The Owl Keeper by Christine Brodien-Jones Page A

frowned. He somehow doubted her father would be pleased to know she was inside The Ruins.
    She glanced back over her shoulder. "You're not scared, are you?"
    "Of course not," he muttered. But naturally he was. He was petrified. "Okay, five minutes."
    Max knew she wasn't listening. Rose never listened. Growing more anxious by the minute, he trailed behind her, noticing how everything in the cathedral was covered in dust and cobwebs, and coated with layers of grime. They should call in Mrs. Crumlin, he thought wryly, she can clean this place up with her extra-large feather duster.
    100
    Candles sputtered, shadows crouched and leapt. From high overhead, strange serpentine creatures stared down. Along the walls, he could see coffins tucked into marble niches, engraved with skulls and angels, their inscriptions so faded they were impossible to read. A statue of a winged lady gazed at him with a mournful expression, its paint flaking away.
    "They're hiding something here, don't you think?" said Rose, checking under a bench of rotted wood. "My dad says the government's experimenting with exotic bugs. They've created germs that can wipe out entire cities."
    Max hoped she was exaggerating, but he had a feeling she wasn't. He wished he could remember what Gran had said about the High Echelon's secret experiments.
    Boldly, Rose drew back a curtain of tattered brocade. Dust billowed around them. Max caught a whiff of mold and something else that set his teeth on edge. He peered into a deep alcove, its concave ceiling painted in shades of gold and cornflower blue.
    Without warning his sun mark went cold, pressing like an ice shard into his neck. Startled, he jumped. This had never happened before.
    "What do you think is in those boxes?" Oblivious to Max, Rose was pointing at the stacks of metal boxes, arranged in rows along the wall.
    There were at least a hundred, guessed Max. He stepped forward bravely and lifted off the top box. It looked eerily familiar, like something he'd once seen in a dream. Etched into the lid were the words skræk #176.
    "What does that mean?" he wondered aloud. "It must be imported from some foreign country."
    101
    "Maybe it's a new brand of minicomputer," suggested Rose, "or a machine that scans fingerprints. Hey, I bet they're smuggling stuff across the border! Or what if--" Her voice fell to a tremulous whisper. "What if it's a box of exotic bugs? Or something even weirder?" She nodded at the box. "Open it."
    As Max started to open the latch, he heard a faint scratching sound. Alarmed, he almost dropped the box. Then he saw the tiny holes punched into its sides. His legs wobbled and his heart beat fast. Whatever was in there, he thought, needed air.
    "Give me that." Rose snatched the box away, fingers scrabbling at the latch.
    Before Max could stop her, the lid to the box sprang open. An acrid odor filled the air. A wire mesh screen stretched across the box's top, attached to the edges with tiny copper nails, forming a cage. Beneath it stirred a pale indeterminate shape.
    Max moved closer. A claw shot up, talons raking the screen. "It's alive!" he shrieked.
    "Yech, it smells disgusting!" Rose shoved the box at him. "Hold on, let me get my flashlight."
    Trembling, he held the box as she shined her beam into it.
    "Whatever's in there can't get out," she said. "It's inside that wire cage."
    "I don't know, Rose, look how sharp its claws are--" Max saw the creature twitch, startled by the light. It had no hair and its slimy skin was nearly transparent, with a tangle of pulsing veins underneath. His breath caught in his chest. It was the creature from his nightmares!
    His first impulse was to drop the box and run, or else be sick.
    102
    He felt his arms and knees go weak. So he hadn't invented the creature after all. Somehow it was real!
    "Holy cow!" said Rose, taking the box from Max and setting it on a stone shelf. "It looks like a huge worm." She turned the box around, studying its contents from different