Cerberus’s ears perked up on all of his heads. As everyone knows—you don’t ever talk about Cerberus’s mother.
“What did he say?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Well, he said that she was a disgusting monster! A slithering, foul half woman, half snake!”
“Oh.” Cerberus sat back on his haunches and nodded amicably. “Well, that’s actually true.”
“And,” Randy added quickly, “that she’s so fat, she ah . . . had to buy a new scale! Because she, you know, broke the last one. With her weight.”
Randy had never been one for Yo Momma jokes—luckily it didn’t seem to matter.
“She had a thyroid issue!” Cerberus bellowed, causing a nearby nymph to jump violently. “WHO WAS THIS?”
Randy proceeded to describe—without naming, of course—the hooded figure with red, snakelike eyes. Forgetting the door and apparently all reason, Cerberus bounded down the narrow street, sending shoppers scattering.
Without pausing to think, Randy opened the heavy black door to the back of the building and slipped inside.
He could see vague outlines of shapes moving around him—but his vision had gone almost entirely green. He removed the night vision goggles from his eyes and let them hang around his neck by their strap and found himself in . . .
What appeared to be a book fair.
He was in a large cafeteria-looking room, the fluorescent lights humming overhead, and dotted throughout were long tables, covered in books. People milled about happily, picking up the books, talking to the vendors. Randy didn’t spot many people who were “shiny,” or currently being written. Most were dull—sort of drained of color and distinct features. The books, though. He’d never seen anything like them.
He walked up to one table, where a folded paper sign read “Hemingway Originals,” and picked up one of the books. Like the toilet brush and the itchy scarf around his face, he could feel the very bookness of the thing. On its cover was a picture of a bright blue sea, in the foreground some old brown buildings. Nothing elaborate. He’d seen copies of The Old Man and the Sea before, of course, but this one was different. Its edges were too sharply defined, its smell was overpowering—of libraries, and dust, and the sheer passage of time. The inside flap had a sticker: Jesup Memorial Library. He put the book down and looked around the room.
Other tables were labeled things like “Shakespeare Originals,” “Coming-of-Age Stories—Straight from the Real World,” and “Narnia Books: From the Real World to Narnia to You!”
He thought this last one a bit odd and was just making his way toward the table to ask the vendor, but then spotted Spot and Noodles coming out of a door marked “Toilet.” He stealthily dropped onto the ground and rolled underneath the nearest table, accidentally kicking one of its legs and toppling the thing over. Detective books rained down all around him, their realness making him feel slightly disoriented and queasy. A rather round and nondescript woman helped him up.
“It’s okay, dear. You’d be surprised how many people do that near the Detective table. Trying to be sneaky, I suppose.” She began gathering up the books, and as Randy bent to help her, Noodles and Spot walked across the room and out the exit. Each had been holding thick manila envelopes.
“Sorry, but I’ve, ah, got to . . .”
With that, Randy rushed toward the toilet, burst through the door, and found himself . . .
In a bathroom.
It was a rather large room—one wall covered in mirrors and sinks. A few hand dryers dotted here and there. There were seven regular-sized toilet stalls along the opposite wall, four urinals, and, at the end, a larger stall. The only odd thing was, rather than being marked with a wheelchair symbol, the large stall had a very small picture of a wardrobe on it. And there was a very familiar-looking lion sitting in front of it.
“Aslan?” Randy asked as he walked toward the lion. It was odd—he was rather shiny for having been written so long ago.
“Jesus Christ, no. My name’s Alan,” the lion said in an accent that may have once been British. “I just came about in some recent Narnia fan fiction. Though speaking of Narnia, I suppose that’s why you’re here?” His voice sounded almost bored. Before Randy could answer, the lion stepped aside, revealing the doorway to the stall behind him. He stretched luxuriously and then sat back on his haunches. “Through there. I’ll need you to sign this waver”—he pulled out a piece of white paper from a paper towel dispenser to his left—“and you’ll have to leave something valuable behind so I know you’re coming back.”
