Authors: Marissa Burt
U
na’s fingers were stained red from berry juice. The afternoon’s Outdoor Experiential Questing class was about camping essentials, and Professor Edenberry thought they were advanced enough to identify poison berries in the row of bushes planted in a clearing. It sounded straightforward enough, but Peter and Sam wouldn’t stop grumbling.
“What a pointless assignment,” Sam growled. “Everyone knows you don’t eat poison berries in the woods.” He seemed to have no trouble sorting out the shiny red berries.
“I can’t tell them apart,” Peter said. “What the heck kind of project is this? They’re
all
shiny and red.”
Una took small comfort in his difficulty. He didn’t seem regretful at all that he’d sneaked off to the Museum without her.
“And if you’d gotten caught?” he had said in a perfectly calm voice. “What then? Me, they’d just expel.”
Una couldn’t argue with that except to say, “I wouldn’t have gotten caught.”
Professor Edenberry picked his way behind her as he went from student to student. Una had a hard time thinking of him as anything but a nice old man who lived a secret double life. Along with the Merriweathers. And Elton. And Endeavor Truepenny. Was there no person in Story who was actually as they appeared to be?
Una heedlessly tossed berries into her tray. Who cared about learning to avoid poisonous berries when the Muses were still in Story? She moved a bit closer to the bush Peter was eyeing as though it was a dragon needing slaying. “Tell me about Virtus’s room again,” she whispered. “And the pedestal.”
Peter plucked a black berry, scrutinized it, and tossed it aside. “Stop torturing yourself, Una. That pedestal hadn’t been used in ages.”
Una choked back a nasty comment. Peter hadn’t sounded so sure of himself when he first got back from the Museum. Whatever he said now, he had been creeped out.
“Right,” said Sam as he popped a dangerous-looking white berry into his mouth with no adverse effect. “You’d need a Muse book to work it anyway.”
“And the symbol on the pedestal?” she asked. “You said it might have been a tree. Did it look anything like this?” She pulled a crumpled paper out of her pocket and shoved it at Peter. It was the drawing of the tree the old lady at the Vault had given them. “And you didn’t see anything about the King? If
I
had been there, I
know
I could have found out something.”
“Una . . .” Red berries thumped forcefully into Peter’s tray. “Forget about the King. We need to focus on the Muses.” He reached for another berry, and his tray hit a branch. Berries spilled everywhere.
Una pretended not to hear Peter swear. “But the King’s important,” she said under her breath. “What do you think, Sam?” she asked to distract herself.
“Actually”—Sam sat back on his haunches—“I tend to agree with Una. According to Animal Lore, there was in fact a Good King, a great friend to cats and other furry beasts. Of course, our ancients say the King had some feline aid when he ruled long ago, but who’s to say? We have quite heated discussions about it in the Quorum.”
Una and Peter both stared at Sam. Una had never heard him say so many words all at once.
“The Quorum?” Peter asked.
“Animal Lore?” Una said. “You mean you know something about the King?”
Sam inelegantly raised his hind leg over his head and began to lick. “In general, the affairs of humans are of little interest to us. No offense, Una.”
“Sam! Why haven’t you said anything before?” Peter demanded.
“You never asked,” Sam said as he squinted at them.
Just then Horace, who was two bushes over, began to choke and gag. Professor Edenberry approached with a resigned look on his face. “Remember. Do not eat any of the berries until I check your work,” he said in a loud voice, and looked at Horace’s eyes. “Off to the Healer with you, son.”
Una picked berries in silence until Edenberry moved out of the clearing. “What else do you know, Sam? Anything about WIs?”
Sam yawned. “We care little for such disturbances. Yes, there have been cats who claimed to have once been in another world. But a patch of sunlight here or there, what’s the difference?” He blinked his eyes like some ancient philosopher dispensing wisdom.
“You can’t be serious,” Peter said.
Sam widened his eyes at Peter, and then they became slits. “If you’re not interested, I won’t bore you with the secrets of the Feline Quorum,” he said, and curled his tail neatly around his forepaws.
“Of course we’re interested!” Una exclaimed, but despite all her well-aimed compliments and the scratching of Sam’s favorite spots, he remained silent.
“Way to go, Peter,” Una said after class. “Maybe he knows other stuff! I can’t believe I never asked him what he thought.” She looked over at Sam, who was now talking to a pretty calico.
