Endymion Spring

1

Blake glanced at his watch and let out a small, exasperated sigh. What was taking her so long? His mother had promised to be ready more than half an hour ago. He started drumming his fingers along the books in the college library. What should he do now?

He had already climbed the rolling ladders in the Mandeville Room and used the metal tracks along the shelves to propel himself from one bookcase to another. The he had taken down the largest, heaviest volumes he could find and placed them on a desk near the window so he could look through them properly. The letters in the stone-colored paper had reminded him of fossils and he'd run his fingers over the vertebrae of words for a while before closing the covers. Most of the books were written in languages he couldn't understand and he'd given up trying.

Next, he'd spun the globe near the door and searched for a sign of his hometown. He couldn't find it anywhere. North America was just a featureless blob with a few rivers traversing its plains — like cracks in the varnish. Where the Great Lakes ought to be, the mapmaker had planted a forest of tepees and drawn a solitary buffalo. This, he realized, was about as close to home as he would come for the next few months…

He sighed.

Leaving the room, he now tried to calculate the number of books in the library. There must be tens of thousands, he guessed, scanning the shelves around him: a lifetime's reading stacked from floor to ceiling, extending in both directions.

He trailed his fingers along the spines, expelling little clouds of dust in the air as he walked.

Passing the office door with paula richards librarian stenciled neatly on its white surface, Blake paused to listen. He could just make out the rise and fall of his mother's voice on the other side. She wasn't angry, just forceful — used to getting her own way.

A visiting academic in Oxford for one term, she spent most of her time in the Bodleian Library, one of the largest collections of books in the world, and needed someone to keep an eye on her two children. She was busy negotiating a new arrangement with the librarian, who was fast becoming their babysitter.

Blake checked his watch — thirty-six minutes — and sighed.

He tried walking backwards now, tapping the books in reverse order, to see if this would help pass the time.

A series of stern-looking portraits glared down at him from the walls. Like magicians, they were dressed in dark capes and had sharp, pointy beards. Elaborate ruffs, like squashed chrysanthemums, burst from their collars. The older men had jaded eyes and tortoise-like skin, but there were also a few pale-faced boys like himself. He glanced at their nameplates: Thomas Sternhold (1587-1608); Jeremiah Wood (1534-1609); Isaac Wilkes (1616-37); Lucius St. Boniface de la Croix (1599-1666). Each man was holding a small book and pointing to a relevant passage with a forefinger, as though reminding future generations to remain studious and well-behaved.

Blake disregarded their frowns of disapproval and continued running his fingers along the books, rapping the spines with the back of his knuckles.

All of a sudden, he stopped.

One of the volumes had struck him back! Like a cat, it had taken a playful swipe at his fingers and ducked back into hiding. He whisked his hand away, as though stung.

He looked at his fingers, but couldn't see anything unusual. They were smeared with dust, but there was no obvious mark or injury on his skin. Then he looked at the books to see which one had leaped out at him, but they all seemed pretty ordinary, too. Just row upon row of crumbly old volumes, like toy soldiers in leather uniforms standing to attention — except that one of them had tried to force its way into his hand.

He sucked on his finger thoughtfully. A thin trail of blood, like a paper cut, was forming where the book had nicked his knuckle.

All around him the library was sleeping in the hot, still afternoon. Shafts of sunlight hung in the air like dusty curtains and a clock ticked somewhere in the distance, a ponderous sound that seemed to slow down time. Small footsteps crept along the floorboards above. That was probably his sister, Duck, investigating upstairs. But no one else was around.

Only Mephistopheles, the college cat, a sinewy black shadow with claws as sharp as pins, was sunbathing on a strip of carpet near the window —and he only cared about one thing: himself.

As far as Blake could tell, he was entirely alone. Apart, that is, from whatever was lurking on the shelf.

Slowly, cautiously, he ran his fingers again along the books.

"Blake!" his mother hissed. Her face had appeared from the office doorway. She was checking up on him — as usual, just when he was on the point of disobeying her.

Paula Richards, the librarian, stood behind her, smiling amiably.

"What did I tell you?" his mother scolded him. "You're not to touch the books. They're fragile, rare and in some cases extremely valuable. Now pick up that book carefully and go find your sister. I won't be much longer."

Blake looked down, surprised. There, in front of him, face down on the floor, was an unremarkable brown leather volume he hadn't noticed before. It seemed to be waiting for him to turn it over.

His mother apologized to the librarian. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Richards, but Blake's not what you'd call a natural reader."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Dr. Winters," said Paula Richards, happily. "I sometimes knock the books off the shelves myself."

She winked at Blake and then pulled the door shut behind them, so he couldn't overhear the rest of their discussion.

Blake liked Mrs. Richards. She was a boisterous woman who loved books and, even more, loved talking about them. Her thick glasses clattered against the desk whenever she took them off, and through them, Blake could see the words on the pages she showed him swimming back and forth like legs in a pool. Some letters bulged and curved more than others, but what fascinated him even more were the little indentations in the paper — like footprints in snow. They reminded him of polar expeditions.

Mrs. Richards made books seem magical, almost fun, whereas his mother turned them into work. She used them to test his reading comprehension and often quizzed him about his results at school.

He'd not done very well last year, it's true; but she wouldn't believe him when he said it was not from lack of trying. Things just didn't make sense anymore. It was as if the words started disintegrating the moment he looked at them. One minute they'd be sitting in a straight row like birds on a wire; the next, they'd take off like a flight of startled sparrows. He couldn't pay attention.

It was hoped that a short break in Oxford, during which he would be tutored by his mother, would give him a renewed focus. "A fresh perspective," his homeroom teacher had said, as thought the phrase encapsulated everything; but his mother had simply passed him on to other college officials who were also busy, and so he spent most of his time working on his own in the library or looking after his little sister. His mother was researching a new book and didn't have time to be "disturbed."

Blake bent down to pick up the volume that had fallen to the floor, but then stopped. A ripple of anxiety passed through him. Was this the book that had attacked his finger?

But that's impossible, he thought. Books don't do that. Besides, the cover of this book was chipped and cracked, scabbed like an old leather glove. It looked perfectly harmless. He shook his head. He was just being silly.

Quickly, before he could change his mind, he reached down and scooped up the volume. Then something else happened: the book realigned itself in his fingers — just slightly. The movement was barely noticeable, yet Blake was certain he had felt it. The book sat in his hand, a perfect fit, as though that was exactly where it belonged.

His heart skipped a beat.

Looking closely, he could see that two small clasps, once holding the book together, had broken and the strips of leather hung down like unfastened watchstraps. A silver prong, like a snake's tooth, dangled from one of the bands. Obviously, it was this metal fang that had pricked his finger. His knuckle throbbed with the memory and he sucked on the wound, where another bead of blood was forming.

There was writing on the cover, too, but this had faded so that the title was barely visible. The words were as delicate as the strands of a spiderweb, and he blew on them softly to remove a fine layer of dust. A name or title, pressed into the leather in unusual rounded letters, appeared before his eyes:

Endymion Spring

He opened the book.

