by Cari Thomas
The title of a book caught her eye: Whickstamp. She stopped and read the surrounding titles – they were all surnames. She reached for the Whickstamp book. Inside was a family tree spread across its pages, covering every Whickstamp who had ever lived, all the way back to 1376. Anna’s heart somersaulted with excitement. Family histories!
But the books were in no particular alphabetical order and there were thousands of them. ‘Where are you, Everdell?’ she said aloud, walking along the row. How is this library meant to work? She stumbled on a book underfoot and reached out a hand to steady herself. She turned and saw the book she was holding: Everdell!
‘Apologies – you do work. Thank you!’ she cried out to the surrounding silence.
She sat on the floor cross-legged and placed the book on her lap, finding her heart was now the loudest thing in the vicinity. The lighting overhead grew stronger as if to aid her reading. She opened it—
It was blank.
Anna turned the page – blank again – and the next, and the next. Feeling desperation take hold of her she rifled through the whole book, but all of it was the same – blank, blank, blank. She tipped the book up and shook it as if hoping the words might somehow spill out, but the pages remained stubbornly empty.
She grabbed at other books along the shelves and searched them in case they suffered from the same phenomenon. Gooderidge. Greene. Hedgel. Pike. They each contained full family trees. A word began to write itself into one of the pages making her stop midway through her frantic search. The word: ‘deceased’. It appeared next to one of the recent names in the family tree along with a date. Today’s date! Has the person just died? Anna closed the book and threw it away, realizing with a mixture of awe and horror that the family trees were alive … tracing the families they recorded in real time.
‘Then why is mine a magical black hole?’ she cried out to the Library, as if they had been in conversation.
She continued to look through the books desperately in case there was another Everdell book hiding from her, and then, fretting about the time, she put the one she had under her arm and set off in search of the way out, full of frustration. Why is everything a dead end? Like the third-floor room – closed off to me forever.
She tried to retrace her steps but either she’d forgotten or the corridors had moved because she was soon utterly lost. The Library seemed to be getting darker, as if night was setting within it. She walked faster. ‘Library, I’d like to leave now …’ Surely she could find a way. She turned down a well-lit corridor she thought she remembered. The end of it forked into three. She turned left; halfway down it the lights stuttered out. She swallowed a squeal and tried to get her bearings but the darkness was complete.
Stay calm. You’ve coped with darker places. One hand reached automatically for her Knotted Cord, the other out in front of her. She tried to feel her way, the shelves guiding her – tripping on books and stilling herself, heart beating, breath loud in the darkness. She thought she heard footsteps pass her by and stopped.
‘Hello? Attis? Effie?’ She heard the strange whispering in the air again, on the edge of hearing …
A narrow corridor to the right was releasing a dim light. Anna turned down it and realized immediately it was a corridor she shouldn’t be in. The books were bound in black and red and from the titles on the shelves and images staring up at her from open books on the floor she could tell they weren’t dealing in a good kind of magic. Mortuus Cantus Carnium. Black Hen Magic. Blood and Boils: A Hex Compendium. Hekate’s Grimoire … Many were sealed shut with thick chains and rusted locks.
She stood in something that squelched and looked down to see a dark red, sticky liquid beneath her feet. She screamed and put a hand on the shelf to steady herself, finding the shelf just as sticky and realizing with horror that the blood was oozing out of the books themselves.
She ran.
The end of the corridor was a dead end. She heard footsteps again … and then a book caught her eye. It was bound in black leather and locked shut – no title, just a symbol: seven concentric circles. The Eye. It beckoned her forwards. As she reached a hand towards it, the lock unclicked. She opened it and words began to fly up off the page, disappearing. A hand reached out from behind her and slammed it shut. A body, crouched and grey, wrestled with the lock. ‘I would not. I would not. Lock the Eye back up.’
Anna jumped back against the shelf, away from the creature. She screamed as her hair began to be sucked into one of the books behind her. She wrenched it free and stumbled forward again. The creature put its hands over its ears and screamed too, knocking books everywhere.
