by Anna James
There were no photos or knickknacks, no garish “Best Librarian” mugs, no sign of personality anywhere. The only decoration was a large poster pinned to the back of the door titled “The Ordinances of Bookwandering.” As she looked closer she realized it was handwritten. As her eyes scanned the list, she felt increasingly nervous. These rules were devoid of the sense of adventure or wonder that seemed to fill Amelia or Seb when they talked about bookwandering.
“One: Travel within a Source Edition without prior permission, training, or qualifications is strictly prohibited,” Tilly read. “Two: Entry to the Source Library, as above. Three: All bookwanderers should be registered immediately after abilities manifest themselves, otherwise traveling will be classed as willfully illicit. Four: No bookwanderer is permitted within five pages of the end of a novel unless trained in Endpapers Travel.”
The rules went on and on, all seeming to ban something or other. Tilly shuddered and moved over to the shelves of fat ledgers that lined the room. She noticed they were embossed in small gold letters with the dates they covered and pulled one down at random. She saw rows and rows of names and bookshops and libraries, written in handwriting that changed every few years. Tilly ran her fingertips down the thick paper, down the records of so many different people and their stories, and wondered what adventures they had had. She liked knowing that her mum was in one of the ledgers somewhere, and that Grandma and Grandad must be in one too. Generations of bookwanderers all listed together in nearly identical emerald-green ledgers. She wondered if anyone other than Chalk ever looked at them.
As she put back the ledger she realized the office was not as entirely lacking in personality as she had first thought. At the back, tucked away in a corner, was a bookcase of the sort of books you might expect to find in a librarian’s office—novels, children’s books, classics, a large blue book of fairy tales. A colorful, messy mix of books. It made Tilly wonder if they’d judged Chalk too harshly after all; could anyone with a full set of Harry Potter novels be that bad? He even had a copy of A Little Princess, and Tilly felt her heart thaw an extra degree toward him.
Tilly forgot where she was for a moment and pulled down his copy; it was a different edition from her mum’s, which was tucked under her arm, or any she’d seen before at the bookshop. The cover was a simple black matte one with the title and the author’s name in gold writing. She flicked through the first few chapters, unable to resist reading the description of her father again, but she was instantly distracted by the scene in which Captain Crewe and Sara first leave the school, which was not quite how she remembered it. She was sure she hadn’t seen their cab swerve in the road to avoid hitting someone, but she was also learning that once you were inside a book anything was possible. But then she found another passage that she was sure was different in her mum’s copy.
She read it out loud under her breath to herself.
“She went into the shop. It was warm and smelled deliciously. A young woman, wrapped in a warm cloak, stood at the counter, absentmindedly playing with her necklace as she waited for the baker to finish setting out the piping hot buns.
‘Good morning, miss. How are the children doing in this cold weather?’
‘Quite well, thank you, Nancy. They’re all very excited about Christmas.’
The baker smiled warmly. ‘What can I get you then? Anything for the little ones?’
‘A loaf of bread, and some of those tiny almond cakes, please? There are several sweet teeth back at the house.’
The goods were wrapped up neatly in waxed paper and the woman left the bakery in a gust of cold air as the door closed. The woman behind the counter noticed Sara, shivering in her thin dress.
‘If you please,’ said Sara, ‘have you lost fourpence—a silver fourpence?’”
Tilly slid the book back onto the shelf and put her own on Chalk’s desk to check, confused by the differences. Perhaps she was misremembering the scene. Was her mum’s copy special somehow? But, before she could turn up the right page in her book to check, the door handle started to turn. She froze; there was nowhere to hide and all she had time to do was shove her mum’s copy of the book into her pinafore dress, thankful it had large pockets, before the door was flung open to reveal Enoch Chalk silhouetted in the hazy gray light, looking furious.
“Come here, girl,” he snarled. “I knew there was something strange about you the moment I first saw you.”