His fingers were jittery, but even so the pages flickered of their own accord — as though an invisible hand had reached across time or space and was searching for the best place to begin.

He held his breath, amazed.

Some of the pages were stuck together, joined at the edges, unopened, while others unfolded like maps without obvious destinations. They reminded him of the origami birds he had once seen a Japanese lady making on television. There were no lines on the paper, unlike a notebook, and no sections to write in, unlike a diary; and yet there were no printed pages, so far as he could see, so it couldn't be a regular novel either. It was as if he had discovered a completely blank book. But what was a book without words doing in a library?

A faint tingling sensation, like the suggestion of a breeze, tickled his fingertips and he moved closer to the window to inspect the book more thoroughly. He thought he could detect minute ridges glowing inside the paper, as though the sun were shining through it, communicating something; but when he held the pages up to the light, hoping to find a secret message encoded inside, he couldn't see anything. The pages were like thin, frosty panes of glass. Unreadable.

Disappointed, he walked back to the shelf, stroking the paper absentmindedly. It felt softer than anything he had touched before. Like snowflakes before they melt, he thought — or, or, what precisely? It was an elusive feeling, a sensation he couldn't quite grasp. Yet once he had opened the book, he didn't want to let it go. It had cast its spell on him.

Obviously, this wasn't an ordinary book at all!

"What are you looking at?"

Duck had surprised him by sneaking down from the gallery upstairs. She clung, monkey-like, to the edge of a bookcase and studied him with a curious expression.

"Nothing," he said, and abruptly turned his back so she couldn't see.

"You're lying."

"I told you, it's nothing."

"Since when do you like reading?"

"I don't, so go away."

Duck rummaged through some of the other books on the shelf. She selected a few of the fatter volumes and took them to a desk, where she skimmed through them. "Typography?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. "Since when have you been interested in that?"

She showed him the frontispiece of the first book she had chosen: De Ortu et Proggressu Artis Typographicae. An illustration beneath the title portrayed a group of men in a vaulted chamber full of heavy machinery and sloping desks. They were printing books.

"I'm not," he said. "This book's different. It was just in the wrong section, that's all."

"What's it about?"

He ignored her and continued leafing through the volume. It's as if I'm the first person to have discovered it, he thought; or else it's the first book to have discovered me…

But that was impossible! Mrs. Richards must have looked through it when she catalogued it. He flipped through the volume for an index card or something to identify it, but there was nothing inside. Nor was there a label on the spine, where the librarian sometimes placed a number so that students could sign out books from the library. There didn't seem to be any record of this book at all. It was as though it didn't exist.

For a moment he considered slipping it inside his knapsack. Would it be stealing, he wondered, to keep a book that no one knew existed? It doesn't even have any words in it, so it can't be of much use, he thought. Or could it? Perhaps he could sign it out — but then he'd have to ask Mr. Richards for a call number, and how could he justify wanting to read a blank book?

He decided to put the volume back on the shelf. He'd had enough mystery for one day.

Then, just as he was about to close the covers, he noticed some words etched on the paper in front of him, in the very center of the book. He had not even turned to the page. It just lay open there.

Where had they come from?

The name he had seen on the cover was repeated, but this time within a series of lines — or what looked like verses. They were written in such miniscule letters as to be almost invisible. Like the book, they appeared to make no sense.

He whispered the words to himself.

"What did you say?"

Duck again.

"Nothing. Mind your own business."

"Well, it sounded weird to me. What book is that anyway?"

She got up to take a closer look.

Blocking her with his shoulder, Blake recited the words in an even softer voice, so she could not overhear:

"When Summer and Winter in Autumn divide

The Sun will uncover a Secret inside.

Should Winter from Summer irrevocably part

The Whole of the Book will fall quickly apart.

Yet if the Seasons join Hands together

The Order of Things will last forever.

These are the Words of Endymion Spring.

Bring only the Insight the Inside Brings."

Blake scratched his brow, confused. The sun might refer to the lines he had seen in the paper, and the last sentence seemed to confuse two similar sounding words, but who — or what — was Endymion Spring? And how could anyone read a blank book?

Obviously he wasn't smart enough to figure it out, since he couldn’t make head or tail of the poem, let alone the book's mysterious contents.

"Can I see it?" said Duck again.

"No, go away."

"Well, from here it looks like a blank book."

"That's because there's nothing in it," he said automatically, and then stopped, surprised she couldn't make out any of the words in front of him.

"Show me!" she insisted.

"No, don't touch it," he said firmly, holding it away from her fingers. "It's rare or valuable…or something."

He glanced at her. As usual, she was wearing the bright yellow raincoat with the orange hood that she had been wearing since the Day of the Big Argument. That was the day their parents had been arguing so much that they had ended up crying. Duck had gone to her room to fetch her favorite raincoat and had startled them all when she got back. "It's to protect me from your tears," she'd said in a squeaky voice that was trying to sound like an adult's, but sounded so childish instead. Everyone had burst out laughing then — even Duck eventually — and there had been tears of laughter in their eyes, instead of pain.

And for a time that had done the trick. Their parents had been happier, if only for a while.

But since that day, Duck had gone on wearing the coat, unwilling to take it off in case it undid the magic. Yet the effect, Blake knew, was rapidly wearing off. It had faded so much, in fact, that it was almost gone. That was partly why they were here in Oxford, when their dad was on the other side of the Atlantic.

He looked at her again. She seemed unhappy.

"It's nothing," he said more gently. "It's just an empty book."

He let her hold it for a moment, then returned it to the shelf, where it disappeared between two thick volumes on printing history.

He put his arm around her. "Come on. Let's wait for Mum over there."

2

Reaching the foyer, Blake went to sit on the marble steps leading up to the gallery. A grandfather clock ticked wearily beside him.

Above him, on a landing halfway up the stairs, was a glass cabinet containing the most treasured item in the library's collection: a thick manuscript belonging to the monks who had lived in the college more than five hundred years before.

He got up to take a closer look.

The manuscript was decorated with elaborate vines of green and gold paint that blossomed into feathery leaves and beautiful peacock-colored flowers. He breathed on the glass and watched as the twin columns of black handwriting disappeared beneath a layer of ice.

From his vantage point he could see the foyer below — a hall lined with pillars and busts — but there was still no sign of his mother. Duck crouched by one of the tall card catalogs, stroking Mephistopheles. The cat curled like a comma round her feet.

Blake returned his attention to the manuscript.

As the mist slowly cleared, he saw a red oval letter regain some of its color at the top of the left-hand column. Inside the large crimson O was a miniature painting: a monk in a black robe sat on a faldstool with a tiny puppet-like figure perched on his knee. The unusual character wore a distinctive mustard-colored hood, a bit like a jester's cap, and a dull yellow garment that barely disguised his hunched back.

A typewritten note next to the manuscript explained:

Majuscule: Here, the scribe Theodoric receives

words from an old man in a yellow cloak.

