by Anna James
‘It’s family business,’ Grandad said. ‘Nothing to do with any of you.’
‘The child of a Librarian having a half-fictional child is nothing to do with the Underlibrary?’ Melville said mockingly.
‘Yes,’ said Bea with a steady voice, speaking for the first time. ‘What I do with my life is nothing to do with you. And if you choose to listen to the ramblings of this power-crazed man over my dad, well, then you have what you deserve.’
‘Then it seems that we are all content,’ Melville said. ‘You know the way out?’
‘I’m going to find the Archivists and tell them what you’re doing!’ Tilly shouted over her shoulder, and to her horror the whole room burst into laughter.
‘Why don’t you tell the Tooth Fairy at the same time?’ Melville smirked. ‘It’ll be about as much use.’
‘But …!’ Tilly said, face burning with embarrassment.
‘Wait until we’re home,’ Grandad said. He turned to Melville as they left. ‘You won’t get away with this,’ he promised.
‘And yet, you said that the last time I saw you, Archibald, and it remains unclear exactly what you think I’m getting away with.’
‘Shame on you all,’ Amelia said to the assembled librarians. ‘Think about which side of bookwandering history you want to be on.’ But she was met with silent, stony faces.
As they had been escorted out of the Underlibrary by Angelica, it was felt best that they didn’t try to travel via the Map Room, and it was a subdued journey home in a taxi as Tilly and Oskar relayed everything they had seen.
‘So, what I don’t understand is how they were all communicating?’ Tilly asked.
‘Decima said you were in a Source Edition?’ Amelia replied, and Tilly nodded. ‘Well, what I imagine they’ve done is create their own new book; a collection of other people’s fairy tales most likely, but a new version so they have the Source. And of course, anything that happens in a Source is mirrored in every other version, so anyone else with a copy would be able to see immediately what was happening and read themselves in.’
‘I knew that book was familiar,’ Oskar said. ‘The blue one that Gretchen had? It’s the same book that Chalk disappeared into.’
‘Oh, of course,’ Amelia said. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t work all this out sooner. Chalk and the Underwoods have clearly been speaking through those books for much longer than we imagined. Goodness knows how long he was under their thumb and helping sow seeds of discontent at the Underlibrary, rallying the Bookbinders against me. And then he went rogue, became fixated on Bea, and you, Archie, and so they just got rid of him. And poor Gretchen.’
‘But we’ll be able to get her back, won’t we? She did try and stop Decima when she realised what was really going on.’
‘Yes,’ Amelia said. ‘We’ll get Seb on the case. Don’t worry, we’ll find her. And then we can deal with her.’
‘Will she be okay?’
‘Well, we’re not very sure,’ Amelia said honestly. ‘But we’ll get Seb down to the Endpaper Processing Office first thing tomorrow and start there.’
‘Never mind all that,’ Oskar said. ‘What on earth did you tell my mum?’
‘Ah,’ Amelia said. ‘All things considered she took it quite well, I think.’
They got back to Pages & Co. to find Mary sat at the kitchen table, glassy-eyed and shell-shocked. She didn’t even get up when Tilly and Oskar came in, just stared at them as though they were changelings.
‘Mary’s obviously still processing the news,’ Grandma said gently, replacing the cold cup of tea in front of Mary with another, hot and heavily sugared one. Oskar went over to her, close to tears, and tried to hug her.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Mum,’ he said. ‘But you wouldn’t have believed me! Archie and Elsie have been looking after me the whole time, I promise!’
‘I … I …’ Mary didn’t manage to get any words out.
‘It’s because of Mamie!’ he went on.
‘Your grandmother knew the woman who took you into that place?’ Mary said, finally speaking.
‘But she didn’t know what she was really like!’ Oskar protested.
‘How did you get Mary to believe?’ Tilly said quietly to Grandad as Oskar tried to reassure his mother.
‘Well, when you two disappeared she obviously wanted to go straight to the police, and the only thing we could think of to stop her was to tell her the truth. And we thought the only way to do that was, well, show her.’
‘You took her bookwandering?’ Tilly said.
‘Yes! We had to in the circumstances! We just popped into somewhere nice and relaxing. We took her into The Wind in the Willows, we had a lovely picnic on the riverbank with Ratty and Mole, although she wasn’t very relaxed, and we didn’t stay long, but eventually she accepted it was really happening. I think seeing a life-size mole talking and eating sandwiches helped chivvy her along. And obviously, even though she didn’t want to go to the police any more, she was hardly more calm about you two being missing. Telling her an errant bookwanderer had taken you goodness knows where is not exactly better news but thankfully she trusted us to find you, and thank goodness we did. I’ve never wished you’d been stamped more.’
