Evil Was a Child Once

CHAPTER 1—EVIL

Boston, Massachusetts—Summer

Twelve-year-old Evil Mather sat at the long dining room table, two large red candles on either side of her, the flames wavering. She sucked in ragged breaths, her face stained with tears. With her wrists bound together in her lap, she lifted them and took a final swipe at her eyes, pushing away thick red curls from her face. The silk didn’t hurt, but the double knots ensured their strength. Her father, Reverend Stanley Mather, stood behind her and patted her shoulders. The Reverend moved to stand in front of her, his long grayish hair brushing his shoulders and the silver Mather family crest around his neck winking in the candlelight, bright against the black robes.

I’m so sorry, Evil. His deep voice filled the room, a bow drawn across the lowest cello strings. I think it’s horrible what that girl did, and I don’t blame you for being angry, not at all. You know your name is not your fault. But remember that we can harness your emotion during these times to find the diary.

These things wouldn’t happen if I were normal, right, Father? Evil sniffled. If I could get rid of the Curse?

That’s right, her father assured her. Find the diary, cure the Curse.

Find the witches, find the diary, she automatically responded in a shaky voice.

But? No matter what?

I mustn’t draw Father, I mustn’t draw myself. She swallowed. But what if...what if I hadn’t come to you just now...?

The Reverend pulled up a dining chair to sit beside her, taking her chilled bound hands into his. You know what would happen. And that’s why I’ll always be here for you. You can only trust me to guide your drawings, not yourself. We can’t change the past, Evil, but we can shape the future.

He squeezed her hands and smiled. And all those drawings are in the past. What you did to those children was an accident. He pointed to the silk knots. And this is how we shape the future. He inhaled deeply. Do you think you can channel your feelings so we can find the diary?

She swallowed again, then nodded. Maybe...maybe this time I won’t hurt anyone. But she didn’t believe it. Someone always got hurt when she drew, even if her father reassured her that drawing was absolutely necessary.

He pulled a large sketch pad and several pencils from the dark end of the table and placed them before Evil. The Reverend’s hands hovered over the silk knots at her wrists.

You give me your word you will not draw the girl who hurt your feelings? You will only think of the witches as I speak to you?

Evil silently nodded again, then whispered, I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just want to be normal.

The Reverend clasped her bound hands in his, his eyes shining. I know. And I feel certain that your drawings will tell us where the witches are hiding the diary. Once we have it, I know it will tell us how to defeat the Curse.

Her father’s fingers tugged and unwound the silken knots, and Evil exhaled. She rolled her wrists, flexing her fingers. She grasped a pencil in each hand, and her father began to speak as he rested his hands on her shoulders once more. He told a story—like always—that ended with a question. And then she would draw the answer. Evil never knew what the answer would look like on the page, and she often didn’t know what it meant when she was done. But something always happened. Something bad.

"For twelve years, a girl has tried to be good. Her father loves her dearly. Nothing pains him more than when she comes home with a broken heart again and again. Children mock her name. A name she must bear solely because of a Curse. She is a good girl, but what she draws hurts others. She is a good girl, but she has no friends. She is a good girl, but her life was cursed hundreds of years ago by the very people who harbor her cure, her great-great-great-grandfather’s diary. Doesn’t a girl whose heart is good deserve to be cured?"

As her father spoke, Evil’s heart pounded, and tears pricked at her eyes again. This was not just any story—it was her story. Her father continued.

Where can we find these descendants of the witches? Where did they flee so long ago?

Gradually, her heart slowed. Evil’s eyes fluttered, drooped, and finally closed. She sensed her hands starting to move across the page, slowly at first, then faster. And faster. Then everything went black like always.

Evil burst into consciousness again, gasping as her eyes flew open and the darkness receded. She knew the drawing must be complete. The paper slid out from under her hands as her vision sharpened. She bit her lip and twisted her neck slightly to watch her father’s face as he gazed at the paper.

His brow wrinkled and his eyes narrowed as he scanned the drawing. Evil held her breath. Then his expression cleared and the corners of his mouth slowly turned up. He lowered the drawing and looked at her.

It’s not frightening, I promise. And you know we can’t burn these because we want them to happen, so you will have to see it sooner or later.

Evil swallowed, shuddering at the memories of scrawling in hurt and anger after so much bullying at school. She nodded for him to turn it around. He flipped the page toward her, and she braced herself despite what her father had said about it not being frightening.

The sketch of an open journal spread out before her, the writing so full of swoops and swirls that Evil couldn’t read it.

