by Anna James
“But why does he hate everyone so much?” Oskar said, no longer pretending that he wasn’t listening to their conversation. “And how come he can even bookwander when he doesn’t seem to like stories?”
“Well, we all have different relationships with books,” Grandad said carefully. “Obviously Enoch has an important link to them otherwise he wouldn’t be able to bookwander. And, as we told you, he’s a very diligent watcher and incredibly attuned to disturbances in the Sources. He might not be a friendly or a kind man, but he’s not an evil one. He’s devoted his life to the Underlibrary, even if his methods are unorthodox.”
“Talking of which, and just hypothetically speaking,” Tilly said, trying to sound casual, “say Mr. Chalk had a book and it was slightly different from all the other versions of that book, what might that mean?”
Grandad raised an eyebrow. “Hypothetically speaking I would say that I would be concerned as to how you knew that, but also that it was nothing to be alarmed by. If you were to read a book that had someone wandering inside, you would see the results of them being there temporarily on the page until they left, but usually a wanderer will have the book with them. If it was a Library copy, it would not be unusual for a librarian to be on a monitored wander. Now. Do I need to be anxious about why you’re asking that question?”
Tilly and Oskar both shook their heads vigorously and Grandad laughed gently and stood up. “You’re worryingly like your mother, Tilly,” he said affectionately. “Please be careful.”
Oskar and Tilly stole a quiet moment to regroup when everyone took a coffee break.
“So, it was just a librarian in the book,” Oskar said. “That’s why it was different, and that’s why it was so undramatic—she was buying cake, right?”
“Yep, it was just a woman buying cake—it barely said anything in the bit I read, just that it was cold and she was playing with her necklace, then she bought almond cakes . . .”
Oskar pointed at Tilly’s neck and laughed. “She’s rubbed off on you obviously!”
And Tilly realized she was messing with her bee necklace as she talked. She stopped and stared at Oskar.
“Oh my goodness, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Uhhh, that you want some cake?” he tried hopefully.
“Oskar. Just suppose, for one minute, that that woman wasn’t just a librarian. Just suppose that that woman was my mother,” Tilly said, fizzing with excitement.
“No, no, no, Tilly,” Oskar said urgently. “You’ve missed out, like, a million steps there to get to that conclusion. You can’t go around thinking every random woman wearing a necklace is your mother—that’s just not how it works.”
“But it’s not a random woman! She’s in A Little Princess, where my father is! And she’s not in any other editions!”
“But, Tilly, why would she be in a copy in Chalk’s office? It doesn’t make any sense at all, and your grandad just told you they didn’t find her in any books. You’re seeing her there because you want to see her there.”
“Maybe,” Tilly said, “but surely it’s worth going to check? There’s no harm in at least trying!”
“No harm in trying out a theory about just wandering off the edge of a book? No harm in sneaking into the Underlibrary without telling anyone? No harm in risking running into Chalk? And what about Amelia—how would you explain being in the wrong place again to her?”
“Well, you never know what you might find, being in the wrong place at the right time,” Tilly said.
“Did you read that in a book? Oskar said.
Tilly grinned. “No, I made that one up myself. Anyway,” she said more quietly, “I don’t want to go on my own and I need someone, well, someone who’s best-friend material to come with me.”
“Well, I guess we could go while the party is happening . . . ?” Oskar said, relenting quickly, his cheeks a little pink.
“Exactly,” Tilly said. “We could be there and back before anyone’s even noticed we’ve gone . . .”
35
A Bookshop Is Like a Map of the World
At five o’clock the Pages & Co. extended family gathered for an early tea of sandwiches in the kitchen before Oskar was commandeered by Jack to help with final details for the party, and Tilly was sent upstairs to get changed. It wasn’t fancy dress, but guests were very much encouraged to wear a nod to the year’s theme. Tilly and Grandma had found a full-skirted blue dress that had a distinctly Alice-y feel. Tilly wondered what the real Alice would make of it as she refastened her golden bee necklace round her neck and headed downstairs.
The bookshop had been transformed. The central display tables had been cleared away and there was just one long table heaving under Jack’s creations. Pretty, mismatched china tea sets and cake stands were piled with scones topped with cream and jam, macarons of every imaginable color, and tiny, frosted cupcakes topped with sparkles. There were elegant finger sandwiches, and miniature twirled pastries, and at the center of the table, a four-tier Victoria sponge cake was messily iced and heaped with fresh flowers and fruit.
Tilly could see Oskar laughing as he helped Jack drape strands of white fairy lights along the bookshelves, getting them both tangled up. Grandad was pinning intricately cut paper flowers in garlands around the room, and Grandma was filling mismatched bottles with fresh flowers. There was soft string music playing in the background, which was disrupted only by the occasional giggle, or by the clattering of an array of teapots being filled with different kinds of tea or brightly colored cocktails for the grown-ups.
Tilly stood in the middle of the shop floor as though she was at the center of a merry-go-round and let herself soak everything up. The only thing missing was her mum.
