pages, keep in touch.”
“Do you think she’s okay?”
“I hope so,” said Ms. Callender. “We’re putting out the word and hoping someone in the community will hear from her soon.”
“What do you mean, ‘the community’?”
“We’re a close group,” explained Dr. Rust. “Most of us librarians are alumni—former pages—and other alumni end up working in related areas. In other repositories, or academia, or research. Most of us”—Doc waved a hand at the shelves—“most people don’t want to give up their connection to all this.”
I could certainly understand that. And I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize my chance of being part of it. But all this talk of disappearing objects in this unnerving room was freaking me out, given Marc’s—what to call it? —
“Well, Elizabeth, we are happy to have you here,” Doc said. “And please remember to keep your eyes open and let me know if you notice anything suspicious. Can you do that?”
I swallowed. “I’ll try.”
“Thank you. And congratulations on your excellent test results.”
“Yes, congratulations again, Elizabeth,” echoed Ms. Callender. “Now let’s get you upstairs to give Marc a hand in Preservation.”
As we walked past the wall of pictures, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look. It was my own reflection in the Snow White mirror.
I didn’t move my hands, but my reflection in the mirror lifted her finger to her lips, gave me a wicked smile, and shut her right eye in a wink.
The Preservation Room was a long, airy attic, lit by a northern skylight. It was bright and chilly; drafts seeped around the edges of the window, and high white clouds flew by above. Objects from the stacks lay in heaps and clusters, neatly labeled. It was the sort of place where you could imagine the thirteenth fairy with her poison spindle, lying in wait for Sleeping Beauty.
Marc looked up when I came in. “Thanks, Elizabeth,” he said seriously, meeting my eye. “You really had my back. Sorry you got stuck down there.”
“That’s okay,” I said—and it was. Being thanked by Marc Merritt was worth any number of conversations with rude mirrors and dismal thoughts about the sanitary uses of witches’ cauldrons. And being let in on the secret of this magical place was worth more than all of it combined. “If you’d only waited an hour or two,” I said proudly, “I could have gone in there on my own—Doc just gave me the key.”
“Really? That’s awesome! Congratulations, Elizabeth! Welcome to the inner circle.” He held out his hand.
He had a beautiful, firm handshake.
“Listen, though,” I began, then hesitated. Should I say something about how uncomfortable I felt helping him break the rules? I didn’t want to jeopardize my friendship with Marc Merritt, no less. It wasn’t like I had friends to spare. But even before I’d been given the key, I’d felt a kinship to this place. Mr. Mauskopf and Doc trusted me, and I felt like I owed them—not just them, but the repository. Now that I’d seen the magic in the Grimm Collection and been entrusted with the key, I felt I owed it to this magical place to take the best care I could of it.
I went on, “Doc told me there’d been some thefts here recently. So did Mr. Mauskopf, the one who got me the job. They both told me to keep an eye out and tell them if I saw anything suspicious. You’re not—you don’t—?” I didn’t know how to put it diplomatically.
“Not what? Stealing things?” said Marc. He had that haughty look of his, like a prince being accused of something far beneath him.
“Well, I didn’t mean to accuse you, but . . . I don’t know, they trust me, and I helped you, and I just want to make sure . . .”
“I’m sorry—you’re right,” he said. “It does look bad. But I wouldn’t do anything to hurt this place. I belong here. It’s like it’s, I don’t know, part of me.”
He looked so sincere I put my doubts aside. “Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry. But you still need to tell me what’s going on. You pulled me into this and got me locked up in a pretty scary place! That was a big deal. You can’t just not tell me why.”
“Yeah, all right. I’ve been borrowing the seven-league boots. I have to pick up Andre from my aunt’s in the Bronx and drop him off at day care in Harlem, in between basketball practice and work. That would take hours on the subway. If I use the boots, I can do it in no time.”
“You’re kidding me—real seven-league boots! So you take them instead of the A train!”
Marc smiled. “Yeah—it’s a lot more fun than the A train. And like I said, way faster. You never get stuck in between stations.”
“But it’s—you know—
“Yeah,” he said. “Magic. You’ll get used to it.”
Okay, so it was silly of me to expect Mr. Cool himself, Marc Merritt, to express astonishment, even at real magic. I told myself to be cool too. “How long is a league?” I asked.
“About three miles.”
“So that’s twenty-one miles per step? Even the Bronx isn’t that far away.”
“Yeah, the tricky part is making my steps small enough.”
It did sound tricky, but if anybody had control over where his feet went, it was Marc.
“Aren’t you worried Andre will tell somebody?”
He shrugged. “Who’s going to believe a three-year-old when he says his big brother can fly?”
“But I don’t get it—why not just borrow the boots officially? You have borrowing privileges.”
He nodded. “I tried that at first, but they keep crazy tabs on the stuff in the GC. You can’t take it out more than once a month. Plus you have to leave a serious deposit, not to mention the late fines.”
“But why do you have to drop Andre off anyway? Why can’t your parents do it?”
“They’re both busy,” he said shortly.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean . . . ,” I trailed off.
“That’s okay . . . I shouldn’t have snapped at you. We better get to work. You know how to sew?” He led me to a table piled with cloth.
I shook my head. “That’s really not the kind of thing I’m good at,” I said.
“Okay, then. I guess you’ll be learning today. We’ve got to get through all this so it can go back on the shelves.”
“Is this from the Grimm Collection?”
“Nah. Just normal, everyday priceless treasures.”
Marc was a surprisingly good sewer. His hands could handle a needle almost as well as a basketball. Not mine, that was for sure—especially not when I was distracted by thoughts of magic and Marc Merritt. The sky was starting to darken and my fingers were riddled with jabs by the time I managed to tack together the sides of a torn tunic.
I thought of all the fairy-tale girls who ran afoul of needle-work: Snow White’s mother, who wished for a daughter with lips as red as the blood from her pricked finger. Sleeping Beauty, with that fateful spindle, and Rumpelstiltskin’s victim, locked up with the impossible task of spinning straw into gold. I had more sympathy for them than ever.
“Let me see that,” said Marc. I handed him the tunic. He laughed. “You really weren’t kidding, were you? Well, practice makes perfect.”
