Behind the Bookcase by Mark Steensland

Author:Mark Steensland [Steensland, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780375899850
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2012-10-09T07:00:00+00:00

Edgar clucked his tongue. “Now, now,” he said. “It’s not hopeless at all.”

Sarah lifted her head slowly. “You don’t know my brother.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Edgar said. “I’m talking about you getting us out of here.”

Sarah pointed at herself and raised her eyebrows. Edgar nodded.

“How do you figure?” she asked.

Edgar pointed toward the ceiling and Sarah looked up. The only thing she could guess he was pointing at was one of the holes the smoke was going through. They were too small for Edgar or Jeb to fit through. But not for her. She realized immediately what Edgar had in mind. “Do you have any idea where they go?”

Edgar shrugged. “What else do you do with smoke but send it outside?”

“Okay. Say I can get out. What then?”

Jeb stepped forward. “To the Green Desert. Get the blemmyes. Bring them back here. Get us out. Then we’ll all go back to the breach you came through.”

Sarah shook her head. “But I don’t know how to get to the Green Desert.”

In answer, Edgar whipped open his jacket and revealed rows of pockets inside, each containing a folded piece of paper. He ran his fingers along the edges of several, then plucked one free and shook it open. It was a map, drawn in black ink on yellowing paper. It looked terribly old and fragile to Sarah, like a pirate’s treasure map.

“But I thought you ate it,” she said.

Edgar smiled. “I did. The original. I started work on this copy as soon as Balthazat locked me in here. I didn’t want to forget everything I had worked so hard to find.”

Sarah smiled, and the three of them moved closer to the wall, holding the map in the light from one of the blue fire torches.

“Tell me what you can remember about where you came through,” Edgar said. “What was the landscape like?”

Sarah lifted her fingers to her mouth and started chewing on her nails, something she always did when she was thinking her hardest.

“It’s in the Forest of Shadows,” Jeb said. “Just near the River of Moonlight.”

“Moonlight?” Sarah said in disbelief. “That silver water is moonlight?”

Jeb nodded. “It flows out to the Moonlit Sea.”

“No wonder it was so cold and tasted so … sharp,” she said.

Edgar and Jeb exchanged glances and then looked back at her grimly.

“You tasted it?” Jeb said.

Sarah nodded slowly. “What if I did?”

Jeb swallowed hard. “That’s how Balthazat makes the sentinels.”

Sarah suddenly felt cold and wet. She shook her head, trying to deny what they were saying. “You mean I’ll turn into one of those things that carries the heads around?”

Jeb nodded.

“How long before that happens?”

“I’ve only seen it once. He captured a blemmye and made him drink a whole bucket of moonlight. After that, it didn’t take long. A day, maybe.”

“But I only drank a little bit.”

“Then we still have time,” Edgar said. “But we better get moving.”

Sarah turned away from the two of them, putting her hand to her forehead. “I don’t want to turn into one of those things,” she said, feeling like she was about to cry.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.