The Wizard in The Wood by Louie Stowell Chapter Sampler
The Wizard in The Wood by Louie Stowell Chapter Sampler
ST ELL
illustrated by
DAV I DE ORT
OR U
Walker Books
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products
of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2021 by Louie Stowell
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Davide Ortu
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form
or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including
photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior
written permission from the publisher.
First US edition 2022
First published by Nosy Crow (UK) 2021
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2021947325
ISBN 978-1-5362-1495-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-5362-2423-8 (paperback)
22 23 24 25 26 27 LBM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in Melrose Park, IL, USA
This book was typeset in Chaparral Pro.
The illustrations were created digitally.
Walker Books US
a division of
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
www.walkerbooksus.com
To Gus,
G u s,
t he y ou n g e st w iza r d
in th e w orl d
LS
This is Josh’s notebook.
Kit and Alita, if you mess
with it, I will know. I have
records of your fingerprints, so
I will be able to dust the cover
for prints.
You have been warned. I have
read a lot of detective novels,
so I know all the tricks.
Dear Future Josh,
Kit
Josh
Flashes
Before
His Eyes
7
“Can we come and meet the Wizards’ Council,
too?” asked Josh.
“Sorry, no,” said Faith. “The headquarters is
a wizard-only zone.” She shrugged. “Part of the
whole secrecy-and-security thing.”
“That’s not fair,” said Kit.
“Have I ever accused the Wizards’ Council of
being fair?” asked Faith.
“I don’t mind,” said Alita. “I want to spend as
much time as I can with Dogon!” Dogon was the
furry, scaly creature who lived beneath the library:
half dog, half dragon, and always hungry. “I’ve
hardly seen him in days because of my auntie’s wed-
ding. I thought it would never end!” She splayed
her hands, showing the intricate henna designs on
her palms. “I’m going to miss him so much when I
go back to school.”
“He’s going to miss the snacks you bring him,
that’s for sure.” Faith laughed. She turned to Josh.
“Why don’t you go and read to Draca?”
Draca was the dragon who slept beneath Chats-
worth Library, and like all dragons, she didn’t belong
8
in the waking world. Instead, she wandered through
her own dreams, made up of the stories that were
read to her as she slumbered through the years.
“Perhaps you could start a new book?” suggested
Faith.
Josh’s eyes lit up with pure excitement, as
though Faith had just offered him a ride through
space on a unicorn.
“Oh, yes! I can read her some poetry. I don’t
think I’ve read her any of that before!”
“How are we getting to the Wizards’ Council?”
asked Kit.
“From the library,” said Faith. “So let’s all head
there now. One last time before school starts.”
9
The New
Book
11
reappeared in the real
world again. Some of these
books were safer than others.
“I thought we’d take a stroll
through a new portal book this
13
efore!
characters b
This place is
so cool!
RAS MMM,
PBE
RRY
!
After a perilous journey through a desert full of
tiny flying bears and a fight with a giant robot made
of glue, they finally reached the end of Jorril’s quest.
s!” said Faith, wiping robo-glue out of
“Council, hus!”
her eye. They left the book with a pop and appeared
in the library of the Wizards’ Council.
16
The
Council
18
voice had a lilt to it. “Kit Spencer! This way! The
council is ready for you.” She beckoned them to the
opening in the wall.
Just like under Chatsworth Library, the tunnel
was lined with books, but this one was much, much
bigger. You could have driven a train through it. A
double-decker train, with a couple of spies having a
dramatic fight on top of it.
A green glow appeared in the tunnel ahead.
Kit got a shivery feeling of powerful magic. She
felt a little like that in the wood beneath Chats-
worth Library, but this was different. It was like
the difference between being tickled with a feather
and jumping into a swimming pool full of wrig-
gly snakes. Her whole body felt as though it were
bursting with light.
Then she saw the wood.
“Oh!”
She’d never seen anything like it. A lump
formed in her throat. It was beautiful. The view,
not the lump.
Branwen stopped and gestured around. “Ah, yes.
19
I forget what it must be like to see it for the first
22
Huge and red, with vast folded wings and puffs of
smoke emerging from its spiky nostrils.
Around the dragon stood a group of elderly men
and women, all wearing blue cloaks.
