Story Thieves (6 page)

Despite his friendliness, the Magister's tone gave Bethany a chill. She grabbed for Owen's hand again, but this time he smacked her hand away, and she almost punched him.

“Distant is a good word,” Owen told him. “Where I'm from, we're all big fans of yours.
And
Kiel's.”

“I have fans, do I?” the Magister said, his eyes twinkling. “What a curious thing. And how did you learn of me? I don't recall visiting a land with people like you in my travels. Perhaps Kiel has?” He gestured for them to sit down. “He should be back in a moment, if you'd like to wait.”

Dr. Verity moaned, and the Magister's gaze fell on the scientist. “Ah, my good doctor,” the Magister said. “This boy seems
to have done me a great favor. Not only did he protect me, but he left you vulnerable to my tender mercies.” The Magister gestured, and the mad doctor's body sprang into the air. Snakelike chains slithered up from hidden parts of the study to wrap themselves around the scientist until no part of him except his head was uncovered.

Dr. Verity screamed in rage, jerking his head around to no avail. “You couldn't have seen me coming!” he shouted. “It's impossible! I had this planned out, and you were meant to die,
tonight
!”

The Magister looked him right in the face. “Oh, but I didn't, Doctor. See you coming
or
die, for that matter. In fact, I still don't know how these children knew of your attack.” One finger flicked on his right hand, and invisible hands yanked Bethany out into the light. “The boy has spoken, but you have not, my dear,” the Magister said, turning to face her. “What can you tell me about all of this?”

Bethany went absolutely silent, her face bright red. Anything she said now would be seen by
every single reader
of the book, from now until forever. This was her worst nightmare, worse than forgetting to wear clothes to school or the one where she dreamed that her father was actually Mr. Barberry.

“I . . . ,” she started to say, then froze, her mind blank.

The Magister smiled gently. “Don't be afraid. I mean you no harm.” He sniffed the air loudly again. “You smell distant too, though not from as far as your friend. In some ways, you
could
be from Magisteria. But in other ways, not.” He raised an eyebrow. “You glow with power as well, my dear. Now which would that be? Magic or science?”

The invisible hands held her tighter, and something electric and cold shot through her spine, giving her the chills.

“No time for explaining, sorry,” Bethany said quickly, shaking off the odd feeling as she frantically reached for Owen.

Owen, though, just shook his head, an excited look on his face. “Are you kidding?” he whispered. “We're not going yet.
Kiel
is coming. We have to meet him!”

“You'll pay for this, Sebastian,” Dr. Verity said, almost spitting with hate. “My infinite armies will attack Magisteria with or without me! I don't care where you imprison me. I'll find a way out and will destroy all who profane reality with that blasphemy you call magic. You, that boy of yours, this whole science-forsaken planet of Magisteria—”

The Magister sighed. “I take no pleasure in doing this, Verity. But you leave me no choice in the matter. You're far
too dangerous.” The Magister gestured, and the destroyed spell book on the podium popped back into existence, then flipped pages faster than Bethany could see, finally landing on a page called “Exile from All Reality.”

Dr. Verity's eyes widened. “You wouldn't! Kill me instead!”

“So your death can trigger further clones of yourself, as it has for centuries?” the Magister asked with his gentle smile. “I think not. In exile, you'll never age, or hunger, or thirst. Time will stand still, and you'll find yourself with far more freedom than those you would make war against. Freedom to reflect on the choices that have brought you here.” He patted Dr. Verity on his cheek. “After all, freedom is the right of all beings, is it not?”

“I think Optimus Prime said that,” Owen whispered to Bethany. Bethany elbowed him in the gut, hard.

The Magister began his spell. Dr. Verity tried to scream, but the sound was lost as the scientist slowly faded away. The chains, having nothing to hold on to, fell to the floor with an enormous clatter.

“Um . . . I thought there was supposed to be a seventh book,” Owen whispered to Bethany. “It's coming out in a week, and Kiel was supposed to have a big final battle with Dr. Verity. How's that going to happen now?”

