Grimm Tidings: A Secret Library Short Read Read online

  Grimm Tidings: A Secret Library Short Read

  Copyright © 2019 Jonathan Gilbert

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Tardigrade House 2019

  Auckland, New Zealand

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

  Cover Design by saraoliverdesign.com

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Grimm Tidings

  A Secret Library Short Read

  J. C. Gilbert

  Grimm Tidings takes place between A New Keeper and Call of Kuyr (books 1 and 2 of the Secret Library series). The story can be read on its own or as a seperate entrance into the series.

  CHAPTER ONE

  In the center of the multiverse, there is a library. No, that’s not quite correct, for this library isn’t just at the center of the multiverse, it is the multiverse. So important is this library for all things that are, were, will be, and will not be, that it is generally referred to as The Library.

  Though The Library is vast beyond thinking, containing, as it were, all the infinite expansion that is possibility itself, as well as all the shelving space needed to house these marvelous works, it has but one librarian.

  This librarian is a gorilla.

  The Librarian, as she is always called by those who ask, is glad for her incredible strength as it allows her to carry that many more books from place to place. It is not for us to guess why it is that the most magical library that ever there was couldn’t just manage its own books and move them to where they needed to be by magic. The Library needs the Librarian. This is just one of the many facts of reality, as well as unreality, if you were wondering. The Librarian has a name of her own, but she won’t tell it to you.

  There is one other being which The Library depends on to run smoothly, and this being is called the Keeper. The Keeper is not a gorilla, nor are they a jungle creature of any kind. No, the Keeper is a human being, and a very special human being at that. Keepers are selected, not made. They come from the multiverse’s vast stock of book worms. When The Library needs a new Keeper, it selects a very particular kind of book worm, one who reads with all their heart, one who is kind and gentle, one who will always strive to do what’s right.

  The Library will send such a person a key that can be used to get into The Library. Sometimes this key is an actual key that opens an invisible door in the air, sometimes it is a music box that draws you in as the tune clicks on, sometimes it is a shell within which you can hear the ocean, and, yes, sometimes it is a police telephone box.

  Alex Reed’s key was a book. It was not just any book, though. It was a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carrol, a first-edition at that. Alex had found it in a disappearing bookshop, and when she showed her mother, she wanted to sell it because first editions are worth a lot of money.

  But it was not sold.

  Alex is fifteen years old and lives in the quiet and idyllic suburb of Torbay. It was a nice enough place to grow up, as Alex often reminded herself, and yet, Alex spent most of her time in perpetual fear of being spoken to. Not just by strangers either. Alex avoided bus drivers and shop keepers, school students and adults, the nice teachers as well as the mean. Anxiety was so much a part of Alex’s life that she named it Hank and pictured him as a hedgehog that lived in her heart.

  Aside from her mom, dad, grandma, and little brother Jonny, there was only one person who Alex could speak to without Hank going ballistic in her stomach, and that was her best friend, Lilly. Lilly was tall where Alex was on the short side, Lilly talked a lot where Alex preferred to listen, Lilly’s first object in life was to find the joke in things, where Alex’s was just to get through the day.

  Last week, Alex showed The Library to Lilly, and both their lives changed forever.

  As I have mentioned, the Keeper is important for the smooth running of The Library. This implies that sometimes things do not go quite the way they are supposed to. A chance fluctuation or an abnormal event can cause the books to become tainted by the void of creation, to be touched by magic. It is the Librarian’s job to find these tainted books and the Keeper’s job to put things right again. This usually involves going inside the stories in order to find the source of the disorder. At all times, the Keeper feels the call of these books, and it is a call that must not be ignored.

  Alex read the title of the book that the Librarian held out. “Grimmoire,” she sounded aloud. The book was thick and old. Its cover was black and cracked with age. The corners of the book were decorated by what looked to be gold, though it might well have been brass for all that Alex knew. It was definitely the book that had been calling to her all week. “What does the title mean?” she asked.

  “I don’t know that it has a meaning,” said the Librarian. The Librarian spoke in a thick Scottish accent and wore spectacles for reading. “I think it is the name of the place inside. I have had a little read, and it seems to be a very strange place, indeed. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait for Lilly to enter this one?”

  As it happened, Alex would much rather have waited for Lilly. But there was just something about this book. It called like many of the books in The Library, but this one seemed to have a strange sort of significance for Alex. “I think I’ll be all right. I can always come back if I need help, right?”

  “Right you are. First sign of trouble, just open your book and return to The Library.”

