Only one person swam against that tide, descending the stairs instead of ascending.
He was quite the sharpest-dressed bundlish I had never imagined. A tuxedo peeked out from underneath a different crisply white shirt, and three fine jackets of black, red, and grey hung around those. He wore both an opera cape and a leather raincoat, and I couldn’t recognize its mask at all. Copper, with seven—yes, seven—glass windows for eyes that showed only darkness. The ones that I could see showed darkness, that is. Spectacles of different shapes hung from different angles covering five of those seven eyes.
With a sweep of his coat and cape, he bowed very low to Sandy. “My Lady. I was only informed that your historiography arrived, not the human who inspired it. Forgive me for being grateful I did not rush to attend you. Thanks to this delay, I have witnessed an act of magic with my own eyes. It was humbling.”
“It was beautiful!” I agreed.
“It was—” some other clothling started to say, but she and all her sisters broke into giggles. I joined them. Well, I had to!
Sandy’s smile tightened, and so did the rest of her, stiff and with her hands clasped behind her back. All that relaxed poise had disappeared in the aftermath of her miracle.
Supposition!
Ooh. I liked that word.
Ahem.
Supposition! Magic consumed some resource within humans that those of us who lived Anywhere did not have. This resource was tied closely to their emotions, and a human full of magic was relaxed and rested, while a human who had just used magic became tense. Happy, perhaps, even energized, but not rested. Magical overexertion might render Sandy frenzied and erratic, even maniacal. I would have to watch out for that, and protect her. Unless she wanted to be like that, of course.
A hand settled heavily on top of my head. A warm, human hand. Oh, my. I was not very good at this sidekick thing yet, was I? I’d been so busy planning how to help Sandy in the future, I’d ignored her needs now!
A quick glance upward showed that same awkward smile. My duty was clear. Stepping forward to the edge of the table, I gave my dress a quick dusting and curtseyed low to the exceptionally dapper bundlish. “Fine Sir, I have the honor of being Mysterious Hero Sandy’s sidekick, Heartfelt. Would you be the Head Librarian?”
He bowed back, although not nearly as low as he’d bowed to Sandy, of course. “Alas, no. I am merely the Head Archivist, a sidekick in my own right. The Head Librarian is too stiff and fragile to move swiftly, but rest assured, now that I know you are here, she will arrive soon.”
Sandy’s hand grabbed me around the waist, yanking me up off the table as she said, “Oh, don’t do that. We’ll go and meet her.”
He looked up, his hands spread, palms up. As a bundlish he had no face, but in his pose I felt keenly the agonizing conflict of being caught between obedience to a human and courtesy to a human.
His self-assurance was magnificent. That conflict only raged a moment, and his rich voice conceded, “We will meet you halfway, in the Paisley Nook up these stairs.”
Sandy accepted that, and we followed him up through a doorway and out along one of the thickest lower branches of the Library Tree. Leaning over Sandy’s arm, I saw windows set into the branch, while our own stairs wound up its surface. That made the steps rather erratic, and Sandy’s heart beat loudly in her chest next to me. Perhaps the combination of magical and physical exertion exaggerated both? Or she just had trouble with stairs?
To my great relief, when we reached a little pagoda made out of what looked like a single tremendous acorn, Sandy accepted a seat immediately rather than insisting on climbing further. I couldn’t have taken the strain anymore. Could I watch my hero hurt herself needlessly, even in minor ways? Shouldn’t I protect her from that? Or was it more important to support her bravery? Did I take care of her, or assist her?
A mere flight of stairs had brought me to the crux of my own conflict. Who was I, now?
Who did Sandy want me to be?
She wanted guidance. A supplement to her own limitations. That was who I was, now. In this case, that meant letting her make the strain she chose, but now that she had stopped…
Rising in Sandy’s lap, I asked the Head Archivist, “Pardon me, Sir, but could someone make some tea? Or perhaps prepare lemonade? Cookies would go well with either. I am still learning the needs of humans, but I think she has not eaten properly since breakfast.”
“The Head Librarian understands such things, which is why I know that refreshments are being prepared,” he said.