Anna realized then it was a man. A bundle of bones. He straightened up to look at her. She wasn’t sure whether to smile or run …
His face was long, the cranium large and hairless and his eyes deeply sunken as if they had been winched into the back of his skull. He wore only a vest and a pair of trousers that finished a few inches above his ankles; his feet were bare. The rest of his body was not skin at all. It was grey as ash and covered in words, as if he’d fallen asleep in a pile of books and left with their print marks all over him. It looked deeply unhealthy, much of it peeling off and flaking away like old paper.
She could make out the words ‘Veritas vos liberabit’ across his forehead and across his heart: EWORHEN – but as she read the word the letters moved, shifted into a new formation, alive on his skin. He blinked and Anna saw that even his eyelids had words on them.
He began to pick up the books he’d knocked over, putting them back on the shelves. ‘Little girl, getting lost in such a loquacious tomb, straying into the cimmerian plains of your imagination.’ His voice was a kind of dry wheezing.
Anna helped him in his task.
‘Be most careful,’ he said, taking a stack of books from her.
‘Where am I?’ asked Anna, unable to look away from him, the words writhing along his skin as he spoke. ‘What was that book that I tried to open? The locked one …’
‘That book is a mean book. Cursey. Induces cacodemonomania. Let the words free and you will be lost in the aphotic depths of your nightmares forever. Silly, silly to open.’
‘Thank you for saving me. What’s your name?’
He twitched and a sheaf of skin fell away from his arm, words and all. ‘Will you stay with me here, little girl?’
‘I need to get back to my friends …’ Anna backed away.
‘But you still seek, you still seek. Your expiscation has so far been most unsatisfactory. Though perhaps there is something in nothing.’ He looked at the Everdell book in her hands and his eyes twitched. ‘Why do you have that book? Explain.’
‘Well, my name is Anna Everdell and my mother was Marie …’
His eyes widened, retreating further into his skull. He took several steps closer to her and studied her face. He reached out a flaking hand and brushed it along her cheek. Anna stood frozen. ‘Yes. Marie’s daughter.’
‘You knew her?’
‘She was my friend.’
‘How did you know her?’
‘She came here. Searching, fossicking among the books, among the curses, as you have. Trying to find answers.’
‘What was she looking for?’
‘She did not say. I don’t believe she found it here but I know where she went. I will tell you if you will be my friend.’
‘I’ll be your friend,’ said Anna, as encouragingly as she could.
‘She went to see the Curse Witch.’ He began to sob, wetting the paper-skin of his face. ‘Nana Yaganov.’
‘Nana Yaganov.’ Anna repeated the name. It was difficult to say, full of sharp angles. ‘Who’s that?’
‘The greatest Curse Witch who ever lived.’
‘OK,’ said Anna, swallowing her fear. ‘How do I find her?’
He shrugged his skeletal shoulders. ‘How do you find a shadow in the dark? Now stay with me. I can’t remember what I’m searching for.’ He wiped a tear away, smudging a word. ‘Stay with me.�
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‘I really need to get going …’ But Anna found her foot was stuck – a black vine had crept out of one of the books on the floor and was wrapping itself around her leg. She cried out and the man cracked open his shrivelled mouth and began to wail.
Anna wrenched her leg free and ran blindly.
She heard wailing and whispers behind her, but couldn’t stop. She fled down the corridor, taking turns at random, hoping she was going the right way. She collided with a large figure.
‘Anna.’ Attis held her by the shoulders. ‘Where did you go? You look pale as a sheet.’
‘I – I—’ She tried to catch her breath, finding herself holding onto him. ‘I got lost.’
‘Are you OK?’ He searched her eyes. She met his for a moment and then pulled away. ‘Did you find anything?’ he said, looking at the book in her hands.
‘I – No, not really.’
‘Come on, we’re only two shelves from the entrance.’
