by Anna James
Tilly and Oskar reached the gates, and ran through them, nearly with the back of Horatio and the woman in black.
‘Ah, you must be Matilda and Oskar,’ the woman said, not seeming at all surprised to see them, and smiling warmly. ‘Welcome to the Archive. I’m so glad you finally got here.’
ou two were on my train?’ Horatio said, raising his eyebrows.
‘Um. Yes,’ said Tilly. ‘Sorry.’
He ignored her, turning instead to the woman. ‘And you know them?’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘I’ve actually been waiting for them. I had thought they were coming via the labyrinth, although I saw there was a last-minute detour.’
‘We … um … did come via the labyrinth?’ Oskar tried hopefully, wanting to protect Milo.
‘The end of the labyrinth is on the other side of the Archive, I’m afraid.’ She smiled. ‘But what good fortune that the Sesquipedalian was passing through.’
‘They owe me payment,’ Horatio said brusquely.
‘Surely you can waive it this one time?’ the woman said.
‘That’s not how it works,’ Horatio replied sternly.
‘How about this then,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay for them. And I’ll warrant you’d rather have my payment than theirs.’
Horatio grunted his assent and turned his attention back to Tilly and Oskar. ‘Did that boy of mine help you?’ he asked. ‘He can’t seem to resist when it comes to waifs and strays.’
‘No,’ Oskar lied. ‘Milo didn’t know anything.’ There was a pause as Oskar realised the mistake he’d made by using Milo’s name. ‘Or … rather … he didn’t help us or anything. He told us we had to get off as soon as we stopped when he realised we were onboard.’
‘A likely story,’ Horatio huffed. ‘But I’ll deal with him later.’
‘Honestly, it’s not his fault,’ said Tilly.
‘It’s no concern of yours, regardless,’ Horatio said.
‘Now, Horatio,’ the woman said, ‘let’s all go inside and I’ll get Tilly and Oskar comfortable, and we can have our conversation privately and then I believe you have some other meetings while you’re here?’
Again, Horatio only grunted his agreement, while glaring at Tilly and Oskar.
The woman turned and led the way. Beyond the golden gates a grand red-brick building was visible. It looked like an old university with large windows, more ivy climbing up the walls, and carefully tended gardens leading down to the train station. Although it was a little imposing, after burning ancient libraries, forests made of paper and labyrinths of white stone, it seemed refreshingly normal at first glance.
But, as they got nearer, it became obvious that something wasn’t quite right. Some of the flowers were shrivelled and dead, fading to black and white, almost as though they were back in the paper forest itself. Down one wall of the building there was a great crack that ran straight from the roof to the ground, and the ivy that looked so beautiful from a distance wasn’t quite as orderly as it first appeared. There were places where it was invading the windows and other smaller cracks in the wall, and some windows where it seemed to be growing from the inside out. When they turned a corner, they could see a great heap of rubble on the far side of the building where a huge chunk of it had tumbled down.
‘I’m afraid we’re not looking our best at the moment,’ the woman said. ‘Some, well, some structural difficulties.’
Tilly and Oskar followed her and Horatio through the gardens, the two adults talking quietly in front of them, their conversation disguised by the swishing of the woman’s skirt on the gravel path. She was wearing a bizarre combination of clothes – all black – that seemed pulled from completely different times and places. From the back, her full skirt was ruffled and extravagant, but it was short at the front and she was wearing it over a pair of black trousers with heeled boots. She wore a corset over a T-shirt that fell loosely over her back and shoulders so that a golden tattoo of a labyrinth was showing at the base of her neck. Her hair was jet-black and her skin was porcelain-white, and if it wasn’t for the tattoo she would almost look like she was in black and white too.
They walked up a sweeping set of stairs and the woman in black pushed open a pair of creaking double doors to let them into a large entrance hall.
‘Welcome to the Archive,’ the woman said. ‘I’m so sorry – I haven’t even introduced myself properly. I am the Bibliognost.’