I turned my head up to Sandy. “Do you have a beverage preference, Miss Sandy? I should know these things.”
She touched her cheekbone with her fingertips—a reflex I now understood, the automatic urge to adjust her glasses. Except she wasn’t wearing them anymore, so she took hold of the pinch between my eyes where she’d sewed them to me, and wriggled the glasses nice and even on my face. It made her smile approximately half as widely as it did me. “Actually, I like root beer the most, but I’m not sure you’ll have it here. I’m sorry.”
The Head Archivist reached behind one of his pairs of glasses, and twisted a round glass lens. It made a thoughtful clicking sound as it rotated. Finally, he said, “None of the staff drink it, but during the expedition of Gertrude the Natural Scientist, it became known that she was fond of a substance called ‘pop’, and Flops convinced us to accept thirty-seven crates of root beer. They are currently stored in the root cellar, aisle 18, top shelf.”
Sandy’s mouth turned down. “It will be flat by now.”
“No need to worry about that, Your Highness. That is why we stored it in the root cellar. Root beer in a root cellar can only improve over time.”
A marionette with a clothling clutching the back of her head ran down one staircase from above, plunged through the room, and kept going down toward the main trunk.
“Emily Dash and Run-On Sentence are on their way to fetch your root beer now, which means the Head Librarian…” The Head Archivist rose from his own seat, and hurried over to one of the two doorways that led farther up the branches. As a pale, delicate arm emerged, he took hold of it by hand and just under the shoulder, helping the exquisite china doll into the room.
Yes, of course she was a china doll. I kicked myself metaphorically. Honestly, Heartfelt, that should have been obvious. Who else would be appropriate to such an important position?
She was magnificent. Unlike Teapot Princess, she didn’t need a dress. That would have covered up the intricate gold scrollwork that wound all over her white china body. Squinting, I took advantage of the magnification properties of my glasses. Yes, those weren’t just abstract designs. This doll was covered in golden pictures, with a depiction of the Library Tree itself climbing up the center of her stomach and chest.
The joints of her hips did scrape audibly when she walked, and she had to hold her upper body carefully to keep the seams at the upper and lower edges of her stomach from doing the same. Teapot Princess had not been very mobile, either.
Nodding his head respectfully, the Head Archivist said, “Your Highness Sandy, may I present Butterscotch Wisdom, the heart and soul of the Library Tree.”
Jumping off of Sandy’s chest to the floor, I curtseyed deeply, and nearly fell on my face. I’d forgotten how much weight these glasses added to my head!
Sandy stood up next to me, and began to do the same. I thumped her in the calf as fast as I could to get her attention.
“No, no, Miss Sandy—” I said.
“Your Highness, please—” sputtered the Head Archivist.
“People curtsey to you. Even china dolls,” I finished.
Butterscotch Wisdom started to do just that, but Sandy waved her hands. “Please, don’t. That looks like it hurts. When he said you were fragile, I thought he meant you were old.”
The China doll’s golden eyes looked up at her. She had a slight, secretive smile, and a high voice, with just a hint of squeak but a sweet, mellow tone. “Yours and Cha
rity’s make the thirteenth human visitation that I have lived to see, but I was this stiff from the day I was assembled. I do understand. We all age in our own ways, but very few of us as dramatically as a human.”
“You sound like you know a lot about humans!” said Sandy, and an echo of the delight on her face shot through me. My advice worked! We’d come to the right place!
I filled in the rest. “That’s why we came here, Your Wisdomness. We don’t know what kind of hero Miss Sandy is, or why she’s here. Everyone naturally wants to think she’s a princess, but that can’t be right.”
A slight tilt of her eyebrows turned the china doll’s mysterious smile thoughtful and sad. “No. Charity is princess Here and There, Anywhere and Everywhere, and they will all know that soon enough. All I can tell you is generalities, until the history of Sandy’s arrival is read.”
The Head Archivist helped Butterscotch Wisdom into a well-padded chair opposite Sandy and I, and as soon as she was comfortably at rest stood up at dashing attention. “I will read it immediately. You will know everything you need by the time food arrives.”
