The Library of A–Z

The tunnel led to a massive cavern that opened out into a grand library.

“Books! Just what we need!” said Mini. Her eyes might as well have been heart emojis. “When my mom told me stories about the Night Bazaar, this was the place I wanted to see most. All the books are enchanted. They cover everything and everyone.”

“Great?” said Aru.

She liked libraries. She liked going to the audiobooks section and listening. And she liked pranking people by waiting until they pulled out a book, only to see her making strange faces in the empty space on the shelf.

But this library made her feel uncertain. She had that prickly cold feeling that had followed her in the parking lot right after they’d gotten the first key. Aru slipped her hand around the golden ball in her pocket. It was warm to the touch, but thankfully not hot the way it had been when the Sleeper had shown up before.

“So the bite-of-adulthood key is somewhere in here…” said Aru. Was she mistaken, or was the book design on her hand glowing?

“Then by all means, meander slowly and ponderously until my feathers molt,” said Boo.

“I’m looking!” said Aru defensively.

Easier said than done. The library was the size of a village. Shiny black stone formed the ceiling. Large windows cut into the walls looked out onto unusual settings. Through the first, Aru could see the depths of the ocean. A stingray glided past. Through the second Aru could see the leaves of a dense jungle. The third window peered out over the skyline of New York City.

Hundreds of shelves loomed before them. Aru watched, eyes wide, as the books hopped and fluttered around. Some of them even fought one another. A giant encyclopedia marked A–F squawked at a dictionary. And a book entitled What to Expect When You’re Reincarnated from a Cockroach arched its spine and hissed at a bookmark.

“Maybe this place is organized like a regular library?” suggested Mini. She looked like she was in heaven, surrounded by all the books. “Adulthood starts with the letter A, so let’s see if the shelves are alphabetical.”

“What if adulthood isn’t a book?” asked Aru. “Maybe it’s hidden in something. A book isn’t a key.”

“Neither is a sprig. I think a book would make sense,” said Mini quietly. “They’re keys to lots of stuff.”

When Aru stopped to think about it, she had to admit this was true. She may not have liked the books she’d had to read for school, but she’d loved the stories her mom had read aloud to her. Those tales had unlocked things that ordinary metal keys never could. A particularly good book had a way of opening new spaces in one’s mind. It even invited you to come back later and rummage through what you’d learned.

“What do you think, Boo?” asked Aru.

He didn’t respond. He was circling the ceiling. There was an agitated, restless quality to his movements. He moved jaggedly back and forth, as if he were trying to suss out something.

“Seriously, Boo? Do you have to stretch out your wings now? Must’ve been so tiring just sitting on our shoulders the whole time.”

Shaking her head, Aru wandered over to the first aisle. Mini had already pulled out two stools, stacked them one on top of the other, and climbed up to read the book spines. A few volumes leaned out, inspecting Mini as closely as she was inspecting them.

“I can’t quite see the titles at the top,” muttered Mini. “Can you ask Boo to come help?”

“He’s busy pecking at the ceiling or something,” said Aru. “But I’ll try. Boo?”

He was still flying in an agitated manner. Beneath him, his shadow sprawled over the books. It didn’t seem like an ordinary pigeon’s shadow. This shadow had wings the size of small boats and tail feathers that looked like trailing ribbons.

Aru turned to look at the tunnel entrance and saw that all the people who had once been in the library had disappeared. They were alone.

Aru frowned, looking upward for Boo again.

The ceiling had changed. It seemed to be moving….The colors were swirling and melding. Aru realized that what she’d thought was polished marble was not stone at all, but skin.

She’d been wrong about something else, too: they were definitely not alone.

Boo soared back to them, squawking, “RUN! It’s him!”

Mini tumbled down from the two stools.

They took off, racing toward the tunnel, but the opening had disappeared. Behind them, someone started chuckling softly.

“Always so eager to run from your problems, aren’t you?” asked a silky voice. “Well, you’re just children. I suppose that’s to be expected.”

