by Kate Blair
I sighed. “Maybe I’ll read another, then.”
I went on tiptoes, and slid the book into its place on the shelf. But it was almost out of reach, and as I shuffled forward, stretching up, I tripped on the root. I threw a hand out to break my fall, and in one clumsy motion, knocked a load of books onto the floor.
“Oh, sorry!” I ducked down to gather them up, piling them into my arms.
I put them back on the shelf and reached for the last one, still lying on the dark stone. But as soon as I picked it up, I could feel there was something wrong with it. It was too light, and the stiff covers touched.
I opened it and gasped.
There were no pages. The paper had been ripped out of the spine.
Cold crept up my neck. I stared at the torn scraps of pages, not a fragment of a word visible on any of them. The stumps of pages fluttered under my fingers.
The magpie cawed, a harsh note cutting through the silence. It swooped down, toward my face. I stumbled back. The broken book slipped from my fingers. It hit the floor with a slap. The magpie landed next to it. It ruffled its feathers and stared down at the damaged story.
“What happened to it?”
The magpie put a claw on the front of the book. It looked up at me, eyes glistening. The cover had been torn, the top layer ripped away, leaving only bare cardboard and the very bottom of the picture, which showed a rich red carpet with a chess board on it. There had probably been someone playing chess in the picture, but there was now a gash, a space where the person should have been.
There were no letters in the book to move onto my hands, no pages to be pulled into.
“I can’t read that one.”
The magpie nodded. It picked the book up with one claw latched onto the spine, and flew back to the shelf it had fallen from, the beat of its wings heavy with the weight of the damaged book. It laid it down, then hopped and flew up the branches, jumping from one to another until it reached a perch near the top, next to a thick paperback.
The story gave a rustling shiver, then it inched itself out, as if pulled by an unseen hand. Like Margaret’s, it took flight, swooping around the room, pages opening and closing in the gentle, impossible motion of flight, in spite of its size.
It landed heavily in my hands. On the glossy cover, a girl my age stood in front of a film screen. Her hairstyle was a messy bob, and her clothes looked really dated. She wore a silver dress and reached a hand toward the glowing figure projected in front of her. I could only see a sliver of her face in the semi-darkness of the cinema, but something about the girl caught my attention.
I opened the book and flipped through it. About forty pages in, the story stopped. But it was a magic book, after all. Perhaps it filled itself in as you read it.
I took it to the chair and sat down, shifting on the cushion until I was comfortable. I opened it at the start. Maybe that was my mistake last time, reading too close to the end.
Beth wanted to skip as they walked along the street, but she was too cool for that. She felt cool. Her cousin had done her hair and makeup.
The words wiggled. They detached from the page and scurried toward my fingers.
She’d added a streak of purple next to Beth’s face, and styled it to be just messy enough.
I turned over my palm, and a line nestled there, like a moving tattoo.
She’d loaned Beth one of her dresses too. A clingy thing in Beth’s favorite color, although Beth worried that she didn’t have enough for it to cling against, yet.
The letters kept crawling on to me, a paragraph at a time.
It was almost like they were sisters, or best friends. And for a while, Beth could forget everything that had happened.
Once all the letters had left the page, it rippled, swirling like a white mist. The text tightened.
I took a deep breath, and it pulled me in.
Chapter Six
I WAS IN another body. I was Beth, feeling the swish of a short silver skirt against my bare legs, feeling grown up and a little chilly. A girl giggled next to me. Her ridiculously big hair and blue eyeshadow was like something out of Flashdance, which I’d watched once when I was sick and couldn’t find the remote. So this book was probably set in the 1980s.
“Stop it, Beth,” the girl said. “You’re too much.”
Beth laughed too, a laugh that brimmed with warmth, with the feeling of being included.
There was a dream-like familiarity to the street, as if I were in a twisted version of a well-loved place. Even the girl next to me reminded me of someone. But the connections stayed out of reach, held at arm’s length by Beth’s thoughts.
