The Chosen Ones

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘The Diberi are all publishers, writers, librarians. There was an exposé last year sometime in The Liminal. Or maybe it was on the wireless. What was it called? “When Good Intellectuals Go Bad”. That’s right. All a bit sensational for my liking, but factually accurate, nonetheless. The Diberi are all mages and scholars, with the odd well-read trickster thrown in. They are highly educated. Very, very intellectual, the lot of them. But Albion Freake has never read a book in his life. Here, look at this.’

  Mr Hammer went to his recycling pile and pulled out a shiny supplement from the weekend before. In it was an interview with Freake, who was running for some minor political office in the United States, where he was from. Freake was, he said in his interview, proudly standing up for the ‘little guy’ who, like him, had grown up unable to afford books or education or other such luxuries. That was why, he said, he was investing in the most expensive book in the world. As a gesture to all those people who had yet to make it in the way he had. As an inspiration to them. You could come from nothing, make your fortune, and then, Freake said, buy the most ‘expensive goddamned book on the darn planet’.

  Maximilian read on. The journalist asked Albion Freake whether he was going to read the book after he’d bought it. Freake had laughed, according to the report, and then put his hand on the journalist’s knee (something she hadn’t much appreciated). ‘Honey,’ he had said, ‘have you ever invested in anything in your pretty little life? Did you ever collect stamps? Did you ever use one of those stamps to mail something? Of course you didn’t, sugar. My bet is that my billion-pound book will be worth five times that in five years. But not if I tamper with the merchandise. Of course I’m not going to read it.’

  Then the journalist had asked him if he could read.

  ‘I pay people to read and write for me, sugar. Why would I need to bother?’

  All of which was extremely interesting.

  ‘Can I borrow this?’ Maximilian asked Mr Hammer.

  ‘Of course,’ said his neighbour. ‘And do give my regards to your mother. Tell her I’ll have a new batch of her elderberry syrup done soon, now that winter’s properly setting in.’

  20

  Terrence Deer-Hart woke up feeling compelled to start dancing. He’d been dreaming of the colour red and then . . . Where in flip was he? He could smell many familiar things: cocktail onions, cigarettes, salami, old socks, wine. But all of those just made up the natural smell of Terrence and didn’t give him any clue at all as to where he was. Terrence had a bit of a headache because he was dehydrated from all the wine he had drunk. Where was the kitchen? Whose flipping house was this . . .?

  He was in this unfamiliar place for a reason. What was it?

  The flipping child. Of course. He was supposed to be following her to some ‘other realm’ or something. What was it that the lovely Skylurian had said? Terrence couldn’t completely remember. Oh dear. She wasn’t going to be very flipping happy if Terrence came back to her with nothing. A few hours ago, the only important thing in the world had been Terrence’s dinner. But now that he had eaten, slept it off and stopped dancing (Terrence had been doing a half-hearted Charleston the whole time he had been thinking these thoughts so far, but as it was not a pretty sight we have refrained from dwelling on it), Terrence’s imagination had returned once more to love.

  Love equalled Skylurian. But Skylurian had told him not to come back until he had this information about this ‘other realm’ that the girl supposedly visited. And Terrence had forgotten to even ask her. Would she have told him? Unlikely. She was devious, like the gloomy father. But the step-mother, what was she called? Cait. She was a sensible person. She was a nice person. A discerning reader. And . . . Flipping heck. Terrence’s thoughts had drifted away from his mission yet again.

  The night had grown rather chilly. Terrence pulled on his trousers and his fur gilet and ran his hands through his tangled hair. His hair was troubling him. He’d need to be reunited with his heated comb before he could see Skylurian again. But his mind was drifting yet again. He needed to find the girl. Where would she be?