“Animal Lore’s all right for stories around the campfire, Una, but you can’t go believing everything you hear. They’d just as soon tell you the King was a giant tiger as tell you the truth about anything. Most of their Tales are full of poems called ‘Lines on a Rat in the Sun’ and stuff like that.”
Sam was heading their way. She elbowed Peter in the ribs. If he would just shut up, she might be able to find out something else.
“Can you tell us anything about the Muses? What do you think, Sam? Do any of the felines know why they Wrote characters In?” she asked courteously.
“Who are we going to ask next, Una?” Peter asked, rubbing his ribs. “Squirrels? The ponies down at the farm? That’s crazy!”
“I
said
, ‘What do you think,
Sam
?’” Una turned her back on Peter.
Like I haven’t heard Peter’s opinion a hundred times already.
Sam didn’t deign to reply to Peter. Instead he brushed by Una. “You people are just distracted by the nonessentials.” They crossed a little footbridge, and he hopped up onto the railing.
Peter crossed his arms. “Which are?”
“Which of you is right, who should have gone to the Museum, blah, blah, blah.” Sam leaped down from the railing, landing softly in the fallen leaves. “What you need to do is work with what you have. Have you figured out a way to break the enchantment on the book from the Vault?”
“He has a point,” Una said, giving Sam a quick scratch.
Peter was looking at Sam with something akin to respect. “You’re absolutely right, Sam. I’ve been so caught up with what I found in Virtus’s room, I almost forgot about the book.” He reached for Sam, who easily moved out of his grasp.
“I think, Peter,” he said archly, “you are confusing me with a dog.” And, with a polite nod to Una, Sam walked off into the woods, his tail arched in a perfect question mark.
Una laughed out loud. “I think you have offended an esteemed member of the Feline Quorum,” she said.
Peter didn’t smile. He was looking back toward Birchwood Hall. “‘Books that you carry to the fire and hold readily to hand are the most useful after all.’ That’s what Thornhill said. What do you think it means?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Una led the way back to Birchwood Hall, but she said little. Sam was right. Reading the book was important. If what she thought was correct, finding answers wasn’t just about discovering why she had been Written In. It was solving a mystery that stretched back to before the Muses. And somehow the missing pieces—the books, who it was that Wrote her In, what had happened with the Muses—they all fit together to form a picture of the King.
P
eter and Una met at the entrance to the gardens later that night. “Are you sure no one will find us here?” Una asked.
“I’m not
sure
, but it’s the best place I can think of,” Peter said, leading the way down the twisty garden path. “Besides, most of the students are in bed, and it’s too cold for doing much outside anyway.”
Una followed silently after him. Her breath made little puffs in the frosty air. Above her, wooden bridges connected the upper levels of Birchwood Hall. She hoped nobody was looking down at them.
The path led them under arbors and through hedges. Little offshoots trailed into the surrounding forest, but Peter didn’t take one of these. Deeper and deeper into the gardens they went, until Peter finally ducked around the back of a little shed and set his lantern on the ground.
Una drew her cloak snug about her and tucked her hands inside. She watched as Peter gathered a tiny pile of kindling and lit it with the flame from his lantern. The small fire took the chill off the air. “Well?” she said. “Don’t tell me you forgot to bring it.”
“I brought it, all right,” Peter said and pulled out the book they had taken from the Vault.
Una took it from him and ran her fingers along the weathered cover. “‘Books that you carry to the fire and hold readily to hand are the most useful after all.’ Well, here goes nothing,” she said, and moved close to the fire.
The book didn’t change. Maybe it had to do with the “readily to hand” part. She tried switching the book from hand to hand. They tossed the book back and forth over the fire. She and Peter even danced around the fire, just in case there was a special way you had to bring the book to the fire, but its pages stubbornly remained blank.
Peter stared into the dying flames and then gently took the book from Una’s hands. He approached the fire, one slow step after another, holding the book overhead.
“Peter, no,” Una whispered. Was this how the book from the potting shed had become a little pile of ash? She put her hands up to shield her eyes, but in the last second she felt compelled to watch. With one quick movement Peter threw the book into the flames. There was a little spout of sparks and then, nothing. The book didn’t catch fire. Which was, in Una’s opinion, a good thing. The tiny sparks glowed for a moment and then died. The fire slowly burned down next to nothing, and the book sat untouched in the ashes.
