The Dragon in the Library

by Louie Stowell

  “This is a magical book?” Kit looked around in wonder. She sniffed the air cautiously. She could smell flowers and herbs and a little rain. It smelled so real.

  Faith gave a half nod, half shake of her head. “It’s partly the book that’s magical, yes. But it’s partly you.”

  “Sorry?” Kit blinked. “What do you mean, me? What am I?”

  “You’re a wizard.”

  Kit blinked. “I’m a WHAT?”

  “A wizard.” Faith raised a finger and wagged it. “But you shouldn’t be a wizard. It’s not supposed to happen.”

  Faith pursed her lips. This annoyed Kit.

  “Is it because I’m a girl? Can’t girls be wizards?”

  Faith gave her a look. “No,” she said patiently. “It’s not because you’re a girl. It’s because you’re a child.”

  Kit stroked her chin. “So to be a wizard, do I need to be old enough to have a long white beard?”

  “Do I have a long white beard?” Faith pointed to her own very smooth brown chin.

  Kit gasped. “YOU’RE a wizard? I thought you were a librarian.”

  “Are you saying a person can’t be more than one thing?” asked Faith.

  “No,” said Kit. “I just…”

  “You can just later. We should be getting back.” Faith looked around the garden and licked her lips a little nervously. “It’s not good to stay in one place for too long in here. You can … lose yourself.”

  “How DO we get back?” Kit looked around her. The garden seemed to stretch forever in every direction. She couldn’t see a way out.

  Faith clicked both her fingers, striking purple sparks as she did so. “We do a spell, of course.”

  It seemed obvious when Faith said it. Wizards do spells. It’s what makes you a wizard.

  “So how do I do a spell to get us home then?” asked Kit.

  Faith looked horrified. “Oh, you’re not going to do a spell. You haven’t had any training.”

  Kit felt secretly relieved.

  Faith breathed gently, in and out, and gestured with her left hand – a little slice of the air, hardly a movement at all. And then, after another breath, she said, “HUS!”

  Without a warning, without a flash, without a sound, they were back in the library. Faith glanced around them. There was no one nearby.

  “Come on,” said Faith. “Let’s go and talk somewhere.” And she led Kit to a little office on the other side of the library floor. It was shabby and didn’t appear to be used very often, with just a plastic chair and a desk with a couple of torn books resting on it. Faith placed the garden book on the table. “I’ll shelve that in a moment. First, what would you like to know?”

  Kit’s brain was teeming with questions, like a pond full of hyperactive tadpoles.

  “Where WERE we? How did all that –” she waved at the book – “work?”

  “We were inside the book,” said Faith. “But we were also on our way to another library – any library in the world, depending on the exit spell you say when you reach the end of the book. We use certain books – we call them portal books – to travel between libraries. Any book can take you to any library with another copy of the same book. You just walk all the way through the book, then say the right spell to take you to the library you want. The landscape you see around you as you walk depends on the book, and also on the person reading it. This garden looks a little different when I read it. And it looks different every time you read it, depending on your mood, or what else you’ve read recently. But the short answer is, we were inside a book.”

  “So we were standing on a page? It looked like grass,” said Kit.

  “It’s not quite that simple,” said Faith. “We weren’t inside the book in that way. It’s more like … the magical space in the world created by the book – by the act of you reading it. This world doesn’t take up any physical space. It’s more like… You could think of it as the book’s soul, if that helps?”

  Kit wasn’t sure that it did. But she had another, more important question, hopefully one with a simpler answer. “And … I’m a wizard?”

  “Yes!” said Faith. “The youngest wizard in the world.” She thought about this for a moment. “Probably.”

  “Oh,” said Kit. “Wow.”

  Not only was she a wizard – she was some kind of magical child prodigy. This was HUGE.

  “Normally,” Faith went on, “a wizard’s powers don’t kick in until they’re eighteen.” She looked at Kit in puzzlement. “Things really aren’t set up for child wizards.” But then she got a glint in her eye. “We’ll just have to improvise.”

