The Bookwanderers

by Anna James

  He pushed the books toward them.

  Tilly picked one up. “Things We Like,” she read from the front cover.

  Oskar picked up another one. “Play with Us,” he read. “These look like the books we had in primary school, the ones we learned to read from.”

  “That’s exactly what they are,” Seb said. “These are the absolute safest books you can travel into.” He took Play with Us from Oskar and handed it to Tilly. “Okay, Tilly, you’re going to go first as your bookwandering seems to be slightly more typical so far.”

  Oskar grimaced.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get you sorted out,” Seb reassured him. “Okay. The primary rule of bookwandering is that you must keep the copy of the book with you when you travel—”

  “But I didn’t have a book with me when I went into Alice in Wonderland or Anne of Green Gables,” Tilly interrupted.

  “You were with a character from the book. Characters can take you in, and bring you out, and, in fact, we find that if you bookwander with a character, they have a lot more control than if you wander in by yourself. If you do wander in by yourself, characters will believe you to be part of the story, even if your presence is quite inexplicable. They may wonder why you are in a particular place, but they won’t question your fundamental existence. But if a character pulls you into their story, like Anne did to you from Pages & Co., they will remember where you are really from. Anne knew that you and Oskar weren’t part of her book, did she not? But no one else did?”

  Tilly nodded.

  “We actually discourage that style of travel as you are reliant on the character to get you out again, and it’s not always obvious, without a tracking stamp, which copy of the book you’re in.”

  “Oh,” Tilly said, her face scrunching in sadness. “Does that mean that Anne wouldn’t remember me if I went into Green Gables by myself?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Seb said. “But we don’t have much time, so shall we begin?” He leaned across the table and flicked through the opening pages, which were glossaries of vocabulary, and on to the first page, which was a drawing of a boy holding a basketball, with the word “Peter” on the opposite page. “So, first of all, I’m going to ask you to read the whole book; it will only take you a few minutes. You can bookwander without doing this first, but it will get your imagination into gear, and the better you know a story, the safer you’ll be inside. Oskar, you may as well read the other one too at the same time—kill two birds with one stone and all. Just read as you normally would.”

  Tilly and Oskar exchanged a skeptical glance, but Seb nodded them on, so they turned to their books. It took them only two or three minutes to read them. They were so simple and short. The two of them looked up expectantly at Seb.

  “When you read yourself into a book you read yourself into a specific moment. If you start at the start, you will travel to the start, etc. You have control over where you visit. You should never travel to within ten pages of the end of a book.”

  “Why not?” Oskar asked.

  “Endings are unpredictable,” Seb explained. “It is possible to visit the end of a book—in fact, many have tried in order to visit their favorite battles, or weddings, or deaths—but you need to be poised to return at the snap of a finger, and until you are much more experienced we would ask you not to risk it.”

  “Why is it more dangerous? What happens?” Tilly asked.

  “If you don’t time it just right, you can get rather stuck in the Endpapers,” Seb said.

  “Sorry, what are ‘endpapers’?” Oskar asked.

  “No need to apologize,” Seb said. “Lowercase endpapers are the leaves at the very beginning and end of a book, sometimes stuck to the inside of the cover. Uppercase Endpapers are the negative matter at the end of books that acts as a sort of cushion to bounce characters back if something goes wrong, so we can find them and put them back into their stories. It’s a safety net for characters, not for readers. It’s a theoretical nothing space for readers. The story has ended, but you’re still in the book, and it can be very tricky to get back from there–the usual rules don’t apply.”

  “There are a lot of rules,” Oskar muttered.

  “There are a lot of risks,” said Seb. “Remember, this isn’t a game, Oskar. We’re trying to keep you safe. Okay, pay attention: this bit is important,” Seb went on, straightening his glasses. “To get back out of a book you must reread the last line, from the same copy of the same book.”

  “And we won’t get stuck in the Endpapers that way?” Tilly asked.

  “An excellent question, Tilly, but no,” Seb replied. “If you read the last line, it’s as if you’re inserting your own full stop, or typing ‘The End.’ It works like a command, an instruction. The Endpapers are where you’ll wind up if you’re wandering near the end of a book and you let it finish without you leaving. But it’s nothing to worry about—just make sure you stick to reading the last line and you’ll be fine. A book will return you safely to whichever bookshop or library you read yourself in from.”

  “But what happens if you’re reading at home?” Oskar said. “Would it take you home?”

  “Bookwandering is only possible in bookshops and libraries in our experience. It just doesn’t seem to work unless you are in a book emporium of some kind; you need the potency of all the different book worlds brought together in one space.”

  Seb sat back with a dreamy look on his face. “You know when you walk into a bookshop and you see all those thousands of books lined up in front of you? That intoxicating feeling of knowing that behind each cover is a different world to explore, like thousands of tiny portals? That adrenaline rush just before you open a new book? The thrill of being surrounded by fellow book lovers? That is what fuels bookwandering, and it comes to life in bookshops.”

  21

  Time Works Differently in Books

  Oskar interrupted Seb’s bookish reverie with a cough, bringing him back down to earth.

