How to Live Forever (4 page)

‘Mother, is that you?' said the creature.

‘Yes, sweetheart,' said Bathline.

She knelt beside the pathetic figure and cradled his head in her frail arms.

‘Have you found a way?' it said.

‘No,' said the old woman. ‘But it will be soon. I have found someone else to take the book.'

Tears poured down her face and she cradled her child in her arms. They cried together, their tears running into each other's. Archimedes went over to them and put his nose to the child's face.

Peter felt tears behind his own eyes and crawled out of the room. The old woman didn't have to tell him, he had realised straight away. This sad figure had read the book and ‘the way' that he was referring to was a way to grow old and die.

‘That is Bardick, my own child,' said the old
woman when they had replaced the drawers and all the bricks and were back in her room again. ‘When the book came into my hands all those years ago, I thought it was a gift from God. My precious Bardick was about to die from an incurable disease and I thought if we read the book together he would be saved. Now you see the result. He has stayed on the point of death ever since. The book does not cure. It just freezes you in time. My beautiful boy ages, you saw the lines on his face, but he does not grow old, nor can he ever die. Since reading the book, he has eaten nothing, nor drunk a single drop, but he still cannot die, no more than I.'

‘Is there nothing you can do?' said Peter.

‘You must take the book to the Ancient Child,' she said. ‘Then will all those under its curse find peace and resolution.'

‘How do I find the Ancient Child?' said Peter.

‘I do not know,' said Bathline. ‘Do you think if I knew where he was, I would not have rushed to him many years ago?'

‘What about my father?' said Peter.

The old woman turned away but Peter grabbed her by the shoulders. She felt like a bag of sticks, the thin sticks his grandfather used to light the fire. Peter felt that if he held her too tight, she would crumble into a pile of dust.

‘Tell me,' he insisted.

‘Here,' said the old woman, reaching into her clothes. ‘Take this.'

She handed Peter a wristwatch. One half of its leather strap was missing and the other was cracked and broken. The hands were stopped at twenty past two, but there was no way of knowing if it had been the afternoon or the middle of the night.

‘This is his,' she said.

Peter stared open-mouthed at it.

‘It's broken,' he said.

‘No, it merely sleeps. When you reach the world where he is, its time will begin again. Now go,' she added, ‘and find the Ancient Child.'

‘But where do I start?'

‘Follow me,' Bathline shouted back at him. ‘Yes, yes, that is it. Follow me. I know the beginning but that is all I know.'

The old woman walked back down the corridor, counting the doors as they passed them. Twice she lost count and sent Peter back to her own door to count them again.

‘Seventy-three,' he said.

‘Ninety-two it must be,' said Bathline. ‘Yes, ninety-two.'

They came to the ninety-second door but it was locked.

‘Maybe it is ninety-three,' said Bathline, but that was locked too. ‘I cannot die, yet my memories do.'

After a few more attempts, Bathline thought it might be one hundred and ninety-two.

‘Yes, yes,' she said. ‘This is the place. It has the smell of the outside.'

Archimedes was already there, sitting by the door.

‘All this counting,' said the old woman, ‘when all we had to do was follow the cat.'

She opened a door but instead of another room it revealed a narrow staircase leading down into darkness.

‘Down you go,' she said and, taking Peter's hands in hers, she said, ‘You must tell no one of our meeting, not even your grandfather.'

‘But –' Peter began.

‘No, not even him,' said Bathline. ‘I know you love him with all your heart, but even he must not know about our meeting or the book.'

‘But he might be able to help,' said Peter.

‘No, no,' Bathline insisted. ‘He may, but it is too great a risk. He will be afraid he might lose you like he lost his son, so he may try and stop you going.'

‘Going?' said Peter. ‘Going where?'

‘I can say no more,' said Bathline.

She turned and hurried back up the corridor.

‘All will happen as it should,'she called, and as she
finally disappeared round the curve of the corridor, she added ominously, ‘even though it never has before.'

Peter stared at his father's watch. He turned it over and over, held it to his nose to see if there was some smell of his father. He tried to wind it up but it was already fully wound, even though the hands no longer moved.

His father's watch.

His father's fingers had touched it, wound it up and adjusted the time. With tears in his eyes, Peter put the watch in his pocket and followed Archimedes down the narrow stairs.

