The Chosen Ones

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘We can’t.’

  Before anyone could say anything else, Effie had heard footsteps – probably Bertie’s – and ran. She hurried upstairs to her beautiful room with the now familiar smell of old sun-warmed wood and fresh linen, and changed from her silk jumpsuit into her school uniform. She would not come back again until she had proved herself somehow, she had decided. She would find out about this ‘conspiracy’ in the Realworld and return to Truelove House only when she had something useful to contribute.

  As Effie had walked down the stairs of Truelove House that day, she’d thought of all the hours she’d spent with Clothilde on the lawn, laughing at Clothilde’s gentle stories of village life, listening to her talking about growing up in Truelove House with Pelham Longfellow often popping over from his parents’ cottage on the other side of the village. Whenever Clothilde talked about Pelham Longfellow she blushed, and then looked a little bit sad. But while Effie had been relaxing, the Diberi had been out there plotting something and she hadn’t even known. Effie felt ashamed somehow, and very alone. She left through the conservatory without saying goodbye.

  The next morning, instead of visiting the Otherworld on her way to school, she called her friends together for a meeting in their secret hideout in the basement of their school. The hideout was called Griffin’s Library because it held all the rare hardback last editions of books that Effie’s grandfather Griffin Truelove had left for her, and that Effie and her friends had rescued. It had once been an old caretaker’s cupboard but was the size of a small room.

  Effie explained to her friends that it was very important for them each to use their own special skill to find out everything they could about the conspiracy. Maximilian said he’d use his scholarly skills to find out what Sterran Guandré meant. Raven said she’d keep an eye on Skylurian Midzhar, who definitely had connections with the Diberi. Lexy said she’d try to make contact with Miss Dora Wright, the children’s former teacher who had disappeared earlier in the term and who Effie believed knew something important. Effie and Wolf upped their tennis training sessions to make sure they were strong fighters for whatever happened next.

  But Effie didn’t just want to be a strong fighter. She wanted to increase her magical energy so she could spend more time in the Otherworld. And she’d worked out that one way of doing that was to train hard in the Realworld while wearing the Ring of the True Hero, which somehow seemed to convert her expended energy into lifeforce – or M-currency. When Effie had enough lifeforce, and enough information, and perhaps even some magic skills, she would go back to Rollo and Clothilde and show them how strong and useful she was. But not until then.

  Now, just over a week later, waiting for the bus home in the frosty moonlight, having been expelled from her first magic class, Effie wondered whether she should go back to the Otherworld sooner than she’d planned. She suddenly longed to ask Clothilde for advice about Dr Green and the Guild of Craftspeople. Effie couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d made a terrible mistake that would have to be put right. Her grandfather had certainly seemed to abide by the Guild’s rules. If Effie could just sit down and properly talk to someone who understood . . .

  It was almost ten o’clock when Effie opened the door to the small terraced house she shared with her father, step-mother and baby sister. The place was in darkness. Had they all gone to bed? Effie was sure that this was the night that Cait taught a late seminar at the university. Had her father gone to pick her up? But no, his car had been parked on the street. Perhaps he was just ‘saving electricity’ again. Effie hung her school cape on a peg and went into the kitchen to make a cup of chamomile tea before bed. Lexy had told her always to have chamomile tea at bedtime. It was a natural tonic, apparently, and helped you to sleep.

  ‘Not so fast,’ came a voice from the upstairs landing.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Effie.

  ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me,’ said Orwell Bookend. He walked down the stairs holding a candle-lamp. ‘I want some answers, young lady. First of all, where is the book?’

  ‘What book?’

  Orwell snorted. ‘What book? The Chosen Ones, of course. What have you done with it?’

  ‘The first Laurel Wilde book? I don’t know. I last read it when I was about six. And then you confiscated it. Why do you want it anyway? It’s for seven-to-nine-year-olds.’

  ‘You don’t have it?’

  ‘No. I just told you. You confiscated it.’