Peter squatted down. “Maybe Thornhill didn’t know how to break the enchantment after all.”
Una patted his shoulder. “We did the best we could.” Her mouth twisted in disappointment. She had been so sure that once she could read the books the Talekeepers worked so hard to keep hidden, she’d find out some answers. She sat back on her heels and then gasped. Something was happening to the book. The dull brown changed, warming into a rich chocolate. Gold flecks sparkled and made the whole thing look like it was shimmering. Embossed letters trailed across the front.
The Tale of Jedediah Lionheart
, it read. Underneath, faintly first, and then with clarity, more words appeared:
A long life, well lived
.
Peter gingerly pulled the book from the fire and opened its cover. The first page was blossoming into print. In the center of the page, flowery script grew and twisted, the ink somersaulting and climbing until the entire creamy page was beautifully illuminated. An etching of a silver tree stretched over the center of the page. From its roots flowed a stream of water, cascading down to the bottom of the page. Underneath the image stood finely wrought letters that read,
Ex Libris
. And underneath that:
Rex
.
“The tree!” Una reached out a finger to touch the scripted page. It was warm. “It feels . . . alive,” she said.
At first, they huddled together and pored over the book by the lantern’s flickering light. It told a Tale about a character named Jedediah Lionheart. After a while, they gave that up and took turns reading the Tale out loud. With every passing page, Una’s heart sank. Why would the Tale Master bother to censor these books? Jedediah’s Tale wasn’t even remotely interesting. Jedediah lived out in the country. He cared for his estate and grounds. He gave his wife nice presents. He played with his children. He helped the peasants on his lands who were hungry. Boring old everyday stuff. The most exciting thing that happened was when his son, Royal, got in trouble for fighting with some other kids.
Una yawned and began to skim yet another chapter where Jedediah went for his morning walk before having breakfast.
Peter stood and rekindled the fire’s remains. “Might as well be warm,” he mumbled.
Una was about to call it a night, when something caught her eye. “Peter, look at this.” There was an entire chapter in which Jedediah traveled to funerals for each of his three brothers. After a period of mourning, he set out to find the Muses who had killed them. He journeyed throughout Story, and the descriptions of what he saw around the time of the Unbinding made Una’s stomach turn. Orphaned children. Families who fled their towns only to freeze, homeless and starving, in the mountains. Characters who disappeared and the loved ones who were constantly searching for them. And the many, many who were dead. No village in Story was left untouched. The characters who weren’t too terrified to leave home were furious, angry that their rulers had betrayed them, a fact made worse by their inability to confront the Muses. By the end of his Tale, Jedediah, hardened and embittered by the Muses’ silence, had nearly given up hope. No matter where Jedediah went, no one could find a Muse book.
Una stopped reading. “I can see why the Talekeepers locked these books up,” she said. “I can’t believe all this stuff really happened to people.”
Peter had a sickly expression on his face. He didn’t say anything.
Una forced herself back to the book, and there, near the end, was where she saw it. Jedediah came across an old stone cairn, and the place had the feel of Muse magic. Una skimmed ahead and gasped. “He found a Muse, Peter! This is what we were looking for! Listen!” She yanked Peter down next to her and read: “‘Jedediah moved the stones to reveal a small book, covered with black leather, with a marking on the binding. A black dragon in flight was surrounded by a border of royal blue. He raised the book above his head with a triumphant cry.
“‘Jedediah checked to make sure his sword was strapped securely to his back, hid two more daggers in his boots, and turned his attention back to the Muse book. His tall form bent low over the cover, and, after tracing the dragon markings according to the pattern, he entered the book. It took him straight to Sophia’s house.’”
Peter tugged the book closer.
“Hey,” Una exclaimed.
“It
took
him to Sophia?” He read the words for himself and whistled. “Sounds like he finally found one of the Muses.”
“That’s what I said.” Una shivered. Her arms were breaking out in goose bumps. “Let’s keep reading.”
Jedediah arrived on a deserted beach. He climbed the coastal path and strode up to a weathered cottage. When the door opened, Sophia stood there, and her dark beauty matched the storming ocean. Jedediah silently followed her in and seated himself at her table.
“What is the one thing you seek, Jedediah Lionheart?” Sophia asked.
“It’s my son, Royal,” Jedediah said. “Whatever I do seems wrong, and I fear he will become a weak-willed man.”
