The Owl Keeper (9 page)

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"Does the bus take you to school?"

"I don't take any bus. My dad teaches me everything I need to know."

"Then you have lessons at home, like me?" Max persisted, wishing she would tell him more about herself.

"Something like that." Rose gave an irritable sigh. "Can we cut the small talk? I have to concentrate on not getting lost."

Max went quiet. He supposed Rose had a point: after all, they were on an important mission and needed to pay attention.

They headed up Blackbone Street, past boarded storefronts and sandwich eateries, bookshops with smashed windows, abandoned shopping arcades, a theater with closed for the season scrawled across the double doors. Max was astounded to see how neglected and run-down everything was. He had no idea that the town had fallen into such a state of decay.

"I hope nobody's watching," he said, looking around at the shuttered windows and closed doors.

"Don't be such a worrywart!" Rose snapped. "Everybody's asleep, even the guard dogs! Besides, nobody can see us. We're as good as invisible."

Rose was right, he thought; the mist and darkness were like a cloak thrown over them. Anyone looking out of a window would see shadows and nothing more.

government supplies, Max read on a shop door. ezra dear's junk shop, said another sign. Carved over a marble entryway were the words bank of the high echelon, ltd.-- est. 2066, and on a cement wall someone had spray-painted death to silver owls! The slogan made Max's blood run cold.

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A banner hung from the pillars of the library, bold letters proclaiming: citizens' dome construction scheme (cdcs): your beneficent government, working for the people, and in smaller letters: this building houses dome construction materials. looters will be prosecuted.

What a terrible loss, thought Max, reflecting how in Gran's time the libraries had been filled to overflowing with books of every size, shape and topic. It was devastating to think they had all been confiscated and burned.

Rose paused beneath a tattered awning, ceremoniously unfolding a scrap of paper. "My dad drew this." She pulled a mini-flashlight from her pocket. "We're here. See?" She waved the tiny beam over a map. "We keep going till we reach Rye Corner, then we turn left onto Gravesend Road. That'll take us all the way to Cavernstone Hall."

Max studied the lines and symbols, sketched with painstaking care. "Your dad's a good artist," he commented. He wondered if spies had to take courses in map drawing.

"That's just one of his many talents."

Max frowned. "I think you have a problem."

Rose clicked off the light. "What do you mean?"

"I know you stole Mrs. Crumlin's boots. And that map--I bet your dad doesn't know you took it. I bet he doesn't even know you're here." The words spilled out before he could stop them. "You've got sticky fingers, Artemis Rose Eccles. You could get arrested for stealing those boots!"

"My dad knows exactly where I am!" Rose shot back. "Anyway, what about
you,
mister goody-goody? You stole your mother's

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smart card right out of her handbag!" She jammed the map into her pocket. "Quite a feat, owl boy." Her tone was cruel and mocking. "You could end up in Children's Prison, you know."

Max's mouth fell open. The prospect of jail had never crossed his mind.

They marched along in silence, following the road out of town. Max remembered stopping by a farm here with his mother years ago to buy eggs and pepper plants and a loaf of spelt bread. Then the memory melted away.

Rye Corner was a muddy crossroads marked by a wooden sign leaning to one side. As they turned onto Gravesend Road, Max gazed at the empty paint-peeling farmhouses spaced far apart, the derelict barn painted with a cough-drop advertisement, its words too faded to read. Warning signs were posted on barbed wire fences around the abandoned farms: keep out! they read. trespassers will be shot.

Waves of despair rolled over him. He hadn't expected any of this: not the caved-in barns or crumbling fences, not the rotting wheat in the unplowed fields. It was as if the life had been punched right out of this place.

"I guess the tremors hit the farms really hard," said Rose. "Looks like everybody gave up and left."

Max felt a lump at the back of his throat. He'd known food was manufactured down south at the landholders' factories, but no one had told him that they no longer farmed here. Why hadn't he known that everything had fallen apart, that all the farmers had given up and moved away?

"Look," said Rose, pointing to a billboard the size of a barn.

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coming soon: your very own solar-powered domed city, read the sign. bid farewell to rain and snow, say so long to nighttime jitters! artificial light twenty-four hours a day. perfect weather for a perfect world. citizens' dome construction scheme (cdcs). planning the future with your needs in mind.

She turned to Max. "Once that ugly plastic bubble goes up, this place will be a ghost town."

"Take a look around," he said grimly. "It already is."

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CHAPTER TEN

[Image: Rose.]

Max stepped up to the wrought iron gate with cavernstone hall spelled out in iron script across the top. The gate was attached to a high brick wall that enclosed the entire property. Gripping the metal bars, he peered through. His first impression was a disappointing one. The building was nowhere near as grand as the framed watercolor sketch that hung in the dining room at home.

Cavernstone Hall crouched on a low moraine, a gloomy hulk of a house with pointed roofs, arched windows and leaning chimneys, constructed of somber gray stone. Around it bleak trees twisted in the wind, scattering leaves across the steep lawns.

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Max was aware of its history. Once the family estate of Ezekiel H. Cavernstone, founder of Cavernstone Grey, the building had fallen into disrepair. It was auctioned off and purchased by monks, who turned it into an orphanage. According to Gran, when the High Echelon took it over, officials imprisoned the monks and put the orphans to work, turning the mansion into a government-run factory.

"Where are the Dark Brigadiers?" he asked. "It looks awfully quiet."

"Not to worry. My dad says the guards change over every hour." Rose held up a luminous watch with suns and moons and extra dials. "Ten minutes to go."

"I like your watch. Is that your dad's too?"

"He won't miss it," she called back as she plunged into the sea of ferns and cattails growing along the wall.

Max floundered after her, thorns scratching his face and wrists, branches clawing at his sleeves.