They looked over at Mary, who was now holding Oskar tightly, still looking absolutely bemused. Eventually Amelia took the two of them off to try to answer Mary’s questions, which, now she was speaking again, were coming thick and fast.
‘So what do we do now?’ Tilly asked, as she sat at the table with her grandparents and her mother.
‘Well,’ Grandma said. ‘We need more information about what they are trying to do.’
‘Besides be immortal and in charge of everything forever?’ Tilly said.
‘I’m guessing that there are some specifics to the plan,’ Grandma said. ‘Although, yes, that does seem to be the crux of it.’
‘We need to have enough proof that we can convince the Underlibrary not to trust the Underwoods,’ Grandad said. ‘They’ve been very clever at manipulating everyone, and using your identity as a weapon, Tilly. We need to tread carefully and work out how to turn the tide. And hope we can think of something before they start binding books.’
‘For now,’ Grandma said, ‘the most important thing is to look after each other. Shall I put the kettle on?’
Tilly nodded. But she couldn’t quite silence the niggling voice in her head, saying that they were missing something important. In her bedroom, lined up on the top of her bookshelf, were a key, a vial of book magic, a bag of breadcrumbs, a book, a ball of red thread, and a slip of paper that mentioned the Library of Congress in America. Some of which she’d found, and some of which had been given to her. She couldn’t help but think that if she somehow put them together they might show her a different way to look at bookwandering.
ife had settled back into its normal rhythms as they monitored what was going on at the Underlibrary. They heard, via Seb, that there was still talk of everything Melville had threatened, and yet nothing seemed to have been put into place. Tilly knew that the adults hoped that maybe it wasn’t as extreme as they’d first worried it was, and maybe they could just ride out Melville’s tenure as Head Librarian without too much drama. Even Tilly’s enthusiasm for finding clues in the pamphlet had waned, as it really was just a history of libraries in very small writing. And so life went on, and before she knew it, it was the Easter holidays, and she and Grandad were sitting reading next to each other in Pages & Co., enjoying the last of the evening sun as birdsong drifted in through the open bookshop windows.
‘Is your book any good?’ Grandad asked her as he paused to take a sip of coffee.
Tilly showed him the cover. She’d been using the scrap of paper with the zip code and mysterious other number on it to keep her place in the book that Colette had given her to remind her of Paris, and it fluttered to the floor as she held the book up.
‘What’s that, then?’ Grandad said, picking up the slip. ‘Why are you using a
classmark as a bookmark?’
‘A classmark?’ Tilly repeated.
‘That’s what this looks like,’ Grandad said, pointing to the long string of numbers and letters. ‘It’s how you find books in a library. This sequence will take you to a specific section, or shelf, or even book, depending on the subject. They’re like maps, I suppose, to help you find what you need. Where did you get this one?’
‘I found it in a book,’ Tilly said.
‘I wonder where it leads,’ Grandad said, smiling. ‘We’ll have to look it up. A little literary treasure hunt.’ He called up a website that listed all the classmarks and searched for the right number. ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘It takes us to … Oh, interesting, ancient literary history! Was it a library book you found this in?’
‘No …’ Tilly said slowly. ‘What did you say about maps?’
‘That classmarks are like maps?’ Grandad repeated. ‘They take you where you need to go to find what you’re looking for.’
Tilly had that horrible feeling where a thought flashes through your head too fast for you to grab hold of it, and it’s lost immediately, leaving only a shadow. As she was trying to claw it back, the peace was shattered abruptly as Seb burst into Pages & Co. in a panic, shouting for Grandma and Grandad.
‘They’ve done it,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ Grandad said, standing up.
‘They’ve finally done it,’ Seb said, out of breath. ‘They’ve convinced the librarians – they’re going to start binding books tomorrow.’
‘Well, we knew it was coming,’ Grandma said, walking out of the kitchen, Amelia right behind her. ‘Even if we had hoped it would not.’
‘But we haven’t any hard evidence yet,’ Seb said, flustered. ‘And we can’t bookwander without being followed or watched! What are we going to do?’
Tilly was still staring at the piece of paper in her hand as they tried to calm Seb down. On one side was the address that she and her mum had worked out led to the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and on the other was the classmark leading them to a specific book. Tilly had the feeling you get when you go into a room looking for something, but forget what it is when you arrive. And then it was there.
She went to find Bea.
‘Mum?’ she said.
‘Yes?’ Bea said. ‘Everything okay?’
