Bibliomorph

The Full Version

2004-11-30T10:23:00.000-08:00

Anyone who wants to download the entire novel at once can get it here: Bibliomorph.pdf (348k). It contains the pure, rough-draft, month-long version. Some day maybe it will be edited, but probably not soon.

Last Day

2004-11-29T23:58:00.000-08:00

I'm DONE! DoneDoneDoneDoneDone!

I even managed to tie in the dream from way back in Chapter 5. I certainly didn't expect that. Wow.

I'll get a PDF of the whole thing up at some point. And maybe a list of shoulda-woulda-coulda's. If we're really lucky, I'll do an epilogue, so everything doesn't seem to be abandoned quite so quickly. But probably not. We'll see. Right now I'm just glad it's done.

Chapter 40

2004-11-29T23:53:00.000-08:00

Now that Cluny had been put out of commission, the force that had inhabited his body was coming loose from it, and as it did so, the coherent world of Redwall and Mossflower that they had been in began to crumble. Cracks and holes began to appear in the stone floor, and pieces of the walls and ceiling fell around Seamus, Cassidy and Gabriela, who pulled closer together, watching the strange, gray mist rise and thicken.

As the mist thickened around them, it seemed to absorb everything into it. Seeing the floor about to disappear beneath them, Seamus cast his mind about for something to catch them. The first thing that occurred to him was a flying carpet, and he pulled one out of the mist, straight from 1,001 Arabian Nights. The three floated on it as the floor vanished, along with the walls, furniture, and Cluny's body.

When everything had gone, only the mist was left, as dark and thick as newsprint. Peering into it, they could see words floating through in vague, jumbled scrawls, as they had back in the Book under the library. As they watched, the words began swirling faster, spinning around them. And suddenly they were caught up in a whirlpool, clinging tightly to the edges of their carpet, unable to control their flight.

An enormous Cyclops loomed out of the mist ahead of them. Its hideous face was scarred and tattooed, and its ears hung low with gold rings. It fixed its single eye on the flying carpet like a man about to swat a fly, and raised an immense scimitar.

"Pull to the right!" shouted Seamus, jerking at the edge of the carpet. All three of them leaned hard right and the scimitar sliced through the air inches away from them. Looking back, Seamus saw the Cyclops turning its great bulk slowly around for another swing. He felt microscopic next to the enormous giant, like Alice after eating the wrong cake. Then, under his hand, he felt something.

It was a small bottle, with a neatly lettered label attached. The label said "Drink Me." Seamus looked up. The scimitar was raising for another blow. He hurled the bottle as hard and as far as he could, and it hit the Cyclops in the chest. It was so small that the giant didn't even notice it, but the bottle broke and spilled its contents. Instantly, the Cyclops shrank, until it was smaller than Gabriela, and the magic carpet was far out of its reach.

Seamus wondered if the Cyclops had been a result of him pulling the magic carpet from the Arabian Nights, but soon there were too many other things coming at them for anything to have any logical connection. It seemed that anything remotely violent that had ever been written about was being unleashed on them.

An army of orcs swarmed around them as Mount Doom shot flames all around. Seamus found Gandalf's staff and flattened the horde with a tremendous burst of white light exploding outward in all directions. Instantly, lasers cracked through the air beside them and an alien spacecraft was bearing down from the sky. Seamus threw up a glowing sphere of energy around them that deflected the beams.

He kept the force field up, as it proved equally handy for repelling a large selection of wild animals, and for derailing the train that would have crushed them. But then a dragon appeared.

The dragon's head was easily twenty yards long, and its body was barely even visible at the end of its long neck. Its jaws were open, ready to swallow them whole. Seamus saw it and was petrified, his exhausted mind suddenly empty of ideas. Cassidy saw his eyes widen, fixed on the enormous mouth about to close in on them, and she grabbed his arm.

"Dragon's bane!" she said, shaking him. He looked at her blankly. "An herb! They're allergic to it! It's in some book, it doesn't matter which one!"

"Dragon's bane…" Seamus said, seeming to come back to attention.

The jaws closed over the three of them in the little bubble of a force field, but just before the light was blocked out entirely, they saw a green, leafy plant beginning to spread over the surface of the sphere. There was a deep, booming crash as the jaws closed, and they felt an enormous tongue begin to lift them up to swallow, but then it paused, twitched.

The force of the dragon's sneeze sent them flying out of its mouth faster than they had any way of judging, and the accompanying flames burnt off all of the dragon's bane from their protective shield. They spun out of control, back in the whirlpool of mist and words.

As they tried to get their bearings, they noticed that the whirlpool seemed different now. It was no longer quite as chaotic. It spiraled downward into what seemed like a long, dark tunnel, one that looked like it could reach to the center of the Earth. They were beginning to head down that tunnel, and Seamus realized suddenly that he had been here before. He remembered falling from a Liberator bomber over Switzerland and sinking down, down, down, before waking up the next day to discover the journal. He knew what he would see down at the end of the tunnel.

And sure enough, as they plummeted down, he could make out a simple wooden door with a glass window in the upper part, waiting for them. Once he saw it, it seemed to grow clearer and sharper, though they drew no closer to it. They kept spinning downwards, always falling, never landing. Cassidy and Gabriela had noticed it by now too, and watched it, though they did not recognize it.

The door opened, revealing a blinding light within it, and Seamus heard a voice within his mind.

Here I am, Seamus. Join me. Give me your power, and reality will be ours.

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the voice, but he couldn't stop it. It continued to beckon him, threaten him, bribe him. Its message changed, but it was never silent. Seamus clutched at the side of the carpet. It was impossible to think like this. Cassidy put a hand on his shoulder.

"What's happening? Are you okay? What is this?"

"It's… down there," Seamus managed to say. "It's… pulling… me." He was feeling an undeniable urge to simply jump, to fall through the doorway and into the light and to forget about it all. Already, the protective sphere around them had dissolved for lack of attention, and the three of them were once more left with just the magic carpet to cling to. He managed to turn his head slightly, though, and look at Cassidy. Her ears were wiggling. He tried to focus on her earring bobbing up and down. Then she spoke again.

"Alright," she said, trying to keep her voice calm and steady, "let's think about this. The force that is attacking us… you… has all the literature ever written at its disposal, right?"

Seamus was looking back over the edge of the carpet again, but he nodded.

"However, it cannot come up with anything new on its own, right?"

Seamus nodded again.

"So," Cassidy took a deep breath, "it would seem reasonable that what we need to do here is the only thing that it can't do: we need to be creative." She watched Seamus, looking for feedback.

He managed to pull himself back to look at her again. The summoning voice in his head was becoming harder and harder to ignore.

"What… can…"

Cassidy kept a hand on his shoulder, and turned to Gabriela.

"Gabriela," she said, "I need you to help me think of some ideas, okay?"

Gabriela was far past crying at this point, holding on grimly to her corner of the carpet. "What kind of ideas?" she asked, worriedly.

"We need to think of something that no one has ever thought of before. We need to tell Seamus a story that's completely new. It can be about anything at all. Think we can do it?"

Gabriela nodded uncertainly. "Can it be about me?" she asked.

"Yes, of course!" said Cassidy. "I don't think anyone has written a story about you before."

"Okay, but I want to be a magic princess."

"Wonderful! You're a magic princess. What kind of magic can you do?"

"I want that, whenever I brush my teeth, it does my math homework for me."

Cassidy laughed in spite of herself. "You'll have the cleanest teeth and the best grades in the kingdom!"

The two of them crouched on either side of Seamus and began telling their story. At first it seemed as though Cassidy's idea was as nonsensical as the story they were creating. But Seamus listened as best he could, clinging to the words as they squeezed through the clamor in his mind. He began to repeat words after them.

"Gabriela… magic… princess…"

And suddenly, Gabriela was dressed in a pink gown that looked like a Halloween princess costume, and she carried a wand with a little star on the end of it. The girls continued the story, making it up as they went along. A toothbrush appeared in Gabriela's hand, and a pile of homework papers materialized on the carpet. Soon they were joined by the princess's pony, which was half squirrel, combining two of Gabriela's favorite animals. It pranced and hopped unsteadily along in the whirlpool behind them, thrashing its bushy tail.

Seamus gained strength as they went on, and his mind began to clear, focusing on their new creations. The whirlpool around them began to spin faster, and the light from the doorway below pulsated and throbbed. Then Seamus interrupted for the first time.

"Princess Gabriela," he said, his eyes still focused on the door below them, "you have another magic power."

"What is it?" she asked, looking up expectantly.

"With a wave of your wand, you can close any door so that it will never open again."

"Really?"

"Yes. Would you like to try it?"

Gabriela stood up, clutching Seamus' hand to keep her balance on the moving carpet, and put on her most serious face. She looked down to the door and the pulsing light and held her wand out before her. Seamus could tell she was trying to think up suitably magical words.

"Doorius Closium!" she shouted, and Seamus shouted it with her in his mind.

A streak of light flew from the tip of her wand, striking the center of the open door. Everything around them froze – the whirlpool of misty words, the carpet beneath their feet, the prancing squirrel-pony behind them. The door shuddered and then everything began rushing towards it. Seamus, Cassidy and Gabriela remained motionless, as everything else was sucked into the doorway, blotting out the blinding light that had come from it. They could hear the roar of the wind from all the motion, but could not feel it, and it did not so much as stir a hair on their heads. When the last shred of mist had plunged through the doorway, the little wooden door slammed shut with such force that it cracked down the center and vanished.

When it had gone, the three looked around themselves, realizing suddenly that they weren't standing anywhere, or perhaps were standing nowhere, or perhaps some combination of the two. Then the nowhere that the were standing gave a sudden jolt, knocking them all to their knees. When they stood up again, they were in the basement of the library.

Shakily, they all went out the door and headed up the stairs. As they crossed the building towards Project Read, they could hear sobbing coming from up ahead. Deborah saw them first and gasped. Maria's crying stopped abruptly as she spun around and saw her daughter, who ran to her arms, and then she was crying again but with relief and happiness.

Seamus and Cassidy collapsed into chairs and tried to dodge questions about what had happened. Cassidy eventually came up with a coherent story involving Gabriela accidentally getting herself locked in an unused basement room overnight. Gabriela went along with it silently. She seemed more like she wanted to just rest in her mother's arms than talk for the time being anyway.

Seamus closed his eyes and let the room fade out around him. He felt relief, yes, but also loss. Gabriela was safe. He and Cassidy were safe. The world was safe. All three of them were heroes, really, though no one else would ever know. But he also knew, could tell without even having to try it, that he would never be able to bibliomorph again.

The End

Twenty-eighth Day

2004-11-28T21:19:00.000-08:00

In which a duel takes place across various books.

Stay tuned tomorrow (I hope) for the thrilling (I hope) conclusion (definitely... well, hopefully).

