Book
The Little Red House is a book that was read to Deirdre Green by her father, Sullivan Green, when Deirdre was a child in Neithernor. It was found by Deirdre in the Neithernor vault.
Description
Little is known about The Little Red House, beyond the fact that it was a book published by Ackerly Green Publishing. The Monarchs wished to protect it, to study it, to understand its place in the changing of the Book of The Wild. The Little Red House was of immense value to the Monarchs, who were willing to sacrifice both the Book of Briars and The Mountaineers to keep it safe, believing that the book might hold some secrets that could be dangerous if learned by the Silver. The book was reduced to ashes on The Day of Change after Deirdre brought the book to the mundane world to sacrifice it to the Storm. Most of the ashes were swept away by the Storm in exchange for the Book of Briars, with the few remaining ashes saved in a bottle by Deirdre.
History
The Little Red House was first mentioned in Deirdre’s blog post, “The Door Part Three.” The Little Red House was part of a recurring dream of Aisling Green’s, which was sought after by her husband, Sullivan Green, who believed it to be a place where they could all live together safely.
During Fragment Fourteen, Deirdre returned to Bunratty with Cole after the passing of her Aunt Monica. After several days, Deirdre insisted Cole return to New York to help the Mountaineers, giving him the chronocompass and her father’s journal. The compass led him to several landmarks across town and helped him unlock a very personal journal entry, which Deirdre described in her post, “Neither Here Nor There.”
After learning about Neithernor, Sullivan had sacrificed everything in his life to reach it. For years, Sullivan traveled the world, coming back from time to time to visit Deirdre and Aisling. Eventually, he came back to visit them, having been pursued by the Storm, telling Aisling he had been to Neithernor and seen the Little Red House. He tried to get Aisling to come with him, but she told him he had been consumed by madness and she refused to come along. When she refused, Sullivan tried to carry Deirdre out of the apartment but was stopped by Aisling. She used a magiqal artifact to wound him, destroying his mind and her body.
As Deirdre explored Neithernor herself, she eventually came to a walled grove. Going to the grove also unlocked a new journal entry, in which Sullivan told Deirdre she would have to learn figuration magiq, the most difficult of all magiq to perform, in order to find The Little Red House. Her adventures then led her to a new location: a massive vault. The vault led Deirdre to discover five books her father had read to her, and a sixth book she couldn’t open, which she described in the post, “The Six Books.” The first five books were The Wishing Jar, Oskar & Pipany, The Ant and the Caterpillow, The Forest of Darkening Glass, and The Myth of Elainnor.
Using the books, Deirdre wrote a story in her blog, casting her first figuration magiq. The spell led her to the sixth book she couldn’t read, which she realized was The Little Red House. It was not a place, but a book—the first book in The Lost Collection.
After returning to the mundane world, in her post “Mr. Wideawake,” Deirdre describes receiving a note that told her to meet the sender in the warren. Thinking it was Cole, she knocked in, but was surprised by a human-sized sooty tern bird named Mr. Wideawake. Mr. Wideawake told Deirdre that he was the current Collector for The Monarchs and that, if the Council and the Mountaineers were wiped out, he and his associates were the last thing standing between the Silver and complete control over magiq. He explained to Deirdre that the Book of The Wild had been altered to erase magiq, in what became known as the Book of Kings. Mr. Wideawake told Deirdre that the Monarchs wanted to preserve The Little Red House at any cost, and wanted especially to stop the Mountaineers, who were planning to exchange it with the Storm for the Book of Briars. The Monarchs wanted to study it and understand how the book fit into the changes made in the Book of Kings. The message was actually a warning to Deirdre that the Monarchs were coming for the book, since they now knew where to find it and how to access it from her blog post.
On the Day of Change, Deirdre rushed back to the vault, which she described in her post, “The Shadow.” Using the walking stick and a spell created from The Wishing Jar, Deirdre was able to extinguish the lanterns that the Monarchs were using to light the way. In the ensuing chaos, she took the five books needed to unlock The Little Red House and ran. Deirdre grabbed The Little Red house just in time, slamming the door on a Monarch who nearly grabbed her. Deirdre “caterpillowed” herself, growing wings, which she used to fly over to the Storm just as the Silver began to regain control. The Little Red House, which was never intended to exist in the mundane world, had been reduced to ashes, so Deirdre blew the ashes into the Storm with her wings. Her plan worked, and the Book of Briars from 1998 was brought into the present.