  He crept along the corridor to a door to a room that looked like it might contain a child. There was a colourful sign on it saying ‘Private – keep out!’ that Effie had made when she’d been about eight, and of which no one had ever taken the blindest bit of notice. There was also something hanging from the doorknob; some sort of effigy of a pink pig? It looked like something a baby might like. Of course! Terrence had forgotten about the flipping baby. What would he do if it woke up? And what was he going to say if he was discovered going into Effie’s room? Terrence was quite sure that it was improper to go creeping through children’s bedroom doors in the middle of the night.

  Then there was a noise. The creak of a window opening and closing. Terrence found the front door and peered out. There, dimly visible through the weak street lighting and the cold mist, was the faint outline of a girl in a cape disappearing around the corner at the end of the road. It was Effie, probably sneaking off to this other realm. Well, good. He would follow her, discover how to get there and then be at Skylurian’s place in time for breakfast.

  Effie walked quickly, but Terrence soon caught up with her, leaving just enough space so she wouldn’t know she was being followed. He felt he was rather talented at this. Perhaps he might look into becoming a private detective in his spare time? But . . . Hang on. Where was she now? Aha. Yes, taking a short cut across an old village green. Terrence quickened his pace and was just in time to see his quarry disappear behind a hedge and then . . . She was gone. Really gone this time. He searched everywhere. Yes. One minute she’d been behind the hedge, and the next: poof. Gone. Like a flipping magic trick.

  What had he actually seen her do? He searched his tired, weak and still a little inebriated memory. She’d been holding something, hadn’t she? And looking at it intently. Some sort of antique credit card? No. It hadn’t been made from plastic. But it was a similar shape. It was a card made from, well, card. Paper. Flipping heck.

  Well. At least the main thing was settled. The girl obviously used the little card to get to the hidden realm. How easy this mission had been! So what if the girl had not given away all her secrets in her silly Creative Writing assignment? All you have to do is follow a child for long enough and eventually all will be revealed. Terrence hurried away to try and find a taxi to take him to his one true love, carrying the precious information she had sent him to get.

  Effie had missed the Otherworld so much. As soon as she arrived at the gates of Truelove House she felt contentment and peace, deep in her soul. It helped, of course, that she’d gone from a cold November night to a mild summer’s day. As she walked up the driveway of the large, higgledy-piggledy mansion, with its many turrets and domes, she could smell the warm honeysuckle hedge and hear the buzzing of happy bees that were all jumbled up in its yellow flowers. She could faintly hear one of the gardeners whistling, and there was birdsong all around.

  But as Effie approached the house she became worried. Would her cousins be angry with her for staying away for so long? Or maybe they hadn’t missed her at all. After all, there had been that conversation she had overheard, when Rollo had said she wasn’t being very useful. Perhaps Rollo was glad that Clothilde was no longer being distracted by Effie when she should be helping with the Great Library.

  But anyway, Effie was determined that she would be useful now. She would walk in and apologise and explain everything and tell them what she knew about Skylurian Midzhar and Albion Freake. Effie was completely sure that the Diberi were planning to create a powerful last edition of The Chosen Ones that would give this man Freake unlimited powers. Surely that was useful information? And she could also now tell Rollo that she was an interpreter, not just a true hero. She could help with books, and translations and . . .

  She entered the house via the conservatory doors, which were always open during the day. There were no signs of anyone, not even
Bertie. Where were they all? Effie walked from the conservatory into the large entrance hall, with the grand sweep of the staircase curving up to the first-floor gallery.

  ‘Hello?’ she called, but there was no reply.

  She was still carrying her box. It felt much safer keeping it here in the Otherworld than it did leaving it in her bedroom at home. Should she go and put it upstairs, and get changed into one of her jumpsuits and go and sit in the sunshine waiting for her cousins to arrive? No. There would be no more sitting in the sun, lounging about being useless. But what could she do that was useful?

