The Second Forever (7 page)

That evening felt like the longest of their lives. The thought of going through the hole in the wall was bad enough, but it was made even worse by the fact that they couldn't talk about it at all. Peter's grandfather had returned to his bed, while the children had dinner with Peter's mother and father.

‘What did you two do today?' asked Peter's mother.

‘Oh, this and that,' said Peter.

‘But we went to the botanic gardens yesterday,' said Festival. ‘It was really sad to see so many dead plants. I would've loved to have seen them all before the drought.'

‘Who knows,' said Peter's father. ‘Maybe the weather
will change. People have been talking about rain.'

‘It's all they ever do, though, isn't it?' said Peter's mother.

And so it went on. Neither of Peter's parents knew about the destruction of the fossil gallery. Peter's grandfather had papered over the gallery's glass doors and locked them. The fossils had always been one of the more popular exhibitions of the museum, so the old man had put up a ‘Closed for Refurbishment' sign to stop people from asking why they couldn't go inside.

‘I was surprised to see the fossil gallery was getting done up,' said Peter's father. ‘I thought that sort of thing had stopped, now that there isn't even any water to wash the walls, never mind to manufacture paint and varnish.'

‘Well, they must know what they're doing,' said Peter as everyone left the dinner table.

Once they were back in Peter's room, Festival took a piece of crumpled paper from the waste bin and wrote:
I am scared.

Me too,
Peter wrote back.

They stood in the middle of the room, and without any warning Festival threw her arms around Peter and kissed him on the mouth. Then they stood dead still
for ages, both too embarrassed to break apart and see each other's faces. Finally Festival backed away and whispered, ‘Sorry. I didn't mean . . .'

Peter reached out and took Festival's hands in his and they hugged, but this time it was more like brother and sister.

‘If we whisper,' he whispered in Festival's ear, ‘do you think it'd be all right?'

Festival pulled away and wrote:
Probably, although I don't think we should risk it. It's only a couple of hours and then we'll be back in my world . . .

She paused before adding:
hopefully.

Yes
, Peter wrote.
Then we'll be able to talk again
.

The children sat side by side on the bed and the minutes crawled by as if they were walking through treacle. Peter picked up his favourite book from beside the bed, a book he had loved and read repeatedly ever since he had learnt how to.

‘I forgot all about this,' he said. ‘This is how the botanic gardens used to be before it stopped raining.'

‘Oh wow,' said Festival, turning the pages. ‘I can see why you love it. It looks like the whole world all in one amazing place.'

She went through the book over and over again, touching the images with her fingertips, picture after picture of trees and plants that she had never seen in her world and had never even imagined could exist. The two children became so wrapped up in the book that the minutes picked up speed until it was almost eleven o'clock and time to go.

Peter could see light and hear soft muffled voices under his parents' bedroom door as they tiptoed past and left the apartment. The moon was trying to shine through the glass dome above them, but the dust would only allow the faintest glow into the main hall as the children made their way to the cat mummy room.

When they got there, Peter's grandfather was sitting in the small chair with Syracuse in his arms. He had managed to push the glass case away from the wall and had pulled down the broken panelling that Peter
had clumsily put back after his first visit with Festival. There was a candle burning in a holder on top of the glass case, and its shadows danced around the room as a faint breeze came through the hole in the wall.

It reminded Peter of when he and Festival had destroyed the original book in the small cave, and as the book had died it had summoned one last breath and blown out the flame. This time, however, the breeze was warm and inviting.

Festival reached down and took the young cat in her arms while the old man handed Peter the book wrapped in its strips of red velvet curtain.

‘Here,' he whispered, ‘keep this close.'

A few years earlier, when he had been searching through old forgotten storerooms, Peter had found a place full of Victorian explorers' equipment. Every now and then, for no particular reason he could pin down, he came across odd things that he took back to his room and stored in a small cabinet. In the Victorian explorers' room he had discovered a brown leather waistcoat with secret pockets and that evening, for another strange reason he couldn't pin down, he had put the waistcoat on beneath his shirt.

It was into a small inside pocket of this waistcoat that he now put the book, which slid inside as if it had always meant to be there.

As the minute hand of Peter's watch approached
eleven, the two children walked over to the dark place in the wall. The old man put his arms around both their shoulders and hugged them.

Then it was eleven.

Festival turned to Peter, hugged him and kissed him again as she had in his room. There were tears in her eyes and, still holding each other tightly, they leaned through the hole into the darkness. Before they could change their minds, Peter's grandfather gave them the slight push they needed to tip them over the edge and they fell into the darkness.

The darkness felt like nothing – neither falling down nor flying upwards. It was as though they were absolutely still while everything else moved around them. The first words of the book flashed through Peter's mind and he understood exactly what they meant.

Before the beginning was the void, before time, before light, before day and night. I was the darkness that created the first breath of life. I was the vacuum that was nothing. Yet it was not nothing, for I was there. And I was part of it, the spark that lit the shadows for the very first time, as life crawled out of the abyss.