  ‘Why did I do that?’

  ‘Because you didn’t want me reading about magic. It was ages ago. When Mum was still here.’

  ‘And where did I put it?’

  Effie shrugged. ‘How am I supposed to know?’

  ‘I don’t like your attitude at all, madam. It’s exactly like your teacher said. I’ve just had Dr Green on the phone, Euphemia, and I’m not very happy with you.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this. Go to your room at once. We can talk about your punishment in the morning.’

  ‘But I just want to make a cup of . . .’

  ‘GO,’ hissed Orwell Bookend. He liked shouting, but didn’t do it so much when baby Luna was asleep. He had recently become rather an expert in finding ways to shout quietly.

  Effie knew it was better not to argue, so she let herself into the ground-floor room she shared with her baby sister. Effie decided that once her father and step-mother were asleep, she would get her calling card, climb out of the window, go to the village green and take a much-needed trip to Truelove House. Just the thought of it – the warm garden, Clothilde’s kind face – made her feel better.

  She lit a candle and walked over to her bookshelves to get the box where she’d carefully hidden her calling card, along with her other precious boons and everything else that was very special to her, including another calling card that Effie could use to get hold of Pelham Longfellow in an emergency, a jar of damson jam from her grandfather’s kitchen, a candlestick, some candles, a mysterious notebook written in Rosian and Effie’s Sword of Light necklace . . .

  It wasn’t there. It was gone.

  The box wasn’t anywhere on the shelves. It wasn’t under the bed, or under baby Luna’s cot or . . . Effie soon became frantic looking for the box that contained her most treasured possessions. She never would have taken off her gold necklace if it hadn’t been for Dr Green’s class and what Lexy had said about him confiscating boons. And what about Wolf’s Sword of Orphennyus? Effie was on the verge of tears when she got up from the dusty floor for the third time, after checking yet again under her bed. She hadn’t realised that the door had silently opened until she turned and saw her father standing there with a half-smile on his face.

  ‘Looking for something?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My . . .’ But she didn’t finish her sentence because she realised that her father had her special box in his hands.

  ‘Your little box of delights?’ said Orwell.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Effie. ‘Where did you find it?’

  Her father laughed. ‘You think you’re getting this back? Ha! I was going to say that you could have it back when you found the missing copy of The Chosen Ones, but now I’m not so sure. The stuff in here is worth something, isn’t it? Where was it your grandfather used to go? Oh yes. The Funtime Arcade. What? You think I didn’t know all his haunts? Yes, I think I could go there and find someone to buy all this from me. I’d get a lot more than fifty pounds for it all, I’m sure.’

  ‘Those things are mine,’ said Effie.

  She remembered the moment – only a few weeks ago – when Pelham Longfellow had told her that the only way anyone would get the gold necklace from her would be if they killed her first. So why on earth had she taken it off like some sort of idiot and just put it in a box?

  ‘Dr Green suggested that I search your room for any suspicious objects. I hear you’ve been getting involved with this Guild, which you know I don’t approve of. Dr Green said anything suspicious should
be handed over to him, but I’m not sure I trust him, so you’re safe for now. I think I’m going to just hang on to this until you decide to behave yourself. And finding me that copy of The Chosen Ones will be the first step in getting back in my good books.’

  ‘If I get it for you, will you give me my box back?’

  Orwell narrowed his eyes. ‘So you do know where it is?’

  ‘No! I told you, I haven’t seen it for years.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘But it’s the truth!’

  ‘Find it, and then we’ll talk.’

  Orwell slammed the door, silently.

  Echo stepped towards the thing-without-name. Raven was right, there was something deep and strange about it. Echo usually felt certain about something, completely sure if it would bring danger or pleasure. But this, he didn’t know. He took another step without looking properly at the ground. A skylark flew out of her nest and hovered above the moor. Her call began quite crossly, but then developed into the usual stream of news from the Cosmic Web. And one item on the list was of particular interest.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Echo said to Raven.