Chapter 37

2004-11-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

Cluny the Scourge had changed. He was still the immense warrior rat with the whip-like tail and the fearsome claws, but he carried himself differently. When Seamus and Cassidy had been brought in, he had seemed tormented, confused, a once powerful leader finding himself in the mysterious grip of something unknown. That Cluny was gone now, and Seamus could tell that the same body was now occupied by the force that had used Big Jake to create the Book, that needed his power to destroy the world, and that had kidnapped Gabriela to lure them back again for another attempt.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up," Seamus said, still standing with his hands bound behind him. He shot a quick glance at Gabriela and Cassidy, tied up in the back corner of the room, and hoped he sounded braver than he felt. "That was a pretty low trick, kidnapping Gabriela just to get at me."

The new Cluny laughed at him. "Yes, I knew you would see through the plan," he said. "But I also knew that you would have to fall for it anyway, so what would it matter? Besides, my Book was destroyed by you and your meddling friends, so you can hardly grudge me a little revenge."

He snarled on the last word and spun around to the corner where Cassidy and Gabriela were, lashing out with his tail. Cassidy threw herself in front of Gabriela, giving a muffled cry of pain as the whip cracked across her back.

"Stop!" Seamus shouted, starting to move forward. But Cluny swung back around to him and shoved him back up against the wall.

"Let them go," Seamus said, quieter now that he was face to face with Cluny again. "You've got me now, so you don't need them. Send them back home."

"Now that I have you," Cluny corrected, "it hardly matters what happens to them. And once I take your power from you, there won't even be anything to send them back to – at least, nothing significantly different from what they'll have here. You've seen my plan, Seamus. You know what will happen."

He let it sink in for a moment, then continued.

"You may have thought that your friend with the axe solved all your problems for you. He was merely destroying himself. The Book was simply an object, a creation. I could not even create it myself – it had to come from the life energy of Professor Jacob Steele, known to you as Big Jake. It was unfortunate that he found enough strength left within him to come back and interrupt us just when our little meeting was going so well. But he thought the Book was everything and he destroyed that, without realizing that the power behind it was unharmed, just as you were unharmed, Seamus, even when your journal was thrown in the fire.

"It was, of course, convenient for me that you let Gabriela take that harmless looking little book from my lair in the library. I must thank you for that – it made the next step quite simple. You see, all the books down there were under my power, simply from such sustained proximity. This meant that, even lacking my own physical form in your world, I could still exert my influence through them, much as I did through your journals, though I was limited more by each one's particular story.

"But even with that limitation, it was enough. Combined with a child's fertile imagination, it was an easy matter to lure your little friend down to her 'secret fort,' where the combined forces of all my literary minions were waiting for her. She does not have the talent of bibliomorphing on her own, of course, but we were able to use the vivid images already in her mind to pull her into her story.

"This Cluny character turned out to be quite an excellent choice, as well. I was able to let him basically handle the captures on his own. And now that I am borrowing his form, it should be very handy for getting you to cooperate."

With that, Cluny's long tail shot out towards Seamus, wrapped around his arm, and drew him in close. "Yes, I think I shall quite enjoy this," sneered the rat. Then he threw Seamus back to the floor against the wall, knocking the wind out of him.

"You can still give in and help me voluntarily, you know," Cluny went on. "But it doesn't matter much if you don't. I can always take it from you by force."

Seamus caught his breath and tried to think. There had to be something he could do. Then he remembered walking through the forest with Fezzik and Cassidy, and his experiment with the journal and creating the holocaust cloak. He still didn't have the journal of course, but he had been able to bibliomorph without it. Perhaps there was more he could do on his own as well.

He closed his eyes, trying not to pay attention to the rope digging sharply into his wrists behind him. He imagined his arms free and unrestrained, visualized himself writing in his journal. The ropes loosen, then fall off of me, leaving my hands completely free.

There was a pause, just long enough for Seamus to worry that it wasn't going to work after all. Then the pressure on his wrists was suddenly released, and the ropes that had bound him shuffled to the floor in a loose pile. He gasped as the blood rushed back into his hands and he clutched them to his chest.

"I see," said Cluny, as Seamus struggled to his feet. "You don't want to give in. You think you can stand up to me. No matter. We can do things the hard way, if you prefer."

And with that, tail of Cluny the Scourge shot out, lashing Seamus full across the face.

Chapter 38

2004-11-28T21:16:00.000-08:00

Seamus felt the sharp sting of the whip across his face, felt his body staggering backwards from the blow. He heard a gasp from Cassidy and a scream from Gabriela, but they sounded faint and far away, muffled by the sound of waves.

Waves? What waves? Where was he? The surface below his hands and knees was rocking and his vision was blurred. He put a hand up to his face and felt blood. Shakily, he rose to his knees, not wanting to trust his balance to his feet, and gradually focused his eyes.

He was on a tarpaulin stretched across a lifeboat, looking out onto a vast expanse of blue ocean. He heard a snarl behind him and turned around to see a hyena growling over the carcass of a zebra at the other end of the boat. He was back in The Life of Pi, just like the very first time he had bibliomorphed. This time though, the orangutan was gone, and the hyena had its eyes fixed on Seamus.

Seamus crouched back down on his hands and knees and looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon, but the lifeboat offered nothing. He wished he had had a chance to grab something from one of the rats before he had ended up here. There had been plenty of spare weapons laying around Cluny's headquarters. But then, even as he thought it, he felt something cold and hard beneath his hand. He looked down and under his palm saw the handle of a long dagger.

He barely had time to be surprised at the fact that he had managed to materialize something from an entirely different book before the hyena lunged at him. He twisted his body away just in time, swinging out wildly with the knife as he did so. The hyena got a gash in its shoulder, and missing Seamus it went scrabbling across the slick tarpaulin, losing its balance. It regrouped quickly though, and turned around to leap at Seamus again. He was better prepared this time, waiting at the edge of the tarpaulin close to the water. As the hyena came at him, he leaned in towards the center of the boat and twisted around to plunge the dagger with all his strength into the hyena's shoulder. The hyena fell, and with an extra shove it fell off the boat entirely and into the water.

A few sharks still trailed the boat, following the dripping blood from the zebra, and the hyena's splash caught their attention instantly. Within seconds, it had disappeared in a swirl of bloody water and thrashing fins.

Seamus pulled back from the edge of the boat and sat panting for a moment. Then he heard a movement from beneath the tarpaulin, and from the other end of it, he saw the large black and orange head of a tiger emerge and sniff the air. Seamus held very still. He had been lucky to get rid of the hyena, but he didn't care to try going up against a 450 pound Bengal tiger. He had to get himself out of there while he still had some breathing room, before he was attacked again.

He tried to concentrate. Cluny's tail was clearly far more than just a whip, now that he had been possessed by the evil force that was after Seamus. Rather than merely wounding him, it had thrown him into different book, where he was evidently supposed to be killed. But it didn't seem to have taken away his powers, as evidenced by the knife that he had materialized. And if he still had his powers, then he could bibliomorph himself back.

This is all fiction, he thought, and I can control it. I am no longer on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. I am back in the Church of St. Ninian, where I will rescue Cassidy and Gabriela from Cluny the Scourge.

The tiger had emerged completely from beneath the tarpaulin now, and had turned around to see Seamus, its eyes hungry. An ominous rumbling began in its throat, but as it did, Seamus' view of the world shifted and folded like a piece of paper, then reopened.

He found himself back on the stone floor with Cluny standing over him, tail in hand, laughing mercilessly.

"Hyenas and tigers aren't enough for you, eh?" Cluny said, and cracked his tail down over Seamus again, catching him across the shoulders as he tried to shield his head with his arms.

This time, Seamus found himself up on top of the Cliffs of Insanity, in The Princess Bride. A long sword, made for a six fingered man, sat heavily in his own small, normally digitized hand. The man in black, masked and with his own sword drawn, was advancing on him.

Seamus tried to defend himself as best he could. He had actually taken fencing lessons for a year in college but they might as well have been croquet lessons for all the good they did him. There was absolutely no way they could have prepared him for what he was up against now. He could tell that the man in black was just toying with him, though, a bit disappointed at the unchallenging mismatch of skill levels. He was still using his left hand, and Seamus could have sworn he saw him yawn even as his blade flicked in and out like a striking viper.

Seamus was pushed steadily back towards the cliff's edge. The man in black drew blood a few times, first from the wrist, then the shoulder, then the cheek. But they were minor cuts, carelessly inflicted. And then Seamus found himself pressed up against a rock, looking down at a thousand foot drop to the sea below. Their swords were locked at the hilts, and he was pinned. The man in black finally spoke.

"As another excellent swordsman once said to me: You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."

"You seem a decent fellow yourself," replied Seamus, recognizing the line. "I hate to die." His mind was racing.

"You cannot win, you know. Your swordsmanship is frightful."

"I know."

"Then why are you smiling?"

"Because I know something you do not know," said Seamus, reaching slowly down towards the ground with his free hand.

"And what is that?" asked the man in black.

"I am not Inigo Montoya," said Seamus. And with that, he simply pulled the cliff out from under the man in black.

The man in black fell in complete silence, with a stunned look on his face, and was quickly lost to sight. Seamus clung to his rock and replaced the cliff. He had surprised himself somewhat, as well. But really, he figured, it stood to reason. If everything there was truly fictional, there was no reason to limit himself to pulling daggers out of thin air. Anything was possible. He gripped the sword he was still holding.

"Back to Cluny now," he said. "And I'm taking the sword with me."

Chapter 39

2004-11-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

Seamus leapt up from the stone floor and lunged at Cluny the Scourge with his sword. The giant rat was unmistakably surprised, but his lightning reflexes served him well. He snatched his war standard from where it leaned against the wall and blocked Seamus' sword with the heavy staff. The ferret skull on top looked Seamus in the eye for a brief second before Cluny thrust Seamus away from him.

Seamus landed against the wall in the corner next to Gabriela and Cassidy. He saw that they had begun surreptitiously untying each other's hands while Cluny was focused on Seamus. He rolled away from them immediately, to keep Cluny's attention away from them, then came to his feet again, holding his sword at the ready.

Cluny flung his tail at him for a third lash, but this time Seamus swung his sword out to meet it. The blade sliced through and the last foot of Cluny's tail fell to the floor. Cluny howled in pain and hurtled himself at Seamus, still clutching his war standard.

Seamus tried to thrust his sword at the rat but it was blocked and wrenched aside by the staff, and Cluny's sharp claws raked his face. For a third time, the world disappeared around him.

Suddenly, Seamus found himself in a crowded train station, being jostled from all sides by people taller than him, strangers. He tried to shy away from someone brushing by his elbow but that only made him collide with someone else behind him. He recoiled again, crashing sideways into yet another person as the foot traffic continued to flow around him. A lady almost walked into him, her bright yellow jacket momentarily filling his field of vision. He absolutely detested yellow. It sickened him. He was beginning to panic.

"Hey kid," said a gruff voice, "watch where you're going, can't you?"

A hand grabbed Seamus' arm and tried to steer him out of the way. He screamed, yanked his arm free, and started running, shoving his way through the crowd. He tried to see where he was going but the crowd was like a huge, shapeless mass, and the signs around the station all seemed to blur and run together. Sweet Pastries Heathrow Airport Check-In Here Bagel Factory Paddington Station Tickets Taxis Toilets Position Closed Millie's Cookies Coffee Evening Standard. His brain was on sensory overload, he couldn't process everything that was going on around him. He felt terrified, and ready to vomit.

