by Anna James
‘But if they’ve stopped people bookwandering,’ Milo said slowly, ‘that means they’ve been binding books?’
‘Yes,’ Oskar said. ‘And they’ve convinced the American Librarian to help them too.’
‘But binding books … that’s basically evil,’ Milo said, looking pale. ‘You may think you’re above what we do onboard the Quip, but we would never bind a book. We keep stories circulating, as they’re supposed to. But –’ he paused – ‘it figures that something like that has happened. As I said, Horatio doesn’t tell me much, but the Quip has definitely been quieter over the last few months, not to mention Horatio is always in a bad mood – or a worse mood than usual anyway. He would never tell me, but after spending so much time with him I’m pretty sure there’s something more serious than usual bothering him.’
‘See, I knew you knew something!’ Oskar said.
‘I never said I didn’t!’ Milo grinned.
‘Grandad said that Pages & Co. – that’s our bookshop – was selling fewer books too,’ Tilly said thoughtfully. She cast her mind back to the strange encounter with the man in the shop, who had forgotten the book he came in for. ‘I wonder if it’s all linked.’
‘I thought you said your grandad worked at the Underlibrary?’ Milo asked.
‘He used to,’ Tilly explained. ‘But he retired and now he runs our bookshop with my grandma. There was an amazing Librarian who was in charge called Amelia, but the Underwoods – that’s who’s in control now – forced her out. And now everything’s a horrible mess.’
‘Well, that’s what you get for trusting the Underlibraries,’ said Milo, a little sanctimoniously.
‘That’s rich coming from you,’ Oskar said. ‘They’re great when they have the right people in charge!’
‘That’s the problem,’ Milo pointed out. ‘How do you keep the right people in charge, and who decides who they are? What happens when people like the Underwoods end up in power? This mess you’re trying to fix is what happens.’
‘We knew someone else who thought that,’ Tilly said. ‘We met a bookseller in Paris who wouldn’t register with an Underlibrary and got permanently withdrawn.’
‘And then she got pushed into the Endpapers!’ Oskar said. ‘By the Underwoods.’
‘How exactly does one get pushed into the Endpapers?’ Milo asked.
‘The Underwoods were causing problems even before they bound all the books,’ Tilly said. ‘They were messing up fairy tales on purpose so they could harvest the book magic that was leaking out where they broke them apart. And the Endpapers started overflowing into the actual book because of the mess they made and, when Gretchen tried to stop them, they … well, they pushed her in. Just like it sounds.’
‘Hang on,’ Milo said. ‘Gretchen … Gretchen … Short hair, big glasses?’
‘Yes!’ Oskar said. ‘Do you know her? Has she been on the train?’
‘Sort of,’ said Milo. ‘We picked her up from the Endpapers a few months ago. She hadn’t booked a journey, but Horatio will let people cadge a ride if they’re happy to pay.’
‘So, she’s okay?’ Tilly asked, a wave of relief washing over her.
‘We dropped her off back in Paris, I think,’ Milo nodded. ‘At her bookshop.’
‘Hang on, did you just say there’s a train station in the Endpapers?’ Oskar asked, incredulous.
‘Obviously not a permanent one for regular trains,’ Milo said. ‘But, like I said before, the Quip can stop almost anywhere, so long as you can imagine it. We run on magic, not coal.’
‘Book magic?’ Oskar asked.
‘Yup,’ Milo said. ‘One-hundred-per-cent environmentally friendly magic.’
‘But how come you’re allowed to use book magic?’ asked Tilly. ‘Especially for something illegal. I thought it was incredibly hard to get permission to use it?’
‘Oh, that’s the easy part,’ said Milo, with a grin. ‘We don’t ask permission.’
ut …’ said Oskar. ‘Even if the Underwoods are doing bad stuff, the rules are there for a reason.’
Milo waved this away. ‘Oh, most of the rules aren’t really real anyway.’
‘What does that even mean?’ Oskar said. ‘You don’t get to just say whether rules are real or not.’
‘So who does?’ Milo asked. ‘The Underlibraries?’
