We finish the last question (“Find a biography of a well-known author and list the title, biographer’s name, and number of pages.”) with about ten minutes until the end of the period. We head back to the main room to snag a table and wait for the bell, but as we pass the reference desk, I stop to look at one of the books on display. It’s lying open in a glass case. What catches my attention is the picture. It’s a watercolor of a forest. The trees are tall and graceful and sunlight streams down onto the ground like golden ribbons. I’m not much of an art critic, but something about the picture catches my breath. I find myself wishing that I could step into that forest, hear the rustling leaves, feel the warm sunshine on my face.
Daphne comes up beside me. “Pretty, isn’t it? That’s a history of the town. Done by hand. The pictures are all the original paintings and everything. We came here for a field trip in the fifth grade and Mrs. Gorman gushed about it for ages. It’s supposed to be pretty valuable.”
I glance at the page opposite the drawing and find that the words are indeed hand written, in a beautiful calligraphy that looks really old. It’s kind of hard to read, but the words “hour of returning” jump out at me. Where have I heard that?
Before I can remember the ground lurches under my feet. I grab for Daphne and the two of us tumble into the book stand, knocking it over. The glass case shatters. All around us people are shouting and things are crashing to the floor.
Then it’s over.
Aislin and Fin rush over to us. “Are you all right?” Aislin breathes, reaching down to help Daphne up.
“What was that?” I ask, feeling dazed.
Fin bends down and grabs my hands, pulling me to my feet. “An earthquake,” he says calmly. I stare at him; it’s the first time I’ve heard him talk.
“Wow…Do you get a lot of those here?” I ask, but Fin only shakes his head. Apparently he’s used up his allotment of words for the time being.
“No. Never. I’ve lived here my whole life—we all have—and I’ve never felt anything like that,” Daphne says. “What caused it?”
She’s looking at Aislin like she’s expecting her to know. Aislin just gives me a nervous glance and then shrugs her shoulders. I look down at the ground and see the town history lying in a pile of broken glass. I pick it up and gently brush the glass off. I’m thinking I should give it to a librarian when the sound begins.
It’s like no sound I have ever heard. It is so loud that I can feel it vibrating in my spine. My ears ache with the pressure of it. For a split second everyone is perfectly still and then panic ensues. Everyone is rushing toward the exit, hands over their ears, trying to get away from the din. The four of us join the crowd.
We push our way out of the library and run into the courtyard outside. As soon as we’re outside, the volume lessens to something that is still way too loud, but not exactly painful. We stand, trying to catch our breath, in the courtyard and look back at the library. I look around to see if everyone is okay. Aislin is right next to me. She’s staring up at something and her expression is half amazement, half fear. I follow her gaze to the bell tower.
The bell will toll the hour of returning.
Aislin’s prophecy.
My fingers tighten and I find I’m still holding the town history. I wonder if this is all some sort of elaborate prank. Maybe they do it to all the new kids, just to freak them out. Then I remember what Daphne said about not getting a lot of new people. Something makes me wonder about that. What exactly did she mean? Has there ever been a “new girl” at Seelie High before? Or am I the first?
Eventually, the bell stops tolling and everyone bursts into conversation. I’m guessing that this is the biggest thing to happen around here in a long time. I leave them to it and head back toward the library to return the book.
One of the junior librarians (if junior is the right word for someone who looks about seventy-five) is guarding the door. “Can’t come in,” she snaps at me. “Too much damage. It’s not safe.”
“I need to return this book,” I say, holding out the history.
“Bring it tomorrow,” she says, looking irritated.
I sit with Daphne, Aislin, and Fin at lunch after all. Mostly because since the whole bell thing everyone seems pretty freaked out and instead of staring at me, no one will even look at me. As if it’s all somehow my fault.
The others are talking about the bell, but I’m not listening. I’m reading. Daphne had said the book was a history of the town, but it reads more like a collection of folktales. The first one is all about some fairies that get kicked out of fairyland and come to America with a group of Irish settlers. A good read, but hardly historically accurate. Well, except for maybe the part about the Irish settlers.