They broke free of the corridors, back into the centre where they had arrived. Anna couldn’t understand how they had been so close; it felt as if she’d walked miles away. Manda was sitting reading a book, while a bored-looking Rowan tore strips of paper from the ground.
Effie was pacing. ‘There you are! I found the perfect grimoire, full of suitably vengeful revenge spells. What’s that?’
She grabbed the Everdell book from Anna’s hands.
‘It’s my family history, but—’
‘It’s blank.’
‘Yes.’
Effie frowned. ‘That’s so weird.’
The others gathered around. Effie, like Anna, shook the book upside down as if the words might drop out of it.
‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Rowan. ‘Those family trees are living records and you’re standing here in front of me. You should be in it at the very least. Are you OK? You look a bit spaced …’
‘I – I – met a man in there. He was scary and … sad.’
‘A witch?’
‘I don’t know what he was. He was covered in words, like they were part of his skin.’
Rowan dropped the books she was holding. ‘Maiden, mother and bloody crone! You met Pesachya! No one ever meets Pesachya. My brother and his friends went on a mission in here once to find him, trying to prove his existence.’
‘Who?’ said Effie.
‘They say he arrived here when he was just a young teen. Some say his family died in the Holocaust and he came here seeking answers and revenge, but he never left.’
‘The Holocaust?’ Anna exclaimed. She tried to think how old he was, but his face was impossible to place, he could have been forty, he could have been eighty, or older still.
‘That’s one of the stories anyway; there are lots. They say he’s part-man, part-book.’
‘That’s definitely true,’ said Anna, remembering his papery skin with a shiver.
‘How can he possibly live down here? That’s ridiculous. How does he eat?’ Manda scoffed.
‘He lives off words,’ Rowan replied as if she had it on good authority.
‘I want to find him. Which way was he?’ Effie looked back towards the corridors.
‘Not now,’ said Attis, guiding her arm. ‘We’ll come back and bring him some McDonald’s or something. It’s gone half eleven, let’s get these guys out of here.’
Anna had forgotten the time. She would be late. The empty book in her hands and the name of a curse witch from a madman probably wasn’t worth the punishment coming.
By some miracle, when she got home, Aunt was still at work. She ran upstairs to hide the Everdell book. She opened it hopefully, but it was still blank. She tried to think logically about the situation. Either the book’s magic had failed to record her family history, or the contents had been purposefully removed, by someone who didn’t want anyone discovering what it might contain. ‘Please!’ she begged the book, hoping talking to it might help. She opened it again but the pages remained maddeningly empty.
She threw it across the room, suddenly furious. It landed with a loud bang. She shut her eyes and breathed against the frustration ripping through her. She quickly fetched it and put it under her bed. She lay down thinking about the name Pesachya had given her. Nana Yaganov. The Curse Witch. Why was her mother searching among the curse section of the Library? And searching out curse witches? She went to her and after that she never came back …
Anna shivered, recalling the dark corner of the Library’s curse section, the wet sounds of blood beneath her feet – the curse mark, like a maze you can’t get out of once you enter.
How do you find a shadow in the dark?
FLIES
Whispers divide; in secrets we thrive.
Tenet Six, The Book of the Binders
Effie banged the large and tattered grimoire she’d taken from the Library on the altar. ‘It’s time! These wrongs need to be righted. These hierarchies broken. Justice served and punishments delivered. The Juicers need to be poured down the drain and left to rot – and I have just the spell.’
Anna had never seen her look more alive. She had the feeling this was what Effie had been waiting for since they started the coven.
‘Shouldn’t we technically report the bullying to Headmaster Connaughty?’ said Manda, looking a little afraid. ‘Surely there’s enough evidence to prove Darcey is harassing Rowan …’
Effie baulked. ‘You think this school has a proper justice system? You think Darcey wouldn’t find a way of turning it all around? No. I am talking about a different kind of justice. Nature’s justice. A woman’s revenge. Wild and lawless, measured out by moonlight, exacted by the Dark Moon itself. We need to bring it.’ Effie opened the book and announced with restless flourish: ‘It’s a rumour spell.’