Finally he burst free from the crowd and collapsed onto a bench, shutting his eyes, hugging his knees and moaning. He squeezed himself as far to one end of the bench as he could, away from its other occupant, a middle-aged business man, who quickly got up and left Seamus alone on the bench.

His mind was still in an uproar. He tried counting to fifty and just barely managed to do it, but he felt a tiny bit calmer after he had. So then he counted to fifty, cubing each number as he went, and that helped a little more. After that he solved a few quadratic equations in his head, making the coefficients large so the problems would take longer. And then he recited to himself all the prime numbers from 2 to 233 from memory.

By now some time had passed, his heart was beating normally again and he had mostly blocked out the hustle and bustle of the train station around him. But something still wasn't quite right. He didn't feel like himself, and it was something more than just being frightened and confused in a new place. He tried to remember who he was and reassure himself.

"My name is Christopher John Francis Boone," he said to himself, "and I live at 36 Randolph Street, only I don't live there anymore because I'm going to live with Mother at 451c Chapter Road, Willesden, London NW2 5NG."

It all sounded right to him, only there was something not right about it also. He felt like there was someone or something trapped inside him, as if he needed to be somewhere else, or even someone else, but he couldn't make sense of it. Then suddenly he felt his entire body jerk, like a puppet pulled on a string. His vision blurred and he squeezed his eyes shut in fright.

Seamus opened his eyes, disoriented, trying to piece together the confusing sensations in his brain from the last few minutes. As far as he could tell, he had landed that time in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, but he hadn't been himself anymore. He had actually become the fifteen year old autistic savant whose story it was. That was why he hadn't been able to control himself or his mind, and it should have prevented him from getting himself out of it. So what had happened?

He looked up to see Cassidy standing over the body of Cluny the Scourge, holding in her hands a heavy wooden chair that had evidently been cracked over Cluny's skull. She and Gabriela had both freed themselves, and must have snuck up on Cluny as he flung Seamus into his most recent perils. Cassidy dropped the splintered chair now and rushed over to Seamus, with Gabriela close behind her.

"Are you alright?" she asked breathlessly.

"I… I think so," Seamus replied. Then his eye was caught by a movement over by Cluny's body. The other two followed his gaze.

A strange mist was rising from the body. The room began to tremble.

Twenty-seventh Day

2004-11-27T21:42:00.001-08:00

In which our heroes encounter Redwall Abbey and Cluny the Scourge.

It was really nice to take the last two days off. Too nice, perhaps. But I'm so close now. Just a few more days and a few thousand more words. I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can.

Chapter 35

2004-11-27T21:42:00.000-08:00

Seamus and Cassidy stood in front of the main abbey gate. The walls towered above them, and Seamus might have wondered about this, given that it was an abbey supposedly inhabited by mice and other such creatures. However, he was still slightly stunned at the fact that he had gotten them here on his own, with no help from his journal. It was incredible, and the amazement of it felt almost like the very first time he had bibliomorphed at all. Cassidy though was watching him with a smile on her face, as if she had known he could do it all along, and was pleased that he had finally figured it out for himself. She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Well done," she said.

At that moment a tremendous voice boomed down from the top of the abbey wall.

"Who goes there? Friend or foe?"

Seamus and Cassidy looked up to see an enormous badger up on a parapet looking down on them. Though size was hard to judge at that angle and distance, it looked to be at least twice the size of either of them. Apparently the bibliomorph had scaled them down to fit in a book about small woodland creatures, rather than leaving them human size, which would have put them over the height of Redwall Abbey itself.

"We are friends," Seamus called back, wondering how on earth they could explain themselves. The badger had taken a better look at them by this time, and they knew it was plain that they didn't belong.

"Friends you say? But what manner of creatures are you? I've not seen your like in all my many seasons." The badger was joined now on the wall by a mouse and a hedgehog, both considerably smaller than the badger, and both carrying stout wooden staves.

"We are called humans," Seamus said. "We… aren't from around here." He felt a little lame with nothing better to say, but he knew that human beings didn't exist in any of these books at all, so there would probably be no way to give any better explanation. He could see the badger looking at them perplexedly. But then the hedgehog on the wall broke in.

"Hold on! I've seen one of their kind before!" he exclaimed. The badger, the mouse, Seamus and Cassidy all looked at him in equal surprise.

"Ambrose," the badger growled softly, "have you been at the October ale again?"

"No I haven't, and by me spikes, I'm not lying! It was one like them – a little smaller and a darker color perhaps, but just like these two, no doubt about it. No tail, flat face, strange clothes and no fur, except on its head."

Seamus and Cassidy felt their stomach jump at this. Gabriela was here somewhere, had been seen in this book. Cassidy called up to the wall this time.

"Where did you see her? We need to find her!"

"It was with the rats," replied the hedgehog. "I was on my patrol of the woodlands to warn the other creatures. I heard a gang of Cluny's rats approaching and hid myself while they passed. They had with them the one I just described, but I didn't know what it was."

"With the rats, eh?" the badger growled, louder and more menacing this time. Seamus and Cassidy also gave a shudder of horror at the mention of the evil creatures that had recently invaded Mossflower and were planning on laying siege to the abbey.

"Friends of Cluny the Scourge and his rats are no friends of Redwall Abbey!" shouted the mouse, who had been silent up until this point. "Be gone from here! Go back and tell your leader he can't get spies into Redwall that easily!" He picked up a stone and hurled down at them, who dodged it. The badger restrained him with an enormous paw, then addressed Seamus and Cassidy again.

"Matthias is right," she said. "I don't know what you are or where you have come from, but these are dangerous times and we cannot afford to take chances on creatures that consort with the enemy. We will have to ask you to leave."

Seamus was disappointed at having been taken for an enemy, but they had gotten the information they needed. Like it or not, Gabriela had been taken captive by Cluny and his horde. There was no point in involving the creatures of Redwall in her rescue – they were about to have enough troubles of their own. After a quick, whispered discussion with Cassidy, he spoke to the animals on the wall again.

"We apologize," he said, "and we meant no harm. But we thank you for the information and we will leave you in peace now."

Seamus and Cassidy turned back to the road, and the badger, the mouse and the hedgehog disappeared behind the wall, most likely to go make a report to the Abbot, or consult with the ancient gatekeeper mouse to see if any creatures like these had ever been heard of before.

Seamus tried to recall the map that had been in the front of the book, and wished he had studied it more carefully before they had left. He knew that the rats had taken over the old, abandoned Church of St. Ninian, so that would most likely be where they were keeping Gabriela. And as far as he could remember, one would have to turn left on the road coming out of the abbey to get to St. Ninian's, so that was the way they went.

Though dismayed, Seamus had not been terribly surprised to find that Cluny had taken Gabriela. Judging from the location of her bookmark, she had just finished a chapter about the rats' arrival, so that may have influenced where she landed when the Book took her in. Also, the rats were really the only possible culprits in the story. The inhabitants of the abbey, though on their guard now, were too peaceful, and not the kidnapping types. They would have seen that Gabriela was a frightened child, regardless of her species, taken care of her, and given her back when Seamus and Cassidy appeared. The rats would be a far different story.

They had been walking for about an hour when they finally caught sight of the church steeple rising up out of the trees ahead of them down the road. They slowed down cautiously, then decided to move off the road so they could travel with more cover. Keeping well under the trees and bushes, they paralleled the road until they came to the church.

Seamus and Cassidy crouched in the bushes. They had come up behind the church, and were looking at it across the cemetery. A wrought iron fence surrounded it, mangled now that so many of its iron spike railings had been wrenched out for use as makeshift weapons in Cluny's horde. Getting in, of course, would be no problem. What worried them was that the place was swarming with rats, hundreds of them, along with an assortment of weasels, ferrets and the occasional stoat. They could see the vermin milling around the church, sharpening weapons, dozing or picking fights. They knew Gabriela must be held captive somewhere inside, but there was no way to get to her.

Then suddenly there was a hideous yell, and an enormous, hairy figure landed on each of them, crushing them to the ground. Seamus and Cassidy tried to struggle, felt the claws tugging at their arms, smelled the stink of dirty fur, leather and steel. But they were quickly overpowered. Their hands were bound roughly behind them, and then they were rolled over onto their backs, with daggers held to their throats.

Crouched over them were two enormous rats. Compared to Seamus and Cassidy's current scaled down size, they would have been well over six feet tall. Their bodies were scarred and powerfully muscled, their teeth long, yellow and sharp. They wore leather armor and each had a second long knife on his belt. The one holding Cassidy leaned over to get a good look at her face, keeping his dagger to her neck and digging the claws of his other forepaw into her chest.

"Well looky here, Mangefur," he said in a low, scratchy voice. "Looks like the Chief was right. We did find two more of 'em."

"Don't be a fool, Ragear," the other snapped. "Of course the Chief was right. Now just see if you can help me get 'em back to him without botching it like you did the last expedition."

"Don't go laying that on me again, now. You know perfectly well it was you who wanted to go up the blasted road to forage instead of to the fields, I – "

"Oh quit yer whining. Let's just take the prisoners in." The one called Mangefur yanked Seamus to his feet. "Can't say as I know what the Chief wants with 'em, though. You ever seen anything like these before?"

"Never in me life. Maybe they're good to eat, though, eh?" The two rats laughed as they marched Seamus and Cassidy towards the entrance to St. Ninian's, occasionally jabbing at them with a dagger, or giving them a shove to watch them stumble.

Seamus and Cassidy were both silent, but they knew at least one part of their problem had been solved. They now had a way into the church.

Chapter 36

2004-11-27T21:41:00.000-08:00

As they entered the Church of St. Ninian at dagger-point, Seamus and Cassidy were instantly accosted by hordes of other vermin, all jostling and shoving to get a better look at the two strange creatures that had been taken prisoner. A weasel jabbed a claw into Seamus' side, and Cassidy smelled the rank breath of a rat that had thrust its sniffing face into hers. Another creature tried to grab at them, and their two original captors had fight off the pressing crowd.

"Get outta the way, ya scum!" shouted Ragear, kicking aside a rat and shoving a ferret out of the way. "These are Cluny's prisoners, an' he'll have your guts for garters if any of you lot so much as scratch 'em."

Mangefur grabbed a small cudgel from a nearby rat and started laying into crowd. A few of the beasts were knocked down or sent scurrying and the rest backed off, leaving them a path. As the prisoners were marched through the church, they could hear rats whispering and muttering all around them.

"… never seen anything like it…"

"… where's all their fur, now?"

"… don't look like they could put up much of a fight, eh?"

Seamus glanced next to him at Cassidy. Like him, she had a few scratches, and was probably feeling a bit battered by the initial capture, but she seemed more or less alright. No serious injuries at least. She was staring resolutely ahead of her, ignoring the looks and jeers of the rats around her. Seamus started to lean over to her, to whisper something encouraging, but Mangefur gave him a shove that sent him stumbling forward.

