Pages and Co 3: Tilly and the Map of Stories

by Anna James

  itania was taller than all of them and she seemed to be lit from within. Her hair floated around her, and so did her blue-and-gold dress, neither paying attention to the laws of gravity. She was like a cloud of magic, the air sparking and sparkling about her.

  ‘How … how are you doing that?’ Decima said, staring in terror at Titania. ‘You can’t … It shouldn’t … That’s not how it works!’

  ‘My lady,’ Tilly said, attempting a curtsy. ‘You promised me a favour and I need your help now. These people are trying to destroy Story and use its magic to gain power. I ask you now to help me free all the stories here.’

  ‘What would you have me do, child?’ Titania said.

  Tilly bobbed up on to her tiptoes and whispered something into her ear.

  Titania smiled, nodded and held out her hand. Tilly felt a jolt run through her fingers as they touched, but she kept a tight hold and concentrated on the play she was holding. As Tilly and the Queen of the Faeries joined hands, and joined magic, the air filled with the scent of caramelising sugar with a coppery burning smell and something else that was altogether impossible to describe.

  Magic, Tilly supposed.

  ‘How does she even know who you are?’ Decima said, horrified. ‘She shouldn’t know who you are – what witchcraft are you using?’

  But Tilly did not break her concentration to explain to Decima how her half-fictional nature worked.

  ‘Stop it right now!’ Melville said, panicking. ‘Sister, what are they doing?’

  But all Decima could do was stare helplessly at Tilly and Titania as pure story magic sparked around them. Tilly heard a gasp from her mother and a low, ‘Wowww,’ from Oskar and she knew it was working.

  ‘Concentrate, Matilda,’ Titania said to her.

  ‘It is just beginning to grow.’

  For, around them, a forest was sprouting from the pages of the play. Between them, Tilly and Titania were pulling Shakespeare’s enchanted wood from A Midsummer Night’s Dream into the Source Library, and its vines and trees and leaves were spreading throughout the whole place. Flowers sprouted at the base of the shelves and wound their way up, right to the ceiling. And it just kept growing, until it had taken over the Source Library completely.

  Soft grass grew under their feet and vines crept over their heads so you could barely see the concrete ceiling above them. The air felt lighter and brighter, although the smell of fire and sugar and magic was still present, combined with the lush, fresh scent of growing things.

  Melville and Decima looked very small amid the beauty of the forest, hemmed in by an army of fictional characters.

  Titania released Tilly’s hand and looked about her in satisfaction.

  ‘Consider now your debt be paid?’ she asked Tilly.

  ‘I do,’ Tilly said. ‘Thank you.’

  Titania gave Melville and Decima a supercilious stare before melting away into nothingness, leaving her forest behind her. There wasn’t one corner of the Source Library that wasn’t touched by it.

  ‘What are you doing, Matilda?’ Decima said, regaining her composure. ‘This may look impressive, but you realise your mistake? You have brought to our door more resources than we could possibly ever use.’ She laughed coldly. ‘This forest can be cut down and pulped for book magic. And these characters too. Some will have to be returned to their Sources, of course, otherwise people will notice their absence, but you have hand-delivered to us a wealth of book magic.’

  ‘You’re missing one crucial thing,’ Tilly said. ‘The same thing you’ve always missed. You don’t understand book magic at all. It isn’t that black stuff you steal and rip out of books – that’s only a faint reflection of what book magic is. True magic – the magic of stories and imagination – is what brought all these characters here, and it’s what’s brought the forest to you. And it’s what’s going to stop you.’

  Tilly signalled to the assembled book characters, who turned and pressed their hands to the nearest branch or vine, the wood conducting their magic straight into the books.

  Inspired by the fire that had spread from scroll to scroll in the Library of Alexandria and how quickly it had burned, Tilly had asked each character to donate a small portion of their book magic. It started to flow directly from them, conducted by the forest itself, so that the books on the shelves began to light up and glow as the book magic spread through their pages.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Decima said.

