The Hidden Library Page 21

  The oversized Cat leaps up into my arms. And then, amazingly, it shrinks down into a normal-sized cat. “You are the Queen’s chosen consort. There has been some discussion about this, as it is an unprecedented occurrence. The general consensus holds your title to be Prince Finn, but . . .” It yawns a fishy-smelling yawn. “There wasn’t time to have the heralds announce. You will have to suffer with Sir until then.”

  I don’t even know what to say, let alone think of that.

  The Cat grooms itself as I make our way through the camp. Grymsdyke crawls out of my coat and assumes his perch on my shoulder. Forget Wonderland. I’ve obviously edited into The Story of Dr. Doolittle.

  VICTOR RESUMES GRILLING TODD as soon as his brother departs, tweaking his questions for specific answers. Three doses of truth serum are administered, and by the start of the third, Todd is effectively drugged to the point he isn’t able to evade concise answers as his comrades had. Victor, on the other hand, appears as if he can go for hours and hours. His eyes shine with a light I know all too well. A mad one that leaves me concerned.

  “Whom do you work for?”

  “Now,” Todd slurs, “tha’ll depen’ on how you look at it. I work for who I am tol’ to work for. For example, I worked for tha’ angry lady who din’t feel too kind t’ward li’l Miss Wonderland.”

  Victor knocks a rough hand against Todd’s face, rousing his eyes open. “Rosemary and Jenkins claim they have never spoken to anyone else. Rosemary got her orders from you; Jenkins got his from email and courier. How did you get your orders?”

  Todd’s nose bunches up, as if he, even as drugged upon truth serum as he is, cannot quite remember. “I jus’ knew sometimes. Woke up knowin’ about where to go an’ what to get. Sometimes I got meself a nice book or a piece o’ newsprint, o’ a pretty package . . . But there was the calls.” His eyes, glazed now to the point his pupils were wide and eclipsed the irises, shine.

  Upon his capture, Todd had no phone on him. No search of Ex Libris recovered one, either.

  “Who called you? Did you know a name?”

  “Name?” Todd’s confusion grows. “Wha’ is a name? There was names. Plenty o’ ’em. Kop—Koppen—Koppenberg? Koppelberg? Somethin’ like that. It changed, see. And ‘e liked Buntin,’ although I only ‘eard tha’ once o’ twice. Got right mad at me for rememmering.” The fiend lazily taps his forehead, but mistakingly pokes himself in the eye. Ha! “I remmemmer, though. I remmemmer ‘is voice. Sweet as an angel’s, it ’twas, and sometimes a devil, too.”

  “Did you meet this Koppenberg? Koppelberg? Bunting? In person, I mean?”

  I think if he had the strength of mind to do so, Todd might very well roll his eyes. “You don’ meet your maker, do ya? ‘E speaks to you with signs and messages.”

  Victor grills him on Rosemary. On Jenkins. On all their relationships. On my attack again, and who ordered it. On why his accent changes (to which I am grateful, considering I wondered myself)—he is, according to Todd, a “man of many tongues and worlds.” Victor queries how Todd knew Finn and I were in 1876/96TWA-TS, or even 1814AUS-MP earlier in the year.

  A flying man bearing secrets told him, the pseudo-barber claims.

  “Who is the flying man? What’s his name?”

  “‘E don’ see fit to tell me that. ‘E’s a creepy thing, though. I cut him once, to see if ‘e bleeds red. We ‘ave an understandin’ between us, though.”

  Victor keeps at it for hours. Some questions are asked repeatedly, reworded each time to attempt a different, more concise response. And yet, the more serum Todd has, and despite the better his answers, he’s now slurring his words together so strongly it has become difficult to discern proper meanings.

  Just when my own eyelids are drooping, and I’ve begun fantasizing about all the ways I will may Todd pay for what he’s done to me, Van Brunt pulls his son aside. Calls Mary over, asking her to go prepare something. Victor argues, eventually turning belligerent, but in the end, he departs with Mary. In his place, the father sits on a stool by the barber’s bed. He holds out a photograph for Todd to view. “Do you know where Finn found this?”

