Bookweird

by Paul Glennon

  There was such a look of desperate earnestness in this strange little girl’s eyes. Amelie had tried for months to speak with Leni, and now she had finally stayed instead of turning to flee. But how did Leni know about the snake, about Serendipity getting spooked? And what did she mean by “talking” to a horse?

  Amelie smiled broadly at the young girl, flashing her bright white teeth, and brushed her long bangs out of her squinting eyes. She did not ask Leni how she knew about the snake. She did not ask her where she came from.

  “Would you like to come and see him? His name is Serendipity,” she said, as if this was the most natural thing to do. Still holding the branch with one hand, she offered the other to Leni. The gypsy girl waited for just one more moment, then all her reserve burst like water from a balloon, and with a wide, eager grin on her face, she scrambled nimbly up the riverbank.

  The old woman interrupted his reading. “Well, can you read it?” she snapped. Norman peered into her face. Could she give him a clue? Her face told him nothing, nor did Leni’s. Had Leni really not seen her name there on the page? Was he really the only one who could see the writing in this book? It was Fortune’s Foal, the real Fortune’s Foal, the version Dora had read and knew by heart. So Leni and Amelie were supposed to meet on the riverbank. They were supposed to be friends. Leni was supposed to teach her the gypsy trick of horse whispering, and there definitely weren’t supposed to be wolves in the barn. Norman was shocked to see just how much he had messed up this book. If Leni had been able to read that page, she would surely not have been able to hide her surprise.

  “Well…,” Aida repeated. Something in her voice was like a warning. Norman stared intently at her for a further clue.

  “No,” he said slowly, hesitantly. “There’s nothing there. It’s completely blank.”

  The old woman raised both eyebrows, her eye twitching momentarily. Was that a wink? Norman was sure that it was. “This will be for you, then,” she said. With a surprisingly quick movement of her hand, she tugged at the open page. It came away with sharp ripping sound, like the sound of a bandage being removed.

  Handing the page to Norman, she said, “You obviously know how to dispose of this. Mind you chose the right time, and bon appétit.”

  With that, she snapped the book shut and returned it to the box. Norman stood staring at the page—the page that was supposed to be blank but clearly wasn’t. The old crone’s words were just sinking in. Had she really just said “bon appétit”?

  Aida interrupted his ruminations. “All right, then, I’ve had enough of you. Get out of here.” She put the red book away in her bag and shooed them all away with her hands. Varnat and Leni were already at the door. Norman was still staring incredulously. The old woman stared right back and gave him her final piece of advice.

  “I don’t think you know what you’ve gotten yourself into, boy.” She tutted and shook her head. “There’s many a weird in these wide worlds, but yours is perhaps the deepest. I wouldn’t trust a feather such as you with it, but it’s your weird now, so I’ll bid you good luck. You’ll surely have need of more than your share of it.”

  Maybe Norman’s face reacted to this unintended insult. The thought that he was in over his head had occurred to him more and more. The old lady’s face shifted—maybe not softened, but perhaps the many frown wrinkles relaxed just slightly.

  “Never mind,” she said. “What’s written is written, and what’s ripped is ripped. Just mind your grammar. And look after those girls.”

  It was perhaps the kindest thing she could have said. Only afterward, when he played it back in his memory, was he surprised by that last part. She had said “girls.” Look after the “girls.” She meant Leni and Amelie, of course. She wanted him to do something to help Amelie. But Norman couldn’t help thinking of Dora, too.

  Convincing Amelie

  If he’d reflected on it, he would have realized that it had been too easy. The gypsies had doubled back beyond the Saint-Saens farm. They had stopped so close that he had better bearings than he really had the right to expect. He knew exactly which way to go. There were no twists in the river here, nothing like the descent into the swamps and mazy channels of the first day. Though he had heard his heart pound as the lifted the hatch and had cursed his ungainly feet as they thudded along the dock, there was no noise or light from the boat or from Aida’s hut—no evidence at all of any pursuit.