Aru turned slowly, expecting to see the snakelike Sleeper slithering toward her. But as it turned out, the Sleeper could take many forms. Before her eyes, the skin from the ceiling dripped down, coalescing into the shape of a man.

He no longer had a star-studded snake tail, but his hair was the same inky shade of night, and it looked as if there were stars caught in his hair. In the form of a man, he was tall and thin. He looked…hungry. His cheekbones stuck out. He wore a black sherwani jacket over dark jeans, and an empty birdcage swung from his hand. Aru frowned. Why would he carry something like that? Then she looked up at his eyes. They were strange. One was blue, and the other was brown.

She felt like she knew him from somewhere. How was that possible?

“Hello, daughter of Indra and daughter of Dharma Raja,” he said. “Remember me? It’s been a while….A couple millennia. And then some.”

His voice took her back to the moment she lit the lamp.

Aru, Aru, Aru, what have you done?

“I apologize for not stopping to chat after you let me out of that drafty diya, Aru,” said the Sleeper, “but I had business to attend to. Things to gather.” He grinned, revealing unnervingly sharp teeth. “But it seems I went to all that trouble for nothing. This won’t be much of a fight.”

“We don’t even want to—” Aru started.

He slammed his foot against the ground, and the earth rattled. Books fell off the shelves and scattered around them. One of them, entitled Afloat, flapped its endpapers, drifted to the ceiling, and refused to move despite Artful Guile trying to tempt it back down with a bookmark.

“Don’t even think about interrupting me,” he said. “I’ve waited for ages. Eons.” He glared at Aru. “Ever since your mother locked me into that miserable lamp.”

“My…my mother?”

“Who else would smile as she slid the knife into my chest?” the Sleeper chided. “And you’re just like her, aren’t you? A liar. I saw you when you lit the lamp. Anything to impress your friends, right? What a coward you are, Aru Shah.”

“My mother is not a liar!” shouted Aru.

“You don’t even know her,” sneered the Sleeper.

Aru didn’t want to listen. But she felt a twist in her gut. All those times she had waited for her mother, the dinner she’d made going cold on the table. All those doors that had been closed in her face. All the questions that had been shushed. It was a different kind of pain when the hurt came not from a lie, but the truth. Her mother had hidden an entire world from her.

She really didn’t know her mom at all.

The Sleeper gestured to Mini with a fake frown on his face, but he kept his gaze on Aru. “And what’s this? Your little sister here didn’t know that you summoned me? That you are the reason her whole family is in danger? That you are the cause of all this, and not poor old me?”

Aru risked a glance at Mini. Her eyebrows were drawn together. Aru may have freed the Sleeper, but she hadn’t done it on purpose. Would Mini ever believe her now? Aru couldn’t get the words out—they were clogged by guilt.

“I—I can explain, Mini,” she said. “Later.”

Mini’s face hardened, but she nodded. There was no point hashing it out now, right before certain death.

The Sleeper’s eyes narrowed. He dropped the birdcage beside him. It wasn’t empty after all. Small clay figurines in the shape of horses and tigers rattled together as they hit the floor.

“Give me the sprig of youth,” he said.

Aru and Mini started inching backward. Aru was aware of Boo flying in frantic circles above them, as if trying to signal something. She risked a glance up. Boo dipped, landing on a book with a silver spine. It was too far away for Aru to read, but she knew what it said: Adulthood.

The second key was right over their heads. If they could just distract the Sleeper, they could get it. Mini caught Aru’s eye and nodded once. Apparently they’d had the same thought. Which would’ve been really cool if Mini didn’t also look as though she’d like to strangle Aru at the first chance.

They wedged themselves between the stacks of A-shelves.

“How’d you find us?” asked Aru.

“Rakshas are very talkative,” he said, smiling. “Two little girls entering the Night Bazaar with enchanted objects bearing the marks of Lord Indra and the Dharma Raja? How curious.”

“What kinda name is Sleeper?” asked Aru. “Are you just really good at napping?”

