Endymion Spring

by Matthew Skelton

  "Who is Endymion Spring?" the man repeated, the name quivering on his lips. A hint of worry still troubled his brow.

  Blake nodded.

  Jolyon looked around the room apprehensively. "Now is neither the time nor the place," he whispered finally, scrunching his hands together and then plunging them deep into the folds of his gown. "We must talk about him…later."

  With that, he rushed away, although Blake could tell that he was still agitated, since he almost forgot which way to go.

  So Endymion Spring was a person and not a season, he thought to himself. He was probably the author of the book, then and not the title. But how could anyone be the author of a blank book?

  There was only one way to find out. Blake would have to go to the library, find the volume and figure out its riddle. It was now or never.

  Checking to make sure that no one was watching, he moved towards the door. Just before he slipped out, he glanced at the plate of Turkish delight.

  No one, it seemed, had touched it.

  6

  It was colder outside than Blake had expected. After the warm glow of the Master's Lodgings the air felt chilly, almost like winter, and he hugged himself to keep warm.

  Moonlight dusted the college paths and he stumbled clumsily, trying to negotiate his way in the silver-dark. Shadows clustered all around him. He didn't want to switch on his torch until he was safely concealed inside the library, just in case he got in trouble for sneaking out on his own.

  The cloisters loomed ahead and he hurried towards them.

  As he passed down the first dark-beamed passageway, he stopped. It was like a doubt tapping him on the back, making him turn round. Someone was following him.

  He stood perfectly still, listening carefully.

  Nothing. Not a whisper.

  Then, peering stealthily around a column, he checked the doorway of the Old Library on the opposite side of the garden. Only the faint toothlike striations in the stone were visible, taking a bite out of the night. Otherwise, there was nothing. No one was there. It must have been his imagination.

  He carried on. Stairwells climbed into the darkness around him, while footsteps — his own — scratched the paving stones and rebounded off the walls, pursuing him as echoes. He started walking faster.

  Reaching the next courtyard, he took a moment to steady himself. Buildings that were familiar in the daytime were now unrecognizable shadows. Trees shivered: black, batlike rustlings. His heart was beating fast.

  Spotting the library, a wall of darkness in the distance, he ran towards it.

  As his feet tripped up the steps, he saw the illuminated keypad by the door, its numbers lit up like eyes. The college no longer used keys for the main buildings, but had installed a high-tech entry-code system instead. Rather foolishly, he thought, the code was the same for each building, since the students and absentminded professors couldn't remember more than one number. In any case, he was lucky, since his mother had made him memorize the sequence so that he and Duck could get in and out of the library on their own.

  He entered the number — 6305XZ — and heard the door click open. With a sigh of relief, he slipped inside.

  The library, as he had imagined, was totally dark.

  The first thing he heard was the sound of the clock ticking softly. It reminded him of a slow, rhythmic heartbeat. He relaxed.

  Dimming his torch so that it would not shine through any of the windows, he swept the beam across the hall. The light made the books on the shelves appear silver, ghostlike. The central staircase sloped away from him, up into total darkness, but he took the left-hand corridor instead, past the portraits of Thomas Sternhold and Jeremiah Wood. Eyes glinted at him briefly and then disappeared as he crept along the book-lined corridor, past other portraits, further into shadow.

  Finally, he came to the bookcase where he had discovered the blank book — or rather, where it had discovered him. The volume Duck had show him earlier was still open on the desk: a small landmark indicating where he should look.

  But where was the blank book?

  He thought he had placed it right here, on the third shelf, between the two volumes that were now sloping towards each other slightly. A thin crack of shadow divided them. He wedged his fingers into the gap. Empty.

  Fighting a wave of panic, he scanned the floor, but the book wasn't there either.

  He bit his lip. Surely, it couldn't have disappeared already!