“Oh, Tilly, you look lovely!” her grandma said as she noticed her standing there. “What do you think of the shop?”
“I love it,” Tilly whispered. “It looks perfect.” The atmosphere of the bookshop settled on her shoulders like an invisible protective cape. Jack came over, wearing a top hat tied with colorful scarves in a nod to the Mad Hatter. He pointed at Oskar, who had the four playing card suits painted on his cheeks.
“I did them with eyeliner and lipstick,” Jack said proudly.
Guests soon started to trickle in and Oskar and Tilly were on duty, taking people’s coats, which they then unceremoniously heaped into a pile in the stock cupboard. The bookshop was soon full of the noise of music, laughter, and glasses clinking. After an hour or so, Grandad clambered up onto a chair and chinked a cake fork against his glass.
“I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone for coming, and thank you to everyone who visits Pages & Co. and keeps us open and adventuring. Some people see a bookshop as an archive, or a shrine, or even a time machine. But I think a bookshop is like a map of the world. There are infinite paths you can take through it and none of them are right or wrong. Here in a bookshop we give readers landmarks to help them find their way, but every reader has to learn to set their own compass. So, a toast,” he said, raising his glass and looking directly at Tilly. “To finding your own adventure.” The crowd raised their glasses before erupting into cheers.
As the room refilled with noise Tilly and Oskar slipped upstairs. Tilly had both her mum’s copy of A Little Princess and a brand-new edition in a Pages & Co. tote bag ready to compare with Chalk’s version.
“Okay, now which book should we use?” Tilly said, scanning the shelves. “Alice, because I’ve been there the most times?”
“It seems as safe a choice as any,” Oskar said, and the two of them linked hands as Tilly read them into the final chapter.
The smell of burned marshmallows was much stronger this time, no longer smoky and tempting but acrid and sticky like they’d been left on the fire for too long. Tilly felt the flip of her stomach as the walls folded down around them, leaving them standing in a lovely, carefully manicured
garden with a large white house visible up the hill. There was a stream babbling somewhere nearby and the garden was lined with blossom trees and rose bushes.
“Where’s Alice? Can you see anyone at all?” Oskar whispered, sounding slightly panicked.
“No,” Tilly said. “Maybe this was a bad idea after all.”
“There she is!” Oskar shouted suddenly, pointing down the hill, and Tilly tried to calm her breathing. She followed the direction of his finger and saw Alice lying under a tree, apparently asleep in the lap of a girl who looked remarkably like her, only a little older.
“I guess that’s her sister,” she said. “This is the end of the book after all; this is when she wakes up and her sister says it was all a dream.”
“Hang on,” Oskar said, outraged. “Alice in Wonderland ends with it all being a dream? But Ms. Webber always tells us that it’s lazy storytelling to have it end as a dream.”
“Yeah, but then her sister has her own sort of dream, and talks about telling it as a story to her future children.”
“It sounds weird,” Oskar said.
“The whole book is weird,” Tilly said. “That’s why people like it.”
They edged closer to the two girls, and watched as Alice’s sister gently shook her awake, smiling.
“Wake up, Alice dear!” she said. “Why, what a long sleep you’ve had.”
“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice. They could hear her telling all her adventures in Wonderland, as her sister listened, entranced. As she finished, her sister kissed her on the top of her head.
“It was a curious dream, dear, certainly, but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.” And Alice stood up and dashed off up the garden toward the house as her sister lay back on the grass and dozed off in the late-afternoon sun, thinking about the stories she’d just heard.
“Well, what do we do now?” Oskar said.
“We wait for the last page, I suppose,” Tilly said nervously. They hovered close to Alice’s sleeping sister. “It’s nearly here.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“I’m not sure—but I’m rapidly realizing that reading a book and being inside one are rather different things, and that one is considerably more complicated than the other.”
“I wonder if—” but Oskar was interrupted by everything suddenly going slightly out of focus. Tilly felt as though she had just stepped off a roller coaster and her head was still spinning. Oskar grabbed her hand as they struggled to stay upright.
Tilly took a sharp breath as a blurry, transparent version of Alice ran backward down the hill straight past them, before laying her head back in her sister’s lap. At the same time her sister picked up a book, and a white rabbit in a waistcoat ran past them, similarly hazy at the edges.
“The story is happening all at once; it’s like it’s being rewound,” Oskar whispered. “What do we do?”
“We wait,” Tilly said. They held tightly onto each other’s hands as the world around them sped up even MORE until all the colors blended into a faded rainbow and then turned abruptly to black.
“Are you there?” Tilly whispered into the darkness.
“Uh-huh,” Oskar said. “Although I think I might be sick.”
“Okay, let’s see if this has worked,” Tilly said, letting go of Oskar’s hand and feeling for the walls. She followed them along and breathed a sigh of relief when she found a door and a light switch roughly where she expected them to be. She flicked the light on and they squinted in the sudden brightness. They were standing in the middle of the same room that Tilly had stumbled into two days earlier.
“We’ve done it,” she said. “We’re back at the Underlibrary. I wonder why we always end up in this room.”
