by Carrie Jones
Jamie moved to where she leaned against the counter. “You know, I’m new here, too. It could be me.”
Annie almost smiled at him. He was so kind. But instead she shook her head. “No, it’s me. Plus, the loss of the gnome. We all know it. But we have to figure out why. And we have to figure out how to stop it and get everyone back to normal. What we need is information. Information on monsters.”
“Well, that’s easy.” Bloom hopped off the counter and through a swirl of sugar dust that now resembled rainbow sprinkles, and offered Annie his gold-tinged hand. “I know just the place. Let’s go.”
They slunk down the street, sticking to the darkness, trying to hide in the shadows. But when the snow began to fall, they left footprints behind.
Annie pointed to their tracks, heart sinking. The crow would be able to find them so easily. They were leaving a trail. She alerted the others, and Bloom quickly muttered some words, holding something in his hand. The footprints disappeared behind them.
When Annie gave him a questioning eyebrow lift, he simply said, “Elfish,” and put the item he was holding back into the pocket of his cloak.
Eva snorted and muttered, “He says that about everything when he doesn’t want to take the time to explain. Thinks it makes him mysterious.”
“Another one,” Jamie mumbled so quietly that Annie could barely hear him, “for the list; elves like to be mysterious.”
Their footsteps vanished behind them as they walked. Annie kept turning around to check. Jamie mouthed the words, “So cool.”
She agreed. It was, but her whole body was a jumble of nerves. Any moment, that crow could find them, and what would they do? She wasn’t sure she could stop time again. And how would they fight it? Miss Cornelia and the others had obviously tried to fight it and failed. Their big plan when they saw the monsters had simply been to tell the town about it. Now that she thought about it, that didn’t seem like much of a plan. Relying on adults had never worked for Annie before. She had to take things into her own hands.
They abruptly stopped walking. Tala did a doggy lap around them.
“Here we are,” Bloom whispered. They had left the main street of town, and before them was a sprawling stone house that was quite a distance from the others. A three-foot stone wall separated its front garden from the road. Ivy, dead now in winter, spiraled up the stone front of the house, climbing all the way to the pointy roof. Three windows rested beneath equally pointy eaves.
“The mayor’s house?” Eva grunted. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You brought us to the mayor’s house instead of the regular, real library. We can’t go in there. He’s the mayor!”
“I’m sure he’s frozen like everyone else. It’ll be fine, Eva. Plus, you know he’s a monster expert. He’s got that book.” Bloom pushed on a stone gargoyle’s face and opened an iron gate. Eva gave him a blank stare and he continued impatiently. “The book that Ms. Kniha won’t allow the library to keep because it’s too dangerous.”
Eva stopped at the gate. “We aren’t going to look at that?!?” Her voice softened and sounded scared. “Are we?”
“Yes, Eva,” Bloom said, ushering her inside and shutting the gate behind them. “We are.”
25
The Monster Book
Eva nimbly slid two thin picks into the keyhole of the mayor’s house and grumbled. “Don’t know why the mayor even locks his door. Nobody in town does. Silly nonsense.”
To Jamie’s astonishment, it took the dwarf less than a minute to click open the latch and swing the door wide, revealing a huge, shadowy entrance room.
“Well done,” Bloom whispered, leading the way.
Eva’s pigtails perked up at the compliment, and she hustled right after him. Jamie glanced at Annie.
“Might as well,” she said, sounding every bit as frazzled and scared as he felt. “I mean, breaking and entering is completely illegal and everything but …” She floundered.
“We have no choice?” Jamie suggested, heading inside.
“Exactly,” Annie timidly agreed. “I just hope we don’t get caught. If we all survive, I hope they don’t kick us out of Aurora because of it, you know?”
The entrance hall was wide, with ceilings so high that two Christmas trees stacked on top of each other could have fit inside it. Leafy gold sconces lit red-velvet-wallpapered walls. Also along the walls hung gigantic gold-framed pictures, all of the same man. Annie raised her eyebrows.
Jamie leaned toward her and whispered, “I think the mayor has a bit of an ego.”