  “Anyway, sorry, back to business. Tilly, do you want to have a go at reading yourself into the book?” He flipped it open flat at a page that read: Here is a toyshop.

  Tilly picked it up apprehensively. “So I just read it? Like normal? Hang on, how come I haven’t accidentally read myself into a book before?”

  “Well, you might have felt the first stirrings of the ability before, without knowing what you were feeling. Have you ever lost track of time because you were so involved in a book? Or looked up and it’s taken you a few seconds to realize where you are? When you stop being distracted by what’s going on around you and you’re reading without thinking about the process of reading? That’s your brain, and your heart, starting to sync with the story. But you have to read with intent to bookwander; you won’t ever fall into a story by accident, even if you’re still getting to grips with how it all works.

  “We don’t really know why different people’s abilities kick in at different times; it often happens at about your age as you start to really develop your own individual relationship with books and find your favorites. There also seems to be a correlation with times of change or upset; we think it might be that while you’re occupied with other things it gives the magic inside you a chance to spill out. And, once magic has revealed itself, it’s very hard to ignore. Bookwandering is naturally in you, Tilly. Don’t worry about getting it right or wrong. The important thing is that you know it’s possible, because you’ve done it with Alice and Anne, so just focus on the story, and read the line . . . And remember to keep hold of the book.”

  “What happens if I can’t get back? I read the last line and nothing happens? What if I lose the book? Are you sure I should be doing this?”

  “None of that will occur, but I can pull you out, if need be. That copy of the book is tethered to the Underlibrary, but it’s also been registered as a training book so its borders are more flexible and I can come and get you.
There are lots of systems the library has in place to allow us to find and help wanderers, but believe me, it won’t come to that. Now, break a leg, as they say in the theater.”

  Tilly nodded and took a deep breath. She tried to cut off everything going on around her and simply read. It took her a fraction of a second to read the simple sentence, but instantly that smoky, sweet smell started to billow around her, and the walls of reality began to fold down on themselves. Instead of a fully realized world, all she could see was white. It was like standing in a room full of dense white fog; there were no sounds, or smells, just white.

  Tilly started to panic and realized that she had no idea how to contact Seb if something went wrong, but at that moment a silky red setter seemed to come from nowhere and bounded past her. She turned as the dog passed and saw that the toyshop from the book had sprung up behind her. It had turquoise walls with big windows framed in yellow. The windows were stuffed full of all kinds of old-fashioned-looking toys: dolls in frothy, lacy dresses; plastic cars; teddy bears; and even a rocking horse. The only thing to do seemed to be to follow the dog in through the open door. Inside, a woman in a purple shirt was behind the till, talking to a boy in an orange jumper holding a huge digger toy. A blonde girl in a pink turtleneck was pointing at a doll in a glass case, and the dog was snuffling at a toy dog in the corner.

  “Hello?” Tilly said tentatively as she went in.

  Both children looked up at her, but the dog kept sniffing the toy dog.

  “Here is Peter,” the girl said, pointing at the boy.

  “Here is Jane,” the boy replied, pointing at the girl.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Tilly,” she said, giving an awkward half-wave.

  “I like Peter,” Jane said.

  “I like Jane,” Peter said.

  “Great,” Tilly said. “How come there’s nothing outside the toyshop?” she asked.

  “Here is a toyshop,” said Peter.

  “I like the toyshop,” said Jane.

  “Sure, me too,” said Tilly. “It’s a nice toyshop. Is that your dog?”

  “Peter likes the dog,” said Jane.

  “Jane likes the dog,” said Peter.

  “Okay then,” Tilly said. “I guess we all like the dog.”

  The woman behind the counter didn’t say anything.

  “Well, this is creepy,” Tilly said under her breath. “Am I allowed to leave yet?” She flicked the book to the last page and read, “Here is Peter in the tree. Peter has the ball.” There was a horrible moment when nothing appeared to happen before the toyshop dissolved around her and was replaced by the solid, book-lined walls of the library.

  Seb gave her a big thumbs-up, and Oskar looked amazed.

  “You were only gone for, like, seconds!” he said.

  “Time works differently in books,” Seb explained. “You know how in books swathes of time just get missed out? A new chapter starts ‘the next day’ or even ‘the next week’ and you don’t really know what’s happened before then? Or the time it takes to describe something is even longer than how long it would actually take?” Oskar and Tilly nodded. “You’ll be away from the real world for roughly how long it would take you to read the passage, even if it feels longer when you’re inside, but it can be unpredictable, I’m afraid.”

  Seb pushed the other book toward Oskar.

  “Okay, your turn. Do you feel comfortable having a go? Obviously we’re not quite so sure how your bookwandering is going to manifest, but I feel happy enough that you have the core ability required because of your adventures in Avonlea, and, as I said to Tilly, this is a training book and I can come and—”

  But Seb’s reassurances were interrupted by a stern-looking librarian with a sharp goatee, and wearing a black cardigan edged with silver, emerging from the stairs. He looked at Tilly and Oskar with barely masked curiosity.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Sebastian, but could you come and assist with something that’s arisen downstairs? A new bookwanderer has got into a situation in Peter Pan and we’re hoping it’s a simple administrative error you can unpick more efficiently than us.”

