The Book Eaters(6)
A desk and some chairs made for a cozy sitting area; a king-sized bed took up much of the remaining floor space. The windows had long since been boarded over on the inside and fitted with yet more shelves. The closest shelf housed multiple copies of various Arthurian legends; those were usually given to her brothers. Full of stories that girls didn’t need to know.
Below that was a row of fairy tales. “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Snow White.” Various others. All stories of girls who sought and found love, or else who fled their homes and found death. She could almost hear him saying, The lesson is in the story, my dear. That was the shelf her uncle had specified.
Devon had other ideas.
She dug out the little wooden stool her uncle kept under the bed and dragged it over. She could, if she stood on her toes, just reach the tallest shelf, which was much more exciting.
From this vantage point she couldn’t see what books were there, but it didn’t matter. All of those books were forbidden, and thus desirable. Even the most diligent of children got tired of the same meal, day in and day out; she couldn’t miss the chance to try something different.
Her fingers closed around the edge of a paper-bound spine and Devon pulled the book free, nearly losing her balance. Her uncle would be cross if he found out, and she might have to eat nothing except boring dictionaries for a whole week, but the excitement of something forbidden seemed worth the risk.
She sat on the stool and examined her prize. Jane Eyre was stamped across the binding in a perfunctory script. The red leather cover was embossed with an illustration of a young woman surrounded by flowers. The printing date meant that the author was long dead. A shiver ran through her. That words could remain, printed anew and afresh long after the original writer had died, never failed to amaze. Devon flipped it open at random.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
How delightfully naughty, how ungirlish and un-princess-like! The idea that vengeance might taste like a particularly exciting book was deeply intriguing. This novel, whatever it was, would surely be far more interesting than the usual fairy tale.
She opened her mouth, teeth unsheathing—and halted. A strange urge came over her to not eat the book at all, but simply to pocket it. To read it, in fact, which was possible to do, if a little wrong.
Reading was a shameful thing. We consume written knowledge, her aunts and uncles had said so many times. We consume and store and collect all forms of paper flesh as the Collector created us to do, clothed as we are in the skin of humankind. But we do not read, and we cannot write.
Which was fine, except that everybody knew the Collector was never coming back. The book eaters would live and die without ever passing on their gathered information to the Collector’s unknowable data vaults. She couldn’t see the purpose behind their purpose.
Besides, taking a book from the top shelf was already wrong. It would not hurt to be just a little bit wronger.
One sin beget another; the decision was made in an instant. Devon stuffed the book inside her shirt to take it back to her own room, over in the western wing. She picked her way through the loft to the other side of the manor then climbed down, slipping into her room. By the time she’d read a chapter and hidden the stolen copy of Jane Eyre under her mattress, nearly an hour had passed.
She re-emerged into the hallway, straightening her dress and trying not to look criminal. The manor was very quiet, even for a wintry afternoon. The aunts were likely sequestered up in their quarters, from which they rarely emerged. The only sounds were the raucous yelling and shouting of her brothers milling outside but even that seemed muted, and more subdued than when she’d brought Mani through.
She jolted upright. The journalist! How had she forgotten about her guest? Devon took the steps two at a time and half sprinted back toward the drawing room.
But her guest was already gone. In fact, the drawing room was empty except for Uncle Aike, who sat by the fireplace with his feet on a stool. He looked up as Devon entered, and waved her over. “Come in, love. Have a seat.”
She snuggled into the chair next to her uncle. “Where’s the jour-na-list?”
“Mr. Patel is resting, in a room in the cellar.” Uncle Aike had the gentlest hands, never snagging or tugging as he finger-combed through Devon’s tangles. “Tomorrow morning, knights will come to take him away.”
“Away?” She had only met knights once. They’d been serious and scary, not at all nice or funny like her uncle. “Where to?”
“To Ravenscar Manor,” he said, after a moment of hesitation. “It is near the coast, many miles from here. The patriarch there has a use for humans.”
“Oh,” Devon said, crestfallen that another house would get to steal her guest. “I wanted him to stay.”
“I’m sorry, princess. I know you did. But I’m afraid Mr. Patel was not a pleasant man. He wished to tell stories about us to other people.”
“Stories are good things. Aren’t they?”
“Not all stories are good things, no.” Uncle Aike kissed the side of her head. “You only have the right books to eat in this house, because we only give you the right stories, appropriate for a little princess. However, some stories are certainly bad, and your poor Mr. Patel would have written very bad stories.”