“Just a bit,” Annie giggled.
It was a good noise, that giggle, a good noise in all the creepiness. Bloom rushed ahead, checking out the house.
He came back quickly. “I don’t see the mayor anywhere. Come on. Let’s find the book.”
They followed him across a dark wooden floor to a room in the back of the foyer. It was too shady to see much. Twinkling string lights hung across a chandelier made of deer antlers. Musty brown books lined the deep wooden shelves. A bearskin and a leopard skin rug were spread across the shiny black floor. Bloom snapped his fingers and the chandelier turned on.
“It’s noise activated,” Eva explained. “Bloom’s not that kind of magic.”
The light illuminated the library slightly. Creepy shadows filled the corners. Murmuring came from all the books. They sounded like people in another room mumbling in their sleep. The children all entered the library and stood close together by the door. Only Bloom ventured far inside, as Tala turned his back and guarded the door.
“The mayor keeps the book locked away,” Bloom said, moving to a desk with a glass cabinet on top. “The book was originally created by a demon back in 500 A.D. in Turkey. He wanted to catalog the monsters of the world. By naming them he thought he could control them.”
“They ate him anyway,” Eva interrupted. “Freaking demons. Always think they are unkillable. Always so ‘la-di-da, I can control a bunch of monsters.’ Harrumph.”
“Fylbrigg and the Raiff found the book during their travels, jointly encased it, and entrusted it to the mayor of Aurora to keep safe after the town’s librarian refused,” Bloom finished. He gestured for them to join him. “Come on.”
They cautiously made their way over to him, all of them glancing about nervously. Jamie felt trapped. There were no windows to escape through if the crow came back.
Even though it was beneath thick glass, the book seemed sinister. It had a frightening, dark, deep wood-grain cover embossed with eerie bat wings. The title was simply Monsters, but the Gothic lettering was creepy enough to give Jamie chills. He took a tiny step backward, hoping the others wouldn’t notice.
Annie, however, took a step closer. Her small fingers reached out and tapped the glass. “Do you feel that?” she asked.
“What?” Jamie moved closer again.
“Like it’s calling to you?” Annie’s words were breathy.
Eva yanked her away by the arm. “You go over there. We don’t need your Stopper magic mixing with this nasty thing. No telling what might happen.”
“Eva,” Bloom admonished. “You need to calm down. The book is encased in magic glass. It’s not going to get out.”
A horrible whisper filled the library, “Let me out.”
Jamie caught Eva as she passed out. He staggered from the weight. Annie helped him lay her on the red settee, moving a pile of books out of the way to do so.
“Bloom?” he asked as they got Eva settled. “Where did that voice come from?”
“The book,” the elf answered. Jamie noticed he didn’t seem quite so calm anymore. “It tends to do that when it knows people are paying attention. It tries to will people to release it from the case. That’s why Annie was feeling funny, I think.”
Annie wrapped her arms around herself. “How would we even let it out?”
“Give it enough blood—enough powerful, magic blood,” Bloom quickly added. “Your blood, Annie, or mine because I’m an elf, would charge it up enough to burst ri
ght out of there despite the enchantments keeping it inside that box. The only problem is …”
Bloom’s voice died off, and he made a curious, nervous gesture with his thumbs.
“The problem is?” Jamie prompted.
“It will only tell us about the crow monster if we give it some blood.” He indicated a tiny hole right in the center of the glass, directly above the cover of the book. “You put a drop right there to feed it. If you don’t, the book just stays closed.”
They were all silent for a moment. The wind howled outside, shaking the house. The books’ murmurings increased a bit. Jamie hitched up his pants, which seemed to be growing looser the more frightened he became. Still, he cleared his throat and said as bravely as possible, “Well, it’ll have to be me, then, since I’m not magic.”
“Oh, Jamie … ,” Annie said softly. “You really don’t have to. We’ll think of another way.”
He held up his hand. “It’s okay. I’m good with it. Yep. Um … so, how do we get this blood?”