‘Well, yes!’ Tilly said. ‘Someone has to be in charge!’
‘If you ask my uncle, he’d tell you that wasn’t necessarily true,’ said Milo. ‘It’s not my fault if you can’t see outside the box.’
‘I don’t think you get to be all high and mighty,’ Oskar said. ‘You do steal books as a job.’
‘It’s not my job,’ Milo said. ‘Or at least I don’t earn any money from it.’
‘Nothing?’ Tilly asked.
‘What would I spend it on?’ said Milo. ‘Horatio gives me somewhere to live and food to eat and I get to travel to amazing places with him, and that’s a significantly better situation than where I was before.’ He paused as if waiting for them to ask about it. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me where I was before?’
‘If you want to tell us,’ Tilly said carefully. ‘You don’t have to, though.’
‘I was in an orphanage for the children of bookwanderers who have died inside books,’ Milo said abruptly. ‘Kids who couldn’t be put back into the real world because what had happened to their parents would cause too many questions to be asked, and focus too much attention on corners people didn’t want others looking into. I can’t even remember my parents. All I know is that, until I was six, I was in an awful, cold place full of other kids who didn’t know who they were or where they’d come from, and only thought of books as something that had taken their families away. And then Horatio came and found me and brought me here, and so I won’t ever complain about it.’
‘I get it,’ said Tilly.
‘Do you?’ Milo said, a little sharply.
‘Well, no, not exactly,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t know my parents until last year. I grew up with my grandparents, but my mum was trapped in a book and we only found her last year, and my dad …’ She tailed off. ‘Well, he died. So, I don’t know what it’s like to be you, but I know what it’s like to not really know who you are. Thanks for telling us.’
Milo shrugged as if it were no big deal, but Tilly could see his shoulders relax, a weight taken off him by sharing who he was, and people accepting him as such.
‘Anyway, that’s enough of that for now,’ he said. ‘I promised you a cup of tea and a biscuit.’
He filled up the kettle from a hose that came through the window and set it on the hotplate to boil.
‘There’s a bucket on the roof,’ he explained, gesturing to the hose.
‘Is it … clean?’ Oskar asked nervously.
‘Oh yes,’ Milo said. ‘We’re in pure Story here, nothing to pollute it. And we’re boiling it anyway, so don’t worry. Now, biscuits. Biscuits …’ He started rooting through various drawers and under piles of books and eventually pulled out an already-opened packet of custard creams.
He offered them to Oskar, who emptied a pile of crumbs into his hand.
‘Ah,’ Milo said. ‘Sorry. We do have a dining car, but I’m not really allowed to use it when we have guests onboard.’
‘There are other people on the train?’ Tilly asked, surprised.
‘Of course,’ said Milo. ‘What did you think all these carriages were, just books?’
Tilly shrugged, that being exactly what she’d imagined.
‘We have guest quarters for people of varying means; we have the aforementioned dining car; we have many, many book carriages. And there are rooms for people to meet in, to do business in; there’s the conservation carriage, even a printing press carriage and the engine, of course. Good thing about running through Story, and running off its magic, is that we have a fair amount of room for expanding and evolving, depending on what people need. Or want. Once you’ve saved bookwandering, and all of that, you shou
ld book a trip and you can see Quip properly.’
‘How do we do that?’ Oskar asked. ‘Is there, like, a website, or something?’
‘Yes, just type in magicalbooktrain.com,’ Milo said sarcastically. ‘No, there isn’t a website! But, if you ask around, you’ll find that you know someone
he kettle started to whistle and, as Milo poured the hot water into a teapot, Tilly and Oskar looked at everything tacked to his walls.
‘Is this map … moving?’ Tilly asked, noticing a half-unfolded map on Milo’s desk. It had coloured lines crisscrossing each other in a rainbow tangle.
‘Probably,’ Milo said, wiping out three mugs with the end of his scarf. ‘There wouldn’t be space to keep track of everywhere we go or can go, so it updates as we travel. Can you see the steam?’
They peered closer and, on a lavender line, there it was – a small plume of black, glittery steam chugging along. Oskar held his finger to it and jerked back.