“Really?” Una said out loud. “He’s sitting down with one of the Muses, the ones he’s been hunting forever, and he asks her about his nincompoop son? What was he thinking!”
Peter snorted. “Obviously he wasn’t.”
They turned back to the book, and Una groaned. Sophia was giving Jedediah some parenting advice over tea. Una skipped ahead:
“Tell me how the characters fare,” Sophia said then. “For it seems many ages since I have had a visitor.”
Jedediah shook his head vigorously, and stood so quickly that the chair behind him toppled from the table. In a flash, his sword was out and pointed toward Sophia.
“Murderess,” he hissed. “I almost fell for your enchantments. Are you blinding me with your feigned hospitality before you kill me like you did my kin?”
“Peace,” Sophia said. She stood and, with a fingertip, directed the blade down to the floor. “Why are you troubled?”
“Three deaths at least I lay at your feet.” His voice cracked. “My brothers.”
Una and Peter had seen Jedediah do a lot of things through all his travels. But they had never seen him weep, and Una found her own eyes watering at the account of his grief. She wiped them with her sleeve and went back to the Tale.
When Jedediah’s grief was spent, he told her of all the suffering he had witnessed in Story.
“This is a grave thing,” Sophia said. “Your brothers died before their time. This is not the Tale we purposed for them. Nor did we write these many sorrows for the people of Story.” Sophia bowed her head. “We swore to never harm the characters of Story. We obey the King’s orders and have only ever framed the Tales. To ink death would be wrong.”
“So you admit it then,” Jeremiah spat. “You confess your oath breaking.”
“Broken my oaths?” Sophia’s smooth face wrinkled in concern. “But this is an untruth.”
After that the house began to shake violently. The window cracked and shattered into pieces. Chairs toppled, books fell off the shelves, and dishes clattered to the floor. Lady Sophia was thrown onto the edge of her desk. A tremendous peal of thunder reverberated through the sky. Then, all was silent.
In a matter of moments, her house was destroyed. The sea air blew the smell of salt in through the broken window. And something else. Something that smelled like decay. A seagull lay silent in the shards of glass. Dead.
Lady Sophia cried out in dismay, but it wasn’t about the bird. She ran to a little trunk under her window and flipped the lid open. From its depths, she pulled out a packet. It looked like she had torn a chapter out of a book, and she crushed these papers to her chest.
“His bonds are weakening. You must warn Alethia,” she whispered to Jedediah. She cupped his head in her hands and spoke fiercely. “You must find her and warn her.”
“Alethia!” Una cried. “That’s the Muse whose book Red was telling Elton to find. The one that is somewhere at Perrault!”
“Maybe Jedediah talked to her as well,” Peter said. “Keep reading.”
Sophia swept Jedediah out of the house and down to a tiny rowboat that lay hidden in the cove.
“Someone will be coming now. I will not see you again, friend Jedediah.” The sky grew dark, and a cold sleet began to fall. Lady Sophia’s fingers worked the air, weaving a charm. When the glowing strands had sunk into Jedediah’s skin, she sighed. “Your Tale will be bound,” she said, “though it be my last.” The air began to shimmer, and Jedediah looked around sleepily.
From farther down the beach, horses were galloping toward them. “We do not have much time,” Sophia said. “They are coming.”
And then Jedediah’s eyes closed, the scene around him fading into mist. When he woke, he was back in the forest by the cairn. Except the stones were all smashed, as though someone had come through and destroyed them. Beneath the biggest fragment of all, Sophia’s book was splayed, a blot of ink pooling under it. The symbol on its spine was bent at an odd angle, the dragon’s head severed from its body. In a few moments, the book’s cover had turned to ashes.
“Just like the one Wilfred brought to my parents,” Peter breathed. “Do you think that’s why Elton wants to find Alethia’s book? So he can crumble it to ash or whatever?”
Una shook her head. “I don’t know.” She gripped the cover of the book tight. “But I do know one thing for sure. Griselda was right. The Talekeepers have been lying all along. The Muses aren’t gone. They never were. And now Elton’s looking for them. I don’t think he intends to try and destroy them. I think he means to bring the Muses back to Story.”
Peter shivered. “Let’s see if Jedediah ever found Alethia later on.” But there wasn’t much left to Jedediah’s Tale. The next day as he traveled home through the forest, he was caught by rogues and killed.