The Unwritten Girl Read online

  THE UNWRITTEN GIRL

  THE

  UNWRITTEN GIRL

  James Bow

  Copyright © James Bow, 2006

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or

  otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of

  Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Editor: Barry Jowett

  Copy-Editor: Andrea Waters

  Design: Andrew Roberts

  Printer: Webcom

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Bow, James, 1972-

  The unwritten girl / James Bow.

  ISBN-10: 1-55002-604-6

  ISBN-13: 978-1-55002-604-7

  I. Title.

  PS8603.O973U97 2006 jC813'.6 C2006-900522-2

  1 2 3 4 5 10 09 08 07 06

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for

  our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada

  through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export

  of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax

  Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author

  and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in

  subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Printed on recycled paper.

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  THE UNWRITTEN GIRL

  DEDICATION

  You know who you are.

  PROLOGUE

  Rosemary read.

  ***

  Marjorie gasped. “What is this place?”

  She stood, with her brother, John, and her new friend Andrew, at the base of the tallest, largest building they had ever seen. Chrome jaguars guarded the steps, frozen in mid-leap. The other buildings seemed to crowd together, pushing them up the stairs. A thousand Zeppelins patrolled the sky.

  “Is this where the people went?” asked Marjorie.

  “Yes,” said the Sentinel. “

  That’s comforting,” deadpanned Andrew. “I think we should go now.”

  “Perhaps there was some disaster,” said John. “I wonder what happened here; it’s like the Marie Celeste!”

  “Do you wish to see the people?” The Sentinel, moving stiffly on stone joints, stepped past them and pushed open the doors.

  “That walking statue is just so creepy,” said Andrew. He put his hand on Marjorie’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here!”

  “No.” Marjorie pushed her horn-rimmed glasses further up on her nose. “I want to see.”

  The Sentinel ushered them forward.

  They found themselves in a vast, dark cathedral. Huge marble slabs stood suspended from the ceiling, row upon row, seven feet wide and tall, and two feet thick. Some swung almost imperceptibly, as if something inside them stirred.

  The rhythmic heartbeat of the city hammered off the walls, breaking their thoughts to well-ordered pieces.

  “But … where are all the people?” asked Marjorie. John looked up at the slabs. His face went white. “Marjorie …”

  The doors slammed behind them.

  ***

  Rosemary winced. She turned the page.

  ***

  Each slab held the impression of a person: here an old man with wide staring eyes, there a young woman, a child; each as different as people are from one another.

  Frightened but curious, Marjorie led the way onto a moving sidewalk towards a second set of giant doors. The Sentinel pressed Andrew and John to follow her. “Ours is a powerful civilization,” he said. “We have built many wonders. But civilizations grow old, and old civilizations disappear. Knowing this, the people of this planet built the great Machine. The Machine was the pinnacle of our technology, capable of answering any question put to it and performing any action asked of it. We told it our fears and we asked it to preserve us so that our civilization would never die.”

  “But I don’t understand,” said Andrew. “Where are all the people?”

  “The Machine did as the people instructed,” said the Sentinel. “It automated all the processes and turned all the people into stone.”

  The second set of doors swung open as they approached, and the heartbeat intensified. At the end of a long hall sat the Machine.

  ***

  Rosemary swallowed hard. She flipped ahead.

  ***

  Metal claws snaked down from the ceiling and grabbed their wrists and ankles.

  The Sentinel spread its arms as if puzzled. “Why do you resist? The Machine preserves all on this planet. You are on this planet, so you must be preserved.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Andrew yelled.

  “Concentrate, Marjorie!” shouted John. “Teleport now!”

  “I can’t!” cried Marjorie. “It’s the Machine! It’s breaking my thoughts!”

  Andrew screamed as the metal pincers wrenched him off his feet.

  “Marjorie, do something!” John shouted as the claws pulled him away. There was the sound of clanging metal, the hiss of steam. Her brother’s yells ended abruptly.

  “Andrew! John!” Marjorie screamed. She struggled vainly against the metal cables wrapping around her body, pulling her to the Machine. “No!”

  ***

  Horrified, Rosemary threw the book across her room.

  It landed with a thud, and Marjorie’s story slammed shut.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE GIRL WHO FOLDED HERSELF

  “What if we could travel at the speed of thought?”

  — Marjorie Campbell

  Rosemary Watson slapped her schoolbooks down on a study cubicle. The Outsiders has to be the most depressing book ever, she thought. She pushed her fingers beneath her thick glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

  The school bus was late and getting later. Through the window behind her came muffled laughter and the smack of icy snowballs. Rosemary sighed and slumped in her seat.

  “Really, Rosemary,” said a voice behind her. “You would think someone as bookish as you would appreciate good literature!”

  She whirled around. Benson sat twisted in his seat by the study cubicle behind her, grinning.

  “Go away,” she snapped.

  “What’s the matter, Sage?” said Benson. “’Fraid of a little snow?”