‘It’s hot!’ he said.
‘The train is burning book magic,’ said Milo. ‘So, yeah, it’s hot.’
‘I’m really not sure you’re supposed to be burning books,’ Tilly said.
‘We’re not burning books,’ Milo said, outraged. ‘We’re not barbarians.’
‘Well, how are you burning book magic?’
‘I don’t know how you access book magic, but here we do it the civilised way, straight from the source.’
Tilly and Oskar looked blankly at him.
‘We’re fuelled by ideas. By imagination,’ he explained.
‘What?’ Oskar said, confused. ‘How does that work?’
‘It’s how you pay to travel on the Sesquipedalian, or to use our services,’ Milo explained. ‘Depending on what you want, or where you want to travel, you pay in ideas. That’s why Horatio can’t see you – he’s very strict about payment. No exceptions – ever.’
‘But … I thought that book magic came from books,’ said Tilly.
‘It can do,’ Milo said. ‘We could just shove books into the engine if we wanted to – or in an emergency, I suppose, but I think our system works a bit better.’
‘The Underlibrary told us that it was a precious resource, though,’ Tilly pushed on.
‘It’s precious because of what it can do,’ Milo said. ‘But the world would be in a lot of problems if it ran out of imagination, and that’s what book magic is really, at its very core. It’s not a finite resource, printed in books and ink. Really, we should call it something else – books are often the way the magic is contained, but it’s stories really, not the books, and it’s in every bookwanderer – it’s in every reader, if they knew how to access it. The Underlibraries have either forgotten that or they’re choosing not to share it with most people. So, if—’
He was interrupted by a bellow from outside.
‘MILO!’ the rough voice shouted. ‘Where are you, boy? We’re about to get to the Archive and I need you ready to unload!’
‘We’re at the Archive now?’ Tilly said in a whisper. ‘Why didn’t you tell us!’
‘I didn’t know!’ Milo said. ‘Quick! If Horatio’s coming in here, you need to hide. Now!’
ll Milo’s former confidence and good humour melted away like an ice lolly on a hot day. Previously, with his height and way of talking like a grown-up, Tilly had found it hard to believe he was the same age as them, but the sound of his uncle’s voice seemed to turn him into a little boy, terrified of getting into trouble.
‘Come on, please,’ Milo urged. ‘Please. Quickly.’
It would have been cruel to do anything other than what Milo was asking. There was the sound of a door smashing shut very close by, and Milo gestured urgently at them, with panicked eyes. Tilly slid herself into a narrow crack behind the bed, taking cover behind the frayed velvet curtains that hung down from the window, while Oskar burrowed his way under a pile of blankets.
Milo was heaping more on top of him just as the door to the carriage was flung open. Tilly could barely breathe, the musty scent of the curtains filling her nostrils, and she hoped she wouldn’t sneeze or cough while Horatio was in the room.
‘There you are, boy,’ a gruff voice said. ‘Didn’t you hear the bell ring? We’re just about to get into the Archive.’
‘Sorry, I must have been lost in a book,’ Milo said, a small wobble in his voice. ‘What’s at the Archive anyway?’
‘Opportunities,’ Horatio said. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
Tilly smiled to herself behind the curtain at Milo trying to find out more information for them.
‘Are we going to keep coming back here?’ Milo asked.
‘Not sure yet,’ said Horatio. ‘It’s a new port of call and a lucrative one, I think. I came across a map of sorts while I was sourcing something for Mr Gentlemoon and it brought us here, where I met a most interesting woman. I need you to get the books she requested and then get us ready to go. I can’t imagine I’ll be here too long. Pay attention, boy! Why are you sweating so much? It’s not like you’ve been working hard enough. What have you even been doing since we left the labyrinth? Why aren’t you ready to go?’
‘Sorry, Uncle,’ Milo said. ‘I must’ve lost track of time.’