They came out in the gallery just by the apartment. The wall slid shut behind him and no matter how he looked, even with
his
expert eye, Peter could find no way of opening it again from the outside.

The apartment was dark when he entered and he lay in bed wondering what to do next. He had already decided that he wasn't going to tell his mother about the watch, but he couldn't decide about his grandfather.

It was impossible to sleep. It was a cold night and Peter's breath came out in small clouds, yet he felt on fire. He felt very far away even from his grandfather, from whom he had no secrets.

Not until now, that is.

He knew he was about to go away, though he hadn't the faintest idea where or when or even if he would come back again.

He felt tears running down his face and was surprised to find that he was crying. There had been so much racing round in his head that he hadn't even noticed. He wanted to climb into his mother's bed and have her cuddle him. He wanted to sit with his grandfather and tell him goodbye, but he knew he couldn't do either. Only Archimedes had been there, and he had run off as soon as they had got back to the apartment.

He lay in the darkness holding the book in both hands. Inside its prison of red velvet, Peter felt it move. The urge to tear away the ribbons grew stronger and stronger. He could hear Bathline's voice inside his head, replaying the same warning over and over again …

Promise me that, no matter what happens, no matter how desperate you feel, no matter who asks you, you will never, never, never read the book.

But another voice, darker and further away, told him the old lady was a fool. She was wrong and, besides, what harm could it do if he took a peek inside and just read a few words on the first page?

He felt for the end of the ribbon and rolled it between his fingers.

That's it, don't be afraid
, the dark voice said. There was something else too. He didn't know where the thought came from, but suddenly it was right there, filling up his head. He knew that he had to put his father's photo inside the book.

He turned on his bedside lamp for one last look. He stared into his father's smiling eyes, trying to decide what he was thinking. There on the wrist of his father's right arm was the watch that Bathline had given Peter. He held the watch up to the photo as if to show it to his father, but then felt foolish and put it back in his pocket.

He turned out the light and took the first ribbon off. Then he felt for the end of the second. As he unwrapped the book, the picture of Bardick, curled up in his pit of straw, filled his thoughts.

‘No!' he shouted.

He jumped off the bed and turned the light on. With the darkness gone, so was the temptation. He picked up his father's photo and, closing his eyes, slipped it into the book, forcing it between the pages without opening the covers. One by one he wrapped the ribbons back round the book, then went into the kitchen to get some string to tie it up even more tightly in a sea of knots.

There was a figure hunched over the table in the darkness. Peter's heart jumped.

His father? Was he in the museum all the time, hiding from them for reasons Peter couldn't imagine?

No, it was his grandfather. The old man was sitting very still and didn't hear Peter come up behind him. The boy stood watching him, hardly daring to breathe in case his grandfather heard him. It was obvious to Peter that this was a time when his grandfather wanted to be alone.

‘Will this ever end?' the old man whispered and let out a huge sigh.

As his grandfather muttered softly to himself, Peter tiptoed out of the room before the urge to go and throw his arms around the old man could overtake him.

He didn't go back to his bed. The book temporarily forgotten, he went down into the deserted museum. A great sadness came over him. Like all children, Peter had grown up thinking those he loved would be there forever, but now he realised they wouldn't be. His grandfather was going to die and, eventually, so was his mother.

Maybe we could all read the book
, he thought.

But Bathline's words came back to him: ‘You must not read the book, no matter who asks you to. You must promise me that you will never ever open its covers again.' And if that wasn't enough, there was the image of her child lying in the straw.

There must be exceptions
, Peter thought.

What if someone was ill, like his grandfather? Surely they could read the book? But Peter knew that even if the old man did read it and then lived forever, he would be like Bathline's son and still be ill and in pain. It would just go on and on and on and that would be worse.

No, Peter had to find the Ancient Child. Bathline had said he would fix everything.

That night the silence in the galleries seemed heavier than ever. There was no sign of Archimedes anywhere and even the fine dust that usually danced in the moonlight as Peter walked by lay still on the glass cases.

Come here.

It was the voice that had tried to get him to read the book. It was not really there like someone was speaking, but was inside Peter's head, and not nearby but far away in a distant corridor, calling him to come closer.

