by Anna James
‘Look at what I’ve been dealing with.’
‘It’s not my fault someone left a great hole in the middle of a field,’ Charming grumped. ‘Honestly, the King around these parts is clearly very neglectful when it comes to land upkeep.’ Everyone ignored him.
‘How on earth did you end up down here?’ Jack asked, peering nervously into the narrow pit opening.
‘We came through that crack in the sky,’ Prince Charming said. ‘And had to leave my beautiful horse behind and walk. On my feet!’
‘The walking wasn’t the issue, though,’ Oskar said, rolling his eyes. ‘As soon as we came out of the other side things started getting super weird. Nothing made any sense. The sky was flickering different colours, like a sunset on fast-forward, and we kept seeing people who disappeared – just disappeared – right in front of us. And then, out of nowhere, a wolf walked right up to us and asked if we knew where the three little piggies were, and then I tried to make a break for it to get back to you guys … and I didn’t see the edge of this pit and fell straight in, and this guy just barrelled straight in behind me.’
‘If my young squire had been looking where he was going—’ Charming said.
‘I am not your young squire,’ Oskar interrupted, in a voice that suggested it was not the first time he had reiterated this.
Rapunzel yawned. ‘I can’t say I am particularly interested in why you’re there,’ she said. ‘But these two are keen to get you back, so shall we focus on getting you out?’
‘Can we find something to throw down?’ Tilly asked, looking around.
‘Fine, hang on.’ Rapunzel sighed, as if Tilly had been nagging her for hours. She stepped back, closed her eyes and screwed her face up in concentration. At once her hair frizzed as if she’d rubbed a balloon on the top of her head – and then it started growing at an alarming rate. Before long it was down to the floor, and it kept growing and growing. Rapunzel opened her eyes and nodded her head in satisfaction before pulling a pair of scissors out of her apron pocket and hacking her hair off at the nape of her neck. With a practised hand she tied a knot at the top to keep it together, picked up the hair-rope and hauled it over the edge of the hole. Oskar shimmied himself up and over the side without much fuss but Charming was looking at the hair rather distastefully.
‘Go on, then,’ Rapunzel said. ‘We haven’t got all day.’
‘Does this mean I can marry you?’ Prince Charming asked hopefully. ‘That’s how it works, isn’t it? If I climb up your hair I can marry you?’
Rapunzel rolled her eyes. ‘Unless you want me to leave you down there I suggest you stop talking and climb,’ she said, bracing herself on her heels as Charming ungracefully scrambled up and on to the grass. Sweaty and sticky and rumpled, he went over to try to kiss Rapunzel’s hand.
‘Fair maiden, now that I have rescued you, I humbly ask—’
‘Hang on there,’ Rapunzel said. ‘I literally just rescued you, you fool.’
‘Mere semantics!’ Charming said, aiming for a signature charming grin. Rapunzel just yanked her hand away and walked off, leaving Charming in a huff on one knee.
‘Oskar, let’s go!’ Tilly said, opening the book of fairy tales. ‘Now! Where are we?’ She ran her finger down the contents page. ‘Okay, well, there doesn’t seem to be a Rapunzel story in here.’ She swallowed nervously. ‘I’m not quite sure what that means. There’s not even any mention of it in the contents.’
‘I think it means we’re not in this book any more,’ Oskar said quietly. ‘I have a horrible feeling that the crack was a sort of gateway between books. I mean, it’s not from a story, is it? I’ve never read “Jack and the Weird Sticky Rip in a Field”, at least.’
‘So what do we do?’ Tilly asked. ‘Perhaps if we just read one of these stories, we’ll go back there, right?’
‘We could try,’ Oskar said. ‘But remember in the taxi on the way to the Inking Ceremony? Your grandma said it was dangerous to read yourself from one book to another, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Tilly said, resigned. ‘That’s definitely what she said – that it was like using a map when you don’t know where you’re starting from. I remember now.’