With that, his cape and raincoat swirling, he ran down the stairs toward the main trunk.
“Would you like some candy while we wait for your food?” Butterscotch Wisdom asked. The compartment in her chest opened, so neatly that I hadn’t seen the seams amidst the golden scrollwork of branches and books. From inside she took out a heart-shaped metal box, opening it and holding it out to Sandy.
I stretched up to take a look, and Sandy took hold of my waist, lifting me up a few inches so that I could see over the rim. The box was full of round orange balls, and I could already smell the creamy sweetness. With my lack of nose, that meant it must be thick in the air! The quality level I would expect from a china doll’s heart, of course.
Sandy took one for herself, put another in my outstretched hands, and when Tumbledown stood on his toes and wagged his tail, tossed one into his mouth. As he chewed, Sandy rolled hers around in her cheeks, and I stuck out my tongue and gave my candy a lick.
Sandy spoke for all of us. “Oh, wow, these are really good! I guess you deserve the name Butterscotch Wisdom.”
It really was quite rich, enough to make me feel warm all over, but since a couple of licks was all I could do with hard candy, as soon as I’d taken them, I tossed the ball into Tumbledown’s ravenous maw. At least, his proto-ravenous proto-maw. One day, I was sure, Sandy would make sure he had a real maw any dragon would be proud to raven with.
Over the crunching noises, Butterscotch Wisdom said, “Grammatical, my Head Archivist, is reading your book now. It is not providing many answers. You possess great magic, but not little magic, a combination which suggests authority. It is unfortunately true that when two humans arrive Anywhere at the same time, they usually battle.”
Sandy shook her head hurriedly, her hair shifting through a dozen colors of yellow as it bounced in the sunlight. “Oh, no, that doesn’t sound likely at all. It’s always been me and Charity against the world, not against each other.”
“‘Usually’ is not ‘always,’” the china doll assured us, her own nod as delicate as Sandy’s expressions were vigorous. “It will help if we can figure out what kind of human you are. The identifying marks are usually more clear.”
“That’s why I thought she might be a Mysterious Hero!” I chirped. My contribution earned me another butterscotch ball from Sandy, which I tossed to Tumbles. He hopped up and down, jaws mashing.
My best theory was immediately shot down, with but a slight shake of the librarian’s head. “A Mysterious Hero comes with a cloak. We know that Charity has the crown of a princess. What did you take from the temple in the mists?”
“Take? There wasn’t anything to take, unless you count rocks and bits of glass. That’s not what you mean, is it?” said Sandy.
“There should have been a crystal statue of a human woman, holding out a token that would help you become what your heart already knows you should be. Two tokens, if you and Charity arrived at the same time. Usually they are made of gold.”
Sandy’s face screwed up in confusion. Human faces were so mobile! “The statue was broken when I arrived. There wasn’t anything made of gold, and I haven’t seen Charity since I arrived, just heard about her. I fell through the mirror less than a minute after she did, but it seems like she got here almost a day ahead. Maybe something bad happened? Maybe she was attacked in the temple?”
Butterscotch Wisdom touched a fingertip to her chin, where it looked like the golden scrollwork on both joined together. “It would not be unknown. Humans arrive when they are needed, even if no one Here or There knows about the danger, yet. Perhaps we can find more clues about that. What did the temple look like?”
This was an interesting topic, but it occurred to me that I was not doing Sandy any good listening to it. She had given me this tremendous intellect, or at least tremendous compared to the fluff I used to have, and I needed to fill it up so that I could be a reliable guide. Oh, my! Just the realization that I was in a tree full of knowledge set me burning inside with curiosity. So many things to be smart about for Sandy, if I could just get a little time!
Best not to waste what I had. I tugged on Sandy’s sleeve. “Pardon me, Miss Sandy, but may I go read some books? I couldn’t read until you gave me your glasses.”
“Reading is wonderful!” With both hands, she held me up first for a kiss on my cap, and then placed me on the floor. “Go. Read all you want. I order you to! What about you, Tumbles? Do you want to go read?”