  “Wow!” said Kit. “I can do magic!” She had a thought. “I can’t wait to tell the others! They LOVE magic. They’re going to lose their minds when they find out it’s real!”

  “Oh, no, no, no!” Faith waved her hands at Kit. “You can’t do that. You can’t tell them anything. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “Why not?” Kit’s heart sank.

  “Because of what happens whenever the public finds out about magic. It’s happened before, you see.”

  “When?” Kit definitely hadn’t heard about magic being real before. Except the kind with playing cards and rabbits in hats.

  “Have you heard of witch burnings?” said Faith. “That’s what happened last time anyone found out about magic in Europe. I mean, technically they were wizard burnings. Witches don’t exist. But when you’re being burned at the stake, you don’t really fuss about whether they’re getting your job title correct.”

  “But I only want to tell Josh and Alita, not the whole world,” objected Kit. “Josh and Alita wouldn’t burn wizards. Josh is afraid of fire and Alita is too nice to burn an ant with a magnifying glass.”

  Faith sighed. “It’s not about what they’d do. It’s other people I’m worried about.”

  Kit sniffed. Grown-ups were always warning her about risks but they hardly ever came true. Don’t climb that tree, Kit; it’s too risky – you might fall… Kit, don’t swing back on your chair; it’s too risky – you might crack your head… Kit, don’t stick that fork in that electric socket; you might…

  OK, those last two had led to trips to the hospital. But still. Most of the time things didn’t end as doomily and gloomily as adults expected.

  Kit folded her arms. “They’re my best friends. You can’t stop me telling them.”

  Faith folded her arms too. Her eyes were hard. “No. I can’t stop you. But if you do tell them, I’ll have to cast a spell to wipe their minds. And I hate doing that.”

  There was a scuffle at the door and all of a sudden Alita and Josh burst in, Josh in front and Alita hissing at him to get back.

  “Please don’t wipe our brains!” said Josh. “I need my brain! It’s my best feature! It’s where I keep my ideas!”

  “Sorry to barge in so rudely,” said Alita. “What Josh was trying to say was, please don’t do a spell to make us forget. We won’t tell anyone – we promise.”

  “We’re good at keeping secrets about Kit,” said Josh. “We still haven’t told Kit’s mum that Kit broke the toilet last week.”

  Faith gave a big sigh and closed the door behind them, after checking no one else was close by. “Well, this is a new career high for me,” she muttered. She looked at Josh and Alita for a long time.

  “So,” she said at last. “I take it you overheard what we were talking about? Although, when I say ‘overheard’, I mean ‘listened at the door to something that is definitely NOT your business’.”

  Josh and Alita nodded sheepishly.

  “We knew it was wrong,” said Alita. “But –” she looked up at Faith with her big intense eyes – “so is wiping people’s brains.”

  Faith raised an eyebrow.

  “I took notes,” said Josh, holding up a small notepad and pencil that he carried around with him everywhere.

  “So,” Josh went on, “even if you wipe our minds there’ll still be a record.”

  “And we didn’t JUST o
verhear,” added Alita. “We saw you appear out of that book, from nowhere!” She pointed at the garden book.

  Faith rubbed her eyes and sighed. “Well, that’s not good. It’s even harder to wipe someone’s mind when they’ve seen things with their own eyes. More dangerous.” A light seemed to crackle around her. She lifted her hands, palms out towards Josh and Alita. “But can I really leave the fate of all wizards in the hands of a couple of eavesdropping children?”

  “No!” gasped Kit. “Don’t!”

  Josh and Alita closed their eyes, bracing to have their minds wiped.

  “No,” said Faith at last. “I won’t do it.”

  All three children let out enormous sighs of relief.

  “PHEW!” gasped Alita.

  “Double PHEW!” said Kit.

  “Thanks. But why won’t you do it?” asked Josh. “What changed your mind?” He pulled out his notebook again. “I’d really like to understand what makes wizards tick. Also, I have some further questions.”

  “Josh!” hissed Alita.