  “Don’t you have homework?” said Rosemary.

  The school librarian shushed them. They looked up and caught her grim look. Benson flashed Rosemary a cheeky grin and turned back to his books.

  Rosemary turned away. Benson had been imitating what Mr. Reed, her English teacher, had said when he’d discovered she was a chapter behind in her assigned reading of The Outsiders. The class, of course, had laughed. She hadn’t bothered to explain. She’d sat silently in her seat, her face red, feeling as though a spotlight were on her.

&
nbsp; It had been a bad day, and her classmates weren’t about to let it end, not while everyone waited for the school buses after the first snowfall of the season. So instead of standing in the schoolyard with an invisible target pinned to her forehead, she had chosen to hide in the library, taking refuge in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

  The school library was half the size of the public library her father managed, but at least it had encyclopedias and the smell of paper. She felt the stress of the day seeping out amongst the hushed tomes and the facts and figures. She took a deep breath and smiled.

  Then she coughed. The scent of old paper was suddenly more powerful and tinged with mildew. It clung to her like cobwebs.

  Rosemary stood up and looked around. The smell seemed to be coming from one of the fiction aisles. She slipped past racks of battered paperbacks and stepped into the stacks.

  A burnt-out light cast the aisle in shadow, and the shelves towered over her like a hedge maze. A girl stood where the shelves met the wall. She was flipping through a book. There was something odd about her.

  Rosemary pushed her glasses further up on her nose for a better look.

  The girl looked a lot like Rosemary. She was about the same age, wore glasses, and had shoulder-length brown hair. She wore a school uniform, though, and that was what made her look odd. Rosemary’s school didn’t have uniforms, and more than that, the cut of the girl’s clothes was out of date. Her glasses were horn-rimmed instead of round. It was as though she had stepped out of the 1950s, or Rosemary had stepped in.

  The girl stopped paging, then turned and looked at Rosemary. Their eyes locked. The girl’s eyes were not friendly.

  “Who —” Rosemary stammered. “What’s wrong?”

  The girl turned towards Rosemary and disappeared.

  Rosemary jumped back. The girl had not faded into nothingness, as though she were a ghost. A ghost Rosemary could handle, maybe. Instead, she had folded out of existence, growing thinner as she turned until she was a line and then nothing at all, as though she were a piece of paper. Rosemary goggled at the empty space, and she swore it was looking back at her.

  The smell of dust was so intense, Rosemary thought her throat would close. She choked.

  A hand fell on her shoulder. Rosemary gasped and whirled around.

  Behind her was a tall boy with a flop of light brown hair, a lot of freckles, and eyes that looked friendly, or maybe sad. He smiled at her. “Hey!”

  She struggled a moment to place him, then remembered him: the new kid in English class, off to one side, neither perched near the front of the class nor hiding in the back. When the rest of the class had laughed at her, he hadn’t joined in. “You’re ...” she began.

  The boy grinned ruefully and recited, “Peter. Peter McAllister, the new kid. From Toronto. The school buses are here.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder. Benson was already checking his books out.

  She looked back at the aisle. The sense of being watched by empty space returned. She tried to steady her breath.

  “What’s wrong?” said Peter. “You see something?”

  She took a step back and turned away. “It’s nothing,” she said. It’s nothing, she thought. Don’t act crazy. Leaving Peter behind, she grabbed up her backpack and her winter coat and ran for the door.

  The blast of cold air blanched Rosemary’s cheeks, but that was not why she staggered to a stop outside the entrance to Clarksbury Junior High. Across the yard, she could hear the shouts of the children heading towards the school buses, but around her it was too quiet. She could hear the whistle of the wind. The low walls nearby seemed to be giggling.

  She judged the distance between herself and the school buses, calculated how long it would take for her to run, then nixed that idea. Never let them see you run.

  The door swung open, and Peter stepped out with Benson. Peter gave her a smile as he passed. Rosemary shouldered her backpack, pushed her glasses further up on her nose, focused on the nearest school bus, and strode forward.

  For several steps, nothing happened. Then, as she got out into the open, somebody shouted, “Get her!” Kids leapt out of cover, and the air became alive with snowballs. They caught Peter as well as Rosemary. He laughed and scooped up snowballs of his own, returning fire. Then Rosemary yelled as an incoming shot caught her on the ear and sent her glasses flying.

  She waved her hands at the blurry white onslaught. “Stop! Stop, you idiots! I’ve lost my glasses!”

  The volley stopped. Rosemary clawed snow from her eyes and sank to her knees to paw at the ground. There were chuckles from the crowd. Peter dropped the snowball he was holding. “Hey, are you okay?”

  Rosemary couldn’t stop her angry, rasping breaths. She would not cry. “Just help me look!”

  “Looking for these?” A shape pressed forward and picked up something off the snow. Rosemary froze. She recognized the voice of Leo Cameron, noted schoolyard bully. Great, she thought. First The Outsiders, then folding people, and now this.

