The Time Keepers

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

“I’ M G RACE. ” S HE OFFERED HER NAME, HOPING HE ’ D ALSO SHARE his. But he remained silent. His body fixed to the sidewalk, still as a stone.

She unlatched the clasp of her handbag and pulled out a candy wrapped in shiny silver foil.

He studied her, then cautiously accepted the sweet. Grace took another piece from her purse and unwrapped it, placing the small chocolate in her mouth.

She looked around to see if she could spot anyone searching for a lost child or if a policeman was patrolling nearby. But Grace saw no one.

“Are you lost? Why don’t you come with me,” she said as she reached her hand out and guided the boy up from the ground.

He found his footing and now stood before Grace, but his eyes still avoided hers. His pants were too short, exposing his thin ankles, and the Incredible Hulk decal on his T-shirt was peeling. But Grace’s hand remained open, and eventually his fingers found their way into her own.

The warm touch of a child’s hand was instantly familiar to her. But through his grasp, she also felt his fear. The skin was clammy. The fingers were slippery.

He walked beside her, his hand fidgeting against her own. Every few minutes, she turned to catch a glimpse of him sideways: the bony limbs, the long lashes, the angular eyes. She estimated he might be around ten years old, close to the age of her younger daughter, Molly.

She did not stop at Kepler’s to pick up the eggs and milk and the various other provisions on her shopping list. Instead, she gripped his hand tighter, not even noticing the cherry blossom petals falling on their shoulders and hair.

A few blocks from home, she saw Adele Flynn walking toward her car.

“Grace?” Adele paused for a moment, her keys in one hand. “Is everything all right?” Her eyes scanned the boy with the worn clothes, the foreign face, and the averted gaze walking next to her friend.

Grace did not stop to chat. “Everything’s fine!” she hollered over her shoulder, ignoring Adele’s look of confusion as she led the boy toward her home.

Once there, she opened the front gate and walked past the rose-bushes that grew exuberantly along the short path to her house. The child hesitated when they reached the front steps. He let go of her hand.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I’m going to make a call.” She pretended with her fingers to make a telephone to her ear. “We’ll get you home.”

She turned the doorknob and walked inside, the boy silent beside her.

“I’m back,” she announced, laying her bag on the sideboard. Her eyes fell upon Molly’s shoes by the stairwell and the girls’ coats on the floor, their sleeves carelessly inverted. Then to Katie’s backpack spilling out papers and brightly colored folders. The house bloomed with children.

For a split second, Grace tried to reconcile the reality of her household with the fact that she had brought a complete stranger into it.

“You’re home?” She heard Molly’s voice ring through the air before the girl bounded down the stairs, and her face immediately revealed her bewilderment.

“Mommy?” Her eyes were fixed on the strange boy next to her mother. “I thought you were going to Kepler’s.…”

Before Grace could answer, she turned and caught the reflection of her and the child in the large oval mirror beside the door.

He was shaking.

Tom was down in the basement with his ear pressed to an old wall clock that needed tuning when his wife returned. He stopped the pendulum with his finger and went to greet her.

Walking up the basement stairs, he pushed through the stiffness in his bad leg, gripping the banister tightly with each step. In the vestibule, he found Molly at the base of the stairwell, staring wide-eyed at a little boy standing beside his wife.

“Gracie?” Tom stepped closer. The faded image of the Hulk on the boy’s orange T-shirt seemed ironic; the boy’s arms were the width of a pine sapling.

“I found him curled up sleeping in a corner near Maple Avenue. I didn’t know what to do.”

Tom crouched down. “What’s your name, little fella?”

The boy shifted his weight from one foot to the other but still didn’t answer.

“We’ll have to call the police, Grace. Somebody out there has to be looking for him.”

“I know. I just thought it would be better to make the call from home. Not at Kepler’s, with everyone staring at us.”

“Want to wash up?” Grace made a simple pantomime of rubbing her hands together, then pointed toward the powder room.

He lifted his arm to move the hair out of his eyes, and that’s when she observed the scar on his left wrist. The shape of an open mouth, like someone had bitten him.

The boy noticed Grace staring at the old wound and covered it with his hand.

She opened the door to the bathroom and then went into the kitchen to call the police.