by Greg Cox
The game was afoot!
It wasn’t easy, but at last he stumbled onto a neglected filing cabinet tucked away in an inconspicuous corner of the Archives. Riffling through the hanging files, he found a sealed folder filed under “Pacts, Poultry.”
Seriously?
A familiar rush of excitement greeted his discovery. Flynn lived for moments like this, when the buried secrets of the past were unearthed. The mouth of the folder had been sealed with wax, but he sliced through the seal with the tip of his pocket knife.
“Voilà!”
Occult energy flared and popped as he broke the seal, startling Flynn, who gasped in surprise as the liberated Treaty shot from the folder into the air, making a break for it. Dropping the folder, he grabbed for the Treaty without success.
The wild magic, he guessed. There was much more ambient magic in the atmosphere today than there had been when the Treaty had been hermetically sealed away almost a century ago. Breaking the seal had exposed the Treaty to the magic, triggering an immediate reaction, or at least that was the best explanation Flynn could come up with at the moment. Mother Goose’s magic has woken up—and it’s trying to break free!
The flying parchment wafted erratically around the Archives like a paper airplane, blown about by an unnatural breeze. Kicking himself for not anticipating any magical complications, Flynn took a running leap and snagged the fugitive Treaty in midair, only to have an electric jolt run down his arm and along his entire nervous system. Landing flat-footed on the floor, he twitched and jerked as the captured Treaty furled itself tightly within his grip, transforming into a gnarled wooden cane. Flynn tried to let go of the cane-slash-treaty, but it was like holding on to a high-voltage electrical cable: his fingers refused to cooperate.
Okay, he deduced, this isn’t good.
He could feel the forbidden magic coursing through him, eagerly seeking expression after being curtailed for so long. He sensed the fractured spell book yearning to be made whole once more. Magic potent enough to reshape reality escaped the Treaty that had bound it for nearly a century. There was great work to be done, and somebody needed to do it.…
A blinding flash of light lit up the Archives, hiding what transpired from even the Library’s view. When the glare faded, Flynn was no longer to be seen; in his place was a wizened crone clad in a bonnet, shawl, and skirts. She held up her cane in exultation. A gleeful cackle echoed off the walls.
“High diddle diddle!” she exclaimed. “I’m back … and fit as a fiddle!”
Mother Goose basked in her newfound freedom. For too long had her magic and merriment been barred from the world by fainthearted legal quibbles and caveats. For too many generations had her spells and legacy been divided between unworthy pretenders to her title. No longer was she constrained by that picayune Treaty. Mother Goose was reborn, with power enough to restart all of Creation.
Once she had her book back and in one piece again, of course.
The time had come to regain what was rightfully hers, and she knew just where to begin. She held out an open hand. Magic flashed and a photo appeared in her hands: a picture of a young boy posing before Humpty Dumpty’s wall. The crone contemplated the photo, oddly troubled by the sight of the child, before averting her eyes.
The boy doesn’t matter, she thought. That’s my Garden, not his.
An empty folder lay upon the floor where the Librarian had dropped it. Taking a moment to tidy up, Mother Goose placed the photo in the folder and filed it back where it belonged.
“A place for everything and everything in its place,” she said, chuckling. “And those baby Librarians will be none the wiser!”
Eager to be on her way, she hurried through the sleeping Library to the Annex on her way back to the world. Flynn’s magic detector beeped in alarm as she strode past it, much to her annoyance. Scowling, she turned toward the device, ready to banish it to the bottom of the deep blue sea, but paused and thought better of it. The clever contrivance might well prove of use where she was going, if only to trace the unseen currents of magic flowing through the world outside as she went about reclaiming her spells.
“Waste not, want not.”
She tucked the scanner under her arm before heading out the Magic Door.
Her Garden awaited … as did her destiny!
24
New Jersey
“Flynn?” Baird repeated. “Is that you?”
The very idea was insane, but the more she thought about it, the more it added up:
Mother Goose knew them all by name, and seemed to have a bit of an attitude regarding the new crop of Librarians … just like Flynn used to.
