Excerpt from a 'draft' chapter

Instead of doing that, I decided to post a whole entire chapter from The Book of Secrets.

No, I have absolutely no idea if I'm "allowed" by my publisher to do that or not.

Enjoy!

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His first thought was Hollis's long-awaited yuki had made it through the window. He bolted up, a fly buzzing around his head. His little brothers were asleep. Besides the two of them tangled in the blankets, the room appeared empty. Gabriel rolled out of bed and checked underneath it.

There were no creatures. Only dust bunnies, piles of books, forgotten socks, and The Book of Secrets, lying open. Gabriel pulled it out and found himself viewing an illustration of a window, taking up both pages. He leaned over it and swore he felt a breath of air on his face, heard a choir of whispered voices nearly too quiet to discern.

His skin tightened. He slammed the cover shut, but the voices stayed with him, murmuring in his ears.

"Sometimes, if you hold still," his mother once told him, "you'll hear the world whisper your name. Do not answer. Never, ever answer."

There was a crack. Gabriel dropped the book like he was shot, pulse exploding, and dove in mad terror to reach his knife as Ren tumbled through the window, raising one eyebrow at him.

"Is this going to be a regular thing with you?" Gabriel yelled from the floor.

"Is what going to be a regular thing? I'm not the one acting weird." Ren dropped onto the little boys' bed and pulled an awakening Patch across her lap. "Guess what, boys? I hiked up to the swimming hole, and it's deeper than I expected. I think the well water drains that way. There's at least enough to play in."

Even on ordinary days, Gabriel would not want to go to the swimming hole, where the water would be thick and hot as coffee. Now, as the brush outside rustled extra loudly, all he could think about was racing to return this creepy book to the Black Cat and spending the rest of his life pretending he knew nothing about it.

"You all go ahead," he said with all the casualness he could muster. "I need to run to town first."

Hollis eyed him up and down. "Why?"

"Why what? I'm returning a book. Might get a new one."

"Then I'm going, too. To see my friends."

"What? No you're not!" But Hollis was already up, wading through the stuffed animals all over the floor to reach yesterday's discarded pair of shorts. Patch hopped over to Gabriel, saying, "I want a book, too."

Gabriel knocked the stolen book under the bed with his heel. "It's Ren's day to babysit you. Don't look at me."

"We could go to the library," Ren said to Hollis, no one listening to Gabriel, "and then if we see any of your friends, we can ask them if they want to go swimming with us."

Gabriel went ahead and accepted defeat. At least his siblings would be contained in the library, because the Black Cat was not open this early and Gabriel was going to have to break in.

In town, as he parted from his three siblings and the dog, Gabriel wished he were going with them to innocently enjoy a summer's day. Instead, he was sneaking around a haunted book with his mother's name in it. He waited for the streets to clear before climbing to the bookshop's porch roof and hoisting open an upper window, cringing at the rusty squeak. He slipped through soundlessly. As he rose to shut it, something hit his head from behind. He stumbled and immediately whipped around, ready for a fight, his blood running in panic, but there was nothing. The room was empty.

Gabriel let out all his breath in a rush. He shut the window tight, checking left and right, all the while telling his mind to calm down. It was probably just a bird that accidentally flew in. A large bird.

He made it to the restricted section, found the twine where he'd dropped it on the floor yesterday, bound up the book with the tightest knots, swung around to hide the book on the shelf and get out of there—and found another face in his, the teeth bared, turning his head to blank shock.

It was bright pink, whatever it was, with purple stripes. It looked like a shaved, painted cat with a ridge of shimmery scales between its diamond-shaped eyes and up its head and across its back. It snarled ferociously at Gabriel and lunged at its own bushy tail—the only part of it with hair—catching it in its tiny, sharp teeth before it tipped off the bookshelf and onto the floor.

Gabriel burst out laughing. He mostly laughed because it was not the attacker or the savage creature he had imagined. He sagged against the bookshelf, staring at this pathetic animal, a creature that existed not in Glennderdells or Annandells or any country he knew of, and then abruptly he stopped laughing.

He looked at the striped creature. Then he looked at the book in his hand. Something in his stomach dropped.

"Gabriel?"

It was the voice of Ronan downstairs.

Gabriel froze. Then he shoved the book under his arm and lunged at the creature, snatching it by the tail. He dumped out a basket of books and threw the basket over the animal as Ronan appeared in the doorway.

"Gabriel, what are you doing here?"

The basket moved. Gabriel stamped his foot on top of it. "I...a book accidentally fell in my bag yesterday. I'm returning it before I forget." There was a muffled screech and he threw himself on top of the basket. "Also, there's a mouse. What are you doing here so early?"

"A mouse?" Ronan echoed, coming closer.

"No!" Gabriel covered the top of the basket with both hands. "I've got it handled. It might be a rat, you hate rats—"

He was interrupted by a horrific noise outside, like a train had crashed into a storefront. The bookshop shook.