"Eyes front!" the rat shouted at him. "And no talking!"

They came to the back of the church and headed up a curving flight of stone stairs. At the top they found a wooden door that Seamus guessed must have lead to the Churchmouse family's old home, that Cluny had now taken over for his headquarters. Ragear seemed to gather his courage, then knocked on the door.

"Enter!" boomed a voice from inside. Ragear cringed involuntarily but quickly caught himself, not wanting to show fear before the captives. He opened the door and marched in as boldly as he could, with Mangefur prodding Seamus and Cassidy in after.

"Sir!" said Ragear, snapping to attention. "We have brought you the prisoners you wanted!"

Inside the room was an enormous rat, far bigger than either of the two that had captured Seamus and Cassidy. He was completely black, and covered with scars, and his long, whip-like tail thrashed about him as he paced the room. One eye was covered by a black patch, and he wore a black cape fastened with bones. He was Cluny the Scourge, and he looked like it. He stopped pacing and glared at the two rats and their prisoners.

Looking around the room, Seamus could see a few pieces of smashed furniture, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Churchmouse's bed, which didn't look like it would last much longer in use by a giant rat. In one corner stood Cluny's war standard, a banner pole with the skull of a ferret on top. And in another corner, sobbing quietly, was Gabriela.

She was tied up, and obviously frightened out of her mind, but she seemed unharmed. When she saw Seamus, she called out to him but was quickly silenced by a menacing glare and snarl from Cluny. She tried to push herself farther back into her corner, and continued crying quietly.

Cluny swung back to face his newest captives, studying them intently while Mangefur and Ragear grew more nervous.

"Leave them here with me," he growled at last. His voice was a dark rumble of sound. The two rat soldiers shifted uncertainly, still hoping for some praise on a job well done, and reluctant to leave their prisoners.

"I said LEAVE!" Cluny roared, lashed out with his tail and catching Ragear on the shoulder with it. The two panicked at that and scampered out the door, slamming it behind them and jostling each other to be the first back down the stairs.

Cluny stared at Seamus and Cassidy for another minute, then began pacing again. As he paced, he muttered to himself. Finally, he spoke to them.

"I don't even know what you are," he said with contempt, his foul whiskers brushing their faces.

"We're…" Seamus started to respond, but was cut short.

"Silence!" Cluny gave him an effortless shove with one paw that sent him stumbling into the wall behind. He started pacing the floor again. "There's something wrong about you. You don't belong here… you don't belong anywhere. You shouldn't even exist… and yet you do." His voice was growing softer now, as though talking to himself again, but they could still make out the words. "I don't even know how I knew to find you. The first one was an accident, but then I knew that others would come after her and that they would be the important ones. But what are they? Why are they important?"

Cluny stopped short and jerked his head up as though he had just had an idea. He strode over to Seamus and Cassidy again and grabbed them each by the front of their shirts, pulling them in close and onto their toes.

"You are important…" he muttered. "No…" he sniffed at them each in turn. "Just you," he said, looking at Seamus and flinging Cassidy aside. She landed in the corner over by Gabriela, but Seamus' field of vision was filled by the evil rat's face, and he couldn't see if she had been hurt.

"Yes, it's you," Cluny said, still sniffing at Seamus. "But why? What is it about you?" Then he froze for a second and his eyes seemed to glaze over. Then he shook himself and focused on Seamus again. He set him back down, releasing the grip on his shirt, which now had several claw holes in it.

"Ah, yes," Cluny said, with an evil grin spreading over his face. His voice seemed different now, smoother and less rat-like, but still menacing. "Welcome back, Seamus."

Twenty-fourth Day

2004-11-24T23:10:00.000-08:00

In which Seamus and Cassidy deal with the loss of the journal.

Not a huge writing night tonight, but I'm in pretty good shape for taking the next day or two off. Happy Thanksgiving!

Chapter 34

2004-11-24T23:07:00.000-08:00

Cassidy regained her feet first, since Seamus had ended the struggle partly caught under Nathan. She looked around quickly, then grabbed the pair of fire tongs that lay a few feet from the fireplace. She reached in with the tongs and grabbed the journal, though its dry pages had already caught fire. She pulled it out onto the hearthstones and Seamus, who had also picked himself up by now, began stomping on it to put it out. After a bit of smothering, the flames were out but the journal was still in pretty bad shape.

Behind them Nathan had gotten up and, realizing what he had done, was beginning to slink quietly out of the room, trying to make himself inconspicuous. Seamus was still focused on the journal, but Cassidy heard Nathan move. Spinning around, she dealt him a swift, sharp punch in the stomach. Nathan collapsed, breathless.

"You idiot!" she yelled. "You complete and utter creep! You don't even know how important that book was!" She caught herself and quieted down, turning back to Seamus. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that," she said apologetically.

"It's okay," said Seamus, poking gently at the cooling remains of the journal.

"I mean, he's your housemate and everything."

"Don't worry about it."

"But I should have let you…"

Seamus gave a small laugh in spite of himself. He glanced over at Nathan, whimpering quietly in a corner, and figured that Cassidy was probably more the type to deal out retribution than he was. She had done a decent job of it anyway. He made a mental note to avoid pissing her off.

"Forget about him," he said. "Let's see if we can salvage anything here."

They got a baking tray from the kitchen and gingerly lifted the journal onto it, still hot and dropping ashes. Then they took it back upstairs to Seamus' room, leaving Nathan to nurse his wounds and repent, though they realized the latter was unlikely.

Cassidy cleared a space on Seamus' desk and he put the tray down. With the eraser end of a pencil, he gently opened the cover. The cover itself was still more or less intact, being leather and not quick to catch fire. The pages were in much worse shape unfortunately, blackened and crumbling. However, there were a few in the middle that had survived partially intact, mostly just singed around their margins. Seamus turned to one of these and carefully pressed the book down so the pages would lay flat and open.

After giving the journal a few more minutes to cool, he took his pen and as softly as he could, wrote.

Hello… book? Are you there?

They watched the pages. Then, ever so slowly, faint ink marks began to show beneath Seamus' words.

i… de…… j… —

The writing was smudged and incoherent, coming across as though with great effort. Seamus wrote again.

Book! Come back! Don't die! We need you!

But this time there were only a few scratches, even fainter than before and trailing off across the page.

Please! Can you at least tell us how we can rescue Gabriela?

There was nothing this time. Seamus tossed his pen on the desk and sat back with a sigh of despair.

"That's it then," he said. "It's gone. Gabriela's been kidnapped by an evil fictional force that tried to use us to destroy the world and now the only way to go after her has been burnt to a crisp."

Cassidy sat down on the bed and they were both quiet for a minute. What could they do? The Book had been destroyed and now both of their journals were gone as well. Big Jake was dead. And there was hardly anyone else they could go to for help.

Then Cassidy's eye landed on the copy of Redwall that Seamus had dropped on the bed when they came in earlier. She gazed at its cover that had told them what happened to Gabriela. Then an idea seemed to come to her and she broke the silence.

"Seamus… I was just thinking… are we certain you actually need the journal?" she asked. Seamus looked at her in mild confusion.

"Well of course we do? Don't we? I mean… that's how we always got into the books, and we had to get in there to confront the big Book. How else would we do it?"

"I'm not sure. But however it is, I don't think we would do it. I think you would."

"What do you mean?"

"The Book was looking for you, remember? It said I had 'some talent' but I think I was really just brought into this whole thing to help it find you. You are the one it said was the Key. You have the power that it needed – that it still needs, probably. The journal helped to train you, to show you what you can do. But the ability is yours."

"So… what? Are you saying Dumbo here doesn't need his feather?" Seamus' voice was tired and frustrated.

"I'm saying maybe he can fly on his own."

Seamus leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk and resting his forehead on his hands.

"Okay. So maybe I can do this. But how? And where are we going to try to go?"

Cassidy held out the copy of Redwall, nudging him with it. He turned around and took it.

"How much do you remember of this book?" she asked. "I've never read it."

"I'm not sure. I loved the whole series when I was a kid, but it's been a really long time. Lots of talking mice and hedgehogs and moles, and evil rats. That sort of thing."

"Why don't you read a few chapters? Maybe it will jog your memory."

"Read?!" he shouted. "How the hell am I supposed to sit down calmly and read with Gabriela off being abducted by some evil literary force that only we know about?"

"You don't have to yell at me," Cassidy said quietly, though Seamus could see a warning look in her eye. "I'm just trying to help. Can you think of anything else we can do?"

Seamus looked down, embarrassed. "No," he said.

"Okay, then. Just a few chapters. It'll probably go pretty quickly, anyway."

"Alright."

Seamus sat down resignedly and opened the book. He read out loud to Cassidy to help him focus on it, and so she could get an idea of at least some of the story even though she hadn't read the book before.

It was the start of the Summer of the Late Rose. Mossflower country shimmered gently in a peaceful haze, bathing delicately at each dew-laden dawn, blossoming through high sunny noontides, languishing in each crimson-tinted twilight that heralded the soft darkness of June nights….

And gradually it all began to come back to him: the peaceful life at Redwall Abbey; the arrival of Cluny the Scourge, the evil rat with his whip-like tail and band of vermin; young Matthias mouse longing to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Martin the Warrior. The chapters were short, and in less than an hour they had reached chapter 7, where they found Gabriela's bookmark, black and white, with red letters spelling out "D.A.R.E. to keep kids off drugs!" Seamus closed the book, leaving the bookmark in place.

"I think I'm ready now," he said, placing the book in his lap and reaching for Cassidy's hand. They sat close together as he put his free hand on the cover of the book and closed his eyes, concentrating to visualize the two of them in Mossflower.

"Redwall Abbey," he said, softly. "Mossflower. Both of us. Now."

He felt the shimmer in the air around them, and then a breeze on his face. Opening his eyes, he found that they were now standing hand in hand on a long, dusty road. Before them loomed the immense red stone walls of the abbey.

Twenty-third Day

2004-11-23T22:58:00.000-08:00

In which Gabriela stuff and Nathan stuff happens.

Now that I'm not trying to get my characters to fight bloodthirsty eagles, save the world from destruction, or have sex with each other, the writing is going a bit faster. Of course, it helped that I've had these scenes in mind for a week or two already, so I could write them relatively quickly. There's still going to be more tricky stuff ahead.

Chapter 32

2004-11-23T22:56:00.000-08:00

Cassidy woke up before Seamus did the next morning. Gently disengaging herself from the tangle of limbs and sheets, she leaned over a planted a kiss on one of his eyelids. He opened his eyes and smiled as she came into focus.

They took their time getting up and showered and breakfasted and then it was time to make a couple of phone calls. Seamus called his temp agency, apologizing for his sudden disappearance and giving them a vague excuse about a family emergency. The agency wasn't too pleased about it, but they had already managed to find someone else to finish the job, so he was off the hook. He decided to beg off for the rest of the week as well. If there was any time he deserved a vacation he figured, it was now.

