by Anna James
The deck was almost empty save for a small group of distinctly unsavoury-looking men gathered in a huddle. Silver coughed and they turned to leer at Oskar and Tilly.
‘Now, gentlemen, where’s that book?’ Silver said as they approached. A grimy man with a dirty rag tied over his eyes staggered forward with the book in his hand and Silver sighed. ‘Eyeless Horace. An enlightened choice to try to discern the secrets of the printed word. As always I see that the particulars of a plan rest on my shoulders.’
‘I couldn’t read before I lost my eyes anyways,’ the man said.
‘A tot of rum to the man who is useless twice over,’ Silver said sarcastically. ‘Lad, if you’d follow me this way.’ He took Oskar’s arm in an iron grip and led him to the side of the boat, where a plank of wood stuck out over the water.
He turned to Tilly. ‘Now, lassy, I’m going to need to know why you ended up aboard the Hispaniola on this particular voyage and why you are in possession of a book about the isle of treasure. As elegant as we may seem we are not above a little encouragement to telling the truth,’ he said as one of the men unceremoniously picked up Oskar and put him on the plank. Silver smiled like a crocodile who’d spotted his dinner and leafed through the pages at a leisurely pace until all of a sudden his face drained of colour and he stared closely at the page.
‘What witchcraft is this, child?’ he said quietly, thrusting the book in Tilly’s face.
‘What … what do you mean?’ she stuttered.
‘Don’t play the innocent,’ he whispered, pointing to a page that quite clearly showed his name several times. ‘Where did you get this grimoire? Did Flint send you? Is the captain in on this?’ Silver took a step towards her, forcing Tilly backwards until she was pressed against the side of the boat where Oskar wobbled on the plank, trying desperately to keep his balance. ‘You have one more chance remaining, before you and your friend are dealt with once and for all. We may be pirates, but we’ll not risk this vessel with sorcery.’ He took a last look at the book, then threw it overboard. In a split second Tilly knew there was only one option left.
‘Jump!’ she bellowed at Oskar and threw herself after the book and over the side of the Hispaniola.
She hit the choppy water in an ice-cold splash that momentarily took her breath away. Her clothes were immediately soaked through as she thrashed around, desperately looking for the book. She saw it floating a few metres from her and launched into a front crawl towards it, waves slapping against her, and rescuing it just as it started to become too waterlogged to stay on the surface.
Tilly gasped, and looked on in horror as Oskar wobbled on the edge of the plank. ‘You have to jump!’
‘I can’t swim!’ he shouted down to her as one of the pirates climbed on to the other end of the plank.
‘Oskar, you have to!’ she shouted as she tried to find the last page of the book while kicking her feet to stay above the waves. ‘Aim for me!’
Oskar locked eyes with her and she nodded. He closed his eyes and launched himself off the end of the plank, arms and legs windmilling through the air as Tilly splashed towards him. He landed in the water with a huge splash as the pirates jeered from the boat. He surfaced but almost immediately started sinking again.
‘We have to be touching!’ Tilly yelled, holding her arm out. As Oskar’s fingertips brushed hers she took a huge gasp of air and bellowed the last line of the book. ‘Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!’
It was as if someone had pulled the plug of the ocean and suddenly Tilly could breathe properly again as the Underlibrary rebuilt itself around them.
Oskar fell to his knees, coughing up water, while Tilly pressed her forehead against the wood of the wall, letting its reassuring warm solidness anchor her back to dry land. They both stood dripping on the carpet as Grandad appeared at the top of the stairs. Tilly kicked the nearly disintegrated copy of the book under the table.
‘Why on earth are you both wet?’ he asked.
‘We fell in the sea,’ Oskar said without thinking.
‘You fell in the sea? On your induction?’ Grandad said.
‘We, um, we landed in the wrong bit of the book,’ Tilly said.