"What the—!" said Ronan, whipping around and charging down the stairs to investigate.

Gabriel stuffed the squirming creature into his backpack and bolted, ramming into a gawking Ronan at the window. Across the street was a troll. Not a modern-day troll with its tie and briefcase, but a mistreated troll, a troll bred in captivity—hulking, rippling, and very, very angry. With a speckled blue fist, it punched a hole in the roof of the pizza place, toppling a man from the second-story into the dust of the road. There the person lay, still.

"Is he dead?" was all Gabriel could get out.

"Oh, I doubt it," said Ronan, eyes glued to the scene. "Most people die after falling heights of four to five stories. Contrary to popular notion, it is scientifically believed to be impossible to die before you hit the ground—"

Gabriel left him in midsentence. He skimmed the stairs, slammed the door after himself, and ripped away the twine he had just retied to open The Book of Secrets. As he feared, one of the trolls from the moving illustration was missing; the cart it had been pulling now lay on its side, wheels spinning.

Gabriel could not move fast enough. He took off away from the troll, dodging the hordes of townspeople gathering around and pointing, until finally reaching the library, a small building on ground level beneath a dance studio.

Hollis and Patch emerged, each holding several books and wearing the knapsacks full of supplies they insisted were necessary for trips to town. Ren and Maple took up the rear. "Turn around!" Gabriel yelled as he ran, wrestling his own backpack while the little creature tried to buck its way out. "Go the other way! There's a troll!"

"So?" said Ren.

"What's in here, a dog?" asked Hollis, snatching at the backpack.

His movement caught Gabriel off guard. The backpack hit the ground and out shot the animal like a bolt of candy-colored lightning. It crashed straight into the brick wall of the library and toppled backwards, dizzy, before shaking itself and resuming frantic laps on the sidewalk. Maple, too old to be interested in silly, scurrying things, reviewed it judgmentally, but the four Dravens jumped backwards.

"What the heck is that?" Hollis yelled.

The sidewalk rocked like an earthquake. The troll was in view now, crushing a flower stand underneath one giant foot as it squeezed two helplessly mooing cows in its fists.

Gabriel didn't know what else to do. He held up the book. "They both came from here. It's magic. They must have crawled out overnight."

Ren looked blank. Then in one swift movement, she grabbed Gabriel by the shoulders and shoved him around the corner, up against the brick. "What is that? Where did you get it?"

Her hostility jarred him. He knocked her off. "I—it's got Mom's name in it! You would have taken it, too!"

She did not look surprised. Her eyes, as round and deep as Patch's, traced the book's cover and Gabriel wondered if there was something she knew that he didn't, something she was old enough to remember.

"Did you open it?" was all she asked.

There was an earth-shattering roar followed by flakes of plaster raining down on their heads.

"It was maybe, possibly, open at some point," Gabriel said. "Just a tad."

"Why do you have to go having your hands all over everything? Is this like the stone all over again?"

"I didn't—" Gabriel stopped cold. "The stone—what stone? You know about the stone?"

"Of course I know about the stone. I'm not as stupid as everyone thinks."

"But—"

"I hate to interrupt a fun time, but I would MOVE!" Hollis blasted by, dragging Patch with him.

"I don't understand how that thing got out! The book was UNDER MY BED!" Gabriel yelled at Ren's departing back as the speckled shadow of the troll swooped over his corner.

They dodged into the next alley, Maple loping stiffly at their sides, evading the troll for the time being. Between buildings, Gabriel heard the muffled shouting of townspeople, the stomping and tearing of earth wherever the troll planted its foot.

"How did he fit?" His forehead wrinkled, Patch inspected the book in Gabriel's hands.

Ren snatched the book. "Forget that. Get out of here and get that thing out of here."

Gabriel yanked it back. "No, listen to me!"

The roof of the uppermost store high above them shattered like toy blocks and sent flying projectiles crashing around Gabriel and his siblings. "No one's got TIME to listen to you!" Ren bellowed as she took off.

They ended up back in the main square below the tavern. In the hazy distance, the troll was the size of one of Patch's toys, kicking up the dust and roaring. Half the town had gathered now. Old Caleb the game warden arrived, loading his crossbow with a tranquilizer.

"Don't shoot him! He only wants to go home," Hollis yelled.

"No, he doesn't want to go home, he's a slave at home!" said Gabriel as the troll roared again and Hazel burst from the tavern as windblown as a hurricane.

"Come on!" she called before her grandchildren could speak.

Hollis and Patch went after her without hesitation. Gabriel, weighing the current situation, followed, but Ren's bare feet stayed rooted in the dust. Gabriel turned back to her.

"Maybe she knows a troll-shrinking spell, I don't know, COME ON!"

After a moment, Ren came up behind him, getting a hair's length ahead. Gabriel picked up speed. Hazel, with surprising deftness, leaped into an alleyway between the bakery and the kite shop and let a burst of her wand shoot a silvery stream into the chaos out on the street. In a flash, the troll was gone. The book in Gabriel's hands suddenly weighed several ounces more.

