Bookweirder

by Paul Glennon

  Jerome unravelled the scroll and held it up to the intense light that flooded in through the skylight.

  “This is how I guessed that Lochwarren was in the British Isles.”

  Norman squinted at the unravelled parchment, unsure what he was supposed to be seeing.

  “The watermark,” Jerome explained. “It’s from England, so it stood to reason that Lochwarren was close.”

  Norman took the map from Jerome’s hand and held it to the light. The pale outlines of the watermark glowed through the thick parchment, the emblem of a sailing ship encircled by the words “Waterford & Sons, Est. 1867 London.”

  “Strange how the zero looks like an eight in the date. That confused me at first.”

  Norman didn’t have to convince himself that the date was wrong. The whole thing was wrong. How could the treaty map of the stoat princes have been made on paper from London?

  “Is this your friend Malcolm’s crest?” the boy asked, pointing to the red-and-gold insignia of the stoat princes.

  Norman scanned the map eagerly. “Here is where we fought the Battle of Scalded Rock,” he mumbled distractedly. He was trying to make sense of it all. Was the map a fake? Was it drawn by Malcolm’s ancestors on paper brought from the real world? Had it been drawn in the real world? Who could have done that?

  Jerome was more interested in Norman’s story of Scalded Rock. “You fought in a battle?” Jerome asked in wonderment.

  “I didn’t do much.” Norman traced his finger across the map. “Assassins tracked us across the wilderness here. They caught us just before we reached the borders. Malcolm’s bodyguard, Simon, died to protect us.” Norman stared in wonder at the map King Duncan had given him. It was a stoat heirloom, but it was an heirloom from outside, like that sneaker of Norman’s that hung up on the wall at Lochwarren. When and how, Norman wondered, had the map gotten into the story?

  Jerome’s eyes widened as he listened to Norman’s tale of Scalded Rock. “I’ve hardly been out of this library. The courtyard out there is the farthest I’ve been in my life.”

  Norman tried to put aside the mystery of the watermark and concentrate on the mystery of Jerome. “Except when you were a kid, right?” he pointed out. “You travelled through the Holy Land before you came here.”

  “No, I was born here in St. Savino,” Jerome replied firmly. “I’ve never been outside the castle.”

  Norman couldn’t help prying a little. Just how complete was Jerome’s amnesia? “What was it like here when you were small?”

  Jerome furrowed his forehead. “It all blends together. I remember the library, playing in the courtyard, the kindness of Brother Godwyn.”

  “You don’t remember being out of the castle at all?”

  The other boy paused for a moment before replying. “Only in dreams.” There was a distant, wistful tone in his voice. “I dream of the desert, of riding horses or lying in the shade of great white tents, but that is just dreams.”

  “Hmmm,” Norman murmured, rolling up the map and sticking it in the pocket of his jeans. This was the biggest temptation when you went into books. You wanted to tell characters secrets. You wanted them to know what you knew.

  “What about your mother and father? Where are they?”

  “They died,” Jerome declared quietly. “They were pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. They were very sick when they arrived here at St. Savino. Brother Godwyn couldn’t save them. I don’t remember them at all.”

  “What does Meg think?” Norman prodded.

  Jerome looked confused again. “About what?”

  “What does she think about your parents?”

  Jerome pursed his lips, then looked away. “We don’t talk about that anymore, not since she first came.”

  Norman was curious. Had she told Jerome about the book-weird? “What do you talk about?”

  “About England, about what it would be like if I came back with her to England, about how I could live with her family and study at the university nearby.”

  “Her family? She talks about … does she talk about her husband?”

  Jerome turned suddenly and stared at Norman, his expression woefully pained, as if Norman had just kicked him in the gut. “Husband? Is she married now? She didn’t even tell me she was betrothed.” He shook his head ruefully. “I should have known, a girl of her age and position. Her father must have already chosen someone for her. Still, I would have thought they might have waited a few years. Sixteen is the usual age.”

