While You Were Gone (10 page)

Wednesday before civics class, I take a break and sit outside under a eucalyptus tree on the lawn next to my dorm, McConnell Hall. The day looks colder than it actually is. From my bag I pull an apple and Warren's super secret spy note. It's become a welcome distraction from everything going on.

The last one he gave me was way easier: a backward number 1, a square, and a backward 2.
Back to square one.
This puzzle, though, has me stumped.

I take a bite of apple and read through it again.

I look out across the lawn, watch a grackle hop by and read it again. Maybe if I let my eyes go unfocused, it'll pop out at me? No. I take another bite of apple and think about
Confidante
instead.

Ever since Dad mentioned putting it back together, my brain's been noodling around with an idea. Even if I could glue it back together with resin or PVA, the pieces are damaged beyond restoration. But what if I do something different? Stitch them together, maybe, or wire them into place. It wouldn't be anything I could submit to the jury, but it might be cool to have for my own collection.

The bell rings and students stream out onto the sidewalks. Time to get to class. I take a last bite and look down at the note.

Something clicks.

The second letter-number combination is a word.

Castle.

The numbers are letters.

Mystery. Castle.

What's a mystery castle? And why is Warren telling me about it in code?

The silence of the library feels louder than the racket of the school hallways. Civics is happening in a lecture hall on the other side of the building, but I decided to come here instead. The note is now burning a hole in my pocket. I'll worry about what I missed in class later. I walk down the carpeted steps into the cocoon of velvet and mahogany and move through the towering shelves of books toward the information desk. The librarian looks at me over her readers. “May I help you?”

I keep my voice low. “This is a strange question, but have you ever heard of something called a mystery castle?”

“Is it in Phoenix?”

“I don't know.”

“Have you searched online?”

“No.” Too risky. But not if she does the searching for me.

“Let me run a keyword search through our collections first.”

“Thanks.”

She types on her keyboard, hits
ENTER
and scans the screen. “Here we are.” In perfect script, she writes the location of the book on a slip of paper. “If this doesn't turn out to be what you're looking for, let me know.” She slides the paper across the desk.

“Thank you.” I read the notation. Another code to decipher:
979.1 TIMESPA—Adult—Book.

“The history section begins four stacks to your right. Toward the end.”

I thank her again and walk through the shelves, reading titles and reference numbers as I go. Now and then I step over a student sitting on the floor, engrossed in reading. Finally, I see the 900 section. I trace the reference numbers on the spines, then crouch to the lowest shelf and find it.
A History of Architecture in Arizona.
I set my bag on the floor and sit down.

The book is old. The pages are yellowed and have that stale smell of time and too many fingers turning them. The table of contents reveals nothing, so I go to the index and search through the
C
s.
Carnival. Cars. Castle.

Castle, Mystery, 81.

I flip to the page and read.

In the '40s, a man moved to Phoenix because of health problems. He had a lung disease that would be helped by the salt air. He didn't have enough money to move his family, so he came here alone. Every day he missed them, especially his daughter. With what money he had, he bought some land at the foot of South Mountain and built his daughter a castle out of rocks, bottles, scraps of anything he could find. One day she'd come to live with him, and when she did, she would live in a castle. He died, though, before he ever saw that day come.

Sepia-toned photos show the odd formations of the building. Pillars of rock, windows of multicolored bits of glass. What a strange place.

I pull the note out and read it again.
Mystery castle.
If the
3
s are
E
s, then
w3d
means
wed. Wednesday.

That's today.

If
5
s are
S
s, then maybe
2
s are
Z
s. So 2ı30 means…zieo? That can't be right. Maybe they're just numbers. An address? No. A time. Military time: 2ı30 is 9:30 p.m.

Mystery Castle Wed 9:30 p.m.

This isn't a puzzle. It's a coded invitation. But why?

Because it's a secret.

I quickly fold the note and look over my shoulder, but there are only books staring back. I bury the paper deep inside my bag and return the book to its place on the shelf. If I check it out, my name will be associated with it. It's a long shot that anyone would make the connection, but why take the risk?

“Was the book helpful?” The librarian's question startles me when I pass her desk.

“Um”—I make a sad face—“no, it wasn't quite what I was looking for.”

“Do you want to try online?” She points at her computer.

“No.” I back away. “That's okay. It doesn't really matter.”