Bloom reached under his cloak and pulled his dagger from its sheath. Bloom must have seen Jamie’s stunned expression because he quickly whispered, “It’s all right. It was my dad’s. It’s called Lann d’amhrain crann. It’s quite sharp so I’ll just make a tiny prick on your finger. It will not hurt too much. I promise.”
Jamie nodded quickly before his bravery left him. He held out his hand, palm up. Then, as Bloom asked him to, he curled up all his fingers except his index finger. Bloom quickly pricked it with the dagger. It barely pierced the skin. A tiny spot of deep-red blood rose to the surface.
“There.” Bloom gave a halfhearted smile. “Sorry to do that.”
“Does it hurt?” Annie blurted.
“It’s fine,” Jamie said. And it was. It hardly hurt at all. What he wasn’t looking forward to was putting his hand over the book, which seemed to be fluttering about, all happy that it was about to be fed.
The chandelier flickered across the shelves and the armchairs, casting a strange, ominous light on the unconscious Eva. Jamie shrugged his worry away. One drop of blood. Already there. What hurt could it do? He reached his trembling hand across the top of the container and flipped it upside down. A drop of blood spattered next to the hole but not in.
“Oops,” he murmured. “I have lousy aim. So sorry. I’m such a—”
“No worries.” Annie grabbed a business card from the table by Eva’s head and scraped the blood into the hole. It plopped down onto the book, directly on one of the bat wings. The lights in the room flickered and then shut off. The only illumination came from the book, which glowed a hazy sort of green.
It spoke. “Yummy … The blood of one not decided.”
“What does that mean? Not decided?” Jamie sputtered.
“It means we have yet to see what you are,” the book answered.
Jamie’s remaining blood turned cold. It knows somehow, doesn’t it?
“Here is your answer.” The book flopped open with a great groan, and then the pages flipped past faster and faster until they stopped. The drop of blood seeped through the cover onto the pages and created letters. It matched the cover in creepiness.
“The crow is called Corvus Morrigan,” Jamie read aloud. The book quickly morphed again, pages tearing and ripping until a scene made of paper sprang from the page.
A woman lay dying in her bed. From the right came black birds just like the crow, flocks of them. They entered the door of the paper house and zoomed up to the woman’s room. Her soul fled her body.
There was a puff of dust, and the book went flat again, words forming on a blank page as the children watched: The Corvus Morrigan freezes the souls of the living in a swath of wings. The evil minions of the demon can then easily kill the living so he can take their souls much more quickly.
“But how do we stop it?” Annie blurted.
“More blood,” the book squawked, slamming shut. “More blood for more answers.”
Jamie reached out his hand. Annie grabbed it and held it tightly in her own. “No! It’s had enough of yours already.”
“She’s right.” Bloom pushed his fingers through his hair. “Too much blood and it owns you. It corrupts your soul. You can’t chance that, Jamie.”
“Who, then?” Jamie asked. “Annie’s is too powerful and so is yours.” The moment he said it, the trio realized who was left.
Bloom’s gaze went to the still-unconscious Eva, who was stretched out on the red settee, snoring.
“We’d have to wake her up,” Annie said. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” Bloom strode over, but he hesitated and didn’t wake her up.
“MORE BLOOD!” the book demanded.
“Shh … Shh … Things will hear you!” Annie pleaded. “Just hold on.”
Bloom swallowed hard. Sometimes Jamie wondered if the elf was more afraid of Eva than he was of the Corvus Morrigan. Even the name made Jamie shudder. Tala whimpered and offered his paw. Annie grabbed it and put it back on the floor.
“MORRRRRRRREEEE BLOOOOOOOD!”
Eva woke up. “What the troll tootles was that?”
Her pigtail was stuck in her mouth. She spat it out.
“It wants more blood,” Jamie explained. “I can’t give it any more and—”
Eva waved away his complaint and waddled over to the book, seemingly without a second thought. She bit her finger and put some blood on top of the glass.
“Ahhhhhh … Yuck. Dwarfs …” The book scrunched up a little bit. “So bitter.”