‘But do we have any other options?’ Oskar asked nervously. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’
‘Well,’ Tilly said and began to list things on her fingers. ‘We could vanish from existence, or whatever happened to Jack back in the cottage could happen to us, or we could get stuck in some sort of eternal loop of this story, or we could just flat-out die horribly. Or we could get sucked into the Endpapers … Hang on …’
Tilly paused and tried to let her brain think everything through. ‘Okay, hear me out,’ she said slowly to Oskar. ‘Could we do what we did in Alice in Wonderland? Travel through the Endpapers into an Underlibrary?
‘Would we go back to London, though?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Tilly said. ‘There must be one in France somewhere, right? Presumably in Paris? And this is a book from a French bookshop. Or even if it’s not there, I’d rather be stuck in real-life France somewhere than here.’
‘Okay,’ Oskar nodded. ‘I trust you. And I promise that I won’t hold you responsible if we die gruesomely. Scout’s honour.’
‘Are you even in the Scouts?’ Tilly asked.
‘Not the point, right now,’ Oskar said, holding his hand up in some approximation of what he thought a Scout’s honour gesture might be, but ending up with something from Star Trek. And with that he managed to break the mood and make them smile, just enough to give Tilly the courage she needed.
‘Shall we say goodbye to them?’ Oskar asked, nodding his head towards the fairytale characters.
‘Well, Jack and Rapunzel at least,’ Tilly said.
Charming was sitting, sulking and dirty, on a rock, while Jack and Rapunzel were chatting and laughing nearby, ignoring him completely.
‘So we’re going to head off,’ Oskar said. ‘Thanks for helping us out.’
‘I hope you manage to get home okay, Jack,’ Tilly said.
‘I think I’ve decided I’m going to stay here for a bit,’ Jack said, smiling at Rapunzel. ‘We might have some fun with some of these princes. Rapunzel needs a witch and I do love a bit of fancy dress. And fingers crossed the crack in the sky reappears, or I think of something else. There’s never only one way home.’
‘What about me?’ Charming wailed. How do I get home! I haven’t even got a horse!’
‘Why don’t you see if you can find a stray prince?’ Jack suggested kindly. ‘Maybe he can help, or take you home with him?’
‘Oi!’ Charming said, poking Oskar. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a job as a squire? You weren’t very good at finding the tower but maybe you could help me find my way home. Or at least to another castle. Or to another princess!’
Oskar just gave him a withering look.
‘Do come and say hello if you’re ever around these parts again,’ Rapunzel was saying to Tilly and Oskar. ‘If you do an owl hoot at the tower we’ll know it’s you and I’ll let my hair down. And you don’t even have to marry me.’
The four of them hugged, then Tilly opened the book of fairy tales to the last page.
‘Okay, hold on tight,’ she said, as Oskar took her hand and she read the last line, hoping her theory was correct.
illy and Oskar tried to stay calm as the shadows swaddled them and the fairytale lands faded away. There was a pause that seemed to last an eternity and then, suddenly, the darkness started to ease, like the first rays of a sunrise illuminating a bedroom. They began to make out the outlines of something physical and became aware of something definitively solid under their feet.
‘Okay, well, we’re somewhere,’ Tilly said. ‘As opposed to nowhere. Which is a good start.’ The light continued to brighten around them and within seconds they were standing in a real room in between two desks, which were unfortunately both occupied by people staring in surprise at them. A slim, well-dressed
man stood up abruptly, knocking over a glass of water in front of him.
‘Qui êtes-vous?’ he shouted. ‘Dîtes-moi! Maintenant!’ The woman at the other desk was still just staring at them, mouth slightly ajar.
‘Uh, je ne … je suis anglais,’ Oskar stammered.
‘You are English?’ the man said in a heavy French accent, as if that explained several things.
‘Oui, yes,’ Tilly said, relieved they could at least communicate in the same language. ‘I’m so sorry to, uh, crash into your office, like this. Could we just check where we are?’
‘You are in La Sous-Bibliothque de France!’ the man said as if that should be obvious. Tilly sagged in relief. They were in an Underlibrary, and in France.
‘So we’re still in Paris?’ she double checked.
‘Mais oui,’ he said. ‘Where else would you be? You two are bookwanderers, obviously. That is how you say it in English, yes? But what are you doing just appearing in our office?’
‘Are you in danger?’ the woman spoke for the first time, and Tilly looked at her gratefully.