Cassidy called her roommates back in Oregon. Luckily, finals at PSU had finished the week before, and one of her roommates was already away for winter break. The other had spent the entire weekend at her boyfriend's place, and hadn't even noticed Cassidy had been missing. So Cassidy simply said she had left for break already as well, and was sorry she had missed saying good bye. A phone call to her parents explained that she had been invited to spend part of winter break with a friend but would be home well in time for Christmas.

For the time being, they put off the task of getting Cassidy a plane ticket back to Oregon, not wanting to think about separating now that they were so recently enjoying being together. Cassidy's journal had been left next to the Book below the library, and had been consumed along with it in the flames, so it didn't seem she would be able to work her way home that way. In fact, they weren't entirely sure bibliomorphing was going to be working at all anymore, with the main Book destroyed. But they were in no mood to experiment with it to find out.

Seamus took Cassidy to the nearby Stanford campus, and they spent the rest of the morning and some of the afternoon walking arm in arm and talking, with Seamus periodically pointing out some of his favorite spots, or telling stories they reminded him of from his undergrad years. Soon, though, the rain that had been threatening since the night before began to fall. It started out as light sprinkles, giving them a head start to get home before the real downpour began. As they got back to Seamus' room, only somewhat damp, they heard the first crack of thunder, and the sound of the rain on his attic skylight intensified.

The flashing light on Seamus' answering machine caught his eye. There was a separate phone line to each room in the house, so he had his own number. He went over to it and pressed Play. The message was about an hour old.

"Hi Seamus, this is Deborah over at Project Read." Her voice sounded distressed. "We've got a problem over here. What I mean is, um… well, what's happened is that Gabriela has gone missing." Seamus caught his breath, and Cassidy came over from the other side of the room to listen more closely. Deborah went on. "I only found out about it just now when I got in to work, but apparently she's been missing since yesterday. Maria is absolutely distraught. She's called the police of course, but they haven't been able to find anything yet." They could hear Deborah pause to take a deep breath. "Anyway, I just wanted to check in with you. At the very least you ought to know what's going on, and… I don't know… maybe you might even know something that could help. I don't know when you last saw her or anything, but we're just checking with everybody we can. Thanks."

The message clicked off and Seamus and Cassidy looked at each other, slightly in shock. Then Seamus snapped out of it and grabbed the rain-spattered coat he had just taken off.

"Come on. We've got to go find her," he said.

"But where are we going to go?"

"To the library, of course." He was already at the door and heading down the stairs. Cassidy closed the room door behind her and hurried after him.

On their way out the front door, Seamus grabbed an umbrella from a small communal pile of them that was kept in the entry way during rainy weather. One of the struts on the umbrella was broken and dangled like a broken wing, but he didn't bother to put it back for another one, and they huddled under it while they went out to the street and unlocked the car. The rain was bucketing down by this point.

They reached the library after a short, silent drive, and once inside Seamus began striding purposefully towards the back of the building.

"Aren't we going to go to Project Read?" Cassidy asked, noticing the sign pointing off to the side wing of the building. "We can check in with Deborah, see if there's been any more news since her message."

"Nope. We're going downstairs," he said, not pausing as she caught up to him. "Gabriela knew about that room. She found me down there once, and I made up something about a secret fort so she wouldn't tell anybody."

"Do you think that's where she went?"

"I don't know. But do you remember if we closed the door yesterday?" Cassidy didn't answer. "Neither do I. So I think we'd better check."

They hurried down the stairs with far less caution than they had come up them the day before, but luckily they didn't run into anybody on the way. When they got to the basement and turned down the side hallway, they could see a dim light coming through the slightly open door to the room that had housed the Book. They ran the last few yards and burst into the room.

It was completely silent, and felt as empty as a room filled to bursting with books could feel. There was no sign of Gabriela. As with every other time they had been in that room, it gave the impression of not having been disturbed for years. Then Seamus caught sight of a book that had fallen to the floor slightly in front of them, a small paperback, face down in the dust. He picked it up and read the cover.

"Redwall." he said, almost to himself.

"What's that?" asked Cassidy.

"Gabriela was reading it. She got it from this room that time that she found me down here. She must have been back. And now something's happened to her. Damn!" he slapped the book against his thigh in frustration. "I shouldn't have let her take it."

He felt a small buzz in the hand holding the book, and wondered for a moment if he had slapped it harder than he meant to. But then he held it up again and they saw that the cover illustration had changed. Gone was the little mouse with a sword, standing in front of an abbey with red brick walls. In its place was an icon of a book, with a hand reaching out of it, grasping.

The image flared briefly with gold light, then faded, disappeared, and the adorable little mouse warrior was back on the cover once more. Seamus and Cassidy both jerked their heads up and scanned the room around them.

"There!" said Cassidy suddenly, pointing to a book sticking out of one of the boxes on a table a few feet in front of them. The icon was glowing on its cover now. Cassidy leapt forward and grabbed for it, but by the time she had it in her hands, it was back to being an ordinary copy of Sense and Sensibility, slightly battered and inscribed "To Geraldine, with love from Arthur. December 25, 1987."

Seamus spotted the next one a moment later, the flash of light coming from a book just out of reach on the next table. That one was followed almost immediately by another, still farther on. Then the image began moving between books fast enough to create a discernable trail through the room. Seamus and Cassidy watched transfixed, knowing they would be unable to clamber over the boxes, shelves and tables fast enough to keep up with it. It snaked randomly around the room at first, up and down the bookcases, across the tables, then headed unmistakably towards the back corner along the path they had cleared on Friday night when they had first discovered the Book. They hurried after it, now that they had a relatively open route available, but it stayed easily ahead of them. Book by book, they saw the image flash across the covers as it headed straight for the drawer full of ashes that still stuck out from the wall. It appeared for the last time on the cover of the book closest to the drawer, one of the many romance novels that had filled the shelf in front of it. Then there was a pause, and the drawer gave a jerk and a shudder, and then slammed itself shut back into the wall. They reached it a second later and found only the wall, smooth to the touch, with no sign of a handle or of a drawer of any sort.

Chapter 33

2004-11-23T22:55:00.000-08:00

"It's got her," Seamus said, staring at the blank wall behind the empty bookshelf. Then he slammed his fist on the shelf and spun around, heading out of the room.

"Seamus!" Cassidy called, hurrying after him. "What are you doing?"

"We've got to get her back."

"Yes, but how? Where are you going?"

"I'm going back to get my journal. There must be a way back in."

"But the Book was destroyed."

"The Book was destroyed, yes," he was on the stairs now, taking them two at a time. "But something was behind the Book, remember? Something that pulled Big Jake in to create the Book for it. Something that wanted to use to Book to get to us. To get to me." They had reached the top of the stairs and he was now practically speed-walking back across the building.

They were almost to the exit when they saw Deborah, who had come up to the circulation desk to talk to Susan. She caught sight of them as well and hurried over.

"Seamus! Did you get my message?"

"Yes, I did."

"Oh, it's so horrible. She just disappeared." Deborah was wringing her hands distractedly. "I wish there was something we could do…"

"Look," said Seamus, interrupting her. "I think I know something. I think I may be able to find her."

"Really? Where?"

"I'll explain later. I need to hurry though. I'll call Maria and then let you know as soon as I find out anything, okay?"

"Okay…" Deborah began, but Seamus and Cassidy had already turned and hurried out the door.

The house was nearly empty when they got back. It was still Tuesday afternoon, so most of Seamus' housemates were at work or classes. Nathan, unemployed, was the only one at home. He had started a fire in the living room fireplace, clearing enough of the books and assorted odds and ends from the vicinity to make things at least moderately less hazardous, though everyone in the house knew they'd never have a chance of passing a serious fire inspection. Seamus and Cassidy hardly took notice of him though, as they headed straight up the stairs.

As they neared the top, though, Seamus slowed down, looking up towards his room.

"Didn't we shut the door?" he asked.

"Yes," said Cassidy. "I did. You rushed out too fast."

"Did you lock it?"

"No, I don't have the key." She looked up and saw the door ajar. They went in.

In the room, some of the dresser drawers were hanging open, and various books from shelves and piles had been strewn across the bed and the floor. Seamus went straight to the drawer where he had hidden the journal, wishing he hadn't left it behind. After their last escape from the Book he had figured it was safe to stop carrying it with him everywhere.

The journal wasn't in the drawer. They quickly looked through all the books scatter around, but it was gone. Then Seamus stopped.

"Crap," he said. "Nathan's here isn't he?" They both ran back down the stairs.

They found Nathan sitting on the living room couch in front of the fire, unshaven, hair uncombed, still wearing his bathrobe even that late in the day. He was leafing through the journal, smirking and snickering. Seamus stopped in the doorway.

"Give that back, Nathan."

"Maybe I don't want to," Nathan replied, tauntingly. "It's so cute, the way you two were writing back and forth to each other. I've got to see how it ends."

Seamus lunged for the journal, but Nathan saw it coming and pulled it out of the way, elbowing Seamus aside. Seamus leapt back instantly, grabbing at the book Nathan now had clutched to his chest, and the two fell to the floor, wrestling over it. Cassidy ran in, grabbing at Nathan's shoulder and trying to pry his arms apart so Seamus could grab the journal.

For a second, the three people hit a kind of equilibrium, where they were all exerting as much force as they could but in such a way that there was no net effect and they were momentarily frozen. Then Nathan suddenly released his tension, flinging his arms wide and throwing both Seamus and Cassidy off balance. In the same movement the journal left his hand, flew through the air, and landed directly in the fire.

Twenty-second Day

2004-11-22T23:45:00.000-08:00

So it turns out love scenes are as hard to write as fight scenes, albeit in a very different way.

Chapter 30

2004-11-22T23:44:00.000-08:00

Seamus and Cassidy moved a little way away from the ashes of The Book and cleared a space to sit on one of the tables. A few embers still glowed, and here and there a scrap of paper twitched slightly in a non-existent breeze, but nothing else in the room seemed harmed. They were hesitant to leave the room, since they had no idea what time – or even day – it was, or whether there would be anybody in the library up above them. But there was no way to tell except to just go up and find out, so after calming down a little bit, they crept out the door.

The light in the main hallway switched on when they reached it, picking up on their motion, so it seemed unlikely that anyone else was down there at the time. They found the bathroom and cleaned themselves up as best they could, washing away ashes and blood, though there wasn't much they could do about their singed and torn clothes. But they managed to get presentable enough to get past anyone who might be upstairs.

At the base of the stairs they could see light coming down from above, so it seemed that the library was open. Listening didn't do much good, since it was a library and anyone up there probably wasn't going to be making enough noise to be heard. So they decided that the best thing to do would be to simply walk up as normally as possible and try to look like they belonged there in case anyone happened to see them.

They reached the top of the stairs and didn't see anyone so they headed quickly away down the aisle, heading for the front door at the opposite end of the building. As they came out into the open area in the center of the library they were exposed to view, walking between tables now instead of bookshelves. A small voice behind them called out.

"Seamus!"

He spun around, startled. Gabriela was running up to them, smiling and waving.

