Bookweirder (17 page)

Norman wanted to grip Todd by his ridiculous mutton-chop sideburns and give him a shake. Instead, he just gave his own head a sullen shake.

“She’s not a criminal, or a dungeon master, or anything else. She’s just my mother.”

“And did this nefarious mother of yours indicate what she might have done with the map?”

Norman gave up. He might as well tell Todd about Pippa’s idea. “It might be in a map cupboard.”

Todd glanced quickly over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?”

“Because of ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ” Norman wondered how much more he should say. “Mom said she hid it.”

“Poe?” Todd said thoughtfully. “Edgar Allan Poe? And have you ever read any Poe?”

“He seems to have a thing for murderers. There’s that story where the dead guy’s heart is hidden under the floorboards. Then there’s the cask of something, where the killer walls somebody up in his wine cellar. Pippa told me about ‘The Purloined Letter.’ But it’s not like we have a map cupboard. If the map is anywhere, it’s probably back at our house in America.”

Todd peered at him intently. “Did your mother say why she took the map?”

“She took it to protect me.”

Todd appeared to think about this for a moment. “To protect you from what, exactly?”

Norman stepped back away from the desk, unsure how much to tell Todd. For once he sounded genuinely curious, as though he didn’t already know the answer. “From the bookweird, I guess.”

“Did she say that?” Todd demanded. He leaned across the desk and peered into Norman’s eyes, his pretense of disinterest gone. “Did she say the word ‘bookweird‘?”

Norman looked away, unnerved by the lawyer’s unblinking golden eyes. They really were fox eyes set in a human face. “Not exactly,” he replied. “But she said that what I was doing was dangerous, and that I was too young to understand how dangerous.”

“Implying that she understood the danger … That’s very, very interesting.” Todd rubbed his palms together and peered upwards, as if the solution to the problem might be written somewhere on the ceiling. “Could it be? Could it be?” he repeated to himself.

Todd leapt to his feet and strode to one of the tall bookcases. “In a Poe story!” the lawyer muttered to himself, more agitated than Norman had ever seen him. “That’s diabolical!”

Norman edged closer as the lawyer ran his finger along the spines of the leather-bound books until he reached the one he wanted. Removing it with a tilt, he scanned the table of contents.

“ ‘Amontillado,’ ‘House of Usher,’ ‘Tell-tale’ … A-ha!” He turned the book towards Norman. Norman took it from him eagerly and saw that it was opened to “The Purloined Letter.”

“So you think it’s a clue, too? You think Pippa’s right?” Norman asked. “You think the story will tell us how to find the map?”

“No, no,” Todd replied smugly, closing the book with a thud. “I think the story
is
where you will find the map.”

“What?” Norman was confused.

“Think about it.”

Norman blinked a few times as if trying to reset his brain. Todd was suggesting that his mother had hidden the map inside a book. That was crazy. Wasn’t it crazy?

“How?” he stammered.

“How would
you
?” the lawyer countered. And then to himself, “In a Poe story … who would have thought? Looks like a knack for the bookweird might run in the family.”

Was it really so absurd? If Norman could enter books, why couldn’t his mother? She knew
something
about the bookweird. She knew it was dangerous. She knew enough to ban Norman from using it. Had she seen how dangerous it was with her own eyes?

Norman gaped at Todd, hoping that he would add more—say, perhaps, what Norman was thinking—but all the lawyer said was “I have work to do now, but you can borrow the book. Try to keep it relatively intact.” He pressed the book of Poe stories into Norman’s hand and pushed him gently towards the door, making it as clear as possible that he was being dismissed. “I think you have the itinerary for your next trip.”

“I can’t,” Norman stammered. “I can’t leave Malcolm here. It’s too dangerous. You should never have brought him here. Didn’t
you know that the murderer is here, the one from
The Magpie
? He’s the one who caught Malcolm.”

