Spinebreaker (Library Gate Series Book 2) Page 11

  April shivered at the thought, but Randall rubbed his chin. “I don’t know,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind seeing a wurm.”

  Dorian rolled his eyes. “You think that until you see one.”

  April shook her head. “We’re wasting time.” She turned to Dorian. “No matter what, we’re going to go through the portal at the time shown in the book, right?”

  Dorian shook his head. “Not necessarily. Now that we’ve witnessed part of the action, it’s probable that we’re locked into time with it, meaning that time there is moving relative to ours.”

  “Has any other book ever been locked like this?” April asked.

  “Only one that I know of. Mine.”

  “Oh.” April decided to consider the revelation about Dorian’s world later. “So there’s a possibility of missing them?”

  “It’s impossible to know for sure.”

  “I think this is as good a spot as any.” The text on the page described Braddy (Rico, she thought in her head) and the Nisser riding their ponies through rainy weather in the forest. She wasn’t looking forward to the rain and cold, but at least there weren’t any trolls.

  She placed the book on the table. Once they stood in front of the gate, she turned back to Barty. “We’ll be back soon. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

  Braddy glanced up from his book. “If you lot want to be out fighting baobhan sith and whatnot in the bitter cold, be my guests. I’ll be here where it’s warm.”

  They walked through the gate again. April allowed herself a few seconds to marvel that she barely noticed the transition. A little more than three weeks ago she hadn’t known the gate existed. Now she was walking through the veil as blithely as if she were stepping into an elevator.

  Icy drips of rain pelted her skin. She thought of her warm coat hanging uselessly on the peg in her office. She shivered.

  Focus. You need to keep an eye out for Rico.

  They walked around, and she looked behind her. The gate had appeared in a small cave set between two large boulders that leaned against each other. They were surrounded by trees.

  “Where’s the road?” Randall asked. They looked around. They didn’t appear to be near the road at all.

  “It must be close,” April said. “We probably can’t see it through the trees. Come on…”

  “Curious.”

  They looked up to the tops of the boulders at the source of the voice. A tall man in a fitted black jacket complete with tails crouched on top of the boulder. He peered down at them intently. The oversized top hat on his head did little to stop the rain from dripping into his eyes, though the inclement weather didn’t seem to bother him. In his right hand he grasped a wand.

  Rex whined nervously, as though the magician had taken even him by surprise.

  “It’s Labhras,” April said.

  “How do you know, Miss I-don’t-read?” Randall asked.

  “Rico pointed him out last night.”

  “True,” the tall magician said. “I am Labhras, and Labhras is me. I am pleased that you know my name. But the true question is, what are three groundlings doing out in the wilderness—in a storm, no less—so far from Groundsville? Any magician worth his wand knows groundlings prefer to stay indoors with a warm fire, a generous plate of scones and a steaming pot of tea.” He leaned in closer to them. “Or maybe you’re not groundlings at all. Perhaps you merely look like them.”

  They stared at each other, each wondering how to answer Labhras’ question. The lack of response angered the magician. He snapped his fingers, and the sound of thunder erupted from them. For a moment the clatter drowned out the storm. Any person for miles around would have heard the crack and remarked at it being a particularly loud crack of thunder.

  Rex barked, a high-pitched sound, and then crouched behind Randall’s legs.

  The others looked at April. She was the Pagewalker, after all. She stepped forward. “The… power that sent us protects us by masking our true appearance. We mean no harm.”

  “The power?” Labhras mused. “You mean the door beneath my feet? The one that leads somewhere and nowhere at all?”

  April wasn’t sure what he meant, and at the same time it made a strange sort of sense. She nodded, though she wasn’t sure he saw the gesture because he continued to speak.

  “And what is a door for, if not to be opened and walked through? Who are you in relation to this door?” he gestured to her with his staff, and she fought the urge to shrink back, remembering the thunder-like clatter it had made a few seconds earlier.

  Who was she? “I… I am the one who walks through it. I am the one who opens it.” She gestured to Dorian and Randall. “And these are my friends. They help me with the… walking through and opening.”

  Labhras nodded. “So it is. And why did you walk through this particular door?”

  April rushed to answer. Perhaps Labhras could help them get Rico back. “Our friend was taken by a party of Nisser. It is a mistake that he is here. We need to find him.”

  “You mean Mr. Evers?” Labhras mused.

  She nodded. “Can you help us?”

  He ignored her question. “It was no mistake that he started this journey. I am the one who sent him on it.”

  “What?” April looked at Randall. He’d told her that in the book Braddy had gone on a journey with a group of Nisser in search of treasure. “Why?”

  “Why, indeed.” He punctuated the question with a short ha. “I could sense something in him. For all his finery and teas, he was not like the other groundlings. I could sense that he needed an adventure, mayhaps more than the Nisser needed a serviceable sneak-thief. I’d been searching these parts for days and hadn’t found a single groundling who would do, even in a pinch. Then I found Braddy.”

  “But he’s not really Braddy!” April shouted.

  For a moment there was a look like thunder in the magician’s eyes, and April shrank back from him. But then he seemed to consider her words.