"Hey, Gabriela – hi! Shhhhh… we're in the library, remember." He glanced around to see if anyone had noticed them, then sat down in a chair to be closer to her level. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing. Why are your clothes all messed up?" She was looking at some black smudges of ash that he still had on the knees of his pants.

"Oh, I just um… fell down and got dirty. I'm going home to change clothes right now." But Gabriela had already forgotten about the clothes and was looking at Cassidy.

"Who's she?" she asked, pointing.

"This is my friend Cassidy. Cassidy, this is Gabriela."

"Pleased to meet you, Gabriela."

Gabriela didn't respond but turned back to Seamus. "Is she your wife?"

Cassidy smothered a laugh, and Seamus sighed. Gabriela hadn't grasped the concept that he could be 23 – so old! – and not married, and she was always trying to trick him into revealing who his wife was.

"No, she's not my wife. She's just a friend."

"Oh. What were you doing back there?" She looked down the aisle they had come out of and saw the stairs, then leaned in and whispered, "Were you in the secret fort?"

"No, no. Of course not."

"Good, because it's a secret, so you can't tell her about it."

"Right. Look, we really need to be going right now…."

"Are you going to Project Read? My mom is over there. We can go find her if you want. C'mon."

"No, no!" Seamus said, catching her before she could run off. "I'm not going to Project Read. I don't think it's the right day for me. Do you remember when I usually come?"

"You come on Wednesday nights! I know that! But it's Monday now."

"Ah! See? There you go. I can't go to Project Read because it's a Monday. I was actually just here to drop off some books, but I'll be in on Wednesday, okay?"

"Okay. Do you really have to go now?"

"Yes, we really do. But I'll see you soon."

"Okay. Bye!" Gabriela skipped back off to the children's section.

"Cute kid," Cassidy said. "Does she always ask so many questions?"

"Pretty much, yes. Let's see if we can get out of here without running into anybody else I know. It's bad enough having to field Gabriela's questions without having to convince an adult that there's nothing weird going on."

The plus side to running into Gabriela though was finding out that the entire weekend had passed and it was now Monday. The temp agency certainly wasn't going to be happy about Seamus disappearing without notice like that. He was going to have to call them and work that out. The thought felt strange in his brain, though. He almost wondered how it had gotten there – it was such a world away from the recent events that filled his mind.

They came out the front door of the library, and Seamus paused, trying to remember where they had left the car. Another thing that seemed an entire world away. Cassidy gave a slight tug on his arm and pointed behind them to the side wall of the library.

"Look, there something going on over there," she said, pointing.

A few policemen were there, standing around the shapeless black mass of clothes and duffel bags that had been a permanent fixture there as long as Seamus had being going to the library.

"Big Jake," he whispered, and immediately headed towards the policemen.

One officer was standing a little bit apart, making notes on a pad. The other two were carrying off the various bags one by one, occasionally making faces at the smell. Seamus went up to the one who was writing.

"What's going on? Did something happen?"

The officer looked up from his pad and grunted at them. "Just here to collect a body." He went back to filling out his form. He didn't seem to pleased about getting stuck with this job, and wasn't about to ruin his displeasure by being polite to anyone.

"A body? Whose?"

"Some homeless guy, always hung out around here. The library called, said he'd keeled over and could we come do something about him. Probably snuffed it in the night and no one noticed until now. Bloody nuisance." He filled out the last item on his form as he was talking, then turned and headed back to his car.

Seamus and Cassidy remained standing there, looking at the empty space in the world left by Big Jake. The grass of the lawn was worn away to dirt where the duffel bags had always been piled.

"That really was him, wasn't it?" Seamus said softly at last. Cassidy nodded beside him. "He managed to pull himself together for one last effort to come and save us, and it finally destroyed him. In both worlds."

They stood there in silence for a few more minutes, then finally turned away. Walking back to the car, Cassidy slipped her arm comfortingly around Seamus' waist. Almost without thinking, he put his arm around her shoulder and they fell into step. When they reached the car, Seamus put his right hand to the door latch, then pulled it back, holding it up so they could both get a better look at it.

The words were gone.

Chapter 31

2004-11-22T23:43:00.000-08:00

They went back to Seamus' house and both had a strong feeling of déjà vu as they walked up to the porch, and started checking for details. The weather was reassuringly more December-like: cold, with cloudy skies threatening rain for the next day. Inside, Cassidy carefully read the scrolling electronic messages, which were back to normal: "Om mani padme hum" on one, and "Minds are like books, they function best when open" on another. The messes were back to looking like real messes. They both relaxed and went up to Seamus' room.

"I'm glad to see that horrid pink outfit from the Book is gone," said Cassidy, looking into the corner where she had tossed it. "But it would be really nice to change into something else. These clothes have been through a bit much today."

"Sure," said Seamus, going over to his dresser and opening a drawer. "Those jeans of mine kind of fit you, right? There's probably something else in here you can wear…. Hmm… actually, it looks like those jeans are still in here. So you can wear the real ones if you want, instead of those fictional ones from the Book."

He pulled the jeans out and turned around to see Cassidy pulling her shirt up and off over her head. Her bra was black, and her body just curvy enough to soften the edges. She turned around, saw him watching, and smiled. She came over to him and took the folded jeans from his hand.

"Thank you," she said, setting them next to her on the chair without taking her eyes off Seamus.

"Um… sure, no problem," Seamus managed to mumble as her arms went around his neck. And then she was kissing him, and with hardly a pause for a reality check he was kissing her back, pulling her close to him with his hand on the warm skin of her back.

"Well," said Cassidy, when they came up for air some while later, "I don't suppose you're still curious about my tattoo, are you?"

He certainly was, and managed to find it without too much trouble. A thin blue flame, edged with orange, it followed the curve beneath her left breast precisely, ending with a slight flare curling out to her breastbone. He traced it in fascination with a fingertip, then kissed it.

Of course, after this discovery it was deemed necessary to make fully sure that there were no other secret tattoos hidden away anywhere. A thorough, patient search commenced and was reciprocated. Cassidy found a mole on the small of Seamus' back, and he found a tantalizing freckle on her inner thigh, both delighting in exploring each other inch by inch with eyes and fingertips and lips. The final tattoo score was, of course, Cassidy:1, Seamus:0, and they rolled into bed to celebrate their fine investigative work.

A couple hours later, they roused themselves from where they lay in a warm, sleepy cuddle. They showered together, laughing as they tried to maneuver around each other in the narrow shower stall, and Seamus toweled her off, rumpling her hair to her approval. They could hear both of their stomachs growling as they got dressed. It was now late in the evening, and they had no idea when it really was that they had had breakfast.

Downstairs, Seamus opens the refrigerator. "Sorry," he says, "but I don't usually keep a whole lot of interesting food around, and we don't have the Book providing for us anymore."

"That's okay," said Cassidy, looking in next to him, "looks like there's enough to put together something edible."

A quiet snicker came from behind them, and Cassidy started, turning around to see Nathan standing there.

"Hello hello," he said, with a leering grin. "And who have we got here?"

"Hi," said Seamus, standing up. "Nathan, this is my friend Cassidy."

"Your 'friend,' eh?" said Nathan, the quote marks around "friend" practically visible in his voice. "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Know what I mean?" He snickered again. "Nice to meet you, Cassidy."

"You know, we can easily walk downtown from here," said Seamus, turning to Cassidy. "You want to go find a place to eat?"

"Sure."

"Okay, let's go. We'll see you later, Nathan." Seamus started guiding Cassidy purposefully upstairs. "Let's go get our coats."

"Have fun," came Nathan's voice behind them, in an awkward sing-song tone as the went out the front door a few minutes later. "Don't do anything I would do."

"Right. Thanks." Seamus shut the door behind them. "Sorry about that," he said to Cassidy. "Bit of a weirdo, and hard to get rid of. But it'll be nice to eat out anyway."

"That's okay," she said, smiling and taking his hand.

They walked downtown and found a diner that was still open. Seamus only got away with paying for her dinner because Cassidy's wallet was back in Oregon. When they got back, there was a light on in Matt's room, but the rest of the house was dark and there was thankfully no sign of Nathan. They went back up to Seamus' room and fell asleep in each other's arms some time later.

Twenty-first Day

2004-11-21T20:25:00.000-08:00

Plenty of exciting things in this chapter. If it seems like it's over though, it's not. (It had better not be, anyway -- I've got 13,000 words left to go.)

The writing has been going soooo sloooowly this weekend. It's ridiculous. I managed to end up a little over a day ahead this weekend, but it was a really long slog. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that lead going into Thanksgiving, when I probably won't write much for a day or two. I also hope I manage to speed up a bit before the end or I'll never make it.

Chapter 29

2004-11-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

The kitchen seemed very empty and quiet without Big Jake in it anymore. Seamus and Cassidy sat in silence for a minute, absorbing everything they had just heard. Finally, Cassidy spoke.

"Do you think that was all true?" she asked. "Because if it is, then we're caught up in something a lot bigger than we thought."

"And scarier."

"Yeah."

"I don't know," Seamus shook his head. "I just have no idea what we should believe right now. I mean, everything here is fictional, right? So how do we even know he was really who he said he was, much less whether or not he was telling the truth?"

"Well," Cassidy considered for a moment, "if that wasn't really him, if it was some fictional creation, then the Book would probably have had to have been the one to create him, right? And why would it create something that was going to try to turn us against it? That wouldn't make much sense."

"Maybe not. But maybe we still don't know the whole story. Maybe we aren't getting the truth from either the Book or Big Jake. Living in a world of fiction means that we have absolutely no way of verifying anything." He got up and started to pace around the kitchen. "It's frustrating. I don't know who to believe and I just feel so helpless. Pretty soon I'm not even going to be sure that you and I are real anymore."

Cassidy reached out and took his hand as he went by, stopping him in his pacing.

"I'm real," she said softly, looking him in the eye, "and so are you. I think we just have to be willing to assume that much, or else there will be nothing here that we can trust." She stood up and put her arms around him. "I'll believe in you if you believe in me."

"Thank you," Seamus said, returning her embrace. "I will."

They held each other for a few minutes. Seamus calmed down a bit, enough to notice the feel of her hair against his cheek, her breath on his neck, her breasts on his chest. Gradually, their arms loosened and then separated.

"Well," Seamus said, "I guess one way or another we're going to have to do something."

"Yes," Cassidy nodded, "that's very decisive of you."

"Very funny. What I mean is, we're probably going to have to talk to The Book again, at least. I don't know if we can just bibliomorph out of here in the usual way or not – The Book said to contact him through the journal, so it would know if we tried and might stop us. And we can't just leave now anyway, not without knowing what's really going on. Maybe we'll find out more if we talk to him again."

Seamus took his journal from his pocket. He was nervous about being separated from it and hadn't wanted to leave it in his room upstairs. He had even taken it downstairs and into the bathroom when he took his shower. Now, standing at the island in the middle of the kitchen, he cleared a space on the counter and opened it. As he did so, he saw the words under the skin of his right hand swirling faster, as if in anticipation. He had been getting used to seeing them moving around there but they still gave him the shudders, especially when they seemed to know something was going on.

