Read The Keepers for Free Online Page A

theatrically across the room. “This is a warehouse, one of many. But also it is a market, of sorts. It is a museum. A refuge. A subterfuge. For some—like you, I confess—it is a trial.”
    â€œA trial? Like a test?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAm I passing?”
    Mr. Meister laughed in a friendly way. “You passed one test when you first came through the blue door. As for the rest, it is not a matter of passing or failing. Rather, it is a matter of determining facilities, affinities, aptitudes.”
    Horace felt himself relaxing, his curiosity taking over, even if he didn’t really understand what Mr. Meister was saying, exactly. “Yesterday Mrs. Hapsteade said I was in the right place.”
    â€œThat much is marvelously clear.”
    â€œShe also said she was the keeper of something. The Vora, I think? Do you know what that means?”
    Mr. Meister’s bushy eyebrows rose. “I do,” he said, and then he turned abruptly and strode deeper into the room. Horace hurried to follow. “Horace, I believe the circumstances demand that we act first and speak second. Therefore, the warehouse is now yours to explore. Perhaps you will encounter what you came here to find. After all—above all—that is the purpose of this place.”
    â€œWhat I came here to find,” Horace murmured, stillrecalling his conversation with Mrs. Hapsteade. “It’s the thing the thin man wants, isn’t it?”
    Again the eyebrows went up. “Dr. Jericho wants a great many things, none of which we intend to let him have.”
    â€œThat’s his name? Dr. Jericho?”
    â€œIt’s what he calls himself, yes.”
    â€œHe’s a doctor?”
    â€œNot in the way you might suppose. But you must put him out of your mind for now.”
    â€œI’m not sure I can.”
    â€œTry. Lose yourself in the warehouse. Search, and perhaps you will find.”
    â€œIs this a part of the test?”
    â€œIt is a part of the journey—the most important turn you will ever take. But do not fear. You cannot fail this test, Horace.” He stopped short, looking at Horace gravely. “Do not touch what you do not want.” He put one hand against the wall, took an alarming step forward, and vanished. Horace stared. There was a dark panel set in the stone—it must have been a secret door of some kind. Horace pushed and called out, but only silence came back.
    He stood there for a moment, gathering himself. The old man had come and gone like a ghost. “Perhaps you will encounter what you came here to find.” Great. If only he had the slightest idea what that was.
    Horace began to look around, browsing uncertainly through the bins, careful to touch nothing. Most were full of objectsthat were either utterly foreign or utterly unremarkable. A bin labeled FLAT was full of nothing but blank sheets of paper. Another, labeled SUBTLE , contained just a single object—a delicate arm-length sliver of metal, so thin Horace couldn’t see it from the side. A bin marked UTENSILS was full of all kinds of oddities: a corkscrew two feet long and as thin as a finger, a double-headed hammer, a pair of scissors whose blades were sharp on the outside instead of the inside, and something that looked vaguely like an ice-cream scoop—if you wanted scoops of ice cream as big as your head.
    Horace worked his way deep into the room. FOR THE FEARFUL held a thick stack of blankets and two ceramic vials twisted together like snakes, one black and one gold. EDIBLES was full of canned corn—at least fifty cans, all identical—while INEDIBLES contained half a dozen rusty gears, a nasty-looking spiked chain, and a golf club. The labels of many boxes were mystifying: PASSKEYS , ASSORTED TAN ’ KINDI , ONGRELLONDAE . So much meant so little to him, and as he searched he became increasingly sure—and increasingly worried—that the sheer volume of stuff