“Watch out for the—”

I bump into a cart and yelp so loud everyone stares at me. I straighten the toppled books and whisper, “Sorry,” before rushing for the doors. So much for not drawing attention to myself.

After school, Germ comes over to work on the secret plan to make our mark on the city before Skylar goes live. Too stuffed from dinner to move, I lie on the bed and flip through the drawings in Danny's sketchbook. Germ sprawls out on the floor, pencil in his teeth, staring at the ceiling. His eyes move when he thinks. “The thing is, we have to make sure no one recognizes our work. I mean, you're known for your faces. I'm known for my letters.”

“You are?”

He lifts his head off the floor and snaps, “Yes.”

Oops. “Just messing with you, man.”

The sketchbook is full of people, animals, monsters. I turn a page and suck in my breath. It's
her.
Dark hair, bright eyes. My throat goes tight. Should I ask Germ who she is?

He mutters something I can't understand.

“What?”

He takes the pencil out of his teeth. “Stencils.” He sits up on his elbows. “What if we do stencils? Not as fun as free-form, but we can paint it quickly and no one will know it's us.”

“I don't remember the last time I used a stencil,” I say, still staring at her.

“Dude, we used them last week at the mall.” He raises his eyebrow. “Still can't remember?”

I shake my head.

He taps a rhythm on the floor and stares at me. Then he looks back at the ceiling. “The hard part is deciding what to make.”

“Well…” I set the sketchbook aside and stretch my legs up the wall so my head falls back over the edge of the bed. “What do we want to say?”

He drums the pencil. “That Skylar is bad.”

“ ‘Skylar is the devil'?”

“A devil face with
Skylar
over the eyes?”

“A red circle with
Skylar
crossed out?”

We both go quiet. What
are
we trying to say? I try to think up the right image. My mind flashes to the time Brent caught me sneaking into the foster home after being out all night. He was waiting for me in my room. Leapt out of the dark and pounded the crap out of me. “This is about control,” I say, still seeing his fists flying. “When you're afraid, you're easily controlled.”

“Maybe something like ‘Don't be afraid'?”

“ ‘Don't let them control you'?”

“ ‘Stop giving them control'?”

“How about ‘Fear equals control'?”

“That's good.” He turns to a blank page in his notebook and starts sketching. “
Equals
like an equal sign?”

“Yeah. Don't you think?”

He nods. I watch his pencil pull lines across the paper. Each one is exact, fitting with the next. He really is good.

In no time flat, he's done. “Something like this?”

The word
fear
is shaky, like the letters are scared. Two thick parallel lines make the equal sign. And the word
control
is heavy and solid, with cracks breaking the invisible ground beneath it.

“Dude.” I sit up and my head spins. “That is awesome.”

He sets the paper down. “What if we get caught?”

“But we've done this with RD.” I tread carefully. “Right?”

“This feels different.” He grasps his elbows around his knees. “They always had our back, you know? With this, we'll be on our own.”

“They didn't on Friday when we almost got blown up.”

“Good point.” He shakes his head. “Listen, we can't do this anywhere near my dad's beat, deal?”

“Your dad is a cop?!” It's out of my mouth before I realize what I've done.

Germ's face changes from confusion to anger. He stands up and throws the pencil to the floor. “That's it. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” I try to shrug it off.

“Huh-uh. Something's not right. Start talking.”

My mind scrambles to come up with an excuse, but when you're best friends with someone the way Danny is best friends with Germ, you know things like the fact that his dad is a cop. I run my hand over my too-short hair and stare at the
FEAR
=
CONTROL
sign.

I have to tell him.

“I'm not Danny,” I say, avoiding his eyes. “I look like him, but I'm not. I mean, I am, but not the Danny you know. Something happened and I jumped here from another world. Like this one, only not.”

I sound like a crazy person.

He stares at me for a long time, then smirks. “This is a joke, right?”

I shake my head.

“Come on, man,” he says. “It isn't even a good one. At least say you're an alien body snatcher or something.”

I just look at him until he scoffs again. “So next you're gonna tell me the Danny I know is…where? Sucked into a black hole?”

“Maybe?”

He holds up his hands. “Okay, enough. I get it. Ha ha.”

“I'm not joking.” Even though Germ is freaking out, it actually feels good telling someone.