  “Not really Braddy… hmm…” he worried the rounded top of his staff. “Well you’re right about that, and you’re also not.”

  “What? How can I be both right and not right at the same time?”

  “When your friend is at once Braddy and not Braddy, just as you are groundlings and not groundlings.”

  “But he’s not,” April insisted.

  “He is for the time being, at least,” Labhras said.

  “So what should we do?” Dorian yelled from behind her.

  “You must wait until the adventure is complete. Then you can get your friend back.”

  “But we need him back now!” April said.

  “You will have to wait. You don’t have much choice in the matter.” He pressed his lower lip upwards as though thinking about something. “Who knows? Maybe one adventure can become two.”

  “What?”

  Labhras ignored her question. “The road is a few paces in that direction. If you walk down it, the adventure party, of which your not-Braddy is currently a member, is about ten minutes away. They had just passed by when you came out of your door from nowhere.”

  “Thank you,” April said, relieved to finally get a helpful, non-gibberish answer out of him. “Come on, guys. Let’s go.”

  Labhras shook his head with a chuckle. “But I wouldn’t recommend it. There are dangerous creatures in these woods.”

  “Well, that’s just fine,” April said. She was about to tell Labhras that she was tired of all the riddles and roundabout answers, but a flash of lighting struck somewhere behind the magician. When the light faded from their eyes, Labhras was gone.

  “That was annoying,” she said. “Let’s go.” She stepped towards the road in the direction Labhras had indicated, but Randall and Dorian didn’t immediately follow her. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Labhras said not to go that way,” Dorian said.

  Randall nodded. “You haven’t read The First Adventure of Braddy Evers, but I have. Labhras is a smart dude. He might be
vague and archaic sometimes, but he generally gives good advice, and he’s always on the side of the greater good.”

  Dorian shook his head. “It may appear that way, but I’ve read articles in journals where Labhras is painted in a not-so-great light—”

  April started to walk towards the road. “Guys, I’m going. With or without you.”

  The scuffling behind her told her that Randall and Dorian were following her. After a few paces, she emerged onto a wide dirt path. Hoof prints in the mud were barely visible as the rain quickly melted them away.

  April clapped her hands. Rico was just up the road from them. All they had to do was follow, and soon he’d be home, safe. She was about to turn to the others and ask if they thought it was best to go and grab Braddy from the library when the trees on the left side of the road about fifty paces ahead began to rustle. Some of the trees were at least thirty feet high.

  April watched in horror as two large creatures moved out. They were three times taller than Randall. They were humanoid in only the most basic ways: each had a head, two arms, and two legs. But their heads were lumpy and bulbous, their arms long, gangling, and wiry. They stared with dull, vacant eyes.

  “UNCs,” Dorian said.

  “Trolls,” Randall said.

  “UNC trolls,” April finished.

  “We have to go back,” Dorian said. “We’ll try again at a later point in the story.”

  “That’s what we’ve been doing,” April said. “It’s not working. We’re just going to keep doing this and being one step behind until—”

  “Until we find him,” Dorian said, “But we’ll find him. I promise we will.”

  Up ahead, the trolls began to lumber towards them. It looked like they weren’t going to wait for April, Randall, and Dorian to make a move.

  Without any other choice, they turned back, running for the two gray boulders the gate had wedged itself between. Through the veil they could see Barty and Braddy sitting at the table nearest the gate. Barty tapped at his phone nervously; Braddy frowned down at The First Adventure of Braddy Evers paperback.

  They heard the thundering steps of the trolls behind them.

  “Go!” Randall said, and he pushed her through the veil, Rex coming right after her. He and Dorian followed. No sooner had they turned around and looked back through the gate then they saw clubs smashing against the small opening. Drops of water from the ends of their clubs splashed onto the hardwood floor.

  April spluttered, trembling from a mixture of cold and frustration. She looked at Randall and Dorian. They, too, were pale and washed-out. At least Randall had his coat on—a perk of always having your possessions on you. Rex shook, splashing them all with muddy water.

  “Let’s go to the next scene,” April said. She walked towards the book, but Dorian stopped her.

  “We need to dissect what just happened,” he said. “Acting rashly will not help us.”

  April wanted to resist, to tell them that they needed to get back inside the book now, but her own freezing limbs stopped her. Her body insisted in remaining in the warm library, which felt like a sauna after standing in the freezing rain and wind.

  “Yeah,” Randall said. “How did Labhras know about the gate, anyway?”

  April had wondered the same thing, but she’d already formed a theory on the matter. “I think that magical beings can sense the gate.” She explained about the genie and how he’d been able to see through her disguise the first time she met him.

  “But Labhras wasn’t able to see through our disguises—he only sensed that we weren’t what we said we were.”

  “It must work differently based on each book.”

  Randall nodded. “Makes sense, in a way. The magic of the realms is subtler than, say, that of Harry Potter. I haven’t read One Thousand and One Nights, but I’m guessing the same principle may apply there.” Randall turned to Barty.