  Desperate, he trailed his fingers along the spines, just as he had done before, and whispered the words "Endymion Spring" to himself, over and over again in a sort of mantra, willing the book to reappear…but nothing happened. It wasn't on the floor and it wasn't on the shelf. There was no sign of the blank book anywhere.

  The library guarded its secret.

  ◬

  At that moment a book thwacked the floor near the front entrance and a sound skittered across the hall. Blake froze. Someone was in the library.

  Instinctively, he switched off his torch and shrank back against the wall, creeping into the arms of a massive bookcase. The darkness crushed against him, pressing into his eyes, digging into his ribs. He could barely breathe.

  Heart in mouth, he listened.

  At any moment a footstep might betray itself, a whisper of breath make itself known…but there was nothing. Only terrible, oppressive silence. The seconds weighed upon him.

  Finally, when he could stand the suspense no longer, he switched on his torch and covered it instantly with his hand, so that the light flooded between his fingers like blood. Using its meager light, he looked around him. Gloom stretched into the distance.

  He edged out of his hiding place. Books lined the walls, perfectly still.

  Taking tiny, shaky steps, he inched towards the entrance. A draft crept down the corridor towards him, sending a shiver up and down his spine.

  At last he reached the front hall. With large, fearful eyes he peered into the shadows. The circulation desk was there, and the clock, and the tall card catalog beside it, plus a trolley for returned books.

  He stopped. Just below the bottom run of the trolley was a book. It must have slipped off its shelf.

  He moved towards it, then fell back, disappointed. It was just a dumb, boring textbook. Not Endymion Spring.

  He bent down to put it back on the trolley — and nearly died from fright. Two metallic green spheres glinted at him from behind the corner of the cart. He jumped back.

  Then, with a rush of relief, he realized what it was.

  Mephistopheles!

  "Oh no, not you," he cried. "You're not supposed to be in here! How did you" — he turned round — "get in here?" he mumbled, finishing the thought.

  The door was closed. No one was there.

  Making comforting kissing noises, he approached the cat and tried to lure it out of hiding, still uncertain how the shadowy feline had managed to elude him; but Mephistopheles simply retreated from his fingers and then, with a hiss that split the air like ripped fabric, bolted upstairs.

  "Great," exclaimed Blake, knowing Paula Richards would be furious if he let the cat stay in the library overnight.

  Muttering to himself, he gave chase, sprinting up the wide marble stairs.

  The gallery was divided into a series of deep, dark alcoves by rows of freestanding bookcases that were centuries old. They looked like a procession of monks in the dimness — hunched and round-shouldered.

  Blake walked up the central aisle, creaking along the floorboards, hunting for Mephistopheles. He swept the beam of his torch across the shelves, illuminating hundreds of pale, spectral volumes that were bound to their desks with thick iron chains. Others were propped open — like moths — on foam pillows. Weighted necklace-like strings kept their pages from flickering.

  He poked his light into corners and peered under benches, discovering a jumble of legs in the shadows.

  "Come on, you stupid cat," whispered Blake impatiently. "I haven't got all night!" He could feel the seconds s
lipping away. Any moment now, his mother might notice his disappearance and then he'd be in trouble.

  There he was!

  Mephistopheles crouched behind a heavy wooden chest in the far corner of the room, under a gigantic portrait of a bearded man with a recriminating stare. Horatio Middleton (1503-89). His jeweled finger was tightly clasped round the spine of a worn leather volume.

  "OK, out you come," coaxed Blake, reaching down to pick up the cat. His shoulder brushed a bookcase, almost causing a book to fall.

  At first, Mephistopheles refused to budge; then, deceived by Blake's false flattery, the cat relented and Blake seized him by the scruff of the neck. The cat yowled.

  Struggling to maintain a hold on both his torch and the wriggling, squirming cat, Blake moved towards the stairs. "Stop complaining," he told the cat. "There's nothing to be—"

  Without warning, Mephistopheles raked his claws into Blake's shoulder and leaped free, arching high into the air. Trying not to cry out in pain, Blake watched helplessly as the cat landed lithely on its feet by the glass cabinet and tore down the remaining steps…and out through the open door.

