by James Riley
He stepped closer, holding the book out to her. “Take it,” he said. “This one you can have for free.”
Bethany reached out a trembling hand and took the book from him, then brought it close enough to read the title in the flickering candlelight.
“Story Thieves ?” she said, then glanced down at the drawing of two kids leaping into a book. The girl had red hair, and the boy wore all black and carried wand-knives.
“Oh, didn’t you know?” Doyle said, his voice sounding like it was a million miles away as Bethany stared at the cover, not believing what she was seeing. “The fictional world’s been enjoying your exploits for a few months now. None realized it was a true story, of course. Not even me. Though I did wonder how exactly this author, James Riley, knew of my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather’s claim of being saved by a flying man.” He paused. “Turns out, my family’s embarrassment was all thanks to you.”
Bethany couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. This book was about her? How was that possible? She wasn’t fictional! Half, maybe, but she wasn’t living in the fictional world. How could someone see what she was doing? People were reading about her? People knew her secrets?
“I know where your father is, Bethany Sanderson,” Doyle continued. “I know what you and your friends are doing. And I know what you are. So now you’re going to provide me with all the books in your library. That is the payment I require. You’ll pay it, or you’ll never see your father again. Now, please: Jump out of my book. I’d rather not look at you a moment longer than I have to.”
And with that, he turned his back, and Bethany immediately jumped straight out of the book, screaming at the top of her lungs.
CHAPTER 25
00:46:02
I come here all the time!” Owen said, pointing at the Napoleon Bakery storefront. “You’re telling me this is just a front for the mob?”
“Nah, they’re not mob, SP,” Moira said, crinkling her nose. “Your town isn’t really that big, so they’re unaffiliated. But they’re trying, so you have to give them that! They’ve made a few big moves, just enough to get on the radar.”
“Like trying to kill your mother,” Owen said, giving Kiel a glance. The boy magician, though, barely seemed to notice where they were, and just kept looking at the countdown watch. Owen nudged him with his shoulder, and Kiel looked up and winked, but then he got the same faraway look in his eye.
“On the bright side, they would have had to know where she was in order to off her!” Moira said, pushing the door open. “So let’s see what they know, shall we?”
“The sign says ‘closed,’ ” Owen pointed out. It was after midnight, after all.
“That’s for the regular people,” Moira said, sticking out her tongue at him. “You’re with me now, you adorable little monkey. And besides, the door’s open. They want us to come in!”
The inside of the fictional Napoleon Bakery looked exactly like the nonfictional version that Owen had been to so many times, just darker, considering that most of the lights were off. Small white metal tables filled the front of the bakery, each with two or three chairs around them, while a large display case filled the back, empty now, but usually complete with every possible sweet or baked goodie you could ever want.
Lights shone in from behind the case, and fun smells drifted in from the kitchen. They were probably up baking already for the next day.
Was his version a front for a crime boss too? Did his hometown actually have a crime family, or was this just the fictional world? So much of this was confusing!
“I’m going to do the talking, okay?” Moira told Owen and Kiel. “Usually I love hearing what you two crazies come up with, but in the hopes of at least one of us getting out alive, let me handle things.”
“This is such a bad idea,” Owen told her, wondering if he’d ever have been willing to go along with this in the real world. Did it feel less dangerous just because it was fictional, and things tended to work out in this world? Or was he just so tired and headachy that following Moira just seemed easier?
She blinked at him and Kiel. “A wink for each of you!” she said, then shoved them forward through the door to the kitchen. “Pretend you’re my bodyguards!”
As Owen passed through the door, all action in the kitchen stopped, and ten different bakers, all in white, immediately stopped what they were doing and pulled out guns, each one aimed at them.
Owen swallowed harder than he had in his life, struggling to not just collapse in a heap. “Bodyguard,” Kiel whispered, and Owen fought through the terror to try to look tough and bodyguard-like, then just as quickly realized he had no idea how to do that.