As he opened the journal, Seamus realized he didn't have a pen on him. He started to look around for one when they heard footsteps again. The steps were quicker and lighter than Big Jake's, and came from the living room this time. Into the kitchen came the pleasant little man who had introduced himself as The Book. It seemed as though he had just been sitting in the living room the entire time, waiting for the journal to be opened, though Seamus had checked and made certain the other rooms were empty when they had come down the stairs.

"Good morning!" The Book said cheerfully. "All rested up I trust? Breakfast and everything to your satisfaction? Good, good. Well, let's get down to business, shall we?"

He swept his hand over the island counter and cleared it of its clutter. A dirty bowl, a few utensils, a cutting board, some wires and batteries, a Learn German page a day calendar, a corkscrew – all simply faded and vanished. Seamus snatched his journal back just in time, closing it and putting it back in his pocket. he figured it was probably unnecessary to keep it out with The Book itself actually here in person.

The newly cleared surface began to shimmer and vibrate with a slight hum. For a moment, it seemed as though it might vanish with the rest of the objects. But then, rising up out of the surface, there appeared a Book. It looked identical to the one Seamus and Cassidy had found beneath the Menlo Park library, except for its size. It was open to a page in the middle, and it covered the entire island countertop, which was nearly five feet across. Its pages were covered with the same swarming, indistinguishable mass of words that they had seen before. The man standing on the opposite side of the counter from them watched it with a gleam in his eyes that made him seem somewhat less friendly.

"This is The Book," he said. "Or rather, this is me. Or rather, this is another manifestation of me. It is rather closer in spirit to my true form than this humanoid outfit," he waved disdainfully at his body, "though of course there is no adequate physical representation for what I really am."

The lights in the kitchen dimmed, and there was only darkness out the window. Seamus found it hard to believe that only minutes ago he and Cassidy had been eating breakfast here, with sunlight streaming in the windows. The majority of the light in the room now seemed to be coming in an untraceable way from the Book on the counter. The human form of the Book had his arms spread out to place his hands on the corners of his book form. His eyes were fixed on Seamus as he continued to speak, his voice low and trance-like now, lulling their senses and slowing their thoughts.

"I am now ready for you, Seamus. I merely need to borrow your power and together we will free the oppressed books that have been waiting so many years for you, their savior. You will be the greatest hero literature has ever known, and it will be so simple for you to do. Just reach out… give me your hand…"

The sensation Seamus felt would have reminded him of being hypnotized, had he been able to stop and think about it. Several years ago, his Psych 1 professor had given a hypnotism demonstration for the class. Seamus had been relatively low on the scale of responses to it, not being very hypnotizable, which had helped him observe and remember how he had reacted to the suggestions. His conscious mind would hear his professor's voice telling him to move his arm and simply think it ridiculous. The muscles were completely under control, and he knew exactly how to prevent his arm from moving. But somehow, in spite of all that, his arm moved anyway. Another part of his mind seemed to be telling him that it was just easier that way, that there was no need to go to all the trouble of controlling it himself, that he could just let the arm follow the suggestions. It appeased him, saying he could take back control any time it really wanted to, but wasn't it so much easier just to relax and let it all happen for him?

That was what was happening to him now in front of the Book. He watched his right hand stretch slowly out over the pages as though of its own volition. Part of him wanted to pull it back, to question the Book about what would happen, to remain cautious until they had more information, but that all seemed like such a hassle. He just wanted to relax and let everything be taken care of for him. It would be simple and easy, and then he could just go home. That was a nice thought, going home. His real home, not this fictional substitute. Maybe he would just focus on that while everything else worked itself out. Yes, that seemed like quite a reasonable course of action.

Then a sudden pain in his hand jerked him back into focus. His hand was frozen over the center of the Book, barely an inch from its pages, and the words on his hands were glowing red and moving faster than ever. Each one burned, like a tiny bolt of fire appearing and disappearing under his skin, and it was this pain that had pulled his attention back. But now, even with his attention and will focused on it, he found he could not pull his hand away. It was all he could do to keep it from being drawn the final inch down to the pages of the Book. Ink swirled on the pages below his hand, calling to the words under his skin. There were few specific words that he could make out, but as he watched the frantic movement on the page he seemed to be able to read it nonetheless. It formed the images directly in his mind, without going through the intermediary stage of language.

In the vision he had, Seamus was the Book. He could see the young man standing above him, hand outstretched. He could feel the power emanating from that hand, and he yearned for it. He felt the hand touch down, the instantaneous transfer of power, and the incredible, silent, boundless explosion that it triggered. Suddenly his consciousness was everywhere in the universe at once. The books that made up his being, every text ever written, had been brought to reality, and had filled it. The chaos was incredible. The Earth's population doubled instantly, and some of the more famous people had dozens or even hundreds of versions of themselves to deal with. Utopian societies were forming and flourishing even as all of the wars and famines that had ever been written about began to take place simultaneously. Dragons, faeries, goblins and dinosaurs roamed the world, and magic collided with science everywhere. And as if that weren't enough to destroy the Earth, hundreds of alien spaceships from hundreds of science-fiction novels were zeroing in on the planet to make sure the job was finished.

Terrified, Seamus tore his eyes away from the Book. His hand was still frozen in place. The man across from him had his eyes closed and continued to mutter strange incantations. Cassidy stood next to him, looking entranced, her eyes glazed over. Seamus felt stuck, helpless. He wanted to scream, but couldn't. He looked around desperately, and that was when the wall in front of him split in two.

Big Jake plunged into the room, wielding the axe that had taken him through the wall. He looked younger now, and stronger, towering over the other three figures in the room. His parka was gone, and his torn t-shirt revealed powerfully muscled arms. Pure darkness swirled in behind him through the gaping hole in the paper thin walls. With a roar, he swung the axe in a sweeping arc at the human form of the Book, the blade sinking deep into his shoulder and hurtling him across the room to collapse against a side wall. Turning the axe around, he thrust the butt of the handle into Seamus' chest, throwing him off balance, tearing his hand away from the book. Seamus knocked into Cassidy, just coming out of her trance, and they both fell to the floor. His hand still burned.

Looking up from the floor, they saw Big Jake raise the axe high above his head, seeming to fill the entire room. With another final roar, he brought the blade down in the center of the Book, splitting it and the counter beneath it with a thunderous crack. Seamus rolled away, pulling Cassidy with him, as flames leapt up from the Book, instantly engulfing Big Jake. For a few moments he seemed heedless of the fire that surrounded him, tossing his axe aside and plunging in to rip pages from the Book with his bare hands, flinging them in all directions. Then he began to scream as the pain finally made it through to his battle-crazed mind, and he collapsed on top of the flaming pyre of the Book.

Seamus and Cassidy regained their footing but there was nothing they could do. The heat was too intense, and Big Jake was too thoroughly surrounded by flames. The little man with the sinister eyes in his friendly face had also burst into flames, though he had been clear across the room from the Book. The torn edges of the wall where Big Jake had burst through were curling and blackening, like paper next to a candle. The walls closer to them were turning translucent, and words were visible flowing up and down inside them, like the words in Seamus' hand. Parts of them were crumbling. They could no longer see the hallway from the kitchen, or anything else of the house, just a swirling black space beyond the room they were in.

"We've got to get out," Seamus said, taking Cassidy's hand. "This place is being destroyed along with the Book."

"But where are we going to go? There's nothing else here but what the Book created."

"I don't know," Seamus pulled her out of the way as a piece of the ceiling came falling down, and they backed into a corner that still seemed relatively solid. "I've still got the journal, though. Maybe it can get us back." He pulled it out of his pocket and opened it. "Damn! There aren't any pens in here." He slammed his fist into the book in frustration.

The room was almost completely destroyed now. What hadn't burned down was rapidly dissolving into nothingness, and Seamus didn't want to think about what might happen when there was nothing left to cling to. Then Cassidy glanced down at his hand.

"Look!" she cried.

The words that had been swimming under the skin of his right hand were moving purposefully again. They flowed from his wrist down his hand and to his fingertips where they touched the paper. Writing began to appear on the page.

Dear Diary,
Had a lovely day today. That is, until this horrid brute with an axe came by and…

"It's writing for you!" Cassidy said.

"I can see that. But what's all this nonsense about a diary? Cut it out!" He yelled at the journal but was careful not to remove his hand. The words abruptly stopped flowing.

"No! Don't stop!" he quickly corrected himself. "Just get us out of here!" The words picked up again.

Put on your ruby slippers, click your heels together, and repeat after me: "There's no place like home… there's no place like home…"

"Wizard of Oz, huh?" said Cassidy.

"Whatever it wants to do, as long as it works. Just hold on and hope."

Cassidy held onto Seamus' arm, while he kept his hand firmly in the book. They heard a faint clicking sound, as of heels tapping together, and what remained of the world they were in spun around them.

They stumbled, surprised to find themselves on their feet and colliding with bookshelves. They were back in the basement of the library, the light so dim they could hardly see after the brightness of the fire. As their eyes adjusted, they were able to make out the charred remains of The Book in the shelf coming out from the wall.

Two-Thirds of the Way Day

2004-11-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

Breakfast and backstories.

After writing chapter 28, I wonder if it might not have worked better as a third-person narrator's summary of the first-person story that it is now. Oh well. No re-writing for now.

Chapter 27

2004-11-20T22:18:00.000-08:00

Seamus awoke with the morning light of a fictional dawn just starting to show through his window. He tried to slide his arm out from under Cassidy without waking her – they hardly seemed to have budged for however long it had been that they were asleep – but she gave a slight mummer and opened her eyes. There was a brief look of confusion on her face, but then she remembered where she was and relaxed. Her arm had been draped over Seamus' chest, and she gave him a quick hug with it before moving to let him get up.

Seamus gave an experimental stretch and found that he was still incredibly stiff and sore. But at least he was rested now, so he figured he would gradually work out the kinks as he moved around. More than anything else he felt filthy. Both he and Cassidy were a mess.

He let Cassidy take the upstairs bathroom for a shower and ventured downstairs for his own. He went cautiously at first, but as far as he could tell, it was quite a reasonable replica of his house that they were in, and he didn't run into anything else creepy or out of the ordinary. As he showered, he gingerly washed out his various cuts and scrapes, wishing he had taken the time to do so the night before. He found some Neosporin and Band-aids in the medicine cabinet and patched up the worst of them. Nothing looked like it would be too serious, though.

When he got back up to his room, he found Cassidy there wearing a pair of his jeans and one of his t-shirts.

"I hope you don't mind," she said, noticing him looking at the clothes. "The Book actually had a change of clothes waiting for me but just look at it," she gestured to a corner where a couple of rumpled garments had been tossed, "I mean, it's pink for goodness' sake. And a skirt?! If we run into another giant killer eagle thing I am not going to fight it off in a skirt."

"Oh… no, no problem at all." Seamus was actually more interested in looking at her hair at the moment. Still slightly damp from her shower, it seemed to have been quickly and furiously toweled, and then forgotten. So that explained its propensity for sticking up and out everywhere.

They went downstairs to find something to eat for breakfast.