As Randy’s brain tried to catch up with this odd turn of events, his mouth somehow managed to ask, almost casually, “Like what?”
“Oh, most people leave behind a first-born child, maybe a security code to a highly guarded vault at Gring—”
Someone walked in, banging the door open behind Randy. He was a short, nondescript man with an obvious toupee. He smiled awkwardly and stepped into one of the regular stalls.
“Anyway, whatever you’ve got on you that you value most.”
Randy thought for a moment and decided on the scarf, which was now wrapped loosely around his neck. He handed it over and then signed the waiver.
“Whew. Fresh out of the Real World, by the feel of it. This is valuable. Right, well, off you go.” The lion nudged open the door with a large paw, and off Randy went into the stall. Inside, there was a giant wooden wardrobe. It was very detailed—it emitted a soft sort of glow of Out There—and yet he could see that it still had some features of merely being written. It was as though the wardrobe couldn’t decide if it was of the Real World or the Book World. Randy approached it. He reached out a hand, which grew colder the closer it got to the handle.
And then before he could process what had happened, he wrenched his arm back in pain; someone had banged open the wardrobe door, smacking his outstretched fingers and jamming them backward into his hand. Two fat hobbits spilled out, falling over each other into a heap on the floor. An armful of papers flew from one’s grasp, raining down around them. Randy could sense it immediately—these papers were from the Real World. And he was willing to bet they’d been what Spot and Noodles had left with.
“Oy!” the rounder of the two said, snatching a few papers from the air. “You clumsy arse! Whart d’you fink you’re doink, trippin’ me up like tha?” Randy had no idea why the hobbits seemed to be Cockney, but he used the hobbits’ distraction to grab a few of the pages that had fallen near him. A shiver ran down his spine as he pocketed them—clearly, whatever they were, they were Important, both in the World of Fiction and Out There. Neither of the hobbits seemed to notice.
“Ay! You’re the arse, ye arse. I just wos—hey, who’s ’is?”
They stopped squabbling abruptly and faced Randy. He suddenly wished he hadn’t left his scarf with the lion.
“Dono. Looks like a wizard,” the less round one said.
“How d’ye figure?”
“Well, he’s jus got that sorta air about him, don’t he? Plus, he’s a wand stickin’ out his pocket, see?”
“What! You had your wand this whole time?” Jenny asked incredulously. She sounded torn between exasperation and relief.
“Well, yes, but I hadn’t really needed it yet. But I was grateful that the hobbit had reminded me—wait, hold on.”
He was grateful that the hobbit had reminded him. In one swift motion, Randy pulled his wand from his pocket, pointed it squarely at the two hobbits, and with a slice through the air and a muttered spell, they were bound together by an invisible force.
“HEY—” Another swipe of his arm and the hobbit’s voice simply stopped coming from his mouth. His lips were still moving furiously, his face contorted in anger, but there was no sound.
“What’s going on in there?” Alan asked from the other side of the door.
“Ah . . . HEY! The woodwork on this wardrobe is FANTASTIC!” Randy shouted. He then turned to the door, locked it, and put a quick charm on it so that no noise would es
cape the stall. He turned back to the hobbits and removed the spell muting their voices but left them bound.
“What’s love got to do, got to do with . . .” The fatter of the two looked around sheepishly.
“You’ve a lovely singing voice,” Randy noted.
“Shut yer face. Tina Turner’s an inspiration.”
“Okay, listen. Here’s how it’s going to be. I’m going to ask the questions, and you’re going to answer them.”
“How come?”
“Because I’m a detective!” Randy showed them his badge.
“Oh.”
“Well. Guess we’ll haff to answer ’em.”
Randy hadn’t thought that would work, but then, some hobbits are pretty simple creatures—especially dull ones like these two who had clearly only ever been minor characters in stories before. They weren’t even named.
“All right, round hobbit number one,” Randy said, addressing the fatter of the two. “What’s behind this door?” He gestured at the wardrobe.
“What d’ye mean—ye don’t know?”
“It’s Narnia, o’ course,” the second added. “Fought everyone knew that.”