‘I think I know where to find the Archivists.’
n Paris, Tilly and Oskar explore the unpredictable world of fairy tales, a place where the usual bookwandering rules don’t quite apply. For bookwanderers, this is because fairy tales, like myths or folk stories, aren’t rooted in one Source Edition. And, if you read fairy tales, you’ll discover lots of different versions of the same stories and characters – you never know if you’re going to find a happy ending or not …
Most of the fairy tales which are familiar to us today have grown out of hundreds of years of storytelling from all over the world. Some researchers think they were even being shared in the Bronze Age – that’s over 6,500 years ago! There are references to fairy tales being told among all different kinds of people for thousands of years.
A lot of the famous fairy tales we know today were collected by storytellers who went in search of their favourites. Some of the most well-known fairytale collectors are the Brothers Grimm, two German real-life brothers called Jacob and Wilhelm, who published a collection of stories called Children’s and Household Tales in two parts, first in 1812 and then in 1815. Stories such as ‘Rapunzel’ and ‘Hansel and Gretel’ – two stories Tilly and Oskar encounter – were printed in these books for the first time.
Another celebrated collector was a Danish writer, Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote down a whopping 3,381 fairy tales over his life, including popular stories like ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ and ‘The Ugly Duckling’.
When Tilly and Oskar first bookwander into a fairy tale together, they visit a version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ – a story with a lot of different versions, characters and endings. There are records of it being told as long ago as the tenth century in France, and possibly has roots in East Asian stories about a tiger grandmother.
Tilly and Oskar visit the first known printed version, which was created by a French writer called Charles Perrault in 1697. However, this one usually has a rather gory ending – which, luckily for Tilly and Oskar, an errant version of Red Riding Hood stops from happening. Many important collections of fairy tales originated in France. Gretchen’s shop, the Faery Cabinet, is actually named after a famous illustrated French book of stories called Le Cabinet des Fees from the eighteenth century. It was published in a huge forty-one volumes by a man called Charles-Joseph de Mayer.
In recent decades, filmmakers such as Disney have used fairy tales as a basis for some of their films, and have created their own versions. Frozen is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Snow Queen’, and ‘Tangled’ is of course a retelling of ‘Rapunzel’.
Fairy tales are constantly evolving and changing as readers want different things from stories; and that’s what makes them dangerous for a bookwanderer, but fascinating for readers and writers. Maybe you could even write one of your own …
On y va! Let’s go!
Mon cher My dear
Bon nuit Goodnight
On est gâté! We’re spoiled!
Et qui est-ce? And who is this?
Oui Yes
Non No
Merci Thank you
Mamie Granny
Qui êtes-vous? Who are you?
Dîtes-moi! Tell me!
Maintenant! Now!
Je suis anglais I am English
Mais oui But yes/but of course
Mes amis My friends
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my family: my mum and dad, who this book is dedicated to, for their love and support. To my sister, Hester, my grandparents, and the extended Kitchens and Brays. And to the Cottons/Colliers/Bishops/Rices.
Thank you to Adam Collier, who has been a constant source of encouragement, support, proofreads and love.
Thank you to Claire Wilson, the wisest and most wonderful of agents. Thank you, always, to Sarah Hughes.
Thank you to everyone at HarperCollins Children’s Books. In particular, thank you to my editor Rachel Denwood – I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. Your care, insight and sense of humour have been a dream, and I’ve learned so much from you. Thank you also to Yasmin Morrissey, Nick Lake, Anna Bowles, Samantha Stewart, Julia Sanderson, Louisa Sheridan, Jo-Anna Parkinson, Jess Dean, Sam White, Elisa Offord, Beth Maher, Alex Cowan, David McDougall, Elorine Grant, Francesca Lecchini-Lee, Carla Alonzi and Ann-Janine Murtagh.
Thank you to Paola Escobar for her beautiful illustrations and bringing the world of Pages & Co. to life.
Thank you to my friends for many and various things: Laura Iredale, Ruth Heatley, Jo Kitchen, Naomi Kent, Naomi Reed, Sarah Richards, Cat Doyle, Katie Webber, Kevin Tsang, Eve Tsang, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Tom de Freston, Laure Eve, Kate Rundell, Rosalind Jana, Paul Black, Reece Haydon Black, Chris Smith, Anne Miller, Lizzie Morris, Jamie Wright, Jon Usher, Jen Herlihy, Lucie Mussett, Sarah Worth, Amy Stutz, Erin Minogue, Eric Anderson, Sarah McKenna, Matt Fairhall and Lex Brookman.
Thank you so much to the bookshops, librarians, teachers and bloggers who have read and written about and supported the books.
And most of all thank you to the readers of Pages & Co. It means everything to me that this story has meant something to you.
Keep Reading …
Have you bookwandered into book one …?
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