  Alex nodded. She could feel Hank moving around inside her. Hank was convinced that there would be someone in the story who Alex would have to talk to. Alex acknowledged that this may be the case, but opened the book anyway and read the first line.

  The wizard is of no help, and I fear that my brother forgot about me…

  Falling into a book is not like any sort of experience you or I may come across in the normal course of things. This is because it involves both the unpacking of a universe from the size of a book to the size of, well, a universe, as well as the transportation of a human being across time and space into said universe. The brain sort of gives up on the whole processing of normal experience and fills in the gaps with what it thinks such an experience ought to feel like.

  First, Alex felt her peripheral vision give out in favor of a vague shadow. If Alex had ever had a migraine, then she might have remarked that it was not at all like a migraine. Next, she felt all the air drain from her lungs s
o that she could not speak but somehow could still breathe. Then she felt a tug and a falling motion, and pretty soon, all she could see was the first page of the first chapter of the book called Grimmoire rushing toward her.

  Then there was the darkness.

  It was not an empty sort of darkness, but a darkness of space between space, of a vacuum but with wind in it. Here, Alex could smell the distinct odor of rotting tree stumps and the distant smell of wood burning. All around her, pages fluttered about. This was primarily due to the fact that the multiverse liked to try its hand at the dramatic on occasion.

  Sometimes the multiverse got it right.

  And then there was the space of light, and Alex braced herself for impact. Most of the time, she landed in a crouch inside the new universe. On bad days, she slammed hard into the ground, sprawled about with her arms and legs at uncomfortable angles.

  Today was not a good day.

  CHAPTER TWO

  There was a fwop as Alex collided with the dirt and dust. She blew dust from her lips and slowly rolled onto her back. Looking up, she could see that the sky was gray. It did not seem to her to be the gray of an overcast day between the sunshine. It seemed to be the gray of a world that was really going all-out in the gloom department. Hanging overhead were the dark and creeping fingers of leafless trees. It might have just been the light, but it looked to Alex like the bark was as black as night.

  Alex stood up and dusted off her maroon sweater. It was her favorite sweater and, as such, was several sizes too big for her. She liked having the sleeves cover her hands when it was cold. She had them cover her hands when it was not cold too. To an observer ignorant of human anatomy, it might have looked like Alex’s small fingers were just the very ends of exceedingly long and narrow limbs that curled and twisted away inside the warm recesses of her outer layer. When Alex first had that thought, it had made her all the more enamored with the sweater.

  The dirt that Alex swept off of her was gloomy too. It was dark gray and did not look at all like real dirt. Looking about, Alex saw that she was in some kind of wilderness. The dark skeletons of trees hung all around, and the sky was gray in every direction. In the distance, there was a chain of mountains that lorded over the land as gloomy as everything else. It was silent in this place, and Alex could not see any indication of any living thing at all.

  It wasn’t even windy.

  An odd unreality hung over the scene that Alex could not quite put her finger on. “I’m sure it’s fine,” said Alex in as soothing a tone as she could manage. “We can leave at any time.”

  Hank was not convinced.

  There was a clear path between the dead trees that wound about this way and that. Alex kept a close eye on the trees, which to her, seemed to be watching her as she passed. There were no birds in their branches and no leaves that could rustle. All was still, all was dead, and yet Alex remained suspicious.

  After a time, Alex noticed some variation in the sky up ahead. It seemed to her that a column of smoke was wending its way toward the clouds. Hank curled into a ball in Alex’s stomach and rolled around, spiking her diaphragm in the process. If there was smoke, then there would probably be people, one person at the very least. Alex had always enjoyed reading because it meant she could spend time with people without having to talk to them. The books she had been reading lately were not at all like that. They always had someone who needed her help. Well, she thought, if I am to go home, then I will first have to go on.

  Soon Alex came to another clearing in the woods. It was of a similar size to the one in which she had landed, but to one side, there was a small cottage. It was a cozy looking wooden house and was surrounded by flower planters.

  All the flowers were dead.

  There was a tree stump there too with an ax buried in it. The handle to the ax looked to be rotted away, and Alex was almost certain that it would crumble if anyone were to pick it up. A warm orange light escaped the curtained windows of the cottage, and the movement of a shadow let Alex know that there was indeed someone inside.

  Alex took a few steps forward, but then, struck with an idea, she looked down at the ground at her feet. There among the gray dust were clear signs that someone had recently laid there, and not just anyone either. This was the spot where Alex had fallen when she landed in the book. She recognized the imprint of her body in the dust. Alex frowned and looked back the way she had come. “Hang on,” she said, “how is that possible?”

