Life Reader

by Shea, K. M.

  “That was real,” Aron said. He sounded shaken. “Really real!”

  The fire crackled, still alive and burning, but down to the size of a campfire.

  Asher, the twin holding Raven, slowly slid the hand that was not gripping Raven’s waist across her shoulders, under her braid. He rested it on the bare skin of her neck, and Raven flinched. His ring blazed with his magic, burning her neck like a curling iron.

  Asher didn’t seem to notice. “What,” he demanded, his voice stiff with fury and—Raven suspected—fear. “was a decayor doing in Saint Cloud Library?”

  “I don’t know,” Aron said after several seconds of silence.

  “That, that shouldn’t happen,” Raven said, speaking through her numb lips. She tightened her grip on Asher’s neck for a moment before unlinking her hands and stepping away from him.

  Asher finally seemed to remember he and his twin disliked her, and he took a small step backwards as well.

  “Ray, I’m sorry. We’re sorry, about the decayor,” Aron said, rather unlike his usual self.

  “The decayor isn’t our fault though,” Asher gruffly said, placing a hand on the back of his neck. “This library is charmed. Nothing should have gotten through the defense shields. We couldn’t have known it would be here.”

  “Just take me back to the kitchen,” Raven tightly said, wrapping her arms around herself, her ring still glowing.

  The twins exchanged glances before setting out. They headed back towards the intersection, pausing to collect Raven’s shoes before moving on. Aron led the way with Raven smashed between the brothers. Little balls of fire followed them, hanging in the air like will-o-wisps.

  They walked in silence, moving up and down several tunnels, one path bleeding into the next. They came to a stop in a dead end. Aron flexed his fingers before placing his ring hand in the center of the wall and pushing. His ring flared for a brief moment, and something in the wall clicked before the dead end rolled away to reveal the kitchen.

  Raven stumbled into the cheery light, shaking the glow out of her page turner ring. The twins stepped through after her, the wall closing behind them. They crouched down to dust off their jeans, and when they stood upright Raven slapped them—Asher first then Aron—open handed, straight across their faces.

  Both of the twins stared at her, their jaws dropping while they placed hands on their stinging skin with synchronized movements.

  “What was that for?” Asher demanded, clearly outraged.

  Raven narrowed her eyes. “For leaving me in the tunnels,” she hissed. “The books only know you deserve worse!”

  “I already told you we didn’t know about the decayor!” Asher growled.

  “Asher,” Aron said, his voice was salesman pleasant as he shook his head at his twin.

  “I can’t believe you are malicious enough to leave a girl in that literal maze of secret passageways to begin with!” Raven shot back.

  “Ok, now you’re just being a wuss,” Asher rolled his eyes. “It’s not like you’re totally innocent, either.”

  “He’s got a point,” Aron ceded. “You have revealed your true capacity multiple times since arriving.”

  “That still doesn’t give you permission to be downright cruel to me!” Raven said, planting her feet and locking her legs.

  “We were coming back to get you. We were following you the whole time,” Aron argued.

  “Besides, you aren’t as dumb as you act, the whole batting your eyes thing is way over the top. Hah! It’s a joke.”

  “Bite me you copy cat freaks!” Raven said.

  The twin who last spoke, Asher, fumbled backwards as if she had physically hit him again. He narrowed his eyes, a dark scowl stealing over his features. “I hate you—no—we hate you!”

  “The feeling is mutual!” Raven said.

  Asher and Aron settled back into their synchronized movements. They were leaning towards each other, their weight on their heels. Their green eyes burned as they glared at her with open hostility. Raven glared back, scarcely less antagonistic than the duo.

  It was then that Jeremiah opened the door. “Why hello—oh my. What have you done now, Montamos brothers?”

  “What do you care? She’s just a spy,” Asher said, his lip pulled back in a sneer.

  “Although that may be true it doesn’t mean you have the right to make her cry,” Jeremiah said, his blue eyes noting the dried tear marks on Raven’s face.