‘Honestly,’ Grandad muttered. ‘Sending new bookwanderers to scenes by the sea. Standards are obviously slipping; would never have happened in my day. Anyway, let’s go. Goodness knows what we’re going to say to your mum about the state of your clothes, though, Oskar.’
Although they got several funny looks on the train home, by the time they were back at Pages & Co. Oskar’s and Tilly’s clothes were mostly dry, if lightly crusted with salt.
‘Tilly, go and get changed, and see if you can find Oskar a clean T-shirt to wear,’ Grandad said. ‘We’ll put these things through the wash while we’re chatting.’
Fifteen minutes later they were sitting round the kitchen table with Grandma putting mugs of hot chocolate and plates of toasted brioche with cherry jam in front of them. Oskar was wearing a T-shirt with the cover of The Phantom Tollbooth printed on it.
‘So, how did it go?’ Grandma asked gently.
‘It was awesome,’ Oskar said, grinning.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Tilly said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about bookwandering, and that Grandad was the Librarian? I thought you’d always lived here?’
‘Well, we have lived here a long time,’ Grandma said. ‘This bookshop has been in my family for decades and I’ve been in charge since my mum died years ago.’
‘But why’s Archie called Pages too?’ Oskar asked.
‘Because he took my name when we got married, the same way people often take each other’s names,’ Grandma said.
‘We wanted to keep the Pages name because of the bookshop’s legacy,’ Grandad said. ‘Not to mention what bookseller or librarian wouldn’t seize the chance of such a booky surname!’
‘The history of this shop stretches way back,’ Grandma said. ‘You come from a long line of booksellers, Tilly. Your family tree is full of them, as well as librarians and writers and readers; it’s in your blood.’
Oskar cleared his throat. ‘Uh, I think I’m going to go home now, and leave you guys to it for a bit,’ he said quietly, giving Tilly an awkward pat on the shoulder. ‘Thank you for taking me today, and thank you for the T-shirt; I’ll bring it back tomorrow.’
Grandma gave him a smile. ‘Do come round tomorrow and we can chat further, Oskar. I know you must have more questions. And I’m sorry to be blunt, but you know you can’t tell your mum about this?’
‘Like she’d believe me anyway,’ Oskar said.
fter Grandad had seen Oskar to the door, the three of them settled down round the kitchen table in a slightly uneasy silence. Tilly was cycling through a whirlwind of different feelings and she didn’t know where it would settle. She wasn’t sure if she felt cross or excited or scared.
‘I don’t understand why you couldn’t tell me sooner,’ she decided to begin with.
‘I already explained at the Underlibrary,’ Grandad started to answer. ‘There are so many reasons that—’
‘I would have believed you,’ Tilly interrupted.
‘It’s easy to feel like that now you know,’ Grandma said. ‘But try to imagine how you would have reacted if you had been told this before anything had happened to prove it to you.’
‘I would have believed you,’ Tilly repeated more firmly. ‘I hate secrets.’
‘I promise you we’ve kept as little as possible from you,’ Grandad said. ‘I know it feels like everything has tilted on its axis today, but we’ve always been honest with you about everything that isn’t linked to bookwandering.’
‘But you never tell me anything about my mum and dad,’ Tilly went on. ‘How do I know what else you’ve been keeping from me? I’m not some little kid any more; I can cope with the truth, even if it’s something bad. How am I supposed to know who I really am if I don’t know anything about my family?’
‘We’re your family, Tilly,’ Gra
ndad said. ‘And we talk about your mum all the time.’
‘That’s not true at all!’ Tilly exploded. ‘You never talk about her. When I ask you about her you change the subject as soon as possible, and you mention her in passing, but you never tell me anything real about her.’
‘But what else do you want to know?’ Grandad said.
‘I want to know everything!’ Tilly said, feeling angry tears threaten to fall. ‘I want to know what she was like when she was little, when she was my age, when she was pregnant. I want to know her favourite meal and her favourite film and her … her … her favourite type of cheese! I want to know what made her laugh and what made her cross and what made her excited. I want to know what it would have been like to have her help me with my homework; I want to know what it would be like to remember her reading to me; I want to know what she would say to me to make Grace stay friends with me; I want to know how she’d make sure Oskar didn’t get bored of me either.’