We had all afternoon! Film first, then burgers and milkshakes.
That sounded perfect. I could leave behind the mess of my life and my concerns about Grandpa. I could sink into this story, into Beth’s giggles and excitement.
My cousin is so cool. I wish I were that cool.
I let go of my worries and fears. Let go of myself. I relaxed into being Beth.
THE WIND BLEW away the stale feeling that had been haunting me. Cars swooshed by, a couple of them beeping at us. I watched my cousin from the corner of my eye, copying her walk: shoulders back, tossing my hair. She could get into clubs, even though she was only sixteen.
I tried not to shiver. I should have worn a coat, but she hadn’t, and I wasn’t going to hide the dress she’d lent me under the ugly wax jacket Dad had bought. I missed Mum’s choice in clothes, missed shopping with her.
No. I wouldn’t think about that. I had mascara on. I didn’t want it to run.
The cinema marquee came into view: A FISH CALLED WANDA and CHILD’S PLAY spelled out in large black letters.
My footsteps slowed. “You’re sure I can pass for fifteen?”
“They won’t look twice.” My cousin flicked her hair back and held the door.
I put a hand on my hip and sashayed in, trying not to look like a thirteen-year-old. It smelled of stale popcorn. A group of older teens huddled by the ticket desk: two boys and a blond girl.
One of the boys spotted us. “Look who it is!” he said. A sour expression appeared on the face of the blond girl. My cousin let go of the door and pulled her mouth into a strained smile.
“Oh, hi! Um, Beth, this is Emma, her brother Mark, and … Tom.”
Tom. Oh, this was the famous Tom my cousin couldn’t stop talking about. She’d said he looked like Patrick Swayze. I squinted. I couldn’t see it.
“And who’s Beth? Your best friend?” The blond girl said with a nasty grin.
I stuck out my chest, such as it was.
“She’s my cousin. I’m … looking after her.”
Looking after? My mouth fell open.
Tom spoke. “I’ve dragged these two out to see Child’s Play. How about you?”
My cousin gave me a glance, eyebrows raised as if asking permission. I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I gave a hesitant nod. A smile broke over her face.
“That’s what I’m here to see!”
My stomach sank. I wanted to see A Fish Called Wanda, but I didn’t want to sit in the dark cinema on my own. I didn’t want to give the memories a chance to creep in.
“Me too,” I said in a small voice.
“How old are you?” Emma asked.
“Uh … fifteen.”
She giggled, putting her hand over her mouth. “Well, I’m terribly sorry, but Child’s Play is an eighteen. Perhaps you two should see the children’s film together.”
A Fish Called Wanda wasn’t a children’s film. I let my gaze fall to the tatty carpet of the cinema, dotted with the black ovals of old gum.
“Child’s Play is a horror, kid,” Tom said, softly. “Probably too scary for you.”
“You can see A Fish Called Wanda. I’ll catch you after, okay?” my cousin asked.
Wh
at could I say? I’d been daft to think she saw me as a friend. This was a pity trip.
I nodded. She hurried to Tom and they bought tickets. As they walked into the cinema, she gave me a thumbs-up behind Tom’s back.
I dragged myself to the ticket office, feeling like a total Billy-no-mates. The man behind the counter was half-hidden behind a magazine with a bikini-clad model on the cover.
“One for A Fish Called Wanda.” My voice was a petulant whine.
He peered over the magazine. “How old are you?”
“F … fifteen.”
“Date of birth?”
I tried to do the math. “March 4, 1972?”
He rubbed at his stubble. “That makes you sixteen.”
“Sorry, yeah. I’m sixteen.”
He raised the magazine without another word. I stared at it. The cover girl filled out her bikini in a way that made the silver dress feel like a silly costume. I backed away, out through the doors onto the main road, imagining Emma’s laughter following me.