“Ah. Right, the wardrobe. I suppose that should have been obvious . . . Okay, question two: What’s the wardrobe to Narnia doing in Nonfiction?! It belongs in Fantasy.”
“Course it don’t! Narnia in’t just some story—that stuff wos real. An it’s right frough those doors. Connects Nonfiction to the Real World, don’t it?”
Randy touched his wand to his lower lip thoughtfully. “I thought that was Fiction . . .”
“No, you dolt. Narnia’s as real as you an me—or realer, I s’pose. Fru dis door’s Narnia, Archenland, Calormen, Telmar; then you’ve got Charn, an’ plenty o’ other doors to other worlds besides. One of ’em leads straight out to some bloke’s basement in a place called Ashby de la Zouch that ain’t never been mentioned in books before so iss only Out There.”
Randy had a feeling that as soon as the hobbit said the name of the town, a vague version of it had popped up somewhere in Fiction—it was an ever-growing land.
“And the papers?” Randy reached into his pocket. “These papers? What are they?”
“Why they’re backstories, o’ course. Straight from the Real World.”
Randy looked down at the top page in his hand. Sure enough, the yellow legal pad page was covered in penciled handwriting. At a glance he saw phrases like “Married at 28” and “Mum always worried too much.” He turned the page over and saw that it was the backstory for a character he’d once met from a popular Family Drama. He was careful not to smudge the words.
He grabbed the rest of the pages from the pile on the floor. Flipping through, he immediately recognized one for a mouse from The Wind in the Willows, a scrap of paper about Frog of Frog and Toad, and a few pages dedicated solely to the Gingerbread Man’s adolescence. No wonder he’d been so frantic when Randy had seen him outside—he must have known someone had sent for his backstory.
“Who?” Randy said to himself, still paging through the papers. “Who’s sending for these backstories?” he said looking up at hobbit two.
“Well, I don’t know that, now do I? Fink they’d tell me sumfink like that?”
“Who’s they, then?” Randy asked, aware that he was running out of time. If anyone else wanted to go through the wardrobe, Alan would have to let them, and then when the door didn’t open, they’d get suspicious . . .
“Dono that either. Jus’ take the order forms from the drop-off point, wiv haff the payment, take the products back to the drop-off point, then get the rest o’ me payment in the post.”
“And how long have you been doing this?”
“Bout a munf.”
“A what?”
“A munf.”
“Oh, a month. It’s spelled m-o-n-t-h.”
The hobbits stared at him.
“Does all of this—”Randy gestured widely at the wardrobe, the papers, and bound hobbits. “Does all of this have to do with the disappearances?” As soon as he asked it, he knew it was true—coincidences this big don’t just happen in Fiction, or Nonfiction for that matter. Plus, the hobbit had gone very red all of the sudden, as though he was trying to hold his breath.
“Answer me!” Randy barked, waving his wand menacingly. He needed to hear it.
“I dono!” The hobbit sputtered, releasing his breath finally. “All’s I know’s that we got the order form for Bill [the Banana Tree], a few fairies [of Fiction Academy], an a few others, an a couple days after we deliver ’em, they’s gone and vanished.”
Randy paced a few steps back and forth nervously. He couldn’t rightly expose these two hobbits, or the next thing he knew, they’d probably vanish too—and then how would he find out who was behind all this? He’d have to work with them on the down low. He’d have to be sneaky. Luckily he was a detective super badass detective.
“You dumb mugs think I’m a sucker, huh? The newsies’ll be all over this like hot marbles, if I give the say so, see?”
“Wha . . . Why’s he talkin’ like tha, then?” the hobbit muttered to his companion.
“Clap yo yap, bo, or I stuff the mud pipe down your mush and you hand over the goods!”
“Randy, I really don’t know why you use that voice when you’re trying to be sneaky,” I said. “And you know, you really can’t just cross things out to edit the story like that . . .” Then the kitchen faded away once again . . . (Yes, we were in the kitchen now—do you want me to keep you updated on everything we’re doing over here?)