“This is Edith, Iyesha, Kwame, Gladys, and Duc,”
said Branwen, gesturing unhelpfully toward all of
them.
“I’m Edith,” said a pale woman with thin gray
hair, who leaned on a stick.
“Iyesha,” said a friendly woman with a round
face and a bright sari. “Welcome, Kit and Faith. I
hope your journey wasn’t too hard?”
“There was a lot of Jell-O,” said Kit, feeling shy
and awkward.
“Ready? Then we’ll begin,” said Branwen.
And then, as they all touched the dragon’s scales,
everything went black.
23
The
Pool of
Fire
25
Faith took Kit’s, and Kit held the dry, wrinkly hand
28
to Raise
an Egg
30
Faith was watching her and smiled. “Don’t worry.
It’s pretty tough. You could drop it down a hundred
flights of stairs and it wouldn’t break.”
Kit carried it upstairs carefully all the same, with
Branwen walking behind.
In the library above, Branwen gave Kit a stern
warning. “It might be physically tough, but it’s
vulnerable to magic,” she said. “And you never
know who might try to take it from you. Take
good care.”
Just then, a bell rang. Branwen sighed. “No rest
for the ancient,” she said to Kit and Faith. “You can
show yourselves out.”
Faith nodded, and Branwen disappeared down
the corridor and back to the Book Wood.
“Start reading,” suggested Faith, picking up the
portal book they’d used to get there. “I’ll hold on to
the egg while we’re entering a magical space.”
So Kit began to read the comic, and moments
later, the library was gone.
31
When they reappeared in the library at the other
end, there was no one around. Faith found a box
for them to put the egg in. “So it’s a surprise for
Alita and Josh,” she said.
They found the others down in Draca’s lair,
with Dogon curled up on Alita’s lap as she drew
a sketch of Draca, and Josh reading a very long
book to the dragon.
Josh stopped reading as they came in. “How was
the council?”
“We brought you back a present,” said Kit.
“Present!” said Alita, dropping her sketchbook
and scurrying over, sending Dogon fluttering up
grumpily into the air.
“Is it a spell book?” asked Josh, eyeing the box.
“Is it a cake?” asked Alita.
“Come on,” said Kit. “Do you think the Wizards’
Council would trust me with a cake? It would be
eaten by the time we got through the portal book.
Open it!” She couldn’t wait to see their faces.
Alita pried open a tiny edge of the box, then
32
slowly, slowly lifted it up. Then she lifted the next
flap up, just as slowly.
This was almost as bad as watching her eat a
chocolate bar piece by piece.
Josh noticed Kit’s impatience. “It’s called
delayed gratification,” he said. “Which is when you
put off doing something nice so it’ll be nicer when
it comes.”
Kit shook her head. “No it won’t. It just means
more time without the nice thing.”
But when Alita finally opened the lid of the box
and peered inside, her face showed a kind of joy
that Kit couldn’t even imagine feeling, not even
after climbing the highest tree in the world. Like
sunlight was shining out of her dark-brown eyes.
Josh peered into the box, and his face almost
matched hers. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked
in a small voice.
“A dragon’s egg!” breathed Alita. “A real dragon’s
egg!”
“And it’s ours!” said Kit triumphantly.
33
The children looked at her quizzically.
“It’s yours to help care for. But a dragon only
ever belongs to itself,” said Faith.
“So we get to care for it?” asked Alita. “This is the
best thing to happen since I met Dogon!”
34
Faith nodded. “It will live beneath a library close
by, so you can visit it often.”
Alita would have jumped up and down if she
hadn’t been cradling the egg like a baby. She did,
however, let out an excited sound somewhere
between a cat mewing and a kettle boiling.
“If you’re this excited about an egg, I’m worried
you’re going to literally explode when it hatches
into a dragon,” Kit said, laughing.
“It’ll be worth it!” said Alita.
“More importantly,” said Josh, “is there a book
on caring for dragon eggs?”
“There are hundreds,” said Faith. “I’ll show you
later. But first, we need to plant the egg. Follow me.”
The children followed her, with a million ques-
tions, up away from Draca’s lair and through the
Book Wood. Dogon followed them, flapping close
to Alita and snuffling at the dragon’s egg.
“Get off! You might make me drop it! That’s, like,
your cousin or something in there!” said Alita, bat-
ting the creature away.