"Slow down!" he yelled. Mrs. Crumlin would blow a gasket if he tore his jacket.

"Quiet!" ordered Rose. "The wolves might hear."

"Wolves?" croaked Max, as a branch whipped across his face. He pushed it aside, his cheek smarting. "That's a joke, right?"

Rose gave him a drop-dead look. "Plague wolves guard all the government's properties. I can't believe you didn't know that."

"But wolves are extinct! It says so in the textbooks."

"Yeah, well, the textbooks say lots of things." She threw him a sardonic smile. "The government injects black wolves with a

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deadly virus, see, and they carry plague germs from the olden days! If a plague wolf bites you, count on dying instantly."

Max slumped against the bricks, breathing hard, trying to make sense of what Rose was saying. Why would the government allow infected wolves to patrol their properties? It had to be a scare tactic, he decided, a rumor designed to frighten people off.

The rain drizzled harder, drenching his woolen cap and soaking his hair. He felt miserable. "If plague wolves existed, Mrs. Crumlin would have told me. She'd want me to know something like that." He knew that was true--Mrs. Crumlin wouldn't keep him in the dark--but still he worried just a little.

"Crumlin tells you zilch!" hissed Rose. "Trust me, Max, plague wolves are real. They're totally crazed, too. The High Echelon starves them so they're ready to attack at a moment's notice."

Max stared at her, not knowing what to believe. Standing in the rain, cobwebby hair dripping, she seemed more like a disembodied spirit than a human being. What if he had imagined Rose after all?

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," he said, thinking of the numerous flaws in their plan. He'd far rather be in bed reading
Owls of the Wild,
or sitting on a branch next to his silver owl. "Let's come back some other time."

Rose glared at him. "Cut the whining."

Max sighed. Rose was real, all right. He could never have imagined anyone as bossy as her.

As they edged along the wall, he listened for wolves, but the only sound he could hear was the wind, roaring down from the

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north. Rose brushed her hand along the bricks, tapping each one. At last she stopped, tapping harder, prying a brick loose. More tumbled out around it and a gap appeared.

She wriggled through the gap, moving fast and expertly, not making a sound, the way Max imagined a spy would do. He followed, whacking his forehead and scraping his knee on the bricks. Because of his thick jacket and layers of flannel shirts and sweaters, it was a tight squeeze. Finally, huffing and puffing, he made it through.

On the other side Rose slouched against the wall, staring through the trees at Cavernstone Hall. Max put his hand to his forehead, feeling a bump start to rise. Whatever had possessed him to come here? Why had he let Rose talk him into it?

He followed her gaze, beyond Cavernstone Hall to a black shape on a hill, its jagged outline spiking into the sky. The Ruins! And, to his surprise, there were lights glimmering in the windows.

"Still think they're empty as eggshells?" Rose jabbed him with her skinny elbow. "No time to gawk, owl boy, we're on a mission. When the guard leaves, we'll run up the hill and around the back."

Max clutched his stomach, feeling nauseated. "Stay close to the trees so the wolves don't see you," she added. "Lucky for us, they've got lousy night vision."

To calm himself Max pretended this was all a board game and he was a game piece, skulking from tree to tree. If Jackson Branwell Eccles's watch was correct, the changing of the guard

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was taking place this very minute at the factory's main entrance. This was their big chance to sneak into Cavernstone Hall.

Safely through the trees, they slipped around the back of the building, where a flight of steps led to a columned veranda. Max followed Rose up to a polished door with a window shaped like a sun. Through the frosted glass a dim light filtered in.

She nudged him. "The card, Max." Her eyes were bright with excitement.

Max dug into his pocket. The inside of his mouth felt dry and cottony. His mother's smart card was a key: contained within it were tiny computers that could open doors, scan identities, decipher coded messages. He knew that any unauthorized user would end up in deep trouble. But if he turned back now, Rose would never forgive him.

"Swipe it," she ordered, hopping from one foot to the other. "Hurry!"

Hand trembling, he ran the card through the machine. A green light blinked on and off, and the door swung open. Max peered into a cavernous hallway.

Rose pushed him aside, nearly knocking him over, and stormed into the building. Nerves wired, muscles taut, Max took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The air smelled bitter and he recognized the familiar scent of chocolate. A marbled hallway came rushing at him. Chandeliers glittered dimly overhead. The walls were papered in manic, swirling yellow suns that indicated this was a government-run business. A murky red carpet ran the length of the floor.

"Max! Come on!" Rose called.

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He caught sight of her running toward a curved staircase. What was she so charged up about? he wondered, loping behind her, taking two steps at a time. The point of this reckless adventure was that he'd show Rose just how brave he was. Or did she have other reasons for coming here--reasons she wasn't telling him?

He stopped on the landing to catch his breath. Through a window of rippled glass he saw rain sweeping past The Ruins. Were those flare lamps inside, wavering off and on, or reflections of the lights at Cavernstone Hall? It was impossible to tell.

Hands on hips, Rose waited at the top of the stairs, tapping her foot impatiently. "The idea, Max," she said, "is to keep moving." She pointed to a red door embossed with the official logo, a yellow sun. "Let's go in here first."

Max stared at the skull and crossbones painted beneath the sun and felt his guts shrivel. A sign above the door warned no entry and depicted a snarling black wolf.

Max was stunned. What if Rose was telling the truth and the government really used plague wolves to attack intruders?

"Skull and bones means only one thing," said Rose, oblivious to the wolf warning. "Poison. That card of yours opens all the doors here, right? Hand it over, Max."

"Are you crazy?" said Max, recoiling in fear. "Look at the picture on the door! What if there are wolves in there?"

"We see a wolf, we run." She snatched the card from his hand and swiped it with a flick of the wrist. "Fast." The door jolted open.

With mounting horror Max watched Rose enter a vast room