Matthew Skelton - Endymion Spring

"Well, I think you should have bought it," he said simply, but firmly, thinking it wouldn't do her any harm to be a child again for a few hours.

"Perhaps you're right," she answered, but he could tell from the sound of her voice that she was already miles away.

Duck's eyes were now the size of marbles. Blake couldn't stand the suspense any longer and slowed his steps to fall in line with hers. "Go on," he growled. "Tell me."

She clutched him eagerly by the arm.

"Did you notice the strange man?" she squealed.

"Of course I did." He disentangled himself from her grasp. "I was standing right next to you, idiot."

"No, I mean, did you notice what he was reading?"

Blake shook his head. "It was just an old book, but it must have been exciting, 'cause he didn't look up once till he got to the end."

"That's it!" she said triumphantly.

"What's it?"

"I noticed what he was reading."

She skipped back and forth, trumpeting the air in her cheeks.

"Well?"

"Nothing!"

"What?"

"Nothing," she said again.

"What do you mean, nothing?" he snapped, suspecting a trick. "You're joking, right?"

His voice was louder than intended and his mother turned round to make sure they weren't arguing. He smiled at her sheepishly and she continued on ahead.

"I'm serious," said Duck. "There were no words in his book. He was staring at a blank page — just like in your book."

She watched to see how he took the remark.

He remained silent and thoughtful for a while. "That doesn't mean anything," he said finally. "It could have been a notebook. Maybe he was going to write something in it when you interrupted him."

"But he wasn't holding a pen," she said quickly. Obviously, she had been thinking this through.

"Or maybe he'd just finished reading a novel and was thinking it over when you came along," suggested Blake. "Some books have blank pages at the end, you know."

"Possibly," she conceded, "but I got a closer look at it than you, and I don't think it was a novel. Or even a notebook. Besides, he stared at you in such a funny way. That suggests there was definitely something fishy about the book — or about you."

She gave him another look.

He grunted, unwilling to take the bait. "He was just irritated because you interrupted him, that's all," he answered, and quickened his pace to catch up with his mother. Either Duck was being annoying or else she was mistaken. The man had certainly looked like he was reading something . The possibility that there could be two blank books in one day seemed too unlikely to be true.

They had arrived at a busy intersection. To their right stood an ancient stone tower with two gold-helmeted figures ready to strike the hour on the bells with their clubs, while several hundred meters away, beyond a college and its meadows, lay a low bridge, which crossed the river towards the neighborhood in which they lived. Already Blake could sense the cramped row of houses in Millstone Lane growing nearer and shivered.

"Two blank books in one day," Duck mused aloud. "I think it's a mystery. And, if it is, then I'm going to be the one to solve it."

"Oh yeah?" he retorted. "You'll have to do so without me."

"Good," she said. "I was planning to do just that."

But Blake took no notice of her remark. He had already resolved to steal away from the dinner that night and return to the college library. He would find the blank book and this time read the riddle over and over again until he understood it.

Blake fingered the torch in his pocket apprehensively.

He had expected the dinner to take place in the cavernous dining hall, a room full of drafts and sputtering candles; but it had been relocated to the Master's Lodgings, a cozier but no less opulent building tucked away in a far corner of the college. He wondered how, or if, he was going to be able to sneak away to the library.

Little lanterns lit their way, emitting a ghostly glow that barely illuminated the path. Plants with spiky fronds clutched at his clothes, while tangled shadows climbed the walls.

Ahead was a large house. Even now he could hear the din of voices breaking from the ground-floor rooms and felt tempted to run back to the peace and tranquility of the library; but his mother put a hand on his shoulder and steered him onwards.

"Now, I want you two to behave," she whispered as they climbed the stone steps to the door, which was flanked on either side by stiff marble columns. "There are important people present."

The hallway was dominated by an enormous chandelier that descended from the ceiling in a fountain of frozen light. Duck danced beneath it, pirouetting on her heels, while Blake gazed at the paintings that once again graced the shot-silk walls. The largest was of an old man in a desert, with a disproportionately small lion at his feet. Wrapped in a scarlet cloak, he was scribbling feverishly in a book, although Blake couldn't decipher any of the words. They were gibberish to him. The saintlike figure, however, reminded him of the homeless man and he wondered again what he had been reading when Blake and Duck had stumbled upon him.

Juliet Winters did not pause to take in her surroundings, but guided them into a little cloakroom further down the corridor. A row of black robes had been strung up along the walls like dead birds. Blake noticed that his mother took one before putting her coat on the vacant peg. He placed his jacket over hers and was about to reach for a robe too, when she put out a hand to stop him.

"Gowns are for Fellows only," she warned him, shrugging the black material on to her shoulders.

Blake didn't mind forgoing the formality — his mother looked like a disheveled crow, he thought — but Duck was itching to try one on. She brushed her fingers along the embroidered sleeves and dreamed of being an Oxford scholar. She refused, however, to take off her raincoat.

Juliet Winters glanced at her reflection in a gold-framed mirror and then opened the door to an adjoining room. A multitude of people stood before them in conspiratorial circles, discussing books. Blake moved around the edge of the crowd, carefully avoiding conversation. An elbow jogged him once or twice and he apologized, but otherwise no one paid him attention.

Before long he found himself by a cabinet on which a cluster of glasses had been arranged like sparkling jewels. He couldn't resist. He reached for a glass of sherry as soon as his mother's back was turned. The amber liquid had a beguiling aroma and tasted warm and sweet when he tested it with his tongue. Not too horrible. He took a deeper sip and swallowed.

Immediately, a fire erupted in his throat and rushed up the sides of his face. He winced. Quickly, before his mother caught him, he put the sherry back on its tray and opted for a safer glass of orange juice instead.

Bleary-eyed, he looked around the room.

A series of marble busts perched like birds of prey atop the large chimneypiece that dominated one wall, while portraits of still more scholars jostled for space along the others. Everywhere he turned, resentful faces peered out at him form dark canvases, as if envious of the living. He turned away, unable to hold their stares.

His mother was clearly in her element. She was chatting easily with the other professors, a confident smile on her face. "Mingling," his father had called it on the phone earlier that evening, although his mother preferred a more powerful word: "networking."

Duck, too, was making the most of the occasion. She was standing in front of a small semicircle of people, all of whom seemed to be marveling at the things she said. One gooselike lady, wearing a chintzy dress and reeking of gardenias, kept clucking her amazement. "Yes, yes, oh very clever, yes," she said, pulling at a pearl necklace. Later he overheard her telling his mother that Duck was "an astonishing girl, so bright for her age — except for that coat. Most peculiar. And you have a son, you say?"