  But Faith was smiling. “I don’t care what the Wizards’ Council will say. I can’t risk it. You’ve seen so much that I’d have to take more of your memory than is safe. So I won’t do it. And I just hope I’m doing the right thing.”

  “Well, I definitely think you’re doing the right thing,” said Josh. “But perhaps you could tell us more about this Wizards’ Council. It sounds very—Ow!”

  Josh was silenced by a sharp elbow to the gut from Alita.

  Faith looked carefully at Josh and Alita. “I won’t make you forget. But I need you all to swear not to reveal the secrets of the library.”

  “We swear!” they said together.

  “And I swear too,” said Kit. “Just in case that helps.”

  “Good enough for me,” said Faith, breaking into a smile. “And now you might as well see the rest of the library. And have something to drink. And maybe to eat?”

  All three children nodded enthusiastically.

  Faith led them through the bookshelves, as Josh and Alita fired questions at her.

  “Which books are magical, apart from the garden book you went into?” asked Alita. “How can you tell if a book is magical?”

  “How do you know if you’re a wizard?” asked Josh. “Am I a wizard?”

  Faith paused for a second. She passed both hands back and forth through the air, across both Josh and Alita, saying, “Prak at Karin…” She paused, then shook her head. “No. Not yet, anyway. Nor you, Alita,” she added, and carried on through the bookshelves.

  “Not yet? Do you mean we might be later?” asked Alita. “I don’t know what my mum would think about that.” Then, after seeing Faith’s stern look, she added, “Not that I’d tell her, obviously. But I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t approve. I don’t think she’d think being a wizard is a proper job.”

  “Hey!” said Faith.

  Alita gave an embarrassed cough. “Er … sorry.”

  Faith flashed a smile. “It’s OK. I don’t think my mum would approve either, if she knew.”

  “Your mum doesn’t know you’re a wizard?” Alita’s eyes opened very wide. “What does she think you are?”

  “A librarian,” said Faith. “Which technically is NOT a lie.”

  Faith led them down a narrow alley between two shelves in a dusty corner of the library to a door marked “THE STACKS”, with another sign below it saying “STAFF ONLY”.

  Faith glanced behind her to check there was no one else about. She beckoned them closer, then reached out to touch a book, pulling it half off the shelf and whispering something that sounded like “labba”.

  A slight glow emerged between her fingers and then the whole shelf slid aside without a sound, revealing a doorway.

  Josh let out an excited “wow!” but Faith put a finger to her lips and whispered, “Let’s not tell the whole library about the secret passage, eh?”

  “Sorry,” Josh whispered.

  Inside the doorway it was completely dark.

  “Go on ahead,” said Faith. “Don’t be scared. It’s perfectly safe. Very few people have died down here.”

  Kit wasn’t sure that Faith’s idea of “perfectly safe” was the same as most people’s.

  The wizard librarian ushered the children through the opening ahead of her. When they were all through, the shelf slid silently back into place. They were in total darkness.

  “Ina,” Faith whispered, touching Kit on the forehead.

  A ball of light appeared, lighting up the corridor ahead.

  Kit could now see that the passage sloped downwards. The walls were lined with books.

  Kit strode ahead along the corridor, eager to see what was down there. The others trotted behind her, with Josh at Faith’s side, asking questions.

  “What spell was that, that made the light?”

  “A light spell. A spell of elemental magic.”

  “What’s elemental magic? Can Kit do elemental magic?”

  “Josh, has anyone ever told you that you ask a lot of questions?” said Faith.

  “Most adults, most of the time,” agreed Josh.

  It was true. In class, Josh had his hand up so often that he once had to go to the school nurse with a sprained shoulder.

  “Where are we now?” he asked, adding to the pile of questions.

  “This is where we keep the books we don’t want the general public to get their hands on,” said Faith.

  “Because they’re expensive?” asked Kit.

  “Because they’re dangerous,” said Faith. She gestured around at the book-lined walls. “These books have power, even if you’re not a wizard.”