Peter felt himself walking along a path that he was not choosing. At each corner, he turned without thought, until he came to a place he hadn't visited for years. It was a side room off the main Egyptian gallery, a strange little room empty but for a chair and one glass case containing a mummified cat wrapped in faded bandages.

Sit down
, said the voice.
Relax.

Peter sat. He was very tired. He closed his eyes and felt himself falling asleep.

Do not sleep.

From behind him, through the wall itself, he felt large invisible arms wrap themselves around him. They seemed gentle at first but the grip tightened until Peter found it hard to breathe. He began to panic, but there was no way he could free himself. He opened his mouth to call out but whoever was holding him put a hand over his face before he could utter a sound.

Do not fight me
, said the voice.
You merely waste your strength.

The chair tipped back and paused, perfectly balanced on two legs.

I will see you later
, said the voice, very distant now.

The chair tipped further backwards beyond the point of balance. The arms that had held him so tightly disappeared and the chair crashed to the ground, leaving Peter flat on his back and alone in a dark place.

He stood up, suddenly wide awake, and realised he was no longer in the side room. The wall curved and it was full of books. He turned round and opened his eyes.

He was in the library.

He was up on the ninth gallery.

Except everything was different.

It had been the middle of the night when he sat down in the side room with the cat mummy and now it was early morning. The rising sun filled the whole library with a deep glow that crept in through the windows and shone on the ornate curved ceiling like gold. The clouds seemed to have come indoors with the sunshine. They hung nervously in the gloom at the top of the dome.

As the sun rose and the gold faded, a new light began, the light of a new day. The sky outside the windows at the top of the dome grew darker yet
the light inside grew brighter. Mist floated up from below and the grass beneath his feet …

Grass, what grass?
thought Peter.… was covered with dew.

Peter looked at his feet and where the steel lattice floor of the gallery should have been there was now soft grass. A well-worn path through the grass followed the curve of the gallery in both directions. A small bird flew down and sat on the railing a few feet away from Peter. It put its head on one side and, if it's possible for a bird to smile, it smiled at him as if to say, ‘I haven't seen you here before.'

Yet the grass wasn't the big difference.

The mist beneath the gallery slowly cleared and where the dark mahogany floor with its rows of polished tables should have been, there was now a lake. It spread from one side of the library to the other, an endless sea of water that came up to the level of the first gallery which, instead of being twenty feet above the floor, was now at the water's edge. In the centre of the sea, where the librarians' desks had stood, was an island, only its mountain tops visible through a bank of mist. It all seemed so much larger than before, almost as big as a world. Peter leant on the railings and stared open-mouthed across the lake. He was captivated by how magical it looked. There was barely a ripple on the water, just slow regular
waves that turned the water into a golden quilt that covered a sleeping giant.

A small boat appeared from the far side of the lake. The gentle chugging of its distant engine drifted across the water to be drowned out a few seconds later by the frantic bickering of a flock of seagulls.

When Peter thought about it, it was ridiculous. Inside the world's greatest library, in the heart of the world's greatest museum, was a small ocean. Most people would wonder why the sea wasn't bursting out through the doors and worry about the water on all those ancient books, but Peter knew none of that was a problem. The water was perfect, more perfect than the tables and reading lamps had ever been. So perfect that nothing could be wrong. Of course it meant the spiral staircases would no longer lead him back, but the thoughts he'd had about getting back now seemed irrelevant.

Nor yet was the sea the biggest change. It was the books themselves.

Around the library, on all the galleries, Peter could see the books had come to life. They were no longer things you could hold in your hands but were as tall as houses and, like houses, windows and doors had appeared on their spines. There were lights in a lot of the windows. Doors opened and people were coming and going. As they passed Peter, they smiled
and wished him good morning, no one appearing in the slightest bit surprised to see him. Each book that was now a tall thin house seemed to be the home of people connected with the book's title. Peter was in the part of the library where the furniture-making books, wooden-framed chairs and couches subsection, were kept. The air was thick with the smell of turpentine. Furniture polish mingled with boiling glue and sandalwood as people hurried off to the other galleries to deliver highchairs and milking stools, garden benches and steamer chairs, chaise longues and recliners.

Far away around the curve a cockerel crowed. A new day had begun, but it was a new day that belonged to another world, not to Peter's.