“Tell the Piemaker that Moira Gonzalez is here to see him,” said a dangerous voice behind Owen, and he turned to find Moira, a deadly calm look on her face, staring the kitchen down. The excited girl from a minute ago had completely disappeared, and again Owen remembered that in spite of her demeanor, this girl was a criminal.
No one moved in the kitchen for a moment, then Moira snapped her fingers, and Kiel shoved a cart full of pans over. The clatter made Owen almost jump out of his shirt, but he wasn’t sure which was more surprising . . . the noise, or that Kiel had embraced his role so quickly.
“The lady said to move!” Kiel shouted, then turned to wink at Owen, his face still filled with anger. At least he was having some fun.
From a room toward the back, an enormously fat man in a chef’s hat and a business suit emerged, drying his hands on a towel. He glanced in their direction, then snorted. “Back to work!” he shouted, and immediately the kitchen jumped to it, the bakers putting their guns away and returning to whatever it was they were doing. One baker even started picking up the pans that Kiel had just knocked over.
“Sorry about that,” Owen whispered, and Moira smacked him.
“Moira Gonzalez,” said the man in the suit. “This is a surprise. And what might you be doing here?”
“I’m here for information, Piemaker,” Moira said. “I hear you’re the one to talk to in this pathetic little town.”
Hey! Owen wanted to yell, but kept his mouth shut to avoid getting smacked again.
“And why exactly would I help you?” the Piemaker said, walking toward them slowly while glancing over the shoulders of his bakers. “Seems to me I ought to bake you and your little guards there into a pie and send it to your mother as a warning, instead.”
“She lets you operate because you’re not a threat,” Moira said, dipping her finger into one of the baker’s chocolaty bowls and tasting it. “Not bad. No, you’re not going to touch me or my friends. And you’re going to give me exactly what I want. Or you and this bakery will disappear in twenty-four hours like you never existed.”
The Piemaker laughed. “Not a threat? Tell your mother that next time we sink her boat, she’ll be chained to it.”
Moira paused, then turned to the Piemaker, her eyes burning. “Enough. I was going to let you bluster to impress your people here, but that’s all over now.” She pulled out her phone and began dialing.
The Piemaker’s eyes widened, and he leaped forward, only to stop short as Kiel grabbed a knife from the counter and held it almost casually between them. Behind them, Moira began to murmur into her phone. “Yup, he’s not cooperating. I think his bakery’s about to go bankrupt.”
“No!” the Piemaker shouted. “I’m cooperating! This was all just a big misunderstanding!”
Moira paused, then said, “Hold on,” into the phone. She turned to the Piemaker. “Apologize.”
The large man looked around at his bakers, who were staring at him. “I can’t—”
“Apologize.”
The Piemaker swallowed hard, then nodded. “I’m deeply sorry if—”
“On your knees.”
The man started to protest, but Moira just put the phone back to her ear, and he immediately sank to his knees. “I’m deeply, truly sorry if I offended you. I am happy to help in any way I can.”
Moira nodded, then put the phone to her ear. “Okay,” she said, then hung up. “My mother says that she’s now bored of this game where you try to disappear her. One more attempt and you go away. Am I clear?”
The Piemaker nodded vigorously. “Crystal clear, Ms. Gonzalez.”
“Good,” Moira said. “Now, get me a croissant or something. You’ve got two minutes.”
Exactly two minutes later, the three of them all had pastries and coffee, while the Piemaker sat across from them at one of the small metal tables, visibly sweating. “Of course I’ve heard of Doyle Holmes,” he said, after Owen filled him in on their questions. “The families are watching him, just to make sure he doesn’t get too far in his family business. But he’s mostly stuck to little stuff. He was here a few weeks ago, but that’s the last I heard of him.”
Doyle was here a few weeks ago? That was news!
