Journey to the Library [The Library Saga]

by Amy Cross

  "Thomas!" I scream. "Help me! HELP ME!"

  "Might as well try to save it," the second voice says, and suddenly I'm tilted sideways and swung down toward the ground. As I try to work out what the hell's happening, I feel a series of heavy thuds, and then I'm tilted again until finally I'm upside down. I stare at the clear blue sky for a moment, and then I'm tilted back the right way up and lowered down toward the ground, my feet landing in something soft and damp, like soil. Moments later, more soil is packed around my feet and partway up my legs, and finally the thing gripping my waist lets go, and two large, fur-covered beasts step back and tower over me. Dizzy once again, I try to let my head settle.

  "Not bad," the first creature says. "You never know if the roots are too badly damaged, but it should have a chance here. Might get some nice sun in the mornings, and a bit of shade in the evenings. Provided it doesn't get dug up by wild animals, I reckon it could do pretty well. Might be worth keeping an eye on it over the next few months, in case it sprouts berries or something."

  "Thomas!" I shout at the top of my voice. "Mum! Dad! Help me!"

  "Hang on," says the second creature, disappearing from view for a moment before returning with what looks like a huge watering can, which he holds over me. Moments later, a fine rain pours down all over my body, before finally the creature steps back and takes another look at me. "I don't think that's at all bad," he says finally. "Wouldn't surprise me one bit if this thing grows again. See? I told you it was a plant. You should listen to me about stuff. I know I come across as being ignorant most of the time, but that's really just a kind of act. I'm something of a botanist, if truth be told."

  "I didn't know you liked boats."

  "Help!" I shout, my throat starting to feel sore from all the screaming.

  As I stare up at the creatures, the dizziness finally stops and my vision becomes less blurry. I blink a couple of times as I realize that these creatures are huge, maybe twenty or thirty feet tall, covered in thick, dark brown hair with only a pair of eyes sticking out somewhere near the top. They have long, lazy arms, but the worst thing about them is the horrific stench: it's like they've got terrible body odor, which I guess isn't too much of a shock given all that fur, but there's also a hint of garbage in the air. To top it all off, they have a set of horns on their heads, running around the scalp almost like a crown. They must be giant hobos... That's the only thing that makes sense. Giant, hairy, horned hobos. Stunned by their bizarre appearance, I open my mouth to call for help, but no words come out.

  "You think it'll flower?" the first creature says, still staring at me.

  "HELP!"

  "Dunno."

  "Maybe we should take cuttings," the first creature continues, pointing at my arms. "If we cut those bits off and plant them nearby -"

  "No!" I shout, although I immediately regret drawing attention to myself in such a way. My heart racing, I stare up at the creatures, hoping against hope that maybe they didn't hear me. Still, I guess they're not idiots, and it's clear that they heard me loud and clear.

  "Did it -"

  "Wind," says the first creature with unwarranted confidence. "That was just a particularly strong gust that blew through the plant and came out through the bud, and circumstances conspired to make it sound a little bit like the word 'no', which it most certainly wasn't."

  "You sure?" the second creature asks, leaning closer and staring at me, one of its large eyeballs just a few inches from my head. "It looks a bit like it has a face."

  "That's just the pattern of its stamen or something," the first creature replies. "It's a way of warding off predators. The plant has grown a pattern, right, that approximates a face, and the idea is that dangerous creatures will just kind of keep back because they're worried." He pauses. "It's a classic defense tactic, really, designed to fool less intelligent creatures. Remarkable, really, what the natural world can come up with."

  "Pass me the shears," the second creature says after a moment. "I think I should definitely take a cutting -"

  "No!" I shout, once again regretting the outburst immediately. I should just keep quiet and hope these things leave me alone, but as I look down at my feet and see that I've been thoroughly planted in the ground like a flower, I start to realize that I might not have the luxury of going unnoticed. I slowly look back up at the second creature, and find that it's still staring directly at me.

  "Did you say something?" he asks.