He frowned. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mini touch her diamond bracelet.

“Or is it like a metaphor?” pushed Aru, proud that she’d remembered the word from last week’s English class. “Maybe a bad nickname from middle school, when you fell asleep on a test and all the ink got on your face?”

“Enough!” he thundered. “Where’s the second key? You know what it is, don’t you?”

Mini slid her backpack to the floor, nudging it closer to Aru. When Mini turned around, Aru saw that she had managed to tuck the sprig of youth into the back of her jeans.

Aru felt as if she’d tapped into a wavelength that belonged only to her and Mini. They moved in sync, their thoughts aligned.

“If you want the key, catch it!” shouted Aru.

She picked up the backpack and threw it into the air. The Sleeper lunged after it, while Mini tore off her bracelet. With a flick of her wrist, it expanded, flashing and shimmering. Cold flooded the air. Frost seeped out, lacing the floor.

Mini tossed the Cloak of Winter over the Sleeper.

“I’ve got him! You go grab the you-know-what,” Mini called to Aru.

Mini wrestled with the cloak, her feet skidding across the floor. Underneath, the Sleeper froze. But he wouldn’t stay frozen solid for long. Already, cracks were forming in the ice and his eyes were rolling furiously. Mini pushed him and he fell over on his side, knocking into the birdcage on the floor. It rolled down one of the library aisles.

“Over here!” shouted Boo from atop the books.

Aru really wished she could fly. But since she couldn’t, she lost a couple of moments grabbing the stools, restacking them, and climbing to the top shelf. She was out of breath by the time she spotted the book.

It stood apart from the other volumes. Aloof and—if books could act that way—a little judgmental of its neighbors. Its title glowed in silver foil on the spine: Adulthood. Boo hopped onto her head and pecked at her hair, urging her to take it.

Aru glanced at the other titles next to it. Adulation was singing. Pink hearts kept oozing from its pages. Adullamite hopped away, running toward the B titles, which flapped their pages to welcome it.

A bite of adulthood… What was she supposed to do? Grab the book and actually sink her teeth into it?

She glanced at Mini, who was trying to keep the cloak tied over the frozen Sleeper. But he was beginning to move. Shards of ice flew off him. Mini met Aru’s eyes and hollered, “Do it!”

Boo soared down to help Mini, leaving Aru on the shelf.

“What are you waiting for, Aru?” demanded Mini.

“Ew, ew, ew!” said Aru. She squeezed her eyes shut, grabbed the book, and bit into it.

It squealed.

She hadn’t given much thought as to what a book might taste like. But Adulthood had a strange flavor. Sweet and bitter at the same time, like candied orange peel. It reminded Aru of walking to school on a cold February morning, when the sun was bright but distant and everything was a little too stark.

She spat the bite of Adulthood into her palm. The wet wad of paper transformed into a glowing silver coin. Aru shoved it in her pocket, then ran her tongue along her teeth, hating that she couldn’t quite rid herself of the taste.

“I got it—” she started, but her victory was short-lived.

The Sleeper had thrown off the cloak. Now it lay dull and limp on the floor, slowly melting.

“You are testing my patience—” he hissed.

“You slept in a lamp for a hundred years and that’s the best you could come up with?” shouted back Aru. “What a cliché. All you’re missing is the villain mustache.”

She was trying to keep his attention on her while Mini fumbled for another magical item from the Seasons. But it wasn’t Mini who launched herself at him next. It was Boo.

“Those!” he snapped. “Are!” He pecked at the Sleeper’s eyes. “My!” He pooped. “HEROINES!”

Aru clambered down from the stools and snatched the backpack off the ground. Mini was trying to shake the Cloak of Winter back into something that would tame the Sleeper, but it stayed lifeless.

Boo let out a loud, pained squawk. The Sleeper had caught him in one hand. With the other hand, he wiped the bird poop off his head. He peered more closely at Boo. He didn’t yell or scream. Instead…he laughed.

“What has happened to you, old friend?”