Tilly took a deep breath. ‘I just want to know what it would be like to know that she was always here, what it’s like just having a normal mum.’
Grandad looked stricken and half stood up as if to go to her, before sitting back down abruptly.
Grandma sniffed loudly and then steeled herself. ‘Tilly, I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry that we haven’t shared more of your mum with you. I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to see outside our own sadness to realise we’ve left you with gaps. Let us try harder? I hope that being able to bookwander will help you feel a little closer to her, and all things considered I think that now is probably the time to—’
‘Not now, Elsie,’ Grandad said. ‘It’s too much.’
‘No,’ Grandma said gently. ‘Tilly can cope. I don’t think we should keep it from her any more.’
‘She left because of me, didn’t she?’ Tilly said, feeling sick. ‘I always knew it.’
‘No, that is the furthest thing from the truth,’ Grandma said firmly. ‘This is about her relationship with your father.’
Tilly felt even sicker. ‘What did he do?’ she asked.
‘Tilly, when your mum finished university she stayed on in New York for a year. We thought everything was completely normal until she turned up on our doorstep, heavily pregnant. She wouldn’t tell us much to start with; she just kept saying that it was incredibly important that you were born at home. We assumed she meant at Pages & Co., that she wanted to have you at home, with us, not in a different country. But, once you were born, and we were all so in love with you, she told us the truth.’
Grandma reached her arms across the table and took Tilly’s hands in hers.
‘Matilda, we’ve told you that your mum had a special relationship with one particular book, A Little Princess. And that’s the truth, but there’s more to it. While she was bookwandering there, she fell in love with a fictional character, and later realised she was going to have a baby. Tilly, you share a dad with Sara. Your father is Captain Crewe.’
illy stared at Grandma.
‘What? Captain Crewe? But … he’s a character from a book. How is that possible?’ Tilly paused. ‘Does that mean I’m not really real?’ she whispered.
‘No! Not at all,’ Grandma said, squeezing Tilly’s hand. ‘You are absolutely as real as we are. You were born here; you’re rooted in the real world. That’s why your mum made sure to come home. She loved you so much that she left your dad, knowing that it would be impossible to be able to get back to him, to make sure you were safe. If she had stayed and had you in the novel, you would have been part of that story, and, if Bea had ever left the book, you would have just stopped existing once the text reverted. She gave up your dad for you, Tilly, so you could have a life and a future full of choice and freedom and all the messiness that comes with being a real person.’
‘Is that why she disappeared?’ Tilly asked. ‘She wanted to get back to him?’
‘No,’ Grandma said. ‘I know that in an ideal world she would have wanted nothing more than for the three of you to be together, but she knew in her heart that she would never have been able to find him. She could have gone back to Captain Crewe, of course, but he would never be the man she fell in love with. He wouldn’t even remember her. He was always cursed to snap back to his written self as soon as she left that copy of the book; it’s why bookwandering can never be a replacement for real life. I know that she visited afterwards, but it could never be the same and she always came back home. She chose you, Tilly. It’s why we know with such certainty that she didn’t leave you.’
‘There’s one more thing now you know the truth about your father, and it’s important,’ Grandad said. ‘For now, it’s vital that the Underlibrary does not find out who your father is. We hope they would be sensible about it, but there’s no way of knowing how they would react. Enoch Chalk must not find out. He is a traditionalist and a hardliner: for him the rules are the most important thing and there is no space for personal feelings or irregular circumstances, and he is not the only one who thinks like that. Bookwanderers – for obvious reasons – are not supposed to fall in love with characters and sadly there are some who would have it that you never should have been born. And, now you exist, we suspect that Chalk especially would prefer to find a way to return you to A Little Princess forever. I don’t want to scare you, but you have to understand the risks. You must keep yourself safe. Chalk does not like rules being broken and he does not like anomalies.’