  Blake's heart froze inside him. He could feel the night air sweeping into the library, wrapping itself round his legs, chilling him. The door was wide open.

  "Who's there?" he called out anxiously, poking the torchlight into the gloom. Long stretches of darkness led away from him.

  "Who's there?" he tried again, glimpsing a pale glimmer at the end of the corridor.

  He moved towards it and nearly dropped his torch. For there, at the far end of the corridor, exactly where he had been standing before, a few volumes lay scattered on the floor. But they hadn't just slipped off the shelves: they'd been torn off, ransacked in a sudden fury. Scraps of paper littered the carpet like parts of a dismembered bird and at least one spine was dangling from its cover like a severed limb.

  Blake gasped.

  For a moment he stood rooted to the spot, unsure what to do, feeling the library swim around him; then, overpowered by a desire to escape, he lunged towards the door.

  He scrambled down the steps and raced across the lawn, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to get away. So he had not been alone! Someone had followed him to the library! Those thoughts pursued him as he sprinted wildly across the college, through the cloisters and up the path towards the Master's Lodgings. Could someone else know about Endymion Spring?

  A glimmer of light, like a knife blade, shone through a crack in one of the curtained windows, but by the time Blake stumbled up the stone steps, the partition had closed.

  ◬

  A man with owl-like glasses was helping himself to a slab of crumbly cheese from a sideboard near the door and Blake ducked behind him to take cover. He doubled over, panting with exhaustion.

  He checked his watch. Barely thirty minutes had gone by. It was nothing…unless you happened to be waiting.

  One look was enough. He was in trouble. Serious trouble.

  His mother, standing next to a group of quarreling scholars, was barely listening to the discussion. Arms folded across her chest, she was staring fixedly ahead, inwardly fuming. Her body language said it all.

  He gulped.

  Duck was eagerly on the lookout and got up as soon as she had spotted him. "Where have you been?" she snapped, pushing her way through the crowd.

  "Out," he said. Then, failing to come up with a better excuse, he added, "It's really cold out there. It might even snow."

  He started rubbing his arms up and down, wondering if she would believe him. She didn't. He stopped his play-acting.

  "How angry is she?" he asked, motioning towards his mother.

  "Pretty angry," said Duck. "She's stopped talking to the other professors."

  That was a bad sign. It meant she was really angry — angry beyond words. The worst kind of angry.

  "Where were you really?" asked Duck in a different voice, more curious.

  "I told you. I went out for a walk."

  He watched as his mother went to fetch her coat. She met his apologetic grin with a steely expression. The smile died almost instantly on his face.

  "No, you didn't," said Duck. "You went to the library."

  "Huh?"

  Blake pretended not to listen, but his red cheeks were a dead giveaway.

  "You went to the library," she said. "I know you did. You thought you could outsmart me by finding the blank book and solving the mystery all by yourself. You idiot! I saw you go."

  He frowned. "What?"

  "I saw you," she crowed. "You thought you were so sneaky, but I was watching the whole time. You're so stupid — it's a joke."

  Suddenly he turned on her. "So you were the person in the library!" he cried. "I could kill you, I really could."

  Several people turned, appalled by the vehemence of his words, but he couldn't control himself. The fear that had been growing inside him had found a release.

  "Why did you do that?" he hollered. "You scared me half to death!"

  Something in Duck's eyes made him stop. They were suddenly large and fearful, on the verge of tears. She had no idea what he was talking about.

  Immediately, he realized his mistake. She hadn't seen him leave; she'd merely said this to make him feel bad. She was probably jealous because he'd been able to evade her watchful gaze and sneak out without her.

  She was about to add something when their mother returned, her coat folded over her arm. Without a word, she led them out.

  "I'll deal with you later," she told him icily as they followed her down the garden path. Her words hovered in the air like a frosty cloud.

  7

  That night, Blake awoke with a start. The book was summoning him.