  Asher opened his mouth to argue, but his twin elbowed him in the side. They swapped glances before silently stalking up the hallway, disappearing around the corner.

  Raven sniffed as Jeremiah pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ungrateful cretins. It would probably be best if you went home for the day, Ray-Ray,” he said, speaking past his hand. “I must apologize for whatever unethical and unchivalrous conduct the twins might have forced on you, but you have thrown off our balance here at Saint Cloud. We might allow you to work here, but that never means we actually wanted you,” he said, lowering his hand.

  Raven stared at Jeremiah, her heart sinking. Her Dad was right, they absolutely needed plan B. The original plan had crashed and burned in the most fiery of ways. In no way was Jeremiah falling for her, or even willing to befriend her. The majority of the page turners scorned her, and Daire, Jeremiah, and the twins implied they knew she was a spy.

  The knowledge of her failure tasted like ash in her mouth.

  Raven wiped grime off her jeans and bit her tongue, holding back the tears that threatened to spill out of her burning eyes. She forced a benevolent smile on Jeremiah. “You, Jeremiah, are exactly how I thought you would be,” she said before retrieving her backpack and jacket from the lockers.

  She slung her bag over her shoulders and set out, slinking through the door into the computer room, leaving a startled looking Jeremiah in her wake. She started for the exit but paused rebelliously at the base of the stairs that led to fiction floor of the library.

  She sniffed and wiped her eyes, glancing around. Brannon had signed in by this time, and William had left. Royce watched Raven from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat. Raven smiled tightly at him before she deliberately started climbing the stairs, breathing easier with every step. When she popped out into the second floor Raven’s shoulders slumped with relief. She left the stairs and trotted around the bookshelves.

  She wound up and down aisles for a few minutes before finding a section where the books whispered to her in quiet, soothing voices. She plopped down on the ground before pulling her legs close, tucking herself up against a bookshelf.

  She leaned her head against the books and allowed the first few tears to trickle quietly down her face. After a few moments her shoulders silently shook, and eventually a real sob tore out of her throat, piercing the silence of the fiction chamber.

  Raven was tired and defeated. Her failure was shameful, but ironically the thought that struck her again and again was a sentence carelessly uttered by Jeremiah.

  “A girl as beautiful and sweet tempered as you could hardly have embarrassing or freakish magic.”

  The second couldn’t possibly understand the significance of his words.

  Raven knew her ability to read breathing illustrations out of books was unnatural. There were certain laws of magic that Kingdom Quest citizens, that even magic abusers had to follow. No one gifted with magic, be it a child or adult, could magically create life. It couldn’t be done.

  That was why Raven felt her magic was grotesque and aberrant.

  “I can’t use it. It’s so, so wrong,” Raven said, digging out a tissue to dab at her ruined make up. “That dog, the Hound of Baskervilles. Just because I read something to life doesn’t mean I can control it. I might bring it to life, but it’s still a model of literary fiction. I don’t know if its alliances will hold true out here as they did in the book—,” Raven cut herself off and sighed. “I don’t know anything at all about any of it… except… I do know that if anyone found out I would probably disappear.” />
  No Kingdom Quester worth their magic would leave Raven—an apocalypse waiting to happen—alone after finding out what she could do. The potential for harm was too great. If anyone, even her parents, found out about her magic, Raven’s life would be forfeit. That knowledge had weighed heavily on Raven’s shoulders since the day she discovered her magic.

  “Yeah Jeremiah. My magic isn’t just freakish, it’s so violating I can’t even use it,” Raven said before bursting into tears again.

  She sobbed for a good five minutes before mopping up the black smears of her makeup and clearing her throat. “C. S. Lewis said crying is all right in its own way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do. So what am I going to do?”

  Raven slipped off her page turner ring and stared at it. She could feel an idea forming at the back of her mind, almost ready to drop off the tip of her tongue. It was still taking shape, but it was there. “If the price were worth it… if I could fight to protect something. Maybe, just maybe I could use my magic. And maybe in a noble use, even my magic could make something right.”