  Norman saw his mistake. Jerome knew only the young Meg, the Meg who had first come here.

  “No, no,” he protested. “I just thought … when you said she talked about her family and the future … I mixed the two up. I guess she talks about her parents. The house in Summerside, and her brother.”

  Jerome’s shoulders and forehead relaxed just a little. “Yes, she talks about Summerside, how peaceful it is, and about Christopher.” He frowned again before asking, “Is it still the same with them? Do they feud still, or are they reconciled?”

  “It’s still the same,” Norman told him.

  “I thought since you were here that perhaps they had found some way, some way to make the magic safe.” He sounded disappointed.

  Norman just stared back at the other boy. He was learning the hard way that the bookweird was anything but safe.

  “I thought it was some devilry when she first appeared, but such an angel could never be the work of the devil.”

  Norman still didn’t like the wistful tone Jerome took when he talked about Meg. “Have you told anyone about her?” he asked.

  “What would I tell them?” Jerome grinned. “I have tried to ask Brother Godwyn slyly about it. I used some English word once that he didn’t know. I told him an angel came to me in a vision and spoke to me in English.”

  “What did he say?”

  Jerome crinkled his brow seriously. “He told me to be careful of blaspheming and said not all dreams are visions.”

  The sound of heavy boots in the rooms beneath them alerted both boys.

  “I have to be going,” Norman whispered. “Do you have any paper?”

  Jerome smirked and held his arms wide. He was surrounded by paper.

  “Paper I can write on,” Norman clarified.

  Jerome coughed and laughed at the same time. “Do you think I am a baron or a bishop with scrolls lying around for my own use?” he sputtered.

  “Just a scrap, anything. I can write on the back of something. It doesn’t need to be new. I need it to, you know, get out of here.”

  Jerome regarded him skeptically. “Sir Hugh may have some old letters in his chamber …”

  “Where is his chamber?” Norman asked more urgently. The footsteps sounded as though they were directly below them.

  “Down below. I could look there tonight if you like,” Jerome offered eagerly.

  Norman smiled inside. So Jerome wasn’t such a goody two-shoes. He did get out of the library sometimes, sneaking around at night by himself.

  “But I can’t wait until tonight. I need to get back quickly.”

  “Don’t you get back the way Meg does, by reciting the homing narrative?”

  Norman looked at him quizzically, and Jerome started reciting: “Beside the river Goodwood in the valley of the Thames, in the lands once governed by the trustees of Lincoln College, there is a stretch of meadows and woods that feeds and supports the tiny hamlet of Summerside.”

  It certainly sounded like the countryside around the family’s home in England. This had to be his mother’s ingresso. She recited this story. She must have read the description somewhere and memorized it. It would have been convenient to have an ingresso that didn’t require the book itself. Just then it would have been very convenient.

  “That won’t work for me,” Norman told him. “I need to write my story.”

  Jerome paced away from Norman and stroked his chin. “All right, tonight I will go down to Sir Hugh’s chambers. We will find some paper.”
>
  Norman was about to object that he was in a hurry, but the sound of footsteps on the stairs below made both boys start and stare at each other silently.

  “Jerome, boy, I have news,” a tired old voice called up. Norman heard the steps creak as someone made slow progress up them.

  Jerome motioned with his head for Norman to hide. While Norman scampered quickly behind a large, iron-ringed chest, the other boy lowered the skylight so that only a tiny sliver of light shone through.

  The stairs continued to squeak as the voice came closer, wheezing and coughing more and more as it climbed higher. “Jerome”—huff,—“my boy”—huff and cough—“what do you say to a little journey?”

  Jerome could not contain his surprise or excitement. “Where, Father? When? Outside St. Savino?”

  “Outside St. Savino, yes.” The voice began to laugh, but it descended into a coughing fit. “You and I are going to England. What do you think?”

  “England?” Jerome asked. “But the scrolls … our library?”

  “Ah, but that’s just it. The library is coming with us,” Godwyn announced mysteriously.