Does it mean anything to you, Evil? Can you read the handwriting?

Evil shook her head, then stopped. She leaned in, squinted.

Father, I can read something. At the very top, there’s some words that are spelled funny, but then there’s something else printed above it.

Her father whipped the page back around to him, his eyes wide and eager like when she’d spied on him preaching.

I was too hasty, he said, his voice light with excitement. He inspected the page. Ah yes, there it is. The funny words are Latin, but it’s what’s printed above that matters.

It’s a place, isn’t it, Father? Isn’t it? Evil clenched her hands to control her trembling.

Yes. I believe we have a destination. The Reverend lowered the drawing, sweat beading on his forehead. It says The Library of Strange and Unusual Things.

CHAPTER 2—DAVEY

96 days since the accident

Virtue, California—Fall

Ever since the accident, as he called it in his head, Davey Ellington only left his room for three reasons: to attend school, to run errands for his mother, and today, to visit The Library of Strange and Unusual Things.

He’d looked forward to sixth grade for a long time, but that had changed. It was nearing Halloween, and most days, especially at school, still reminded Davey of living underwater. Talking sounded gurgled, and his arms and legs moved slow and heavy. He came up for air at recess, sitting alone on a green bench at the edge of the playground. Sometimes he didn’t know the bell had rung until a teacher shook him by the shoulder. In class, Davey stared at the clock above the teacher’s desk, wondering when he could get back to his bedroom.

At home, Davey sat on the floor with his knees scrunched up between the wall and his bed. He imagined hearing his dad open the front door, imagined his gun belt clinking as he hung it on the coatrack. Then the soft sound of wood sliding across the carpet as he opened Davey’s door. He’d stand at the side of the bed, in his police uniform, just like in the framed picture on Davey’s nightstand. Davey had learned he could picture his dad near him if he tried not to look directly at him. Otherwise, he’d go away. It had to be enough to imagine the give of the bed as his dad sat down, too big to fit in the narrow space with Davey. He recalled the smell of his dad’s aftershave mixed with a little sweat, like it had been a tough night.

The memory of the accident always interrupted at some point: the siren, the colored lights against the apartment building. Hushed voices speaking about his dad checking on a Dr. Hathorne because he hadn’t been at work at the Library for days. No one knew Dr. Hathorne slept with a loaded gun. Dr. Hathorne, a stranger who ruined Davey’s life forever. Then the same question running on an endless loop in his head: Dad, why did you have to die?

Davey couldn’t even be angry with Dr. Hathorne because he’d died too. Heart attack. They found him in bed, his hand still wrapped around the gun that had killed his dad in the doorway, just a few feet away.

Everyone said the old man was crazy, he’d gone off of his medication, didn’t know he was shooting a policeman. But why had he gone off his medication? Why had he gone crazy?

His dad had gone there to help. Why did he have to die?

Davey pulled on a jacket as he left the apartment around noon that Saturday in October. Davey and his parents used to go to the Library every Saturday at that time, but this would be his first visit since the accident. He missed it, but his ma said she couldn’t go yet: Oh no, you go, Davey, I have to make this casserole, and I also have to check in at work because this one patient is not doing well at all...

Because they’d been going there forever and his ma knew some of the staff, she let him go by himself. Besides, he’d been walking the whole town since he could remember. Virtue was the smallest and oldest town in California. And if he got confused, he just had to find the mansion on the hill. If he headed toward that, it would bring him back to his apartment. Of course, it was way up in the hills behind them, and he didn’t even know if anyone lived there. When it was foggy like today, it looked like a mansion in the clouds.

Supposedly the Library was the oldest building in town. Davey assumed that’s why it had this weird Latin phrase all over the place: Evolutionis Doctrina. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but the writing looked cool. A much smaller version of the Library had been there in some form or another since Virtue was founded some two hundred years ago. Now it was much larger and had become a huge tourist attraction since they had acquired such neat stuff (gadgets, pictures, furniture, clothes, you name it). People had been making or donating things forever, and there hadn’t always been a good system for tracking everything. You never knew what you were going to find beyond a column or a book, behind a lamp or a table. Plus, the tourist draw was how it came to be open twenty-four hours. Davey had never been there super late, but he liked the idea that when he was old enough, he could stay there until it was really dark.

People think the Library just has books, Davey’s dad would often prompt when the clock tower came into view. Together, he and his dad would shout, Boy are THEY WRONG! Being allowed to shout used to make Davey giggly.