“Kid,” Tom had called me. I’d been stupid to think I could pass for fifteen. Stupid to think my cousin was a real friend. She’d felt sorry for me, like everyone else. I kicked an empty cola cup at a magpie, wishing the bird was Emma.
It flapped its wings, jumping neatly to one side. Then it sat there, watching me. I felt bad. It wasn’t the bird’s fault that my life sucked.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
It nodded, tilted its head in a way that seemed sympathetic, and hopped toward the alleyway at the side of the cinema before peering back at me. It nodded, as if encouraging me to come too. I hesitated. But it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. I followed the magpie. Just to see where it was going.
I turned the corner and the bird was gone. I took a few steps into the alleyway trying to work out where it had got to. There was no sign of it, but set into the side of the cinema was an old wooden door, with the silhouette of a magpie burned into it. I approached, mouth open. It seemed much older than the wall it was a part of. I poked it. It swung open a few inches to reveal a dim, carpeted space before the door shut.
I pushed it all the way open and stepped inside, out of the wind and the cold.
It was a cinema foyer, but a very different kind from the tatty one I’d just been in; this one was like something out of Hollywood, and bigger than a London multiplex. The carpet was deep, and it silenced my footsteps. There was no ticket office, just six corridors branching out from a central entrance.
The magpie stood to one side, watching.
“Hello?” No one answered.
It was impossible, of course. That thought made me giddy. An impossible cinema. I giggled, then shut my mouth, embarrassed at how young I sounded.
Down the first corridor, many doors and posters were set into the walls. How many screens did this place have? I drifted along the hallway, as if caught in a dream. The nearest poster showed a boy, creeping through a museum filled with strange objects. There was no title, no tag line, but it looked like a children’s film. I tried to ignore the wave of shame, the memory of Emma’s face.
I didn’t want a kid’s film.
The next poster had a girl in an attic, wearing an old-fashioned maid’s uniform. She leaned toward a model train set. Historical drama, no doubt. Not my kind of thing.
I wanted a horror film.
I kept going, glancing at the posters: a girl with sores on her face. That might be a medical drama. I couldn’t bear anything that would feature a hospital. Not after the horrific hours we’d spent there after we heard about Mum’s accident, hoping for a miracle that hadn’t come.
The next poster showed a boy running across a dark moor. Definitely horror, from the look on the boy’s face. But what was chasing him? Zombies? Vampires? Werewolves?
It didn’t matter. I wasn’t afraid. I was totally old enough for a horror film. I’d show Emma, I’d show Tom. There was no stupid man at the ticket desk to stop me here.
I pushed open the door and strode in.
My eyes took a few seconds to adjust. Black and white dots danced across the screen to my left. To my right, empty seats rose in rows. There was a rush of color on the screen, and I turned toward it. There were no opening credits, no trailers. The film cut right to a boy: the boy from the poster, hissing blackness flickering behind him.
The screen warped, and the boy leaned out. He held a hand toward me — a hand made of light. Static scurried over his fingers. What was this? An amazing 3D illusion?
I reached toward the boy, expecting my hand to pass through him. But instead, our fingers linked. I gasped and tried to pull back. He held me firmly. The projected light worked its way over his skin and onto mine. It climbed up my arm: a whispering, crackling itch. It spread up to my shoulder, across my chest. I shivered as the dancing static covered my whole body.
The boy’s grip tightened. He pulled me into the screen.
I FOUND MYSELF sitting in the wooden chair, back in my own body. The golden motes of the magpie’s library floated in front of me, bright as the projected light from Beth’s story.
The magpie perched on one of the highest shelves.
“That was amazing.” A bow from my host. “But it seemed familiar in places.”
The magpie tilted its dark head.
“Like, that girl, on the cinema poster, with sores on her face. She looked exactly like one of Margaret’s dolls. Are the stories linked, somehow?”
An enthusiastic nod.
“Like a massive series? Is there another book where Margaret’s story continues? Is that where I find out what it has to do with Grandpa?”
I froze as soon as the word escaped my mouth. Grandpa.
