THE KEEP OF AGES
THAT NIGHT, when it grows dark, Linus, Burnham, and I head back through the contamination zone to Grisly Valley. I’ve borrowed dark pants, a shirt, and some black ballet flats from Lavinia, the most suitable things she could offer me, and the guys are dressed in their darkest clothes.
We park the blue van in the forest as close as we can to the northwest edge of the theme park, and once we crawl through the outer fence that surrounds the property, we walk along the service road toward the main delivery entrance. The sky’s partly cloudy, but enough moonlight reaches the ground so we don’t trip. Burnham has rigged a recyclable cell phone onto a visor hat for me so the lens points ahead, and I have an earphone attached. Through my phone, Lavinia and Dubbs can follow our progress remotely, provided reception isn’t too sketchy, and they can fill us in on any movement by the cameras at the Grim Reaper and the Scylla statues. I picture them together on the bed, where we left them, with the phone on speaker between them.
A bug buzzes up in my face, and I swat it away. Then I glance to my left to see how Burnham’s keeping up. His knee brace allows for a range of movement, but he still has a limp.
“I’m fine,” he says. “You don’t have to keep checking up on me.”
“I can’t see anything,” Dubbs complains in my ear.
“That’s because it’s dark,” I say.
Near the loading docks, a security light high above illuminates the road and the steps. We keep to the shadows and take the steps up to the nearest deserted platform. The first big, garage-style door is unbudgeable, and so are the others. From the rust, I’d guess they haven’t been opened in decades.
“This way?” Linus asks, pointing right.
I nod. We circle to the west, following the wall on the outer edge of the Backwoods Forest, until we find a place where an old picnic table has been upturned against the wall to create a crude ladder. Other trespassers have clearly come in this way before.
“Last chance for second thoughts,” I say.
Linus shakes his head in a brief negative.
“I’ll go first,” Burnham says, and starts climbing.
It’s actually reassuring to watch him. His arms are strong, even though his left wrist is locked bent, and he swings his leg in the brace so it doesn’t catch on the angled table legs. He gets a grip on the top of the wall and, with the rough noise of fabric rubbing stone, heaves himself up. The next moment, he disappears.
“After you,” Linus says.
I follow Burnham, climbing carefully up the table and pressing gingerly against the wall until I can get a good grip on the top. Then I pull myself over and find Burnham looking up at me from the other side. An old ice cream cart stands below me, and I wiggle down to it, and then to the ground. I brush my hands off as Linus comes after, landing lightly on his feet.
It takes me a sec to get my bearings in the darkness. The sound of crickets comes close, real ones this time. The Keep of Ages is barely visible through the trees, toward the center of the park. A security light to our left is too far away to cast light here, under the trees of the Backwoods Forest, but moonlight catches on bits of white litter, and I can just make out the overgrown, cobblestoned path.
“Do you think Berg could be here already?” Burnham asks.
“It’s possible. Keep an eye out. We need to find my parents first,” I say.
“Flashlights?” Burnham asks.
“No. This way,” Linus says. “To the left. The gift shop should be over here.”
The path is uneven beneath my shoes, so I tread carefully. I thought the park would feel echoey and barren like it did the first time I came, but here the woods feel more alive, with branches reaching for my hair and shadows that don’t add up. It feels like we’ve dropped into a misguided game of hide-and-seek or capture the flag. The trees pulse with a faint energy, and a soft rustle in the leaves overhead sounds like breathing. Then I hear a deep, quiet hum.
“Do you hear that?” I ask.
Linus and Burnham pause to look toward me.
“Hear what?” Linus says. “The crickets?”
“I thought it was an engine,” I say softly.
They look around, alert.
“I don’t hear anything,” Burnham says.
But now I’m feeling something as well, a vibration below the frequency of audible sound, like a bass note from an invisible orchestra. It registers in my lungs, and with a slow turning, Arself shifts on again in the back of my mind.
We’re here, she says, sounding pleased and curious.
Where’ve you been? I ask. The hum and the vibration are gone again.
Recharging. We were tired, too. This body has a limited supply of energy. What did we miss?
I tried to ask you before if you know any way down to the vault of dreamers. An elevator or stairs or anything.
No, she says. No cameras go below Negative One.
We’re here to find my parents, I tell her.
So we see.
She sorts herself through my mind again. I’m almost getting used to the sensation now. There’s no point trying to hide anything from her.
Can you help me? I ask.
A flicker of a yellow 3-D grid passes over my eyes and then vanishes.
If you get us to the keep, we might be able to learn something.
That’s second on our list. We want to check the gift shop first. It’s close by.
We know where it is, Arself says.
I consider telling the guys that Arself is back, but Linus is already moving ahead, aiming toward the gift shop, and I don’t want to slow us down. Burnham is making good time beside me, though I can hear him panting a little with effort.
A few paces farther on, we come to an opening in the forest and a low, octagonal building stands at an intersection of paths, apart from a short row of other shops. The trim is drab and paint-chipped, and the striped awnings over the windows sag where they’re ripped.
I’m trying to locate the door when Arself lifts my left hand in a slow wave before my face. I come to a stop, surprised. In the wake of my moving hand, another layer of images slowly blossoms before my eyes. The gift shop shimmers into focus with bright red-and-white paint and crisp black-and-white awnings. A row of tiny white lights appears around the borders of the windows, outlining them cheerfully, and glimpses of souvenirs are visible inside. The effect is charming, but its fragile transparency convinces me it isn’t true.
Is this what it was like? I ask.