Mother Goose had pedantically corrected her regarding the Black Death … which was just what Flynn might have done.
Mother Goose’s hammy Boston accent was about as subtle as Flynn’s atrocious Elizabethan dialect had been that one time they’d traveled back in time and met Shakespeare.
Mother Goose was manic and reckless and out of control … just like Flynn had been when under the pernicious influence of the Apple of the Discord, which had amplified that aspect of his personality. And there was certainly a part of Flynn, the boundlessly curious, wildly foolhardy part, who just loved magic and marvels and arcane lore and secrets for their own sake, who never met a code he didn’t want to crack or a forbidden tomb he didn’t want to open, and who might not be able to resist putting Humpty Dumpty back together just to see what happened next.
And somebody must have left that photo in the Library’s files as a clue to Mother Goose’s true identity.…
Could it be?
She peered into Mother Goose’s eyes, looking for a glint, a trace, of a man she liked to think she knew better than most. And, yes, there it was: an unmistakable intelligence, along with a slightly lunatic spark of genius, that couldn’t belong to anyone else.
“It is you, isn’t it? Underneath all that … goosieness.”
“Nonsense!” the crone replied. “I’m Mother Goose … as any fool can plainly see.” She shook her cane at the grounded Guardian. “Now be a good girl and let me get on with my work. I’ve no wish to hurt you, Eve.”
“That’s right!” she said. “You’ve never actually hurt anyone, even as Mother Goose. The ‘attacks’ on Gillian and Mary and George … those were frightening, but they left your ‘victims’ alive and well. If you’d really wanted to eliminate the competition, like you thought you were doing, you’ve been doing a pretty sucky job of it. And later, when you ambushed the other Librarians, you always left them a way out, knowing they’d be able to save themselves.”
No wonder I could never bring myself to shoot her, Baird thought. Maybe deep down I always sensed who “she” really was.
“Hell, you even left us a clue to figure out who you really are, so we could free you from whatever spell you’re under.” Typical Flynn, she thought. “You’re still in there somewhere, Flynn, trying to stop this. You know you are!”
“I know nothing of the sort,” Mother Goose insisted, perhaps a bit defensively. She shook her cane at Baird. “You’ve clearly taken leave of your senses, Eve Baird! You’re mad, mad I say!”
“Excuse me,” Cassandra interrupted. Like the other Librarians, she remained pinned to the ground by a nursery rhyme. “Am I following this right? Mother Goose is Flynn?”
Baird was certain of it. “He’s under a spell or possessed or something, like that time you turned into Prince Charming, or when Shakespeare was accidentally transformed into his own creation!”
It had taken the combined efforts of three Librarians to turn the wizard Prospero back into William Shakespeare. She was surely going to need their help to restore Flynn to himself as well.
“We need to snap him out of this!” she urged the others. “All of us, together, before it’s too late!”
She glanced up at the sky. The sun was rising higher in the east, a rosy glow encroaching on the moon and stars, which were looking ever larger and closer than before. The universe was shrinking, just li
ke Jenkins had predicted. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning, she recalled. Isn’t that a Mother Goose rhyme, too?
Baird wasn’t sure.
Worse yet, Humpty Dumpty was coming together again. She watched in horror as the reformed egg bounced off the ground and back onto the headless mannequin’s empty shoulders. Humpty’s gloved hands reached up to fit his head back on. Mother Goose cackled and clapped her hands at the sight.
“That’s it, that’s a good egg! Pull yourself together!”
Baird’s heart sank.
“I don’t understand, Flynn!” she said urgently. “Why are you doing this? The whole universe is collapsing, everything you’ve fought so hard to protect all these years!”
“Can’t make a new Creation without breaking an egg.” The crone cackled at her own joke. “You see what I did there?”
“But think of all that will be lost,” Baird said. “The books, the learning, the obscure facts and history, everything you’ve devoted your life to.” She looked to the others for assistance. “Back me up here, people!”