  Norman couldn’t resist peeking over the top of the trunk. A small, elderly man in a monk’s habit held Jerome by his shoulders. Standing straight he might have been as tall as Jerome, but with his back bent by age, he was in fact smaller. Jerome supported the old man. There was a look of incomprehension on his face, as if he could not imagine that it was possible to leave St. Savino, as if such a thing couldn’t actually happen.

  “Why, Father?” he asked. “What has happened?”

  Here the old monk paused and breathed deeply. “Pass me the stool, son, will you?”

  The little wooden stool scraped across the floor. Brother Godwyn wheezed as he lowered his weary frame onto it. “Our old friend John of Nantes has returned. He has papers making him overlord of St. Savino. Sir Hugh is arguing the case, but he has told us to leave now while we can. We are taking the library to London.”

  Norman caught sight of Godwyn’s face. It was pale and sallow. Norman couldn’t imagine this frail old fellow travelling to London even in a world of taxis and airplanes. How would he manage it now?

  Jerome and Godwyn whispered conspiratorially. Norman could barely make out a word. Perhaps it was better, he thought, to take this opportunity to find some paper. Jerome could tell him about the trip later, or Norman could read about it when he got home. He couldn’t get bogged down here. He needed to get back home and then return with Malcolm to Kelmsworth.

  Making as little noise as he could, Norman slipped out from behind the chest and tiptoed towards the stairs. The floorboards creaked ever so slightly, but the old monk did not turn around. Jerome’s eyes flicked towards Norman as he began to creep down the steps. Norman could not read the message that flashed there.

  The rickety wooden stairs descended in countless short flights down the wooden tower into the baked mud fortress of St. Savino. The stairway was incredibly narrow—too narrow for two people to pass.

  Entering the fortified walls of the castle, the steps turned to stone, still narrow, and twisted to fit inside the stone walls. Finally they emerged at a small balcony. Though Norman had been descending for minutes, he was still quite high up. Below, the bald pate of a monk was bent over the rows of a tidy herb garden. Norman didn’t stop to gawk. He crossed the long balcony to a door at the end. Pushing on it gently proved ineffective, so he gave it a good shove and nearly fell into the hall beyond.

  He was in a much wider space now. The floor beneath him was worn terracotta, the walls thick, stuccoed stone. It was dark down here, too, but cooler. The thick mud walls of the fort must have had something to do with that.

  Malcolm Alone

  In the smallest bedroom of the house called the Shrubberies near the village of Summerside in England, the bedside light was still on. It was late for the occupant of this small room to be reading. If the parents of Norman Jespers-Vilnius had known that the light was on, they would have stormed in there and confiscated his books, and possibly his light bulbs. Fortunate, then, that they didn’t know, because it was not their son who was up so late reading.

  Curled up in the folds of an orange blanket in the warmth of the light cast by the bedside lamp was a small red-brown creature with whiskers and a white chest. He, too, to tell the truth, should probably have been sleeping now. He should have long ago completed his mission and been curled up somewhere safely out of sight. He should have carted the book across the red-tiled roof and down the trellises and downspouts to the open window on the other side of the house. The book should have been closed and sitting on Meg Jespers-Vilnius’s bedside table. But the red-brown creature with whiskers had never been one to do what he was supposed to do, and since he’d become King of the Stoats he was even less apt to do what he was told, when he was told. And the book he was reading could not be put down so easily.

  It was hard to say what was so compelling about A Secret in the Library. Not much had happened since Jerome’s arrival at St. Savino. Brother Godwyn had taught him history and languages and how to take care of the scrolls, but the boy had learned nothing about his father. Malcolm had lost both his parents in the long battle to save his homeland. He would have done just about anything to see his own father, Duncan, one more time, to hear his deep voice bellow out orders or laugh at some joke he’d made. He couldn’t understand why Jerome didn’t seem to care about his own father, why he never once asked Brother Godwyn or Sir Hugh.

  There was another reason Malcolm could not stop reading. The first sentence of the second chapter made it impossible to put down the book there.