“I want more candy!” he exclaimed, bouncing with fine, dargony elasticity.
I left Sandy tossing butterscotches one by one for Tumbles to catch, while she told the Head Librarian about a building that sounded frankly more like a ruin.
The steps were rather large for me, but sliding down them one at a time went swiftly enough. Back in the tremendous entrance hall of the Library Tree, I saw the Head Archivist at a lectern, scrutinizing the book of Sandy’s first miracles. So intense was his focus that his face almost touched the pages, and he had to bob up and down when he adjusted his lenses.
Books! All around me, books! Shelves and shelves of them, dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands? Thousands seemed excessive for this one room. Let’s say twenty-four per shelf, which would mean it would take four shelves to make a hundred… no, there were much more than forty individual shelves just in this room. Yes, thousands!
I was surrounded by treasure, and didn’t know where to start. The solution to that was to ask someone whose job it was to know about books. I toddled over to the table where the clothling librarians were still holding their meeting, and pulled myself up onto a chair.
“Yes, I like it too…” said the really worn out doll, and trailed off as everyone broke into a fit of nervous giggles. She had great strength of will, and managed to pick up again when her own giggles stopped. “…but if we do this… all the time, no one will get any work done.”
“But how can we organize…?” the only boy clothling at the table started to say, only to also run out of words and shrink down to hide his head under the edge of the table. A second later, his hand reached up and took the wooden mitten of the pretty, extravagantly carved marionette standing behind him.
A clothling in a frilly dress, whose bright, fresh colors suggested she was very junior, clasped her own hands over her mouth. “What if Binding Glue doesn’t like kissing me?”
At the magic word “kissing,” half the clothlings went, “Eeee!” and fell over in their seats. I felt a bit warm, myself. However, I had serious business to attend to!
“Point of order, please!” I demanded, pounding the table with my fist, producing a faint poof poof poof noise. “I require assistance in an urgent quest. My heroine has chosen me to be her local guide and expert, but I don’t actually know anything. I need a book to tell me all I need to know to guide a human through Here and There.”
Professionals all, the librarians bolted bac
k upright, or at least upright as a base state then mediated by leaning from side to side and whispering to each other. The ripple of their conversation moved down the table to the badly worn clothling, who took out a tiny handkerchief and rubbed the lenses of the glasses embroidered on her face. “I believe I know just what you need. Mark, could you and Shelf Space show the sidekick to the journal of Theodoseus Q. Flapwaddle, personal assistant to the Magnificent Mikey?”
The boy clothling sprung up straight, and declared, “Yes, ma’am!” The curvy girl marionette scooped him up on one arm, and me on the other, carrying us up the stairs opposite the ones Sandy had taken.
The trip was brief and quiet. As much as he sat very stiff, Mark hid his face from Shelf Space, and she looked carefully up and off away from him. The hands in his lap and the strutting verve with which she climbed stairs conveyed such happiness, despite their awkwardness, that I had to curl up my legs and arms and hope I wouldn’t embarrass them further with my glowing heart.
Mark and Shelf Space were proper librarians, however, and when the other clothling and I were set down in a room farther up the main trunk, he leaped into action. Not only was this room lined with bookshelves, it had two rings of pedestals, each with one single book upon them. Mark pushed a footstool up in front of a pedestal for me, and stood next to it, fists on his hips. “Here we are. Allow me to present the journal of Theodoseus Q. Flapwaddle. These books belong to a very special collection. They weren’t grown. They were written, stories of a human’s journey by the human themself, or those who traveled with them. Of course, these are separate from historian critiques, which are kept in upper branch sixteen velvet, and memoirs, which- ah. I mean, I hope it will be very useful to you.”
He fell silent, and I gave him a beaming smile to assure him that he was doing just fine. He was quite the straightest clothling I’d ever met, most of his body being a tube of tweed jacket, with little legs and white hands like stitched on gloves. He even had three stubby little fingers and a thumb on each hand! Much fancier than my mittens. Shelf Space was a very lucky marionette.
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