“Art, architecture, form, function,” Stone chimed in. “The Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, Angkor Wat, Notre Dame, the Sistine Chapel, Impressionism, Surrealism, Dadaism, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali, Rockwell, Frazetta—”
“Algebra, trigonometry, calculus,” Cassandra called out. “Differential equations, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, quantum physics, superstrings, brane theory, mathemagics—”
“Still not a thing,” Baird muttered under her breath.
“The Hope Diamond, Fort Knox, the Crown Jewels,” Ezekiel added. “Secret codes and passwords and puzzles and riddles, with shiny prizes just waiting to be found if you’re quick and clever enough.…”
Very good, Jones, Baird thought, impressed. You’ve got Flynn’s number all right.
Their combined efforts seemed to hit a nerve. A look of uncertainty came over Mother Goose’s face. The levitating spell book rocked in the air, its pages flipping randomly. Her cane drooped in her grip.
“No,” the crone muttered, her fake accent slipping. “You’ll not dissuade me from my course. A new age dawns, the age of Mother Goose … the only true Mother Goose.” Her conviction faltered. “Or am I?”
“It’s working!” Baird shouted. “We’re getting through to him. Keep it up!”
“The Alhambra!” Stone shouted. “Hagia Sophia, Stonehenge, the cave paintings at Lascaux!”
“Inverse hyperbolic functions!” Cassandra yelled. “The double helix, Gödel’s theorem, superconductivity!”
“Treasure maps!” Ezekiel said. “Secret rooms, hidden vaults, booby traps, alarms!”
“Hush!” Mother Goose’s cane slipped from her fingers. She clapped her hands over her ears. “Still your tongues, you insolent brats, or I’ll whip you all soundly and send you to bed!”
The floating spell book crashed to the ground, as though her power was weakening. Confusion contorted Mother Goose’s features. She reeled unsteadily atop the brick wall, clutching her head. A low moan escaped her lips.
“Listen to me, Flynn,” Baird pleaded. “Not just with your brain, but with your heart. Remember all the people and places most dear to you, everyone and everything that wants you back: the Library, Judson, Excalibur … and me.”
The crone’s face rippled and blurred, growing translucent enough that you could almost see another face behind it. A face Baird knew up close and personal. A familiar voice emerged from Mother Goose’s mouth.
“Eve?”
Hope flared in Baird’s heart as she recognized Flynn’s voice.
“That’s right, Flynn. You can beat this. Come back to me, to all of us!”
The faltering crone looked down at herself in disbelief, as though for the first time. She reached up and felt her own face, exploring its contours with both hands. Startled eyes—Flynn’s eyes—bulged behind Mother Goose’s wavering, insubstantial countenance.
“This is all wrong,” she said. “This isn’t who I—”
A blazing blue fireball consumed Mother Goose, flaring brighter than the rising sun. A shock wave radiated from the blast, sending Baird and the others tumbling across the ground, rolling over the weeds and underbrush. The impact knocked the wind out of Baird and left her ears ringing.
Damn it, she thought. Why does the big magic always have to be so … pyrotechnic?
But had it worked?
Although battered by the blast, she realized that her arms and legs were no longer weighed down by magic. Scrambling to her feet, despite various scratches and bruises, she looked anxiously at the wall to see:
Flynn Carsen, not Mother Goose.
The witch was gone, replaced by the restored Librarian, who gazed down at himself with a dazed expression. A burgundy smoking jacket looked much better on him than Mother Goose’s shawl and skirts. Unruly brown hair was adorably mussed. He shook his head to clear it of any lingering identity crises.
“Okay, that was … different.”
Mother Goose’s cane had transformed, as well, into a furled sheet of parchment that started to blow away in the breeze.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Flynn hopped off the wall and stepped on the parchment to keep it from getting away. “You’re not going anywhere except back into the Archives!”
The missing Treaty, Baird guessed. So that’s what happened to it.
Flynn looked up at Baird, their eyes meeting across the short distance between them. “Thank you,” he said softly, even as the other Librarians rushed toward him, now up and about as well.
“Flynn!” Cassandra squeed, hugging him. “It is you! You’re back!”
Stone slapped him on the back. “Good to see you again, man!”