‘No. Thank you,’ she said. ‘We just … we got stuck in a book.’ She tried an edited truth to test how it went down.
‘Did you get to here from England?’ the woman said, concerned.
‘No, it’s not that bad,’ Oskar explained. ‘We’re staying in Paris and got stuck in a book we read here.’
‘That is good,’ the woman said. ‘Better than having travelled to the wrong country. And we are being rude! My name is Colette Zhou, and this is Marcel Petit.’ The man nodded curtly.
‘I’m Oskar,’ Oskar said. ‘That’s Tilly. We came via the Faery Cabinet. Do you know it? It’s Gretchen … Gretchen … What was her surname, Tilly?’
‘You do not mean Gretchen Stein?’ Colette said, looking worriedly at Marcel.
‘Yes, her,’ Oskar said. ‘You know her?’
‘Why, yes,’ Colette said. ‘Everybody here at the Library knows of her.’
Marcel walked out from behind his desk, and came towards them.
‘You bookwandered from the Faery Cabinet?’ he asked sternly, and all they could do was nod. ‘You must come with me straight away.’
‘Stop, Marcel!’ Colette said. ‘Wait for a moment! We do not know what has happened yet. Is it wise to take them upstairs before we have found more information?’
Marcel paused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘How do you know Gretchen?’ Colette asked, still much friendlier than Marcel.
‘We don’t know her properly at all,’ Tilly said. ‘We just met her today. We’re staying with Oskar’s dad on holiday, and that was just the nearest bookshop so we went there to bookwander.’
‘Okay, you see, Marcel,’ Colette said. ‘They are not working with her. She did not ask you to come here, no?’
‘No, of course not!’ Tilly said. ‘We didn’t mean to come here at all! We just want to go home.’
‘Why would she ask us to come here anyway?’ Oskar asked.
‘It does not concern you,’ Marcel said. ‘We do not know who you are or if you are telling us the truth.’
‘My name is Matilda Pages,’ Tilly said. ‘I live in Pages & Co. in London with my grandparents – Archie and Elsie Pages.’
‘You are the granddaughter of Archibald Pages?’ Marcel said, his hand dropping from the doorknob.
‘Yes,’ Tilly said proudly.
‘And you are a friend of the Pages family?’ Marcel asked Oskar.
‘Yes,’ Oskar answered easily. ‘Best friends, actually.’
‘You see! We can trust them!’ Colette said, smiling at them warmly. She stood up and gestured to a small sofa at the back of the room. ‘Do sit down, and we can talk, yes?’
‘Sure,’ Tilly said. ‘So do you know my grandad?’
‘Oh no,’ Colette said. ‘But we have heard of him, of course, and how much he loves books and readers. You are very lucky to have him and to live in his bookshop.’
‘I know,’ Tilly said, and she did.
‘I do not think he should have been asked to stop when …’ Colette paused, and cocked her head to one side as she looked at Tilly. ‘You are Archie Pages’s granddaughter?’ Tilly nodded, knowing the equation that Colette was trying to do in her head.
‘Your mother is his daughter?’
‘That’s how it usually works,’ Oskar said under his breath.
‘My mum is Beatrice, yes,’ Tilly said.
‘She is okay now?’ Colette asked tactfully.
‘Yes,’ Tilly said. Of course news of her mother trying to change a Source Edition had spread to other Underlibraries. ‘She’s okay … But, well, do you know about everything that happened with Enoch Chalk?’
‘I am familiar with his name, I think. He works at the Underlibrary, non?’ Marcel said. ‘But we have not had news of any problems with him here in Paris. Are there things that have been kept from us?’
‘Oh,’ Tilly said, feeling awkward. ‘I don’t want to get anyone into trouble but he was the Reference Librarian in London and it turned out that he was … Well, he’s a fictional character! He had escaped from his Source Book and been living in the real world for years, trying to find a way to make himself real. It was Enoch Chalk who trapped my mum in a book for twelve years to stop her telling people the truth about him.’
‘That is more horrible than I can imagine,’ Colette said, reaching a hand out and holding Tilly’s. ‘She is back home now, though, you say?’
