That’s all in the sequel. You didn’t really think I’d be able to tell my entire story in one book, did you?
Grandpa Smedry’s car puttered along the street. It was dark out—after escaping the library, we had evacuated the gas station, then spent the night and entire next day recovering in the team’s safe house (a mock hamburger stand called Sand-burgers).
“Grandfather?” I asked as we drove.
“Yes, lad?”
“What do we do now?”
Grandpa Smedry sat for a moment, turning the wheel in random directions. He looked far better after a night’s rest—he had gained back enough strength to begin arriving late to his pain again, and now he was doling it out in very small amounts. He looked almost like his chipper old self.
“Well,” he finally said, “there is a great deal to be done. The Free Kingdoms are losing the battle against the Librarians. Most of the outright fighting is happening in Mokia right now, though the work behind the scenes in other kingdoms is just as dangerous.”
“What will happen if Mokia does fall?” I asked.
“The Librarians will fold it into their empire,” Grandpa Smedry said. “It will take a decade or two before it’s fully integrated—the Librarians will have to begin changing the history books across the entire world, making up a new history for the region.”
I nodded. “And … my parents are part of this war?”
“Very big parts,” Grandpa Smedry said. “They’re very important people.”
“So important,” I asked quietly, “that they couldn’t be bothered to raise me?”
Grandpa Smedry shook his head. “No, lad. That’s not it at all.”
“Then why?” I asked, frustrated. “What was this all about? Why leave me to the Librarians all these years?”
“It will make sense if you think about it, lad.”
“I don’t really want to think about it at the moment,” I snapped.
Grandpa Smedry smiled. “Information, Alcatraz. It was all about information. Perhaps you’ve noticed, but the rest of us don’t quite fit into your world.”
I nodded.
“You have information, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Important information. You understand the lies the Librarians are teaching—and you understand their culture. That makes you important. Very important.”
“So, my parents gave me up so that they could make a spy out of me?” I asked.
“It was a very hard decision, my boy,” Grandpa Smedry said quietly. “And they did not make it lightly. But even when you were a baby, they knew you would rise to the challenge. You are a Smedry.”
“And there was no other way?” I demanded.
“I know it’s hard to understand, lad. And, truth be told, I often questioned their decision. But … well, how many people from other countries have you known who could speak your language perfectly?”
“Not many.”
“The more different a language is from your own,” Grandpa Smedry said, “the more difficult it is to sound like a native. For some languages, I’m convinced it’s impossible. The difference between our world and yours isn’t as much a matter of language as it is a matter of understanding. I can see that I don’t quite fit in here, but I can’t see why. It’s been the same for all of our operatives. We need someone on the inside—someone who understands the way Librarians think, the way they live.”
I sat quietly for a long moment. “So,” I finally said, “why aren’t my parents here? Why did you have to come get me?”
“I can’t really answer that, Alcatraz. You know we lost track of your father some years ago, just after you were born. I kind of hoped I’d find him here, on your thirteenth birthday, come to deliver the sands himself. That obviously didn’t happen.”
“You have no idea where he is, then?”
Grandpa Smedry shook his head. “He is a good man—and a good Oculator. My instincts tell me that he’s alive, though I have no real proof of that. He must be about something important, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is!”
“And my mother?” I asked.
Grandpa Smedry didn’t reply immediately. So, I turned to a slight tangent—something that had been bothering me for some time. “When I wore the Tracker’s Lenses back in the library, I was able to see your footprints for a long, long time.”
“That’s not surprising,” Grandpa Smedry said.
“And,” I said, “when you came into my house, you identified my room with the Tracker’s Lenses because you saw so many footprints leading into it. But I’d only walked out of there once that day. So the other sets of footprints must have been hours—or even days—old.”
“True,” Grandpa Smedry said.
“So,” I said, “the Tracker’s Lenses work differently for family.”
“Not differently, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Family members are part of you, and so they’re part of what you know best. Their tracks tend to hang around for a long time, no matter how little you think you know them.”
I sat quietly in my seat. “I saw Ms. Fletcher’s footprints hours after she’d made them,” I finally said.
“Not surprising.”
I closed my eyes. “Why did she and my father break up?”
“He fell in love with a Librarian, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Marrying her wasn’t the wisest decision he ever made. They thought they could make it work.”
“And they were wrong?”
“Apparently,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Your father saw something in her—something that I’ve never been able to see. She isn’t exactly the most loyal of Librarians, and your father thought that would make her more lenient to our side. But … I think she’s only interested in herself. She married your father for his Talent, I’m convinced. Either way, I think that she was another reason that your father agreed to let you be raised in Librarian lands. That way, your mother could see you. He still loved her, I’m afraid. Probably still does, poor fool.”