‘How long have you been here?' said a voice behind him. ‘You're not supposed to be here until next week.'

The little boat which had been skirting round the mist on the lake far below was now coming directly towards him. As Peter leant over the balcony to see where the boat was aiming for, the voice came closer and said, ‘Hey, I said, how long have you been here?'

Peter snapped out of his dream and turned.

‘What?' he said.

Standing in front of him was a girl about the same age as himself. She had Archimedes in her arms
and was tickling him behind the ear. Like Peter, she was skinny with dark hair. And like Peter, she had nervous brown eyes that danced around without settling on anything long enough for it to look back at her. Peter's first thought was to try and grab the cat out of her arms – Archimedes was
his
cat – but he knew that cats don't really belong to anyone, not like dogs, who give you their heart and soul.

The girl was wearing a white frock which made her look as if she was going to a party.

‘I'm going to a party,' she said. ‘You're not supposed to be here till next week.'

‘What are you talking about?' said Peter. ‘Supposed to be here?'

‘You are not supposed to be here until next week,' the girl repeated slowly like she was talking to someone who wasn't very bright.

‘I'm not stupid,' said Peter. ‘There's no need to talk like that. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not supposed to be here at all.'

Girls were not the best thing in the world and this one proved it.

‘Yes you are,' said the girl, backing off a bit, ‘but not till next week.'

‘No,' said Peter, firmly. ‘I sat down in a chair in the little room with the cat mummy –'

‘Bastin, the Cat God,' said the girl.

‘Yes. And then I fell through the wall.'

‘Oh.'

‘That wall isn't anywhere near the library,' said Peter, ‘so I haven't the faintest idea how I got here. I mean, it was the middle of the night.'

‘Yes, exactly,' said the girl, which didn't make sense but showed Peter that she was as confused as he was. She looked a bit embarrassed and put Archimedes down before holding out her hand and saying, ‘My name is Festival. I'm your Caretaker.'

‘Caretaker? What do you mean, caretaker?' said Peter. Caretakers were old men like his grandfather, who looked after empty buildings at night, not strange girls in party frocks. The library coming to life was like falling into Alice in Wonderland but this girl was even weirder, and he had no intention of taking her outstretched hand.

The fascination of this fantastical place was vanishing fast and all Peter wanted to do now was find the door back into the cat mummy's room.

‘It's my job to take care of you while you are here,' said Festival. ‘Every visitor has a Caretaker. I'm yours because I was born at exactly the same minute you were. Sorry I was a bit cross, but they said you were coming next Wednesday.'

‘They? Who's they? No one's told me anything at all,' said Peter.

‘Actually, I don't know who they are,' said Festival. ‘Two people came to our house one day and told me you were coming and I was your Caretaker. They said I had to wait for you up here next Wednesday and to make sure you had the book and then take you back to my house and wait there. My mum and dad had some champagne to celebrate and I had some, but I didn't like it.'

‘Book?' said Peter. ‘Champagne?'

‘Yes, exactly. Of course we had to celebrate, because it's a big honour to be a Caretaker.'

Whatever Festival said only made Peter more confused.

I'm having a dream
, he thought, but when he pinched Festival's arm she jumped back and squealed.

‘What did you do that for?' she said.

‘I thought I was having a dream,' said Peter.

‘You're weird,' said Festival, which was exactly what Peter had been thinking about her, though she didn't seem as bad as he'd first thought she was.

‘So where's the book?' she added.

‘What book?'

‘You know,' said Festival, ‘the book you mustn't read.'

‘Sorry?'

‘You found the old lady, didn't you?' said the girl. ‘Don't tell me
that
hasn't happened yet?'

‘Oh,' said Peter, coming back to reality, or as near to it as he could. ‘You mean the old lady up in the roof?'

‘Yes,' said Festival. ‘The “How To Live Forever” book. You know, the one she gave you? Where is it?'

‘It's under my bed,' said Peter. ‘Shall I go and get it?'

Festival looked confused.

‘No, you can't,' she said. ‘You're supposed to bring it with you. Didn't they tell you anything?'

‘Who?'

‘Well, before you come here, someone is supposed to tell you everything,' said Festival. ‘Are you sure no one spoke to you? When they came to my house, they said you'd know all about it and what to do.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' said Peter. ‘Maybe I should have spoken to my grandad. Maybe he knows what to do.'