  Effie had never seen the Great Library. She knew where it was, of course. She’d seen Rollo disappear through the large panelled door behind the grand staircase often enough. If only Pelham Longfellow had taken Effie to get her mark of the Keeper she’d be allowed in there too. It was quite unfair really. She’d passed her test. And if only they’d let her into the Great Library she could be useful, helping with whatever it was they did in there all the time.

  While Effie had been thinking, she had been approaching the large panelled doors to the library. And almost without realising what she was doing, she found herself opening one of them. Just a crack. Just to have a look. Effie was surprised when the wooden door swung easily open – much more than just a crack – almost as if it wanted her to come in. Well, Effie could hardly be blamed for trespassing in the library when the door opened so readily, could she? If they didn’t want her in here, maybe they should have locked it. With her heart already heavy with guilt, she took one step, and then two steps, into the forbidden library.

  It was much smaller than Effie had expected, but then she had always pictured something quite vast. This was more what you might imagine a country house library to look like. There were several rows of dark bookshelves and a wooden ladder on wheels you could use if you wanted to reach a book from one of the higher shelves. By the window on the right there was a wooden table with two leather armchairs on either side of it. Against one wall was an ancient-looking wooden card index file, with drawers labelled things like Shelf List: Books F12–F25. On another wall was a large painting of a rural landscape.

  There was a gallery above the main library area, with more shelves running around it. Effie could also see a spiral staircase leading from the gallery to somewhere. Maybe this library was a bit bigger than she’d thought when she’d first opened the doors.

  Effie took another step into the library. And then another. She went to the table and put her box down.

  ‘Don’t move any further,’ said a quiet but serious voice.

  ‘Cosmo?’

  He was standing on the balcony of the gallery above, with his hands held up before him as if he was holding a large invisible ball. Cosmo looked a lot like Effie’s grandfather Griffin, but was unmistakably dressed like a wizard, in long blue silk robes. He had a soft pointed hat that was very old and worn. Effie was used to him patting her head kindly, with his long white beard full of biscuit crumbs or harbouring lost bits of cake, not looming over her with his hands like that, and his eyes full of . . . Effie almost couldn’t bear to look at him. His expression was a mixture of disappointment and fear.

  ‘Do not take another step,’ said Cosmo.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Your life is in danger. Do not move. Do not think of anything other than where you are right at this moment. Hold it in your mind. If you can’t hold it in your mind we might lose you. Concentrate hard.’

  Effie began to feel very afraid. What had she done?

  ‘You can see something,’ said Cosmo. ‘Tell me what you see. Spare no detail.’

  ‘I can only see the library,’ said Effie.

  ‘Yes. Describe it to me.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘I am not seeing what you are seeing, child. Describe it to me. Now.’

  If Effie had not been so afraid, she would have felt rather silly describing to Cosmo a scene he surely could see perfectly well for himself. What did he mean by saying he couldn’t see what she was seeing? Effie described the bookshelves and the chairs and the table and everything else around her.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Cosmo, as if she’d simply made up what she’d said. ‘What colour are the books?’

  ‘All different colours. Blue, red, gold, brown. A lot of brown.’

  ‘What colour are the walls?’

  ‘Pale yellow, with a sort of faint mint-green stripe.’

  ‘Excellent. Is there carpet?’

  Here Effie hesitated. She looked down at the floor. It was polished floorboards, of course, wasn’t it? In that moment of hesitation something very strange happened. When Effie looked at the floor to check what it was made of, there was nothing there. Effie suddenly felt that she was falling through the entire universe. For a second when she looked down there was black nothingness with, she thought, the odd star. But the sky should surely be above her, not below her and . . .

  ‘Concentrate, girl,’ said Cosmo. ‘IS THERE CARPET?’

  ‘No. No,’ said Effie. ‘It’s floorboards. Shiny and dark.’

  This time when Effie looked down, that was what she saw.

  ‘Good. And where am I?’ asked Cosmo.

  ‘You’re on a sort of balcony.’ Effie realised she didn’t have words for half the things she wanted to describe. ‘With wooden sort of railing things stopping you from falling down to this level.’