  Sitting up in bed, he switched on the light and blinked as the stripes on his bedroom wallpaper reappeared, one by one, like the bars of a prison. And then he remembered: the book was gone. He'd failed to find it. He let his head fall back against the pillow with a crushing sense of disappointment.

  In his dream, the college library had been transformed into a magical forest. Tall trees lined the corridors, reaching up the walls, extending their brilliant canopies across the ceiling. Books filled the shelves, which were made from vast, interlocking branches. As he walked through the library, red, gold and vivid green scraps of paper drifted to the floor like autumn leaves.

  Birds chattered noisily in the air above him, hopping from one branch to another; but then, in an explosion of wings, they suddenly shot off into the air, leaving the branches — the shelves — as silent and bare as winter. The building was cold and empty, apart from the blank book, which was once again lying on the floor, waiting for him to turn it over.

  Mephistopheles sauntered along the corridor to meet him, a scarp of paper dangling from his mouth like a feather.

  Blake shuddered at the recollection, convinced the book was trying to reach him. Then, realizing that the shiver had as much to do with the temperature of his room as his nerves, he crept to the foot of his bed to switch on the radiator beneath the window. It was freezing!

  He turned the dial and waited for the primitive fossil-like coils to heat up, unused to such antiquated devices at home. The pipes groaned and quivered for a moment and then slowly filled with warmth. It was like the ghost of heat, barely noticeable, but it was better than nothing.

  To ease his mind, he peered out through a gap in the blinds. Street lamps spilled pools of yellow light onto Millstone Lane and a dog barked somewhere in a neighboring yard. Otherwise, there was no sign of life. The houses were dark and deserted. Everyone was asleep.

  It was the middle of the night.

  Blake settled back in bed and stared at the cracks that crept along the ceiling like giant spiders. It unnerved him that the blank book had disappeared so soon after he had found it. The book had felt unusual, as though it might contain anything. The paper had an ability to make hidden words come alive, a magical power he couldn't begin to comprehend. It was as though it had cont
ained a mind of its own — a djinn, perhaps. Some secret power. But how was that possible?

  He let out a long sigh. The book was gone. He'd missed his chance to solve it.

  He switched off the light and lay in the dark, a feeling of inadequacy settling over him like a blanket. And then, in the silence of his room, he became aware of a soft secretive sound spitting against the outside of his window. It might be snow, or it might be rain. But it was so nice and warm in his bed, and he felt so tired, that he didn't get up to see what it was.

  His mind dissolved into the outer edges of another dream.

  ◬

  He was back in the library. Endymion Spring was waiting for him to pick it up.

  Anxiously, before it could disappear, he curled his fingers round the worn leather spine and opened the covers. Automatically, the blank pages started riffling to reveal the riddle hidden at the heart of the book:

  When Summer and Winter in Autumn divide

  The Sun will uncover a Secret inside.

  As Blake recited the words, he was instantly transported to a snowy scene, somewhere else, somewhere like home. White fields surrounded him like the pages of an open book and a frozen pond shone in the distance — a watermark dusted by a light sprinkling of snow.

  Someone approached. Footsteps scrunched behind him. He turned round, just in time to see a clean-shaven man with a face like worn wood emerging from a fringe of frostbitten trees. The man was dressed in a fur-collared tunic with brown leggings and leather shoes that appeared to have no laces. He dragged a felled tree behind him.

  Blake rubbed his eyes. The leaves were changing from blood-red to white as they passed over the snow.

  On the man's shoulders sat a young girl with flaming auburn hair. She wore a filthy smock and had rust patches on her stockings. Tears clung to her cheeks. Her grim face softened into a smile when she saw Blake and she held out a grazed hand for him to hold, but her fingers passed through his like a ghost's, a whisper of contact, no more than a cobweb.

  Blake took a step back and watched as the mad trudged by without a word — without a glance in his direction. The pair disappeared over the brow of a hill.