Matthew Skelton - Endymion Spring

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 slipping 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."