The Official Book Club Guide: The Binding. Kathryn Cope

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       Plot Synopsis

      PART ONE

      I

      Emmett Farmer has suffered a mysterious illness. The strange malady – involving fevers and hallucinations – has left him weak and unable to remember the events of the summer. Feeling weak and useless, he struggles to keep up with the jobs on his parents’ farm.

      Emmet is aware that there is something his family are keeping from him. One day, he overhears his parents arguing. When he tries to concentrate on what they are saying, however, a ringing sound drowns out their voices. Soon afterwards, Mr and Mrs Farmer announce that a binder has written to them offering Emmett an apprenticeship. Emmett knows that his parents disapprove of binding: a process which involves removing a person’s memories and putting them in a book. He remembers that, years earlier, his mother and father reacted furiously when he bought a book from the Wakening Fair. Their eagerness for him to accept the apprenticeship is, therefore, mystifying.

      II

      Emmett and his father travel to an isolated bindery surrounded by marshland. The binder, who lives there alone, is an old woman called Seredith. On entering the bindery, Emmett feels a strange sense of familiarity and, after his father leaves, he faints. Seredith reveals that when he fell ill, months earlier, it was at the bindery.

      Seredith insists that Emmett was born to be a binder. She patiently teaches him the craft of bookbinding and he is surprised to find that he feels a natural affinity for the work. Seredith explains that the books are created, not to sell, but to honour the individual who requests a binding. Once they are finished, they are stored in a locked vault.

      One day, while Emmett is working, a young man arrives at the bindery. After staring intently at him, the stranger tries to tell Emmett something. Emmett, however, is unable to comprehend what he is saying. They are interrupted by Seredith and the stranger, who introduces himself as Lucian Darnay, says that he has come to be bound. When Seredith takes Lucian into the binding room, Emmett faints again.

      III

      When Emmett wakes he is tied to a bed by his wrist. Seredith tells him that he has been delirious for five days and was suffering from ‘binder’s fever’: a condition only experienced by those who are born to be binders. Remembering Lucian Darnay’s visit, Emmett feels inexplicable terror and frequently dreams about Darnay’s face.

      Autumn turns to winter and Emmett is surprised when two women arrive in treacherous, snowy conditions. One of the women is wailing with distress when she enters the bindery but, after she has been bound by Seredith, emerges calm and quiet. Feeling that there is something sinister in the young woman’s blank expression, Emmett questions Seredith about what the binding process involves. She evades giving him an answer.

      IV

      Emmett is woken by a pounding on the bindery door. He checks on Seredith who declares that the Crusaders have come to kill them. When Emmett answers the door, he is confronted by a group of men, led by an aggressive spokesman. Referring to Seredith as a witch, the man demands his daughter’s book and threatens to burn the bindery to the ground if he does not get it. He instructs Emmett to get Seredith out of the house or she will suffer the same fate as her books. Seredith locks herself inside the bindery, shutting Emmett outside. In response, the men splash oil over the walls, ready to set the building alight with a flaming torch. Emmett tells the men that they will be cursed if they set fire to the house. In a voice which he feels belongs to someone else, he orders them to leave and a driving rain begins to fall. Frightened by Emmett’s use of ‘magic’, the men flee.

      Seredith tells Emmett that sixty years earlier, when she was a young woman, Crusaders (members of an anti-binding movement) came for her and her master. In a moment of confusion, she thought it was happening again. When Emmett asks why she locked herself inside, Seredith replies that she guards her books with her life. Later, Emmett notices that Seredith’s binding room has been left unlocked and he goes inside. On the counter is a book bound in black velvet and decorated with the carefully crafted skeleton of a baby.

      V

      Shocked at his discovery, Emmett accuses Seredith of binding people and stealing their souls. Seredith corrects him, explaining that she only binds the memories that people want to forget. She goes on to tell him that the velvet-bound book belongs to Milly – the girl who arrived in the snow. Emmett is appalled when he learns that Milly buried her own baby alive and insists that she should not be permitted to forget her crime. Seredith explains, however, that the case is not as black and white as it appears, for the man who threatened to burn down the bindery was the baby’s father – and also Milly’s father. When Emmett asks what happens to people if their books burn, Seredith tells him ‘They remember.’

      Shortly afterwards, Seredith falls ill. When the postman makes his weekly visit to the bindery, Emmett asks him to send for a doctor and to contact anyone Seredith is in correspondence with.

      VI

      Emmett nurses Seredith and her condition neither worsens nor greatly improves. One day, he goes into the room where Seredith takes people to be bound and, after a feeling of overwhelming terror, experiences a sense of clarity for the first time. Afterwards, Seredith notices the change in him and observes that he has ‘made peace’ with his calling. She promises to teach him the entire binding process once she has recovered.

      Two men arrive at the bindery and introduce themselves as de Havilland and Dr Ferguson. As soon as he crosses the threshold, de Havilland behaves as if he owns the bindery and treats Emmett like a servant. Seredith refuses to let the doctor perform an examination but de Havilland declares that he will stay and keep an eye on her.

      VII

      Seredith makes it clear to de Havilland that his presence is unwelcome, and Emmett cannot understand why she does not ask him to leave. De Havilland owns a bindery in the town of Castleford and unsuccessfully tries to persuade Seredith to work there. Seredith tells Emmett that, for de Havilland, binding is all about power and money. She makes it clear that she does not want Emmett to become the same sort of binder as their visitor. One morning, after Emmett oversleeps, de Havilland coldly announces that Seredith has died.

      VIII

      De Havilland declares that Seredith’s death means that he is now Emmett’s master. He plans to take him to his bindery in Castleford where he will learn more ‘progressive’ methods of binding. Here, Emmett’s first job will be to visit a regular client whose maidservant requires a binding. When Emmett protests that he has never bound anyone before, de Havilland is unconcerned. He claims that all Emmett has to do is take a pen and paper, lay hands on the subject, and listen.

      During the night, Emmett discovers that his new master has unlocked Seredith’s vault and is emptying the shelves of books. Packing the books in a chest, de Havilland picks out Lucian Darnay’s binding and observes that he had better omit it from the Darnays’ delivery. Emmett accuses de Havilland of stealing the vault key from Seredith’s body, insisting that if she were to entrust it to anyone, it would have been to her apprentice. De Havilland reveals that he is Seredith’s son.

      IX