“Oh, he’s back,” Moira said. “And he’s got a friend of mine. What was he doing here before? Give me something, Piemaker, or my mother’s going to be very disappointed.”
The man started breathing hard, and despite the fact that the Piemaker was a criminal, Owen still felt bad about all of this. “Nothing, I swear! All he did was go to the local library. That’s it!”
The library? Why would he have gone there? Maybe to get it ready to burn down? But that was ridiculous, Owen’s mother, or her fictional version at least, would have noticed something.
“What did he do there?” Owen asked.
“Just talked to some kid, that was it,” the Piemaker said. “They left together. Guess he’s the son of the librarian or something. We looked into him but didn’t find anything. And Doyle left soon after. So I’m sure it was nothing.”
Owen’s hands began to shake, and he had to grab the table to stop them. Doyle Holmes had spoken to his fictional self a few weeks earlier? What was happening ?
CHAPTER 26
00:35:12
Are you sure meeting yourself is a good idea?” Kiel asked for the fourth time as they hid in the bushes outside of the fictional Owen’s house.
“Nope,” Owen said. “But if Doyle spoke to this Owen, then he’s involved somehow. His mom’s library just got burned down, and he and I are being blamed. If Inspector Brown is right, Doyle even got our fingerprints on the gas cans. Doyle must have put us in the library for a reason. Maybe it was just to throw us off and make us think we were in the nonfictional world, but maybe not. Either way, right now this is the only clue we have.”
“I just feel like we’re losing time and are no closer to finding Bethany,” Kiel said, shifting from foot to foot. Owen glanced at him, not sure how well the magician was holding up. His books had always given Kiel a clear goal, with the Magister telling him what to do, and then Charm helping him get there. Now, though, everything was so nebulous, and nothing was certain. That and not having his magic must be making the magician crazy.
At least Kiel had power when he had his wands and spells. The best Owen could do was let a criminal genius get the clues for him, and then question a version of himself.
Like he didn’t question himself enough already.
“What do you think?” Owen whispered to Moira.
“I love this plan, Sad Panda!” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “I suggest we hang this kid outside his window by his ankles until he talks. If that’s uncomfortable for you, I’m happy to do it.”
Very helpful, as always.
“Follow me,” Owen said, and crept toward the back door. His . . . fictional Owen’s mother should be down at the police station by now, but who knew when she’d be back. For all he knew, there’d be police cars on their way to the house, too.
Fortunately, there was no need to break in, as Owen had a key. Assuming his nonfictional key worked in the fictional lock.
He pulled his keys out quietly and began to slip the key into the door, before Moira excitedly shoved him out of the way and unlocked it herself, then pushed the door open.
“Sorry, I love picking locks,” she said, grinning at him. “There’s just something so satisfying about it.”
Owen stared at her for a moment, desperately missing Charm, then slipped inside a very familiar-looking kitchen.
Everything looked exactly the same as the house he’d left just . . . well, who knew how many hours earlier. The same stove, the same report cards and photos up on the refrigerator, the same nicks in the countertop where he’d learned to slice potatoes years ago. How could it all be so similar, but so different? How connected were these worlds?
“I should be upstairs,” Owen whispered, then grabbed Moira’s arm and yanked her backward before she could take the lead. After the ankle comment, there was no way he was letting her take charge, not with his fictional self. Kiel brought up the rear, seeming more and more uncomfortable with this whole thing.
In the living room something small, furry, and extremely unexpected rubbed up against Owen’s leg, and he almost shrieked before leaping backward. He quickly looked down to find a black cat with a white fur spike in the middle of its face staring back at him, purring.
His fictional self had a cat?! Owen didn’t have a cat! When did this happen?
“Aw, kitty!” Moira whispered, and the cat immediately trotted away, then stopped a few feet away, blinking at Owen. “Hmm,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Not cool.”
Kiel absently scratched the cat on its head as they passed, Owen giving the animal one last look. A cat? Really? But he’d always wanted a dog.
