by Chris Fabry
“What have you done?” Clara whispered.
Owen waved her to the back room. “Don’t ever do that, whether I’m wanted by the police or not.”
She chuckled. “Have you become a criminal?”
“It’s just a misunderstanding. What are you doing here?”
Clara leaned against a desk. “What would be your guess? This is a bookstore, isn’t it?”
“This is the room of misfit books,” Owen said. “You like fiction? nonfiction? gardening? sewing? We have just about everything.” His throat tightened as he realized this had been one of his dreams—to be alone with the most beautiful girl in the school, the town, and for all he was concerned, the country.
Clara moved closer. “You have any books about love?”
“Love?” he said, his voice cracking. “Why, yes, I’m sure we have many. There’s a romance section, or in nonfiction there are titles about how to find the love of your life, that type of thing.”
Clara smiled, clearly enjoying his discomfort. “How about books about older women falling in love with younger men?”
Owen could evade fire-breathing dragons, so why couldn’t he tame his voice now? “I—I’m not sure. I could look . . . after the coast is clear, I mean . . . you know.”
Clara tilted her head and ran her tongue across her lips. “You’re funny, Owen. What’s a guy like you do on a Saturday night?”
“You mean, like tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow would be Saturday, yes. Would you like to go to a movie with me?”
“Wow.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I just . . . yeah . . . I mean, if my dad . . . I mean . . . wow.”
Clara giggled. “Well, talk to your dad and let me know.” She took Owen’s hand and wrote her number on his palm. She imitated the officer’s voice. “Please call as soon as he returns.” She looked up. “And see if you can find a book that would suit me.”
“Wait. I don’t need to call. I’ll meet you at the theater at seven.”
No sooner had Clara left than a commotion began below. Scuffling and shuffling and loud voices.
Owen peeked around the edge of the shelves and saw Karl pointing up at him.
Karl and Owen’s father rushed upstairs, but Owen beat them to his room, locked the door, and flung himself onto his bed.
“Owen,” his father said, knocking, “open up. I need to talk with you.”
“Tell Karl to go away first!”
“But he is my friend. He only wants what’s best.”
Yeah, as if a mere human friend could take a knife to the heart. He’s probably also the eyes Gordan mentioned. “Then I have nothing to say!”
Whispers, his father saying, “Just go. I’ll get back to you.” Then footsteps walking away.
“Fine, Owen. Karl’s gone.”
Owen cautiously opened the door to the anxious face of his father.
The man stepped inside and immediately began pacing, not looking at Owen.
Owen could count on one hand the number of times his father had been in his room other than to order him up and out of bed. Somehow the man must have felt uncomfortable talking, sharing dreams, hurts. Owen longed to know what it had been like when his father discovered his mother was dying, but they never talked about it. If Owen brought it up, his father quickly changed the subject.
They’d never even talked about their future. Was Owen expected to take over the store someday, or might there be something else for him? Perhaps a vacation. A move. Even a day at the beach. Owen had always loved the sound of waves lapping on a shore, but every time he mentioned something like that, his father dismissed it.
Now it was his father who wanted to talk, and the conversation was in Owen’s hands. “What happened today, Owen?”
“Happened?”
“I . . . I . . . that’s what I want to find out. You took that girl from her school, didn’t you? The authorities were here.”
“I didn’t take her. She followed me on her own. Father, what’s going on? Why don’t you tell me the real story?”
“I’m trying to get at your story, Son, because you’re in serious trouble.”
“Tell me about Karl, Dad. What has he been telling you?”
“Karl is just a vagabond; you know that.”
“He saw me come out from behind the bookshelf.”
“So it is true. You do know. . . .”
“I saw you the other night with those robed people—or creatures. Why would you keep something like that from me?”
Mr. Reeder rubbed his hands. “I told you only as much as I believed you could handle—”
“You told me nothing!”
“Which is exactly what I thought you could handle.”
“You don’t know me, Father. How could you possibly know what I could handle?”
“Don’t talk to me that way!”
Owen shook his head and slumped onto the bed. “I want to understand you, Father. I want to know why you’ve stayed locked up here, why you keep me locked up here. I want to know what you’re afraid of, what makes you happy, if you ever think of Mother, what you remember about her, whether she talked about me, dreamed about our family. But it’s like you’re a stranger.”
“I’ve stayed here because of you!”
“But why? Secret meetings! Rooms I wasn’t supposed to know of! Tunnels! What are you hiding?”
“I’ve been hiding you!” his father spat. He tapped his forehead. “I know you’re not right up there, that things come to your mind and you don’t live in the real world. You break from reality. You’re a menace to the other children. They’re afraid of you. That’s why I’ve kept you here. I’ve tried to protect you from them, and look what it’s gotten me.”
“It’s not true!” Owen cried. He pointed to his face. “Does this look like anyone’s frightened of me? Now I want to know what you—”
Karl moaned from the doorway and walked inside.
“I don’t want him in here, Father!”
“Forget him, Owen! And enough talk about me. I want to know what you are hiding. Where is the book?”
“Get him out of here, Father!”
Karl dropped clumsily to the floor and looked under Owen’s bed.
