“No, that’s okay,” Zachary says. “But where…where’d everyone go?”
The Keeper pauses and looks up at him. He looks older, or sadder, Zachary can’t tell which. Maybe both.
“If you are referring to our former residents, some left. Some died. Some returned to the places that they came from and others sought out new places and I hope that they found them. You are already acquainted with those of us who remain.”
“Why do you remain?” Zachary asks.
“I remain because it is my job, Mister Rawlins. My calling, my duty, my raison d’être. Why are you here?”
Because a book said I was supposed to be, Zachary thinks. Because I’m worried about going back because of crazy ladies in fur coats who keep hands in jars. Because I haven’t figured out the puzzle yet even though I don’t know what the puzzle is.
Because I feel more alive down here than I did up there.
“I’m here to sail the Starless Sea and breathe the haunted air,” he says and the echoed statement earns a smile from the Keeper. He looks younger when he smiles.
“I wish you the best of luck with that,” he says. “Is there anything else I might help you with?”
“The former residents, was one of them named Keating?” Zachary asks.
The Keeper’s expression shifts now to something that Zachary can’t read.
“There have been multiple bearers of that name within these halls.”
“Did…did any of them have a library?” Zachary asks. “Upstairs?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“When were they here?”
“Very long ago, Mister Rawlins. Before your time.”
“Oh,” Zachary says. He tries to think of other questions and doesn’t know what to ask. Sweet Sorrows is in his bag and he could show it to the Keeper but something makes him hesitate. He’s tired, suddenly, and as a candle gutters on the Keeper’s desk the smoke sends his thoughts back to the dollhouse and the destruction of the universe and he thinks maybe he should go lie down or something.
“Are you feeling all right?” the Keeper asks.
“I’m okay,” Zachary says and it tastes like a lie. “Thank you.”
He winds his way through halls that seem darker and emptier. The underground feeling presses on him. So much stone between here and the sky. So much heaviness hanging above his head.
His room feels like a pocket of safety as he reaches it, and as soon as he crosses the threshold he steps on something that has been slipped under his door.
He moves his shoe. Beneath it is a folded piece of paper.
Zachary reaches down and picks it up. There’s a Z on the outside, the fancy sort crossed with a line in the middle. Apparently it’s meant for him.
There are four lines of text inside, in handwriting he doesn’t recognize. It doesn’t seem like a letter or a note. He thinks it might be a fragment of a poem or a story.
Or a puzzle.
The Queen of the Bees has been waiting for you
Tales hidden within to be told
Bring her a key that has never been forged
And another made only of gold
Simon knows it has been hours. He is tired and hungry and recalls that he’d packed food for this purpose an