“There is nothing wrong with dwarf blood!” Eva huffed. She made a fist and shook it. “Bitter? Bitter, huh? I’ll show you bitter, Mister Monster Book.”
She wound up to hit the glass. Bloom grabbed her arm.
Jamie ignored both of them and took a step back toward the book. It’s safely under the glass and quieter now, isn’t it? He swallowed.
“Book,” he asked. “Could you tell us how to reverse the spells, free everyone, and stop the crow thing?”
“All the same. All the same answer.” The book licked its lips. “So dull.”
“So answer it,” Eva demanded.
Jamie cast a glance at her. She was really impatient and bold when she wasn’t unconscious from fear.
The book opened again. Pages fluttered. Words formed out of Eva’s blood:
KILL IT.
“But how?” Annie pleaded. “How do we kill it?”
The book fluttered again. The pages twisted and re-created themselves. Suddenly a three-dimensional story took shape before them. First there was a town.
“It’s Aurora,” Bloom said, pointing at a house on a hill. “There’s Miss Cornelia’s.”
On the front lawn stood a large man. His paper head glanced about, and then he bent over and plucked a statue off the lawn.
Jamie squinted, trying to understand. “What’s he doing?”
The paper man tucked the figurine into his jacket, while peeping over his paper shoulder. Other paper figures came out of the front door. One had a swirly skirt.
“Miss Cornelia,” Annie breathed.
Another had a crooked walk.
Bloom pointed excitedly. “That’s Canin!”
Jamie was transfixed at the paper scene moving before him. The paper man jumped over a picket fence and off the road, running through backwoods until he set the lawn figure down outside the town border.
“That person stole the gnome.” Eva swore, turning away from the book. “He stole it and then just left us unprotected? That makes no sense. How would he get inside the town in the first place? Unless it’s one of …”
But Jamie was still watching the scene. Other figures lumbered out of paper woods. They stomped through the forest, flattening bushes, eating stones, and then one snatched up the statue and carried it off, decapitating random paper chickens.
“Trolls,” he whispered as the realization hit him. “Trolls took it.”
Abruptly, the pages flattened out.
“But what does that mean?” Annie asked, frustrated. “What does that have to do with saving everyone?”
The words rearranged themselves as the children stared: RETURN IT. THEN NAIL THE CORVUS MORRIGAN TO AURORA’S SACRED GROUND.
“Okay!” Annie perked up. “We find the gnome that the trolls have, we bring it back, and everything will be okay. That’s cool, right? That’s not too hard. I mean, I don’t know about the nailing part, but—”
Eva punched her in the arm. “Annie! Trolls have it. You’ve never dealt with trolls, but they are whacked out. Super fighters. Super strong.”
“And super dumb,” Bloom added. “We can handle trolls.”
Jamie thought about his grandmother and doubted it.
“We just have to find out which trolls have it, though,” Annie said. “Where do trolls live? I mean, other than the ones at Jamie’s old house.”
Bloom’s voice lowered, and totally distraught, he fiddled with his dagger. “Everywhere. Trolls live as humans all around the world, disguising their evil most of the time.”
“The gnome could be in Hawaii for all we know.” Eva muttered about hating trolls and bashing them and how she would be a great troll-killing warrior.
Hawaii would be nice and warm to visit, Annie thought. She hoped they had to go to Hawaii.
Jamie knew better. He interrupted their chatter.
“I know where the gnome is,” he said.
Annie, Bloom, and Eva all turned to stare at him. “Where?”
“My house.”
26
Believe in Magic Skis
The kids all listened as Jamie quickly whispered his experiences of the past days. He told them about seeing his grandmother turn into a troll, how he suspected his father was one, too, what Mr. Nate had told him, and finally about the lawn gnome that was in the front foyer of his house.
“Wow,” Bloom murmured. “That’s a wicked couple of days.”
Annie vowed that if they survived this, she’d somehow make sure the rest of Jamie’s life was good.
“So, let’s go,” Bloom said. “We have to retrieve the gnome from Jamie’s old house, and we’ll need transport out of Aurora. Eva, can you work that out?”