  ‘Yes,’ said Raven, looking troubled.

  ‘The long-haired hero-child with the ring – that is your friend?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Raven sadly.

  ‘She is in deep danger, this friend.’

  ‘Yes. Oh dear, Echo. What shall we do?’

  ‘We can find this sparkling bog again tomorrow. For now we will go and help this friend. Let us vamos.’

  Raven and Echo cantered home while a brace of meteors leapt unthinkingly through the black sky. As soon as she could, Raven would sat down at her desk and write a letter to the Luminiferous Ether. She just hoped it wasn’t too late.

  4

  It was not quite dawn when Maximilian let himself into the old caretaker’s cupboard in the basement of the Tusitala School for the Gifted, Troubled and Strange. The sun was barely a pink whisper in the sky, but Maximilian wanted plenty of time to go through all the books in Griffin’s Library until he found the one he most wanted. The one that he had started but not finished; the one he’d been trying to find for almost a month now: Beneath the Great Forest.

  He imagined another item for Dr Green’s list: Neophytes are FORBIDDEN from trying to access the Underworld. But Maximilian didn’t care about anyone’s rules. He desperately wanted to get back to the dark, mysterious underground world that he had almost accessed through Beneath the Great Forest. He so very much wanted to know its secrets. Secrets that he patently was not going to learn from Dr Green on a Monday night.

  So he searched for the book.

  And, of course, he also searched for information on the Sterran Guandré, just as he had promised his friends. Since most of Griffin Truelove’s library was fiction, it was not usually the place to go for facts. But Maximilian thought that if only he could get back to the Underworld there would be libraries there that would answer every question he had about life. He didn’t know how he knew this, he just did. Of course, the dim web provided information too. But it was not like the old days of the internet. The dim web could not be searched. And lately the Guild was all over it, taking down any interesting pages that told anyone anything about magic.

  Maximilian sighed. He knew he wasn’t the only person in the city looking for a lost book. Indeed, all over the world, people were trying to find their long-abandoned copies of The Chosen Ones so they could get their reward. It had got all the locals particularly excited. Albion Freake was actually coming here, to the city, to give away the grand prize. The Tusitala school was even closing for the day in honour of the event. The city had been chosen because this was where Laurel Wilde lived.

  But Maximilian didn’t care about stupid children’s books. He only cared about Beneath the Great Forest. Where was it? He remembered it had been a hardback bound in cloth. Or had it been leather? He was almost certain it had been blue. When he got to the 499th book – not that he was counting, but he knew how many there were – for the second time, reading titles as well as looking at the colour of the binding, he sighed. It wasn’t here. There were all sorts of interesting volumes on the shelves, but not the one he wanted.

  Maximilian ran his hand over the spines of a line of hardbacks. They felt so smooth, so inviting. Almost at random, he pulled out a book called The Initiation and idly started flicking through its pages. It was a medium-sized hardback bound in dark maroon leather. The colour, Maximilian thought, of blood. Inside was mostly dense text, broken with the odd line drawing. In one image a boy was sitting cross-legged on a patterned rug; in another the same boy was wielding something that looked like an athame, a small dagger used by mages. The boy looked oddly familiar.

  Getting up before dawn had made Maximilian feel exhilarated. But now his lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with him. Maybe he just needed a cup of coffee? Most children didn’t like coffee, but Maximilian was not in the least bit like most children. He had his own special cafetière and a bag of extra-strong coffee beans over by the kettle next to the sink. He put a nice big handful of beans through his coffee grinder, then sat on one of the old paint-spattered chairs to have a proper look at this book while the kettle boiled. But he was just so sleepy.

  He woke a few moments later to a tap-tapping on the door. It was the elderly headmaster of the school.

  ‘I thought I might find you here,’ said the headmaster. ‘There’s a man outside with a helicopter who says he has come for you. I do hope you have a note from your mother.’

