Read Online Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The) by Shelby Bach - Free Book Online

spaced at least three feet apart. Bronze ladders ran from the floor to the ceiling, welded to the bookcases. The rungs were placed very close together, like the ladders you see on playgrounds for really little kids.
    Unlike the reference room, the library didn’t have any desks, or even any chairs. Everything smelled like dust and paper.
    But something about it gave me déjà vu. Each shelf was full of heavy-looking volumes in every color. Blue, red, gray, brown, violet, pink, and green leather spines glittered with gold embossing. Each book was at least two and a half feet tall, and I realized with a start why they seemed so familiar—they looked exactly like the one I had seen in the mirror.
    Mr. Swallow perched on a bronze shelf just above our heads.
    “‘Item Number 14: Characters-in-training are not permitted into the library, but it is of the utmost importance that new Ever After School students see it once and understand its significance,’” Sarah Thumb read. “So, kiddies, this is where we store the collections. Every fairy tale since the founding—failed or finished—is stored here, all eleven centuries.”
    “Eleven centuries ?” Miriam stared up at the bookcases, awed.
    Honestly, my grasp of history has never been the best. I couldn’t remember anything that happened in the ninth century. King Arthur found Excalibur, maybe?
    “Well, we really only have the books since the North American Chapter was founded. The fairies have the earlier ones,” said Sarah Thumb sadly. “Our librarian keeps bugging the Fey monarchs to let him complete the library. Speaking of our librarian, he’s supposedto be here. I hope he didn’t fall asleep in the stacks again. Hold on.” She let out another sharp whistle.
    “Coming!” said a voice high above us. Near the ceiling, a man in a purple tweed suit hurried nimbly down one of the bronze ladders, carrying over his shoulder a book as big as he was. At first I thought the book was bigger than the others, but when he reached the floor, I realized that the man was smaller. He barely came up to my shoulder.
    “This is my dear friend and our librarian, Rumpelstiltskin,” said Sarah Thumb.
    I looked carefully at his wrinkled face—the huge, hooked nose and the round spectacles resting on top of them. “I know you!”
    The man was so surprised that he nearly dropped the dark green book he was carrying. “Indeed?”
    “I saw you in the shard yesterday!” I said. “Are you part of my Tale, then? What happens in ‘Rumpelstiltskin’?”
    “A miller tells a king that his daughter can spin straw into gold,” Sarah Thumb explained, amused. “The king orders her to do it. A dwarf shows up and spins the straw into gold for the miller’s daughter, but only because she promises him her firstborn child. She saves the baby by guessing the dwarf’s name—Rumpelstiltskin.”
    The words “firstborn child” sent a jolt through me, because having kids wasn’t something I thought about much, being eleven and all.
    “But I’m not a miller’s daughter,” I said uncertainly.
    “And you can’t have her firstborn child,” Miriam added. “She already knows your name.”
    Sarah Thumb covered her mouth with her tiny hands, but we could still hear her laughing.
    Rumpelstiltskin took off his spectacles and rubbed them with along-suffering sigh. “Honestly, you have a troubled youth, and no one ever lets you forget it.”
    “You tried to steal a baby, ” Miriam reminded him.
    “I wasn’t going to steal it. I’m not a fairy . We had a bargain, the queen and I,” he said, shaking his head.
    “You weren’t going to eat it, were you?” Philip said worriedly.
    Rumpelstiltskin looked appalled. “Certainly not. I was lonely. That’s all. I would’ve given him back after he grew up. I thought a human boy would make a good pet.”
    Philip’s eyes widened. Miriam and I stepped in front of him protectively.
    “No, no, no,” Rumpelstiltskin said, “I’m quite reformed,