Saving Fable

by Scott Reintgen

  Deus sighed. “Lizzy lives there. She was a famous bookseller in the Real World. I believe she still has the record for setting up the most school visits in history.” He pointed at the next building. “And Krista’s in that house. She created one of the most celebrated reading programs in the world. Next to her is Ingrid, who invented ‘book speed dating.’ Our world rewards booksellers with a nice retirement among the very stories they dedicated their whole lives to sharing. It’s the least we could do to thank them.”

  “I could have found all of that out by talking to them myself,” Indira said stubbornly.

  “Yes, and you would have also interrupted them during a well-earned vacation. The booksellers come here to relax and read and retire. They do not need characters coming in and bothering them while they’re at it.”

  “And that’s all I am?” Indira asked. “A bother?”

  Deus looked ready to roll his eyes but stopped himself. “Of course not.”

  “It seems that way.” When Deus merely looked at her, she went on. “Why didn’t you tell me any of the rules? Why didn’t you give me more lectures about the way things are here?”

  “It is not in my nature to explain. It is in my nature to make things happen.”

  “So why didn’t you make me a protagonist?”

  “Why didn’t you make you a protagonist?”

  They glared at one another. Deus looked away first.

  After a moment, he sighed again. “I’ve tried to be as helpful as I know how to be.”

  “So tell me what to do.” Indira felt frustrated by everything. “I almost went to Fester. My brother, David, helped me see that would have been a mistake. But I still don’t feel like a protagonist, either. According to my teachers, I’m barely a side character! I just don’t feel like I belong.”

  He nodded. “That’s normal. Everywhere you go, in the Real World or in Imagination, people feel that they don’t belong. They think that their noses are shaped funny, or that their hair isn’t the right color, or that they can never say the right thing when they should. It’s one of the many attributes that humans and characters share.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “You fight. So your auditions didn’t go well? That happens! Some of my favorite characters failed their auditions. You think a test can decide the fate of Indira Story?”

  “They said I’m going to be a side character. Maybe not even that!”

  “Change their minds!” This last came as an exasperated shout. “Prove them wrong.”

  Indira thought about David. Every cage has a key.

  “How?”

  “There’s a storm coming,” Deus said. “There’s a city out there that needs a hero.”

  Indira frowned. “And I’m supposed to be that hero? Right.”

  “You’re already caught up in what’s going on. I can’t really say much else, but something big is about to happen. And when it does? Be the hero you were born to be.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “I didn’t escort a fool into Fable,” he replied crisply. “You’re smart and brave, and you’ve been practicing with your hammer in Weaponry, right?”

  She slid the weapon from her belt loop. “I’ve been practicing. I can fight five bad guys at once now, but it’s just a hammer.”

  He laughed. “Just a hammer? You sure about that?”

  Indira tried to hand it to him, but her grip tightened like iron around the weapon, and Deus struggled to take it from her. With a frown, he said, “Try putting it on the ground.”

  She did. He bent over the hammer and tugged. Nothing. He set his feet, trying to lift properly with his legs and put weight behind it, but the hammer wouldn’t budge.

  “That’s not just a hammer,” he grunted. “It’s attuned to you. Pick it up.”

  Indira plucked it easily from the ground. For the first time, she felt its perfect balance.

  “So what does that mean?” she asked.

  Deus looked thoughtful. “Well, there have been plenty of magical hammers. Obviously, Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, is the most famous. It did this thing….” Deus made a throw-and-catch gesture with his hand. “Like a boomerang. He’d throw the hammer and it would come flying back to him.”

  Indira hadn’t ever used a boomerang, but she turned to the center of the village and took aim at the lowest branches of a pink-leaved plum tree. With a grunt, she heaved the hammer end over end. She was frozen in that moment, watching it flash silver through the air.

  And then she blinked.

  Darkness dragged her through space. She opened her eyes barely in time to dodge her own thrown hammer. The weapon clanged to the ground. She heard a distant rattle, then appeared back at Deus’s side. Confused, she crossed over and picked the hammer back up.

  “Well, that’s different,” Deus said.

  They both laughed. Indira asked, “What happened?”

  “I’ve heard of this. There’s something like it in the old folklore,” Deus said. “They used to call it a way hammer. Try again.” He lined her back up with the plum tree. “Only this time, catch the hammer.”

  Indira gritted her teeth and threw the weapon again. Her body was pulled from the ground and set down twenty feet away, in the hammer’s path. With a fluid movement, she reached out and barely snatched it by the grip. She gasped and waited. But she wasn’t pulled back to where she’d been standing a second before. Indira had actually teleported. She heard Deus laugh madly and clap.

  “Well done, Indie.” He strode across to meet her. “If your judges had known about your hammer, you’d have been selected as a protagonist even with botched auditions.”

  “I don’t want to just be known for a hammer,” Indira said quietly.

  “Oh, I agree. It isn’t the powers you possess; it’s how you wield them.” Deus produced a rusty bucket from thin air. He set it upside down on the ground between them. “Have a whack.”

