Chapter Forty

Speak

I crouched in the bushes outside Nellie’s house. But it wasn’t Nellie I’d come to see.

For weeks now I’d been wasting my time. Playing. Leaving it up to Mam to come back with my pelt, without me doing anything but hiding. Like all I had to do was stay safe, safe, safe.

Safe wasn’t working anymore.

The doorknob turned and Nellie poked her head out, looking for me. I held my breath until she went back in.

A moment later she came out carrying a large, flat box. That must be the painting. The walrus hobbled after her, leaning heavily on two canes. As he lifted a hand to close the door, he tilted sideways.

Nellie watched warily. “Really, I can take it there myself,” she said. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I’m fine, Nellie,” he said, with a sturdy smile. “Let’s go.” But when she skipped ahead, he winced with pain.

Stomp-drag, stomp-drag—with him on those canes, they’d be gone a long time.

The steps faded away. I crept silently to the door. But the moment the knob turned in my hand, I couldn’t hold back. I dashed in, leaped up the stairs two at a time, and threw open the door to the aerie.

I skidded to a stop, staring. My breath caught in my throat.

The books packed the wall from floor to ceiling, row after row, spine after spine. The air was so thick with their magic, it shimmered. There must be hundreds of books, each with its own tune or tale. And one of them, one of them, might have what I needed. Even if it was only clues to patch together, it could be enough. It had to be.

It was Nellie’s song that gave me the idea. That pup turned late from longlimbs. His mother might have seen how it happened. Humans could know. The song skipped over the moment of turning itself. But another might show a pup just as he got his pelt, with words that were chanted, or some kind of rite that made it happen. And that song could be in one of these books.

My jaw set in determination. I wasn’t going to cower on this island forever. I’d get my pelt, and I’d swim off and find Mam, and, Moon willing, I’d save her. I stepped up to the shelves.

The books in the glass case were forbidden. That meant they had the most power. I opened the glass door and squatted down, listening for a thin thread of tune, a murmur of voices.

Nothing.

I didn’t have time for every book. How would I choose? Most of them were clad in cloth, but a few wore leather. One of those was mottled, light brown and dark, like a pelt. There were ridges on the spine, like vertebrae—the bones of a living creature.

I pulled it down and gripped it tight, praying without words. Then I lifted the cover.

Black marks pressed deep into thick, pebbled paper. They marched in straight rows. So orderly. So disciplined. So silent.

Nellie said you read books. What did that mean? Was it a special way you held a book so its voice reached you?

I closed the cover and opened it again. I pressed the book to my ear.

But in the tree cave, Nellie had been looking down at the white book. And I hadn’t heard it singing. Was its voice too soft to hear under Nellie’s? Or did it whisper its words right into her head? How did she ask it to start?

“Please, speak,” I asked politely.

Maybe it worked by touch. I fanned a group of pages. Then I held a page flat and ran a finger along a line. Some marks stood on their own; others clustered together.

“Speak!” I begged, louder.

The marks started spinning in front of my eyes. Was the book trying to keep them hidden? I pressed them down with my finger, but they wouldn’t stay still. I didn’t have forever. I had to find something fast.

I tossed the book on the floor and grabbed another. But it was silent, too—a conspiracy of books. They perched smugly on their shelves, their mouths clamped shut. I threw the book down and jerked out another, and another. They littered the floor, taunting me. The clues to my turning were right here, but they might as well be at the bottom of the sea.

I grabbed the biggest book on the shelf and shook it hard, trying to force the words loose. “SPEAK!”

The door swung open and crashed into the wall.

I whirled around as Nellie burst into the room. Her eyes blazed at the books strewn across the floor, at the pages still shuddering in my hands.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “You’re not supposed to be up here! You’re wrecking Grandpa’s books!”

My face was burning. Anger and despair rose in my throat. I clamped my jaw shut, trying to hold the terrible feelings in.

“You just wait until he gets home!” Nellie’s hands clenched into fists. “Why didn’t you ask me? Why—”

“They won’t talk!”

Nellie stopped, startled.

“The books,” I said. “They talk to you. They give you songs and secrets, whatever you want to know. I asked them, but they won’t tell me one stupid word!”

Nellie was staring at me with a strange, intent expression. She thought I was an idiot. She’d never want to see me again. I’d lost Nellie, and I’d never learn the books’ secrets, and I couldn’t save Mam—

“It’s called reading,” she said. “I’ll show you how.”