Meredith and the Magic Library

by Becket

  Seeing all these wonderful sections mesmerized Meredith. She wanted to leap into each image and go exploring.

  “Which one should we go into?” she asked Mr. Fuddlebee.

  The elderly ghost chuckled again. “You are head librarian now. You can go anywhere you like.”

  She was about to leap into the Cake Book Section when she had a sudden thought.

  “How will I get back?” she asked Mr. Fuddlebee.

  “The Magic Lantern runs on the same operating system that runs all our devices,” the elderly ghost replied.

  “The Dimensionally Intelligent Operating System?”

  “Quite correct! DIOS knows you and she will always be with you. You could leap into the Lion Lexicon Section, where defining a word could easily take off a limb, yet DIOS would be there with you to close the mouths of the more voracious books. In the same way, she will help get you back from where you came. So do not worry about where you are going. Just go, and trust that DIOS will take care of you.”

  Meredith turned back around to the images of the library’s sections projected onto the wall.

  She was not sure which one she would choose… not until she saw the image of a room that looked even more familiar than all the others she had seen already.

  It was a room that she had not seen since she was very young, when she lived with her mom and dad. In the projected image, she recognized her old bed. She recognized her old desk and dresser. She recognized her old clothes and dolls and books—oh, there were so many books, piles of books, books in the corners, books stacked around the walls! This was an image of her old bedroom in her old home. She had almost forgotten what it looked like.

  Meredith went a little closer to it. The image moved slowly around the room with the enchanting music filling the air. Without thinking, she moved with it.

  She reached out to touch it with her finger, but instead her whole hand suddenly passed through the projection.

  Immediately she yanked it back out again. Her hand had not simply gone through the wall. The image had taken her to another place!

  Meredith staggered back a few steps. A feeling of nervousness and excitement was washing over her.

  Finally, when she had enough distance, she ran as fast as she could toward the projected image of her old room.

  And with a great leap she flew inside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Meredith’s Old Bedroom

  Meredith fell with a thump on the ground.

  “I know, my dear, I know,” said Mr. Fuddlebee who had come through with her and was floating beside her. “It is a quick way to travel, but one that also smarts the rump every now and then.”

  To one side of her was the Magic Lantern. It was turned off now, the light was out, and the music was silent. She took the handle and lifted it as she stood up.

  She looked around.

  The room was exactly the way she last remembered it, so long ago, right around the time when her mother was teaching her to read during the day, and when her father was reading stories to her at night. Those were very good memories. They made her sad and happy at the same time.

  “Have we left the Magic Library?” she asked as she wiped magic dust from a stack of books on the desk. “Have I come home?”

  “You came home the second you set foot inside,” Mr. Fuddlebee answered her.

  “Inside this room?” she asked.

  The elderly ghost gazed at her caringly and said in the most tender tone, “You came home when you entered inside the Magic Library, my dear.”

  Meredith stared at him in astonishment.

  “My home is the Magic Library?” she asked.

  “My dear girl,” he said, “before the WORM worked his trickery to lock the Magic Library, your mother and father were its head librarians.”

  Meredith could hardly believe her ears.

  “Head librarians?” she repeated.

  “They were more than that,” Mr. Fuddlebee went on. “They not only worked in the library, but they also helped distribute magic dust all throughout the Society of Mystical Creatures. They were wonderful people to everyone they met. They often gave books away when the library had too many copies. They never refused to lend a book to anyone. And they even helped organize every book on every bookshelf in every bookcase in every book section. In fact, they were so involved with the library that they decided to move in.”

  “Move in?” asked Meredith, feeling lightheaded with all this new information.

  “Indeed,” replied the elderly ghost. “They made their home right in the heart of the library.”

  “Do you mean,” Meredith asked in a small voice, “I used to live in the heart of the library?”

  “Almost, my dear,” Mr. Fuddlebee said. “What I mean to say is that your home is what gave the library a great heart that could be heard beating all over the world. Your family was the heart of the Magic Library.”

  A large tear rolled down from Meredith’s eye. It was not a tear of sorrow or a tear of joy. But it was a tear that held both sorrow and joy inside it. It was the kind of tear that happens to old people, and to wise people, and to people who have lived a long time away from home. It was a tear that fondly remembered a good time of life and it was a tear that wished to have it back again.

  Meredith wiped this strange tear from her cheeks and asked very meekly, “Whatever happened to my mom and dad?”

  The elderly ghost gave her the kindest smile she could have ever wanted. He floated a little nearer to her.

  The air was filled with magic dust. It shimmered all around them.

  “Did you know that tears are magical, my dear?” he asked.

  Meredith shook her head.

  “They can weave a beautiful magic spell without ever having to say a word.”