  ‘I . . .’ said Maximilian, rubbing his eyes. His short sleep had left him feeling refreshed, but rather dozy. A helicopter? A note from his mother? What on earth was the headmaster talking about?

  The headmaster was smiling his crinkly, off-centre smile.

  ‘Go, boy, before I change my mind,’ he said.

  ‘But I don’t have a note . . .’

  ‘I was joking, child. But not about the helicopter. Go.’

  With an hour to go before the start of school, Effie was walking from the bus stop at the bottom of the Old Town up the quiet cobbled street towards Leonard Levar’s locked and shuttered Antiquarian Bookshop. A tiny faint light came from deep inside the bookshop, but Effie barely noticed it. There was a gentle pink mist that was very beautiful, but it meant there would be another heavy frost later. Beyond the mist, the troposphere, the Luminiferous Ether, and much else besides, impatient meteors danced around, waiting for it to be their turn to sparkle through the sky. But Effie’s mind was on other things.

  Where would she find a copy of The Chosen Ones? Nowhere, it seemed. Neither of the main city bookshops had yet opened, but each had signs on the door saying that they were completely sold out of Laurel Wilde books. On the way from the bus stop Effie had seen a poster offering a hundred pounds for a single paperback. Then, crudely pasted on top of posters for a Beethoven concert featuring the Pathétique and Les Adieux, and a talk at the Astronomical Society about the upcoming Wandering Star meteor shower, there was a handbill offering two hundred pounds for a hardback copy of The Chosen Ones.

  Why did everyone want a copy of Laurel Wilde’s first book all of a sudden? It was a mystery. But Effie knew that even if she could find a copy of the book, she could not afford it at those prices. Her purse contained £5.50, which was all the money she had in the world.

  Or, at least, all the money she had in this world.

  Effie pulled her bottle-green school cape around her as she walked on through the misty, silent morning. She had no idea whether copies of children’s books from this world would even exist in the Otherworld. Why would they? But she had a feeling that if one did, it might be for sale at the big book stall in the Edgelands Market on the other side of the Funtime Arcade. So that’s where she was going. She had plenty of M-currency after all.

  The Funtime Arcade was down a small cobbled alleyway in the Old Town. Most people would look at it and see only a run-down old arcade, locked and bolted a
t this time of the morning, with a small, sad-looking heap of black rubbish sacks outside waiting for collection. But as Effie approached, a familiar neon sign flickered into life. The words FUNTIME ARCADE now flashed in pink letters, and a new sign appeared underneath that said ‘Mainlanders and travellers please go through the back door.’ Effie already knew the way.

  Effie had to be scanned before she could enter. The large man with the machine looked as if he’d had a hard night. A thin cigarette dangled, unlit, from his lips. His eyes were pink and his skin had a pale greenish tone. A large cup of coffee steamed softly on the small table beside him. Effie could hear a helicopter landing somewhere not too far away, and the man winced slightly at the deep throbbing sound.

  ‘Most of it’s shut at this time, you know,’ he said, and then waved her through into the main bar area.

  The last time Effie had been here it had been full of magical-looking people in flowing robes and amazing outfits. But now it was almost empty. The place was a connected jumble of interlinked rooms forming a bar, a café and a video game arcade. In places, plants were growing through cracks in the walls and the ceiling. Beyond the arcade was the queue to go through to the Otherworld, and all the currency booths where you could change one sort of money for another. Effie looked at her watch, attempting the calculation Maximilian had taught her for telling time in the Otherworld. It was no good. She had no idea what time of day it was here. It didn’t help that the Funtime Arcade, like all portals, was in a time zone between the Realworld and the Otherworld.

  But Effie didn’t have to look at her watch to know that it must be late here. The lone barman yawned as he polished glasses with a tea towel. A young Otherworlder had fallen asleep at one of the tables; empty glasses were scattered on some of the others. The only light in the place came from a small number of flickering candle-lamps, some of them almost completely burnt away.

  ‘Breakfast doesn’t start for another two hours,’ said the barman without looking up.