‘So, I’m an anomaly?’ Tilly said.
‘Well, yes, technically, you are, love,’ Grandad went on. ‘But we’re all anomalies in one way or another – it’s what makes being alive beautiful. We’re more than neat plot devices: we’re contradictory and confusing, and it’s wonderful. There’s nothing wrong with a few contradictions, and I think you might have to embrace them, as it would already seem that there are going to be some unpredictable side effects caused by your dad being fictional. The fact that you could see characters that your grandma and I were talking to should be impossible. The fact that Alice and Anne remembered you even after they’d journeyed back inside their books, again impossible. Go carefully while you’re exploring bookwandering; now is not the time to explore too far. And, just as you should be wary of Chalk, you can trust Amelia within reason. There’s no need to take the risk of telling her the whole truth, but, if you ever need to talk to someone that isn’t us, find Amelia.’
Tilly nodded but looked at her hands, still clasped in her grandma’s, as though she might have changed or even vanished.
‘So, what did happen to my mum?’
‘We don’t know, Tilly. But there’s no reason to think it’s anything to do with bookwandering, I promise you,’ Grandad said gently.
‘Have you done one of those stamp things on her, to check?’ Tilly asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ Grandad said. ‘We’ve done everything we can to check it’s not a bookwandering accident. The stamp showed no trace of her. You know everything we do about what happened; your mum popped into town for a coffee and never came back. Everything we’ve told you about your mum’s disappearance is the truth: the police investigation, the lack of any evidence. That’s all we know. It’s a horrible, unhappy, fiercely real thing, which we have no reason to think is anything to do with the Underlibrary, or bookwandering, or your father.’
‘I’m going to go upstairs for a bit, I think,’ Tilly said after a pause. She needed a moment away from other people; there was too much information, too many secrets, too many concerned looks. Too much magic and excitement colliding with too much sadness and loss.
Upstairs, her mum’s copy of A Little Princess was lying on Tilly’s bedside table. It felt hot in her hands; it was no longer just an innocent story but a family archive. She opened it at the first page and with only a moment’s hesitation read her way in.
nce on a dark winter’s day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas a
s they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father, and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares.’
Tilly found herself with her feet in a freezing cold puddle at the mouth of an unlit, empty alleyway, not inside a cab, although she realised in hindsight that was probably for the best. It was bitterly cold and at first sniff the air smelled of freshly baked bread, but there was something sour lurking underneath. The dirty water seeped through Tilly’s trainers as she pressed herself against a damp wall and waited for something to happen. Just as she was starting to worry that things had gone horribly wrong a black hansom cab rolled slowly past and Tilly caught a glimpse of a round pale face with large eyes staring out of the window.
Tilly ran to the end of the alleyway and poked her head round the corner to see that the cab had stopped outside a large brick building with
on a big brass plate on the front door.
A tall man wearing a thick grey overcoat stepped down from the cab and placed a shiny black top hat on his head. He moved with the elegance and confidence of someone who the world had always rewarded simply for being alive. He reached back inside the cab and lifted down a small girl in a full coat, with dark hair cut into a blunt bob, and the two of them held hands as they walked up the steps to the door and rang the bell. Tilly could see them whispering and giggling nervously with each other as they waited, and as the door opened to an unsmiling woman in a maid’s dress the girl pressed tightly into the man’s side.
Tilly felt frozen to the spot, trying to drink in every detail of the man on the steps, wishing she was closer so she could see his face properly. The sight of his protective arm round Sara’s shoulders filled her with a prickly feeling of envy, and she could almost feel the lack of his arm round herself, like a phantom limb. Even after they had gone inside, she found herself unable to move. Despite the cold and fog, she felt hot and flushed, and didn’t know what to do next. She clutched her mum’s copy of the book close to her chest and tried to think about what her mother would do, as the tiny glimpse of her father started to unravel her from inside.