Gabriel turned to his grandmother "How do you know how to do that?"

She was bent over, one hand on her back. With a tired expression, she looked at Gabriel through her loose gray curls. "Are there any others?"

"There's that girly-looking thing," said Hollis, breathless from the excitement.

Out on the streets, the masses were already breaking up. So many unexplainable things occurred in the Backcountry, an angry troll appearing and vanishing was considered more or less ordinary. Ross Wilder the peacekeeper was arriving to speak to Old Caleb and assess the damage.

"We'll tell your grandfather the troll ran off to the Dark Forest. You know since that man came about, he's sensitive about things disappearing," said Hazel with a quick wink. "Where's the other thing?"

"It went in the clothes store," said Patch, whirling around.

Gabriel had never been to the clothing store here in town. When he and his siblings outgrew their clothes, they exchanged them for used clothing in bigger sizes at the Swap Shop in Fox Hollow. Inside the store, his boots clopped on the tile, and the salesperson narrowed her eyes behind her glasses at the appearance of four children and their dog.

"Split up. Keep one sharp eye on that overseer right there," Hazel whispered into Gabriel's ear. He gave a tight nod.

Gabriel crawled out of sight, barricaded by racks of dresses, and passed a young woman browsing with a black dog at her side. Patch was on the opposite end of the shop, prowling about on tiptoes with the seriousness of a spy. When Gabriel caught his attention, Patch offered a thumbs-up.

"Right here!" Hollis whispered.

The overseer's scowl landed directly on Gabriel as he disentangled himself from clothing racks. He bent over, pushing a few shirts around in mock interest, until at last she became distracted and he clambered over to his little brother.

The pink and purple creature was cornered under a shelf of clearance socks. Ignoring the chattering teeth, Hollis crouched on his heels, extending his fingers for the animal to sniff. "Come on," he encouraged. "Don't you want to go home?"

The animal cocked a pink ear at the soft sound of his voice. One paw at a time, it inched itself closer, stretching its purple nose to curiously brush Hollis's fingertips, until Hollis's hands snapped around its neck. The creature clawed and yowled. A second strip of silvery lightning flashed and Hollis's hands were empty, the store silent.

"Shrugcat. Page thirty-seven," said Hazel.

"Shrugcat?" echoed Patch as he and Hollis broke into laughter.

Gabriel reached for the book to check the illustration on page thirty-seven, but Hazel clapped a wrinkled hand down on the cover. "Let's not open it," she whispered.

"How do you know about this book, anyway?" Gabriel's eyes trailed to Ren's face. She twisted her shell necklace and pretended to be overly interested in the price tag of a raincoat. "How do you know about this?"

"You shouldn't have taken this," Hazel said, serious now. "It was hidden for a reason."

Gabriel waved the book. "It says 'secret!' If you want to keep something a real secret, maybe don't write 'secret' all over the cover."

"Did you write this book?" asked Patch, lifting his eyes to his grandmother.

She stroked his hair. "I did not. And," she spoke to Ren now, "neither did your mother. But she knew of its danger. She was there many years ago when it was placed into its hiding spot. To wait for the day."

"What day?" asked Hollis.

"The day Brim began to move."

A small hush fell over the family. Patch tilted his head towards the roof, as if he would find something there. Hazel, Ren, and Hollis followed suit.

"That's a ceiling," said Gabriel.

Hazel's sharp eyes found him again. "Scoff at Brim all you want, but when you know him, you will see him."

"Shouldn't it be—?"

Hazel silenced him. "Forget about that. But remember it." Gabriel tried to exchange an eye roll with Hollis, but his little brother was fixated on their grandmother. "The important thing right now is to get this book into better hands. Olive Pengarden."

Ren lifted her head suspiciously but Hazel waved her down. "He's an old wizard friend of mine. He runs the magical artifacts registrar, below the cake shop. That's where the book should have gone in the first place, to the registrar, not some crumbling bookshop."

Before Gabriel could express his offense at this description of the Black Cat, Ren spoke up. "Why can't you bring it?"

"Because it wasn't my thieving hands that created this mess, was it?" said Hazel cheerfully. She ruffled Hollis's curls on her way out, calling, "Remember, the magical artifacts registrar. You'll be done before lunch. I'll have sandwiches waiting."

Ren watched her leave with a face like a hawk, as if she might swoop in and grab up their grandmother in her talons. Then she took Patch's hand and left, and Gabriel stalked after her. "Wait! How long have you known about this book? And how'd you know about the stone?"

"Scream it louder, why don't you?" she replied, letting the door slam, while the salesperson seethed as though she might have their heads mounted to the wall.

Gabriel groaned. He held open the door and Hollis followed him, strangely pensive, looking like a mole crawling out of its wet, sandy den and blinking in the glorious mystery of light, and together they chased after Ren.