  Very slowly he turned his ghostly head toward her bedroom door with a curiously knowing expression on his ghostly face. It was as if he was expecting something wonderfully magical to happen.

  The heartbeat that passed seemed like an eternity.

  But right when Meredith had to remind herself to breathe, there came a knock on the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mr. & Mrs. Pocket

  Slowly, Meredith stood up and went to the bedroom door. Slowly, she turned the handle. And ever so slowly, she opened it.

  From the other side of the doorway were two faces smiling at her. They were like faces out of a dream, or from a distant memory, faces she last saw a long time ago, but had forgotten after all these years having lived in utter poverty on the street.

  The two faces in the doorway were smiling at her. They were grownups, yet they almost did not look real. She wondered if they were ghosts.

  “I assure you,” Mr. Fuddlebee said very near her ear, “they are quite real.”

  Meredith backed away from them, her heart racing with fear and awe.

  The two grownups entered her room. One was a kind looking man. The other was a gentle looking woman. They were not strong, yet they had power. They were not great, yet they had authority. They were not young and they were not old, but somewhere in the middle of life with a few gray hairs, and a few wrinkles over their freckles. Life had not been easy for them, yet still they smiled and were the kindest people Meredith had ever known.

  “Mom?” she asked, looking at one.

  “Dad?” she asked, looking at the other.

  The two grownups knelt before her.

  “How are you, Mere?” the man asked.

  Mere… that was what her dad used to call her.

  “We’ve missed you very much,” the woman said. Her voice was like the melody of a beautiful song that had always been in Meredith’s head.

  Tears once more filled the eyes of little Meredith Pocket. But these were not tears of sorrow mixed with joy. They were only tears of joy—complete, utter, total, absolute joy.

  “Mom!” she exclaimed excitedly, no longer able to contain herself. “Dad!”

  She threw her arms around th
em and held them tightly. She never wanted to let them go ever again.

  “What happened to you?” she asked at last, after many hugs and kisses.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pocket wiped tears from their eyes too because they were just as happy to see her.

  “When the WORM infected the library,” Mrs. Pocket said, “we did everything we could to stop him.”

  “We wrote counteractive computer programs,” Mr. Pocket added, “but they did not stop him.”

  “Why?” Meredith asked.

  “We made a mistake,” Mr. Pocket said.

  “What mistake?” Meredith asked.

  “We thought we could get rid of the WORM by ourselves,” Mrs. Pocket said. “But we could not. We should have asked DIOS for help. But we did not. So the WORM thwarted all our work and overpowered many of the library’s systems.”

  “When we finally realized what we had done wrong,” Mr. Pocket said, “DIOS decided that the best way to help us was to bring in outside help.”

  “Who?” Meredith asked.

  Mr. Fuddlebee gave a little cough. “SPOOK received a message from DIOS,” he said, “informing us that the Magic Library was under attack. So I came to help your parents.”

  “Once we finally asked DIOS for help,” Mrs. Pocket explained to Meredith, “we sent you out of the library with our two most trusted librarians.”

  “Two most trusted librarians?” Meredith said, wondering whom she meant. “Do you mean Sir Copperpot and Uncle Glitch?”

  “We would have trusted them with our lives,” Mr. Pocket said. “So we did the next best thing and entrusted to them your life before the WORM locked the library, and us inside with him.”

  Meredith wished Sir Copperpot and Uncle Glitch had not forgotten about all this. Yet despite the breaking down of their old memory banks, they had been great guardians, even if they had forgotten why.

  “Perhaps they did not need a reason to take care of me,” Meredith said to herself. “Perhaps they just loved me without any reason at all.”

  And she loved her friends all the more for it.

  Little Meredith Pocket laughed and she cried.

  She wished none of this had ever happened. But her gladness could not be taken from her. She was home again. She was with her mom and dad again, and nothing, not even the WORM, could take her from them ever again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Real Magic

  The Magic Library was opened for a long time afterward. Many people from all over town came to it and many Mystical Creatures from all over the world came too.

  At any given time of day you might see banshees borrowing a book. Or you might see a vampire sinking his teeth into a tasty story. Or you might see witches wondering which romance might enchant them most.

  You might sight a zombie zooming from one section to another in search of good cook books. Or you might encounter a specter passing through rows of bookcases on popular spectacles. Or you might glimpse gnomes seeking books on gnomes and gardens.

  You might stumble upon warlocks in the Enchanted Chess Section. Or you might run into goblins in the Steampunk Spells Section. Or you might come across dwarves in the Marvelous Mining Section. And if you were really lucky you might happen to lay eyes upon dragons lumbering through the Treasure Hunting Section.

  The Magic Library had the greatest collection of magic dust ever. Librarians harvested it, but instead of selling it, they gave it away freely, all over the world and underworld because, for them, magic was meant for everyone.