She shot him a look of pure hatred, but it didn't even register with Owen. The Magister, however, registered just fine. “A book, you say?” the old man asked. “With Kiel and Dr. Verity? What book would that be, then?”

This was all
far
too far. Whatever spell had been holding her had disappeared when the Magister had exiled Dr. Verity, so Bethany leaped right at Owen, her hands spread wide. The boy jumped backward in surprise, but she tackled him around his waist and kicked them both right up out of the book.

They crashed out of the book's pages and onto the carpet of Owen's bedroom, landing hard enough to knock the air out of Owen. Bethany quickly sat up, grabbed Owen's shirt, and shook him back and forth. “WHAT DID YOU DO?” she screamed.

“Boof !”
Owen said, not able to form words yet.

“YOU JUST TOLD A CHARACTER IN A BOOK THAT HE WAS
IN
A BOOK!” Bethany couldn't even think, she was so angry. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

“No?” Owen squeaked.

“ME NEITHER!” she shouted. “And that's what scares me!”

She leaped off of him and grabbed the book, frantically turning back to the last page.

“Good-bye, Sebastian,” Dr. Verity said, and his gun began powering up to fire.

. . . . To be continued in
Kiel Gnomenfoot and the Source of Magic
.

Bethany let out an explosive breath. They weren't there! The book ended too soon!

“What does it say?” Owen asked her, looking nervous.

“It says you are
so
lucky!” she shouted, then threw the book at him. He flinched, and the book fell back to the floor, falling open. Bethany yanked him up by his arm and stared him right in the face, so close she could feel his breath. “You don't
ever
speak to me again, do you understand? And if you ever tell anyone about me, I'll find the deepest, darkest math book I can find, and drop you into the most boring part!”

Owen shuddered and slowly nodded. “I . . . I'm sorry,” he started to say, but she just glared at him, and he immediately shut up.

“We don't talk, remember? EVER AGAIN!”

And with that, Bethany slammed his bedroom door and stomped down the stairs to go home. For a moment, she was so angry she couldn't even get his front door open. In frustration
she smacked the door so hard that her hand stung, and she groaned in pain.

A friend would have come out to see if she was okay. Or just come out to apologize again for ruining her life in the first place.

Bethany gave Owen five seconds. He didn't show.

Maybe even angrier now, she yanked the front door open, then slammed it shut, too furious to notice the bright light exploding from Owen's window.

B
ethany looked in her living room window before going in, just to see. Her mother seemed to be reading something, maybe a magazine.

And her eyes were red.

Not again. Not tonight. Bethany just didn't have the strength to deal with
this
, too.

Instead, a few minutes later Bethany found herself in the library, walking through the stacks, checking to make sure no one else was around. Forget her mother, forget that jerk Owen, forget everything else. It didn't matter. None of it did.

Not if the location spell worked and found her father.

She took a deep breath, running through the spell in her head. This was
so
wrong. Magic, in the real world? What if other people saw? What if it created a gigantic flaming arrow that pointed out the book her father was in? What if it started
screaming the name of the book, and she couldn't turn it off quickly enough, like she'd forgotten to turn her cell phone off in a movie?

Didn't matter. Not anymore. This was it. All she had to do was say the words, and she'd know exactly where her father was.

So why couldn't she? And why couldn't her legs stop shaking?

But she knew why. Because as bad as today had been, it could get much, much worse.

What if she found her father and he didn't want to come home?

The words to the spell were ready, right on the tip of her tongue. Her father had gotten himself out of a book to begin with, hadn't he? Why couldn't he now? Wasn't that the real question? What if her father just didn't care? What if he didn't remember her, somehow?

Or worse, what if he didn't . . . if he didn't . . . ?

A one-time-only spell. She could find her father. She could
find
her
father 
!

No. She couldn't.