Identity unknown. Mid—15^th century.

Blake stared at the strange, emaciated figure. "But he's a boy," he murmured to himself, "not an old man."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken," said a voice at the bottom of the stairs.

Blake tore his eyes from the manuscript to see Paula Richards, the librarian, bounding up the steps towards him. Readjusting her glasses, she leaned in for a closer inspection, her blouse crushing against the glass in an explosion of silk and lace — like a frilly airbag.

"See here," she said, underlining part of the text with her finger and spouting something incomprehensible in Latin. "Theodoric attributes great learning to this figure. How could a child know such things? Most scholars agree he is an old man, extolling the wisdom that comes with age and experience."

Blake was about to object when he noticed a string of words unfurling from the puppet's mouth like a square speech bubble.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

The librarian considered the motto for a moment and then translated it as: "Wisdom speaks with a silent tongue."

Blake frowned. "I don't get it."

"No, nor quite frankly do I," said the librarian with a laugh, wiping away the smears his fingers had left on the glass.

"Oh no, not you too," exclaimed his mother from downstairs. "Come on, Blake. Don't take up any more of Mrs. Richards' valuable time. I'm sure she has better things to do."

Blake muttered something under his breath, but Paula Richards merely chuckled. She put her arm round his shoulders and gently guided him down the steps towards the door, where his mother was waiting, briefcase in hand.

"I think it means it's better to be seen, but not heard," the librarian remarked privately in his ear.

Blake nodded, then glanced over his shoulder at the manuscript in its glass coffin. "I still think it's a boy," he murmured to himself.

The sun was shining brightly when at last they emerged from the library.

Paula Richards held the door open for Mephistopheles, who was undecided whether or not to go out. He stretched lazily, half in and half out of the door, although Blake noticed that she finally nudged him out with her foot.

"The library is no place for the likes of you," she told the cat warningly.

Blake grinned. He remembered her telling him how Mephistopheles had once been trapped in the library overnight and left her a "little present," which it wasn't part of her duty to clear up.

Juliet Winters led Duck and Blake down the steps and round a small circular lawn that faced the library. A warm breeze followed them through the trees and cast a shimmering pattern of light and shade on the path. Mephistopheles bounded ahead, leapfrogging over shadows.

They passed under a stone archway, thick with matted cobwebs, and continued along the side of an immense building with protruding diamond-paned windows: the dining hall. A stairwell led up to the main doors, which were stippled with carved roses, but they carried on, round the buttery, until they came to a long, covered passageway.

This was the oldest part of the college, dating back to the fourteenth century, when St. Jerome's was home to an order of Benedictine monks. Back then, it had been a warren of stone buildings with neatly tended herb gardens and cloistered passages leading to the chapel; now, it was a good place to whoop and holler, since the low ceilings and colonnaded walkways rang out with echoes.

Blake raced ahead, disturbing centuries of peace and quiet.

To his right, dusty staircases spiraled up to what had once been the monks' dormitories, but were now book-lined offices, while, to his left, a series of stone arches gave way to a central plot of land, in which a giant plane tree was growing. A bench had been positioned beneath its lowest branches — "for quiet comtemplation," his mother had said, meaning it was not for him or Duck to clamber on.

Almost exactly opposite, just visible through a screen of ivy, was the Old Library. A series of jagged curves, like teeth, had been carved around its entrance, making it resemble a snarling lion. A low wooden door, slatted with iron bolts, barred the way in. Blake longed to see inside — he could imagine all sorts of treasures on its shelves — but like many things in Oxford it was closed to tourists, and especially children.

Blake did not wait for his mother to catch up, but stepped into an adjoining courtyard. He gazed up at the honey-colored walls. As always, the college reminded him of a castle. Stone battlements crowned with square towers engulfed him on all sides. Gargoyles grinned at him from the gutters. They weren't drooling rainwater today, which was fortunate, but basking in the strong sunlight.

Blake closed his eyes and, like them, let the warm air cushion his cheeks.

"Come on, Quasimodo," his mother called out, turning unexpectedly towards the Fellows' Garden. Duck giggled and screwed up her face at him before following their mother. Blake charged after them.

The Fellows' Garden was a private area extending behind the chapel to the eastern edge of the college, where a tiny door opened on to a tree-lined boulevard that divided St. Jerome's from its neighbors, St. Guineforte's and Frideswide Hall. Thick walls guarded the flowerbeds from view, although Blake could detect a faint summery sweetness in the air.

"Aren't you going to the Porter's Lodge?" he asked, trying to redirect their steps towards the small building inside the main gate, where the post arrived. It was unlikely that a letter from his father would have been delivered since that morning, but he wanted to make sure.

"I thought we'd go for a short stroll instead," answered his mother, shading her eyes with her hand. "Then walk back to the house. It's such nice weather. It'd be a shame to waste it."

She turned to unlock the gate.

Blake was happy to get some exercise — the previous weeks had been rainy and cold, and they'd traveled in on a bus each day — but he wasn't in a hurry to return to Millstone Lane. The house there didn't feel like home yet. It was damp and dreary, no matter what the weather, and there wasn't even a TV or computer to keep him company during the long evenings.

"Well, can I go and check?" he said. He knew he was pushing his luck and scraped a line in the gravel with the toe of his shoe.

The key grated in the lock.

"Oh, go on," she said, "but be quick. We'll wait for you over here."

She indicated a stretch of grass just inside the wrought-iron gate, where a few late flowers were soaking up the sun. Blake nodded and dashed back the way he had come.

It was about time a letter reached them. They had been in Oxford for almost two weeks now and he'd already written several postcards home. He'd not been able to say as much as he wanted to, since his large, loopy handwriting filled up the space too quickly. Worse, his words left a lot unsaid. He wasn't sure whether he ought to tell his father how he liked the college, Mrs. Richards and the library — or how much he missed home. He hadn't many friends at ForestHeightsSchool, so he wasn't particularly lonely, but it still felt kind of weird to be skipping the start of the new year. What if everyone thought he'd failed?

Yet even his dad had recommended the break. "Oxford's a great place," he'd said when the opportunity first came up. "You never know, you might enjoy it. Think of it as an adventure."

Duck had agreed. "Alice in Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings," she'd said, listing her favorite titles. "They were written there. I can't wait to go!"

Blake, however, was not so sure. Nor really, had he known it, was his father. The smile on his father's face that morning had been faraway and sad, and there was a quiver of doubt — or defeat — in his voice.

Blake tried to block out the memory. The lodge was a short distance ahead and he sprinted towards it.

A man with dark curly hair had arrived moments before him. Dressed in a black leather jacket that made a crunchy sound when he moved, he sauntered up to the main counter and deposited an iridescent green helmet, like a decapitated head, on its surface.

The porter was busy slipping letters into a number of pigeon-holes on the wall behind him and signaled the motorcyclist to wait.

Drumming his fingers on the countertop, the visitor turned to survey the room.