‘That’s your name?’ Tilly said, confused.
‘No, that’s my job,’ she said. ‘My name is Artemis. Now, if you two follow me, I’m just going to speak with Mr Bolt very quickly and make sure he’s happy, and then I’ll be back with you as soon possible.’
Artemis led them through to another smaller room lined with bookshelves, with two comfortable-looking sofas facing each other next to a roaring fire. On the coffee table between the sofas were a large plate of biscuits and two mugs of hot chocolate.
‘Please do stay in here for now,’ Artemis said. ‘I’ll be back very shortly.’ She let herself out and closed the door behind her.
‘Well!’ Oskar. ‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘About all of it!’
‘I’m not sure it’s what I was expecting. She obviously knew we were coming, so that’s reassuring, right?’
‘I think so,’ Oskar said, studying the biscuit choice. ‘She certainly sounds like she knows what’s going on. Is she an Archivist, do you think? Are there more of them?’
‘She did say that Horatio had more meetings, so I guess there must be other people somewhere. And this place is huge. Although have you noticed that it seems all fancy, but it’s not quite right? It’s falling apart. Look.’ Tilly gestured to another crack that whispered its way down the wood panelling. She stood and inspected it closely and saw that there was a faint, sparkly substance at its edges.
‘It looks a bit like the cracks we saw in the fairy tales,’ she said to Oskar. ‘But it’s sort of glittery dust, not sticky book magic. Maybe it’s because we’re so far inside stories?’
Oskar nodded as he munched on a Viennese sandwich. ‘Whatever happens next, Tilly,’ he said, ‘we should remember that we actually managed to get here, despite everything, and I think that’s pretty impressive, to be honest. We said we would, and we did.’
Twenty minutes later, though, they were starting to feel rather bored, not to mention very sleepy. After the epic journey to get here, it felt a little anticlimactic to be sitting on their own, eating biscuits.
To stop herself from dozing off, Tilly stayed on her feet and explored the room. There was a large desk beneath a gable window that was very neat and held only a small pile of papers. There were fine cracks in the windowpane that spilled a spiderweb of shadows on to the sheets of paper. Tilly picked up the top one to see a list of what appeared to be book titles written in very neat handwriting, although none of the names were familiar to her.
- Roseberry Topping by Patrick Bray (1987)
- Danger on the River by Lyra Lake (1866)
- Kin by A. M. C. Collier (1895)
- The Penguin by Eve Tsang (1928)
‘Have you ever heard of any of these books, Oskar?’ Tilly asked, reading out more names to him.
‘Nope,’ Oskar replied drowsily. ‘But there are a lot of books out there; we must only have heard of a tiny fraction of them.’
‘I suppose,’ Tilly said. ‘I wonder what they are, though.’
‘They’re books that I am trying to find,’ Artemis said, having come back into the room without either of them hearing her. ‘Books that have gone missing.’
‘Are they special in some way?’ Tilly asked.
‘I don’t think so, individually,’ Artemis said. ‘But their disappearance is very strange because I don’t mean that just one copy of these books is missing; I mean all of them are. They have vanished and it’s very hard to work out what has happened because the books are so obscure that there’s barely any reference to them. Her
e at the Archive we are able to keep track of a lot of things, so at least we know they did once exist, but there are certain things hidden from us, and these books – and goodness knows what else – are being concealed in those shadows.’
‘And that’s why Horatio is here,’ Oskar said, joining the dots. ‘Because he finds lost-and-forgotten books.’
‘Exactly,’ said Artemis.
‘So why are we here?’ Tilly said. ‘You did send us the clues, right?’
‘I sent you a map, yes,’ Artemis confirmed.
‘I mean, I think calling it a map is a bit strong,’ Oskar said. ‘It wasn’t exactly obvious how to get here.’
‘It is a map for those who know how to read it,’ Artemis replied. ‘And here you are.’
‘Were the vines from you too?’ asked Tilly.