  “Johan of Vilnius had languished unrecognized in the dungeons of Acre for years,” it began.

  Malcolm’s whiskers rippled as he read the name. How could he not read on?

  Johan of Vilnius had languished unrecognized in the dungeons of Acre for years. It had taken him two years to dig the tunnel, scraping away at the hard dirt and mortar with his broken shackles, but the leader of the banned Livonian Knights was free again at last. He pushed a floor tile up from below and emerged at night into the castle kitchens, where he helped himself to a loaf of bread and the key to the kitchen door.

  In the dark of night, Johan of Vilnius made his way through the dark back alleys of Acre to the spot where he had buried his armour two years before. Now, disguised as an Arab fruit merchant, he passed through the citadel’s gates with his arms and armour hidden beneath a cartload of dates. He was heading to the oasis village of Amadir and he was in a hurry, because there he would be reunited his son.

  He would go there alone. His Livonian Knights would not ride again. Black John’s betrayal had finished them. But Johan’s son had lived. He had made sure of that, entrusting the boy to his most steadfast knight, his best friend, André. Johan had given André his own horse, the stallion Nacht, and instructions to take the boy to the oasis town of Amadir. Together, André and Nacht would have protected the boy and brought him to safety.

  Malcolm was beginning to understand now. Jerome was the son of the head of the Livonian Knights, the order that John of Nantes had sworn to crush. Hugh Montclair must have suspected it. He knew the boy had something to do with the Livonian Knights. That’s why he had kept Jerome hidden and discouraged him from speaking that “strange northern tongue.”

  Once he’d read about the escape of Johan of Vilnius from the dungeons of Acre, Malcolm was hooked. Johan had to be Jerome’s father. Malcolm promised himself he’d just read until the point where Johan arrived in Amadir and then he’d take the book back. So it was frustrating when the action switched back to St. Savino and the boy.

  For page after page, Jerome picked weeds and catalogued scrolls in the library, but Malcolm couldn’t put the book down. He was waiting for it to switch back to Johan.

  It wasn’t just the story of a father looking for his lost son. It wasn’t just the thought of the captive returning triumphant, of Johan of Vilnius riding up to the gates of St.
Savino at the head of a long column of Livonian Knights. The knight’s name was bothering him more and more. He was no expert in the bookweird, but he knew enough now to suspect coincidences. So he read on, following Jerome’s life in the library of St. Savino while the moon rose in the English night around him and the peculiar calls of English animals began to fill the darkness.

  Then Norman appeared and changed everything. It was on page ninety-eight. Malcolm leapt up in surprise and gave his whiskers a shake. He had never expected anything like this. He’d known that Norman was going into the book, but he’d never imagined seeing them there, being able to read what Norman and Jerome were saying to each other and to see what they couldn’t see going on around them in the castle. It was the strangest thing. There was no way he could put the book down after that.

  Norman and Jerome couldn’t see that down below in the castle, John of Nantes was delivering his ultimatum to Hugh Montclair. The old warrior wasn’t caving in to the blustering tyrant. John of Nantes could bring as many knights as he wanted. He could raise a siege if he liked. “I’m an old man,” Hugh declared. “I hate to go outside of the castle walls anyway. A siege will give me a reason to stay in and read.”

  The more calmly Montclair replied, the more Black John stormed and raged. He uttered threats that would have made the river pirates of Malcolm’s childhood proud. Malcolm wasn’t nearly as calm as Montclair. He was only reading the confrontation and his nerves were on edge. He turned the pages eagerly, racing through each of them. If only he were there with a good strong bow and a quiver full of well-fledged arrows. He’d brought down larger prey.

  It only got worse when Norman decided to creep down the stairs. “Don’t do it, Norman,” Malcolm kept whispering to himself. “Don’t do it. Stay up in the library out of the way. Wait until Black John and his thugs have gone.” Norman couldn’t hear him, of course. Ignorant of the danger waiting for him, he kept creeping down the stairs and out into the hall.