The Archived by Victoria Schwab Page A

my brother up, the metallic sound shattering the precious
     quiet, and then Roland is there, pulling me away, pinning my arms back against my
     body with one hand, muffling my shouts with the other.
    I have not cried at all, not once.
    Now I sink down to the floor in front of Ben’s cabinet—Roland’s arms still wrapped
     around me—and sob.
    I sit on the red rug with my back to Ben’s shelf, tugging my sleeves over my hands
     as I tell my brother about the new apartment, about Mom’s latest project and Dad’s
     new job at the university. Sometimes when I run out of things to tell Ben, I recite
     the stories Da told me. This is how I pass the night, time blurring at the edges.
    Sometime later, I feel the familiar scratch against my thigh, and dig the list from
     my pocket. The careful cursive announces:
    Thomas Rowell. 12 .
    I pocket the list and sink back against the shelves. A few minutes later I hear the
     soft tread of footsteps, and look up.
    “Shouldn’t you be at the desk?” I ask.
    “Patrick’s shift now,” says Roland, nudging me with a red Chuck. “You can’t stay here
     forever.” He slides down the wall beside me. “Go do your job. Find that History.”
    “It’s my second one today.”
    “It’s an old building, the Coronado. You know what that means.”
    “I know, I know. More Histories. Lucky me.”
    “You’ll never make Crew talking to a shelf.”
    Crew. The next step above Keeper. Crew hunt in pairs, tracking down and returning
     the Keeper-Killers, the Histories who manage to get out through the Narrows and into
     the real world. Some people stay Keepers their whole lives, but most shoot for Crew.
     The only thing higher than Crew is the Archive itself—the Librarian post—though it’s
     hard to imagine why someone would give up the thrill of the chase, the game, the fight,
     to catalog the dead and watch lives through other people’s eyes. Even harder to imagine
     is that every Librarian was a fighter first; but somewhere under his sleeves, Roland
     bears marks of Crew just like Da did. Keepers have the marks, too, the three lines,
     but carved into our rings. Crew marks are carved into skin.
    “Who says I want to make Crew?” I challenge, but there’s not much fight behind it.
    Da worked Crew until Ben was born. And then he went back to being a Keeper. I never
     met his Crew partner, and he never talked about her, but I found a photo of them after
     he died. The two of them shoulder to shoulder except for a sliver of space, both wearing
     smiles that don’t quite reach their eyes. They say Crew partners are bonded by blood
     and life and death. I wonder if she forgave him for leaving.
    “Da gave it up,” I say, even though Roland must already know.
    “Do you know why?” he asks.
    “Said he wanted a life.…” Keepers who don’t go Crew split into two camps when it comes
     to jobs: those who enter professions benefited by an understanding of objects’ pasts,
     and those who want to get as far away from pasts as possible. Da must have had a hard
     time letting go, because he became a private detective. They used to joke in his office,
     so I heard, that he had sold his hands to the devil, that he could solve a crime just
     by touching things. “But what he meant was, he wanted to stay alive. Long enough to
     groom me, anyway.”
    “He told you that?” asks Roland.
    “Isn’t it my job,” I say, “to know without being told?”
    Roland doesn’t answer. He is twisting around to look at Ben’s name and date. He reaches
     up and runs a finger over the placard with its clean black print—letters and numbers
     that should be worn to nothing now, considering how often I touch them.
    “It’s strange,” says Roland, “that you always come to see Ben, but never Antony.”
    I frown at the use of Da’s real name. “Could I see him if I wanted to?”
    “Of course not,” says Roland in his official Librarian tone before sliding back into
     his usual warmth. “But you