A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

BOOKS RAN WHEN THEY grew restless, when they grew unruly, or when they grew real. Regardless of the reason, when books ran, it was a librarian’s duty to catch them.

The twisty annex of Assyrian romances, full of jagged words and shadowed hearts broken on unforgiving clay tablets, had a tendency to turn around even experienced curators. The librarian, Claire, cornered the book there. The book had chosen to take form as the character of a pale, coltish girl, and her breathing was nearly as ragged as Claire’s was from the run. Claire forced her shaking hands still as she approached. The book was young, and so was its character, back pressed into the bookcase, dandelion-fluff hair fluttering around thin shoulders. Muddy jeans, superhero tee, a whimper like dried reeds. “Please. I can’t—I don’t want to go back.”

Damn. Claire preferred them angry. Angry was simpler. “The Library has rules.”

A flicker of color swung around the corner. Her assistant, Brevity, skidded to a stop just short of the book. Her apple-round cheeks, usually a shade of robin’s-egg blue, were tinged purple from the run. Seafoam green bangs puffed above her eyes, and she mumbled an apology as she handed Claire a slender bit of steel wrapped in cloth.

Claire stowed the tool in her pocket, where it would stay, she hoped. She considered the cowering figure in front of her.

There were two parts to any unwritten book. Its words—the twisting, changing text on the page—and its story. Most of the time, the two parts were united in the books filling the Unwritten Wing’s stacks, but now and then a book woke up. Felt it had a purpose beyond words on a page. Then the story made itself into one of its characters and went walking.

As the head librarian of Hell’s Unwritten Wing, Claire had the job of keeping stories on their pages.

The girl— No, the character, the book , Claire corrected herself—tried again. “You don’t get it. In the woods—I saw what it did….”

Claire glanced down at the book in her hands and read the gold stamp on the spine. The font was blocky and modern, clearly signaling this was a younger book despite the thick leather hide of the cover. It read: DEAD HOT SUMMER. Her stomach soured; this job had ruined her taste for the horror genre entirely. “Be that as it may, you have nothing to worry about. It’s just a story— you are just a story, and until you’re written—”

“I won’t make trouble,” the character said. “I just—”

“You’re not human.” The words snapped out before Claire could censor them. The girl reacted as if she’d been slapped, and curled into the shelves.

Claire took a measured breath between gritted teeth. “You can’t be scared. You’re not human—let’s not pretend otherwise. You’re a very cunning approximation, but you’re simply a manifestation, a character . A book playing at human… But you’re not. And books belong on shelves.”

Brevity cleared her throat. “She is scared, boss. If you want me to, I can sit with her. Maybe we can put her in the damsel suite—”

“Absolutely not. Her author is still alive.”

The character zeroed in on the more sympathetic target. She took a step toward Brevity. “I just don’t want to die in there.”

“Stop.” Claire flipped open the leather cover and thrust it toward the character. “This is only wasting time. Back to the pages.”

She looked uncertainly at her book. “I don’t know how.”

“Touch the pages. Remember where your story starts. ‘Once upon a time…’ or what have you.” Claire slid a hand into her pocket, fingers finding metal. “Alternately, stories always return to their pages when damaged. If you require assistance?”

The scalpel was cool in her palm. It was normally used in repairing and rebinding old books, but a practiced hand could send a rogue character back to its pages.

Claire had plenty of practice.

“I’ll try.” The girl’s hand trembled as she flattened a small palm against the open pages. Her brow wrinkled.

A chill of quiet ticked over Claire’s skin. The books weighing down nearby shelves twitched sleepily. A muffled murmur drifted in the air. The wooden shelves towering overhead pulsed with movement, old leather spines shuffling against the bronze rails. Dust shivered in a spill of lamplight.

Brevity shifted uneasily next to her. An awake book was a noisy thing. Returning it, even noisier.

They couldn’t waste time. The girl startled when Claire took a quiet step toward her. “I’ve almost got it!”

“It’s all right.” Claire spoke through a tight throat, but her tone was gentle. She could be gentle when it was efficient. “Try again.”

The unwritten girl turned her attention back to the pages. It was an act of contemplation, and Claire could sense the weaving of realities. The girl was a character; she was a story, a book. She might feel like something even more, but Claire couldn’t afford to consider that. She placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Then she slid the scalpel between the character’s ribs.

Brevity swallowed a squeak. Claire stepped back as the unwritten girl fell. She made small, shocked gulps for air, twisted on the carpet, then began to fade. Within a minute, nothing was left but a small smudge of ink on the floor.

Only books died in Hell. Everyone else had to live with their choices.

“Couldn’t we have given her another minute? It’s awfully hard to feel like the good guys when we do that.” Brevity took the book after Claire snapped it closed.

“There’s no good or bad, Brev. There’s just the Library. The story is back where it belongs.” Claire couldn’t keep the resignation from her voice. She cleaned off and stashed the scalpel back in her many-pocketed skirts.

“Yeah, but she seemed so scared. She was just—”

“Characters aren’t human, Brev. You always should remember that as a librarian. They’ll convince themselves they’re people, but if you allow them to convince you , then…” Claire trailed off, dismissing the rest of that thought with a twitch of her shoulders. “Shelve her and make a note to check her status next inventory. What kept you so long, anyway?”

“Oh!” Brevity fluttered a hand, and Claire was struck by the eerie similarities between her assistant and the book they’d just put to rest. Brevity was shorter than the character had been, and her riot of cornflower blue skin and bright eyes was vibrant with life—not scared, not pleading—but her gaze kept drifting back to the dull leather cover in her hands. “There’s a messenger for you.”

“Messenger?”

Brevity shrugged. “From the big guy. I tried to get more, but he’s wound pretty tight. Swore he can’t leave until he talks to you.”