“Well, you
have
made a mess of things. I’m glad Malcolm has turned up. I was wondering where the royal beast had got to. I put a lot of effort into training him up for him to just disappear like that. But why have you brought a murderer here? Rorschach and Darwin would have caught him eventually.”

“I didn’t bring him here on purpose,” Norman protested. He didn’t want to believe it was his fault. “It was an accident. We have to stop him.”

“Stop him from doing what, exactly?” Todd asked, as if it were an annoying minor point.

Norman raised his voice. “From catching Malcolm again, from getting at George. That guy knows something’s wrong. He knows I’m not from here. He thinks I can take him back.”

“Well, can’t you?”

Norman stared at him, full of inexpressible rage. “I don’t know how this works. You’re the expert, remember!”

“You’d better leave it to me, then. I’m not sure that you’ve got it all right anyway. Last time I saw Rorschach and Darwin, they had the investigation well in hand. Either way, it sounds as though this interloper is more interested in you than anybody else. You look after the map, and I’ll see what I can do to set things in order around here.”

“You’ll give George his estate back?”

“Well, not right away, of course—that’s books and books from here. It shouldn’t make much difference to George who occupies his ancestral home in the meantime. It sorts itself out eventually. Trust me.”

Trusting Fuchs-Todd was the last thing that Norman would ever do.

“You should be getting on. You’ll want to read that story thoroughly. You’ll want to know it inside and out.” He edged Norman ever closer to the door.

Norman ran his hand over the black-and-gold cover of
the book. “And you’ll protect Malcolm? You’ll deal with the poacher?”

“Yes, yes,” the lawyer soothed. “We’ll sort that out when you get back. Don’t worry about that. Better to turn your mind to the fiasco at Lochwarren first. Things are a good deal more out of order there. Trust me.” And he shoved Norman firmly through the doorway.

Norman paused in the hallway outside. He was not entirely satisfied with this meeting. He could never be sure he’d gotten through to that man.

“My mom loves this book. She doesn’t want it wrecked.”

“Nobody does. Nobody does,” Todd repeated, his face mockingly earnest. “I’ll do my best to fix what you’ve broken here.”

Norman grimaced. “Why is it all my fault? You brought Malcolm here. Why did you do that? Why
didn’t
you bring him to the real world?”

Todd ignored the question. “By the way, what’s your mother’s name?” he asked casually.

“Meg,” Norman told him. Why did he always seem to change the subject?

“Hmm. Meg. That would be short for Margaret, but Margaret what?”

“Meg. It’s always just Meg, not Margaret,” Norman corrected him. “Meg Jespers-Vilnius, like me.”

“Jespers-
Vilnius
? That’s quite an unusual name. I have a cat named Vilnius, you know.”

Norman did know, of course. Todd’s question made him wonder again what this might mean. He was still wondering when the door closed behind him.

Norman didn’t descend the stairs right away. He stood quietly beside the door and listened. Inside the library he could hear cupboard doors being opened, drawers being slammed shut and Todd’s frustrated mumbling. After a few minutes, the door swung open. Norman stepped back out of the way, but Todd didn’t even look as he stormed out empty-handed. Norman waited for him
to disappear down the stairs, then tiptoed down to the kitchen and let himself out.

As Norman rushed back to the lodge, his mind raced ahead of him. His mother knew something about the bookweird, but could she
use
the bookweird? Did she have her own
ingresso
? If she took the map, she must have known he had been dropping into books for some time now. Why hadn’t she said something before? And would she really have concealed the Undergrowth map in a Poe story? Norman had never read “The Purloined Letter,” but if it was anywhere near as scary as “The Tell-tale Heart,” he didn’t think he’d ever dare to go there, even to retrieve Malcolm’s map. Was his mother that fearless? Was his mother that mean? All this speculation and doubt rolled though his head like so many rocks in a rock-tumbler.

