Storybound

MARISSA BURT

STORYBOUND

Dedication

for the children

Contents

Chapter 1

U
na often told herself that she was invisible. Perhaps that was the reason people passed her in the halls, their eyes skimming over her slight form as if she were part of the scenery: a desk, a book, a classroom, a girl. It could also be the reason why Ms. McDonough, perched on her musty old pink chair, talked to her cats about Una as though Una wasn’t there. “The girl sassed me today,” she would say, or “The girl is quite selfish and irresponsible.” But Una didn’t mind too much. The cats couldn’t tease Una like the kids in the other foster homes had. There had been five foster families so far, and Ms. McDonough’s was the first where Una could actually be alone. Even at dinner, as they sat together at the long mahogany table, the surface polished to such a gleam that Una’s big violet eyes looked back up at her, even there Ms. McDonough never acknowledged her, and Una was left to her own imagination.

It became Una’s habit, on days that she felt especially invisible, to retire to the basement of the school library. Most students stayed on the main floor, grouped together at sunny tables, giggling over their math problems and English homework. But Una preferred the lower level, where she could sit undisturbed except for the odd student scurrying down to get some reference book needed for a research paper. She would tuck into her favorite desk underneath one of the high basement windows—half daydreaming, half reading—while the minutes flew by and she wondered what it would be like to live a different life.

One autumn day Una made her way down to this spot, humming off-key. She rounded the corner and stopped. There, at her desk, in her particular place, someone sat writing furiously.

It looked like he was wearing the sort of costume she read about in her favorite fantasy novels. The hood of his cloak was pulled up, and it made a little point at the top. Una didn’t mind that some other kid had decided to claim a spot in the library basement.
Except that it’s
my
desk
. She glanced at her watch. There was only half an hour left before her next class. She marched up to him and cleared her throat.

The boy didn’t even look up.

She coughed louder. Either the boy couldn’t hear or he was purposely ignoring her. “You’re in my spot,” she said pointedly.

The boy kept writing. Una sighed.
It’s not like I can lift him up and
make
him move.
For a minute, she imagined what that would look like. Her hoisting the cloaked boy and tossing him to the side, a chorus of cheers applauding her. With one more glance at the occupied desk, she turned and left the row. She’d have to find a different spot for today. After all, there were plenty to choose from.

But she was wrong. She peered down the next row. An identical brown hood bent low over the next desk. And the same across the aisle.

Una threaded her way through the center rows of abandoned old periodicals. She passed musty shelf after musty shelf, and finally settled on a friendly-looking chair in a forgotten corner. Una fitted herself into the small space and scanned the nearby shelves. She knew the books in her old spot well, their Dewey decimal numbers reassuring in their sameness: 372.642 Pho–402.3 Gri. These books were strangers, standing proudly with their battered covers stiff and thick. Una ran her fingers over the faded leather and cloth bindings.

A sparkle caught her eye, and she slid some of the heavier volumes aside. There, as if it had fallen behind the front row of books, a scarlet volume lay hidden, its cover interworked with shimmers of silver. Una brushed off the thin layer of dust that muted the striking color and traced the leafy pattern. She followed the brightness of the silver over to the spine. There was no title, no numbers to mark the book’s place in the ordered library catalog.

“Curious,” Una murmured. She flipped the book every which way but found no inscription. It sat fat and heavy in her hand, and she paused for a moment before opening the beautiful filigreed cover. All the pages had the same pretty silver lining, and Una turned them with reverent fingers. Then she stopped. She stared hard at the first page. “The Tale of Una Fairchild,” it said in a sharp black script. She read the line again, wondering if she was imagining things.
She
was Una Fairchild.

How many Una Fairchilds could there be?
She supposed there could have been a real Oliver Twist who eagerly read of the little boy in Dickens’s tale. Was there an actual Harry Potter who, on his eleventh birthday, wondered if something fabulous was about to happen? An Anne Shirley, perhaps, with big starry eyes, who laughed over the misadventures of the girl who shared her name?
It’s got to be a coincidence.
Even so, Una’s stomach was unsettled with a queer twisty feeling as she flipped the page and began to read:

Lord Peter had been riding for a very long time. The sun was just rising when he left camp that morning, and now he could see it sinking lower and lower on the horizon.

“Lord Peter!” a voice called, and Lord Peter looked back over his shoulder at his companion. She was clad in a pure white riding gown, her skirts trailing over her white mare.

“Yes, Milady Snow?” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “What does the Lady require?”

The Lady slowed her horse down to a walk. She gasped a little, as fair maidens are wont to do. “I pray thee, kind sir,” she said, flashing him a brilliant smile, “mayhap we could rest awhile?”

Peter gritted his teeth. “Like we’ve done every fifteen minutes?” he muttered under his breath.

Lady Snow made a face at him.

He glared back at her. “As you wish,” he said formally, half bowing in his saddle and pointing off into the distance. “I know of a cave a little farther on where we could shelter. Would a cave meet the Lady’s needs?”

“I suppose so.” She frowned at him. “But don’t you think it would be better if—”

Lord Peter left his Lady making suggestions to the air and urged his stallion onward. They had entered the forest around midday, the overarching shade a welcome change from the hot sun. Now, the trees loomed in the growing twilight, and small bugs whined in Lord Peter’s ears. He waved them off and dug his heels into the stallion’s flanks.

“Come, Milady Snow,” he called back to her. “The final test must lie ahead.”

