Read The Keepers for Free Online

podium, lettinghis fear seep slowly out through the cold stone floor beneath him. He’d escaped from the thin man—twice!—to get here, and for what? He was safe, but the place was abandoned. No one knew what had just happened. He still had no answers.
    After a long, miserable time, Horace got to his feet. He might as well do what he could on his own. There was something here in this place, something he had to know. He could feel it. But the place was so huge, so overwhelmingly full. He had no idea where to begin.
    He lifted the sturdy white quill and dipped it in the ink, unsure what else to do. He started to fill in his name, address, and age, as he had done yesterday, his words once again a beautiful deep blue. He paused briefly to think about the final two columns, and then wrote:

    Horace wandered away from the podium, determined to wait. He wasn’t about to risk leaving anyway, not with the thin man outside. He examined the bins he’d glimpsed yesterday. But the bins had been rearranged. Many of them were new.
    Odd-Shaped
    Ship-Shaped
    Shape-Shaped
    Implausible
    Palpable
    Often Lost
    Never Found
    Tourmindae
    That last one was extra mysterious. Horace was just about to reach out for it when, once again, a strange voice—a man’s voice this time—stopped him short: “One moment, if you will.”
    Horace spun around, almost stumbling against some shelves. An old man stood beside the podium, gazing pleasantly at Horace—or at least, his gaze seemed pleasant. It was hard to tell. He wore thick glasses with perfectly round lenses, which made his gray eyes appear unnaturally large—especially on the left side, where his eye was magnified to the size of a golf ball. He wore a long red vest covered in pockets—dozens of them, scores of them, all shapes and sizes. The vest, in fact, seemed made entirely of pockets. The man’s hair was wild and white, his skin wrinkled and pale.
    â€œOne moment, young man.” The man had an accent—German, maybe? He pushed his thick glasses into place as he bent over the guest book. “Ah yes, very interesting. Oh, I see. Yes, yes.” At last he turned back to Horace and smiled. “Mrs. Hapsteade was right, of course. She is a formidable woman. Terribly efficient. Does wonders with the inventory. Now come, let me have a look at you.” He waved Horace over, and Horace obliged, reluctantly. He looked Horace up and down,as though he was shopping for a car, trying to decide whether or not Horace might be a good bargain. Then he stuck out a knobby, gnarled hand. “Allow me to introduce myself—I am Mr. Meister.”
    Hesitantly, Horace held out his hand. The old man grasped it and gave it a single firm pump. His skin was cold and dry. Horace noticed he wore a multicolored metal ring on his middle finger, a thick band with a neat twist at the top. It was a Möbius strip, Horace realized—a strip with a half twist that meant you could trace a line all the way around the thing, inside and out, and come back to where you started.
    â€œAnd you are Horace Andrews,” Mr. Meister said, and then concern creased his face. “You have had an encounter this morning, I believe.”
    An encounter. Was that the word? Really, there had been more than one encounter, if you included the girl in the green hoodie. “You could say that,” Horace managed. He wondered suddenly how valuable the leestone had been, and if the old man knew he’d destroyed it. And should he tell him about the girl?
    â€œI will want to hear more about it shortly. In the meantime, you say you seek answers. Many answers, it seems. Sometimes we are so full of questions, we cannot choose, yes?”
    Horace could only nod.
    â€œJust so. If I may suggest, let us return instead to the question you posed yesterday: ‘Where am I?’ An excellentquestion, very sensible. One must always try to stay oriented.” He swept one arm