Randy looked down at the two hobbits, bound, helpless, and the more he looked at them, the more detailed they became. Clearly they were becoming more important characters in a story—their once-vague faces had grown bushy eyebrows, a few wrinkles, and the occasional spot. The fatter of the two now clearly had a beard, bad teeth, and looked to be about forty-five, though with hobbits it’s hard to tell. The other was younger—maybe a younger brother—and had curly, strawberry-blond hair, even worse teeth, and a spattering of freckles across his nose that was at odds with the stubble growing along his jaw. They were both incredibly unpleasant to look at, and really, it was quite unfortunate that they’d suddenly become more important to the story.
Clearly Randy was meant to keep them around.
“Okay, well, we need to get out of here. But first, do you have any more order forms or backstories on you? You HAVE to answer me!” He gave them his most menacing stare.
“Course we do,” Terrill, the younger hobbit, answered unfazed. “We wusn’t done for the day—we wos jus goin’ to head to a pub for a pint. It’s bloody cold trekkin’ through Narnia, and it’s eerie as ’ell out on the other side.”
“Well, may I see them please?” Randy asked, holding out his hand.
Ivor, the older of the two hobbits, darted his eyes down toward his pants pocket. “We’ve only jus the one left, but it’s the biggest one so far. Boss man’s payin’ top dollar for this one—only trouble is, we don’t know where to find this author bloke. Portal opens up in Real World England, but this fellow lives someplace in L.A. We don’t got much in the way o’ planes where we come from in Fantasy, and Terrill here’s scared o’ flyin’. Hence the pint.”
Now that Randy looked, he could see the corner of a piece of paper sticking out of Ivor’s pocket—which he now noticed was attached to a pair of worn brown trousers. Yes, these two were clearly sticking around.
He stepped toward the hobbit and plucked the paper from his pocket. It was a standard typed order form, with a space to fill in the date, an address to deliver the orders, and then several spaces below to fill in the numbers of backstories needed and the character they were about. There was just one entry.
Quantity of Backstories: 1
Order Name: Peter Able, of the Peter Able series, of The Fantastic Fable of Peter Able, and possible other works in progress
Randy stared at the page for a few seconds, rereading the words, willing them to mean
anything other than what he knew them to mean—that someone, once again, wanted to make his best friend vanish.
WHAT!
But he knew that if someone in Fiction was trying to get ahold of Peter’s backstory, it was for one reason, and one reason only: to make Peter Able disappear, just like the rest of the missing characters. To kill Peter Able. To make him—
“Jesus, Randy!”
“No, that’s Aslan.”
“What?”
But getting back to the flashback, which, yes, will be over quite soon, Randy knew that the only way to prevent Peter from being erased was to get his backstory fist. So he unbound Terrill and Ivor and with the promise of doubling their offer from their current employer, sent them back through the wardrobe into Narnia, the bridge between the Book World and the Real World. From where he stood, he could only see a thick tunnel of trees and snow-covered ground; a few flecks of snow floated onto his face, waking him up.
He conjured a large envelope from thin air (which sounds very impressive, but manila envelopes were actually one of the few things this spell worked with) and inserted the order form and the other characters’ backstories. He needed to head back to the office; he had some work to do.
CHAPTER THREE
By the time Randy’s story had faded away completely, we were all sitting in the kitchen, sipping hot mugs of tea, hot chocolate, and coffee, as the sun rose outside.
“So that’s how you got my backstory?”
Randy was looking out the large bay window, eyes unfocused and far away. “What? Oh, yes. Yes, they made it to Los Angeles late last week and broke into your old author’s house while he was away. Found it in his study. They only got it back to me this morning. Or, yesterday morning, I suppose.
“I have my best handwriting analysts working on the order form and after some, ah, persuading, Terrill and Ivor have agreed to keep working for their boss and reporting in to us at the same time. We’ll have them temporarily deliver fake backstories and then we’ll hide the targeted characters someplace safe—but as you can imagine, this will only work for a short time. We need a break and we need one soon.”
The Timeless Tale of Peter Able Page 3