“What is that?” Daphne reaches across the table and tugs the book out of my hands. “The Annals of the Blessed?” Suddenly all three of them are staring at me. Aislin has a french fry hanging from her open mouth, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Did you take this from the library?”
I take it back from her and shrug. “Not intentionally. I had it in my hand when we ran out. I tried to take it back, but the librarian wouldn’t let me in. She told me to come back tomorrow.”
“Did she…um…know which book you were trying to return?”
“No. She wouldn’t listen to me.”
Daphne and Aislin exchange a look. “It’s like way valuable.”
“And about a hundred years old,” Aislin adds.
I shrug again. “So I’ll take care of it and give it back tomorrow. Have you guys read it?”
All three of them nod. “They used to read portions of it to us in grade school and last year we had to read the whole thing for History,” Daphne says. After a pause, she adds, “A copy, of course. Not that actual book.”
Ignoring that, I ask, “What’s up with the Lost Ones?” The phrase kept popping up in the book, but I didn’t quite understand who it was referring to.
“Oh just one of the original settlers,” Daphne says with a shrug. “He was a tinker. He travelled around fixing things for people. One day he left and never came back. No one knows what happened to him.”
“But it always says ‘Lost Ones’ like it’s talking about more than one person,” I point out.
Daphne shrugs. “I think it means his descendants. Like maybe he had kids and grandkids, you know? What was his name, anyway?” She looks at Aislin.
“Aidan Mulloy,” Aislin says after thinking about it for a moment.
“Mulloy? That was my dad’s last name when he was born. Maybe I’m related,” I joke.
I’m just kidding, but the others don’t seem to think it’s funny. In fact, all three of them look downright serious. Aislin says, “You’re a Mulloy?”
“No.” I shake my head. “My dad’s last name was Mulloy when he was born, but his birth-dad took off and his mom remarried. His step-dad adopted him when he was really little, so our last name is Nichols.”
The three of them look at each other for a moment and then Daphne starts to say something, but the bell rings. I put the book into my backpack and get up. “Time for Algebra,” I say.
We have to cross the courtyard again to get to Algebra. The whole school seems to be out in the courtyard, still staring up at the bell tower. Even the teachers. Now that it’s stopped ringing, it’s pretty obvious that the bell is no longer cracked. Someone must have switched it out with a new bell while we were in the library. What other explanation could there be?
Daphne is trying to elbow her way through the crowd. Aislin and Fin are behind me, walking with their heads together as they whisper. I guess Fin does talk to her at least. I’m following Daphne as best I can, but I trip over something and end up sprawled on the ground, surrounded by feet. Since I’m so close, I can’t help but notice that the courtyard here is a mosaic of colored tiles. It’s pretty, but I’d rather see it standing up. The people around me have finally noticed that I’m on the ground and they’re trying to make room so I can get up
.
As the crowd shifts, I catch a glimpse of the pattern formed by the tiles. It looks like a door surrounded by flowering vines. I stand up and realize that I’ve dropped my backpack. It’s on the ground at my feet and the zipper has burst. Books, paper, and pencils are scattered all over. Sighing, I kneel back down to start picking things up. I reach out to pick up The Annals of the Blessed, which has fallen open to another painting. This one is of a door covered in vines.
I look at the painting and then at the ground again. Yes, it’s the same door. Beneath the painting in the book, there is a caption that says, “The hand of the tinker holds the key.”
For some reason, I find myself looking at my hands. I’m no tinker and I’m certainly not holding a key. Except...for the first time in my life I realize that the purple birthmark on the back of my hand does look a little like a key. I wonder why I’ve never noticed before.
I’m thinking how strange this is when I realize that someone is standing over me. Three someones, in fact. Daphne and Fin are wearing completely unreadable expressions. Aislin, on the other hand, looks almost scared. Then something changes in her face. She relaxes and the fear vanishes. As she looks down at me, her eyes change. A film of milky whiteness covers them. She smiles radiantly and says, “It has begun. That which was lost has come back again. The bell has tolled the hour of returning. The key has been revealed and the way