Matthew Skelton - Endymion Spring

He glanced up and down the corridor, wondering if Duck would know, but he couldn't see her anywhere. She had disappeared.

Grabbing his knapsack, he went to look for her.

He filed past the philosophy section and entered the Mandeville Room, full of old maps and

ancient atlases, but his sister was nowhere to be seen.

He was about to creep upstairs, to see if she had gone up to the gallery, when a hand clasped him on the shoulder. He turned around. It was Paula Richards.

"Where do you think you're going?" she said firmly.

He pointed towards the gallery.

"No, I don't think so, Blake," she said. "Not today. It's off-limits. You're not to go causing trouble while the members of the Ex Libris Society are consulting the St. Jerome Codex." She indicated the glass cabinet on the landing halfway up the staircase and wagged her finger.

Blake blushed guiltily and turned away. Then, quite by chance, he spotted Duck dashing furtively across the lawn outside, heading towards the cloisters. What was she doing?

Luckily, they were interrupted by Mephistopheles, who had managed to sneak inside the library again and now tried to dodge past the librarian's legs. "Oh no, you don't!" she roared, promptly giving chase. "You're not supposed to be in here either!"

The cat made a game of her ferocity and scrambled up the stairs, followed by Mrs. Richards.

Suddenly unsupervised, Blake rushed to the door. A frizzy-haired assistant was busily filing slips behind the main desk, her fingers slipping through a card catalog like caterpillars on a treadmill. She was too preoccupied to take any notice. As silently as he could, Blake opened the door and slipped out.

Duck was easy to find. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the enclosed garden next to the Old Library, dwarfed by the enormous Jabberwock tree, which spread its coppery boughs high above her like large wings. She looked so small and vulnerable in her bright yellow raincoat that he felt an impulse to protect her. He stepped through an archway and walked across the cloistered lawn towards her.

He stopped. A small book lay open before her — a large white butterfly sunning itself on the grass. She was staring at it intently, lost in thought. His heart knocked against his ribs. Duck had found the blank book!

"What? How?" He stood above her, unable to speak properly. An unexpected surge of anger and jealousy rose in his throat.

"I was going to tell you," she said, "but I didn't know how."

His cheeks exploded, red with rage.

"I meant to tell you," she began again, wiping her nose on her sleeve, "but the longer I had it the more I wanted to solve the mystery by myself."

She lifted her face and he saw himself reflected in her large eyes — a silhouette blocking out the sun.

He didn't know what to say. He was fizzing with surprise and annoyance, but also with relief. More than anything, he wanted to old the blank book again and feel the pages coursing through his fingers. He tried to make himself calm.

"How long have you had it?" he said finally, sitting down beside her.

"I went to fetch it after you found it," she sniffed. "You went to the Porter's Lodge, remember? It only took a minute. It was right where you'd left it. I wanted to know why you wouldn't let me see it."

She flipped through the pages, all of which, Blake could see, were blank.

"I can't find any riddles," she said. "I've been through it hundreds of times. I've held it up to the light; I've considered using lemon juice to reveal any secret messages; I've even tried spilling ink on it; but nothing works. Ink doesn't stick to the paper. The words are invisible. How do you read it?"

She looked up at him and, for the first time in his life, he realized that she actually needed to learn something from him.

The trouble was, he didn't know how to explain it.

"I don't know," he admitted truthfully. "The words just find you. That's the only way I can describe it."

He wondered whether she would laugh at him, but she didn't. She smiled sadly and held out the book to him. "It's yours," she said.

He felt the blood surge through his fingers as soon as he touched it. All of the anger and jealousy faded inside him. An instant connection to Endymion Spring, the printer's devil who had handled it so long ago, entered him. His skin tingled.

The volume realigned itself in his hand, just as it had done before, and the pages started to flicker, as if preparing to tell him its story.

His heart leaped with excitement.

Duck looked from her brother to the book expectantly. "It didn't do that for me," she said enviously.

Blake wasn't listening. A page had opened right in front of him, in the center of the volume. He held his breath, convinced the first riddle he had seen would reappear. But nothing was there. The paper was blank.

"Can't you seen anything?" asked Duck, sensing his disappointment.

He shook his head, unable to respond.

"Are you sure it's the right page? Perhaps if you—"

"of course it's the right page!" he shouted irritably. "It's no good! We're too late! I should never have let it out of my sight!" His voice reverberated around the cloistered passageways.

Annoyed, he slammed the book shut, but it immediately reopened, like a reflex. Once again, it showed him the blank page.

"Look!" said Duck suddenly.

At the heart of the book, where the sheets of paper had been bound together, a pale loop of thread, like a dragonfly wing, was coming loose.

"No! Don't pull it," he cried, seeing her fingers veering towards it. Very gently, he tugged at the thread — more like a sinew or a fine loop of catgut than string — and watched, amazed, as it came undone at his touch.

"What's happening?" gasped Duck. Her breath tunneled in his ear.

"I don't know."

"Do you think the book is falling apart?"

"No. I don't think so. This is different."

They stared in silence as a second and then a third knot pushed their way up from the spine of the book, like blossoming flowers.

Suddenly Duck had an idea.

"Quick. Do you have the page Psalmanazar gave you?"

"Why?"

"Because the riddle said that two books have to come together to find the third. Maybe that's what's happening now…Maybe you're supposed to bring the pieces of the puzzle together."

"Maybe," replied Blake, unconvinced. His heart, however, was beating very fast and his hand shook as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the neatly folded sheet of paper. It nestled in his palm like a small booklet, then began to quiver as he brought it closer to the book. He laid it carefully inside. It fitted perfectly.

Immediately, the loose threads began to worm their way through the new folds of paper, stitching Psalmanazar's page into the leather-bound volume. Like magic, they disappeared into the central gutter and the book clamped shut with a vicious, springlike motion, its restoration complete.

Like an oyster guarding its pearl, the book remained closed.

"So that's that," said Blake apprehensively.

"I bet it's going to show us the Last Book next," said Duck excitedly. She wriggled beside him.

Blake was more cautious. "I don't know. I expected the Last Book to look different somehow. Larger or more impressive."

He eyed the battered brown book dubiously and then, just when he was about to give up hope, it sprung to life and the pages inside spun round like a whirligig. A light breeze fanned his cheek.

Eventually the blur of paper subsided and a suddenly still, silent page lay open in front of him. Blake looked down expectantly, wondering what he would see.