  “How is what possible?” asked a voice.

  Alex looked around, Hank going berserk in her stomach, and saw that there was a person at the door to the cottage. A person? No, not quite. He was well on his way to being a person, but at present, he was just a little boy. He looked about five years old if Alex were to guess.

  “How is what possible?” the boy repeated.

  “Oh, um, I think I may be lost,” said Alex, not knowing what else to say.

  “Where were you headed?” asked the boy.

  “I am not exactly sure,” said Alex.

  “Then you aren’t exactly lost, are you?”

  “You are a strange little boy,” said Alex, stepping forward.

  “What are you doing?” demanded the boy, suddenly alarmed.

  “I was going to shake hands with you,” said Alex. “Do they do that here? Shake hands?”

  “People shake hands to show that they mean each other no harm,” said the boy, as if reciting something he had taken great pains to remember.

  “Thats right,” said Alex, as encouraging as she could.

  “No, people don’t do that here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because everyone means everyone else harm. It’s a well-known fact.”

  “Surely that can’t be right.”

  “It is!” insisted the boy. “Take me, for example. I’m ‘sposed to put a knife in your neck. I bet you didn’t know that.”

  “Why supposed to?” asked Alex as she inched her had down toward the bag that held her book just in case she needed to escape.

  The boy shrugged. “It’s just a thing we do. If we ever come across a girl, we are supposed to kill her. Those are the rules.”

  “We?” asked Alex, her heart skipping a beat.

  “Me and my brothers. I have eleven of them, you know.” The boy held up both his hands at that, wiggling his ten fingers and then putting forward an index finger to make up the difference.

  Alex took a step backward.

  “Don’t go! I want to show you to my brothers. Maybe then they will think twice about making me stay back to do the housework.”

  “I really ought to run,” said Alex. Then, turning quickly about, she did just that. Alex was not built to be a runner. She thought that there was just something about her heart that made it simply beat faster than most people’s hearts. She was wrong, of course, but it did mean that she was not in the habit of regular exercise. After about five minutes of running, she steadied herself against a tree, gasping for breath. She stole a glance back the way she had come and saw that there was no army of little boys running after her with little knives. Indeed, there was no movement at all; no movement and no sound.

  Once she had caught her breath, she continued her way down the path. After a short time, she came into another clearing. Once more, she found that the clearing was familiar, and once more, she found that there were clear signs in the dust where she had fallen.

  But this couldn’t have been the same clearing. She had walked quite a way now, and besides, there was a great dead tree in the center of the clearing that certainly hadn’t been in the place where she landed.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” said Alex.

  “Nothing in this place does,” said the tree.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alex started at the sudden linguistic faculties of the burnt-out old husk.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t look at me like that,” said the tree.

  Alex frowned and then began a circle of the tree, looking for
the true owner of the voice she had heard. When she had made a complete survey of the tree’s perimeter, she supposed that whoever had spoken to her was inside the hollow of the tree’s trunk.

  “Who is in there?” asked Alex.

  “It’s too early in the day for questions like that,” said the tree. “You would think that the one good thing about being a tree is that you wouldn’t have to go find yourself, you know, having roots and all. You would think that you yourself would always be in the same place. Apparently not.”

  “So you really are a tree,” said Alex flatly.

  “Yes.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Alex.

  “Nothing in this place does. I already told you that. You get given the ability to speak, but do you think anyone would bother to listen?”

  “What do you know, you are just a tree.”

  “Touche,” said the tree.

  Alex was just about to give up on the whole book when she saw that she was not alone in that clearing. Off to one side, almost completely hidden by the shadow, there was a man leaning against a fallen log. He was wearing a long brown coat, and his face was concealed by a broad-brimmed brown hat. Alex ducked behind the tree with whom she had just been conversing and watched the man cautiously.

  “One minute, you won’t even listen to me, and the next you are using me for cover? Some manners you have,” said the tree.

  “Shh,” said Alex.

  “You didn’t seriously just-”

  And then the man stirred. Slowly, he lifted his head and surveyed the clearing. Alex stayed as still as she could manage, but he had already seen her.

  “You there!” shouted the man.

  “Me?” asked the tree.

  “No, not you, Fredrick. The girl,” said the man. He spoke in a heavy accent, which Alex supposed must be German, though she wasn’t sure.