  Seb tutted, but got to his feet.

  “It can’t wait?”

  “Ideally not,” the librarian said. “He seems to have lost a lost boy.”

  Seb sighed and turned to Tilly and Oskar. “You two need to stay here, do you understand me? Do not move. I will return soon or I’ll find your grandad and he’ll come and retrieve you.” He turned and looked at them over the top of his glasses. “Stay. Here.”

  Oskar and Tilly nodded as Seb followed the other librarian downstairs. They watched him over the banister as he joined a couple of librarians whose cardigans were also black and edged with silver. They were all walking briskly toward the circular main desk on the ground floor. The first one to reach it swung open a door in the side of the wooden chest of drawers and disappeared inside.

  “They’re really into their fancy cardigans here, huh?” Oskar said. “What are we supposed to do while we wait? Should we go and find your grandad?”

  “Seb told us to stay here. If they need Amelia to help with whatever’s going on, then I’m sure he’ll come and find us.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t get a chance to bookwander,” Oskar said. “No offense, but I think they should have started with me because they know you can do it, but I still don’t know if I can do it without you.”

  “Seb will be back soon and you’ll get to have a go. That book wasn’t fun like visiting Avonlea anyway. It was weird and kind of dull. Where would you most like to go once we’re allowed?” she asked.

  “Hogwarts! Obvious choice,” Oskar said. “I want to go to the Yule Ball, or maybe watch the dragon task from the Triwizard Tournament. Or meet Luna.”

  “But what if you ran into Voldemort? Or Umbridge?” Tilly said. “And I don’t think we’d be able to do magic—we’d be Muggles.”

  “Well, what about Middle-earth?” Oskar suggested.

  “Way too dangerous,” Tilly said. “Orcs, trolls, giant spiders . . .” She checked the various monstrosities off on her fingers.

  “Fine, fine,” Oskar said. “Okay, how about Oxford in The Golden Compass?”

  “I wouldn’t want to run into the child snatchers,” Tilly said.

  “Ugh, why are books so dangerous?” Oskar said.

  “I guess a book about a nice safe place where nothing happens would be kind of boring and no one would read it,” Tilly said as Oskar wandered down the stretches of shelves, looking at the spines.

  “A little bit of danger is okay, though, surely?” he said, holding up a book to show Tilly.

  “Treasure Island? Are you sure? Isn’t that all about pirates and, I don’t know, death and betrayal and stuff?”

  Oskar scrunched his nose up. “Kind of. There are definitely pirates, but most of them are pretty friendly from what I remember. It was a while ago I listened to the audiobook. We’ll just make sure we read a bit where there’s nothing dangerous happening.” He started flicking through the pages as Tilly tried to ignore the slightly sick feeling in her stomach.

  “Oskar, I’m not sure this is—”

  But she was cut off as Oskar cracked the spine, grabbed her hand, and started to read.

  22

  An Incredibly Bad Idea

  “When I had done breakfasting the squire gave me a note addressed to John Silver, at the sign of the Spy-glass, and told me I should easily find the place by following the line of the docks and keeping a bright lookout for a little tavern with a large brass telescope for sign. I set off, overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the ships and seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd of people and carts and bales, for the dock was now at its busiest, until I found the tavern in question.”

  The comforting smell of paper, ink, and wood turned sweet and marshmallowy before transit
ioning into the much more pungent stink of fish, sweat, and the sea. Tilly wrinkled her nose as the Underlibrary dissolved around them and was replaced by a bustling, smelly dock.

  Oskar grinned. “See, nothing more dangerous than—” But at that moment a gruff-looking man covered in tattoos elbowed him in the side.

  “Out of the way, lad!” he bellowed, barely giving either of them a second look.

  “We need to find Jim,” Oskar said. “The boy in the story. He should be around here somewhere.” As he spoke a skinny boy brushed past them.

  He was clutching a tightly rolled parchment and was staring up at the buildings, looking for something. His eye caught on a swinging wooden sign decorated with a gilt telescope and he set off toward it at a jog. Tilly and Oskar followed. The tavern looked like a film set; the big room had low wooden ceilings and was clouded with tobacco smoke.

  “I can’t believe how bad the past smells,” Oskar said, breathing through his mouth. The room became quiet and groups of sailors looked up from their rum to stare at the boy, who must be Jim, Tilly thought, as he made his way toward the bar. Jim hesitated but kept walking, and the noise resumed around him before a door behind the bar swung open and a man emerged.

  There was barely anything remaining of his left leg, and a carved wooden peg extended from just under his hip to the floor, matched by a wooden crutch under his shoulder. He was over six feet tall with a smiling, handsome face that was hard to look away from. Jim swallowed and walked up to him.

  “Mr. Silver, sir?” he said, and held out the rolled-up parchment.

  “Yes, my lad,” he replied. “Such is my name, to be sure. And who may you be?” He read the note and then looked more intently at Jim. “Oh! I see. You are our new cabin boy; pleased I am to see you.” He shook Jim’s hand firmly. The boy’s face was pale, but his back straight.