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“I don't know.” He crosses his arms. “Tell me about where you're from. Tell me who I am there.”

I swallow. “We aren't friends…where I'm from.”

“What?!” His mouth hangs open.

“It's totally different there. My, um…” I stare at the floor. The good feeling I had is gone, replaced by a mix of panic and grief. “My parents died when I was eleven. I live in a foster home with four other kids. The youngest is Benny. He's five. The place is a shithole. Brent's always drunk. Suzy does what she can to keep him off us, but he's mean. The truth is, I don't really have any friends there. Not like…this.”

When I look at Germ again, he's backed up almost to the door. “And this is why you don't remember stuff?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty lost. I don't get half the things you talk about.” I shrug. “It wasn't me who experienced them. Listen, I'll totally understand if you leave,” I lie.

Neither of us moves. Silence swallows the room.

After what feels like forever, he says, “Well, you're doing a good job impersonating him. Almost.” He takes a step forward. “I can catch you up on what you should know.” He picks up the notebook. “But one thing you gotta work on is your confidence. Nothing rattles Danny.” He sits again in the same spot on the floor. “And don't even ask me to help with that, because I sure as hell don't know how.”

I sit on the edge of the bed. “Confidence. Okay. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Germ says, picking up the pencil. “Lighten up. I know the world's gone to crap, but we still gotta have a good time.”

We work into the night coming up with ideas and turning them into stencils. Empty chip bags and soda cans litter the floor. Germ sits surrounded by scraps cut from the poster board we found in Mom's craft supplies. I practice drawing letters in a notebook. Now that he knows my secret, there's no pressure to pretend I'm good at this. But I'm surprised—we both are, really—that I'm actually not bad. Kind of like the welding. Germ thinks it's muscle memory.

“No
ocean
?” He uses the X-acto to slice along the lines of an eye. “I can't even wrap my brain around that. So you can drive straight to California?”

“I haven't, but yeah. Arizona ends and California begins.”

“Is California the same? I mean, the cities and stuff?”

I shrug. “No idea. Never been there. Mine or yours.”

“You should go sometime. It's cool. Danny's been there a bunch of times with his dad.” He looks up at me. “I mean your dad.” He shakes his head again and looks down at his work. “Are you going to tell them?”

“My parents? I don't know what to say.”

“How about what you said to me?” He pops a letter out of the poster board.

“Yeah, and you just about walked out.”

“But I didn't. And they're your parents. They can handle it.”

“I'll think about it.” I set down my pencil and shake out my hand. “What changed your mind about leaving?”

He doesn't answer right away. Finally, he says, “All that stuff you said about your life there? If he's living in that—the Danny I know—what kind of asshole would I be to give up on him here?” He looks up. “And if he comes back, I don't want him to think I abandoned him, you know?”

I nod. There's nothing more to say.

Germ changes the subject. “So how do you think it happened? The jumping.”

“No idea.” I pick up the pencil again and sketch a face, the mouth open and screaming.

“Maybe it was a time tunnel.” Germ shifts the angle of his poster and leans over it.

“What's a time tunnel?”

“I don't know, but it sounds cool. You said it was like a tunnel, right?”

“Yeah.” I open my mouth like I'm screaming and realize the eyes in my sketch should be closed. “But it wasn't really solid. More like just swirling.”

“Like clouds?”

“Kinda. It was dark, with different shades of black.”

Germ looks at me through a hole he cut. “It's like something from a science fiction movie.
Danny and the Time Tunnel of Zangarthum.
”

I laugh, brushing eraser crumbs away. “Zangar—what?”

“I don't know. It sounded better than Phoenix.” He goes back to cutting.
“Danny and the Time Vortex of Doom.”

“Doom?”

“Always sounds better if there's doom.”

I hold up the notebook for him to see.

“Looks good.” Germ pops another hole out of the stencil.

I set the notebook down. “Thing is, it's not really like time travel, is it? The dates are the same. Left there on Friday, got here on Friday. It's like I just…switched Phoenixes.”

“Well, that's gonna sound really lame as a movie title.
Danny: The Guy Who Switched Phoenixes. Danny and the Phoenix Switch of Doom.
”

“Sure is a lot of doom.”

“Doom sells, man. You want people to see your movie? You gotta use the word
doom.
” He holds up the finished stencil. “Speaking of, we should probably get going.”