  It takes a good twenty-seconds of squinting before Todd’s eyes light up. “Rose, they ‘ave one o’ your pretty photographs.”

  Rose does not answer him, having been sedated several times herself in the last several hours. Victor had no mercy for her, and it’s questionable as to whether or not she’s actually still breathing. As for me, I cannot obtain a decent look at the photograph. Van Brunt has it angled just right so that all I get is a glare of gloss.

  Eventually, the Society’s leader tucks it back into his pocket. “Do you know anything about Bücherei?”

  Wait—Bücherei? Is he talking about Gabriel Lygari’s home Finn and I went to awhile back?

  Todd’s head lolls back and forth. “What’s Boosh—Boosher . . .” He snorts. “I don’ know any Boosh.”

  “Do you know why the library was hidden from my team?”

  Todd’s giggles are closer to gurgles, but he has nothing to share concerning any hidden libraries. What does Van Brunt mean, the library was hidden? The one at Bücherei? How does a library hide?

  The next few minutes are spent on the flying man and whether his name was perhaps Peter Pan. And if so, did he, Todd, ever work with Wendy?

  This only leads to more giggles but no concrete confirmations.

  Pan . . . That is the name of the boy who kidnaps members of Wendy’s family, is it not? And—what does Van Brunt mean, did Todd conspire with Wendy?

  Argh. Son of a jabberwocky, it is highly inconvenient not being able to speak.

  Now awake, the green-haired beauty in question has laid strapped to her bed, quiet for hours. She has not argued, she has not questioned as to why she’s restrained. She has simply lain there, listening like the rest of us. I do not like the way her eyes look, though. They’re dull, almost as if a spark has been extinguished within her.

  Eventually, the villain ceases responding. His eyes remain propped half open, as does his mouth. Drool spills out, and it’s an unpleasant sight if there ever was one.

  “Show’s over,” Mary says. She’s returned, Victorless. “Alice is nearly asleep here.”

  While it’s the truth, I also am desperate for answers that Todd cannot give us. For example, Finn has been gone for what I believe is over a full day. Nobody has bothered to inform me of his whereabouts, and as I am unable to ask myself, I am left moodily stewing in resentment and curiosity as Mary pushes me out of the main room and back into my smaller one. One would think they would offer me such information, yet none apparently think I have a right to know.

  He said he was going to fix this. And then he left to destinations unknown.

  The thought of him going up against the Queen of Hearts is terrifying. It’s not that I don’t believe in his talent with weaponry or his ability in a fight, it’s just . . . If Hearts was to know what he means to me, she would do everything in her power to tear him apart in the most vicious of ways in her quest to send me a message.

  Of course, she already has sent me several, hasn’t she? The Caterpillar, the drugs . . . Still. The image of Hearts with her giant battle-axe, hacking away at Finn, is more than I can bear.

  Marianne slips into the room, ensuring the door is closed firmly behind her.

  “Want to share why Finn and Victor were furious with you?”

  For the love of God, please do not let these two ladies go at it again. They’ve been politely yet insidiously snipping at one another for weeks now.

  The woman who has played nursemaid to me comes over and helps Mary get me into the bed. “I am assuming they have been informed of the full extent of my role here at the Institute.”

  Mary pulls up the blankets and tucks them around me. A nearby cup filled with vile, thick, so-called nutritious liquid is readied for me to sip via a straw. I may not be able to move much, but at least I can swallow. She asks Marianne, “Which is?”

  “I was cont
racted to come in and search all of the Society’s security systems, databases, and record logs for discrepancies.”

  This surprises both Mary and me. Mary asks, her voice decidedly less hostile than of late, “Isn’t that kind of technology beyond a woman from a Janeite Timeline?”

  I turn my head away from the cup and straw. I have no appetite of late.