  ‘I’m setting the Sources free!’ Tilly said. ‘We’re setting them free. In a few moments, none of these books will be Source Editions any more. They’ll just be normal stories, magical in the way all stories are.’

  ‘How dare you?’ Decima said. ‘You stupid little girl. You have no idea what you’re doing. Do you think your fellow bookwanderers will be happy to hear of the damage you’ve caused? Do you think the Underlibrary will look kindly on this, regardless of who your grandfather is? How you’ve fallen from your high horse, chastising us for utilising Sources when you are trying to destroy them all in one fell swoop!’

  ‘But you want to destroy stories, not Sources,’ Tilly said. ‘And it’s the stories that are important. I think that maybe the Underlibraries have had too much control for too long. Maybe bookwandering needs a fresh start, a chance for stories to exist free of the Sources.’

  ‘The Sources protect them, you foolish child,’ Melville said.

  ‘Not very well, if they can be stolen and destroyed by people like you,’ Tilly said. ‘Now they can be looked after by readers, as they should be.’

  ‘And you think this is going to stop us?’ Decima said, tearing her eyes away from the magic burning steadily through the whole Source Library.

  ‘Well, yes, actually,’ Oskar said, his hands on his hips. ‘You have no Source Editions, so you have no power.’

  ‘You forget what you have shown us,’ Decima said, getting more and more manic with each word, her hair coming loose from its tight ponytail, her lipstick smudged. ‘That we can use fictional characters themselves as a power source! And we still have Shakespeare here, and the rest of the Archivists can be found as well. This is just … a minor setback. A pause! We have the loyalty of the librarians. We have, we have—’

  ‘You think they will side with two children who have just destroyed the entire British Source Library?’ Melville sneered. ‘You will never stop us; we have come too far and achieved too much for you to halt the tide of our progress.’

  Tilly started to feel desperate. She had been sure that they would concede defeat as they saw their power source depleted, and the whole of the Source Library freed from their control, but it only seemed to spur them onwards.

  The Underwood siblings didn’t even care what she was doing any more, but had turned their attention to the host of fictional character channelling their magic into the forest, a greedy look in their eyes.

  Then Tilly heard a small cough and looked up to see Will trying to get her attention. She touched Oskar’s arm so he was looking too.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Will said very quietly, ‘to do a great right, you need to do a little wrong.’ He gestured with his head to the copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Tilly was still holding.

  Tilly looked at him, confused, until she realised what he was suggesting.

  ‘But … it will ruin it.’

  ‘It is only one copy,’ Will said. ‘And it is my creation; I give you permission. I brought Titania and Oberon into being, and I believe they are more than capable of dealing with such a challenge.’

  ‘Stop whispering,’ Melville said, taking notice of their hushed conversation. ‘Just stay still until this mischief you’ve wrought is done, and then we’ll decide what to do with all of you.’ He sighed as he watched the Source Editions become normal books, each one lighting up and sparkling as it was filled with pure book magic and freed. ‘What a waste of immortality.’

  ‘Actually, I think it’s time for us to decide what to do with you,’ Oskar said.

  �
��What?’ laughed Decima.

  ‘Now,’ Tilly hissed to Oskar. They darted forward, hands clasped tightly, and grabbed an Underwood each, and Tilly read aloud, again, the line to take them into A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

  ‘Titania,’ Tilly said, nodding her head respectfully as the Underwoods lay sprawled on the grass, winded and gasping for breath from their unexpected bookwander. ‘I’m sorry to trespass on your hospitality again, but we were hoping you might be able to take care of these two for a while. I promise this is the last thing I’ll ask you.’

  ‘More humans?’ Titania sniffed.

  ‘Yes,’ Tilly said. ‘And yours to do with as you like. Maybe torment these two with your tricks, rather than each other? Just be careful that they don’t break anything.’

  The Underwoods started to scramble back across the grass as the faeries approached.

  ‘You can’t just get rid of us so quickly!’ Decima yelled, twigs stuck in her hair, and her dress ripped. ‘We’ve found a way back to the Underlibrary once before! Is this your worst? IS THIS IT?’