‘Yes,’ Oskar said proudly. ‘We rescued her.’ Colette smiled warmly at him.
‘And where is this Chalk now?’ Marcel asked. ‘He has been put back in his Source Book and it has been bound?’
‘Well, no,’ Tilly said. ‘He escaped and then no one knew where he went, and actually our Librarian Amelia Whisper lost her job for not telling anyone and trying to fix it all herself. Now the new Librarian, Melville Underwood, says he knows where Chalk is and is going to bring him back. But he’s actually awful and not helpful at all, and he wants to stop children bookwandering …’ Explaining it all out loud made Tilly realise just what a mess everything had become.
‘It is terrible to hear of what is happening at your Underlibrary,’ Colette said. ‘We have heard some rumours and I do not like the sound of this Underwood man at all. We shall have to tell our Librarian and he can speak to him officially.’
‘I did not get a good vibe from him,’ Oskar said vehemently.
‘You have met him?’ Colette said in surprise.
‘Yes,’ Tilly said. ‘We went to his Inking Ceremony the other day … Well, it was only yesterday, I suppose. He was very friendly when he did his speech, but then he spoke to us afterwards and told us that he wants to stop children bookwandering!’
‘And he wants to start binding books,’ Oskar said. ‘He said people should have to ask permission every time they want to bookwander.’
‘It is disgusting!’ Marcel said. ‘It should not be allowed. What is being done to stop him?’
‘Not much,’ Oskar said. ‘Lots of librarians seem pretty keen on him. There was all this talk of protecting British bookwandering, and stuff like that, and everyone was clapping away.’
‘It is not how it should be,’ Colette tutted. ‘It makes me scared for what is to come.’
‘Who is your Librarian?’ Tilly asked. ‘Can they do anything?’
‘A wonderful man named Jean-Paul,’ Marcel said. ‘We are very fortunate to have him here. He would never keep information like this from other Underlibraries.’
‘And you are from a bookwandering family too, Oskar?’ Colette asked kindly.
‘Yeah!’ Oskar said proudly. ‘I actually am! My grandmother is Clara Roux!’
‘Ah, dear Clara!’ Colette said. ‘I do not know her well but I have met her. She is a very talented artist, no? We have some Source Editions of work she has done in our stacks.’
‘Cool,’ Oskar said, enjoying having his family member be of note for once.
; ‘But, hang on,’ Tilly said. ‘You like her, but she is friends with Gretchen, and you don’t like her, it seems. Why were you so worried when we said we had bookwandered from Gretchen’s shop?’
‘Because she will not do what she is told!’ Marcel said. ‘She makes a mockery of the Underlibrary!’
‘She does not think that we do a useful job here,’ Colette said more calmly. ‘She does not like that the Underlibrary has rules. She will not register her name or her bookshop with an Underlibrary, and she lets people do as they please in her bookshop and her books. Rumour has it that she has had many love affairs in books, but –’ she paused and blushed – ‘I should not discuss such things with children. Gretchen believes all the rules will create people like your Underwood man. Maybe she is more right than we think, with what you say about your Underlibrary.’
‘No,’ Marcel said firmly. ‘There is not that way or her way only. Gretchen is just as dangerous as Melville Underwood, but in different ways. I do not agree with either of them. There is no place for these extreme points of view. There must be a middle way.’
‘But I would not like to have someone like Underwood in charge of us here,’ Colette said.
‘You would rather have Gretchen Stein?’ Marcel said.
‘I do not know,’ Colette shrugged. ‘She loves stories in a way he does not, I believe. And she does not want to be in charge, and I think that is important. It is rare that the people who want to be in power are the best people to do it.’
‘But what about the people who are even higher up and more important? Like the Archivists?’ Tilly said. ‘Do you think we could ask them to come and get rid of Underwood?’
Colette narrowed her eyes. ‘Perhaps,’ she said quietly.
‘Of course not!’ Marcel said loudly. ‘No one has heard from the Archivists, not even a tiny whisper, for I think two hundred years. Perhaps they no longer exist, or maybe they never did and are just a myth, a fairy tale. Do you not think past Librarians have tried to speak to them when things are difficult? They are a just story to provide hope.’