‘Maybe,' said Festival.

‘But Bathline told me not to talk to anyone, not even Grandad,' said Peter. ‘Who told you about the book?'

‘I don't know,' said Festival. ‘My mum and dad, I suppose. Everyone knows about the book.'

Peter was now totally confused. He still wasn't sure it wasn't all a dream. But if it was, now it was time to wake up and be back in his bedroom.

But he wasn't dreaming.

Now and then when he'd been in the museum's hidden corridors, he'd felt that he was on the edge of another world. He'd imagined he was about to go through some sort of invisible gateway to a place where the normal rules didn't apply, a place where there were no limits to the possibilities of what could happen. But he'd thought that was all just his imagination playing games. And now, the strange fantasy had become a strange reality.

If Peter felt confused, he could see that Festival was too. She looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

‘I can't believe no one told you anything,' she said in a scared little voice.

She'd been so bossy at first, cross because Peter had arrived too soon. Now she seemed to have shrunk back into a little girl. She looked down at her feet and muddled up her fingers. Peter felt sorry for her.

‘It's all right,' he said. ‘I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm sure we can sort it out. I'll go back and see my grandad. You can come too if you want.'

He reached out and touched Festival on the shoulder.

‘We can't,' said Festival.

Peter thought she meant because of what Bathline had said to him.

‘Then we'll go and see the people who came to your house,' he continued. ‘They'll know what to do.'

‘I don't know who they are,' said Festival. ‘No one does. They just appear when there's a visitor coming.'

She started to cry, but before Peter could say anything, she turned away and hurried off round the gallery.

‘Where are we going?' said Peter.

‘Secret. Er, not allowed to tell you,' said Festival, obviously flustered.

She stopped a man and whispered a question in his ear. The man pointed down the stairs ahead of them and said something, but all Peter caught was, ‘Level three, I think, but just ask when you get there.'

‘Why don't we go and ask your mum and dad?' said Peter as he followed her down the metal stairs.

‘They won't know,' said Festival.

Festival hurried on. She stopped two more people before someone nodded and said, ‘Level two.'

‘We are going to see the Three Wise Men,' she finally shouted back at Peter. ‘They will sort it all out.'

‘Three wise men?' said Peter. ‘That sounds good. Let's go and see them.'

‘Yes, exactly,' said Festival. ‘That's what I said.'

‘Okay,' said Peter.

‘Yes, exactly,' said Festival. ‘They live down on gallery two in the Chinese Sixteenth.'

‘Don't you mean the Chinese Quarter?' said Peter.

‘No. That would be a quarter of a gallery,' Festival explained. ‘This is only a sixteenth.'

She was right. Down on the second gallery there was a row of ornate books decorated with Oriental pictures and writing. Their doors and windows were covered in exquisite red lacquer and on the steps outside many of the books there were carvings of jade dragons and shallow glazed dishes of mulberry trees.

‘Excuse me,' said Festival to an old lady coming out of a Chinese grocery book. ‘Can you tell me where the Three Wise Men are? It's a long time since I was here and I seem to have forgotten exactly where it is.'

‘Three Wise Men? Three Wise Men?' said the old lady. ‘More like the Three Silly Old Fools.'

‘But –'

‘Not even clever enough to be idiots,' said another old lady.

‘You'd be better off asking Archimedes,' said a third.

‘But he's a cat, silly,' said Festival. ‘I wouldn't be able to understand what he said.'

She looked as if she was going to start crying again. Everything seemed to be getting so complicated.

‘You'd understand more than you will with the three old idiots,' said the first old lady.

‘They're along there,' she added. ‘But you're wasting your time. They couldn't even tell you how to boil water without burning it.'

‘Well, we're here,' said Peter. ‘We might as well see them.'

‘Exactly, yes,' said Festival.

Archimedes was sitting waiting for them on the Wise Men's doorstep. Festival rang the bell. There was a lot of commotion from inside.

‘It's not my turn to open the door,' said a voice.

‘Well, I did it last time,' said another.

‘Well,
I
can't do it,' said a third. ‘I can't remember how to.'

This made the first two jeer and laugh and start arguing all over again.