  Indira grinned. It was the first time she’d really had the opportunity to hit something outside training. She hefted the hammer and brought it down in an arc from above. The bucket split open like a pumpkin, with little wooden shards flying every which way. Indira found a satisfaction in the sound and in the result. Deus only smiled. “Try the other side.”

  “Of the bucket? It’s destroyed, though.”

  “Of the hammer,” Deus answered. “If it’s a true way hammer, the two sides will do different things.”

  Indira searched for the biggest remaining piece of the bucket, then spun the hammer in her hand. The flat face of this side looked identical, but she swung it downward. The same sound of snapping wood and solid metal reverberated through the open space. But instead of it shattering into still-smaller pieces, Indira saw a thread of purple light split the air. Before either of them could blink, the bucket had re-formed itself. For once, Deus looked silent and stunned.

  “Now what?” Indira finally asked.

  “Practice, practice, practice,” Deus muttered. “And when the time comes? Be a hero. Trust your instincts.” Indira nodded. Her mentor’s eyes darted to the western sky, as if he had heard someone call his name. “I am required elsewhere. Remember: every cage has a key.”

  The two of them shared a grin. She could already feel him misting away, so half of him was with her and half somewhere else. Before he could completely fade, she saw him nod in the opposite direction. Indira glanced that way and was hit by a wave of surprise. Phoenix was walking toward her. Excitement came first. That feeling was followed swiftly by anger.

  Maxi was with him.

  “What a coincidence,” Deus whispered. “The three of you crossing paths out here.”

  Indira turned to say something sarcastic, but he was gone. A bright mist snuck over the village, framing the tops of the buildings and the pink leaves of the plum tree. Indira watched the mist scatter
and stretch as Maxi and Phoenix closed the distance. Indira thought of a hundred rude things to say to Maxi, but decided to hold her tongue. She knew Deus had brought them together for a reason. So it was Maxi who broke the silence first.

  “We need to talk about the mystery you’ve landed right in the middle of.”

  It was the last thing Indira had expected Maxi to say.

  “I—you—what?”

  Phoenix cleared his throat. “Maxi found me at school. She said she needed to talk to you as soon as possible. I think you’ll be surprised by what she’s been doing all this time.”

  Indira eyed Maxi uncertainly before nodding. “Go ahead.”

  “Look, I know I hurt your feelings,” Maxi began. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t really expect to make friends so early on in the process. You’re really cool, but I had a huge breakthrough in my investigation. I knew I’d be working on it day and night. It was going to be impossible to explain where I was going and what I was doing. And it was the only way to prove myself to the Editors. The whole spoiled-rich-girl thing was just a cover. Honestly, though, if I had known how involved you were going to be in what was happening, I wouldn’t have ditched you. We could have helped each other out. A lot.”

  Indira felt like the world was spinning. She focused on a small, bite-size piece.

  “The Editors? I remember you mentioning them. Outside the Grammar Police station.”

  Maxi nodded. “They’re like secret agents. An underground organization that handles all the dark plots and global threats in our world. I’ve always wanted to be an Editor, but they’re like really hard to join. I applied to their training program, but it’s this whole process.”

  Indira felt as though her brain were melting. “But I’m not investigating any global threats.”

  “Of course you are,” Maxi replied with excitement. “You just didn’t realize it. My mentor was here at the start of the school year checking out a few fluctuations between Imagination and the Real World. Think major consequences. Realities can literally collapse if things between our world and the Real World go wrong. The Editors’ cases are usually pretty open and shut. The Real World leaves traces. I helped my mentor with the first test, but after sweeping the whole city, we only found the normal traces. I mean, not even an ounce of suspicious activity. He said there was nothing to investigate and left me in Fable for alternative training. I knew I’d have to solve a big mystery if I wanted to make a name for myself.”

  Indira was nodding. “Okay. So there’s no mystery?”

  “As if!” Maxi looked frustrated. “I’ve been over the data a hundred times since my mentor left. The Editors aren’t prioritizing this, but I think they should be. Those spikes in energy keep happening. They fade before I can follow any real trails, but someone’s clearly messing with the connections between worlds. So that had me thinking: Who could mess with the Real World and not bring back any unexpected traces of it?”

  Indira saw the connection now. “The brainstorms.”

  “Ding, ding, ding.” Maxi offered her widest smile. “We have a winner. Or…three winners. Still, I knew it was kind of strange, because brainstorms already have access to the Real World. Why would they need to mess with the other connections and pathways when they already have a free pass to check out Authors whenever they want? But at least I had my suspects. Limited access, though. So I snagged their files from the police station and learned what I could in my sessions with Underglass, but for the most part I was working in the dark.

  “I had my suspicions about Vesulias after the attack on Montague. I was even more suspicious when Underglass cleared him.” Maxi raised her eyebrows. “You probably missed that little announcement—it happened this morning, when you weren’t in school. He’s already back, working and everything. So maybe the two of them are up to something? I was almost ready to dismiss my theory—maybe there was no tampering at all—but every time I sweep the city for new data, I see the same thing. Someone is up to something. And if I can just find out what it is, I’ll make a name for myself. The Editors will have to let me join them then.”