  ‘You’re making the same mistake you’ve always made!’ Tilly shouted back as Oskar flicked to the back page of the play.

  ‘This story was never about you.’

  hey landed back in the Underlibrary, to be met by Bea’s and Will’s shocked faces.

  ‘Is that it?’ Oskar said, scarcely able to believe they’d rid themselves of the Underwoods just like that. ‘We just leave them there? We should’ve shoved them into a book somewhere ages ago!’

  ‘I meant what I said in there,’ Tilly said. ‘Although I only worked it out just now. We’ve been so focused on them, but I think our story was always supposed to be about this: freeing stories, and understanding what book magic really is.’

  Oskar held up a hand to give Tilly a high-five, but they paused midway when they saw the panicked look on Bea’s face.

  ‘It’s all going wrong,’ she said. ‘The forest – it’s stopped working!’

  Tilly and Oskar looked around them to see that, although the channels of book magic were still flowing through the trees, the Source characters themselves were starting to flicker and then disappear.

  They ran over to where Anne was still sending book magic into the trunk of a great oak tree.

  ‘Is it done?’ she said faintly, and Tilly and Oskar looked on in horror as the edges of her started to dissolve away into pure book magic around them.

  ‘Stop, stop, Anne!’ Tilly said, terrified.

  Anne pulled her hands away from the branch, but as soon as she did the magic started retracting towards her.

  ‘Mum, what’s happening?’ said Tilly.

  ‘It’s too much,’ Bea said. ‘It’s using up the book magic too quickly – the characters are fading away.’

  ‘But they’ll be fine, right?’ Oskar said. ‘They’re still in their books.’

  ‘Not while they’re still Source characters,’ Bea said, holding out the copy of Anne of Green Gables, which was now mainly empty pages, without any trace of Anne in it, as she flickered and sparkled in front of them. ‘It’s a catch-22,’ Bea said. ‘You need the power of the Source characters to stop the books being Source Editions. But, if these characters lose too much magic and fade away before they’ve changed all the Sources here into regular books, well, I think some of their stories will cease to exist.’

  ‘But what do we do?’ Tilly said, trying the stop the panic that was bubbling up inside her. ‘I can’t be responsible for removing these books from the world, from every reader! Anne, you need to stop – please.’

  ‘I have to help you, Tilly,’ Anne shrugged weakly. ‘You’re my reader.’

  ‘It’s not worth it,’ Tilly said desperately. ‘You mean too much to too many people. I’m not your only reader! We’ll find another way. Maybe if I help? I’m half Story after all – and apparently it wants me back.’

  She pressed her hands against a tree, but a gentle hand stopped her.

  ‘I have a suggestion,’ Will said, rubbing his wrists where the book magic bond had been removed. He kneeled down in front of Tilly.

  ‘Matilda, my dear one,’ he said gently, his voice full of affection. ‘So little but so fierce. You have given me the greatest gift a writer could ever wish to have – to know that my words have found a home in the hearts and minds of readers long after I am gone. Why should I linger when my words have found an eternal home? After all, we are such stuff as dreams are made of and our little lives are rounded with a sleep. It is time for me to sleep, and to dream. Let me give you a gift equal to that which you gave me. Send these characters back whence they came, protect them.’

  And, with that, he stood up and walked towards the shelves, as the characters started to melt away back to their books. Bea checked Anne of Green Gables, and Anne was present and vivid on every page where she belonged.

  She nodded to Will, who dipped into one last deep bow and pressed his hands to the great oak tree Anne had just left.

  ‘Seek happy nights to happy days,’ he said. ‘And good ends to good books.’

  And, with that, he closed his eyes and channels of pure book magic started streaming from his hands into the tree. Within seconds, it was coming from every part of him, imagination pouring directly from him into the books, helping free every single book there.