Norman and Malcolm read the “The Purloined Letter” over and over together while they waited for George to return from the Book and Badger. Thankfully the story was short and easily digested. The purloined letter of the title was stolen from a French princess. The thief, a certain Minister D., was blackmailing the princess with the information it contained. The Parisian police had searched Minister D.’s apartment meticulously but could not find the letter. The hero of the story, the amateur detective Auguste Dupin, solved the mystery. Knowing that the police would search every secret compartment and hiding place in his house, the minister had hidden the letter in plain sight in his own letter box. Dupin discovered the letter and replaced it with a harmless copy.

“Do you think the map is in the minister’s letter box?” Malcolm asked eagerly.

“That would make sense, I guess. Todd thinks the map is in this story, and that’s the hiding place.”

“You should let me go. I can sneak in without anyone noticing. It would be much harder for you.”

“I don’t think you can,” Norman replied reluctantly. He would have liked to have his friend there for backup. “You needed help to get here, and my
ingresso
didn’t work when I tried to bring you with
me last time. I have to go myself. It says here that the minister is usually out at night, and the servants are drunk and asleep. The Paris police have searched the apartment twice without them noticing.”

“Strong Arm,” Malcolm reminded him wryly, “stealth isn’t exactly your greatest attribute.”

Norman couldn’t help smiling. It was true that Norman’s greatest contribution to the Battle of Scalded Rock had been making noise.

“I’ll be fine,” Norman assured him. “I’ll go at night, when the servants are drunk.”

“When whose servants are drunk?” It was George appearing in the kitchen doorway. When neither Malcolm nor Norman answered, he repeated the question. “You’ll go where? When whose servants are drunk?”

Malcolm and Norman exchanged a confidential glance. They had agreed not to mention the bookweird to George. His life was in enough turmoil. He didn’t need to find out now that he was a character in a book.

“Minister Deschamps’s servants,” Malcolm replied after a moment’s thought. “Norman is going to retrieve something from the desk of Minister Deschamps.”

George came closer, sat down and peered from human boy to stoat king. His face looked somehow different to Norman. Something about it had altered. When George spoke, Norman knew what it was. The glint of intrigue that had been missing from George’s eyes had returned.

“I don’t know this minister. What is it that he’s got?”

“A map,” Norman quickly replied. He didn’t dare look at Malcolm. He just hoped that the story they were inventing together made sense. “It’s a map that shows Malcolm’s homeland back in the forest. The minister doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll learn sooner or later. We have to find it before the secret of Malcolm’s people gets out. If people knew, they’d be destroyed.”

George nodded. He understood the gravity of the situation. “When do we go?”

Norman hadn’t counted on that. He should have known that George would want to be part of the adventure. He opened his mouth to speak, not sure yet what he was going to say.

Malcolm came to his rescue. “Norman has to go himself. He has the key, and he has to go at night while the minister is having dinner with Norman’s father.”

Norman thought this through. It made sense, but their lies were getting more and more complicated.

“We have to stay here and watch the poacher,” Malcolm continued.

“Oh,” said George, suddenly remembering something he’d meant to say earlier, “I have news of my own. I found out what the poacher was doing at the Book and Badger.”

“What?” Norman and Malcolm asked in unison, relieved that he’d changed the subject.

“He was buying a gun.”

Norman stared. Could things get any worse?

“A cannon, you mean?” Malcolm asked, perplexed because his medieval world didn’t include guns that you could carry.

“We have to tell Todd,” Norman said. Turning to Malcolm, he repeated, “You have to go to Todd. You have to tell him it’s too dangerous now.”

“Are you mad?” George sputtered. “You can’t have Malcolm giving himself away like that. Todd can’t know that Malcolm can speak. You’ve seen the way he’s taken over the house. The man’s a grasping schemer. You can guess what he’d do with a talking stoat.”

Even if George didn’t know the whole story, he was perhaps right. Fuchs or Todd or whoever he wanted to be known as today hadn’t shown much sympathy so far. The only thing that interested him was the map. Once Norman got his hands on the map, he’d have a very different conversation with the lawyer and sometime librarian and abbot.