I closed my eyes. She sold the Sands of Rashid to Blackburn. My father’s life’s work, my inheritance. And … Blackburn implied that she would sell me too. I didn’t know how to think about what I felt. For some reason, all the danger—all the threats—I’d been through during the last few days hadn’t felt as disturbing to me as the knowledge that my mother lived.
And that she was on the wrong side.
Grandpa Smedry’s car puttered to a stop. I opened my eyes, looking out the window with a frown. I recognized the street we were on. Joan and Roy Sheldon—my latest foster family, the one whose kitchen I had burned—lived just a few houses down.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
“You remember when I first gave you your Oculator’s Lenses, lad?”
“Sure.”
“I asked you a question then,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I asked why you had burned down your family’s kitchen. You didn’t answer.”
“I thought about it though,” I said. “I’m figuring things out. I’m getting better with my Talent.”
“Alcatraz, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “That question wasn’t only about your Talent. You keep asking about your parents, keep wondering why they were so willing to abandon you. Well, did you ever pause to wonder why you abandoned so many families?”
“I have wondered about it,” I said. “Or at least I have recently. And perhaps I was a little hard on them. But it wasn’t only my fault. They couldn’t handle it when I broke things.”
“Maybe some of them,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But how many of them did you really give a chance?”
I knew he was right, of course. And yet, knowing something is very different from feeling it. And at that moment, I was feeling all the same emotions I felt every time parents gave me away.
I felt a twist in my gut. It was happening again, and this time it wasn’t my fault. I’d tried. I’d tried not to push Grandpa Smedry away. And now it was happening anyway.
“You’re trying to get rid of me,”
I whispered.
Grandpa Smedry shook his head. “Information, lad! It’s all about information. You thought those families were going to give you up, so you acted first. You made them get rid of you. But you had bad information.
“I’m not trying to abandon you. We have a lot of work to do, you and I. However, you need to go back and spend some time with those who have loved you. You need to make your peace with them if you’re ever going to understand yourself well enough to help us win this war.”
“Blackburn didn’t think information was all that important,” I snapped.
“And how’d he end up?” Grandpa Smedry said, smiling.
“But he beat you,” I said. “In the Oculators’ Duel. He was stronger.”
“Yes, he was,” Grandpa Smedry said. “He worked very hard to be able to beat a person like me in a contest like that. He put out his eye so that he would be stronger with offensive Lenses, and he collected other Lenses that would let him fight effectively.
“But in doing so, he gave up the ability to see as well. Alcatraz, everything we do is about seeing! If he’d seen just a little better, he would have noticed your trick. If he’d seen a little better, he’d have realized that by putting out his eye and focusing on the powers that let him win battles, he handicapped himself in larger, more important ways. Perhaps if he’d seen a little more, he’d have realized that those Translator’s Lenses you have are far more powerful than any Firebringer’s Lens.”
I sat back, trying to sort out my thoughts—and my emotions. It was hard to focus on any one feeling—regret, anxiety, anger, confusion. I still couldn’t believe that Grandpa wanted me to stay with Joan and Roy. I glanced at the house. “Hey, there’s no hole in the side of it!”
“The Librarians would have fixed that before your foster parents got home,” Grandpa Smedry said. “They try to keep things quiet, work on the underground—something like that hole would have attracted too much attention to this house, and therefore to you.”
“Won’t it be dangerous for me to be here?” I asked.
“Probably,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But it will be dangerous for you everywhere. And we have some … means of keeping you safe here, for a little while at least.”
I nodded slowly.
“They’ll be happy to see you, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said.
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I burned down their kitchen.”
“Try them.”
I shook my head. “I still can’t control it, Grandfather,” I said quietly. “My Talent. I thought I was getting the hang of it, but I still break things all the time—things I don’t want to.”
Grandpa Smedry smiled. “Perhaps. But when it counted, you broke that Firebringer’s Lens in exactly the right way. You didn’t just shatter it or make it stop working. You made it work wrong, but made it work right for you. That shows real promise, lad.”
I looked over at the Sheldons’ house again. “You’ll … come for me, won’t you?”
“Of course I will, lad!”
I took a deep breath. “All right then. Do you want to take the Translator’s Lenses with you?”
“They’re your inheritance, lad. It wouldn’t be right. You keep them.”
I nodded. Grandpa Smedry smiled, then reached over to give me a hug. I held on tight—tighter than I’d probably intended.
Grandfather, cousins, perhaps even my father, I thought. I have family.
Finally I let go, then got out of the car. I looked up at the house again. I’ve always had family, I thought. Not always the Sheldons, but someone. People willing to give me a home. I guess it’s about time I admitted that.
I closed the door, then looked in through the window.
“Don’t break anything!” Grandpa Smedry said.
“Just come for me,” I said. “Don’t be late.”
“Me?” Grandpa Smedry asked. “Late?”
Then he rapped on the dash of the car, and it began to hum. I watched it pull away, watched it until it was gone. Then I walked up the street to the house. I paused on the doorstep.