Tilly backed into the corner. “I’m s-sorry, Mr. Chalk,” she stammered. “I got lost and I couldn’t work out how to get home and your door was open and I—”
“Enough,” he interrupted. “No excuses. How did you get here, Miss Pages?”
“Like I said, I was lost in the library and your door was—”
“No,” he said, tense with anger. “We will get to why you are in my office in good time. I want to know how you have come to be in the Underlibrary past closing hours and by yourself?” He spun round. “Is your grandfather here too?”
“No! No. I didn’t mean to come here,” Tilly protested. “I promise. It was an accident. I was trying to get out of a book, but the page was torn and—”
“What on earth is going on here?”
Tilly was faint with relief when she saw Amelia Whisper join Chalk at the door. “I thought you had gone home, Enoch. Why are you out in the corridor bellowing . . . ?” Amelia tailed off as she caught sight of Tilly. “Matilda? What on earth are you doing back here?”
28
Stories Are for Reading
“Okay, let’s go and sit down in my office,” Amelia said, shepherding Tilly out. Chalk went to follow, but Amelia put her hand in his way. “I think I just need a moment to chat with Tilly by myself first, Enoch, if you would excuse us.”
“She broke into my office!” Chalk spluttered in indignation.
“I know, I know, but, as you said yourself, we need to understand why she is in the library at all before we get to that. Maybe you could go and find us some cups of tea?”
“I am not a tea lady, Ms. Whisper,” Chalk said coldly.
“Well, perhaps you could go and find us one then, Enoch. Or, indeed, a tea man.”
Amelia guided Tilly into her office with a gentle hand on her back as Chalk stalked off down the corridor.
“I actually have a kettle in my office,” Amelia said with a smile, “but I thought we should have a chance to talk by ourselves. Tilly, it’s really important that you tell me the truth at this point, okay?” Tilly nodded. “How did you get back into the library this evening? Did you hide somewhere? Is Oskar here too?”
“No, we went back home, all three of us, I promise,” Tilly said.
“Okay, so your grandparents don’t know you’re here?” Amelia asked.
Tilly shook her head.
“Well, first things first: we need to tell them that you’re safe with me and they can come and get you.” She picked up the phone on her desk. “Hello, Archie? This is Amelia. We’ve got Tilly here. She’s completely safe and is with me. We . . . Yes, yes, I know . . . We can talk about this later, but the most important thing is for you to come and get her. Yes . . . Yes . . . No. See you soon then.” She put the phone down and turned to Tilly. “They’re on their way. And I’m guessing that your grandad must have filled you in a bit more about everything after you left this afternoon?”
“A bit,” Tilly said vaguely, remembering what Grandma and Grandad had told her about keeping the details about her father a secret.
“It must have been difficult to hear about everything that happened eleven years ago. No one thought your grandparents did anything wrong really, but—”
“What?” Tilly interrupted. “Why would anyone think my grandparents had done anything wrong?”
“Well, of course they didn’t take the accusations seriously—but because Archie was your mum’s father I’m sure you can imagine that there had to be a full
investigation into how Bea got into the Source Library. Thankfully the Archivists weren’t involved.”
Amelia stopped, registering the look of confusion on Tilly’s face. “You look surprised—I . . . I thought you said your grandparents told you about this?”
“I thought you meant—” Tilly stopped abruptly. “They didn’t say anything about the Source Library. They just told me more about my mum being a bookwanderer too,” she finished lamely.
Amelia looked at her intently.
“So, what did my mum do?” Tilly pushed.
“It’s not really my story to tell, Tilly, but the headline is that she stole your grandad’s key to the Source Library because she was trying to access one of the books to change it permanently, and I’m sure you understand how troubling that is. But really this is something you should talk to your grandparents about properly. We both saw this morning that your grandad is obviously very particular about the way he wants to tell you these sorts of things.
