Marcus Sedgwick - The Book of Dead Days

Valerian’s face drew closer to the book as he seemed to find what he was looking for. Or was it that the book was showing him what it wanted to show him?

Willow, holding the lamp, tried to read what she could, but the book was written in many different and strange languages, and she could only understand a few words.

Suddenly Valerian gripped the edges of the book so tightly Boy thought he might pull it apart. He leant closer, his hands shaking.

With fumbling fingers he delved deep into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of paper-a piece of paper that Boy immediately recognized as the one Kepler had written about him, on the back of which Willow had copied the map.

Now Valerian began to pore over this paper as well as a certain page of the book, and a frown spread across his face and then vanished just as easily.

He looked up.

“Boy,” he said quietly, “I have my answer.”

“What-what is it, Valerian?” Boy asked.

“You. You are my answer,” Valerian said, grinning.

Willow, who had been silently trying to read the book over Valerian’s shoulder, suddenly gasped. She was not even trying to decipher the peculiar words anymore, but somehow there was knowledge in her head-a picture that filled her mind with horror.

“Boy!” she yelled. “He wants to kill you! Boy! Run!” The grin slipped from Valerian’s face as he swung his arm and punched Willow hard in the face. She dropped to the ground, spilling the light. She did not move.

Valerian turned to Boy.

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” said Valerian smoothly, his voice calm. “Come here. There’s nothing wrong. Come closer.”

Boy took a quick, faltering glance at Willow’s still body on the stone flags, and then he turned and ran.

Boy ran without thinking, without knowing what he was doing. He ran off into the darkness, and only after some time of running blindly did he realize that he had no light to run by. He stopped. Everything was inky around him, and now he found himself paralyzed by the darkness.

Then he saw a light behind him.

He had gone perhaps fifty paces into the gloom across the square. He turned, and with alarm saw that Valerian was following, though slowly. He was walking unevenly, almost staggering.

He doesn’t know where I am, Boy thought.

Boy could see Valerian clearly enough. He had grabbed Kepler’s light device from beside Willow’s body and was heading in the direction he thought Boy had gone. But blinded somewhat by his light, he could not see far enough into the gloom to see Boy.

All this passed through Boy’s head in a flash.

He could see Valerian because of the light, and it was enough to dimly pick up a little of the shapes of old buildings around him. If he was careful, very careful, Boy guessed he might be able to use Valerian’s light to see his own way, and provided he kept as far from Valerian as the faint light would allow, Valerian would have no idea where he was.

If he judged it wrong, Valerian would see him.

Boy began to edge backward and tripped over a low stone kerb. He fell with a groan. Valerian froze. Boy watched in horror as Valerian held the lamp higher, away from his face, and looked right at where Boy sat on his backside.

“Boy!” he called. “Come here, Boy.”

Boy scrambled to his feet and scuttled further into the darkness.

“There you are!” cried Valerian, and started to follow, more quickly this time.

Boy hurried on and as silently as he could began to circle around sideways from his last position. Crouching low to the pavement, he watched as Valerian moved straight on ahead, unaware of where he was. Valerian looked demonic as he passed within a few yards of Boy, his face illuminated from underneath by the lamp, which picked out its shadows and crevices.

“Boy!” he called. “I know you’re there.”

Boy waited until Valerian had passed him and gone a fair way ahead, and then began to follow him.

Perhaps, eventually, Valerian would lead him to the outside. Or maybe they would pass within sight of a channel of daylight, if indeed it was day outside, and then Boy could find his own way out.

He had no idea what time it was or what day it was. Maybe only Valerian knew, deep inside, that his last day had arrived.

Indeed, a few stone feet above their heads midnight had come and gone, and the early hours of New Year’s Eve were starting to unwind across the length and breadth of the City. Most people were shut up fast in their beds, trying to sleep as deeply as possible to prepare for the manic celebrations that would entwine the City that night to welcome in the New Year.

Boy crept along behind Valerian, who called ahead of him into the darkness.

“Boy. Boy! Are you there? Come here, Boy. I won’t hurt you.”

Willow woke and began to panic. Her head throbbed. There was not the slightest suspicion of light anywhere, and the more she strained to see something-anything at all-and failed, the worse she felt. She couldn’t believe there could be no difference between having her eyes open and shut, and realized what it must be to be blind. She felt like screaming, but remembered that Valerian was out there in the blackness somewhere, his mind set on murder.

Murder? Was that really what she’d seen in his eyes when he’d read the book and found his answer? She had been looking over Valerian’s shoulder, trying to understand the strange writing and symbols. She had seen the piece of paper about Boy too, but it was not these things that had told her.

No. That knowledge had simply appeared in her head as she looked at the pages of the book. She had seen what Valerian intended for Boy. The book had shown it to her.

If that was not evidence enough, the blow he had struck her was. Why else would he silence her so brutally? She felt her face in the darkness. Her eye hurt. She could feel the stickiness of blood on her fingers.

She tensed at a low, grating noise. She tried to place it, to identify its source and direction, but everything was disorienting without sight. She fought the urge to scream, and to be sick from the fear.

She tried to breathe more deeply and slowly, and listened again. Had she imagined it? But there it was again, coming closer and getting louder.

She struggled to think clearly. She could try to crawl away from the noise, but that would be difficult, and where could she go? Maybe it was better to stay where she was-she couldn’t see whatever it was that was making the noise so maybe it couldn’t see her either. Maybe. If, on the other hand, it was some thing from the canal, it would be used to moving in darkness. Perhaps it could even see in the dark and was coming right for her.

She heard a small scraping sound, and saw-or maybe she only imagined it-the briefest spark of light. The light, had it been there at all, was gone.

Was that a voice?

She sprang to her feet. Her head throbbed from Valerian’s fist and she felt dizzy. Stumbling against some unseen pavement in the blackness, she fell.

She let out a groan as she hit the ground, her wrists taking the fall.

“Boy?” came a voice. “Willow?”

Willow lay still, her head pounding, her breath coming short and fast. Her face was inches from the flags and she could feel their dampness seep into her.

The sound had stopped.

“Willow?” came the voice from the darkness. “It’s me. It’s Kepler.”

Willow was too surprised to say anything. Kepler, who had left her to die with Valerian, was not who she would have chosen to find her.

There was nothing else to do.