John Stephens - The Emerald Atlas (Books of Beginning Series #1)

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2011 by John Stephens
Chapter-opening art copyright 2011 by Grady McFerrin

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stephens, John.
The emerald atlas / John Stephens. 1st ed.
p. cm. (The books of beginning; bk 1)
Summary: Kate, Michael, and Emma have passed from one orphanage to another in the ten years since their parents disappeared to protect them, but now they learn that they have special powers, a prophesied quest to find a magical book, and a fearsome enemy.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89955-3
[1. Brothers and sistersFiction. 2. MagicFiction. 3. Space and timeFiction. 4. IdentityFiction. 5. MonstersFiction. 6. PropheciesFiction. 7. Books and readingFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S83218Eme 2011
[Fic]dc22
2010029100

Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For my parents

CONTENTS

The girl was shaken awake. Her mother was leaning over her.

Kateher voice was low and urgentlisten very closely. I need you to do something for me. I need you to keep your brother and sister safe. Do you understand? I need you to keep Michael and Emma safe.

What

There isnt time to explain. Promise me youll look after them.

But

Oh, Kate, please! Just promise me!

I I promise.

It was Christmas Eve. Snow had been falling all day. As the oldest, Kate had been allowed to stay up later than her brother and sister. That meant that long after the voices of the carolers had faded away, shed sat with her parents beside the fire, sipping hot chocolate as they exchanged presentsthe children would receive theirs in the morningand feeling very adult for her four years. Her mother gave her father a small, thick book, very worn and old, that seemed to please him greatly, and he in turn gave her a locket on a gold chain. Inside the locket was a tiny picture of the childrenKate, two-year-old Michael, and baby Emma. Then, finally, it was up to bed, and Kate lay there in the darkness, warm and happy under her blankets, wondering how she would ever fall asleep, and it seemed the very next moment she was being shaken awake.

The door to her room was open and, in the light from the hall, she watched as her mother reached back and unclasped the locket. She bent forward and slid her hands underneath Kate, fastening it around her neck. The girl felt the soft brush of her mothers hair, smelled the gingerbread shed been cooking that afternoon, and then something wet struck her cheek and she realized her mother was crying.

Remember your father and I love you very much. And we will all be together again. I promise.

The girls heart was hammering in her chest, and she had opened her mouth to ask what was happening when a man appeared in the doorway. The light was behind him, so Kate couldnt see his face, but he was tall and thin and wearing a long overcoat and what looked like a very rumpled hat.

Its time, he said.

His voice and that imagethe tall man silhouetted in the doorwaywould haunt Kate for years, as it was the last time she saw her mother, the last time her family was together. Then the man said something Kate couldnt hear, and it was as if a heavy curtain was drawn around her mind, obliterating the man in the doorway, the light, her mother, everything.

The woman gathered up the sleeping child, wrapping the blankets around her, and followed the man down the stairs, past the living room where the fire still burned, and out into the cold and darkness.

Had she been awake, the girl wouldve seen her father standing in the snow beside an old black car, her brother and infant sister swaddled in blankets and asleep in his arms. The tall man opened the back door, and the childrens father laid his charges on the seat; then he turned, took Kate from the woman, and laid her beside her brother and sister. The tall man closed the door with a soft thunk.

Youre sure? the woman said. Youre sure this is the only way?

The tall man had moved into the glow of a streetlamp and was clearly visible for the first time. To a casual passerby, his appearance would not have inspired much confidence. His overcoat was patched in spots and frayed at the cuffs, he wore an old tweed suit that was missing a button, his white shirt was stained with ink and tobacco, and his tiethis was perhaps the strangest of allwas knotted not once but twice, as if hed forgotten whether hed tied it and, rather than glancing down to check, had simply tied it again for good measure. His white hair poked out from beneath his hat, and his eyebrows rose from his forehead like great snowy horns, curling over a pair of bent and patched tortoiseshell glasses. All in all, he looked like someone who had gotten dressed in the midst of a whirlwind and, thinking he still looked too presentable, had thrown himself down a flight of stairs.

It was when you looked in his eyes that everything changed.

Reflecting no light save their own, they shone brightly in the snow-muffled night, and there was in them a look of such uncommon energy and kindness and understanding that you forgot entirely about the tobacco and ink stains on his shirt and the patches on his glasses and that his tie was knotted twice over. You looked in them and knew that you were in the presence of true wisdom.

My friends, we have always known this day would come.

But what changed? the childrens father demanded. Theres been nothing since Cambridge Falls! That was five years ago! Something mustve happened!

The old man sighed. Earlier this evening, I went to see Devon McClay.

Hes not he cant be

Im afraid so. And while it is impossible to know what he told them before he died, we must assume the worst. We must assume he told them about the children.

For a long moment, no one spoke. The woman had begun crying freely.