  "I'm not a plant," I reply, my voice stuttering. "I'm a..." Pausing, I realize that I'm still a little vague on the details. I guess I must have hit my head, judging by the throbbing pain on one side of my face. "I'm definitely not a plant," I continue after a moment. "I can tell you that for sure. My name's..." I pause again. "Alice Never," I say eventually, figuring that I might as well be honest with them. "My name's Alice Never! That's right, I'm Alice Never, and I..." I pause again, as the reality - or rather, the unreality - of the situation hits me.

  "She might be right," says the first creature, flicking through a large book. "There's a picture of a human here, and it's not that different. There's basically two types. There's a male human and there's a female human. The male ones usually have hair under their chins, so I suppose this one must be a female. They're weaker than the males, on account of them carrying the young while the males go out hunting." He pauses as he reads some more. "They're not really dangerous, not most of the time, but they sometimes carry disease."

  "What kind of disease?"

  "Doesn't say. All sorts, I guess."

  "Human, eh?" the second creature says. "I've heard of them, but I'm not sure I've ever seen one. What else does it say about them? Are they valuable?"

  "Not really. Maybe to a collector. No-one else knows what to do with them."

  "Shame," the second creature mutters. "We could use a good payday down the market. Do they make good pets?"

  "Don't think so."

  "She's definitely not from around these parts," the first creature continues, as he reads from the page. "In fact, she's not from the Library at all. She's a long way from home." He continues to read for a moment. "It says here that humans don't really have any kind of conscious mind. They're only one step up from vegetable matter. You don't need to worry about hurting her, then. She can't process emotions."

  "What did you say?" I ask.

  "Fortunately," he continues, closing the book, "it says humans can be recycled."

  "So she won't grow into anything if we just leave her here?" the second creature asks.

  "Doubt it," the first creature replies, reaching down and grabbing me by the waist before lifting me out of the ground and holding me up so he can get a better look at me. "The best thing we can do with this thing is take it back to our aisle and find some other use for it. Maybe it could be a good lamp, or a rug."

  "Let me go!" I say, struggling to get free from the creature's grip.

  "Are you sure it can't feel emotions?" the second creature asks. "It seems rather... scared."

  "Don't anthropomorphize the damn thing," the first creature replies, turning and dropping me into a large black bag. "Just 'cause it makes a lot of noise, that doesn't mean it's in any way alive."

  "No!" I shout, as the top of the bag is zipped shut, leaving me in pitch darkness. Seconds later, I feel the bag being hauled up into the air, followed by a series of thuds as the creatures start walking. "Let me out of here!" I shout. With the shock having passed, memories are starting to flood back to me. I have to get back to the car. I have to find Tom and then we have to find our parents and then, if we can't find them, we have to go and get help. But first, before all of that, I guess I have to wake up from what can only be some kind of bizarre, brain-damaged nightmare. "Stop!" I shout. "Let me out of here! I can't breathe properly! Let me out!"

  Thomas Never

  When I come tumbling out of the darkness, the first thing I notice is that I'm in mid-air, but this doesn't last too long: seconds later, I land in the dust and roll through a bush bef
ore coming to rest face-down in the dirt. For a few seconds, I feel totally winded, and finally I let out a faint groan.

  "Quite an entrance," says a nearby voice.

  I sit up, and although I feel a little sore all over, none of my bones seem to be broken. Staring up at the dark hole in the side of the small hill, I realize that somehow I fell for a few minutes before emerging... wherever I am. The last thing I remember is being pulled into the gap between the snowy rocks; after that, I fell for what felt like an eternity, until I emerged here. Wherever here might be...

  "So let's take a look at you," says the voice, and moments later a man appears in my field of vision, walking around me before taking a seat on the ground. To say that he's over-dressed would be an exaggeration; this guy is wearing such a bright, multicolored robe, complete with a small, flat blue hat, that it takes a moment before I notice his friendly, smiling face. He looks to be in his forties at least, and he has one of those old-fashioned mustaches that look like they belong in an old war movie. Frankly, he looks like an embarrassing father who dressed up as a magician for a birthday party.

  "Who are you?" I ask, taking a moment to get my breath back.

