Storybound

by Emily Mckay

  So if she found out about this, she would lose her shit.

  By the time I get myself together enough to face her, the water is icy. Which, in the heat of Austin, is just fine.

  I dry off, then put on clean yoga pants and a T-shirt. I find her in the bedroom, frowning at the open suitcase on the bed.

  “That’s it. I’m not going,” my mother says, reaching into the suitcase and pulling out the folded clothes.

  This is what I was afraid of. I take the clothes from her before she can do too much damage to the neat stack. “You have to go.”

  “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

  “I’m not alone. And you have to go.” I carefully return the clothes to the suitcase. “You knew when you took this job that you’d have to travel with Mr. Buford. At least for the next few months.”

  She frowns. “I don’t know, Edie. It’s our first week here. You just started school.”

  “It’s going great,” I assure her, but she gives me the stink eye. She knows I have trouble making friends.

  She stands over the suitcase, wringing her hands. “I don’t like leaving you alone.”

  “You’ll be back by brunch on Sunday.”

  She’s about five seconds away from throwing up her arms and insisting she’s going to take a job with hospice so I can have a “normal life.” This argument is familiar territory. I don’t need Google Maps to help me cross this terrain.

  “Don’t worry, Mom.” I fish my phone out of my back pocket and waggle it at her. “I’m making friends already. I will text them.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Everyone there is super nice.” Since lightning doesn’t strike me where I stand, I spin the lie out a little. “One girl, Brena, said she might even have me over on Saturday night.”

  “But—”

  “Nothing is going to happen to me,” I reassure her. “Dad has no idea where we are. And you and I both know he’s not looking. There’s no reason I can’t have a normal junior year.”

  A normal junior year? After today?

  God, if she knew…

  Feeling vulnerable, I throw my arms around her in an impulsive hug. She squeezes me so tight, I can hardly breath.

  It’s crazy how serene and calm Mom can be when she’s dealing with a patient. She has this Zen-like acceptance about death’s inevitability.

  But when it comes to me? When it comes to my safety? She’s full-on Mama Bear. All the time.

  If her hugs make it hard to breathe, her smothering makes it impossible. Finally, she steps back, surreptitiously wiping her eyes. I think it’s the first time she’s ever pulled away first.

  “I’ll be fine,” I say again. This is my new mantra. “Other than hanging out with Brena, I’m going to spend the entire weekend on the sofa, eating pizza and rewatching Game of Thrones.”

  She holds up her hand in protest. “Do we have—”

  “Yes, we have pizza in the freezer.”

  Forty minutes later, I watch as Mom climbs into the limo waiting in the driveway with the Bufords, and I wave goodbye with a smile. It’s not until I head back into the tiny apartment, locking the door behind me, that I see what Mom left me on the counter—a slim stack of twenties. A Post-it note rests on top. Go ahead and order delivery. For luck.

  I’m afraid I’ll need it. And not for any of the reasons my mom thinks.

  Excerpt from

  Book Five of The Traveler Chronicles:

  The Traveler Undone

  No one likes to work with Vargon Ice Demons. They’re untrustworthy, disagreeable, and just plain mean. Besides, they’re ice demons. Their breath could freeze your nose off.

  Only one guy is enough of an asshole to hire them.

  Smyth.

  “I know you’re there, Smyth, you might as well show yourself,” I call out.

  For several seconds, I hear nothing but the scuttling of demon claws on concrete. Then, from behind me, I hear the clu-clunk of expensive oxford shoes. And I catch a whiff of cinnamon.

  Curse the Thread, I hate it when I’m right.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lying to my mother is hard.

  Despite her tendency to hug too tight and hold on too long, she is my best friend. My lodestone. My cool, creamy center when life goes Ding Dong on me. Deceiving her just about kills me. After that, everything else is easy. Well, easy-ish.