I pulled out my phone: 3:48 p.m. Grandpa would definitely be awake. Mum would be on her way back from Bedford. I had to beat her home, or I’d have some serious explaining to do.
The magpie flew down to the chair, but I was already backing away.
“I have to run. Sorry. But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
It dropped its head, dejected.
I reached out with a finger and stroked the magpie. It pushed up into the motion, as if reveling in my touch.
It was a wrench to leave, painful to step out into the dullness of the everyday. Leaving the beauty of the library felt like losing something vital, like yanking the magic from my soul. The lack was an ache in my bones. My shoulders slumped as the weight of the world settled on me.
Outside, I forced myself to hurry along Elm Grove, fighting the feeling that I should be going back to the library. The same feeling I had before — that I’d forgotten something. Something more important than my phone or my keys. Something I couldn’t do without.
The sound of a fire engine cut through my tangled thoughts. The red seemed too bright, the keen of the siren too loud, making my head pound. It sped down the main road, cars pulling over either side. The siren cut out as it turned left, toward Grandpa’s cul-de-sac.
I walked faster. Dread ballooned in my gut. Didn’t they sometimes send fire engines ahead of an ambulance? No. It had to be going somewhere else. I was being paranoid.
I broke into a jog.
By the time I reached the cul-de-sac, a stitch ached in my side. I turned the corner and my blood froze.
The fire engine sat outside Grandpa’s house.
ON ITS HIGH branch, the girl’s book was no longer alone. Another volume nestled beside it. She had returned to me. Silva had reached out to me, stroked me with such delicate kindness that I felt the old ache of love well up within me once more.
You do not hide your damaged books well enough, The Whisper said. You were never good at hiding things.
“I wish she could stay here, as she was today; not sealed within the pages of her book.”
You know none will choose to stay with you. You have to take them. Do n
ot get attached to her. You have been hurt enough in the past.
That had been the hard lesson of my life.
After Lettie left, Father sent for a tutor, claiming a man would be less given to witless superstition. Thus, I was placed with a teacher who beat my lessons into me. I was being punished for what I had done to Lettie, although none would acknowledge it. I wondered if they knew of the power I had, and what I had done to her soul.
I rarely saw my father. Perhaps he would not have minded that I was unable to ride if I knew Latin or Greek. Perhaps he would not have called me a slugabed if I could shoot a bow and arrow. But my sicknesses often kept me from both my tutor and my duties.
Yet I was not alone. I had the silky voice of The Whisper, and my siblings began to slip into my chamber to see me. First was my sister Isabel. She remembered when I was but a babe, and had heard rumors from the servants that said I was owl-blasted or devil-touched. But she found no such demon child, only a small boy in a dark room. So she tarried to talk with me.
After that, my brothers, James and Edmund, and my sisters, Elizabeth, Alice, and Eleanor came to greet me too. I became their pet. I was hungry for their stories, for their tales of the world, and they were happy to find an audience that attended upon their every word.
I was not permitted to go outside. The doctors said the corrupt London airs would hurt me, that the stinking mists of the sewers and rivers could infect my blood. Thus, to my young mind, the city air was not just unhealthful; it was poisonous, and I listened to my siblings play in the knot garden with the fear their laughter would at any moment turn to choking. Their visits were the only light in my little life, and I wished they would remain close to me, and safe.
Yet, one by one, I lost them. Father sent James up north to manage our estates after many tenants were lost to the sweating sickness, a terrible disease where a man could be well in the morning, have the sweat take him at noon, and be dead before dinner. Edmund went to Oxford, then to practice law in London. Elizabeth was married and moved to her new husband’s home.
For a while, I still had my other sisters. Eleanor and Alice visited me together, sitting on either side of my pillow. They brought me the gossip from the city and the news from court. Isabel brought me sweets taken from the table: marzipan and gingerbread. She brought me the scent of her rosewater and the herbs she wore in her pomander.