Blake, streaking past a pile of suitcases near the door, met the stranger's cool, confident gaze and skidded to a halt. He looked away in confusion and went over to check a laminated sign that had caught his eye. It had been created on a special notice board in the corner.

The poster welcomed members of the Ex Libris Society to its annual conference, to be held conjointly at St. Jerome's and AllSoulsColleges throughout the week, and featured a prominent image of an enormous Bible on a fancy wooden desk. A caption at the bottom read: "Notable speakers to include Sir Giles Bentley, Whose Mortal Taste? First Editions & Forbidden Fruit and Prosper Marchand, Gutenberg's Dying Words: The E-book and the Virtual Library."

Blake was reminded of the blank book he had found in the college library and wondered whether this could be of any interest to the society. Probably not, he gathered, judging from the lavish tome on the poster: that book had a burnished silver binding, inlaid with rubies and pearls, whereas his own had a broken clasp and moldering brown cover.

He was interrupted in his reverie by Bob Barrett, the porter, who had finished sorting through the post and turned to greet the visitors. "Right," he said. "Sorry about the delay. And you, sir, are…?"

"Professor Prosper Marchand," responded the man, as though he needed no introduction.

Blake whirled round. Sure enough, the man in the leather jacket matched the name on the poster. He had been watching Blake with an amused expression and now winked. Blake blushed.

"And this," continued Prosper Marchand, indicating a tall, birdlike woman who had entered behind them, "is Dr. Adrienne de Jonghe of the Coster Institute in Holland. We're members of the Ex Libris Society."

"Dr. deJonghe waded on stork-thin legs in front of Blake and shook hands with the professor.

The porter, all smiles, asked the visitors to sign a register in front of them and then handed them each a clear plastic folder containing various conference materials and a guide to the college, on which he had marked the shortest routes to their rooms. Finally, he told them the access code to the library and other main buildings, before passing them their keys. The professors promptly gathered their things and left.

The porter let out a sigh as soon as the door was closed. "Goodness, Blake, they've been arriving all day, they have. From all over the world. I've been run off my feet. Who'd have thought so many people would be interested in a few books?"

Blake was gazing out of the window. He could see the Dutch scholar bending down to stroke Mephistopheles, who curled seductively around her legs, but Prosper Marchand was nowhere to be seen. An engine soon revved in the street, however, and roared into the distance.

Bob was a short, stocky man in his mid-fifties, with just a smudge of a mustache beneath his nose. His shirtsleeves had been rolled up to reveal a dragon tattoo on one wrist and a spinach-green anchor on the other. He rubbed his hands together and grinned at the boy. "Now then, Blake, what can I do for you?"

Blake glanced wistfully at the pigeonholes behind the counter. "Is there a letter for me?" he asked, suddenly feeling hesitant and shy.

Even though his dad made a point of calling them every evening, he wanted to receive a special letter — something personal, in writing — to help him make sense of their present situation. His parents were barely speaking to each other and he needed some assurance that everything would be all right.

The porter gave him a sympathetic smile. "I don't think so, but you never know. It's always worth another look."

While Bob bent down to check the slot that had been temporarily assigned to "Dr. Juliet Winters and Family," Blake busied himself by studying the tags on the suitcases near the door: Australia, India, Russia, Japan…People from all over the world were converging on the college for the conference, while his dad — the only person he really cared to see — was thousands of miles away. It wasn't fair. They would never be a family without him.

"Well, wouldn't you know it," said Bob, springing up again like a puppet. "There's something for you after all. How did it find its way in there.?"

He winked at Blake, whose heart leaped at the discovery. The boy grabbed the letter.

Almost immediately, he knew it was not from home. There were no airmail stripes on the envelope and the handwriting was too fussy and feminine to be from his father. A graphic designer, Christopher Winters had distinctive lettering that reminded Blake of circus animals in a procession: his Js swung their trunks like elephants and his Qs sat like fat owls on branches. Everything he touched turned into a work of art.

Blake frowned. This letter was addressed to "Dr. Juliet Somers & Child" and appeared to be an invitation to some formal engagement.

"Not what you wanted, eh?" said Bob, reading the look of disappointment on his face.

Blake didn't respond. He was having trouble swallowing. It didn't really surprise his that the envelope mentioned only one child — Duck was the obvious choice — but it upset him to think that his mother was using her maiden name here in Oxford. He wondered if there had been a mistake, but deep down he knew that she probably preferred it this way.

He glanced at the porter. "No, not really. But maybe tomorrow," he said, almost managing a smile.

3

"It's a reminder about the dinner tonight," said Juliet Winters, reading the letter. "You two are invited and so, it seems, is Sir Giles Bentley. He's the guest of honor."

Duck skipped ahead, pleased to know she would get a chance to show off to the college professors, but Blake lagged behind. He didn't want to go to a stuffy old dinner and meet yet more grown-ups who were either impressed with his mother's books or else astonished by Duck's intelligence. As usual, he would spend most of the time unnoticed. What's more, he didn't want to be introduced to anyone as Dr. Somers' kid. It surprised him that his mother hadn't mentioned it.

"It says only one child on the envelope," he tried. "Do I have to go?"

"Of course you do. It's simply an oversight or a misprint; you know how these things happen."

No, he didn't know how these things happened — but they seemed to happen to him an awful lot.

Juliet Winters noticed the skeptical expression on his face and waited for him to catch up. "The college understands perfectly well that I have two children," she said testily, putting an arm around him to speed him up. "Everyone will be expecting you to come, just as I'll be expecting you to be on your best behavior."

"Who is Giles Bentley?" asked Duck, skipping back to join them.

"Sir Giles," her mother corrected her, "was keeper of Books in the Bodleian Library for many years. He's retired now, but by all accounts is the same crotchety old curmudgeon he always was. I don't want you going anywhere near him."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

Blake could tell that his mother didn't want to discuss the matter further, but Duck had already formed the next question on her lips."

"Why don't you like him so much?"

"Oh, Duck, if you really must know," said her mother, fighting to control her temper, "he interfered with some research your father and I were doing when we were students. He acquired an important manuscript we needed to consult, but refused to let us see it."

They were walking along a shady path near the back of the Fellows' Garden. At the sound of her voice a few timorous birds flew out from the undergrowth, shrilling their displeasure.

"It was an important document," she said more softly. "It could have made our careers. Yet still he kept it from us."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know!" She scowled at a fir tree leaning over the other plants. "Power, perhaps. Or greed. Sir Giles learned long ago that it was possible to make more money by purchasing rare books for his own collection than by sharing them with others."

Juliet Winters motioned them towards an old wooden door set into a mossy wall. Savage spikes jutted above it in an iron crown. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a set of keys.

"Sir Giles' decision set me back — who knows how long — years, probably," she said irritably. "It was all I could do to scrape my way back, but your father…well, he just gave up."

Blake was stunned. He was having a hard time imagining his parents agreeing on anything, let alone a research project, but now he wanted to know what they had hoped to accomplish. It sounded important.