  Once she’s gone, I head into the bathroom. I sit on the floor and pull out a box labeled “Medication” from under the sink. I pull out the prescription bottles, one by one, until I find the Xanax my doctor prescribed for me after my school went on lockdown.

  Okay, yeah, it was harder on me than I like to admit. It brought some stuff up. I started having panic attacks. Whatever.

  I eye the Xanax for a few minutes before tucking the bottle, unopened, into my messenger bag. I’m panicky, but just knowing it’s nearby helps. Besides, my therapist taught me a lot of tricks to deal with panic. Logic and reason are my friends here.

  First things first. I google “hallucinations.”

  A quick glance at Web MD is not reassuring.

  You know it’s a shit day when you’re pulling for Parkinson’s disease.

  I clear my browser history, just in case. Then I make a list. And then another. The first contains questions I need answers to.

  • Did I faint or was I knocked out?

  • What did Chelsea say to me?

  • What does untethered mean?

  • What the hell is an Ivah?

  • Why would Chelsea lie to me?

  The second is my to-do list. The one that’s going to help me hunt down the answers.

  The first question, I might need to let go. I have no way of proving Chelsea’s bō made contact with my head.

  I tuck my feet under my legs, staring at the list, trying to remember who else was in the gym besides Brena who might confirm my version of events.

  But here’s the weird thing… Okay, the weirder thing…

  When I think back, I don’t remember anyone else being there.

  I remember Chelsea growling and swinging her bō. I remember Master Flores, her expression fierce. I remember my bō staff, laying several feet away and out of reach…and then sliding across the floor into my hand. But that’s it.

  Me, my bō, Chelsea, Master Flores. Everything else is just a blur. I’m chasing down a memory that’s slipping further away.

  So at the top of my to-do list, I write down, Talk to Master Flores.

  I don’t know what to think about Master Flores. She seemed frustrated with me. Disappointed, even. But why would she care about a student she’d never met before?

  Then below that, I write, And Brena.

  So far, she’s the only student I’ve met who doesn’t seem to be under Chelsea’s spell. Surely she can tell me something.

  The second question on my list…that’s pretty much the same. Chelsea’s word against mine.

  Another question with no answer.

  I move down the list. What does Untethered mean?

  For this one, there is something I can do. I log on to each of the four Kingdoms of Mithres forums.

  I’ve been active on all the Traveler fan forums from the time I was old enough to get online. I followed all the gossip, all the fan theories, all the Easter eggs. Then, in the last book, Wallace left Kane, dead on the Cathedral floor, with the love of his life, Princess Merianna of the Red Court forced to marry another in a last-ditch effort to keep power out of the hands of the series Big Bad, a Sleeker named Smyth.

  On a logical, intellectual level, the ending felt wrong. Badly planned. Poorly executed and incomplete. Those were phrases the reviews had used.

  On an emotional level, I’d been devastated. Kane had been my hero. His death felt like a profound betrayal. It left a hole in my
life that nothing had been able to fill.

  The night I finished The Traveler Undone, I stayed up until four on the fan forums, confirming what I already knew, what had been said throughout the blog tour leading up to the book’s release. The Traveler Undone was the last book that would be published in the series.

  Before Wallace killed Kane, I used to read lots of fanfic set in the Kingdoms of Mithres. I loved Wallace’s unique take on elemental magic—how mages had an affinity to control specific elements from the periodic table, rather than the elements of fire, earth, air, and water. I loved the haughty beauty of the Tuatha, the wicked deviousness of the Sleekers, the sinister intelligence of the Kellas cats, the amiable charm of Sirens. But without Kane there, what was the point?

  I hadn’t been on the fan forums again since reading the last book. Apparently, not everyone was in it solely for Kane, because there are lots of people still visiting the sites. Thank goodness.

  As Kanesgirl345, I post the question: Have you ever heard the term Untethered Sleeker? What about the lost Ivah (sp?)?