There was still a faint smell of smoke.
I knocked on the door. Roy opened it. He stood, stupefied, for a moment. Then he yelled in surprise, grabbing me in a hug. “Joan!” he cried.
She rushed around the corner. “Alcatraz?”
Roy handed me over to her. She grabbed me in a tight embrace.
“When the caseworker called,” Roy said, “asking where you’d gone … well, we assumed you’d run off for good, kiddo.”
“You didn’t get into trouble, did you?” Joan asked, looking at me sternly.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I knocked down two floors, one wall, and a few doors, I think. Nothing too bad.”
Joan and Roy shared a look, then smiled and took me in.
Hours later, after giving them some reasonable lies about where I’d been, after having a good meal, and after accepting their pleas that I stay with them for at least a little while longer, I walked up to my room.
I sat down on my bed, trying to think through the things that had happened to me. Oddly, I didn’t find the Librarians, the Alivened, or the Lenses to be the most strange of the recent events. The strangest things to me were the changes I saw in myself.
I cared. And it had all happened because of a simple package in the mail.…
My head snapped up. Sitting on my desk was the empty box, beside its brown wrapper. I stood and walked across the room. I flattened out the packaging, noting the stamp that I’d investigated, the address written in faded ink … and the scribbles up the side of the paper. The ones I’d assumed had come from someone trying to get the ink in his pen to flow.
With trembling hands, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Translator’s Lenses—the Lenses of Rashid. I slipped them on. The scribble immediately changed into legible words.
Son,
Congratulations! If you can read this, then you have managed to craft Lenses of Rashid from the sands I sent you. I knew you’d be able to do it!
I must tell you that I am afraid. I fear that I’ve stumbled on something powerful—something more important, and more dangerous, than any of us expected. The Lenses of Rashid were only the beginning! The Forgotten Language leads to clues, stories, legends about the Smedry Talents and—
Well, I can’t say more here. Before you get this package, much time will have passed. Thirteen years. Perhaps I’ll have solved the problem by then, but I suspect not. The Lenses that let me see where you will be living at age thirteen have also given me a warning that my task will not be done by then. But I can only see vaguely into the future—the Oracle’s Lenses are far from perfect! What I see makes me even more worried.
Once I have confirmation that this box reached you without being intercepted, I will send you further information. I have the other set of Rashid Lenses—with them, I can write in the Forgotten Language, and only you will be able to read my messages.
For now, simply know that I’m proud of you, and that I love you.
Your father,
Attica Smedry
I put the paper down, stunned. It was at that moment that I heard a rapping on my window. Instead of a raven outside, however, I saw the mustached face of Grandpa Smedry.
I frowned, walking over and opening the window. Grandpa Smedry stood on a ladder that appeared to have extended from the back of his little black automobile.
“Grandpa?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”
“What?” he asked. “I came for you, as promised.”
“As promised?” I asked. “But you only left me a few hours ago.”
“Yes, yes,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I know, I’m late. Come on, lad! We’ve got work to do. Are you packed yet?”
Grandpa Smedry began to climb back down the ladder.
“Wait,” I said, sticking my head out the window. “Packed? I thought I was staying here with Joan and Roy!”
“What?” Grandpa Smedry said, looking back up. “
Edible Eddings, boy! This city is crawling with Librarians. It was dangerous enough to give you a chance to come back and say good-bye!”
“But you said I had to spend some time with them!”
“A few hours, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said, “to apologize for the trouble you’d given them. What did you expect? That I’d leave you here all summer, in the exact place where your enemies know where to look? With people that aren’t even your family? In a place you don’t really like, and that is depressingly normal compared to the world you’ve grown to love? Doesn’t that sound a little stupid and contrived to you?”
I raised a relieved hand to my head. “Yeah,” I noted, “now that you mention it, who would do something silly like that? Let me go get my things and write a note to Joan and Roy. Oh, and you have to see what’s written on this package!”
I rushed back into the room, pulling out a gym bag to begin packing. Outside, I heard Grandpa Smedry’s car hum quietly to life.
I smiled. Everything felt right. Weird, true, but right.
It was about time.
Author’s Afterword
So, that’s how it began. Not as spectacular as some have claimed, I know, but it felt incredible enough to me at the time.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that those first couple of days had a profound effect on me, shaking me out of the self-indulgent rebelliousness that I had fallen into. The thing is, if I could go back, I’d still tell myself not to go with Grandpa Smedry on that strange, unfortunate day.
The things I learned during that first infiltration—trust, self-confidence, bravery—might seem good at first glance. However, the changes I experienced were just setting me up for my eventual fall. You’ll see what I mean.
For now I hope this narrative was enough to show that even supposed heroes have flaws. Let this be your warning—I’m not the person that you think I am. You’ll see.
With regret,
Alcatraz Smedry
And so, untold millions screamed out in pain, and then were suddenly silenced. I hope you’re happy.