  “It wasn’t Vesulias.” Indira dug a hand into her pocket. She removed the dragon scale from her pocket and held it out for Maxi’s inspection. “I found this in the Sepulcher.”

  “A dragon? An actual dragon? This is so above my pay grade.”

  “No, not a dragon.” Indira replied. “It’s from Brainstorm Ketty’s jacket. I found it in the Sepulcher, just a few feet away from Dr. Montague. I found it before she walked in the room.”

  “Oh. Oh. That’s genius. Why didn’t you hand it over to the detective?”

  “Honestly, I’m pretty sure he would have lost it.”

  “Good point,” Maxi replied. “All right. So you really think it could be her?”

  “I’m not sure. This is the only proof we have. Pretty thin if you ask me.”

  Maxi leaned in and smiled. “So we get more proof. Let’s talk it all through. Everything you know about what’s been happening. Every little detail. We’ve still got a long walk to get back to Fable, and these heels aren’t getting any more comfortable.”

  Indira laughed. “You know, you didn’t have to be such a jerk to me.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re like the nicest, most loyal person ever, Indira. I hated how I made you feel, but if it had been something small, you would have just forgiven me. Besides, I couldn’t just go halfway on my cover. I needed to look legit.”

  Indira nodded. She was probably right about that.

  “Well, this is the way it should be,” Indira said. “All of us together.”

  Phoenix grinned at her. “Couldn’t agree more.”

  “Reunion tour!” Maxi shouted with delight. “The crew is back!”

  The three of them began the long walk home, comparing clues as they went. Maxi offered some surprising expertise on the operating licenses brainstorms used to travel between worlds. Apparently, their investigations of the Real World could only be temporary. The brainstorms could float from Author to Author, analyzing their stories and trying to link potential students up with them. But they always had to return from their brief tours in the Real World or else risk serious harm to themselves.

  Maxi listened intently as Indira relayed her own information. At first, Indira didn’t feel like she had a whole lot to add, but Maxi homed in on the details that mattered most. “So Brainstorm Ketty has clearly been knocking you down a few pegs.”

  Indira nodded. “It’s just weird. I thought I was doing really well in all my classes. And that’s not all. I’m pretty sure she gave me bogus school supplies.”

  She reached into her knapsack and removed the piece of test stationery. Unsurprisingly, the words that she’d written down had vanished. It made sense. All the worksheets that Mr. Threepwood had provided were complete. But any time she’d used her own paper—the paper that Brainstorm Ketty provided—the work had vanished.

  It was a little surprising to see that David’s handwriting was still there. Maybe the curse on the paper was intended specifically for her? Indira held out the sheet for them to inspect.

  “Brainstorm Ketty gave me a whole pack of stationery at the start of the semester with my name printed on the top. I thought it was kind of nice. But I found out from Mr. Threepwood that I’d been turning in blank assignments. My answers erase after a few hours.”

  “But your name remains,” Phoenix noted.

  “Exactly. So I’ve been turning in the sheets and getting credit for doing none of the work. It’s like she wanted me to fail.”

  Maxi shook her head. “What does someone in her position get from your failure? You’d think she’d want her chosen students to perform well. Maybe I can dig into the rest of Ketty’s students and see what I turn up.”

  “I feel like we’re missing a few dots,” Indira replied. “It all has to connec
t, though.”

  Phoenix nodded. “Just let me know if you need me to set anything on fire.”

  As they approached Fable, none of them found the missing dots they needed. They agreed to talk the next day and examine the case with fresh minds and eyes. Indira wanted to dive fully into the mystery, but she knew another challenge would be waiting for her at home. It was possible she was in really big trouble. She had a few apologies to make herself.

  First up: the Penningtons.

  Braced for the scolding she deserved, Indira knocked twice on the door. It whipped open with force. Indira met the furious gaze of Mrs. Pennington and could do nothing but dip her chin in shame. Instead of yelling, though, Mrs. Pennington swept forward and wrapped her arms around Indira. It was a tight, family-is-home kind of hug.

  “I thought you were going to disown me,” Indira said into Mrs. Pennington’s shoulder.

  “Your last name might be Story, but that doesn’t make you any less a Pennington.” The woman pulled away, cradling Indira’s face in both hands. “Oh, come on in out of the cold.”

  It wasn’t actually cold out, but Indira thought it sounded very motherly. Clearly, Mrs. Pennington had been practicing. She bustled Indira inside and sat her down in the kitchen. The flower-shaped letter Indira had written was still sitting on the table. Both of them did their best to ignore it. Mrs. Pennington wouldn’t hear a word of an apology until dinner was set out. Indira dug in, far hungrier than she’d realized from the long journey. After a few big bites, Indira set down her fork and reached out for Mrs. Pennington’s hand. She squeezed it.

  “I’m sorry. Family doesn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

  “No, they don’t,” Mrs. Pennington agreed. “So why did you leave, sweetheart?”

  Indira sighed. “I felt special when I came to Fable. Like the world had chosen me.”

  “The way you made us feel special by choosing us. I understand that well enough.”