His mother stabbed a key in the lock and twisted it. "I'd still like to get my hands on the manuscript," she said, forcing the door open with her shoulder.

They passed through onto a wide boulevard lined with trees that were gradually losing their leaves. Some had knobbly trunks with bumps and warts of wood; others jigsaws of gray and green bark. An old black-framed bicycle had been propped against a nearby post and Duck raced towards it. She couldn't resist ringing its bell. It let out a dry, rusty croak.

"What book was it?" asked Blake tactfully. "The book you wanted, I mean."

"It wasn't a book," said his mother, ushering them towards the end of the road, where Blake could see the dark silver dome and spires of the city center. "It was a manuscript belonging to a monk who lived in Oxford during the Middle Ages."

Blake stopped. "A monk?" he asked, remembering the mysterious book he had found in the library. It had looked hundreds of years old too. Perhaps the two were related?

A tremor of excitement crept through him.

"What was his name?"

"Ignatius," she said, much to his disappointment. His face fell. She regarded him curiously for a moment. "Why the sudden interest?"

Blake pretended to study a leaf floating belly up in a puddle. He could still feel the weight of the blank book in his hands; the memory haunted him. "No reason," he said, unwilling to divulge his discovery to anyone just yet.

His mother shrugged. "Well, it's a fascinating story. Ignatius claimed to have seen the Devil entering the city with a book of forbidden knowledge on his back. No one believed him, of course, and no one ever found the book. It's a piece of apocrypha really. But I was interested in it because of my research on Faust."

"Who?" said Blake, looking up.

"Faust," said Duck, showing off. "He sold his soul to the Devil."

"Did not," muttered Blake, and swung his knapsack in her direction. She ran off, squealing.

His mother gave him a warning glance. "Duck's right. According to some, Faust was a German necromancer who craved all the knowledge and power in the world, made a pact with the Devil and was dragged down to everlasting hellfire by a legion of devils."

Blake's eyes lit up. He didn't know what a necromancer was, but he could imagine a sorcerer dabbling with black magic and being consumed by a ring of fire.

"And Dad?" he asked. "What did he think of the manuscript?"

"Your father had a much more speculative theory," answered his mother, more evasively. "He believed there was some truth to the legend and thought he could prove it."

Blake's heart was pounding fiercely inside him. Perhaps his dad had hoped to find the forbidden book? Perhaps he knew where it was hidden?

"And did he?" he asked breathlessly.

"He never got the chance." His mother snorted contemptuously. "Sir Giles saw to that."

Blake kicked at a twig that had fallen to the ground.

"It would have made his reputation had he been right," his mother added regretfully, "but…" Her voice broke off and she gazed at the scaly branches of an overhanging tree. "But he was probably wrong."

Blake blinked in surprise. He wanted to know much more about his father's ideas, but Duck was more interested in Sir Giles Bentley's collection of books.

"Like, how much do you think Sir Giles's books are worth?" she asked.

Her mother shook her head. "No one knows precisely what Sir Giles paid for the Ignatius manuscript, not even where he found it," she said, "but his private library is rumored to be worth more than a million pounds."

Duck whistled. "What does he do with all his books?"

"He's a collector," responded her mother. "He doesn't necessarily do anything with them."

Blake glanced at Duck, appalled.

"It's the thrill of the chase that excites him," their mother continued. "He hunts down rare books like endangered species and exhibits them on his shelves. They're like gold in the bank."

Duck's eyes lit up greedily. "Do you think we can see his books, if we ask nicely?" She was proud of her collection at home and probably wanted to compare notes.

"You can ask him whatever you like," said Juliet Winters, glancing at the invitation in her hands. "He's giving a special lecture this week. But I wouldn't waste your breath: he doesn't share his collection with anyone."

They came to a broad street interspersed with stone-fronted colleges and tall tilting shops, all selling the same merchandise: Oxford jerseys, Oxford scarves and Oxford teddy bears. Tourists flocked from one to the other, shepherded by guides with colorful umbrellas.

Even though Blake knew his way around the city now, he still felt like a foreigner himself. His accent made him stand out like a flag. Nevertheless, he was beginning to appreciate life in Oxford. Inside each tawny college lay a forgotten world of libraries, chapels and dining halls. It was like stepping back in time. He kept expecting to bump into people with powdered wigs, silk stockings and dark robes — like caped crusaders from long ago.

Unexpectedly, his mother stopped. She was standing next to a secondhand bookshop, staring at a display of fine leather books and novels in torn dust jackets. Before he could prevent her, she had gone inside, telling him to look after Duck. There was something she wanted to look at. "I'll only be a minute," she called out over her shoulder as the door jangled shut behind her.

Blake rolled his eyes. He'd heard that one before.

Annoyed, he wandered over to the curb and started swinging round an old-fashioned lamppost, letting the city swirl past him in a blur of sensations.

It felt liberating to be outside. During the previous weeks, he'd seen mostly dun-colored museums and waterlogged statues from the misted heights of a double-decker bus. This afternoon, however, the city blazed with life: colleges glowed under an azure sky and pigeons spiraled round the towers on whistling wings. Golden clock faces, scattered around the streets, told a multitude of times.

And then he saw him.

The man was sitting close to the bookshop, reading what looked to be an old battered book. Blake slowed to a crawl — then stopped completely.

The stranger was dressed in a brown leather robe and had an unfashionably long, scraggly beard. Despite the heat, he was wearing a peculiar hat that looked like sort of like a nightcap with a fur trim on it. Blake had never seen anything like it before. It was as if one of the many statues in the city had come to life and was resting unnoticed on the pavement. Was he homeless?

All the while the boy stared at him, the man didn't move, didn't even turn a page, but concentrated on his book. In fact, he could have been carved out of stone; he was motionless.

Most of the people passing by didn't pay him any attention, but those who did dropped a few coins at his feet and hurried on. The silver coins glistened like gobs of spit on the ground. The man, however, neither noticed their looks nor pocketed their change. He was lost in his own private world.

A wiry hound with perky ears lay on a tattered blanket beside him, a bright red bandanna wrapped around its neck. Duck walked straight up to it.

"I like your dog," she said, bending down to stroke the animal, which thumped its tail lethargically.

Even then, the man didn't look up, but continued reading. He clutched the volume in grubby fingers that looked like gnarled tree roots.

"Duck!" hissed Blake, trying not to disturb or offend the old man. The dog might have fleas, or, worse, might bite her; but neither possibility really worried him. He was much more concerned with what his mother would say if she found Duck talking to a stranger. He was supposed to be looking after her, after all.

"Duck!" he hissed again.

This time she heard him and looked up, smiling.

"What's your dog's name?" she said, but still the man ignored her.

Blake went to drag her away by the arm.

Then, suddenly, the man lifted his head. It was as if he had come to the end of a complex sentence or an extremely long paragraph. He looked at Blake with an expression that was not altogether hostile, but not entirely friendly either. It was a searching, penetrating gaze, as though he was surprised to find a young boy standing in front of him, casting a shadow over his book. He seemed to have woken up from a deep sleep.

