he’d been waiting for. This was infinity, ready to swallow him.

  “Let’s do it,” he said to Basil.

  “Good deal.” Basil looked pleased. “Now, the first step can be a little disorienting. If you just close your eyes…”

  But Rhett ignored him. He stepped past Basil, through the whispering grass, and then ducked into the doorway.

  The ocean would have taken his breath away, if he’d had any breath to take.

  It stretched out in every direction from the lone patch of rock he was standing on. It roiled and chopped and spat, like an angry animal. The sky was layered with dark, sagging clouds, bubbling and shifting as constantly as the ocean. In the great distance, Rhett saw jagged flickers of lightning.

  He turned around, and there was the rectangular patch of woods, just hanging there, like a badly Photoshopped picture. Basil came through it, stepping onto the rock like a passenger boarding a train. As soon as he was through, the doorway faded, dissolving into specks of dust that crumbled and were carried away by the bitter wind. Now it was just the two of them, alone on a narrow shard of rock in the middle of this vast, unsettled ocean. Even though, according to Basil, he was probably just imagining it, Rhett felt his stomach churn.

  “Did you forget who your tour guide is?” Basil asked, looking a little offended. “What if I was just putting you on about all that boat stuff? Maybe this is actually purgatory and you just willingly leapt into it with utter glee.”

  Rhett had to yell over the crashing waves. “That would have been an awfully elaborate joke.”

  “You severely underestimate my comedic ambitions.”

  “You’re right about one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?” Basil looked almost taken aback.

  “Being stuck on this rock with you forever? That would absolutely be purgatory.”

  For the first time since Rhett had met him, Basil cracked a genuine smile, and Rhett had to smile in response, in spite of the morbid surroundings.

  “Well, lucky for you, the only thing I don’t joke about—much—is my job,” Basil said.

  “Which is…?”

  “In due time, mate. In due time.”

  “So what do we do now?” Rhett felt his impatience biting at him. None of this was what he’d had in mind back there, when he’d opted to leave his parents behind.

  “Now,” Basil said, “we catch our ride.” He nodded over Rhett’s shoulder. Rhett turned, and his heart lurched. It might have been an imagined sensation, but to him it was really his heart. He felt the awe and the panic and the uncertainty and the fascination in that lurch. He wanted to say something, but, again, there was nothing to say.

  It was more than a boat; it was a ship. A massive one. The biggest Rhett had ever seen. Bigger than anything that c
ould have actually been built by human hands. It was all black iron and rivets, with two monstrous smokestacks on top that sent columns of coal-black smoke punching into the sky. It cut through the water, moving with slow, sure progress. It was taller than most of the skyscrapers Rhett had grown up looking at, and it had portholes dotting the sides with sparks of light like stars in the night sky. Metal groaned, engines hummed. It was more like a giant aquatic mammal than a sailing vessel. Rhett could think of only one decent word to describe the ship: otherworldly.

  “Get ready to board,” Basil said.

  “Board?” Rhett tore his eyes away from the ship. “As in get on that thing?”

  “Well I’m not telling you to go beat at it with a two-by-four, am I?”

  Rhett struggled for words. “Where … where is it taking us?”

  “Patience, mate. There are colleagues of mine on board that are probably better equipped to explain all this to you than I am. I’m just here to collect you.”

  The ship was closer, taking up most of the view on that side of the rock. The nearer it got, the more it started to blot out the sky. Rhett was in awe of it, but he was also frightened by it. It was all black, surrounded by a constant dark fog, and, despite the lights on in some of the portholes, there was no sign of any actual life on board.

  There wouldn’t be any of that, anyway. Not here, Rhett thought, once again picturing the death that he’d only just experienced.

  They waited.

  The ship grew, a colossal shard of metal slicing through the water until it was nearly on top of them. Rhett could feel it—a low, steady thrum. The iron moaned as it bent and stretched, sounding more haunted than anything else Rhett had encountered so far.

  The hull was only a few feet away now. Rhett and Basil were deep in its shadow. Above them, the hard black exterior and warbling columns of smoke were like a second sky. Within those columns, Rhett was sure he could see bolts of blue lightning.

  A horn blew then, deep, deafening, so loud that it was almost like being submerged in water, a constant roar that blotted out every other sound. Rhett fought to not cover his ears. Basil already thought he was an idiot. He didn’t need him to think he was pathetic, too.

  The horn cut off, leaving only the comparably quiet sound of the ocean, and the ship stopped moving. It floated there, looming over them, a monument to darkness.

  “What now?” Rhett asked, unable to stop himself.

  But before Basil could respond, a door on the side of the ship opened with an iron screech. It swung outward. Behind it, there was a square of light that was nearly blinding against the obscurity of the ship. But Rhett could make out a metal ramp extending out of the doorway like a rusty tongue.

  The ramp crunched into the rock at Rhett’s feet, an invitation—or maybe a lure. He looked to Basil for guidance, raising his eyebrows. Basil just stepped onto the ramp, hands clutched behind his back, and began closing the gap between himself and the ship.

  “Coming, mate?” he called over his shoulder, just as he had back in the woods.

  Rhett glanced around. If he didn’t get on board, the only other option would be to hang around on this damned rock for the rest of eternity. Or go for a swim …

  He stepped onto the ramp. It only took fifteen steps to get to the ship.

  And to his new life after death.

  THREE

  The light swallowed him up, and so did the ship.