‘The vines?’ Artemis repeated, confused.
‘When we were in DC, part of A Midsummer Night’s Dream came out of the book and dragged us in,’ Oskar explained.
‘And, when we were in the paper forest, one tried to get hold of us,’ Tilly added. ‘The vine was trying to twist round my ankle, like they did in the bookshop.’
‘That most certainly wasn’t me,’ Artemis said. ‘That’s not my style of getting someone’s attention at all.’
‘But, if it wasn’t you, who was it?’ asked Oskar.
‘I wonder …’ Artemis started. ‘I have a theory,’ she said, ‘but I might need to explain a bit more about the Archive before it makes sense.’
‘Okay,’ Tilly said, not sure what other option they had. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but you didn’t actually answer the question about why we’re here. I understand that if those books are all going missing you need Horatio to help find them, but how do we fit in? Is it something to do with what’s going on at the Underlibrary? That’s why we’ve come after all!’
‘What is going on at your Underlibrary?’ Artemis asked, and Tilly felt wrong-footed all over again. Why on earth were they here if not to fix what was happening at the British Underlibrary?
‘You … don’t know?’ Oskar said slowly.
‘I’m afraid not. Are books going missing there too? That would be an interesting piece to the puzzle.’
‘Who knows!’ Tilly said, frustration building. ‘But there are awful people in charge, who tricked their way into the job, and are using book magic so they can stay in power forever! They’ve stopped people from bookwandering!’
‘Ah, that does make sense,’ Artemis said. ‘I wondered why you weren’t bookwandering any more.’
‘But … that’s the whole problem!’ Tilly said. ‘That’s why we’re here! So you can help us! I thought that’s why you sent me all those clues!’
Artemis looked thoughtful. ‘No. There are obviously even more layers to this problem than I had anticipated. When did the Underwoods take over?’
‘Just before Christmas,’ said Tilly.
‘Hmm,’ said Artemis. ‘Just before books began to go missing at a greater rate, as far as I can tell. I’ll need you to tell me a little more about what they’re doing.’
‘But I still don’t understand how you don’t already know, but you did know that we weren’t bookwandering,’ Tilly said in frustration.
‘I think the best way for me to answer that is to show you,’ Artemis said, seemingly unmoved by Tilly’s exasperation.
illy and Oskar stood up and walked through the door after Artemis. She took them down a long corridor to a large set of wooden double doors painted white. Artemis pushed them open, and in front of them was just bright whiteness, so dazzling that they were forced to squint until their eyes got used to the glare. As their eyesight adjusted, they could see a room come into focus in front of them. A room with no windows and high ceilings – and rows and rows of shelves full of large books bound in white. The floor was whitewashed wood and there was no other decoration or furniture apart from the shelves. Despite the lack of colour, the room still somehow had a sense of warmth and friendliness, as though it were inviting you in.
‘Welcome to the Archive,’ Artemis smiled.
‘So, what exactly is archived here?’ Tilly asked.
‘In this hall are the histories of every bookwanderer since this Archive began,’ Artemis explained.
‘What do you mean, histories?’ asked Oskar.
‘Records of every time a bookwanderer travels inside a book,’ Artemis said as if that made it any easier to understand. ‘That’s how I knew you two weren’t bookwandering any more.’
‘But how?’ Tilly asked. ‘How did you know?’
‘I didn’t,’ Artemis said, ‘but the Archive does. This place is built out of story magic; the same magic you use every time you bookwander. It’s all pulled from the same magic source, and so the Archive can see how you’re using that magic, and records it here.’
‘So, there’s one of these books for me and Tilly?’ Oskar asked, unnerved. ‘Can we see them?’
‘I’m not technically permitted to show any bookwanderer their record,’ said Artemis. ‘But, considering the circumstances, perhaps I can make an exception, so you can understand what I know. And I can tell you a bit more about how the Archive came to be as we walk.’
She led the way down the long row of shelves.
