The Dark Water by Seth Fishman Page A

I imagine Keepers sitting at tiny desks with their massive bodies, learning the present perfect tense.
    Lisa doesn’t seem to understand the word and shrugs, an act that seems odd on her tall frame. “You cannot spend your days faithfully reproducing another world’s reality and not become obsessed with it to the point of mimicry.
I
am obsessed. My father believes that one day we Keepers will see you Topsiders, know you, be among you, and we must ready.”
    â€œWhy didn’t Randt go Topside before?” Jo asks. “I mean, I get that now’s not the best time, but what about before Feileen died?”
    Lisa stares at her as if she’s stupid. “I do not understand what you do not understand. My father is a leader of the Keepers, his entire duty is to remain here and rule Capian in a balance of Three. If he went Topside, how could this continue?” She gestures at the maps around her. “The Seven left and he watched, and waited, doing as he should for our people. It was only of late, with the map, that his mind was changed. Now, to him, it is just as much his duty to find the Seven as it is to keep the source.”
    I think of Randt, the looming, threatening man who’s holding us hostage, and wonder if Lisa knows that side of him. Or if it even matters to her. If Sutton had kids, would they see him as a monster?
    I walk alongside one of the shelves, running my finger along the scrolls. “Which one tells us about the water?”
    â€œAll of them,” Lisa replies.
    Rob laughs and Lisa’s eyes drop to the floor, embarrassed. Maybe she doesn’t get that Rob likes her answer, and isn’t making fun of her.
    â€œCome on, Lisa,” Jo says, turning serious. “You brought us here for a reason. Why?”
    â€œBecause I have seen the sickness you face in these scrolls.” Lisa motions to a pedestal on the far side of the room. There, a scroll is already unfurled. “My father has felt the sickness, he has made impressions of it.”
    We gather round the scroll, eyes wide. The scroll is painted green, and in the center is a splotch of black with tendrils snaking everywhere. Like a mutated spider. She rolls the scroll forward, and there are a hundred bodies piled on top of each other, hair long, eyes closed, blood dripping from their mouths. Just like the infirmary back at school. How can this be possible?
    â€œThe virus,” Jo says, grim.
    Lisa looks at her for a moment, then nods. “I think it is a sickness, yes.”
    â€œCan you zoom in somehow?” Rob asks. “Can you see what’s going on with our friends right now?”
    She shakes her head. “Maybe my father could. But I have not drunk the source. I cannot say precisely what he knows.”
    â€œBut what’s the point of showing us this, then?” Jo asks, getting flustered. Her pale lips tremble in anger. “We’re stuck here. We can’t do anything about it.”
    â€œYou wanted to know how my father used the source,” she says, confused. “This is how. You can find yourself here, if you look hard en—” Lisa freezes, remembering something.
    â€œLisa?” Rob asks, but she ignores him and runs to the wall, where she pulls a scroll, seemingly with purpose, but heck if I see a cataloging system. She unfurls it fast, flinging it open with a
crack.
There’s no dust that I can see, but it
smells
old. The scroll is stitched together with sheets full of color.
    The image is of a Keeper on his knees, bent over. It would look like he was praying if not for the blood gushing from his head.
    â€œWhat does this have to do with anything?” I ask.
    â€œI found this scroll many dreams ago,” she replies, speaking fast. “I thought nothing strange of this except that it was old and my father might not have painted it.” She thumbs the edge of the parchment. “Maybe made before the Seven left, when there were still ten,