  Tuk and Muk, the two terribly entertaining trolls, came to the library at the teatime hour and did lots of reading to investigate the meaning of life. What they found in the end was that they had become best friends, and for them having a best friend was meaningful enough.

  The mouse family also came to the library. The father mouse, Tedric Tinker, read many books on repairing pocket watches, Crinomatics, and Gnostike Timepieces. The two mouse children, Mote and Sprinkle Tinker, spent their afternoons reading and playing in book houses. And the ever-patient wife and mother, Strawberry Tinker, spent many wonderful hours in the culinary section where she wrote a best-selling cookbook called Thimblefuls of Happiness.

  Megan Taradiddle finally read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and she went on to write a children’s story called Judy Thump and the Bumpy Rump.

  Uncle Glitch began a successful business of transporting books all over the library on zeppeloaches. It might not have been the fastest means of transportation, but zeppeloaches were by far the funnest. His business became so popular he even had an airport named after him. It was called the Uncle Glitch Landing Yard, but for short most people just called it UGLY.

  Sir Copperpot started a successful academy for dancing librarians. They were the only librarians who could waltz and organize books at the same time. Anyone could waltz with them too, and sometimes the dancing librarians would get so carried away that they just swept hapless readers out of their seats and waltzed with them on the tables.

  Peter Butterpig came to have many friends both inside the library and out. His butterpiglets were always by his side. Many people and mystical creatures came from all over the world just to watch him fly books all the way up to the uppermost shelves. They loved it when he and his butterpiglets put on airshows, flying in formation over the coffee machines.

  The WORM stayed in the Magic Library too. If any wicked tricks ever happened, they were always his fault. But all a reader had to do was talk to a librarian, who would talk with DIOS. She always made the WORM shrink away and flee into the shadows. She would never delete him, no matter how cruel he got, because she was not afraid of him and she had a great plan in store.

  Mr. Fuddlebee returned to SPOOK headquarters in Welkin City. But he often returned to the Magic Library, usually to borrow a book, yet he also enjoyed visiting little Meredith Pocket.

  She soon became one of the most popular people in the world. She was one of the three head librarians of the most important library that has ever been. She shared the role with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Pocket. Together they lent and shelved books and they gave away magic dust to anyone and everyone. They knew where every book in the library could be found and they used the Magic Lantern to take them there. Under their librarianship the Magic Library reached a golden era. Never before had there been better librarians and never again would there be anyone quite like the Pockets.

  So now that we come to the end of this story, you might be asking yourself: How can we get to the Magic Library?

  It’s not a secret. All you have to do is go to your own local library, find a good book (preferably one caked in dust, which might become magic dust one day), open it, and start reading. I promise you, my child, before long, you will start to see before your eyes a world of real magic.

  The End

  of Book Five of

  The Steampunk Sorcery Series

  OTHER BOOKS BY BECKET

  Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl

  and the Dungeon of Despair

  Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl

  and the Tower Tomb of Time

  Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl

  and the Floating Mansion

  Good the Goblin Queen

  The Door to Heaven

  The Christmas King

  Pi Poems

  Haikus

  Becket Music

  These books can be found at

  www.becket.me

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  THE GHOST, THE BUTTONS, AND THE MAGIC OF HALLOWEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Buttons

  The Button family was the most peculiar bunch of mortals you might ever meet. There was Mr. Button the dad and Mrs. Button the mom. They were the most important people in town. They had the best parties, served the best food, and they even had their own parade float.

  Then there were the three Button children.

  Bernard Button was the oldest and bravest. By nine years old he was very good at all sports and thinking games lik
e chess. He won first place all the time and had a trophy case full of shiny trophies of all shapes and sizes. Yet he also liked to wear a helmet and carry a sword, and imagine that he was a Knight of the Round Table, or fighting a dragon, or defeating the dark forces of the world. He had what you might call mettle.

  The second oldest was Beatrice Button. By seven years old she was the smartest girl in school. She could read before she spoke, and she had a photographic memory, never forgetting a word she read. She loved to be in the library, yet she was also very good with computers. She could build them and repair them. And she was already getting offers to go to famous colleges. She had what you might call magic.

  The youngest was the toddler, Berkeley Button. He was two years old and he did not yet speak. He had stopped crawling, and he was only just learning to run, but mostly he toddled around the house. His mind was so special that he could make things float just by thinking about them. If visitors happened to see the couch, the dinner table, or the fish tank floating through the air, it was not a ghost, but Berkeley using the power of his mind. He was always causing mischief.

  Last of all, there was the nanny, but she quits her job in the next chapter because, unlike the Button family, she was terrified of ghosts.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Haunted House

  The Button family had a lovely house in the Garden District in New Orleans.