  "Never mind that," he replies, with a strikingly upper-class English accent. "I already know who I am. I'm more concerned with the question of who you are. I don't suppose you happen to have a name, do you? It'd be so useful if you did."

  I stare at him, and suddenly all my mother's old warnings about talking to strangers start flooding back; I figure they're particularly relevant when the stranger in question is dressed like a kind of down-on-his-luck, end-of-the-pier magician.

  "You'll need a name," he says after a moment, with a faint smile that suggests he finds the whole situation to be rather amusing. "I'm not very good at coming up with names, though. My name is Carstairs, so I suppose maybe we could call you Carstairs 2 or something. Should be pretty easy to remember, don't you think? Just remember the '2' at the end, or it'll be very confusing."

  "My name's Tom," I say defiantly. "Thomas James Never."

  "Aha," he replies, "so you do have a name. Splendid, I thought that might be the case. Pleased to meet you, Thomas James Never. It's always a great pleasure to meet a fellow biped, especially in a place like this. I can't tell you how difficult it is to engage meaningfully with a chap who has a contrary number of limbs. I know it shouldn't matter, and I'm not prejudiced, but the fact is, it does make a difference. To me, at least. Holding a conversation with a spider is extremely difficult, for example, and centipedes are almost impossible. I tried talking to a millipede once and it didn't go well. Something to do with different frames of reference, I suppose..." His voice trails off, and he seems lost in thought for a moment.

  "So..." I start to say, feeling a little dazed. "I mean, where's the snow?"

  "Snow?" he asks, raising his eyebrows.

  "It was snowing," I reply. "That's why the car came off the road. We landed upside down and..." I pause for a moment. "Where am I?" I ask. "This doesn't look much like West Yorkshire."

  "West what?" he replies with a frown. "Rings a bell..."

  "Have you seen my sister?"

  "I have no idea," he says. "Certainly not recently. I haven't really seen anyone recently. I've seen plenty of people's sisters over the years, but I'm afraid my memory isn't as good as it once was, so anything that happened in the past few decades tends to be a bit blurry. I've been a bit of a hermit, really, in preparation for the big journey. I always like to take a few years to be by myself before I set off into the hustle and bustle."

  Turning, I see that I'm in some kind of dusty, flat plain, like scrub-land or even part of a quarry. I get to my feet and take a couple of steps forward, before looking back over at this Carstairs guy. There's a large pile of rocks and boulders behind him, a little bit like the pile in the snow, and further back there's a small hill. Nearby, as if parked on a dusty road, there's a small cupboard balanced on the back of a cart, with a set of handles extending from one side while the cupboard itself is covered in various jewels and other brightly-colored decorations that somehow contrive to make it look simultaneously both very expensive and extremely tacky.

  "That's my baby," Carstairs says after a moment, his voice filled with pride. "I know it doesn't look like much, and I admit it's a little homemade, but I didn't have a great deal to work with. Still, it does the job, and the most important thing is what's inside. I've lugged that damn thing across the great plains, and now there's just the last little push to go." He pauses for a moment, and it's as if he's staring at me with suspicion. "Are you strong, boy?" he asks after a moment. "Where are you from, anyway?"

  "I'm strong enough," I reply, "and I'm from Leeds."

  "Leeds?" He frowns. "Sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it. I'm sorry, I only know the area of the Library around the gate, really. I have a map somewhere, but I hate unfolding it. Folding the damn thing up again is certainly not the work of a moment. Took me two weeks last time, and it still feels a bit wrong."

  "Library?" I ask. "I'm from Leeds."

  "So you keep saying." Getting to his feet, he walks over to his cupboard and opens one of the doors, revealing a small table that folds out. "How old are you?" he asks as he takes out a sheet of paper and starts making some notes with what appears to be a feather dipped in ink. It's the most old-fashioned thing I've ever seen.

  "How old?" I pause. "Twelve."

  "And how do you measure that?" he continues.

  "How..." I pause again. "Well, in years."

  "What kind of years?" he asks with a sigh. "Let's start with the simple things. Where did you say you're from again?"