  They could see it spreading throughout the whole forest, the whole library, flowing through it like electricity. And, as the light spread to every last book, Will started to fray and he himself finally turned into pure story, a constellation of shimmering, beautiful imagination that surged through the entire Source Library, filling the air with eddies and swirls of glittering magic, and the unmistakable smell of toasted marshmallows.

  randma, Grandad, Bea, Tilly and Oskar were sitting round the kitchen table in Pages & Co., eating home-made pizzas.

  The copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Underwoods trapped inside it had been bound with a neat cross of golden story magic over its first word. It was then entrusted to Amelia Whisper, who had been reinstated as Librarian of the British Underlibrary. What role the Underlibrary was set to play had not yet been decided.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Tilly said, before taking a mouthful of pizza.

  ‘Who knows?’ Grandma said. ‘Everything is different and there are lots of decisions to be made. There are a lot of things to clear up and people to check in on.’

  ‘Orlando and Jorge are safe, aren’t they?’ Tilly asked.

  ‘Very much so,’ Bea reassured her. ‘Amelia called in some favours at the American Underlibrary and they’re safe and well at home. One day we’ll take a proper trip to America together and they can tell us all about it.’

  ‘We did the right thing, didn’t we?’ Tilly asked. ‘Freeing the Source Editions?’

  ‘Tilly, you and Oskar did what you thought was right,’ Grandad said. ‘And that is all we will ever ask you to do. I find that I’m almost embarrassed, having been a Librarian for twenty years of my career, and a bookwanderer since I was twelve, that I never asked the questions you did about what book magic really means. We’ve only ever wanted for you to be brave, and curious, and kind – like your mum – and you two have demonstrated over and over again that is what you are.’

  ‘So everyone can just bookwander where they like, right?’ Oskar said.

  ‘Yes,’ Grandad said. ‘People are truly free to chart their own course.’

  ‘To seek their own adventures,’ said Grandma.

  ‘To find their own path,’ Bea added.

  ‘To be the heroes of their own story,’ Tilly said.

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Oskar said, and the five of them raised their glasses of raspberry cordial and clinked them together.

  Later that night, Tilly sat in her favourite armchair on the first floor of Pages & Co.

  The moonlight was shining through the windows and illuminating all the books, each one its own adventure, its own story that would meet each reader and welcome them in a
way that was particular to them.

  She curled her feet under her and looked at the notebook lying in her lap. It was the one she’d been given in Paris for Christmas by Oskar’s grandmother.

  She opened it to the first page, picked up the fountain pen she’d accidentally brought out of 221B Baker Street and took a deep breath.

  she wrote on the first page.

  She took a sip of hot chocolate, read it back, smiled and kept writing.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you to my family, extended family, and friends for your love and support. Especially to my mum and dad and my sister Hester. Thank you always to Adam Collier.

  Thank you to Paola Escobar for her beautiful illustrations.

  Thank you to my agent, Claire Wilson, and everyone at RCW. Thank you to the wonderful team at HarperCollins Children’s, especially Nick Lake and Louisa Sheridan. Thank you always to Lizzie Clifford, Sarah Hughes and Rachel Denwood. Thank you to all my foreign publishers, in particular to Cheryl Eissing, Lindsay T. Boggs and Tessa Meischeid at Philomel.

  Thank you so much to all the booksellers, librarians and bloggers who have supported the books so far. A particular thank-you to all the booksellers and schools who welcomed me so warmly when I was on tour in the US last autumn. Thank you in particular to Tattered Cover in Denver, whose theatre-home I have borrowed for Shakespeare’s Sisters, and to McIntyre’s Books in North Carolina, whose wrapping room I have borrowed.

  Thank you to Laura Gottesman at the Library of Congress for answering my queries about where classmarks would be shelved in the Library – and apologies for having to tweak it so that the Main Reading Room could be used as the setting.

  Thank you most of all to every reader who has found and connected with Tilly’s story.

  Keep Reading . . .

  Step into the magical world of Pages & Co. . . .

  Eleven-year-old Tilly has lived above her grandparents’ bookshop ever since her mother disappeared shortly after she was born. Like the rest of her family, Tilly loves nothing more than to escape into the pages of her favourite stories.