  The farm was still a half day’s hungry walk away, but his greatest worry had been finding a bridge across the river. One presented itself about an hour before he came alongside the farm. He crossed it sneakily, vaguely afraid that there might be an APB out on him or someone from the sheriff’s office, but he saw no one. The first people he saw were the farmhands taking the tractor out of the barn and hitching up a plough. They were already far away in some distant field. Norman could barely hear the sound of the engine rumbling as he sat hidden in a clearing watching the farmhouse.

  A mix of emotions churned in Norman’s stomach when he first saw Amelie emerge from the house. There was relief—whatever the wolf had done, it wasn’t too bad. Amelie was up and about, walking. But there was anger, too, that this had been allowed to happen. Why did she have to come down to the riverbank at that time? Why didn’t the gypsy just explain what he was doing when he pointed that gun? Underneath all this, he hardly admitted to himself, was something else. He didn’t want to admit who really was to blame.

  Norman watched from the river’s edge as Amelie made her way from the farmhouse to the barn. Now that she was closer, he could see that her left arm was in a sling. The churning in his stomach took a painful turn. Amelie was tall for her age, and the way she walked, you could mistake her for an adult. In the book she was fourteen, but she looked older to Norman. She walked with her head up, her long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. If the wolves had left marks on her body, it hadn’t made her afraid. She glanced only once toward the brush where Norman was hiding, and if she was checking for wolves, it wasn’t with a fearful look, but with a look of defiance.

  She was heading to the barn, perhaps to mourn the foal that wasn’t even supposed to be hers. When Norman thought of this, he was seized by the compulsion to run right over there and tell her that Serendipity was alive and that everything would be okay. But something stopped him. It wasn’t just caution. Though he told himself he had to wait another to see if anyone was following her, that was not his only reason for hesitating. The sling reminded him that everything was not okay. Serendipity was safe for now, but spooked, really spooked. Amelie might not have been frightened by the wolves, but the little foal was terrified. You could see it in his eyes and the way he shook his head and pawed the ground. Not even the gypsies could calm him completely. At least one wolf was still out there, too. And Norman had unleashed it all.

  He waited another ten minutes before taking a tentative step toward the barn. He still had no idea what he was going to say to her, how he was going to convince her. Why should she listen to a word he said? What would stop her from calling immediately for her father or for the police?

  His hand hesitated on the barn door. Should he knock? The barn was so silent, he felt he couldn’t disturb it. Instead he slid the door open slightly. It creaked ominously.

  “Amelie?” he whispered hoarsely, poking his head experimentally into the barn. After the bright morning sun, the darkness of the barn took some time for his eyes to adjust to. Perhaps he should have waited a few more moments before stepping forward and calling out her name again. Perhaps he would have seen her standing still and tall beside the door with the shovel in her hand.

  The shovel came down hard between his shoulders, knocking him to the floor. It didn’t knock him out, but Norman saw stars for a moment, and it took his breath away. When he recovered it, the first thing out of his mouth was “ow.” It seemed like a stupid thing to say, but he was a little stunned, and he couldn’t think of anything else. He rubbed the spot on the back of his head and blinked his eyes u
p at Amelie, who stood in the barn doorway, one hand on the barn door, the other holding the shovel.

  The shovel wavered slightly in her hand. Norman could tell she was gripping it tightly to control her shaking. Her blue eyes peered at him fiercely.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t hit you hard,” she told him. Her voice was low and bitter and it too shook a little bit as if she was trying to control it by gripping it tightly.

  A wave of anger shot out from the burning spot between Norman’s shoulders. She’d hit him hard enough. He fought not to say what he was thinking or feeling. Amelie kept staring, sizing him up and deciding he wasn’t much.

  “You’re not so brave when you don’t have your dog with you, are you?” she taunted.

  Norman took a moment to understand what she was saying. All of he could think to say in reply was, “It’s not my dog.”

  She seemed to think about this. “The gypsies’?” she asked, not giving any indication that she really believed him.

  “It’s nobody’s dog,” Norman stammered, wishing he could get up from his knees and talk to her on almost even terms. “It’s not even a dog. It’s a wolf.”

