A Mapwalker Trilogy

Chapter 1-1

1

Sienna Farren’s footsteps echoed in the long corridor, acres of books in racks either side stretching into the shadows ahead of her. Dim lights came on as she walked, triggered by her movement.

It was like a bomb shelter down here. The world could be ending above ground in Oxford, but below the streets, she would be cushioned by the padding of ancient tomes. Sienna smiled, lost in thought. She could build a shelter in the underground stacks of the Bodleian Library. A den of ripped pages and a fire to keep her warm from words once considered special but now merely fuel. And she could read all day and half the night. Who could be lonely when there was so much to learn?

She passed into an older part of the library. The functional metal shelving gave way to wooden stacks with carved lintels and wheels on the end to move them closer together. Sienna frowned. She didn't recognize this section. She stopped and tugged on a cord to turn on brighter lights and bent to read the sign on the end of the nearest row. Geopolitics of Borders and Boundaries. She frowned and looked down at the retrieval slip in her hand. This was nowhere near where she was meant to be.

Sienna sighed. It was only her second week working in the library, and once again, she was lost. She should have turned left at Metaphysics, but she must have walked straight past the stack. By the time she retraced her steps and made it back over there, the Head Librarian would be tutting and looking at his watch, frown deepening in his furrowed brow. Books first, readers second, and lowly library clerks most definitely last. She turned and looked back the way she'd walked. The stacks stretched away, seemingly endless, darkening to shadow.

She sat down on the floor for a moment, leaning back against the shelf, sending up a cloud of dust into the air. The remains of crumbling pages, words written by those long dead, preserved down here as if somehow, someone would recall them up to the rarefied air of the University once more.

She really needed to get a life.

It had been a year since leaving St Peter's College where Sienna had read Geography. Her friends had moved to jobs in London, but she hadn't been ready to leave Oxford quite yet. It had become her home over the years of study, a welcome escape from the suffocating cocoon of her mother's house. She'd flitted around various short-term jobs and finally landed this position, hoping it might be the right fit. But as she sat surrounded by old books, Sienna knew that this was over too.

Perhaps it was time to give in and move to London like everyone else. Perhaps she should even try again with Ben. They had been inseparable in her first two years at college, but he was a year older and got a job in the City after Finals. They'd held it together for the first year, but when she didn't move as he had expected, they began to drift apart. Right now, Sienna felt untethered, like a boat bobbing freely on the waves. She should be experiencing the exhilaration of freedom, but instead, she found herself longing for the shore. London hadn't felt like the right direction, but maybe it was time to give it another chance.

She looked at her watch and stood up quickly. Clutching the retrieval slip, she retraced her steps, navigating by the signs at the end of the corridors until she found the book and hurried back to the Head Librarian's desk. He looked up as she emerged into the main vault of the Radcliffe Camera. His shaggy white eyebrows arched over his wire-rim glasses and Sienna felt his disdain rest upon her. He tapped his watch.

"Sorry," she whispered, as she placed the book on his desk. "I'm going out for my break now."

Sienna turned before he could stop her and hurried up the little stairs out onto the steps of the Rad Cam. The air was fresh outside. Mid-June and still a little chilly, but there was a patch of sun on the other side of the square. As she walked down the steps, Sienna turned on her phone, and within seconds, it started beeping with text messages and missed calls. Her mum had been calling on and off for the last hour. That was unusual. She was over-protective, but this was a lot even for her.

Sienna stood in the sun at the corner of the square by Brasenose Lane and called back.

"Hi, Mum. What's up?"

"Oh, sweetheart. Something dreadful has happened. Your grandfather—“ Her voice broke with a little sob.

Sienna frowned. Her mum's dad was already dead, mourned as a beloved granddad who had always shown her interesting things in the hedgerows and fields near their country house. Her Dad’s dad was a distant memory, a man she hadn't seen or heard from since the year she started high school. He had been around after her father had disappeared, lost on a geographic survey to Antarctica, but then he'd faded into the background of their lives.

"What do you mean? What's happened?"

Her mum blew her nose, then continued. "Your grandfather's body was found this morning in Bath, just down the road from his map shop. They're saying it's some kind of ritual murder. A friend of his, Bridget, called me and told me the news."

Shock slammed through Sienna at the words. Her grandfather murdered? It seemed impossible.

"Bridget said he left something for you. She wants to talk to you."

Sienna's breath caught in her throat. Ten years and the pain of losing her Dad still hurt, but curiosity rose at her mother's words. "Do you have her number?"

"She said you should go to Bath, to Grandad's old map shop and she would meet you there." A pause, then her mum's voice changed. "I don't think you should go, sweetie. You're working now. You're busy. You don't want to go to that musty old map shop. It was always a complete mess when I went there with your dad back in the day. I'm sure this Bridget can send whatever it is."

Sienna half listened as she remembered losing herself in the antique map shop as a child. The wonders of the world rendered in so many different ways. The smell of thick paper and ink, the weight and size of the maps on the wall, intricate tiny streets and imagined animals in the corners, cartouches of long-dead kings, calligraphy of names that no longer existed. She remembered running her hands over the maps, sensing a vibration of energy, like they wanted her to step inside somehow. Then the concern on her dad's face, a sadness, like he wanted her to see only printed paper, not the world beyond the map. After he disappeared, Mum had never taken her back there.

"I want to go," Sienna said, cutting off her mother's stream of words.

"But what about your job?”

Sienna looked up at the dome of the Radcliffe Camera and the spires of All Souls College behind it. A gaggle of students burst from Brasenose College, chatting as they walked off to lectures. That was not her life anymore.

"It's not really working out, to be honest. So I'll go to Bath this afternoon. It's only a few hours on the bus."

"But I can't get down there, sweetheart. You shouldn't go alone."

"I'm just going to the shop, Mum. I'm not going to visit the morgue or anything."

Her mum sighed. "Alright, but call me later. Your Grandfather was a meddler in life. I would expect him to be just as bad now he's gone."