Blake felt uncomfortable and immediately turned away, pulling Duck after him.

Just then the shop door opened and Juliet Winters returned, without the book she had wanted. She gave the man a quick, dismissive glance and led the children away.

"What did he want?" she asked idly as they drifted towards the main shopping area and blended in with the crowds.

Blake didn't answer. He had looked back just once — as they were crossing a side street — and was alarmed to see that the man was following them with his eyes.

4

Blake tried his best to ignore Duck. She had assumed that smug expression she sometimes got when she knew she had a secret he would want to hear, and which she was secretly dying to tell; but, as usual, she would wait for him to beg her for it first. He decided to ask his mother about the book she had wanted instead.

"Oh, it was a book I used to like when I was a girl," she said vaguely, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "A book about butterflies. I saw it in the shop window and it brought back some memories. Only, I don't have time to read such things now. I have more pressing things to do instead."

"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.

5

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?"

He dodged through the crowd to avoid detection.

He ended up by a large window and pulled back an edge of curtain to peer outside. It would be the perfect opportunity to escape. There were so many people in the room; no one would notice the disappearance of a small boy.

Just then, he became aware of a woman with silver hair standing beside him. In a sensuous voice that made his skin shiver, she said, "You must be Blake. I am Diana, Sir Giles Bentley's wife."

The sound seemed to settle like snow on the back of his neck and he looked up, mesmerized by the feel of it. She wasn't wearing a gown like the other members of the college, but had draped a cream-colored shawl across her shoulders instead. It was fastened together with a mall silver clasp, fashioned into the shape of a delicate butterfly. Blake studied it admiringly. Its papery wings seemed so lifelike; they appeared to move.

She indicated a man in a special robe with gold embroidery on its sleeves, who was standing in the center of the room, surrounded by a large number of people. Blake gulped. Sir Giles Bentley: he had a shock of white hair, glowering dark eyebrows and eyes as hard as gemstones. Arms folded across his chest, he was huffing and puffing in response to some other man — a cringing scholar in an ill-fitting, toad-colored suit. Paula Richards, the librarian, stood between them, trying to keep them apart.

"They're disagreeing about editions of Goblin Market," said Diana Bentley with a lisp that again seemed to tickle the back of Blake's neck.

"What market?" he asked, not understanding what she meant.

"Goblin Market," she repeated. "It's one of my favorite poems, written by Christina Rossetti in 1862. It's about two sisters who are tempted to eat exotic fruit offered them by little goblin greengrocers. 'Come buy, come buy,' they sing to the girls, one of whom succumbs and the languishes from hunger. The language is wonderful. Lurid and alluring. Of course, it can be read on different levels."

Blake understood even less of what she was saying and felt his attention begin to wander. While his ears listened faintly to what she told him, his eyes roamed the room.

Yet more members of the Ex Libris Society had arrived. All around him were murmurs about the future of books, which seemed to be threatened because of a new plan to digitalize the Bodleian Library's collection. As Blake watched, Prosper Marchand, one of the leaders of the digitalization project, made a beeline for his mother, with two glasses of wine in his outstretched hands.

Suddenly Sir Giles roared with rage. "Puce, I tell you! Christina's copy was puce! You, sir, are an ignoramus!"

Sputters of confusion circled the room. A short middle-aged woman with lank, brown hair, who appeared to have just stepped off her broom, jumped slightly and remarked to her companion in a voice like a squeaky balloon, "I wish he wouldn't do that. He frightens me to death!"

Diana, however, seemed unfazed by the outbreak.

"Giles," she continued softly, taking Blake's arm, "believes that the first edition of Goblin Market is the only one scholars should refer to; but I prefer a later version, because the illustrations make the goblins appear more sinister, more beguiling, and therefore more dangerous." She smiled and he nodded, thinking this was somehow an appropriate reaction.

Without his noticing, she had led him away from the window towards a large table spread with food. A butler was busily removing lids from plates crammed with lobster, monkfish and orange-glazed duck, accompanied by mountains of steaming vegetables.

What fascinated Blake even more, however, was the selection of fruit. Apart from the usual pineapples, plums and peaches were things he had never seen before: fruit shaped like stars and others like spiky sponges. There were also orange berries partially hidden inside leafy cages that looked like paper lanterns. He like the look of these especially. It was just like the goblin market Diana Bentley had been describing.

As if confirming his thoughts, the woman hummed "Come buy, come buy" while her eyes traveled up and down the table. "It's a splendid feast," she said to him, and then rejoined her husband near a tureen of pumpkin and coriander soup.

Blake piled his plate high with food and started to eat.

"I'm surprised she didn't offer you Turkish delight," muttered Duck as soon as she joined him. "I don't like her. She seems icy."

Blake shrugged. "You're just jealous because she didn't pay you any attention."

"Yeah, right."

"What is Turkish delight, anyway?" he asked with his mouth full, to change the topic.

"That stuff," said Duck, pointing to a plate covered with squares of orange and purplish jelly coated in icing sugar. "Only evil characters in books like it."

"Oh yeah?" he said, grinning. Unable to resist the temptation, he reached for a piece and shoveled the large shivery portion into his mouth.

"Don't!" squealed Duck.

Immediately, he wished he hadn't. It tasted awful! The spicy sweetness of the jelly made his teeth twinge. He went to search for a glass of water to rinse his mouth. When he returned, he found Paula Richards deep in conversation with Duck, who was still keeping an eye on the Turkish delight.

To avoid them, he moved over to the selection of fruit. Even though the star-shaped fruit looked tempting, he took one of the lantern-like berries instead, wondering what it would taste like. He hesitated, then plopped it into his mouth.

An elderly gentleman behind him gasped.

Blake turned round, with the orange berry stuck like a gobstopper between his teeth. The man was holding his cheek as if he had a toothache. He looked at Blake and winked. "I defy you to bite that," he said. "It tastes just like shampoo!"

Blake bit down and grimaced. The berry burst in a bubble of flesh that tasted at first sweet, then sour, then slightly sweet again, before finally leaving a bitter residue in his mouth. Shampoo was a good word for it. He loved the sensation and immediately took another.

"They're known as winter cherries," the man explained in a deep, benevolent voice. "The appellation makes them sound sweet and appetizing, I find, but nothing prepares you for that ghastly taste! Never trust a euphemistically named fruit, that's what I say."

"I like them," said Blake dumbly, even though one side of his mouth felt curiously numb.

"You must be Juliet's son," said the man, as though the contradictory remark had proved the point. "My name is Jolyon. I used to teach your mother."

He extended a hand so large and strong it seemed to engulf the boy's. Blake could feel the bones in his hand compressing like the quills of a fan and only barely managed to wriggle free. Without another word, the professor moved to a plump leather armchair in the center of the room, away from the assembled members of the Ex Libris Society. Blake trailed after him, as if pulled by a gravitational force. He sat down next to him and gave the man a closer look.