Typically, Ezekiel played it cool. “You owe me a drink, mate, for that business with the blackbirds.…”
“I’m so sorry, everyone!” Flynn said, contrite. “You know that wasn’t really me, right? It was the spell and the rhymes and … whoa, did I really turn into an actual goose at one point?”
Cassandra nodded. “And flew off into the sky.”
“And, boy, are my arms tired,” Flynn said with a cheesy grin. “Sorry, had to say that.”
Baird wanted to join in the reunion, but their mission wasn’t completed yet.
“No time to celebrate, people. Looks like we’re still on the clock.”
She had hoped that breaking the spell over Flynn, and exorcising Mother Goose, would end the crisis, but Humpty Dumpty had not gone anywhere. Looking past Flynn and the others, Baird saw that Mother Goose’s explosive transformation had failed to dislodge Humpty from his perch atop the wall. His great head rotated east to watch the sunrise. He grinned in anticipation.
Mother Goose’s big spell is still playing out, Baird realized. If Humpty hatches, it’s the Big Bang all over again.
Racing forward, she rescued the fallen spell book from the ground and thrust it at Flynn.
“Welcome back,” she said. “Can you stop this?”
“I’m not sure.” He cracked open the book, but peered down at the pages in confusion, as though he didn’t even know where to begin looking for a counterspell. “The spell has been cast, events have been set in motion, taking on a life of their own, and I’m not Mother Goose anymore. I don’t think I can halt this.”
Baird started to despair until she saw a sudden inspiration light up his eyes. He smiled encouragingly.
“But I think I know who can!”
25
New Jersey
The rising sun hurt Flynn’s eyes as the Magic Door deposited him, Baird, and the three Goose heirs back in the park, outside Peter the Pumpkin Eater’s colossal pumpkin shell of a house. White light filled the doorway behind them, vanishing almost as quickly as it appeared.
Baird looked about, orienting herself. “The pumpkin, not the shoe?”
“This way is faster,” he replied. Mother Goose’s spell book was tucked under his arm. “Trust me.”
Mary, Gill
ian, and George, less accustomed to instantaneous cross-continental travel, needed a moment to adjust to their new surroundings. Both wonder and trepidation played across their features.
“Another pumpkin,” Gillian said with a shudder. “Lovely.”
“But just a fake,” George pointed out, “and more rundown than my first car.”
“Just as long as any nasty rodents are purely decorative as well,” Mary said. “I left my carving knife at home.”
Flynn flinched inside, recalling the trials he’d inflicted on Mary and the others as Mother Goose. He’d have to make it up to them somehow, after they saved the universe.
Assuming they were up to the challenge.
“Come along, come along!” he urged them. “Time—and Humpty Dumpty—waits for no man, or woman, or combinations thereof.”
Mary eyed him warily. “Who exactly are you again?”
“Just another Librarian,” Baird said, ducking the issue to a degree.
“Well, maybe not just another Librarian,” Flynn objected.
He appreciated that Baird wanted to avoid getting into the whole “temporarily possessed by the magic of Mother Goose” thing, but he did have a certain degree of seniority where the Library was concerned.…
“You sure we never met before?” George peered at Flynn. “’Cause there’s something about you.…”
Flynn tugged nervously on his collar. “Just have that kind of face, I guess.”
“No, it’s not that,” Gillian said. “I feel certain that I know you from somewhere, but I can’t quite place—”
“We can sort that out later,” Baird interrupted, coming to Flynn’s rescue. “Flynn’s right. There’s not a moment to lose!”
Truer words were never spoken. Arriving back at Humpty Dumpty’s wall, they found the other Librarians struggling to keep a teetering Humpty from taking another fall—and cracking open again. Stone had Humpty in a headlock, while Cassandra and Ezekiel shoved against Humpty, trying to hold the animated mannequin in place, despite the fact that Humpty was not making it any easier for them. Unhappy at being restrained, he kicked and swatted at the Librarians. His painted face expressed his displeasure. His smile flipped into a frown. Glossy black eyebrows tilted angrily. Jagged streaks of red painted his big eyes bloodshot.
