The Children(49)

“Authors invent stuff,” he said incredulously. “You could have invented two kids who were nothing like us. You used our faces without even asking? That’s insane!” His eyes narrowed. “What are their names? Not Ennis and Guinevere?”

She hesitated. Then she shrugged.

Ennis gave her a look of such scorn even Guinevere felt it. A spatula pressing down until she sizzled. He opened his fingers, let the book fall hard to the floor.

“I hate you.” He said it without anger, very clear, and walked away. A moment later they could hear him moving softly down the stairs.

“Well done, Edith,” Llewellyn said when he was gone.

She ignored him. “What do you think?” she asked Guinevere. “You hate me, too?”

So much of Guinevere had gone with her brother. Felt his hurt, longed to comfort and be with him. But enough of her was right here, fizzing with a hot-cold excitement and dying to pick up the book. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I guess I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

Edith nodded to where Ennis had disappeared. “Of that. And of getting it wrong, getting you all wrong. I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to love it. First, I had to know if it was worth loving. Before I showed it to you. You and your brother are my most important readers.”

Maybe in that moment she really meant it. Maybe she only believed she did. Either way the words filled Guinevere with a warm radiance. The book had fallen on its face, and she kept glancing down, trying to make out the writing on its back. Ennis and Guinevere Sharpe are spending their summer in a cottage by the sea . . .

Edith dropped into a kneel, got low the way you’re supposed to with small creatures. “And hey, sweetie?” She gripped Guinevere’s hand, the one that wasn’t bleeding. “I got you right. I know I did, because people love you. They love your adventures, in this book and the next one and”—she laughed, the sound almost hysterical—“and hopefully all the books after that.”

In Guinevere’s stomach, a slippery feeling. Something sliding, falling, being lost. “There are more books?”

Llewellyn cleared his throat. He seemed so vague to her, smudging out like a chalk man. “Your mam has become a bit famous.”

Still on her knees, Edith picked up the book and held it out like an offering.

“Read it. It’s yours. It’s you.”

Guinevere held her breath, feeling the moment swell. She had so many questions. New ones, plus the same old round. Why don’t you: hold me, talk to me, come to me, look at me, lay your body beneath mine, rock solid, so I can find my footing, jump from your arms and into the world?

Not that she had the words for it. Guinevere didn’t know what was owed to her, couldn’t name that missing thing. She could only sense its lack. Maybe it would shine from the pages of this book. Proof that her mother saw her. Maybe the things she never said out loud were printed here.

But Edith’s patience was shallow. When Guinevere didn’t immediately take the book, it drained.

“Or don’t,” she said tersely. “You know, I actually thought you’d be proud?” She stood, letting the book thud back to the floor. “Congratulations, by the way. You’re the heroine of the bestselling children’s series in the world.”

The whiplash hit Guinevere with actual, palpable pain.

“Edith, for Christ’s sake.” Llewellyn wrapped an arm around his daughter. It made the pain in her body buzz louder. She could name it now: fury.

Ennis would know what to say. Something scissor-sharp and paper-dry. Or very simple: I hate you. She couldn’t even say that. Without a pen in her hand, she had no words. Maybe Edith had already used them. Stolen and stuffed them into the mouth of Book Guinevere.

She kicked The Ninth City across the floor and fled.

Ennis was waiting in their clearing. She thought he’d be pacing, expected a torrent of words. But when she reached him, he was calm, bent intently over his sketchbook. And when he saw her his face opened, became so bright and alive she was embarrassed for their mother, for thinking she could ever fit Ennis in a book. He was too vast to be captured.

“Come here,” he said.

Beside him was one of their stolen planks, the one she’d bled on. Edith hadn’t even asked why she had a shirt wrapped around one hand. Ennis took a folding knife from his pocket and, with a casual paring motion, opened the pad of his thumb. He pressed it to the place where her blood stained the wood.

“We’ll lay it as a cornerstone, like they did in ancient times.” He tipped his chin toward the sun, his face taking on that pure emptiness it did when he was pushing self aside, making room for something better. The story they told themselves. The magic that bound them like beaten egg. He didn’t speak, he intoned.

“By blood and bond this house will keep us safe. By blood and bond we will keep each other safe. By blood and bond . . .”

Inspired, Guinevere said, “By blood and bond these woods will protect us, as we protect each other. And we will take care of the woods.”

A wind rose from nowhere to polish their skins, cold and carrying a wild perfume. The siblings stared at each other open-mouthed. The breath of the woods. A blessing.

He said, “She’s a deer tick, Guin. We won’t talk to her, that’s all. We won’t read her stupid book. We won’t tell her anything. You can’t write books about people you don’t even know.”