“I thought my mother left me your book to tell me to be strong and not be sad, to carry on and get to work.”
“No, no,” Nancy said. “I know there’s not a story in the world that can take away the pain. But there is one thing books can do.”
She reached up and pulled a maple leaf off the tree, then held it over my head like an umbrella.
“Right,” I said. “They can remind you you’re not alone.”
—
“You aren’t alone.”
Nancy and I turned to see X standing under the streetlamp.
He clapped his hands. “It all makes perfect sense. You’re a fictional character, March. No wonder I despise you so much. You’re one ofthem.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “More advice? Revenge because I didn’t take the bait last time? I know everything about my mother now and it makes me admire her more.”
“No more advice,” he said. “I’m here to end you. Since you’re fictional, I can take the kid gloves off.” He pulled out his gun.
“You wouldn’t dare!” Nancy shouted, stepping between us. “I’ll get my father and the town marshal!”
“I’ve got this,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder and moving her to the side. I stared X down. “I’m a self-aware fictional character. I can take over this story if I want. You forgot that part, didn’t you?” I asked as his big scary stupid ugly gun suddenly turned into a…
Banana.
“What?” he looked at the banana in his hand, then threw it on the ground. Not only was he planning to murder me, but he wasted perfectly good fresh produce. Fiend!
I walked slowly, menacingly toward him. It’s hard to be menacing in leggings, but I promise, I pulled it off. It helped that I also summoned a bolt of lightning, which hit the ground next to X, leaving a puff of smoke in the street.
He squealed and jerked away.
“Did you like that?” I asked. “How about this?”
A small but lethal meteor crashed into the concrete behind him, spraying him with glowing green shards.
I summoned fog. Invisible wolves growled from behind trees. X turned a circle in his panic, then faced me, terror writ in bold letters across his face. He pulled his silver lighter out of his pocket, but I wasn’t about to give him a chance to escape. A giant bald eagle with the First Amendment written on his wings swooped in from the sky, snatching the lighter from his hand.
“No!” he cried out, leaping for it.
“Or how about this?” I asked, reaching behind my back. He held up his hands in terror. He knew I could pull anything out from behind my back—a knife, a ray gun, a venomous snake in a very bad mood.
“You’re a Book Witch! You’re not supposed to use violence.”
“I’m also a fictional character. And in a story, a fictional character can do anything she wants! Like…this!”
I pulled out a book from behind my back and brandished it in his face.
“Dante’sInferno?” he asked, then laughed. “Finally, real literature. Your taste is improving, March.”
“I’m not going to read it,” I said. “I’ve already read it.”
I tossed the book toward him, and it landed behind him on the ground, open.
With the tip of my umbrella, I shoved him backward into the book. A whirlwind of words captured him, dragging him down into the Seventh Circle of Hell, where those who do violence against art are punished for eternity. And as I did it, I said the three words every Book Witch in the world has wanted to say to every Burner since Savonarola’s Bonfire of the Vanities.
“Go to Hell!”
Then with a sucking sound like the flushing of an industrial-strength toilet, he was gone.