  Marianne sighs quietly. “When my husband, the Colonel, was still alive, we discussed our desire to participate more in the Society. He, being of military background, found a sense of genteel duty in it. I found it an exciting prospect, as it would give me purpose. I was a bit lost then. Our second baby had died, and I feared I would never hold one in my arms that could breathe. Brandon contacted Brom, and we discussed several roles I might find fulfilling here at the Institute.” Her smile is bittersweet. “During a visit, I became enamored with the technology associated with the Twenty-First Century. It felt . . . magical, in a way. I saw it as one might see music—there were patterns and rhythms to be decoded, and lines to be played. And then, when Brandon died . . .” She reaches down and tucks the blankets around my legs. “I could not stand to be at home any longer, rattling alone in that great big house all by myself. My sister and her family were nearby, as was my mother and younger sister, but I needed something of my own. I dug out Brandon’s equipment he used to communicate with the Society and contacted Brom. I spoke of my wishes, and he was pleasant enough to accommodate me. I was sent to several various Timelines to hone my skills, and have spent the better part of three years now living anywhere that is not home.”

  For a moment, nothing is said. Mary simply stares at Marianne. And then, miraculously, she reaches across my bed and lays a hand on Marianne’s arm. “You go, girl.”

  Marianne’s relief is noticeable. “Several weeks ago, the Librarian contacted me and inquired if I could come in and surreptitiously have a look around to determine if anything was amiss. She revealed nothing other than the Society was having difficulties finding the culprit or culprits behind the Timeline deletions. Conveniently, at the same time, the Janeites were in a state over not standing on the sidelines with Society matters. I volunteered to come and do both. Only, the Librarian urged me to remain quiet about my secondary mission, even from Finn. I loathed keeping him in the dark, but I did as asked. Victor was equally unaware.”

  “Men.” Mary rolls her eyes. “Their feelings get hurt over the stupidest things.”

  A sharp pain in my lower back erupts. Could I arch off the bed, I would, but as it is, I simply release a keening cry that’s impossible to contain. Blinding pain tears through me, unlike anything I have ever felt before. Colors swirl my vision until I am consumed; ringing fills my ears. Breathing turns laborious.

  Pain saturates every inch of my body.

  I think—I think people are in the room. Hands might be upon me. I fear I’m crying or screaming or both. I cannot see, cannot do anything but sink into pain.

  Madness is a funny thing. One can live with it for ages: embrace it, fall into it, lose their inhibitions with it. Priorities shift. Realities change. Understandings transition. Madness, in a lot of ways, is a comfort. Madness allows soft footing past harsh truths we yearn to flinch away from.

  Since my surfacing from madness, I’ve embraced logic. I’ve craved reality. And in return, I was handed a new kind of existence that asked me to let go of everything I ever knew and accept my world, and that of others, is not what was thought. That life was, in fact, more. That the surface we walked upon was thin and the depth below vast.

  And now, ironically, madness is here to claim me again. Pain, blistering, consuming pain, is its own form of madness. And it has come for me, at long last, from the hands of one of my greatest foes.

  The Queen of Hearts has found her way to slay me, and I am no longer even in Wonderland for her victory to take place.

  I GUESS THE GOOD thing about traveling with people who are technically insane is that they don’t really question things. Alice was different once she settled into the Society and began to trust me. Alice asked about the mechanics of everything. How do pens work? How does editing work? Why these books? Where does the door come from? Where does it go when it disappears? What about catalysts? Why are certain things picked for catalysts and not others? Why does a Timeline disappear when a catalyst is destroyed? Do we have, in fact, proof that the people are gone?

  She’s asked me all of these things over the last year. I did my best to answer her based on what I know, but I kind of loved that she never seemed satisfied with just the bare bones. She always wants to know more.

  But she is not with me right now. She’s back at the Institute, and I am instead trudging across a windswept bluff in Wales with a Wonderlandian King, a talking cat and spider, and a lethal pikeman, none of whom is asking me any details other than how long it will take us to get back to this New York City I hail from. Our journey from the encampment back to the rabbit hole wasn’t exactly filled with a lot of talk, either. Attacked twice, once by a squadron of Hearts soldiers three times our numbers, we’ve all pretty much hit our limits. Bloody, bruised, and a pair of us running on nothing more than fumes, it’s a miracle we came through as we did.

  “It seems,” the Cat said after the last fight, licking blood off its paws, “you can’t throw a stone and not hit a Heart nowadays.”

  Let us hope that is true, because I’ve got a bone to pick with a very specific Heart.