Someone turned the corner and gave her a concerned look, and she realized she was sweating, that her legs were still shaking. She forced a smile, then walked too quickly to the children's section and fell into a seat.

The books helped. Being around all the stories somehow let her breathe again. They didn't want anything from her, or think badly of her. They were there just to tell their stories.

When her legs stopped shaking, she wiped her forehead with her sleeve, then stood up to walk along the shelves, touching random books here and there. Something would be here to distract her, some strange world that didn't care about fathers or mothers or Owens.
Island of the Blue Dolphins
? Beautiful, but way too dangerous with the dogs and devilfish and everything.
A Wrinkle in Time
? A little too much quantum theory for a night like this.

“Can I help you find anything?” asked a woman behind her, and Bethany glanced over her shoulder to find Owen's mother giving her a pleasant look.

Bethany quickly turned away, shaking her head. “Oh, no thanks. I'm fine.”

“I can make some suggestions, if you want,” the librarian said, standing next to Bethany. “What kinds of books do you like?”

“I'm not really a big reader,” Bethany said quietly, turning her body away as much as she could.

“Oh, I always see you in here,” Owen's mom said, running her hands over the books like she was looking for something.
“Don't worry. Maybe you just haven't found your favorite book yet. I honestly don't think anyone has. Just when you think you might have a favorite, something even better comes along. It's the one rule they taught me in librarian school.”

“You went to librarian school?” Bethany asked in spite of herself.

“You can quiz me on the Dewey decimal system if you want. Ask me about what number Victorian biographies go under. I dare you.”

Bethany smiled, then remembered what was happening. “I'm okay. I just wanted . . . this one.” She grabbed something random off the shelf and tried to make an escape, but Owen's mother stepped in front of her.

“
Half Upon a Time 
? I met that author once. He misspelled his own name in my book when he signed it. Weird. If I were you, I'd try . . . Here, what about this? It's one of my favorites.”

“I thought you couldn't have favorites,” Bethany said.

“Nah, the second rule they taught us in librarian school is that you can have as many favorite books as there are books,” she said, not cracking a smile. “Do you want to know what the third rule is?”

“That there
are
no rules?”

The librarian laughed. “That's the fourth rule, actually. The third is that if you want to find a new favorite book, ask a librarian. They always know.” She handed Bethany a copy of something called
The Great Brain
. “Give it a try and let me know what you think.”

Bethany nodded, giving up, then followed Owen's mother back to the checkout desk and signed the book out. She turned to leave, then paused. “Um, thanks. For the book. That was nice of you.”

“Let me know if you like it,” the woman said. “And next time, maybe you can recommend something for me.”

Bethany smiled and waved good-bye, then left the library holding her new book close, her mind not at all on what she was doing. Weirdly, it took her longer to get home from the library than usual. Even weirder, she found herself at Owen's house again without even realizing it.

Ugh.
What was she doing? It's not like she owed him anything. He should really be the one apologizing to her.

But what had he really done wrong?

He'd told a character in a book that—

Okay, there was that. And that was
huge
, yes. But it hadn't shown up in the book, and for all she knew, maybe it never
would. After all, that wizard guy had been supposed to die, right? So maybe he wouldn't even have a chance to tell anyone what had happened. She could go back and check in a few days, before the last Kiel Gnomenfoot book came out, just to make sure that nothing had changed.

Too bad she hadn't actually let the forget spell infect her or whatever. That would have made things a lot easier.

In the meantime, she
could
go in and at least listen to Owen apologize again. That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to sit through, at least for a few minutes. Better wrap it all up now than have to deal with him throwing her guilty looks in school or whatever, assuming he'd even care.

Besides, Owen's mother wasn't the worst or anything, so somewhere in there Owen had to be not so bad too.

She knocked on his front door and waited for a few seconds, then knocked again. No answer. Maybe he couldn't hear her, up in his room? He was probably listening to depressing music, thinking how sad it was that he'd betrayed her like he had. That just made sense.