BOOK 01: Of Inklings and Willowpillars
Vanover, 1877. It has been snowing for four days, which is exactly the sort of weather that encourages children to go looking for trouble.
The Inklings are five in number — three Doyles, two Preciouses — plus one honorary member: Professor Augustus E. Peabody, an eccentric of the highest order, inventor of the sunlight-powered candle, the hands-free hat-tipper, and spectacles for near-sighted cats. He has just come home from South America with half his luggage and one impossible map. Nobody can read it. Except ten-year-old Charlotte, who insists she isn't reading it so much as smelling it.
The map points the way to Ber'Ebrin — the Beautiful Place, a paradise of eternal life that the professor's father chased his entire life before vanishing without so much as a zephyr of a clue.
Six little clay coins later, the Inklings step out of a blizzard and into the Colorless Kingdoms: black sand, bone-white sky, and a sun twice the size it has any business being. Two of them arrive wearing bodies that are not quite their own. One of them will not be leaving with the others.
And something has come along for the ride — something that struck a bargain with a goddess in a snowy back alley, and now wears a face the children trust completely.
There are sand pirates. There is a drake lord with a magnificent palace and a deplorable sense of honor. There is a queen in the forest who has been left at the altar once already and has no intention of allowing it a second time. There are, of course, willowpillars.
And there is Mary Doyle, fifteen and a quarter, told all her life to put away childish things — and the only thing, in any realm, the Beast actually came for.
Book One of The Chronicles of Ber'Ebrin. Mind the doors.
Release Date: November 1, 2026. Pre-order now.
...He was interrupted by a knock at the door. He put down the belt as his grumpy, pasty maidservant, in a white bonnet, long black homespun dress, and plain white apron, poked her head into his chamber and announced the arrival of guests in the study, then quickly disappeared.
“Ah, Eva,” he mumbled, “the children are here. I’d almost forgotten.”
The professor knew the neighborhood children well. He would entertain them when they visited with wild, imaginative stories from his books, or ones he made up himself. He would thrill them with examples of his experimental crafts, making them laugh, gasp, or stare in awe. He would amuse them with trips to the woods or into the city, or with lavish banquets. The professor was always kind to them, treating them like his own children, for he was a bachelor and would probably remain so. The children even considered him an honorary member of their group, the Inklings.
The children were five in number in their little adventuring club, all now standing properly before the professor in his study. “Hullo, sir,” little Edgar greeted. “How do you do?” The boy bowed politely. He simply loved the phrase as he believed it made him appear much older than he was.
Charlotte, his sister, curtsied upon seeing the professor and said, “Good morning, sir.”
Twins Jules and Charles smiled and greeted, “Hullo to you, sir.”
Mary, the twins’ older sister, curtsied as well.
Jules picked up a book by its corner that was lying in a damp spot. “Maid’s day off, I see?” he said with a smile.
What brought the five children and the professor together was that they had created a secret club specifically for the task of adventuring, whether it be perambulating through the park, taking horses to the country, finding a way into the city’s sewage tunnels for a look-round, or simply imagining a far-away adventure while camping in the attic. They called themselves the “Inklings.” The name Inklings was chosen in reference to the children’s love of books—hence the “ink”—and their love of imagination. Incidentally, a study group of important literary figures at Oxford would choose this same name many years later for its own, and in time, they would even write some of their adventures down for publication, although that is not important to this story.
The professor greeted them as he attempted to fold his map on the table.
The five children were immediately drawn to the curious parchment like flies to honey. Edgar could not help himself and ran directly up to the table. “Hullo! What’s this?” he asked, tipping over a pedestal with a stuffed parrot and knocking over several books on astrology and numerology. This made the professor snarl, nervous that Edgar might damage the map or, at the very least, knock a candle onto it. But before he could scold the youth, Charlotte was already perusing the large document intently with her finger and a large magnifying glass.
The professor’s thin, sharp jaw dropped when he realized Charlotte was making sense of the map. “Girl, what do you see?” he demanded. “Can you understand these mad scribbles?”
Charlotte smiled and answered, “Of course,” as though the map were written in the simplest English, giving directions to the local bakery.
Mary peered over her shoulder. “You can’t possibly make sense out of that old thing,” she scoffed.
“But I do, Mare,” Charlotte replied with another smile. “It’s so easy.”
The professor remained utterly baffled. “Child, do you know how long I’ve been studying these mysterious writings? Why, ever since my voyage home by ship and then by train from South America, that’s how long! I simply cannot make heads or tails of the script myself.”