Jolyon's gown was shabby and frayed, with long threads dangling from the armpits like untidy spiderwebs. Beneath this, he wore a tweed jacket with a checked shirt and stained tie. Apart from his coarse white hair, which stood up in crests and waves like an unruly sea, he looked just like an overgrown boy who had dressed up in layers of oversized clothing. Blake liked him.

The professor remained silent and thoughtful for a while, with his eyes closed. Blake knew he oughtn't to interrupt, but a question was rattling around inside his brain and gradually he built up the confidence to ask it.

"Um, was my mother a good student?" he asked, with a shy smile that broadened into a mischievous grin.

The professor opened one eye and said quizzically, "It depends on how you define good."

Blake shifted uncomfortably where he sat, and groaned. Like his parents, the professor was getting him to define his words more accurately. It was a game he didn't like much, since he wasn't very good at it.

The old man, noticing his distress, relented. "I beg your pardon. It's a trick I play when I feel my students haven't formulated their questions properly. Sometimes it's more difficult to know the question than to find an answer."

Blake gave him a puzzled look.

"Your mother was Juliet Somers then," explained the man, unmindful of the man's confusion. "She was a capable, clever and highly motivated student, who finished her dissertation in good time, I believe, despite your father's efforts."

Jolyon glanced at Blake to see if he understood the last remark and was confronted by two amazingly light blue eyes, as watchful as mirrors.

Taken aback, he continued in a softer voice, speaking more honestly than Blake had expected, "She was, I dare say, even then, more conscious of her career than her vocation. I am not sure that she loved books, but she analyzed what was in them very well. Still, without that passion, she was never, I fear, my best student."

It felt odd to hear someone criticizing his mother and Blake looked around the room uneasily until he spotted her. There she was, still talking to Prosper Marchand, who was now offering her a glass of ruby-colored port. They appeared to be on familiar terms. Too familiar, perhaps. Blake scowled.

"No, that distinction," resumed Jolyon, "goes to your father. He was my most promising student."

Blake's eyes zipped back to the old man's face. "My Dad?" he asked, thinking he had misheard.

The professor eyed him astutely. "Oh, yes, your father had a most remarkable imagination. Not always accurate, mind, but blessed with an insight I have rarely seen."

Insight. The resonated in Blake's mind, reminding him of the blank book he had found in the library. It had appeared in the final line of the poem.

Suddenly a grandfather clock started to chime the hour. It sounded so old and frail Blake thought it would expire before it reached the last toll. Seven, eight, nine o'clock…The numbers wheezed by, accompanied by a prolonged bronze echo.

Jolyon, following his gaze, seemed alarmed to notice the time. "Good heavens," he said. "I had no idea."

Blake was momentarily distracted.

"Huh?" he said. He had just caught sight of Duck tugging on Sir Giles Bentley's sleeve. The old man looked down at her with barely concealed contempt. His stare would have crushed a lesser opponent. Diana stood nearby, observing them both with mild detachment.

Jolyon staggered to his feet. "You'll forgive me, I hope, if I make a hasty departure." Once again, he extended a hand, which this time Blake noticed was spattered with ink. "It's been a pleasure, my boy."

"Um, yeah," said Blake, sorry to see him go. There were still so many things he wanted to know about his parents.

The man clearly sensed his disappointment, for he said, "You appear to have more questions in you yet. Why not come round to my office once you know precisely what you want to know." He seemed to appreciate the riddle in the last part of this sentence and winked. Chortling softly to himself, he began to walk away.

For some reason, the question slipped out before Blake could prevent it. Immediately he wished the words unsaid, but there they were, out in the open, hovering in the space between them.

"What is Endymion Spring?"

What is Endymion Spring? The professor wheeled round sharply and stared at the boy, astonished. Evidently, this was not the question he had been expecting.

Blake backed away. For a moment he thought he could detect a glimmer of desire on the man's face — a lean, hungry look that reminded him of the homeless man outside the bookshop. Luckily, this was wiped clean almost instantly and was replaced by a more affectionate expression.

"Who is Endymion Spring?" the man repeated, the name quivering on his lips. A hint of worry still troubled his brow.

Blake nodded.

Jolyon looked around the room apprehensively. "Now is neither the time nor the place," he whispered finally, scrunching his hands together and then plunging them deep into the folds of his gown. "We must talk about him…later."

With that, he rushed away, although Blake could tell that he was still agitated, since he almost forgot which way to go.

So Endymion Spring was a person and not a season, he thought to himself. He was probably the author of the book, then and not the title. But how could anyone be the author of a blank book?

There was only one way to find out. Blake would have to go to the library, find the volume and figure out its riddle. It was now or never.

Checking to make sure that no one was watching, he moved towards the door. Just before he slipped out, he glanced at the plate of Turkish delight.

No one, it seemed, had touched it.

6

It was colder outside than Blake had expected. After the warm glow of the Master's Lodgings the air felt chilly, almost like winter, and he hugged himself to keep warm.

Moonlight dusted the college paths and he stumbled clumsily, trying to negotiate his way in the silver-dark. Shadows clustered all around him. He didn't want to switch on his torch until he was safely concealed inside the library, just in case he got in trouble for sneaking out on his own.

The cloisters loomed ahead and he hurried towards them.

As he passed down the first dark-beamed passageway, he stopped. It was like a doubt tapping him on the back, making him turn round. Someone was following him.

He stood perfectly still, listening carefully.

Nothing. Not a whisper.

Then, peering stealthily around a column, he checked the doorway of the Old Library on the opposite side of the garden. Only the faint toothlike striations in the stone were visible, taking a bite out of the night. Otherwise, there was nothing. No one was there. It must have been his imagination.

He carried on. Stairwells climbed into the darkness around him, while footsteps — his own — scratched the paving stones and rebounded off the walls, pursuing him as echoes. He started walking faster.

Reaching the next courtyard, he took a moment to steady himself. Buildings that were familiar in the daytime were now unrecognizable shadows. Trees shivered: black, batlike rustlings. His heart was beating fast.

Spotting the library, a wall of darkness in the distance, he ran towards it.

As his feet tripped up the steps, he saw the illuminated keypad by the door, its numbers lit up like eyes. The college no longer used keys for the main buildings, but had installed a high-tech entry-code system instead. Rather foolishly, he thought, the code was the same for each building, since the students and absentminded professors couldn't remember more than one number. In any case, he was lucky, since his mother had made him memorize the sequence so that he and Duck could get in and out of the library on their own.

He entered the number — 6305XZ — and heard the door click open. With a sigh of relief, he slipped inside.

The library, as he had imagined, was totally dark.

The first thing he heard was the sound of the clock ticking softly. It reminded him of a slow, rhythmic heartbeat. He relaxed.

Dimming his torch so that it would not shine through any of the windows, he swept the beam across the hall. The light made the books on the shelves appear silver, ghostlike. The central staircase sloped away from him, up into total darkness, but he took the left-hand corridor instead, past the portraits of Thomas Sternhold and Jeremiah Wood. Eyes glinted at him briefly and then disappeared as he crept along the book-lined corridor, past other portraits, further into shadow.