  I write us directly into the medical wing. We have no time to lose, according to the Cat. And the moment we all step through and the door vanishes behind me, screaming reaches my ears.

  It’s Alice.

  I’m immediately pushing myself into the small room she’s been staying in off the wing, fighting past the people already crowded around her bed. She’s screaming, her eyes rolled back so far all I can see are the whites. My brother looks up and says, “Thank God you’re back! Alice started screaming about an hour ago, and now she’s not even responding to any of us anymore. I have no idea what’s happening. I was just about to call an ambulance.”

  The Cat jumps up on the bed. Its amber eyes impossibly widen even more. “Pray we are not too late. Clear this room.”

  I don’t stop for the questions people are throwing out at me, the ones wondering about why in the hell there’s an oversized, talking cat on the bed or why a spider has just climbed out of my coat. I say, clearly and firmly, “Everyone but Victor and the people I’ve just brought with me, get the hell out of here.”

  This pisses Mary off big time, but I don’t care.

  The Five of Diamonds stations himself at the door. Victor notices him and frowns. “What in the bloody hell did you go and get that wanker for?” But I ignore him, too.

  “Help me turn her over,” the White King says. He looks just as close as I am to losing his shit, listening to the woman we love scream like this. She’s stiff as a board, every muscle in her body elongated and tightened to the fullest, and all I’m thinking as we’re doing our best to carefully roll her over is: I can’t lose her.

  “You won’t,” the King says quietly. “I will not allow it.”

  Did I say it out loud?

  “You there,” the Cat says to Victor. “Fetch us a sharp knife, a bowl of water, some towels, bandages, and a jar with a lid. Be quick about it.”

  Thankfully, Victor doesn’t give any crap to being ordered around by a cat. He’s out the door, rummaging through cabinets and drawers.

  The King spreads open the back of Alice’s medical gown. He traces a long, pale finger down her equally pale back until he comes to a bulge at the base of her spine. It pulses gently, glowing silver.

  The King looks up at his advisor, his pale eyes wide with terror.

  “I don’t not think it has fully molted,” the Cat says. “Her Majesty is not yet showing signs of such. But we must be quick of it.” It looks up and through the window; Victor is running water in the bowl. “Sire, do you have what is necessary?”

  The
King digs into a small bag he’s brought along. “Yes.”

  “Then begin the poultice. It must be ready to go as soon as we pull the boojum out, and must not have cooled past inefficiency.”

  Victor comes back into the room with all the supplies loaded onto a rolling cart. “Shut the door,” the King orders the pikeman standing guard. “Allow none in.”

  The pikeman steps outside and shuts the door behind him.

  As he extracts the items from his bag, the King looks up at me. “Snarks are nasty beasties, but the worst of all the species are the boojums. Many ages ago, these beasties were used to torture and terrify my kind. Inserted into the spine, they paralyze their hosts until they molt. At that point, they snap the host’s spine and then proceed to devour them as a first meal. In essence, they cause their victim to disappear. The boojum then grows to its host size and often will molt once more and assume the host’s shape. They could not talk, though. They only could eat. And eat they did—villages were ravaged by these beasties, families torn apart. The only way to kill an adult boojum was to burn it alive. The Courts banded together and forbid their use. Anyone caught using one would be put to death. The beasties were eradicated as best as possible. We have not had a case of boojum infestation in hundreds of years. To think that Hearts tracked one down, cultivated it to the point it was viable . . .” He cracks open a small, bright-blue egg and dumps it into a silver-lined bowl. “It is unspeakable.” His voice wavers. “The Queen must be in unconceivable pain right now.”

  The Cat is standing on Alice’s back, hissing and swatting at the bulge. “You, physician.” It flicks its stubby tail toward Victor. “Are you good with cutting?”

  “Very,” my brother says firmly. He’s a bit calmer, thank God, but it’s obvious he’s still take aback by a talking cat who can’t seem to decide what size it ought to be, or what transparency.

  “Be prepared to slice above this mound at my command.”

  The King sprinkles gray powder into the egg mixture. “Your hand, Finn. Please present it to the Cheshire-Cat.”