‘More rumours?’ said Rowan.
‘Why not fight fire with fire? Either we’re controlling them, or they are. It’s an old spell and a powerful one, originally intended for gossipmongers and spiteful chinwaggers. Apparently it was the inspiration behind the old nursery rhyme “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly” …
‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly – perhaps she’ll die?
Oh why, oh why, did she swallow a fly?
‘The book states it was written by a witch whose daughter was hanged for witchcraft after someone in the town spread malicious gossip about her. The spell gives the caster power to turn the gossiper into the gossiped-about, to twist their rumours back on themselves. We just need to decide on the rumours.’
‘What will they do?’ Anna asked.
‘They will hound them, chase them. They won’t go away easily.’
The fear in Manda’s eyes had turned to excitement. ‘I’d love to see them get a taste of their own medicine.’
‘I don’t normally live by the concept of revenge, but come bane or boon I’ve got to make an exception for the Juicers,’ said Rowan.
Anna thought of Rowan drying her tears in the bathroom, of Darcey’s laughter which poured out of her as easily as her cruelty. Rumours could be nasty but they couldn’t cause any real harm. She turned to Attis, who was sitting on one the desks in the corner of the room. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think let Darcey chase her own tail for a while.’
He’s never going to disagree with Effie.
‘She can choke on her tail for all I care,’ said Effie. ‘Anna, if we don’t do this, it’ll just get worse for Rowan. You don’t want that, do you?’
Anna shook her head. It was the last thing she wanted. ‘I’m in.’
‘Good. I’ve thought of a few rumours already.’ Effie smiled slyly. ‘Thought we could say Corinne’s a nymphomaniac.’
‘I think she might already be known as that,’ Rowan pointed out.
‘Any other ideas then?’
Manda stepped forward. ‘Corinne’s whole reputation is built on the fact that she’s, you know, chilled out – all about the free love, pretendi
ng to be your friend. Makes me sick. What if we took that away from her? We could say she actually suffers from acute rage issues and all that yoga and drug-taking is just to keep her mellow, but at any moment, she might just …’ Manda clicked her fingers. ‘Snap.’
Effie considered it. ‘It’s a curveball, but funny. I like it. I, of course, already have one prepared for Darcey.’ She cleared her throat theatrically. ‘She may have boys running after her, but she’s only got eyes for one man and, hell, what a man: Headmaster Connaughty.’
Rowan spluttered. ‘What? That’s insane. No one will believe that.’
‘Well, under normal circumstances, no, but these are magical rumours.’
‘He’s so – so’ – Manda shuddered – ‘old and large and ugh. I can’t in a million years imagine them together.’
‘You’ll be able to soon. What about Olivia?’
‘I’ve got one,’ said Rowan. ‘She wants to be Darcey. She’s obsessed and jealous of her and will go to any length to be her, in every way.’
This one was just within the boundaries of reality. Olivia knew she didn’t quite live up to Darcey and poured all her efforts into her looks and clothes to make up for that fact.
‘Appropriately twisted.’ Effie steepled her hands.
‘Well, she’s the one who made up the name Beast,’ Rowan added defensively, as if ashamed of her suggestion.
‘So we’re agreed? Corinne suffers from rage episodes, Olivia is obsessed with Darcey and Darcey and Connaughty are having an affair. Ta-da.’
They nodded and Anna did too. Hearing them expressed like that they seemed more ridiculous than anything else. Surely no one would really believe them. They waited while Effie wrote out the rumours and the wording for the spell before handing it to them to learn. Anna muttered the words over and over, committing them to memory. She didn’t want to be the weak link this time.
‘Ready?’
Effie held up a glass container. Inside three flies whirred around, large and angry, butting themselves against their glass prison. She held it to her eye. ‘Three flies for three rumours.’ She placed the container in the centre, followed by three cups. ‘Their juices from this morning,’ she explained, ‘and put your phones in the centre too.’