Matthew Skelton - Endymion Spring

He screamed in terror and pressed his head against the rung of the ladder to protect himself, fearing something had gone disastrously wrong, closing his eyes against the snowstorm of spinning, spiraling pages. He thought he heard a high-pitched shriek from above, but the din in his ears was near-deafening and all he could do was hang on as the books flew past his face, flapped round his body and got caught in the whirlwind of paper.

And then, like the aftermath of a violent rain shower, the air was suddenly quiet, refreshed. Only a few loose scraps of paper dripped into the surrounding silence. The ladder wobbled beneath him.

Tentatively, he opened his eyes. The darkness was overpowering. With fumbling fingers, he reached into his pocket, took out his torch, and shone the light around him.

The brown battered book — Endymion Spring — was still on its shelf, as though nothing had happened. Except, Blake noticed, sliding his light up and down the sheer sides of the well, the other books had gone. The shaft was as barren as a mountain after a landslide.

Carefully, he reached out to touch the remaining volume. Was this it? Was this the legendary Last Book? The name "Endymion Spring" was still visible on the scabbed leather cover.

He edged his fingers round the spine and gently pulled it towards him. Recognizing his touch, the book immediately eased into his hands. The broken clasp coiled tightly round his little finger and the same nervous buzz of excitement rushed into his blood. Ignoring the pain in his arm, he opened it.

The pages were no longer blank, but covered in minute panels of words that opened like invisible doors the moment his eyes fell on them, leading him into different stories, different languages…each stairwell of paper taking him on a new adventure. Every now and then they froze, stopping in mid-sentence, on the verge of revealing an amazing truth, and he leaped to a new entry. The amount of information was overwhelming. Each page was divided into an infinite number of thin, indestructible membranes.

And then his heart stopped. Turning over one last luminous page, Blake found what he most dreaded: the black page. It was still there, an ominous bookmark at the heart of the volume. Compared to the wonderful whiteness of the surrounding paper, the purity of its words, this shadow was a chilling, inescapable void — a black hole sucking all the goodness of the book into its absent soul. And at the top of the page was the torn corner.

There was still one piece of the book missing.

All of a sudden, Blake remembered Duck. He looked up. There was no sign of her at the top of the well.

Breaking into a cold sweat, he clutched the volume in his hand and scrambled up the ladder as quickly as he could, climbing past the empty shelves, desperately trying to retain his hold on the uneven wooden struts. He slid, exhausted, over the edge of the pit, panting hard.

"Duck," he whispered. "I've found it! I've found the Last Book! But it's not what we thought…"

He stopped. There was no response.

"Duck," he said again, poking his torchlight into the shadows. "You can come out now."

The room, illuminated only by the faint glow of the Last Book , was empty. He scoured the remaining corners with his torch. Nothing. The books on the shelves and the paper on the floor had vanished. Only a disturbed trail of dust lay on the ground.

He picked up his knapsack and jacket, which had been flung to the far side of the room, and put them on. He started to hunt for his sister.

"Duck! Where are you?" he called, his voice a fragile whisper in the dark immensity of the library. Frantically, he checked the other chambers. He found the trail of fingerprints Duck had left on some of the empty shelves and followed them, but there was no sign of her bright yellow raincoat anywhere.

She was gone.

A few minutes later came a muffled explosion from above: a door slamming far away. The noise echoed through the underground chambers like a popped paper bag.

Duck!

Blake raced through the surrounding rooms until he came to the tight, twisting staircase up to the next level of the library. He forced his legs up the sunken stone steps, scraping at the walls with his fingers. He ended up face-to-face with the collapsible bookcase, which someone had hastily, but ineffectually, closed. A pile of books blocked his way.

"Duck!" he yelled.

No response.

He scrambled over the heap of fallen volumes and battled his way through the narrow partition of shelves, scratching his elbows against the sharp metal edges. Pushing the cabinets aside with all his strength, he emerged on the other side.

The wreckage of furniture was visible nearby and beyond it the battered chair with the lightbulb blazing over the desk. Blake sprinted towards them, then slowed to a crawl as he caught sight of the shadow against the wall.

The black cloak was gone. In its place hung Duck's yellow raincoat, dangling like a lifeless body from the hook.

His heart lurched.

The raincoat looked so small and alien without Duck's cheerful form to fill it and he picked it up uneasily. It felt so light.

Then he looked down. A coiled notebook lay open on the desk in front of him. A scribbled message waited just for him. The words wobbled before his eyes:

13:00, Duke Humfrey's Library.

Bring the book.

There was no mistaking the author of the message. It was the Person in Shadow.

There was no time to ask the Last Book for help. A bell shrilled above him, ripping through the stacks, and Blake checked his watch. He had less than fifteen minutes. The library must be closing.

Duke Humfrey…Duke Humfrey…

He was sure he'd heard the name before, but where? Where?

The large machine responsible for sending books up to the reading rooms had grown silent. Unsupervised, its cogs and gears had creaked to a standstill, somehow eerier now they had been suspended than when they were alive. A deathly hush filled the air. Somewhere far above, it suddenly occurred to him, his mother would be packing up her work, completely unaware of the danger her children were in below.

Duke Humfrey…

Blake started to run.

Rows of leather volumes gave way to modern textbooks, which turned into books with bright dust jackets, as he streaked through the stacks. Ahead he could see an endless line of gray cardboard folders. He was on the right track.

Spying a wrought-iron staircase in the corner, he sprinted towards it and clambered up the tight corkscrew of steps, his feet ringing out on the cold metal.

And then he remembered: Duke Humfrey …Duck had mentioned it after visiting the bathroom. It was somewhere up the main stairwell. He knew where to go!

Bursting through the brightly lit tunnel, which connected the entrance of the Bodleian to the stacks, he emerged into the dim corridor just outside the gift shop. The main entrance had been sealed off, closed for another day, and the walls echoed with the lonely sound of his footsteps. No one was around to help him.

He worked his way up the deserted staircase, climbing the wide wooden stairs. Each step filled him with a chilly sense of foreboding. Would Duck be all right?

The sight of two regal blue and gold doors, partially open, brought him to a standstill near the top of the stairwell. The Duke Humfrey Library …A fusty smell of learning seeped from the darkness within.

The chamber was almost exactly as Duck had described it. Thousands of ancient volumes sat on the wooden shelves, set behind thick balustrades. Sturdy ladders climbed to a further tier of books, all crammed beneath a decorated ceiling, covered with scrolls of painted flowers and majestic crests. It looked like a chapel devoted exclusively to reading.