  Amelie took a step forward and huffed in disbelief. “There haven’t been wolves around here for fifty years.” The way she said it like that, you could tell that she’d been told this recently, had been reassured in exactly these words. She rubbed her wounded arm instinctively at the thought of it.

  “Are you okay?” he asked sheepishly. He knew it sounded lame.

  Amelie’s nose turned up in scorn, as if he wasn’t allowed to care about this. “Your dog nearly killed me. I have to have rabies shots now. It’s a huge needle. I have to have seven shots.”

  Norman, who hated needles almost as much as he now hated wolves, could only repeat, lamely, “It’s not my dog.”

  The only good thing so far was that Amelie had not called for help. She had no need to yet. She could trap him here in the barn, and Norman had no desire to take his chances with the shovel again.

  “Listen, Amelie, there’s something about the horse, about Serendipity—”

  She wouldn’t let him finish. Her calm snapped, and she stepped forward, shaking the blade of the shovel furiously in his face. “Don’t you say anything about my horse. Don’t you dare!” she threatened. A strand of her dark hair came loose from its elastic and fell across her eyes and she lifted her hand to sweep it back.

  With all his heart Norman wanted to leap up now. It was a moment of advantage. She was off balance, and the shovel leaned loosely in the crook of her elbow. He could just tackle her at the knees. But that was the last thing he needed now—he needed her to listen. Stupid girl, couldn’t she see that he wasn’t the bad guy?

  “He’s not dead.” He tried to say it as kindly as he could, but it came out angrily between his teeth.

  “I’m going to get the police,” she said, not listening or not wanting to listen. “They’ll want to know why you lied about being my cousin.”

  Norman ignored her threat and repeated, “Amelie, believe me, he’s not dead.”

  “Stop talking,” Amelie cried. “Stop talking about my horse!” Her voice was shrill and broken.

  “I swear to God, Amelie, he’s not dead. You have to believe me,” Norman pleaded. How was it when you told people that they had to believe you, you just sounded like a liar?

  “Stop,” she shrieked, “talking!” That shout must have been heard up at the house, Norman thought. He did what she said, watching her as she stepped from foot to foot in the doorway. She was trying to make a decision.

  “Who are you?” she finally asked. “No lies.” She shook the shovel as a warning.

  “My name’s Norman.”

  “Why are you here?”

  He told her the story he had concocted on the way here. It sounded almost as ridiculous as the truth. He had run away from home a few weeks ago, he told her. He hated his family. The lie made him feel like a traitor. It hurt Norman to say it because he really wanted to be back home right now, but that is what he told her. He hated his mom and his dad, and they hated him, so he had run away to join the gypsies. He had been living in the woods near the farm, because he knew the gypsies came through the waterways near here. It was a crazy story, and it made Norman sound like an idiot.

  All Amelie said was, “You don’t join the gypsies. You join a circus, but you have to be born a gypsy.”

  Norman smiled weakly.

  “Was it them?” she asked finally, her voice dropping in volume and register. “Did they do this to Serendipity?”

  Norman shook his head vehemently. “It wasn’t the gypsies. They were trying to help.” Amelie looked at him as if this was the least unbelievable thing he had said. “They were following the wolves,” he continued. “They knew that the wolves didn’t belong here. They knew the wolves would probably attack some sheep or cow or something, and they were trying to stop them. Somehow the wolves got into the barn.” Norman went on breathlessly. “They got into Serendipity’s stall. They would have killed him, but the gypsies stopped them. There were two wolves. The gypsies killed one right there, but the other got away.”

  “The blood?” Amelie asked, her voice stretched and cracking.

  “Wolf blood,” said Norman. “Serendipity doesn’t even have a scratch on him.”

  “You’ve seen him?” she asked. There was so much hope in her voice that Norman only wanted to tell her good things.

  “He’s…” Norman hesitated. “He’s fine.” He knew that Serendipity was not fine. Serendipity was a world away from fine, but this was too much to explain now.

