How to Live Forever (7 page)

‘We'll go to my house,' said Festival, helping Peter out of the bucket and trying not to look at the vultures.

‘What about Earshader?' said Peter.

‘We'll find him in the morning,' said Festival. ‘I think you should go to bed and sleep.'

‘I suppose,' said Peter. ‘I don't trust Foreclaw,' he added as the two children went back up to the fifth gallery, where Festival lived. ‘I'm sure he knows heaps more than he's telling us.'

‘Everyone thinks he's the wisest person who ever lived, but I think he's scary,' said Festival.

‘Who's Darkwood?' said Peter. ‘The Three Wise Men and Foreclaw mentioned him. Who's he?'

‘I never thought he was real,' said Festival. ‘I thought he was like the Ancient Child, just a made-up scary person grown-ups use to make their kids do stuff, but it sounds like he really exists.'

‘I don't like the sound of him,' said Peter. ‘I mean, even his name sounds evil.'

‘Yes, exactly,' said Festival. ‘But I suppose tomorrow we'd better go and find Earshader and see if he can help us. It's not as if we've got any other choices.'

‘No, not really,' said Peter. ‘I want to ask you something.'

‘What?' said Festival. ‘Are you feeling okay?'

‘Hand hurts,' said Peter. ‘Do you know where my father is?'

As he asked the question, he felt his heart begin to race again. He felt very confused. He wanted to meet his father, but he was scared. He had never seen him, he had vanished before Peter had been born, and the thought of actually meeting him was scary, but a kind of scary that was hard to resist.

‘Well, I know which house he used to live in,' said Festival. ‘Do you want me to take you there?'

‘Doesn't he live there anymore?' said Peter.

Festival looked embarrassed and wouldn't let Peter catch her eye. Something wasn't right and Peter felt frightened. Foreclaw had said his father was there but now it seemed like he might not be. The worst thought in Peter's head was that his father might have found out he was coming and run away again. That would mean it was Peter's fault he had run away the first time.

He stopped by a bench outside one of the books and sat down feeling desolate. He took his father's broken watch out of his pocket. The case was still battered. The strap was still broken but now the watch itself was working. The second hand moved steadily round, and when he held it to his ear, Peter could hear it ticking like a tiny heartbeat.

The noise made him feel a little better. He started to cry, no noise just silent tears so that Festival didn't notice at first.

‘It's started working,' he said.

Festival put her arm round his shoulder again, but said nothing.

‘I do want to see my dad's house,' said Peter, getting up. ‘Come on.'

‘Okay,' said Festival.

They walked round the dark gallery until they were almost opposite Festival's house.

‘That's it,' said Festival, stopping outside a dog-eared book.

‘Do you think he knows I'm here?'

‘Don't know,' said Festival, looking away so Peter couldn't catch her eye.

‘Do you know where he's gone?' said Peter.

‘No, I'm sorry,' said Festival. ‘But this is where he used to live.'

Although the house looked almost derelict, there was a light in the window. Now he was there, outside the actual door where his father used to live, Peter wanted to run away.

Festival turned and hurried off, saying, ‘I'll come back for you in an hour.'

Peter stood looking at the door. Festival had said it was the house where his father used to live, not where he lived now, but he was still nervous.

‘Don't be such a coward,' he said to himself, and banged on the door.

Footsteps approached, the handle turned and the door opened. There was a little girl about five years old standing there.

‘Hello,' she said. ‘Who are you?'

‘Peter.'

‘I'm Victoria. I'm five,' said the little girl. ‘How old are you?'

‘Ten.'

Behind Victoria a woman came down the hall. She was about the same age as Peter's mother and there was something about her that made him think he'd seen her before, though he couldn't pinpoint where.

‘Who is it?' she said.

‘Peter,' said Victoria, ‘and he's ten and he's got a bandage on his hand.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Peter. ‘I think I've got the wrong house.'

‘No, you haven't,' said the woman. ‘But I didn't think you'd be here till next week. Come in.'

‘But –'

‘It's okay. Come in.'

She led Peter down the corridor into a room overflowing with furniture. Peter wanted to run. He felt frightened, though he couldn't say why. The woman turned, took his hand and pulled him into the room.

‘Your father isn't here,' she said. ‘I suppose you know that already.'

‘Yes,' said Peter softly.

Victoria grabbed Peter's other hand and pulled him over to the sofa.

‘You can sit here,' she said.

‘How is Len … ?' the woman started then, correcting herself, said, ‘Your grandfather. How is he?'

‘What?' Peter began.

He could not stop looking at Victoria. Like her mother, Peter was sure he'd seen her before, but unlike her mother, he knew where. She was him. He saw her face every time he looked in the mirror. Her
eyes were the colour of his, her hair too, and the way it fell on her forehead. He was a boy and she was a girl but, nevertheless, she was him five years earlier.

The sudden realisation was terrible. Victoria had to be his sister. But his father had left them ten years ago.

No.

The woman was Victoria's mother.