‘What’ve I told you about calling me that?’ said Horatio. ‘Use my name. I’m not interested in any of this sentimentality. I didn’t take you out of that place for your own entertainment or mine, boy. I needed an extra body to help on board and that arrangement works for both of us, not to mention I’m repaying my debt to your parents as I said I would. Now, come on,’ he said. ‘Don’t irritate me, boy.’ There was the sound of a door slamming and then a few beats before Milo came and uncovered them from their hiding places.
‘I’m sorry you had to hear that,’ he said, looking embarrassed. ‘He’s … well, anyway, it doesn’t matter to you what he’s like. He’s my only family and I’d rather be on the Quip than back in the orphanage any day, so it is what it is.’ He plastered an unconvincing smile on to his face. ‘I’ve got to start getting the boxes ready. You two can wait here until we stop and then hop off the back – just like how you got on. I’d really appreciate it if you could try to stay out of sight.’
‘Of course,’ said Tilly as they followed Milo back out of his carriage, across the gap and into the dark storage carriage.
‘Just stay in here until we stop,’ Milo said in the gloom. ‘It was really nice to meet you guys – I hope that you find the answers you’re looking for, and that you get home safe afterwards. And remember, there’s always enough magic to go around!’
Then he gave them a wistful smile and a wave and headed back to whatever task Horatio had waiting for him.
‘Should we take him with us?’ Tilly asked Oskar quietly. Even though they’d barely spent any time with him, her heart felt unbearably sad for him. She knew the pain of not knowing where you come from and struggling to find a place in the world. While at first glance living on a book-smuggling train seemed like the greatest adventure you could possibly hope for, she couldn’t imagine it helped him feel as if he knew what home was.
‘We can’t,’ Oskar said. ‘He’s not an abandoned kitten, Tilly. We’d just be ripping him out of his life and what would he do? Come and live with you? With me?’
‘I’m sure Grandma and Grandad would let him stay at Pages & Co.,’ Tilly said, but she knew that that wasn’t the point.
‘He’ll find his own home one day,’ Oskar said.
‘Since when did you get so wise?’ laughed Tilly, poking him in the ribs.
‘Since I started reading all these books and going on these big life-and-death adventures, I reckon.’ Oskar grinned. ‘I talk in inspirational quotes nowadays, so you’d better get used to it. But, more importantly – this is it, Tilly.’
‘We’re finally going to find the Archivists,’ she said.
‘Do … do we have a plan?’
‘I’m sort of hoping it just becomes obvious, and whoever sent me the clues is there an
d is expecting us.’
‘I hope so,’ Oskar said. ‘And I hope they have biscuits. Because, much as I liked Milo, those custard creams were very disappointing.’
They heard the train brakes squeal as they slowed, and Tilly peeped through the window to see a station that felt like the direct opposite of the one they’d boarded in the labyrinth. Instead of stark white stone and emptiness, it had a beautifully paved platform surrounded by red brick, with ivy creeping up its walls. An ornate golden gate hung open and a woman in black stood there, waiting. As the train came to a complete stop, Tilly and Oskar crept out of the back door and slid off the platform on to the tracks.
‘How on earth are we going to get through those gates without him noticing?’ Oskar said, pointing to the man, who was evidently Horatio, climbing down from the engine and striding across the platform to shake hands with the woman in black.
They’d only heard his voice when hiding in Milo’s carriage. Now they could see that he was tall and thin like his nephew, with the same warm copper skin tone and dark hair, although his curls were going grey and he’d clearly made more of an attempt to get them under control – though without a huge amount of success. He was wearing a plain but expensive-looking black wool coat and smiled broadly at the woman as they shook hands.
‘Do we just wait for the train to leave?’ Oskar said.
‘That could take ages,’ said Tilly. ‘Presumably, those two aren’t just going to stand there – they’ll go inside, wherever inside is, and we can make a dash for it.’
As Tilly predicted, after a few moments of pleasantries, the woman and Horatio turned and walked through the golden gates.
‘Now!’ hissed Tilly and the two of the scrambled up on to the platform and ran towards the gates. Tilly took a quick glance over her shoulder and saw Milo starting to lug large boxes from a carriage further down the train. He noticed them running and gave them a thumbs up before turning back to the boxes.