‘Legend says that the original Archivist was a bookwanderer who was trying to escape death,’ Artemis explained in her low, soothing voice. ‘Not because of any of what one might call the usual reasons, but because he was haunted by all the books he would never have time to read. And so he burrowed his way down into layer upon layer of stories, as far as he could reach – stories inside stories, and books within books. He didn’t care if it proved impossible to find his way back – he never wanted to leave. He carved out a space inside Story, and sent messages back to his trusted friends so that they, too, could find their way if they wished, and for a while it was a place to write and read and talk and share ideas, and it became suffused with the magic of books and stories and imagination.’
‘Suffused?’ Tilly asked, not quite understanding the word.
‘I mean that magic attracts magic, and so it gradually spread through this whole place until it was part of its very foundations.’
‘So the Archive is made of magic?’ Oskar clarified.
‘Yes – it’s made of imagination,’ Artemis said. ‘And imagination is pure magic. Now, the people who were living and working here were able to experiment with that magic, outside the boundaries of the usual rules of time and life. And one of the things that they created was this – a way to channel the magic into these records so that all the adventures of bookwanderers past and future were saved. And so the man’s refuge became known as the Archive. A constantly updated record of all bookwandering.’
‘But doesn’t that mean you know where every bookwanderer is?’ asked Tilly.
‘No. We only know where they bookwander to – the Archive can only see you when you’re in stories. It isn’t watching you go about your daily life – it couldn’t even if it wanted to. And, of course, that means it can see you while you’re here, and I could monitor your journey here as soon as you reached the Library of Alexandria.’
‘So are the people who invented these records still here somewhere?’ Tilly asked.
‘No,’ Artemis said. ‘The founder was not fundamentally of the world of story and imagination, and the real world eventually found him and claimed him back, and he died. But the Archive stayed – it had enough story magic in its foundations to keep it going until now. Being a reader or a writer is to be part of an everlasting chain of stories passed down from friend to friend, or grandparent to grandchild, or librarian to reader – but something is sapping that magic, something is breaking that chain, and the Archive is crumbling – as though there’s not enough imagination to sustain it. Ah –’ she paused – ‘here we are.’
Artemis stopped in front of a shelf that looked identical to all the others. The volumes all had the same golden labyrinth
symbol embossed on their sides as well as a long number. Artemis pulled down a volume and flicked it open and it settled naturally about two thirds of the way through its pages. Tilly and Oskar watched in amazement as words appeared on the page in front of their eyes, as if written by an invisible quill.
‘Matilda is shown her volume in the Archive by the Bibliognost,’ it said.
‘It knows I’m here?’ Tilly said, feeling deeply unsettled.
‘Matilda queries the mechanism of the Archive,’ the book wrote, ‘and questions its knowledge of her presence.’ Then a word started to be written before vanishing again, like it had been rubbed out.
‘What was it going to say?’ Tilly asked.
‘You must have changed your mind about something,’ Artemis said cheerfully, closing the book.
‘I don’t like that at all,’ said Oskar. ‘It’s like it’s one step ahead of us.’
‘Can I see what it’s said about me in the past?’ Tilly asked.
‘And can I see mine?’ Oskar added.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Artemis said. ‘As I said, I shouldn’t really be showing you your volume at all, but I need you to see this so you understand what I am able to see.’
‘But it knew what I was going to do before I did,’ Tilly said.
‘Not quite.’
‘So, how come you don’t know about the Underwoods?’ Tilly asked. ‘Don’t they have records?’
‘They do,’ Artemis said, ‘but the Archive has a blind spot. No record of how book magic is channelled at the Underlibraries – for bookwandering or any other purpose – can be monitored here.’
‘Why not?’ Oskar asked. ‘That would seem kind of useful.’
‘It would indeed be very useful,’ Artemis said. ‘But, decades ago, the Underlibraries decided to use great quantities of book magic to cloak themselves, and the Archive is unable to record anything that takes place under that protective shield.’