No, no, not possible, except there she was, and now Peter couldn't see either of them properly because his eyes were full of tears.

He pulled his hand away from the little girl's and ran out of the room. In the blur, he knocked a table over and heard glass break as he ran towards the front door with the mother and daughter calling out to him. He ran round the gallery seeing nothing. People stood aside as he passed them. Some smiled and tried to talk to him but he was crying so hard he couldn't see them. He ran up stairs and more stairs until he was back on the ninth level. It was a gloomy place, the perfect place for misery. His heart was beating hard and he was out of breath. He could run no further. He sat on the step in front of a boarded-up door and wept.

It seemed like his father had vanished again. So maybe it was children that made him run. First Peter and now Victoria.

Never in his saddest dreams had Peter imagined this. The book, the Ancient Child, his father, and even his grandfather's illness, were all too much. He wanted to go home and curl up in his own bed with Archimedes on the pillow and go to sleep. Maybe he'd wake up and everything would be like it used to be.

There had to be a way back. There just had to be. If only he'd paid more attention to the door he'd come through.

This was the level he'd arrived on. At least he could remember that. He got up and started to walk round the gallery looking at the books for something that might remind him where he'd come in.

‘There you are,' said Festival. ‘I've been looking everywhere for you.'

Peter stared up at her and felt uncontrollable waves of unhappiness drowning him.

‘I went to your father's house, but there was no one in,' said the girl, and seeing Peter close to tears, she added, ‘What's the matter?'

Peter told her what had happened.

‘It doesn't work living in dreams,' said Festival. ‘I know everyone does it, but most of the time, it just makes you unhappy.'

‘But, he's even got another wife,' cried Peter.

‘I didn't know,' said Festival. ‘But hey, that means you've got a sister.'

‘But –'

‘That's something good, isn't it?' said the girl. ‘Look, stand still, I can't concentrate.'

‘I'm trying to find the door,' said Peter. ‘I want to go home.'

‘There isn't a door,' said Festival.

‘There must be. I came through it.'

‘Well, it's not a door that opens and shuts with hinges and a handle.'

Peter stopped walking. He felt the tears coming back, but forced them down. He didn't want a girl to see him crying again.

‘You can't go back. You know that,' said Festival, touching him on the arm. ‘At least not the way you came.'

‘What about the doors? I mean, the reading room's got doors on each level that go into the Stacks and the big doors on the ground floor that go back into the rest of the museum. What about them?'

‘The stacks? What are they?'

‘It's where they keep all the other books,' Peter explained. ‘There are millions of them, a thousand times as many as there are in here.'

‘You mean there are millions of people living out there like us?'

‘No. It's not like here. The books are just books. No one lives inside them. I mean, they're small.
You can hold them in your hand.'

‘There aren't any doors,' Festival said. ‘I'll show you.'

They walked all the way round the ninth gallery and the one below, and she was right. The only doors were those that led into the book houses.

Peter stopped and sat down on a step. He turned away wiping his eyes on his sleeve and trying to hide his face from Festival. She put her arm round his shoulder and the two of them sat side by side in silence, Peter too miserable to speak and Festival not sure what to say.

‘What about the big doors on the ground floor?' Peter asked, but he knew the answer. If they were still there, which he doubted, they'd be at the bottom of the lake that now covered the whole floor.

‘There has to be a way back,' said Peter. ‘There has to be.'

‘No there isn't,' said Festival. ‘Don't you think if there was, everyone would know about it?'

‘But Foreclaw said that Darkwood knows,' said Peter.

‘I know he did,' said Festival, ‘but he also said he didn't know how to find him.'

They fell silent again but the simple fact that Festival was there made Peter feel better. He wanted to thank her, but he felt too shy.

‘How's your hand?' said Festival.

‘It hurts,' said Peter.

‘Come on then,' said Festival, ‘we'll go to my house and get some painkillers and some food. My dad might know what we should do.'

They got up and walked down to the fifth gallery, where Festival lived with her parents in a well-used book in the cookery section called ‘Quiches of the Rich and Famous'. There was a new blue plaque above the door which said ‘Caretaker's House'. As they got there, Festival stopped and put her face in her hands.

‘Oh no,' she said. ‘My mum's going to kill me.'

‘Why?' said Peter.

‘Because of your hand, because we went up to the top gallery,' said Festival. ‘They'll go absolutely crazy.'

Now it was her turn to start crying, but before she could, Peter put his hands on her shoulders and said, ‘Look, it's okay. It's not your fault I got my finger bitten off.'

‘Yes it is. We shouldn't have gone up there.'

‘I'll say it was my idea,' said Peter.

‘They won't believe it,' said Festival. ‘Anyway, I'm supposed to look after you, so I should have stopped you.'

‘No, look, it'll be all right,' said Peter. ‘I'll say it
was my idea and you tried to stop me but I wouldn't listen to you.'

‘Listen to what?' said a man's voice.

It was Festival's father, who had come up behind them as they stood on the doorstep.

‘Um, er …' Festival began.