  I don’t wait for an answer, but open another tab and Google the term untethered. I come up with information about diabetes treatments, instructions for hacking your iPhone, and a self-help book about how to untether your soul. Basically, I draw a blank.

  I want to thumb through my copies of The Traveler Chronicles. Unfortunately, all my books are still in storage. This apartment is seriously small. We don’t have room for books. We barely have room for people.

  For a moment, I consider buying the books electronically, but my account is linked to my mom’s. Mom witnessed my grief over the last book and knows I’ve stayed away from them since then. So if I run out and buy digital copies of all the books at once, she’ll know something is up. I’ll have to hit a library tomorrow. We haven’t even been here long enough for me to get a library card, and the Austin Public Library won’t let me log in to check the books out digitally until I’ve been there in person.

  In the end, I go to bed. I lay there a long time with my phone, scanning through posts on Tumblr about the Kingdoms of Mithres, searching for answers no one seems to have.

  I’m up long before dawn, prowling the forums again.

  This time, there are several answers in the thread.

  SmartBookBitch: Sleekers are like normal Tuatha, but more powerful. They guard the thresholds between worlds. They’ve been genetically engineered to have these crazy long arms that sprout from their backs. They can reach for anything they want. That’s how they make sure that only the things and people they want can cross over from the Dark World.

  TravelerObsessed476: I think she was asking about the term Untethered Sleeker, not Sleekers in general. Also, genetically engineered? Over countless generations, they were bred by the Curator herself to have the magical will to reach for things no one else could. That’s not genetic engineering.

  SmartBookBitch: Duh. The Curati curated their bloodlines to make them more powerful and stronger and to give them their Sleeker arms. If that’s not genetic engineering, I don’t know what is.

  TravelerObsessed476: Anyway… The term Untethered appears in an ARC of The Traveler Arrives. When Kane meets the Curator, she gives this prophecy to him: “Beware the Untethered Sleeker of the Dark World. She may be the only one who can find the lost Oidrhe but she brings chaos. She has the power to unlock all the thresholds between the worlds, and you will be unspun.”

  I read the line over and over again, playing out my memory of that scene. The Dark World is the world parallel to the Kingdoms of Mithres—the world Kane is from. In the books, the Sleekers are government agents. They guard all the thresholds between the two worlds. They keep Dark Worlders out and kill any who accidently cross over.

  Which means there is no “Sleeker of the Dark World” in the books. At least, not one that survives for very long. I seem to remember Smyth killing some random Dark World kid in the first book, but that’s the only Dark Worlder who crosses over. Other than Kane himself, whose mom brought him over as a changeling.

  I recognize the prophecy, but not the term “Untethered.” So I send a message back.

  Kanesgirl345: ARC?

  By the time my eggs are done and I’ve eaten, I have a response.

  TravelerObsessed476: Advance Reading Copy. I’m a blogger and I got it from the publisher. I don’t think the term Untethered was used in the final version, though.

  Kanesgirl345: What about the lost Ivah?

  SmartBookBitch: I think you mean lost *Oidrhe*

  Kanesgirl345: ???

  TravelerObsessed476: Oidrhe is Gaelic. Aloud, it sounds kind of like I’ve fah.

  I Google it, because that seems unlikely.

  Still, TravelerObsessed476 and SmartBookBitch are right. According to the Irish guy Google pulls up, Oidrhe sounds like I’ve fah. And it means heir.

  By the time I glance back at the forum, TravelerObsessed476 and SmartBookBitch are going at it.

  TravelerObsessed476: But we still don’t know what Untethered means.

  SmartBookBitch: That’s obvious. Untethered means that this person isn’t tethered to the Dark World or the Kingdoms of Mithres. He or she is a child of both worlds.

  TravelerObsessed476: How is that obvious?

  SmartBookBitch: A child of the Dark World who could unspin the magical threads of Kane’s fate must belong in the Dark World and the Kingdoms of Mithres.