  Now that Faith mentioned it, Kit could feel something coming from the books. She felt drawn to them, as she had with the garden book and the snake book in the glass case. They seemed to be … humming.

  “These books could change you, in ways you can’t even imagine,” Faith was saying.

  “I can imagine a lot of things,” said Josh.

  “Then double it,” said Faith. “And add a bit where your head gets turned into a marshmallow and your arms become tentacles.”

  The children stayed as close to the middle of the corridor as they could after that.

  The ground was getting soft beneath their feet. Sort of squidgy and springy. The light from the spell began to fade and a new light grew around them.

  Kit couldn’t say when the walls of books became a forest surrounding them.

  The wood was dense, with trees covered in carvings, as though thousands of people had written their names there over the years.

  “Where are we?” breathed Kit.

  “In the stacks,” said Faith.

  “But where are all the books?” asked Josh.

  “Still there. Look,” said Faith. She beckoned them closer to the nearest tree. Soft green light illuminated the bark. It was covered in writing – but not in English. The leaves of the tree were green, but when Kit looked at them for a moment she realised that they weren’t leaves, exactly – they were leaf-shaped pages, written all over in darker ink on the pale green of the page.

  Faith took one of the leaf-pages between finger and thumb, ever so gently. “Books come from trees,” she said, releasing the leaf just as gently. “Give them enough magic and they’ll come back to life. But they don’t ever stop being books.”

  Josh was peering closely at some of the writing on one of the leaves. “Hwa … hwaaat … ne … ouv…”

  “Don’t read it out loud, for Smaug’s sake!” Faith clapped her hand over Josh’s mouth. “That’s a spell! If anyone reads that out loud, bad things happen. Remember what I JUST said about marshmallows and tentacles?”

  “OK, but … what you’re saying is anyone can do magic, if they find the right magical book?” asked Josh hopefully.

  “No. What I’m saying is no reading spells from books or trees out loud. Any of you.” Faith stood between them and the tree. “And especially not you,” she said to Kit.

&
nbsp; “You don’t have to warn me not to read,” said Kit.

  “Oh, really.” Faith laughed. “And there I was thinking you were such a bookworm.” She folded her arms in front of her. “But I’m afraid there will be plenty of reading for you. Just not spells yet.”

  Alita was standing by a tree, stroking one of its thick branches. “Oooh, the moss! It’s so soft! And warm!”

  Faith looked confused.

  Just then the branch Alita was stroking moved. A creature rose up into the air with a flurry of wings and a WHOOSH!

  A ball of fire the size of an orange shot through the air and Alita shrieked, leaping back.

  “Agua!” said Faith, waving her hand in a little rainbow-shaped arc. A jet of water leaped through the air, as though someone had turned on an invisible tap.

  The creature let out a whimper and fluttered to the ground, shaking water out of its large flappy ears.

  It was about the size of a large puppy, with big brown eyes, a furry red muzzle, a furry red coat and red wings. Its belly was covered in green scales. It was adorable. But what was it?

  “Dogon!” scolded Faith. “No breathing fire at guests!”

  “Gruff!” said the creature, looking up at Faith in annoyance. “Rrrrr!” He shook its floppy ears again, sending water flying everywhere.

  “I just can’t seem to get Dogon to behave,” said Faith. “He’s so naughty! Are you all right, Alita?”

  “Fine! Just a bit damp. What IS he?” asked Alita, coming closer to the thing. It nuzzled into her outstretched hand, making a purring sound.

  “He’s a dogon. The Dogon, in fact. The one and only half dog, half dragon,” said Faith. “He lives here. He’s lived here as long as I’ve been here, for years. He doesn’t usually come over and say hello. Perhaps he likes children.”

  “But how can he have been here for years? He’s just a puppy,” said Alita, continuing to stroke the dogon. The creature arched its back and wagged its tail happily.

  “Magical creatures don’t age in the same way that others do,” said Faith.

  “So if Dogon is half dragon, half dog, does that mean there are dragons too?” asked Josh.