Once his family entered the Library, they always went their separate ways: Ma to Southern History or Cooking or Literature, Dad to WWII or Science Fiction, and Davey to the Children’s Realm. And if anyone thought Davey went there solely to read...

Boy were they wrong.

Davey often lost himself in the Library’s stuff as much as its books.

In the Children’s Realm, a path like the yellow brick road wound its way throughout the stacks. It looked real until you stepped on it—actually soft, shiny plastic. A few girls always stood around Cinderella’s dress with its big skirt and puffy sleeves, the fabric all shimmery underneath a glass dome. A light kept switching colors so the gown sparkled yellow, then blue, then silver, and back again.

Davey loved the display from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: A row of WONKA chocolate bars sat on a wooden shelf, but the bar in the middle had the wrapper pulled back just enough to see the top part of a golden ticket.

Once a year, the Library staff hid what they called the latest children’s acquisition somewhere in the Realm. They announced the book that inspired the object months ahead and had several copies on hand to make sure everyone could read it. They called it The Realm Treasure Hunt, and the clues were all connected to that year’s book. Over a year ago, at the beginning of fifth grade, Davey had found the hidden object, which turned out to be a thick length of rope with vines around it—the rope the kids used to cross into Terabithia from Bridge to Terabithia.

Davey’s prize came in the form of a small scroll, the paper wrinkled and brown like it was old. It even had a real wax seal, a pattern of circles in a triangle. Davey was told it could only be opened by Library staff, but it could be exchanged for a private tour of the towers where the public wasn’t allowed to go. He and his dad had been planning to do the tour together when his schedule permitted, but then the accident had happened. Davey kept the scroll in the front pocket of his backpack, hoping he would want to take the tour someday.

Sometimes, though, like today, Davey wanted to search for something whether a Hunt was on or not. The feeling tugged at him as the clock tower came into view, a floating ring of mist hovering around its neck. Little Ben, his dad used to call it, saying it reminded him of a much larger clock in London. As Davey made his way across the vast stretch of grass, he craned his neck to take in all thirteen stories of the Library. Davey counted the four spires as the thirteenth floor, even if the public wasn’t allowed in them. Davey had been surprised the first time he heard visitors exclaiming, "This is a library? and This place is more like a haunted castle than a library!" He wondered what other libraries looked like because this one, with worn stones as big as him, towers at all four corners, and so many rooms it was like a maze, was the only one Davey had ever known.

The Library loomed above the main entrance, thirty-five stone steps, wide enough that several buses full of kids could clamber up them with space to spare. Two monsters called gargoyles guarded either side of the steps. Davey had stopped cold when he first saw them as a little kid, the larger-than-life stone creatures with their fangs and long shadows. While they had bodies somewhat like giant dogs, their heads resembled nothing Davey could understand—like some mashed-up combination of a lion and a person with big eyes and sharp teeth. His ma and dad had taken a few steps, then turned back to him.

Come on, son, his dad called, gesturing up the steps.

Davey, mute with fear, pointed to the monsters and shook his head. The monsters clearly didn’t want him to pass.

His dad looked at his ma, and each took one of Davey’s hands. While his dad’s pale hands made Davey’s seem quite brown, they faded next to his ma’s darker hands. His ma bent down and stage-whispered in his ear.

Now, Davey, your dad has been looking forward to you counting these steps. He knows you are the best counter in Virtue. You’re not going to let him down, are you?

Davey snuck a peek at his dad, who quickly gazed up at the stone steps and sighed. It’s okay, Davey, I guess...I guess we’ll never know how many there are. His dad paused. Shame that all the toys are up these stairs too. But we’ll have fun just walking around the grounds, right?

And that’s how Davey learned there were thirty-five steps.

Most first-time visitors and tourists took the steps because they were stately and grand. But for Davey, he never got tired of counting them, even in his head.

Davey put a foot on the bottom step as children raced past him, adults shouting at their backs. Young and old tourists snapped pictures of the gargoyles. But Davey looked at his shoe on the stone step.

One...

Before long, he’d reached the top, inhaling deeply. The sun blinded him a little as it glared off the cool marbled terrace. He gradually caught his breath and then entered what he called the Time Tunnel, though the large sign announced it as the Hall of Murals.

Ready, Davey? his dad had asked the first time he took Davey there, grinning as he took his son’s hand, and the three of them stepped into the large, cool Time Tunnel.

Through a combination of paint and tiny lights embedded in the ground, the