‘I wouldn't listen to her when she told me we weren't allowed to go up there,' Peter said, pointing to the roof.

‘Really?' said Festival's father.

‘Yes,' said Peter. ‘I didn't know. I mean, I don't live here, so how could I?'

It was obvious to both the children that Festival's father didn't believe him, but he opened the door and they followed him inside.

Festival's mother didn't believe them either but neither adult was prepared to call the children liars so they got away with it and any telling off and punishment that they might have got was overshadowed by Peter's hand. Festival's mother was so taken up with seeing to it that she didn't think to ask how he'd actually lost his finger.

As she unwrapped the bandages Foreclaw had wrapped around Peter's hand, he felt himself beginning to faint again. The gold had stopped the bleeding but now the pain came back with a vengeance. Festival's mother made him sit with his head
between his knees while she washed the dried blood away.

Festival's little brother, Orleans, stood watching wide-eyed with a hundred questions, but Festival hurried him out of the room and put him to bed.

‘Leave the gold,' Peter whispered.

‘I need to clean the wound,' said the woman.

‘But you mustn't touch the gold,' Peter insisted. ‘Just clean round it.'

When his hand had been wrapped up again in clean bandages and his arm put in a sling, the pain became more bearable. The two children went to the back of the house where Festival's father was baking quiches.

‘What are we supposed to do?' Festival asked him after they had told him about Peter arriving too early. ‘It's my fault, isn't it? I'm his Caretaker and I've mucked it all up.'

‘It's not your fault,' said Peter. ‘If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I was supposed to bring the book and I didn't.'

‘We went and saw Foreclaw and –'

‘My goodness, child, anyone could have been up there,' said her father. ‘It's where all the villains and devils go to hide. Not to mention the giant rats.'

‘You didn't see any rats, did you?' said her mother, who had followed them into the bakery.

‘No, we didn't see anything,' Peter lied.

‘There's all sorts of terrible things up there,' said Festival's father. ‘It's a miracle you didn't get killed, and what about your hand?'

‘What did Foreclaw have to say?' said Festival's mother, giving the children a chance to avoid talking about Throatgall, which they leapt on.

‘He said we had to find the Ancient Child,' said Peter.

‘Yes, exactly,' Festival added quickly, ‘The Ancient Child. Do you know where he is?'

‘But no one thinks he's real,' said Festival's mother. ‘He's what parents use to make naughty children behave. You know, stop that or the Ancient Child will come and get you.'

‘Did Foreclaw say he was real?' said Festival's father.

‘No,' said Festival. ‘He said he had no proof he was real at all, but he said our only chance was to try and find him.'

‘And did Foreclaw tell you that no one has ever brought the book here?' said Festival's father.

‘What?' said both children in unison.

‘Well, there's been over thirty visitors come here in the past four centuries. There's very few come in my lifetime. Only two or maybe three as I can remember. And not a single one of them has brought the book with them.'

‘You mean, everyone's come too early?' said Peter.

‘No, some came too early. Some came too late. Some probably came exactly when they were supposed to,' said Festival's father, ‘but whichever way round it was, they never had the book. Something or someone always made sure of that.'

‘So, it's not my fault?' said Festival.

‘No, my love, nor Peter's.'

‘And no one has ever managed to find a way back to fetch it?' said Peter.

‘No one,' said Festival's father. ‘Not just not found their way back to fetch it, but not found their way back at all. They're all still here.'

He leant forward and put his hands on Peter's shoulders.

‘Your father was the last one to come here,' he said, ‘but you know that.'

‘I don't like this now,' said Festival. ‘I don't want to be a Caretaker anymore.'

They decided to sleep on it. Maybe the night's dreams would bring them an idea, though it seemed unlikely.

Peter, upstairs in the spare bedroom, was desperate to sleep after his terrible ordeal, but the mad jumble inside his head kept him awake. The world inside and out fell silent, broken only around 2 am
by Orleans calling out in his sleep. A door opened, followed by soft footsteps and voices as Festival's mother comforted the boy back to sleep.

The more Peter thought about things, the more confused he became.

If there is no way to go backwards and forwards between the two
, he thought,
who knows when a visitor and a Caretaker are born at the same time? Who knows there is even going to be a visitor? And, if they always arrive without the book, why do they come at all?

It was obvious that there were things that he wasn't being told, but he couldn't decide if it was because they were being kept secret or because they just hadn't found the right person to ask.

Whatever secrets were being kept, there seemed to be two forces at work. One who wanted the book to get to the Ancient Child and make everything right again, and one who wanted things to stay exactly as they were. Peter, who had never had a real need to question things before, found himself thinking about everything from a new perspective. It seemed now that nothing could be taken at face value, not even faces, and you had to question everything.

Even the very basic things of life, like his grandfather.

Peter felt a tiny disturbing thought growing that maybe the old man knew a lot more than he had
revealed. Maybe he even knew that his own son had come into this world. Peter tried to push the thought away because it brought an even darker thought.