  “I’ve got half a mind to skin those brats alive myself,” Alison Morris, the Saint Cloud children’s librarian told the library janitor later that night. “You should have seen her, Toddie. The poor little thing was curled up into the books, crying her heart out.”

  Tod the janitor grunted as he mopped the marble floor.

  “Director Eastgate just about chewed off the heads of those Montamos brothers when they publically embarrassed our little dewdrop. I think he might kill them when he finds out about the decayor incident,” Alison said, thoughtfully plucking a book from a shelf. “Which reminds me, we need to call Greg in. Our security system must be short circuiting if it didn’t find that decayor.”

  Tod released a bear rumble as he dunked his mop in a bucket of soapy water.

  “No, director Eastgate still hasn’t met little Rachel. I think he’s trying to figure out his plan of attack for her. He’s going to scare the tar out of her when he finally introduces himself, though,” Alison said, interpreting the janitor’s growl for words.

  Tod continued mopping, pausing to spray cleaner on a particularly sticky spot.

  “Maybe one day Rachel will stay late enough to meet you,” Alison suggested. “Kay can’t hardly wait to see her for herself. She talked about coming back from her conference early. Director Eastgate forbid it.”

  Tod straightened up and sneezed.

  Alison sighed and looked up at the painted illustrations on the library ceiling. “No, I’m not sure she’ll stick around either.”

  Chapter 7

  “Feeling better?” Raven’s mother asked, stopping in front of the couch to affectionately rub Raven’s back.

  “I guess,” Raven said in a small voice. She was artfully draped across the couch, her head perched on the edge of a cushion.

  Telling her parents about work had not been pleasant to relive.

  “Don’t worry about the boys, sweetheart. They’re nothing but mean spirited brats. Remember what I said: First plans never survive contact with the enemy. Ignore them and focus on searching the library,” her father coached from the dining room table where he was hunched over a typed report of Raven’s most recent searches and the decayor in the library.

  “That’s hardly comforting, Dad,” Nate said, nonchalantly plopping down on the couch, sitting on top of Raven’s feet. When Raven squealed he stood long enough to let her remove them before plopping down again. “That’s like telling an elementary schooler to ignore the bully giving him swirlies and to pay attention to the teacher,” he said, stuffing graham crackers in his mouth. “Hey Raven, do you want me to beat those geeks up?” he asked, spitting crumbs everywhere.

  Their mother gave him a disapproving glare before she moved on to the kitchen, stepping over Beowulf—the family cat, as she went.

  “There’s six of them. You couldn’t possibly handle them all, although I don’t think you’d need to beat Brannon or Royce anyway,” Raven said as Beowulf purred and rubbed along the couch, the tip of his tail tickling Raven’s nose.

  “Four sissy page turners? I could take ‘em,” Nate snorted, breaking off another graham cracker, offering this one to Raven.

  Raven took it but frowned at her older brother.

  Nate rolled his eyes. “Look. I know you don’t like admitting it, but page turners aren’t fighters. Yeah, you’ve got superior intellect or whatever, but if magic abusers swarmed you, you have to rely on the library’s defense system holding them off until a guardian squad came to rescue you, or you’d be toast.”

  Raven guarded her graham cracker from the cat as she ate it, ignoring her brother as he continued his lecture.

  It always was a sore spot for Raven that she was constantly written off as being incapable of fighting. Of course there was some truth to the idea, this afternoon had proved that. But if Raven were to be surrounded by books when she was attacked…

  Raven sat up and shook her head. She already decided: she would only use her magic to protect something.

  “I’m glad you agree with me,” Nate said, jarring Raven’s thoughts back to the present.

  “No, that’s not it. I—,” Raven started before Shina shuffled into the room and stopped in front of her.

  “Could you braid my hair?” her little sister said, holding out a hair band.

  “Why?” Raven asked.

  “Because I want it crimpy. And your French braids are better than Na…Adam’s.”