Charlotte said, “Well, sir, I’m not really reading the words on the map, Professor, but more like … reading the sounds and hearing the pictures.”
Reading sounds and hearing pictures? thought Charles. “Do let ’s hope no one tries to taste the map!” he said aloud.
Charlotte went on, entirely unruffled. “One symbol, for example, smells of sharp spices, and this one of old leather. I can hear chains and other metal clanging, like pots hanging from a kitchen ceiling in the wind. And this one smells, well … dragon-y.”
Everyone stared at her in disbelief, knowing her imagination was matched only by Edgar’s. But Charlotte seemed perfectly serious. “The map says that the gate may be entered by those who possess the ‘klesnomis’—or key-coins—and that the Colorless Kingdoms lie beyond,” she declared matter-of-factly. She added an apology for understanding little else, for the map was truly worn and badly stained.
This excited the professor tremendously; his harrumph softened and lengthened into a steady, resonant “hmmm.”
From that moment forward, the energized children talked of nothing else but adventuring in the land. Each was certain he knew what the Colorless Kingdoms must be.
Young Edgar proffered, “The word ‘Colorless’ must be a place quite strict and dull, where governesses carry switches and make children do ’rithmatic and eat stale carrots.”
“That’s pure sausage-cakes, Edgar,” said Jules. He pointed to a picture of a coiled dragon-snake sitting on a black, smudged hill in the center of the map. “This could only mean that creatures without the ability to see colors would reside there, such as lizards and bugs and snakes and such.”
“Not on your life,” Charles said. “I, for one, think it’s a sort of purgatory—a waiting place or stepping-stone to paradise. For how could a land be absent of color? That’s the most harebrained thing I’ve ever heard!”
This nearly set the brothers to blows on the spot, as each gave the other a hearty shove in turn.
Mary was intrigued by the smells she was now sensing from the map. “I could swear I smell coal and the sweat of horses,” she said.
“Why, you smell it, too?” Charlotte asked.
Mary’s nose wrinkled. “Yes, and I don’t think it’s a place for a lady like myself.”
“Lady?” snorted Charles. “Since when did you become a lady? You’re an adventurer, like the rest of us—always were, always will be.”
Mary frowned. Yes, in her heart, she was still the young girl with a wonderful imagination. But she was fifteen now and felt like she should act her age—at least a little.
“Well, now, those are all good ideas,” the professor said approvingly. He himself, alas, had noticed none of the strange odors, having lost most of his sense of smell and taste while experimenting in search of a cure for varicose veins. Thus, a major clue had gone quite undetected, and right under his nose, if one pardoned the expression.
It was Charlotte who observed that the picture of the dragon was moving ever so slightly, as if it were faintly animated. The motion was so subtle that she needed a large magnifying glass (or “spyglass,” as Edgar styled it). “It just winked at me,” she cried. “It has a very thin crown on its head that keeps falling over its eyes!” No one truly believed she had seen the picture stirring—no one save Edgar, who was always ready to entertain such notions—but Charlotte remained resolute.
“The only thing left to do, children, after we finish studying the map, is to go there ourselves,” the professor announced matter-of-factly.
The group accepted this as calmly as if he had suggested an outing to the local park.
Jules spoke up, “The Inklings will never let you down, sir, and we shall jolly well sleep on this until we get to the bottom of your mystery!” Jules was full of bravado, but truth be told, he would almost certainly forget the assignment once he was distracted by wrestling with Charles later that afternoon.
Knowing precisely what was on his brother’s mind, Charles gave a harrumph in imitation of the professor.
Mary’s stern look put him back in his place. “We should think on it, boys. You’re so impulsive. In the meantime, do let’s hear about the professor’s trip.”
“Yes, Mother dear,” Charles mocked.
Edgar, thinking it another game, echoed with a giggle, “Yes, Mother dear.”
And so, the professor regaled them with all the most interesting particulars of his latest adventure. Three full hours passed before the children finally took their leave, having had their fill of tea, pies, apple butter, and astonishing tales. In each child’s mind, he resolved to set off at once, just as soon as he had packed and enjoyed a proper night’s sleep. Only Mary remained hesitant. She knew the land was fanciful and that the Inklings would almost certainly pretend to go there—just as they had done before with the professor’s help. Yet something deep within her still longed to believe, and this small inner voice argued continually with her mother’s voice in her head.
However, unbeknownst to the excited children, it was one of the first times the professor was truly glad to see them go. He believed he had just remembered something important about the land of Ber’Ebrin and felt he needed privacy to conduct more serious, grown-up experiments on the subject to confirm his suspicions.