Dogon growled at the egg.
35
“I think he’s jealous!” said Kit.
“Silly Dogon,” said Alita. “I can love you and
nd a
baby dragon at the same time.”
“When will the egg hatch?” Josh asked Faith.
“Soon,” said Faith. “In a few days.”
“Shouldn’t we be putting it under the dragon to
hatch?” asked Alita.
“Dragons aren’t chickens, you know,” said Kit,
feeling very wise. “They don’t lay eggs out of their
bottoms. This egg came out of a pool of fire. We’re
going to bury it beneath a library, speak a spell
over it, and it’ll sink down and down to make its
own cavern. Then it’ll hatch.” She beamed at them
proudly.
Alita and Josh did a double take, unused to
Kit knowing more than them. It didn’t last long,
though.
“How big is the dragon going to be when it
hatches?” asked Josh. “Which library are we bury-
ing it under?”
“When it hatches, will it already be asleep?”
asked Alita. “What does it eat?”
36
“Uh . . . ” said Kit.
“Wait and see,” said Faith. “Weren’t you just tell-
ing Kit about delayed gratification?”
“I hate it when people use my own arguments
against me,” muttered Josh.
“Kit, we’re going in there,” said Faith, pointing
at a tree in the Book Wood. “Use the moria spell
I taught you the other day to open a tunnel. I’ve
already enchanted the tree to guide the tunnel’s
path.”
Kit nodded and spoke the spell carefully. “Moria
beneath us open. Hollow stollen down ididay.”
A circle of the tree’s bark melted away, creating
a dark doorway. Kit went in first, carrying the egg
into the darkness.
a!” she said, tapping her own forehead. A ball
“Ina!”
of light appeared ahead of them, and they started
off down a flight of stairs, which changed into a
winding pathway that seemed to be made of hard-
packed earth. It smelled a little damp, but also alive.
“Where are we going?” asked Josh.
“Wait and see,” said Faith.
37
Kit felt the anticipation building. She had no
idea where they could be by now. They couldn’t be
under the library anymore. They’d walked too far.
But she didn’t know of any other libraries nearby.
The small light spell she’d cast only showed a few
feet around them, but the drop in temperature and
a change in the smell of the air told Kit they were
in a larger space now.
k!” said Faith in an echoing voice.
“Ina vyaapak!”
Light blazed out from the tips of her fingers,
showing that they were standing in an enormous
cavern. The floor was mossy and the walls were
covered in shelves full of books. More books were
scattered on the mossy ground. Dogon flew over to
sniff them, swooping up and down, then flying up
high and doing a loop the loop.
“What happened here?” asked Kit. “Who threw
all those books on the ground?”
“Me,” said Faith. “But I didn’t throw them. I
planted them. This, Kit, is the beginning of a new
Book Wood.”
“It doesn’t look like a wood,” said Kit.
38
“Be patient,” said Faith. “The forest can’t begin
to grow until the dragon egg has been planted.”
“Where are we?” asked Josh.
Faith pointed upward with an elegantly nailed
finger. “We’re right below your school. This is where
we’re planting the egg.”
“But you said the egg had to be planted beneath
a library. We don’t have a school library,” said Kit.
“Yeah,” said Alita. “I spent ages helping my mom
campaign to get us one, so we can’t have one already.”
“Surprise!” said Faith. “The campaign worked!
You have a library just above our heads!”
Josh and Alita looked like all their Christmases
and Diwalis and birthdays had come at once. Even
Kit felt at least Easter-levels of pleased. Sure, she
didn’t want more books in her life. But magic,
beneath her school? That was worth something.
“I can’t believe the campaign worked!” said Alita
excitedly. “My mom didn’t say a thing!”
“She wanted it to be a surprise when you got to
school,” said Faith. “So tell her you were surprised,
all right?”
39
“I will look so surprised my eyes might almost fall
out of my head,” promised Alita. “She’ll be calling the
optometrist before I’ve finished being surprised!”
Faith chuckled. “Excellent! It should all be up
and running on the first day of school—the Wiz-
ards’ Council is sending a new librarian! Your mom
even persuaded the parent-teacher association to
help pay their salary. She might not be a wizard,
but that counts as magic in my book!”
40