  “You’re a warlock,” he said. “Can you tell that something is different about Braddy?” he gestured to the small groundling, who was still reading the book, the frown lines on his face growing deeper.

  “Aside from the fact that he’s half my height? No.”

  Dorian shook his head. “When a character crosses over into the library they don’t arrive in disguise. It only works the other way around. That’s not—”

  “Guys,” April said. “For every second that passes here, minutes, maybe hours, pass over there. We need to go back in, now.”

  “She’s right,” Dorian said. “But we need warmer clothes.”

  “I have my winter coat,” April said. “Randall’s already wearing his. Let’s see…” she walked over to the reference desk and pulled out the lost and found. Inside was a windbreaker, and several mismatched gloves. She pulled a couple of the gloves out along with the windbreaker and brought them over to Dorian, who gazed down at them with distaste.

  “I suppose it’s better than freezing to death,” he said, taking them out of her hands. He grimaced as he zipped the windbreaker. “Smells like tobacco smoke. Let’s go.”

  They flipped ahead a few pages, the gate whomping with each turn. They chose a page where the adventure party had stopped to camp for the night.

  “Something’s wrong,” Randall said, looking through the gate. April could hear the frown in his voice. “It’s daylight. It should be night.”

  April glanced at the text in the book. He was right.

  “Well, let’s see what’s going on,” April said. The others nodded. They walked through the gate.

  The rain had stopped, though the drip, drip of the remaining water escaping the canopy above their heads surrounded them. Early-morning sunlight filtered yellow-green through the treetops.

  The gate had opened in the mouth of a makeshift shelter beneath a large stone overhang jutting out from a hill. The ground was littered with the signs of an abandoned camp: broken twigs, shelters, and other various refuse. Near the edge of the overhang was a firepit filled with ash and blackened wood.

  “They’ve left,” Dorian said. “The story has moved on from here.”

  Damn it. April kicked the pile of dripping sticks. When were they going to get Rico back?

  “What’s that?” Randall was looking at the back of the cave. April squinted in that direction. She saw something that looked like a boulder, but there was something strange about it…

  “It’s a woman,” she said, seeing the curve of the knees and the angle of elbows held over the woman’s face as though to protect her eyes from unbearably bright light. “She may need help.”

  The woman remained perfectly still as April approached. She hadn’t moved since they’d entered the cave. And why was she pallid, almost gray?

  “She’s… a statue?” April said, stopping a couple feet from the woman. She reached out to touch her, but then pulled her hand away, thinking better of it.

  “The baobhan sith,” Randall said.

  “The vampire?” April said, stepping away from the woman.

  “Yes. In the book she turns to stone when the sun touches her.”

  “Sun turns vampires into stone?” April asked.

  “At least baobhan sith.”

  April stared down at the woman. “We should go back to the library,” she said.

  They were about to head back to the gate when something in the clearing caught April’s eye. It was a triangular pile of rocks set at the head of a rectangle of overturned earth. A grave.

  “No!” she ran towards it, stopping next to it. There was no mistaking it for what it was. It was so fresh that the mound of dirt hadn’t yet collapsed downwards.

  Dorian, Randall, and Rex ran up beside her.

  “It’s not Rico,” Randall said.

  Dorian nodded. “He’s the title character. The title character can’t die.”

  “Then who is it?” April asked, her voice croaking.

  Randall screwed up his face. “I think one of the Nisser fell victim to the baobhan sith, but I’m not sure.”

  “Y
ou’re not sure?” April asked. “How can someone die in a children’s book?”

  Everyone was silent. They stared down at the grave. Randall said, “What do we do now?”

  “We go back to the library and head them off at the next scene,” April said.

  Dorian shook his head. “No. That’s what we’ve been doing, and it hasn’t worked.”

  “What, then?” April asked, tired of trying to come up with solutions to a problem that she was rapidly beginning to believe was unsolvable. You can’t think like that, she reminded herself. Keep trying for Rico.

  “We’re always one step behind,” Dorian said. “Too much about this world is taking us by surprise.”

  “And how do you propose we solve that?” April asked, crossing her arms.

  “How many copies of The First Adventure of Braddy Evers does the library own?” Dorian asked. “At least three?”

  Randall nodded. “A popular book like that, yeah.”

  “Wait,” April said. “Rico is trapped in this world and you want to sit in the library and read?”

  “We need to learn more about this world. We need to read, note down details, and then make a plan. No more flailing about.”

  “But that means Rico has to face whatever happens in the next chapter by himself.”

  “Fairies.” Randall said.

  “What?”

  “The next chapter takes place in the fairy city.”

  “If you know that, what’s the point of us all going back and reading?”

  “We should all know what’s going on,” Dorian said. “Not just Randall. One of us might see something that he doesn’t, and he can’t always be around to explain things to us.”

  April turned to Randall. “What do you think about this?”

  Randall looked between them, then finally breathed out. “He’s right. We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. To be honest, it’s been a while since I read this book, and I could use a refresher.”

  Any hope that April had of Randall backing her up dissipated. She looked off into the distance, wondering which direction Rico had gone. How far away was he? He could be just over the next hill, or through the trees…