  “Right on,” Nate said, digging in the graham cracker box as Beowulf started picking over his crumbs on the carpeting.

  “Ok,” Raven said, sighing as she stood up. “Your room?”

  “Yes! Thanks Rachel!” Shina said, tackling Raven in a hug.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m the best sister ever.”

  “Totally!”

  Outside Fox crouched on the roof of the next door house and peered into the windows of McCellen home. He watched the daughters leave the front room, the younger one chattering animatedly.

  “A son and two daughters, just like the Wishmore family,” Fox noted. “Would they really be stupid enough to send the whole family?”

  He observed the McCellen children. Although they looked drastically different than the Wishmores there were subtle similarities. Seeing Rachel McCellen at school, he had doubted the report that the new Saint Cloud Library page turner was the Wishmore girl. The copper haired, sunny, and somewhat dim Rachel was not at all like Raven Wishmore. But after observing her at home?

  “Perhaps it is them. Roc said the whole family was being relocated because of the security breech. Fat lot of good that did them,” he snickered, falling silent when a bedroom light flickered on.

  “If that is you, Raven Wishmore, you are going to regret your life,” Fox quietly threatened. Raven Wishmore and her strange page turner illusion magic, which wasn’t really illusionary, interested him, and that was not a good thing for her future.

  Raven discreetly checked the black bags under her eyes in her compact mirror before glaring. Sleep had not come easily to her last night.

  To begin with whenever she shut her eyes she heard whistling breathing and saw white fish eyes. She had a heart attack around midnight when Beowulf exited the house via his kitty door, climbed the trellis to her open bedroom window, leaped inside her room, and landed on Raven’s stomach with a flop.

  Of course the finicky feline refused to leave her room, and the remainder of the night was spent in domestic violence between Raven and the cat.

  Whether it be because of a lack of sleep or just bad luck, Raven accidentally slept through her first alarm and instead woke up to Beowulf sitting on her chest, sinking his claws into her skin while suffocating her with his rolls of fat and stinking tuna breath.

  “I barely had time to curl my hair, much less apply concealer,” Raven muttered, frowning. Her frown turned into a scowl when she realized she was naturally starting
to sound like the persona Gram had created for her.

  Shannon, seated next to Raven, raised an inquisitive eyebrow in Raven’s direction. Still irritated, Raven dismissed the concern with a flap of her hand before she directed her attention to her English teacher.

  After several minutes Raven heard the new student shift behind her, grumbling under his breath. Several moments later he impatiently shifted again, his chair scraping against the floor while he let a fist plop onto his desk.

  After a full minute of the shifting and grumbling Raven turned around. “Is something wrong?” she asked in a voice that managed to convey happiness yet still qualified as a whisper while cheerfully communicating she hoped her fellow transfer student would not require help.

  The new kid rubbed one of his eyes. “Contact slid,” he replied.

  Raven dug out her compact mirror and handed it to the guy. He wordlessly took it and Raven turned back around in the chair, jotting down a few notes.

  While Raven—still acting—began to doodle a literal sea of hearts and huggable creatures in her notebook, the new kid leaned forward, straining across his desk to rest his forearm on Raven’s shoulders.

  “Thanks,” he whispered, holding out Raven’s mirror.

  Raven wordlessly plucked the mirror from his fingers and purposely leaned forward to place her compact in her backpack, sending his arm sliding off her shoulder.

  Sometime later the bell rang, and the new kid disappeared in the storm of students.

  “Ray-Ray,” Shannon said, pouncing on Raven the moment they stepped out of the room. “I think Crevan Espion was totally hitting on you!”

  “Who?” Raven asked, tipping her head.

  “Crevan Espion. The new guy. The one who sits behind you!” Shannon said, waving a hand for emphasis.

  “Oh,” Raven said. “Really? I think he’s annoying,” she said before remembering herself. “Erm, I mean, he’s way too full of himself, but isn’t he cute? Tee-hee!”