After a short while they arrived in a small clearing, and Lord Peter dismounted, offering his hand to help his companion down. She took it, but Lord Peter’s grip wavered, and Lady Snow ended up in a heap on her hands and knees. She stood and brushed off her skirts. When she looked up, her brilliant grin was plastered back in place.

Lord Peter bared his teeth in what passed for a smile. “Are you well, milady?” he asked.

“Quite,” was all she said. Lord Peter lit a dead branch and held it aloft as he made his way into the cave. Lady Snow joined him, swatting gracelessly at the bugs around her head. As her gaze followed the flickering torchlight, it landed on the cave’s far wall. She grabbed Lord Peter’s arm.

“What—?”

“What are you reading?”

Una blinked, disoriented, and looked up to see the hooded figure who had stolen her spot. He was standing at the end of the row, a tall shadow that blocked the aisle.

Una frowned. He wasn’t going to take this desk, too. “
I’m
working here,” she said in as frosty a tone as possible. “You’ll have to go somewhere else.”

“No,” the boy said, moving toward her, and his voice set the hairs on the back of her neck crawling. “You will.”

Chapter 2

U
na’s heart pounded. Her corner suddenly felt very small, and the walls of books leaned in, threatening to trap her. The boy’s face seemed to shift—a trick of the light perhaps—and his features were more angled than before. His pupils changed, widened like a cat’s, until they were two black orbs that locked on to Una’s face. Una couldn’t look away. She stared into his awful eyes, and she saw images: a starry sky, the ocean, a tiny baby. They flickered faster: a giant tree, a pile of ash, a black dragon rimmed in blue, a forest. She lost track of time as faces she didn’t recognize spun together with lights and colors . . . and, then, it all stopped.

She was on her knees. The boy in the cloak reached out a hand and raised her up. The air around him was icy cold.

“It is time,” he said. He bent and retrieved the scarlet book from where it lay on the floor and handed it to her. A current of wintry air swirled around them, and Una stared at the now sinister-looking book. Before she could say anything, the boy clapped his hands together. The basement echoed with a resounding crash. Una stumbled and fell back onto the library shelf. There was a blinding flash of white, followed by darkness. The fluorescent bulbs flickered, then they were back on, filling the basement with harsh light.

“Time for what?” Una whispered, but the boy was gone. She peeked around the edge of the library row. The boy was nowhere to be seen. How had he done that? She tightened her hold on the book, and its hard edges pressed into her palms. Had she imagined the whole thing? She glanced at the book. It felt warm in her hands, like it had been left out in the sun. She settled down onto the worn carpet and once more opened the cover.

The Tale of Una Fairchild
. She studied the title again. It made no sense. Was the girl with Lord Peter, Lady Snow, also called Una Fairchild? She wiped her fingers on her plaid uniform skirt and opened the book halfway through. She slammed it shut. Counting to three, she opened it again, this time near the end.

All the pages were blank. She flipped backward and forward through the book. Blank. Blank. Blank. She found the pages she had read earlier. She skimmed through them and turned the page. Still blank.

Una found the very spot at which she had been interrupted and read through the paragraph. As she finished, she saw something shimmer just below the last line. But when she looked closely, it was just a matte page. Una loosened the blue tie that now felt tight around her white blouse collar. She continued to read. There was Lord Peter lighting the torch. There was Lady Snow looking across the cave. The paper was hot against her fingers, like it was a living, active thing. Una’s stomach twisted again. Suddenly the world was spinning, rows of old library books whirling in a cloud around her head. Una’s last thought was that at least she could get out of her next class because she was sick, when everything went black.

Some time later Una awoke with a pounding headache. The ground felt cold beneath her. She was sitting on a circular stone dais. It was smooth, worn, and looked very old. At its edges four arches stretched up to meet at the center of a domed ceiling. There were no lamps, yet everything was bathed in a faint, glowing light. The air smelled spicy, like cinnamon and ginger.

Una sat very still. Where was she?

She rubbed her bottom and winced as her muscles protested. Everything ached. She felt the smooth fabric beneath her hand and glanced down. She didn’t remember trading her school uniform for a gray woolen dress and silver cloak. Neither had she strapped the little jeweled dagger to her waist.

She peered around the room. She knew she wasn’t crazy, and she was sure she wasn’t dreaming. She must have found some sort of secret passageway out of the library. Una stood up and made her way to the edge of the dais. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she could see a door in the shadows off to her left. Approaching it, Una saw thick beams running every which way over its weathered surface.

Taking a deep breath, Una tried the handle. It was unlocked. She pushed the door open slowly and crept through, thankful for the soft glowing light behind her. She found herself in what looked like an underground tunnel. The air smelled earthy and wet. As she moved farther from the door, the cave grew darker until she could hardly see at all. Una felt her way past several openings that seemed to be smaller tunnels off the one she was stumbling down. In the distance, she could see a flickering light and moved toward it. As she got closer, she heard voices.

“I told you to stick with me,” someone was saying. “I can’t always be looking over my shoulder for you. You’ve got to keep up.” He sounded angry.

Una ducked into a side passage as whoever was speaking drew near. She could hear a different voice respond, starting as a hiss and building to a grating whine. Una realized that the pair must be very close to her now, and she held her breath, listening.

“. . . like you’re supposed to,” the whiny voice said. “I’m a
Lady
, you imbecile, and you have to treat me like one!” The whiner cleared her throat and said loudly, “I do appreciate your valor, Sir Knight, but fear I do not have your alacrity. I beg of you to slow down.” Una snorted—
Who talks like that anyway?
—then covered her mouth with one hand, but she wasn’t quick enough.

“Shut up!” the first voice said. “Someone’s there.”