  "Leeds."

  "And where is that?"

  "England."

  He frowns. "Sounds familiar, but you'll have to be a little more specific. What world?"

  "The world."

  "Yes, but which one?" He turns to me. "There are seven, you know. Eight if you believe some of the more scurrilous rumors that are starting to spread" Glancing down at my leg, he seems to freeze for a moment, as if suddenly shocked by what he sees. "What's that?" he asks after a moment.

  I look down and see that there's still some blood just above my ankle. "I hurt my leg," I reply. "It's not too bad."

  "But the red liquid?" he asks, crouching down and taking a closer look. "What is this substance?"

  I stare at the top of the guy's blue hat for a moment. "Blood?" I suggest eventually, starting to wonder if he's completely lost his mind.

  "That's not possible," he replies, getting to his feet again. "There are very few species in all the seven worlds that have red blood. If I didn't know better, I'd say..." He pauses, and then I see a moment of realization in his eyes. "You're a human, aren't you?"

  "That wasn't obvious?" I ask.

  "No, but..." As if struck by a sense of panic, he runs back over to his mobile cupboard and begins pulling out a series of small, tatty notebooks, one of which he eventually opens in order to leaf furiously through the pages. "I saw human blood before," he gabbles, speaking much faster than before, "but I thought it was just a mirage or a trick of the light, some kind of illusion sent by the Angel to deceive me, but now..." He turns to me for a moment, and then he opens the other side of the cupboard and pulls out some kind of large metal bowl that hangs from a hook.

  "I'm from Leeds," I say again. "I'm looking for my parents."

  "Of course you are," he replies, hurrying over and taking me by the hand before leading me back to the cupboard. "Now," he continues, lifting me up and placing me in the metal bowl, "just a moment..." He adjusts some weights and then checks a dial.

  "What is this?" I ask.

  "I thought you might like to sit down," he replies. "You were looking a little peaky."

  "Is this a set of scales?"

  "Of course not."

  I look up at the chain that connects the bowl to a metal rod, and then I look over at the weights hanging from the other end of the rod.

  "Not a bad
weight," he mutters, making some notes on a pad of paper. "Could always fatten you up along the way..."

  "Fatten me up?"

  "How tall are you? You're quite short, which means you must be fairly dense. For a human, I mean. Probably very tender meat."

  "What are you talking about?" I ask, sitting cross-legged in the bowl.

  "Nothing," he replies with a smile. "Just thinking about your general well-being. Now, what did you say about your parents? You're looking for them?"

  "And my sister," I reply. "I think they might be here. Wherever 'here' is."

  "Yes," he says, clearly lost in thought for a moment. "Yes, I think they are. I heard about two humans just before you showed up. They were heading to the gate, I believe."

  "The gate?" I ask.

  "Of course you don't know," he replies. "Fortunately, you've been very fortunate and landed almost directly at the feet of a man who knows the Library inside and out."

  "You just said a few minutes ago that you only know part of the Library," I point out.

  "That was a trick," he says with a smile. "I was testing you. The truth is, I can certainly lead you to both your parents and your sister. If that's what you'd like?"

  "Do you know where they are?" I ask.

  "I know where they'll have been taken," he replies, a little evasively. "Besides, I'm very good at tracking things. They definitely passed this way, and we can follow the scent into the city. After that, there might be a little hustle and bustle to overcome, but you can be damn sure that the scent will be winding its way through the aisles, headed for..." He pauses. "Well, there are a few places they might have been taken, but I guarantee you, we'll find them and get your whole family back together. Would you like that?"

  I nod.

  "Okay," he continues, closing his notebooks. "Climb down out of the scales please. I mean, the chair. Down onto the dirt with you."

  Climbing out of a set of scales is easier said than done, and eventually I topple to one side and land hard on the ground. As I get to my feet, Carstairs is already packing all his equipment back into the cupboard with the efficiency of a man who has done this many times. It's quite clear that he's used to living on the road like this. At the same time, there's something about him that I just don't trust. I can't put my finger on it, but he seems a little sketchy, as if he's trying to hide things from me.