  ‘Good. Now, tell me where the stairs are to get down to your level from here.’

  The stairs. The stairs. But there were no stairs. Obviously that couldn’t be right. Of course there must be stairs.

  ‘If you can’t see any stairs, we might have a big problem,’ said Cosmo. ‘Blink. Look away. Don’t lose the impression of the place. Keep it all in your mind just so, but try to create some stairs. Don’t ask me what that means, or think about it too much. Just do it.’

  Effie tried to follow his instructions. She had to ‘create’ some stairs, even though she didn’t understand in the slightest what this might mean. But somehow her mind just didn’t believe there were any stairs coming down from the gallery, and so she couldn’t create any.

  ‘Well?’ said Cosmo. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘There are only stairs going up,’ said Effie. ‘A spiral staircase in the far left-hand corner.’

  ‘And where do they go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘YOU DO KNOW!’ boomed Cosmo. His voice had become more and more serious and terrifying. Cosmo was the least shouty person Effie had ever met, and suddenly he was acting like this. Why?

  ‘They lead to a door to the gallery in the house,’ said Effie. ‘There’s a separate entrance to the Great Library from up there. Between my room and the stairs up to your study.’

  ‘Good. Hold all this in your mind, child, just for a little while longer. I will come down and help you. Do not move in the meantime. Just keep thinking about the stairs that lead back into the house.’

  The next few moments felt like a lifetime. But soon enough Effie heard the faint squeak of a door behind her. Cosmo had successfully come through the house and then entered the door behind Effie. She heard his light footsteps and then the comforting feeling of his soft old hand in hers.

  ‘You are safe as long as you hold my hand,’ he said. ‘So don’t let go. Tell me. How did you get in here?’

  ‘Through the door,’ said Effie.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Cosmo.

  ‘It’s true. I’m sorry. I—’

  ‘No. It can’t happen. You must have got in some other way. There must have been a breach and . . .’

  ‘I came through the main door. Really. I know I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry. I . . .’ Effie’s voice caught in her throat. She had no idea what was happening, but she knew that she had made a big mistake. Perhaps even bigger than she could contemplate.

  ‘Don’t get upset, child. It’s still important that you concentrate. But you have to understand that it’s impossible that you came t
hrough that door. You have to be initiated first. It’s quite a long learning process. The door will only let you in if it knows you are ready, and that you have completed the process. Or . . .? But no. No. That would truly be impossible.’

  ‘Or what? What would be impossible?’

  ‘Did you by any chance have something with you when you came in here?’

  ‘Yes. My box. I put it on the table, just there.’

  ‘What’s in the box?’

  ‘All my most precious things. I brought it here because my father confiscated it before and . . .’ Effie was still too ashamed to tell anyone that she’d lost all her most precious boons, including the calling card that transported her to the Otherworld. ‘I just wanted to keep it with me. There are people in the Realworld I don’t trust, and . . .’

  ‘Are there any books in the box?’

  ‘No. Wait. Yes. My grandfather’s notebook. It was some sort of translation he was doing just before he was attacked. And actually also a book I borrowed from my friend. The Repertory of Kharakter, Art & Shade.’

  ‘I know it well. Nothing else?’

  Effie shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Can I look?’

  ‘Of course. It’s on the table. Just here.’

  ‘The table by the window,’ said Cosmo, repeating Effie’s description from earlier.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Have you looked out of this window?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘I need you to decide what is out of the window before we both look at it. Don’t think about it too hard. Don’t let your mind worry about what should or should not be out there. Space works differently in here than it does in other parts of the house. But it’s very, very important that we don’t look out of the window and find nothing there. If we do, I fear we may lose our connection and then I won’t be able to save you.’

  ‘Save me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cosmo’s voice was still grave. ‘I need to work out why the library wanted you here, and then help you to leave. The library might not let you out without my help.’