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."

He started rubbing his arms up and down, wondering if she would believe him. She didn't. He stopped his play-acting.

"How angry is she?" he asked, motioning towards his mother.

"Pretty angry," said Duck. "She's stopped talking to the other professors."

That was a bad sign. It meant she was really angry — angry beyond words. The worst kind of angry.

"Where were you really?" asked Duck in a different voice, more curious.

"I told you. I went out for a walk."

He watched as his mother went to fetch her coat. She met his apologetic grin with a steely expression. The smile died almost instantly on his face.

"No, you didn't," said Duck. "You went to the library."

"Huh?"

Blake pretended not to listen, but his red cheeks were a dead giveaway.

"You went to the library," she said. "I know you did. You thought you could outsmart me by finding the blank book and solving the mystery all by yourself. You idiot! I saw you go."

He frowned. "What?"

"I saw you," she crowed. "You thought you were so sneaky, but I was watching the whole time. You're so stupid — it's a joke."

Suddenly he turned on her. "So you were the person in the library!" he cried. "I could kill you, I really could."

Several people turned, appalled by the vehemence of his words, but he couldn't control himself. The fear that had been growing inside him had found a release.

"Why did you do that?" he hollered. "You scared me half to death!"

Something in Duck's eyes made him stop. They were suddenly large and fearful, on the verge of tears. She had no idea what he was talking about.

Immediately, he realized his mistake. She hadn't seen him leave; she'd merely said this to make him feel bad. She was probably jealous because he'd been able to evade her watchful gaze and sneak out without her.

She was about to add something when their mother returned, her coat folded over her arm. Without a word, she led them out.

"I'll deal with you later," she told him icily as they followed her down the garden path. Her words hovered in the air like a frosty cloud.

7

That night, Blake awoke with a start. The book was summoning him.

Sitting up in bed, he switched on the light and blinked as the stripes on his bedroom wallpaper reappeared, one by one, like the bars of a prison. And then he remembered: the book was gone. He'd failed to find it. He let his head fall back against the pillow with a crushing sense of disappointment.

In his dream, the college library had been transformed into a magical forest. Tall trees lined the corridors, reaching up the walls, extending their brilliant canopies across the ceiling. Books filled the shelves, which were made from vast, interlocking branches. As he walked through the library, red, gold and vivid green scraps of paper drifted to the floor like autumn leaves.

Birds chattered noisily in the air above him, hopping from one branch to another; but then, in an explosion of wings, they suddenly shot off into the air, leaving the branches — the shelves — as silent and bare as winter. The building was cold and empty, apart from the blank book, which was once again lying on the floor, waiting for him to turn it over.

Mephistopheles sauntered along the corridor to meet him, a scarp of paper dangling from his mouth like a feather.

Blake shuddered at the recollection, convinced the book was trying to reach him. Then, realizing that the shiver had as much to do with the temperature of his room as his nerves, he crept to the foot of his bed to switch on the radiator beneath the window. It was freezing!

He turned the dial and waited for the primitive fossil-like coils to heat up, unused to such antiquated devices at home. The pipes groaned and quivered for a moment and then slowly filled with warmth. It was like the ghost of heat, barely noticeable, but it was better than nothing.

To ease his mind, he peered out through a gap in the blinds. Street lamps spilled pools of yellow light onto Millstone Lane and a dog barked somewhere in a neighboring yard. Otherwise, there was no sign of life. The houses were dark and deserted. Everyone was asleep.

It was the middle of the night.

Blake settled back in bed and stared at the cracks that crept along the ceiling like giant spiders. It unnerved him that the blank book had disappeared so soon after he had found it. The book had felt unusual, as though it might contain anything. The paper had an ability to make hidden words come alive, a magical power he couldn't begin to comprehend. It was as though it had contained a mind of its own — a djinn, perhaps. Some secret power. But how was that possible?

He let out a long sigh. The book was gone. He'd missed his chance to solve it.

He switched off the light and lay in the dark, a feeling of inadequacy settling over him like a blanket. And then, in the silence of his room, he became aware of a soft secretive sound spitting against the outside of his window. It might be snow, or it might be rain. But it was so nice and warm in his bed, and he felt so tired, that he didn't get up to see what it was.

His mind dissolved into the outer edges of another dream.

He was back in the library. Endymion Spring was waiting for him to pick it up.

Anxiously, before it could disappear, he curled his fingers round the worn leather spine and opened the covers. Automatically, the blank pages started riffling to reveal the riddle hidden at the heart of the book:

When Summer and Winter in Autumn divide

The Sun will uncover a Secret inside.

As Blake recited the words, he was instantly transported to a snowy scene, somewhere else, somewhere like home. White fields surrounded him like the pages of an open book and a frozen pond shone in the distance — a watermark dusted by a light sprinkling of snow.

Someone approached. Footsteps scrunched behind him. He turned round, just in time to see a clean-shaven man with a face like worn wood emerging from a fringe of frostbitten trees. The man was dressed in a fur-collared tunic with brown leggings and leather shoes that appeared to have no laces. He dragged a felled tree behind him.

Blake rubbed his eyes. The leaves were changing from blood-red to white as they passed over the snow.

On the man's shoulders sat a young girl with flaming auburn hair. She wore a filthy smock and had rust patches on her stockings. Tears clung to her cheeks. Her grim face softened into a smile when she saw Blake and she held out a grazed hand for him to hold, but her fingers passed through his like a ghost's, a whisper of contact, no more than a cobweb.

Blake took a step back and watched as the mad trudged by without a word — without a glance in his direction. The pair disappeared over the brow of a hill.

Suddenly, his parents were on either side of him. Blake gripped them with his mittened hands, but they broke free and without a word moved off in opposite directions, fading into the snow. Blake, wanted to run after them, to make them stop, but he was unable to choose which parent to follow and remained stuck in one spot. Tears welled in his eyes, icing his vision.

Then, through his misery, he glimpsed a gleam of yellow. Duck was there. Duck, as she had been since the Big Argument, her hood pulled up to hide her strange tomboy's haircut: a messy bob that no one could tame. She was peering at something in the snow, calling out for him to come and look, but her words were printed in clouds of breath and he read them rather than heard them.

He raced towards her, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not reach her. The snow was deep and his legs felt heavy. He was chained to the ground. Then she too vanished and he collapsed, too tired and lonely to go on.

The boundaries of his dream began to shift. A wind rose and Blake was suddenly lifted into the sky like a freed snow angel, watching as the field below him grew smaller and smaller. And then his heart lurched. For there, in the snow, ending exactly at the spot where Duck had disappeared, was a path of footprints.

They formed a giant question mark.

Immediately, his dream burst and he hurtled back towards the ground like a skydiver without a parachute. His head snowballed into his pillow.

Desperately, he clutched at the lines of Endymion Spring's poem, but the words faded and all he could remember was the snow.

He turned over and fell asleep again.