“Can you remember the way to Chalk’s office?” Oskar whispered, and Tilly nodded and gestured along the corridor.
They jogged briskly until they came to Chalk’s office door. It was shut, and no light came from inside. Tilly leaned an ear very, very gently against the wood and couldn’t hear anything. Taking a deep breath, she clicked open the door and poked her head round before giving Oskar a silent thumbs-up, and slipping inside.
The office was as neat and bland as it had been the last time. Tilly went straight over to the only bookcase that didn’t contain ledgers, running a finger down the spines and pulling out A Little Princess. She sat cross-legged on the floor and started flicking through, trying to find the changed passage. Oskar sat in Chalk’s chair and put his feet up on the desk as he flicked through Chalk’s diary.
Minutes later Tilly threw the book down on the floor in frustration.
“It’s changed back,” she said. “The bakery bit is exactly like it’s supposed to be. I swear that it was different.”
“Okay,” Oskar said. “Maybe it’s a different copy or something. Or the change was just something to do with Chalk’s job. Are you sure?” He joined Tilly on the floor and the two of them pored over the three copies of the book. Tilly read Chalk’s copy, hoping to notice something different, while Oskar checked the same passages in the other two copies of the book.
“Do you think we could get away with taking that one back with us?” Oskar asked.
“Chalk seems like the sort of person to notice something of his going missing,” Tilly said, staring uncertainly at the book in her hands. “Oskar, I’m sorry. I think I was wrong. It must just have been a librarian after all; I’m sorry for dragging you back here when—”
“Shhh,” Oskar said.
“Did you hear something?” Tilly said, panicking.
“No! Look!” Oskar said, jabbing a finger down.
“This bit with the . . .” He seized the book and looked back down at the page. “The Montmorencys? There’s a woman wearing a necklace with a bee on it.” Tilly grabbed the book back out of his hand. It was the chapter where the rich family who live across the square from Miss Minchin’s school are heading out for a Christmas party. Tilly read the passage aloud.
“Several of the Montmorencys were evidently going to a children’s party, and just as Sara was about to pass the door, they were crossing the pavement to get into the carriage which was waiting for them. Veronica Eustacia and Rosalind Gladys, in white-lace frocks and lovely sashes, had just got in, and Guy Clarence, aged five, was following them. He was led by the hand by a woman who seemed to be the nanny, but who was dressed very finely and who wore a slim gold necklace with a bumblebee charm around her neck, which Sara could see glinting festively.”
Tilly’s face drained of color as she rifled through the new copy of the book just to be certain and found the right passage. She pointed at the page.
“Look. She’s definitely an extra character. The family doesn’t have a nanny!”
“But what does that mean?” Oskar said. “How can it be your mum, Tilly? What if it’s just a weird coincidence? Maybe your mum had this necklace because she likes the book?”
“But Grandad said that she had tried to get back to my father!” Tilly said.
“Yes, but she couldn’t be in Chalk’s copy, could she? Your grandad said they checked all books,” Oskar said, trying to remain logical.
“There’s no harm in checking again, though, right?” Tilly said, looking hopefully at Oskar. “As we’re here. There’s definitely something weird going on.”
“You mean wandering inside Chalk’s book?” Oskar swallowed. “Wouldn’t he know?”
“I don’t see how. It’s just a normal book, isn’t it? And we’ll have it with us inside. It’s just like wandering inside any other book, and look,” she said, turning to the last pages, “the last page is there so we can get back easily. If it’s not her, we’ll just—”
“Shhhh,” Oskar interrupted again.
“What now?” Tilly said.
She was focused entirely on finding her mother now, and had almost forg
otten where they were.
“Can you hear footsteps?” he said.
They looked at each other in horrified silence as the undeniable sound of tapping heels echoed outside.
“I guess that makes the decision easier,” Oskar said, and held out his hand as Tilly started to read.
36
Be Brave and Be Kind
The air shimmered and Chalk’s office tumbled down around them, into the ground. Tilly and Oskar shivered, realizing immediately how inadequately dressed they were for the biting wind of Victorian London. They were back in the square that Tilly had visited by herself a few days ago, but they were standing directly opposite Miss Minchin’s school.
They could see Sara, looking much thinner and dirtier since Tilly had first met her, standing on the street, watching a family of richly dressed, happy-looking children clamber into a hansom cab. A little boy with rosy cheeks and dark curls was holding a smiling woman’s hand. Tilly’s heart felt as though it had stopped. It was her mum.
“It’s her,” she whispered, drinking in the first glimpse she’d ever had of her mum in the flesh.
“Are you sure?” Oskar said gently.
“She looks exactly like she did in the photo your mum gave me—she doesn’t even look much older. And I just know, Oskar. It’s her.”
Tilly threw the book to Oskar, pulled her bee necklace out of the top of her dress, and dashed across the road to where her mum was helping the little boy up the steps. As Tilly reached the curb, she slipped on the wet ground and fell forward onto her hands and knees. She heard the children gasp and then felt a steady hand grasp her by the elbow and help her up.