  TravelerObsessed476: No, the prophecy says Kane will be unspun. Not that this person has the power to unspin him.

  SmartBookBitch: It’s implied.

  The dueling ellipses on the screen tell me they’re both typing. I log out. I’ve seen enough flame wars on the forums to know this isn’t going to end anytime soon or give me the answers I need.

  Some fans think the prophecy means the Child of the Dark World has the power to kill Kane. Some think that the Dark Worlder was supposed to change his fate, to make him king. Most fans think the prophecy is just a clunky red herring, in a crappy ending to an otherwise great series. After that prophecy, the Curator disappears. No Child of the Dark World shows up. And Kane is killed by an unknown assassin who is never brought to justice.

  All of which makes Chuck Wallace one of the most hated authors in the world.

  Which is neither here nor there. I can’t just sit in the apartment obsessing, so I head to school.

  The Bufords live on an estate near Lake Austin, not too far from downtown. I ride my bike through the neighborhood, cross over Lamar at Windsor, and then catch a bus up to an area of town called The Triangle, where AIBS is located. By the time I hop off the bus, I’m running late. I dash to the academics building and make it to calculus just before the bell chimes.

  Chelsea and her minions snicker.

  Brena offers me an encouraging smile, though, so I go to the back of the room and sit next to her. “I didn’t know you had this class,” I whisper.

  Brena just shrugs. Chelsea turns around to give me another one of her “you’re crazy” stares. I ignore her. I officially have bigger problems.

  I try talking to Brena at lunch, but she can’t tell me what actually happened.

  After lunch, I swing by the campus gym one more time, but I still don’t see Master Flores. But that’s not surprising, since the Tae Kwon Do classes are held only on Thursday. Phys ed rotates through a schedule of things like yoga, kickboxing, and tennis.

  It’s not until I’m leaving the gym that I think to Google how to buy an ARC.

  Except—holy LEGO Batman—a signed copy of Chuck Wallace’s The Traveler Arrives goes for over eight hundred bucks on eBay. I do not have that kind of money to spend.

  I dig deeper and it turns out there’s an ARC on display at Book People as part of the Texas Book Festival.

  I look up the directions. Book People is only a few stops away on the bus I’m already taking home.
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  There’s no question. Of course I’m going.

  I had been begging Mom to take me to a Chuck Wallace book signing since…forever. Mom was always a firm pass on any of the hard-core fan stuff.

  After the incident with Dad, Mom had waged an all-out war on my love of fantasy, particularly The Traveler Chronicles.

  In her mind, Dad’s massive psychotic break with reality was linked to his love of fiction. She seemed to think my love of reading was a sign I might be similarly unhinged.

  I won’t lie. That thought occurred to me, too.

  Was there something wrong with me because the friends I met in the pages of a book were more real to me than the simpering, Snapchat obsessed girl who sat in front of me in trig?

  Why did I love my book boyfriend more than any guy I’d ever met in real life?

  The Great Book War—as I had come to think of it—ended in a knock-down, drag-out fight between my mom and me. One in which she’d literally torn apart my copy of The Fellowship of the Rings, ripping the pages from the spine and stomping on them as they fell to the ground.

  It’s the only time I’ve seen my mom completely lose her shit. The only time.

  But that moment was when I won the war. I stood there, watching her destroy my beloved book that Dad had given me for my previous birthday, the last gift I’d ever gotten from him.

  It broke me. But it broke her more.

  After that, we never fought about books again. We barely even talked about them. She knew she’d crossed a line.

  We both did.

  She could never understand why I loved being in a book more than I loved being with her. And I could never understand what was supposed to be so flippin’ great about the real world.

  So when she’d told me we were moving to Austin, neither of us mentioned that an alternate Austin was the setting of The Traveler Chronicles. Or that I could finally make my pilgrimage to Book People. Maybe she just assumed that The Traveler Chronicles didn’t have me in their grasp anymore. Until yesterday, she was right.