  Rhett waited for his eyes to adjust, but they didn’t need to. They didn’t burn or water from the brightness. He could see just fine. Nevertheless, the light was so intense that it hammered into his retinas, shining off the white metal of the walls. If he had been alive, he might have been blinded.

  He stepped farther in, following the foggy shape of Basil’s shoulders into the brilliance. Their feet clanged on the floor. Rhett felt himself reaching out in front of him, prepared to slam into some oncoming mass.

  Then he did run into something: Basil.

  “Oy! Watch where you’re going,” Basil hissed. Rhett took a step back. He heard an iron screech and Basil’s voice again. “Through here.”

  And all at once the light was gone, replaced by an unsettled orange glow that was constantly wrestling with the shadows. Firelight.

  Rhett shifted on his feet and heard the creak of wood beneath him. Whatever metal hallway they’d gone through to get inside the ship was gone. They were now standing in a large, open cavity. There were splintered wood floors and wooden railings that went all the way around the periphery. The most curious thing was in the middle, jutting up out of the floor and connecting with the ceiling, almost like a support. It was a ship’s mast, complete with the worn-out, weather-beaten sail. Up at the top, where the mast met the ceiling, Rhett could see the crow’s nest, a rickety basket that leaned precariously to one side.

  Rhett didn’t quite know what to make of it. And in the gloom of the torches that were leaning away from the outer walls, it was hard to say that he was still on the same boat. Had Basil performed another one of his party tricks and sent them somewhere else? To another point in time altogether? Was that even possible?

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about how any of this worked. Was this hell? Was this some kind of punishment?

  All at once, Rhett wanted to weep. But when he imagined the pressure behind his eyes, imagined the tears falling down his face, it was only an image that floated up in his mind. His body stayed calm and still and … lifeless. There was no sweat on his hands, no tremble in his fingers. His body betrayed nothing of the chaos that was erupting in his head.

  Desperately, he looked to Basil, who had given him that tiny bit of comfort back in the woods. But Basil was smiling, watching Rhett and allowing that internal panic to play out.

  Basil said one thing, leaning in with his arms folded: “Welcome aboard the Harbinger.”

  * * *

  For a while they passed through halls made of gray, rotted wood, freckled with barnacles, and swollen with moisture. As the ship leaned and swayed with the waves, the wood groaned and cackled in response.

  Then they stepped out of the smoke and mildew into a long passage of metal bulkheads that were lit by sickly yellow bulbs. The passage was narrow, suffocating. Rhett had always had a touch of claustrophobia and could feel it raging around inside his mind now. But, again, his body was quiet—no hyperventilating, no damp forehead. Somewhere within him, a connection had been broken.

  At the end of the passage, Basil spun the handle on a door and pushed it open. Beyond it, there was a massive ballroom with thick, polished wood columns and a wide staircase leading up to some other part of the ship. The floor was some elegant, decorative carpet, covered in flowers and swirls of gold fabric. Above it all was an enormous, twinkling crystal chandelier, wide at the top and tapering to a point. Here. You are supposed to be here, the chandelier seemed to say. This is the dazzling landscape of your dreams.

  Yeah, right, Rhett thought, and for one horrible second, he believed that he wasn’t dead after all. Maybe he was just unconscious, lying on some gurney back in New York, wandering around the bizarre confines of his psyche—not the landscape of his dreams, but of his nightmares.

  Basil caught him gaping at the chandelier.

  “Magnificent, isn’t it?” he said.

  Rhett looked back through the bulkhead door, at that long yellow tunnel. “I just … I just don’t understand. What is this? What’s happening?”

  “Nothing’s happening, mate. It’s just the ship. The Harbinger, at some point well before either of us was even a speck on the genetic radar, was just a lowly rowboat. Now it’s … all this.”

  Rhett blinked at him, and Basil laughed.

  “It’s true! The rowboat is still here. Somewhere. I’m sure the captain will show it to you sometime. He showed me, but hell if I can remember how to get to it. Anyway … over the centuries—the eons, I should say—the Harbinger has … well, grown.” He sighed, admiring the chandelier. “I suppose I’ve said
too much, though. On our way.”

  And with that, Basil took to the stairs, ascending them with his strange grace to the point that he appeared to be floating rather than walking.

  Rhett shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, trying to elicit some kind of response in his body to the fretful storm going on in his mind.

  But he got nothing.

  Basil disappeared up the staircase, beyond the glimmer of the chandelier. With no other options, Rhett followed him.

  * * *

  The stairs wound their way up through the ship, changing their appearance seemingly at random as they went. One moment they were the same polished wood and carpet as the room with the chandelier. At another, they were solid steel with diamond grooves and flaking paint. Then they were made of gray and decaying wood, like the room with the mast in it. Finally, they were made of metal-lined glass, beneath which was the wavering, ethereal glow of water—some kind of tank or aquarium, although Rhett couldn’t see any fish.

  He expected to be tired after all those stairs. But of course, when he finally caught up with Basil at the top, his lungs continued to take in air normally, the thing that might have been his heart pumped obliviously along, and his legs—his bad ankle—never made a peep. In a weird way, Rhett wondered if this was how it felt to be Superman—ignorant of pain and yet somehow longing for it.

  Basil was waiting for him, hands in his pants pockets, leaning back on his heels. He was whistling some old-timey bandstand song.

  “Take you long enough?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Sorry … I…” Rhett hardened his gaze and swallowed whatever the rest of that statement was going to be. He was done apologizing. Why should he have to be sorry for being freaked out?