“In the meantime we need to get back to the matter at hand, Tilly. Don’t worry; you’re not in trouble. It’s just that only very senior bookwanderers have clearance to access the library via any route other than the King’s Library elevator, so we need to understand how you got here.”
“I wanted to practice bookwandering,” Tilly explained. “So I read myself into a book, and it worked completely fine, but when I tried to get out I saw that the final page was torn, so I just read the last bit that was there, and then everything went black and I ended up in an empty room down the corridor from here. I wasn’t trying to get here, I promise. I didn’t even know where I was to start with. And then, when I realized, I came to try to find you, or one of the other librarians, so I could get home.”
“Via Mr. Chalk’s office?” Amelia quirked an eyebrow. “But we’ll come back to that. Can I ask which book it was you traveled into? Do you have it with you still?”
Tilly paused before handing over her mum’s old copy of A Little Princess.
“Ah,” she said gently, looking carefully at Tilly. “Your mother’s favorite.”
“Yes . . .” Tilly said, eyeing her warily. “How do you know?”
“Well, Tilly, it’s no secret that your mum and I were good friends a long time ago. It’s why I wanted to speak to you on your own first, without Mr. Chalk here. We met in New York. We worked at the same bookshop there. I haven’t seen her since she went back home, pregnant with you. Until your grandad brought you to the library this morning, you didn’t exist according to the bookwandering community. After your grandad resigned as Librarian, he and Elsie went off the radar. Everyone assumed that they just wanted a quiet life away from all of the bookwandering politics, and to try to take care of Bea a bit.”
“Why does Mr. Chalk seem so angry all the time?” Tilly asked.
“Well, Enoch is very good at his job, in many ways—he has a bit of a sixth sense for anything going awry—but he has a different perspective on bookwandering. He is fond of rules and I’m afraid your mum broke most of those rules. He thinks we should be far stricter about bookwandering: how we monitor it, how we regulate it, if there should be an age restriction, whether we should allow anyone to do it who demonstrates a natural ability. He’s written seemingly endless reports questioning what books and stories are really for.”
“But stories are for reading,” Tilly said. “Why do they have to be for something anyway? Can’t they just be?”
“I am rather inclined to agree with you, Tilly, as are your grandparents, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is. With regard to Enoch I’m not yet sure that we can explain your appearance here in the Underlibrary. Somehow you were pulled back to the library and were able to get past the barriers we have to protect this place. I think we would be ill-advised to share this ability widely. In fact, I think the best plan is for me to handle it, and to try to avoid you crossing paths with Enoch again on this visit. Although I need to ask you, Tilly, why you were in his office?”
Tilly flushed. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have been. I saw his door and I just didn’t think. I was curious.”
“We don’t keep the offices locked here, Tilly, because the library is so well protected from the outside world, but that doesn’t mean that you should enter people’s private spaces without their permission. I think you probably understand this. I will pass your apologies on to Mr. Chalk.”
Tilly nodded and at that moment Amelia’s phone rang. She listened silently and then put the phone back in its cradle.
“Okay, your grandparents are on their way. They’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. Do you have any more questions?”
“Can I ask you about Grandma?” Tilly said. “I know Grandad was the Librarian when he worked here, but Grandma said she worked here too before everything with my mum happened—what did she do?”
“Ah, good question. Your grandma was our Cartographer. She worked in the Map Room where . . . Actually, would you like to see it quickly while we wait?”
Tilly nodded.
They walked back through the library hall, which was dimly lit. A handful of librarians were working at desks and another was dozing behind the main desk. Amelia’s footsteps startled the sleeper awake and she sat up straighter, wiping her mouth self-consciously with her cardigan sleeve. Tilly and Amelia went back out the other end, toward the lift, and stopped at one of the rooms Tilly had walked past with Grandad and Oskar earlier that day.