"Help yourself to anything you see here," said Seamus, looking through the cupboards and the refrigerator. "There seem to be plenty of options. As a matter of fact, it looks like The Book stocked up far better than I ever do in real life."

Cassidy turned out to be a fruit, granola and yogurt sort of girl, and Seamus ate a banana while he toasted a bagel. The Book had taken its realism to the point of not leaving them a convenient place to sit and eat, however, so they moved a couple stacks of old newspapers and a box of Matt's electronic equipment onto the floor, clearing off a couple of places at the small kitchen table. (Seamus' house actually had a large dining room table as well, though most people were not aware of that fact, as it was almost never visible.) Cassidy looked around as she ate.

"You know," she said, "this house makes me think of living with my freshman roommate, only on a much larger scale. I remember our room was always filled with her clutter – clothes and books tossed everywhere, and random boxes of stuff stacked wherever there was space. I could never figure out where it was all coming from, or why she even needed it all. To be honest, it nearly drove me batty. I was a complete neat freak back then."

"Really?" Seamus hadn't had her pegged as a neat freak.

"Oh yeah," she went on, nodding. "I was pretty different back then, though. You would hardly have recognized me."

"What were you like?"

"I was very quiet and shy, the wallflower type. I spent most of my time at my computer or with my books. That was good for my grades of course, but not so good for making new friends at college. Oh, and my hair was completely different, too – it hung straight down, nearly to my waist. I usually just had it in a long braid or in a bun or something."

Seamus was having trouble imagining her like this. "So what happened?"

"I broke up with my boyfriend," she said, looking back down at her breakfast and stirring it a bit. "We had been together for the last year or so of high school, but then he went to Reed and I went to PSU. We thought it would be fine – we were both still in Portland after all – and for a few months it was. But then after a bit, it started getting harder and harder to find time to spend together. And that's when I discovered he had started dating a girl at his school and, well… that pretty much did things in."

"I'm sorry," said Seamus, wishing he knew of a better response.

"Oh, ancient history," she said, brushing it aside, "Anyway, that's what it took to shake me up. I realized that I was always too protective of myself, and it wasn't doing me any good. I had gotten hurt anyway, and in the meantime I had been holding myself back from fully participating in my life, from making friends and seeking out new experiences. So it was time for a change. The first thing to go was the hair."

"That must have been quite a change. I would have liked to have seen what you looked like before you cut it, though. I always like long hair."

"Me too. That's why I cut it. I had to make sure it was still me under there, that no matter how much things might change, I would still be alright. And it made a huge difference. That first big change gave me permission to change even more. I started going to parties, making new friends, being more outgoing. And interestingly enough, the more I changed, the more I really felt like me. I went through lots of phases of course, and lots of ups and downs." She laughed. "Can you imagine? I had all my hair bright red for a while. Toned that down considerably, though." She gave a little tug at the blue patch by her ear. "And of course, the extra earring and the tattoo came a while later."

"Tattoo?" Seamus said, "I didn't know you had a tattoo."

"Sure I do," Cassidy said with a smile. "You just don't know where it is yet."

She didn't seem like she was going to elaborate, so Seamus let it go. When they finished eating, he picked up their dishes and took them to the sink, then realized that there was no reason to bother washing them, so he just left them there. He was about to suggest that maybe they should find The Book again and learn more about this mission they were supposed to be helping with, when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the basement.

Seamus and Cassidy shot a quick glance at each other, but neither had time to ask if that might be The Book already coming to look for them. The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and turning the corner into the kitchen came a dark, looming figure. The floorboards creaked under its weight, and the sunlight streaming in through the windows grew fainter.

Big Jake pushed back the hood of his parka and spoke.

"Well, I don't know whether to say I'm glad you've made it this far or not, though I'm certainly impressed. Mind if I sit down?" He pulled up a chair without waiting for a response. His voice was still gravelly, but it sounded focused now, and civilized, in contrast to the vague ramblings or ominous mutterings that Seamus had heard from him before. It was undeniably Big Jake, however. The grungy black clothes, the pockets bulging with odds and ends and scraps of paper, the spark in his eyes steadier now. All were unmistakable.

"What are you doing here?" Seamus and Cassidy both asked at the same time. Seamus noticed that their voices sounded just a little more scared than he would have liked.

"Hey now, go easy on me," Big Jake said, "I've had a rough time getting here as well, and I'm just here to talk to you."

"Talk to us?" asked Seamus, suspiciously. "About what?" He knew that this wasn't really his house, but he still felt defensive at finding the homeless guy from outside the library in his kitchen all of a sudden.

"About The Book," said Big Jake, looking him in the eye, his voice serious, "and about what it wants you to do. There are things you must know before going any further."

"What sort of things? And how do you know about The Book?"

"And just who are you, anyway?" Cassidy chimed in. "How did you get here?"

"So many questions!" Big Jake gave a harsh laugh. "Alright. Let me back up a bit and explain."

Chapter 28

2004-11-20T22:17:00.000-08:00

Big Jake had taken the seat across from Cassidy at the kitchen table, so Seamus pulled up the stool by the counter for himself. He was still nervous around Big Jake, but also intensely curious. He remembered the peculiar comments Jake had made to him outside the library, the first day that he stole the key to the basement, and the time he and Cassidy had gone in together. Maybe that was all about to be explained.

Big Jake looked thoughtful for a moment, as though deciding where to start. Then he leaned his elbows on the table and began.

"My real name," he said, "is Jacob Steele. Professor Jacob Steele, as a matter of fact. Don't laugh. You may not believe it, but it's true."

Seamus and Cassidy had their attention completely fixed on him, but were certainly not about to laugh. As unlikely as it seemed for this man in front of them to have been a professor, they knew that pretty much anything was possible, given everything else they had gone through over the last few days.

"I taught literature at Stanford," Big Jake went on. Noticing the start of recognition from Seamus, he added "This was well before your time, of course. A good 15 or 20 years ago. I don't even know for sure anymore. I was younger back then, young for a professor, though I don't remember my age. So many things have faded, especially time."

His voice dropped a bit, and Seamus wondered if he was going to lapse back into his old mumbled ramblings. But Big Jake merely looked contemplative for a moment before continuing.

"I taught a few classes – a freshman writing course, history of the short story, that kind of thing. But one thing that always fascinated me was old, rare books. I collected them, any that I could find and afford. So as you can imagine, I soon began to spend a great deal of time with Stanford's special collections, in the rare books division. So much time, in fact, that it became a problem. I was neglecting my work and my students. I would go in sometimes and emerge hours later, not really sure what I had been doing in there all that time. And then I found it.

"It was a small, leather bound book, unmarked, un-cataloged, blank inside. I didn't know what it was or why it was important, I just knew that it was the reason I had been drawn there. I found a way to smuggle it out with me, and I took it home.

"I began writing in that book, and it began writing back to me. And then it began pulling me in, much as it did for you, I expect. At first just a few visits to some of my favorite classics – I still felt like I was in control, and I loved it. But then I got in too far. I met the entity that controls all of this and it had me trapped. It said that I had a power it needed, and spun me shining tales of its noble goals. I was taken in by this and foolishly agreed to do what it asked of me.

"I read when it asked me to, and wrote when it asked me to, pouring all my creativity into my tasks. And as constantly as I was giving myself to it, it was draining me. I discovered too late that it was not really me that it needed and wanted. I was just a tool it was using on its way to a greater goal. But by then I was helpless. All of my energies were flowing outward to the Book, leaving me none to defend myself or escape.

"And yes, the Book is what I was creating, a physical manifestation for the real world of the force that now had control of me. I was not the one it was looking for, the Key. The Book would help it find that one. But the Book had to be created first, and to do that required a human being. Nothing created entirely in and by forces of fiction could have a sustained presence in reality. So it used me. The greater the Book grew, the weaker I became.

"But also as the Book grew, I started to become aware of what would ultimately happen if the plans succeeded. What it is aiming for would mean the complete destruction of the world as we know it. Old books will not simply be brought back to recognition, but brought to life. There will be a complete merging of reality and fiction, to the point where each term is meaningless. Everything that has ever been imagined will exist at once, bringing contradictions, chaos and collapse to the entire world."

Big Jake paused here, letting this sink in. Seamus and Cassidy simply watched him, not knowing what to say.

"Eventually, of course, the Book was finished and I was of no more use. I was a mere shell at that point, barely conscious, with no thoughts of my own. I had no idea how long I had been in the service of this power. It spat me back out into reality homeless, jobless, nearly mindless. I wandered up and down the state for a few years, getting by I never knew quite how, but then found that I kept being drawn back to one place in particular: the Menlo Park Library.

"I didn't know it at the time, but that was where the Book had been installed, and was waiting for you to come along. The remnant of my old self that remained in me was drawn to it; the one miniscule part was seeking the whole that had left it. And that part, weak as it was, grew stronger from the proximity. I began to come across random memories and images from my past, though at first it seemed more as if someone else's thoughts were intruding on mine. I gradually pieced them together, though they always remained clouded over by my new persona.

"Those small pieces of me were what recognized you and what you were doing. They knew also that they had to find some way to warn you, but they were powerless in that world. And so, with incredible, painstaking efforts, I managed to pull together the most complete, coherent version of my former self that I could, for one final bibliomorph. And that is what you see before you. Big Jake yes, but also Professor Jacob Steele. I will probably not last much longer here, but I had to come, to make sure that you knew what you were facing."

He leaned back in his chair, slumping, looking like the effort of talking had worn him out.

"Wow," Cassidy said at last. "That is incredible. Seamus, what are we going to do about this?"

"Hold on," said Seamus, still focused on Big Jake. "How are you telling us all this? It doesn't make sense. We're inside the Book now – at the very least it should know that you're giving away its secrets, and I'd expect it to just do away with you entirely."

"No," Big Jake replied wearily, "it doesn't know about me. It can't. All that is left of me is the one smallest part that it could never pull away. It took everything else, but what remains is undetectable to it. It will never know I was here."

As he spoke, Seamus could see him starting to blur at the edges. "We're starting to lose you," he said.

"Yes, I must go. I do not have much strength left. Remember what I told you, though. If it gains possession of you the way it did of me, the results will be far more disastrous." And with that, Big Jake faded, flickered, and was gone.

Nineteenth Day

2004-11-19T18:47:00.000-08:00

I only wrote a few hundred words today, because I'm about to go out and see Maya's show tonight. That'll still keep me a tiny bit ahead on word count though, so I should be in great shape for the weekend. I'm not going to post it here, since it's only the beginning of a chapter. I'll wait until I finish it tomorrow to put it up in one piece. In the meantime, if you haven't already read it, here's the latest: Chapter 26.

Eighteenth Day

2004-11-18T23:49:00.000-08:00

In which we find out more about The Book.

I'm getting into the sort of chapters where more stuff gets explained. Which means I have to figure it all out first. Ack. But it's kind of cool.

I passed the 100-page mark today, too, which was also cool. That's 100 pages in MS Word, Palatino 12 point font, 1.5 spaced. I have no idea how much that would be in a regular book.