  “Give them to me,” she growled.

  Leo chuckled. “Now, now, Sage, ask nice!”

  “Come on, Leo,” said Benson. “Go easy on her.”

  “Yeah, don’t make her crazy like her brother,” shouted someone from the crowd. There was a ripple of laughter.

  Rosemary shot up from her hands and knees. Her breathing quickened. Her eyes glistened. Then she let out a yell and charged, arms swinging. Leo ducked back, and she spun herself around and landed heavily in the snow. Leo laughed. “Where’re your manners, Sage? Say please!”

  Peter pushed forward and stood chest to chest with Leo, looking down. He stuck out his hand. “Please.”

  There was a pause as everyone stood poised, waiting for something to happen. In her blurred vision, Rosemary saw Peter, tall, towering over the bullies, and for a minute she thought of her brother, Theo.

  Finally, Leo tossed the glasses to Rosemary. They hit her chest and she caught them. “Go ahead and have your glasses; like I care. C’mon, guys!”

  His friends filed after him, followed by the rest of the crowd. Peter stayed close while Rosemary smeared her glasses with her scarf.

  “Thanks,” she said, bitterly. Almost as bad as being teased was being rescued from it. Almost. She put her glasses on again.

  Peter handed over her fallen hat. “You’ve got a nice left hook.”

  Rosemary flushed and looked away. “I lost my temper.”

  “Better than just standing there. You’re Rosemary, right? Rosemary Watson?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You know me?”

  He shrugged. “I see you get on the bus every day. I live just down the road.”

  There was a pause. The two stared at each other. “So ...” Rosemary began.

  Then there was the sound of engines. Rosemary whirled and charged across the snow. “Wait! Hey!” But the buses pulled into the street, turned a corner, and were gone. She stumbled to a stop and threw up her hands.

  Peter caught up with her, puffing. “I’m sorry! I forgot they were about to leave.”

  She sighed. “It’s okay; my fault. Perfect ending to a perfect day. I’ll walk.” She turned to him, nodding curtly. “Thanks for the help. See you Monday.” And she turned away and trudged off.

  A moment later, she heard the scuff of snow behind her. “Why do they call you ‘Sage’?”

  She froze. “Are you following me?”

  “Do you mind?” He had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. He smiled at her sheepishly. “It’s a long way, and we live on the same street.”

  She considered a moment, then shrugged. “Whatever. Free country.”

  They walked through the main street of Clarksbury, passing fish and tackle shops closed for the season and a single, quiet convenience store. The proprietor of Luigi’s Pizzeria and Bait Shop looked up from the scrape of his shovel and waved to them as they passed; Rosemary took no notice. On the road, a single car breezed by.

  “So, why do they call you Sage?” a
sked Peter.

  She hunched forward. “My family called me Sage. My brother let it slip. It stuck.”

  “Your family calls you Sage?”

  “Because I read encyclopedias,” she replied. “It was okay when they did it.”

  “‘Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.’ That’s a folk song, isn’t it?”

  “How would I know? I don’t sing!”

  “Leo probably doesn’t either. He sounds like a cat with a hairball.”

  Rosemary snorted.

  They neared the edge of town. Their boots squelched on slush as the sidewalk gave way to gravel. The houses receded, and the Niagara Escarpment, a one-hundred-foot rise of rock and trees that surrounded Clarksbury on three sides, drew closer. They turned at a sign pointing to a road that broke off the main highway and ascended the Escarpment. “45th Parallel Road,” it said, with a sign beneath boasting, “Halfway between pole and equator.”

  Peter puffed as they trudged up the slope. “Well, not much further, Sage.”

  She rounded on him. Her fists clenched. “What did you call me?”

  “S-Sage,” he said, swallowing. “Do you mind?” He raised his hands. “Look, I won’t say it like they mean it, but like your brother meant it and stuff. It’s a good nickname; it means ‘wise one.’”

  She looked at him. “You always quote dictionaries?”

  He shrugged. “Got a problem with that?” He gave her a grin.

  She rolled her eyes. “And it’s me they tease.” She looked over his shoulder. “Uh-oh. A squall’s coming in.”

  He looked back. Behind them, the slate expanse of Georgian Bay swept out to piled black clouds on the horizon. A white chop was developing on the dark water. “What’s a squall? A snowstorm or something?”

  “You’ll find out if we don’t hurry.” She turned up the slope.

  The squall overtook them before they’d gone half a mile, starting with a few flecks and a short gust of wind pressing at their backs. As they topped the Escarpment, the world disappeared into whirling snow and icy daggers slipped under their collars. The slush turned crunchy. Rosemary stumbled, and Peter hauled her up. She stared at his hand in hers, then shook it off. Then a gust nearly knocked them off their feet. Rosemary grabbed Peter’s hand and ploughed forward. Finally, they came to the Watsons’ mailbox and leaned on it, gasping. “I wish we hadn’t missed the bus,” Rosemary wheezed.