29
Book Magic Is the Only Sort We Have
The room was far bigger than any of the offices Tilly had seen so far and was hexagonal in shape. The floor was painted the same deep turquoise as the ceiling of the main hall, but the six walls and the ceiling were all lined with beautiful, intricate maps pricked with constellations of tiny lights in different colors.
“This is the Map Room,” Amelia said, smiling.
Tilly looked around in wonder. “What’s it for?”
“This is what your grandma looked after. These lights are all bookshops across the whole world. The white lights are bookshops where there are known bookwanderers, the blue lights are national Underlibraries, the yellow lights are shops where we have no bookwanderers to our knowledge, and the scarlet lights are those where there used to be bookwanderers, but aren’t anymore. And the green lights are libraries. We have to keep track because, as you know, bookshops and libraries are key to bookwandering,” Amelia said. “And we must treasure the bookshops and libraries we have left.”
“How do you keep track of them all? Is that magic too?” Tilly asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Amelia said. “It’s old-fashioned emails and letters and phone calls and admin; book magic is the only sort we have at our disposal. The current Cartographer, Aria, is in charge of our relationships with all the other Underlibraries around the world, and she keeps abreast of what’s going on: how many bookwanderers there are in different countries, patterns, agreed international rules, that sort of thing. Go on, take a closer look; here’s the UK,” Amelia said, pointing at a map centered on one wall.
Tilly traced her finger down the map until she found London: a comforting cluster of glowing lights. Many were white, but there was also a smattering of gold and scarlet. A small, glowing blue beacon identified the Underlibrary itself. Next to every light was a tiny scrawl of writing naming each shop. On the outskirts of the galaxy of London bookshops was one marked “Pages & Co.” in looping handwriting. It shone bright white, and Tilly’s heart glowed in tandem with the pinprick of light.
“Is the bookshop you worked in with my mum on here?” she asked.
Amelia took her over to the opposite wall, which was nearly all taken up with North America, and found a label that said “Bennet & Eyre” among the cluster of New York lights. She touched the words gently. “It was a pretty special place—owned by a brother and sister. One day, when we have more time, I’ll tell you all about that sh
op—but for now we should probably go and check if your grandparents have arrived. This room is not a secret; you can visit it whenever you’re here. You should get your grandma to bring you back and tell you more about it.”
Outside the Map Room, Amelia paused, and handed Tilly her mum’s copy of A Little Princess.
“It should go without saying, but please do not try to travel inside your mother’s copy of A Little Princess again; it’s clearly unstable without its final lines. I think we might need to look at this again at some point, and work out why you were brought here, but as long as I can trust you not to wander inside this copy you can keep hold of it for now. I know it belonged to your mum and will mean a lot to you.” She looked intently at Tilly, who nodded her agreement but silently thought that she needed to have a much closer look and work out why this book was different before she let anyone else examine it.
They walked down the dim corridor into the main hall, back past the sleepy librarian. Amelia led Tilly through an unassuming door to what looked like a fire exit.
“Is this another magical lift?” Tilly asked, suddenly realizing quite how exhausted she was after all that had happened that day.
“No, this one’s just a fire exit,” Amelia said. “We do try to comply with up-to-date fire and safety regulations, even though no one knows we’re here. Good faith, et cetera—we are librarians after all.”
Tilly nodded as if she knew what Amelia meant and then the door swung open and a burst of bracing October night air knocked into her. She was immediately wrapped up in a hug from both her grandparents.
“Thank you, Amelia,” Grandma said, holding Amelia’s arm tightly. “Do we know what happened? We thought she might have headed there; we should have thought in advance . . .” She tailed off, realizing she’d said more than she had intended.
“Don’t worry, Elsie; I don’t think it’s anything to cause concern,” Amelia said. She paused. “I think that Tilly may have tumbled out here because of what I’d call a particularly strong connection to the Underlibrary, so when something went wrong she was pulled back here as a sort of protective measure. I wonder if Tilly’s bookwandering may have some unusual side effects . . .”