“It’s not here!” Owen said, standing.
Karl lifted the bed, staring Owen down. If that was meant to intimidate, all it did was make Owen resolve he would never let the book fall into the man’s hands.
Karl and Mr. Reeder tore out drawers full of clothes, tossed boxes from Owen’s closet, stripped the bed, and nearly destroyed his desk. Karl was like a man possessed. Owen loved what he had seen of the book, but what could it possibly contain that turned these two into madmen?
When Karl slid the desk chair toward the closet, Owen shouted, “Stop it!”
Karl lifted an eyebrow and climbed onto the chair, reaching to the ceiling. Owen swore the man grew even taller, stretching a good six inches above his normal height. Karl looked as if he were made of rubber. He pushed open a tile leading to the attic, and Owen rushed him, hoping to topple him.
Owen’s father caught and held him. “It’s all right, Owen. It will all be better after this. You’ll see.”
“How can you say that, Father? Don’t let him take it!”
Karl laughed when he pulled down the burlap sack, dust floating into the room.
“Is this worth abandoning your own flesh and blood?” his father said.
Owen could smell Karl’s breath, black and full of death. He lunged for the sack, aware of the man’s rotten teeth and sandpapery skin.
Karl yanked the sack away as Owen hit the floor.
“I’m trying to do what is best,” his father said as Owen struggled to his feet. “I know you can’t see that now, but burning this will save you from a lot of trouble.”
Owen’s father held him back as Karl left the room and started down the stairs.
Desperate and empowered by an adrenaline rush, Owen pried himself loose and bounded do
wn the stairs to find Karl in the fiction room by the fireplace. Karl had tossed the sack into the fire but held the red book, leafing through its pages. He looked puzzled, as if trying to decipher hieroglyphics. Suddenly he ripped out several pages and tossed them into the fire.
“No!” Owen lunged for them, but Karl stuck out a foot and shoved him across the room into another bookcase. The pages crackled in the flames and were soon engulfed. “Please don’t!”
Karl ripped out another handful of pages and tossed them in.
Owen’s father knelt near him. “The beggar with the book is dead, consumed by righteous fire. That was the only way to end this war before it began.”
“No!” Owen cried. “You’re lying!”
Karl stuffed a single page in his pocket and threw the rest into the fire.
A deep sadness clouded Owen Reeder’s face as the ash and smoke floated away. He dissolved to the floor, his head buried in his arms.
“I knew this would never work,” Owen’s father said to Karl. “I should never have agreed to it. But I had no choice.”
Owen looked up. “Choice about what?”
His father walked from the room, but Owen pursued him. “How could you destroy what meant so much to me?”
His father shook his head. “I don’t understand. I’ve done all I could. I’ve given you every opportunity, and this is how you repay me?”
Owen’s face contorted with emotion, and he ran for the stairs.
* * *
Mr. Reeder and Karl moved to the Medusa-head bookcase and stepped inside, activating a device Owen had never seen. It emitted a sound undetectable by the human ear but warning the Slimesees to stay away. An interpreter with an important message was coming.
* * *
Owen had not gone into his room but had rather run to the shelves at the rear of the store, edging along the back wall and into the room of misfit books.
In the corner, from under a large stack, Owen pulled out a heavy paper bag and tucked it under his arm. He climbed out the window to the fire escape, running to the top of the stairs where a backpack lay. He stuffed the bag into his pack and climbed onto the roof.
The night was clear. And like the traveler with the heavy pack in The Pilgrim’s Progress or Huck Finn’s voyage down the Mississippi, Owen began the journey, his first steps alone.
He felt the weight of the book on his back, and a smile sprang to his face. Owen guessed Karl had kept one page of the burned book to prove to someone it had been destroyed.
That someone would quickly realize the truth. But Owen would be long gone before they came for him again.
Connie waited until her mother had gone to bed before slipping out the front door. She padded down the stairs in her slippers—pretty, fluffy ones that looked like pink kittens—and crossed the street.
She was at an age where she had begun to notice boys—older ones—and the way their hair looked or the color of their eyes or how their long arms made them look more like apes than teenagers or a hundred other things like long or short fingernails, white teeth, or large ears.
Owen had a dreamy face—soft eyes; a shock of thick, wavy hair that seemed to have a mind of its own; and a smile that looked genuine, not forced. Constance had watched him every second of their day together and even noticed when he had stepped over a line of ants on the sidewalk. He seemed like the kind of person who would not hurt anyone.
However, her estimation of him had plummeted like a broken-winged bird when he threw the book in the trash. To spend his whole day looking for it and to go through all they had endured because of it and then throw it away had been inconceivable.
But she had also noticed that when Owen talked to her mother, a mischievous glint had appeared in his eyes. And it was then that she had wondered if perhaps Owen was being less than honest about himself. Could he have been doing something for her, placing the precious treasure out of view so that in a sense he was stepping over another line of ants, which happened to be her?
It was unbelievable that she, a mere pimple on the earth’s crust as far as most high schoolers were concerned, might be regarded in such a way. A warm breeze lifted her hair and her heart skipped as she reached the trash can, the type with the helmet-looking top and swinging door. She pushed it open and stared into it under the light of a streetlamp.