On his way up to his own bedroom, Owen avoided the creaky stair just by habit, and Moira followed his lead, but Kiel stepped directly on it, which at least confirmed that not everything changed. The noise didn’t seem to wake anyone up, so Owen continued the climb, and after quickly confirming that his mother’s room was empty, he walked quietly down the hallway toward his own bedroom.
That was an odd feeling, walking toward your own room but knowing that it wasn’t yours.
“Let me talk to him,” Owen whispered to the other two. “Out of all of us, I’m probably going to freak him out the least.” He paused. “And that’s saying something.”
Moira silently clapped her hands excitedly. “And then we hang him out the window!”
“No hanging anyone out windows!” he whispered to her. “Kiel, you okay?”
Kiel just nodded quietly, so Owen slowly turned the doorknob to his bedroom.
Just like his own room, Fictional Owen’s bedroom was a bit of a book graveyard. All the library books too beaten up to last on the shelves inevitably were either given to Owen or sold at fundraising sales, so his bedroom tended to look like the night of the living dead books.
The curtains let in just a bit of light, enough to show someone sleeping in Owen’s bed (which sent an unpleasant chill down his spine), but not enough to see the titles of the books on the floor. Owen considered stopping for a moment just to see what kind of books Fictional Owen would have, but sighed, figuring that was probably not going to help things right now.
Instead, Owen crept toward the bed, trying not to make a sound, and took a deep breath.
Then he turned on the light.
There, sleeping in his bed, was Fictional Owen, looking exactly like the Owen that Owen saw in the mirror every morning. As soon as the light hit them, Fictional Owen’s eyes flew open, and he proceeded to lose it.
“AH! What’s going on?” he shouted, shoving himself away from the intruders until he hit the wall.
“It’s okay!” Owen shouted at his fictional self. “Don’t freak out! It’s just me! It’s you! I’m you, I mean!”
“AH!” Fictional Owen shouted again, his eyes frantically switching from Kiel to Moira to Owen and back. “Who are you? What do you want?” And with that, Owen saw his fictional self reaching for a nearby bat.
The same bat that Owen had used to knock out Dr. Verity, actually.
“This is amazing !” Moira said, starting forward with her Taser. “He looks just like you! I’m s
o in love with this I want to marry it. How’d you do this, anyway?”
Owen caught her by her shirt and yanked her backward. “No!” he shouted. “Let me handle this.”
She gave him a sad look, then sighed and put the Taser away. “You’re starting to sound like my dad.”
“Good!” he told her, then turned back to his fictional self. “Owen, it really is me, so, you. You know how you’ve always thought there was more to the world than school and homework and chores? Well, you’re right, and I’m the proof! I come from a different world, and I need your help.”
Fictional Owen paused, looking closely at Owen. Then his eyes widened, and he jumped to his feet. “You’re real. He said you were real, but I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. You’re here, you’re really here!” He turned toward the boy magician. “And you must be Kiel!”
Uh-oh. “You know Kiel?” Owen asked, his stomach dropping into his shoes.
Fictional Owen nodded. “And is that Bethany?” He leaned forward and squinted. “You don’t look like the version of you on the cover.”
“Nope!” Moira said. “I’m Moira!” She stuck out her hand, but Owen noticed the Taser behind her back, so he quickly pulled her away from his other self.
“Bethany?” Owen said to the other Owen, his mind racing. “Where did you hear that name? How do you know Kiel?”
“He told me you would come,” Fictional Owen said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. You’re actually here! All this time, I thought this was just a weird joke by that James Riley writer. I couldn’t believe that he used my name and my mom’s library in his book. But you’re real! You actually exist!”
With that, his other self began rooting around on the books on the ground. Finally, he found what he was looking for and handed it to Owen.
“See?” Fictional Owen said. “Story Thieves. And you’re really here! He was right! Doyle said you’d come, and you did!”