  Amelie didn’t notice his pause. She was wanted to believe now. She wanted the foal to be alive. “Where is he? Take me to him.”

  “The gypsies have him. They’re keeping him safe at their camp in the swamp.”

  “Why? Why would they take him? Is he their hostage? Do they expect an award or something?”

  “It’s not like that. They just didn’t think he was safe here, not with one wolf still around.”

  Amelie stared at him and appeared to be taking all this in. She bit her lower lip and furrowed her brow as if searching for the answer to a difficult question. Her grip on the shovel was looser now, and Norman felt his head was in much less danger of being smashed in than it had been moments ago.

  “Stay here,” she said finally. She turned and closed the barn door, taking the shovel with her, leaving Norman in the dark. That had gone just about as well as it could have, he thought. Amelie wasn’t an especially good listener and she really didn’t need to swipe Norman across the back with a shovel, but at least she was listening now. He might just convince her to come with him and make this all right. As he sat there in the dark, though, he couldn’t help but worry about what he had not said, about the change that had overcome the foal, the terror that could be seen deep in his eyes.

  Wolf Bait

  It would have been so much easier if Amelie had just listened to him. They needed to go back to Aida’s little house in the woods. The old lady knew something. She had told him to look after the girls. Aida knew somehow that Leni and Amelie belonged in the same story. She would help Norman put everything back together—that’s what she had sent him to do. The longer he thought about it, the more convinced he was of this mission.

  Amelie had other ideas, though, and apparently only Amelie’s ideas counted. As long as the horse was alive, she was following the horse. She didn’t trust anyone to return Serendipity: she was going to take him back herself. There was no use telling Amelie that the gypsies knew the woods and swamps around here better than she ever would, and that they had been hiding from better trackers than her for years. There was no use telling Amelie anything.

  They followed the river, deeper and deeper into the woods. It must have been roughly the same path that the gypsies had taken when they kidnapped him, or at least Norman thought it might be. It looked familiar, at least. The waterways wound in the same mazy paths. The trees overhu
ng the banks in the same tangle. The same chirps and croaks and buzzes swirled around them as they trudged along, and Norman listened. Norman listened hard, waiting for a sound of a creature much more fearsome than the croaking and buzzing things. He had not forgotten that at least one wolf was still loose.

  As they strode ahead deeper into the swamp, Norman lagged behind, vigilance and resentment combining to slow his steps. Their feet sank into the mud with each step now, and even Amelie was starting to look like she was having second thoughts about the path they had taken. Reaching a higher point above the mud, she put her knapsack down and rested against a tree. When Norman caught up with her, he was so angry he could hardly look at her.

  He leaned against another tree some way away from her, letting out an exasperated sigh as he settled down, and drew the page of Fortune’s Foal from his back pocket to remind himself why he was here. Staring at it, he was suddenly tempted to just eat it now and get out of this stupid book. What did he care if this pushy girl got her horse back? But Aida’s admonition to look after the girls echoed in his ears.

  “Staring at it won’t make words appear,” Amelie teased. Somehow she had snuck up behind him to see what he was reading. But it was the same for her as it was for Leni. Neither of them could see what was written on that page. They couldn’t read their own story. Only Norman could see it. Only he could see that Leni and Amelie were supposed to meet, that even without the wolves, Serendipity would have been spooked and would have needed this crazy gypsy-talking trick.

  He was dying to explain this all to Amelie, to show her that he really did know more than she did. It was killing him to keep it to himself. But had made a deal with the old woman. That’s what Aida’s test had been about. Somehow the old woman knew he came from outside the book. She had needed to know she could trust him to keep it to himself. In exchange, she had given him a way home. The page was the key, and he had a pretty good idea how to use it. The only thing that troubled him was how Aida knew. She’d received the book from a visitor, someone who was “the second strangest creature” she had ever met. Could it be someone from Undergrowth—the fox abbot, perhaps? Surely he would count as the strangest person anyone had ever met. It was a problem beyond solving. He just wanted to find the stupid horse and get out of Amelie’s life.