The trash would not be picked up until dawn, and the can was only half full. Connie reached in and rooted about in the garbage. All she found were a few newspapers, a pop bottle, a banana peel, and two candy wrappers.
She couldn’t help but smile. No burlap sack. No book. She was right. Owen had not abandoned the book or the task. He would fulfill his destiny. And if Mr. Page could be believed—and she saw no reason why he shouldn’t—Connie had a destiny too.
Owen was waiting in the shadows when Petrov came home from work.
“Father and you have problem,” Petrov said as he unlocked the tiny apartment and pointed Owen to a kitchen chair. “I don’t need details. But I warning you, Petrov not good company. Sleep like log.” He pulled a juicy hamburger from a stained Blackstone Tavern bag and offered half to Owen.
Owen tried to refuse, though his stomach was empty, but Petrov insisted. Owen devoured it and felt satisfied, not just with the food but also with himself. He was making his own decisions now. He had a friend, shelter, and a book he couldn’t wait to read.
Owen was as tired as he had ever been and thus grateful when Petrov built a fire in the fireplace and threw a scratchy blanket over a musty old couch for him.
“Sorry,” Petrov said, adding an old, flat pillow, “but I sleep now. Breakfast duty tomorrow.”
In the dim light, Owen stretched out. The crackling fire cast weird shadows on the ceiling. Whenever one of the embers popped, Owen jerked to attention, recalling the day. He imagined a winged creature at the window, but it was just the trees moving against a streetlamp in the wind.
Owen pulled a small strap-on light that fit over his head with an elastic band from his backpack. He had bought it at a mountaineering shop, simply thinking it looked cool but having no idea when he would ever use it. Well, here was the perfect opportunity.
Owen placed the band around his head, snuggled under his blanket, and retrieved the brown bag from his backpack. It rattled and he paused as Petrov’s bedsprings creaked. The young man was already snoring.
How do we describe this moment of wonder and change? Imagine the first time Michael Jordan dribbled a basketball on a hardwood court. Or when Albert Einstein first studied a list of numbers. Or when Michelangelo first held a paintbrush or imagined what he might do with a church ceiling as his canvas.
Do you have a book you call your own, one that speaks to you as nothing else can? It may be fiction or nonfiction, and each time you look at it something within you stirs and you wonder how such a perfect thing can be held between two covers and be constructed of simple strings of letters. Others may scoff at your chosen book or criticize its simplicity or humor or even the sound of the author’s name. But if your heart has truly been touched by it, any criticism of it is lost on you. It has genuinely and irrevocably changed you forever.
That is what happened to Owen that night on the decrepit couch next to the fire in Petrov’s hovel. The book had been etched by hand in a long, flowing motion by a master craftsman. The thick pages crinkled richly as they were turned.
The Lowlands and the Wormling
To all Wormlings with the courage to go where duty calls, where friends despair, and where danger lurks. It is a far better thing to risk and fail than to never risk.
Wormling I
The time of the Son draws near. When the Wormling has accomplished the breach of the four portals of the Dragon, prepare the way for the armies of the King. Let every kindred, tongue, and tribe of the Lowlands ready themselves for battle, for the time of Great Stirring has begun. And this stirring will lead to the Final Union of the Son and his bride. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad when the signs point to his return.<
br />
Owen worked through his fatigue to make sense of these majestic words. Something about the way they were knit moved him and told him something glorious was about to happen.
The idea of a coming battle stirred something within Owen, for he yearned for something great and noble for which to fight. His experience with Gordan had given him a taste of what was to come.
Every word, every sentence, every paragraph made Owen feel as if this was what he had been uniquely prepared for, why he had been born.
And then came the stirring of the creature.
It began in Owen’s peripheral vision on the edge of both his sight and his concentration. Something moved beneath the pages, as he had seen in the bookstore, then appeared at the side. When he glanced over, it stopped, and he was sure he had only imagined it. But no, as he continued to read he noticed another wiggle. The pages themselves seemed to writhe.
Suddenly, a tiny head—a real head with eyes and a mouth and antennae—popped around the corner of the left-hand page and locked eyes with Owen.
Owen recoiled, yelping, his headlamp slipping off and the book falling into the crevasse of the couch. His heart hammered as he listened for Petrov, but he heard only snoring.
The small face had looked like a toy, but it had actually opened its mouth at him, showing sharp, jagged teeth. Owen replaced his headlamp and dug for the book, retrieving it from deep in the couch. He riffled through the pages, telling himself he had been seeing things. There was no evidence of any creature, no tiny face or body.
I had been reading about Wormlings. This is all in my mind.
Still he stood and removed the blanket and pounded his pillow and inspected the couch, taking off the heavy cushions. If there really had been a creature, perhaps it had crawled inside the couch. There were certainly enough holes.
Owen tried to tell himself that he was too tired to read, that he had actually dozed and dreamed this. But it had seemed so real! If there was a wormlike creature in the couch, he certainly didn’t want to sleep there. He laid the blanket on the floor near the fireplace, checked his pillow again, and settled down with the book.