I was the darkness.

I was the vacuum.

Yes, that was it. Back before the beginning of everything, that was where they were. This was not a place in the museum. The museum was part of it, created to contain it. The growth of the entire city had been controlled from the very start, centuries ago when the first house had been built, so that the museum was exactly where it was meant to be. And in the heart of the museum itself, behind the wall of the cat mummy room, was the very start of everything that had ever existed.

The journey lasted less than a minute and then Peter and Festival were back in Festival's world and it was raining. It was that sort of rain that stays for days – not thunderstorms or a gentle drizzle, but constant rain, halfway between the two. It was almost silent as it fell, but up in the dome of the roof, lightning crackled between the great cast iron girders.

They were in the only place in Festival's world that was still almost deserted – the highest gallery. When Festival had left two weeks earlier, five of the thirteen galleries were underwater. Now six of them were and the water was still rising.

Peter touched his chest and, yes, the book was there, buttoned safely away in its pocket. Syracuse was still in Festival's arms, fast asleep as she had been
when they had fallen into the wall.

When Peter and Festival had been there five years earlier, the gallery had been full of crumbling broken books. Whole backs had fallen away, revealing derelict rooms that had been abandoned long before. Now the decay was even worse. Many of the books had collapsed completely, exposing faded brick walls that had lay behind them. Peter expected to see graffiti over the walls, but there were none. Then he remembered that the trapdoors leading to the lower levels had been bolted down so that no one could come up.

‘I'm not sure where my parents will be now,' said Festival. ‘We used to live on the fifth gallery. When I left, the water was nearly up to our door and now the whole gallery is flooded.'

‘I don't think we should go and see them, anyway,' said Peter. ‘If Darkwood does have spies, your house would be the first place he'd send them.'

‘I suppose so,' said Festival. ‘But there are other people waiting for us to come back, not just my mum and dad.'

‘I know, but look where we are,' said Peter. ‘This is the level Foreclaw lives on, remember? And my grandfather said he was on our side. Let's go and see him. He'll know what to do.'

Suddenly a pile of broken book bindings flew apart
and an old lady sprang out right in front of them.

‘Brought it back, have you?' she said. ‘My gold. It wasn't a gift, you know. I only lent it to you.'

Apart from Foreclaw, the only other person who had been living on the thirteenth gallery when they had been there last had been this crazy old lady who was scraping the gold embellishments off the derelict leather book covers. She had wrapped Peter's finger in gold to stop it bleeding after it was bitten off.

‘I forgot,' said Peter, who did have the old lady's gold in a tiny box in his bedroom treasure cabinet. ‘I've got it safely stored away, but what with one thing and another I forgot to bring it with me.'

‘Sold it, more like,' said the old lady, ‘and bought a big house in Switzerland.'

‘No, I really do have it in a little box, in a cabinet where I keep all my important stuff,' Peter said. ‘And if I had sold it, I don't think there would have been enough to buy a ham sandwich, never mind a house anywhere.'

‘Don't be ridiculous,' said the old lady. ‘Gold is worth a fortune. Worth its weight in gold, it is, and that's a fact.'

‘Maybe,' said Peter, ‘but its weight was minute.' He pulled up his shirtsleeve and took off his watch. It had a gold-plated strap and case, and when the old lady saw it her eyes lit up like fire. ‘Here,' said Peter.
‘I brought you this and it weighs much more than the gold you lent us before.'

‘You brought it for me?'

‘Yes,' he lied.

‘Well, if you thought to bring this for me, why did you forget my own gold, then?' she said.

‘There was so much to do before we came,' Festival snapped. ‘It was impossible to think of everything!'

‘I don't know about that,' said the old lady.

‘Okay,' said Peter. ‘If you don't want my priceless gold watch, I'll keep it.'

‘No, no, I'm sorry,' said the old lady. ‘I do want it. I love it – so shiny and gold.'

‘All right, and next time we come I will definitely remember to bring your own gold, too.'

‘I can buy a house in Switzerland, then,' said the old lady, ‘right next door to yours.'

They continued to walk until finally they reached Foreclaw's door and stopped. The old lady wandered off in her own little world, stroking and kissing Peter's watch and talking to herself about the best real-estate agent to go to if you wanted to buy a house on Lake Geneva.

Foreclaw was surprised to see them. When Peter and Festival had first met him five years earlier he had been a thin dark man with straggly hair. He was still thin and dark, but now his straggly hair was streaked with white
as though he had been dusted with icing sugar.

He greeted them warmly, hurried them inside and shut the door. ‘I was not expecting you for another twelve days,' he said. ‘Not until the full moon.'

As the old man sat there nodding, Festival and Peter explained what had happened.

‘Hardly surprising,' said Foreclaw. ‘But fortunately your grandfather had the presence of mind to control the situation.'

‘He sends you his greetings,' said Peter.

‘And I welcome them,' Foreclaw replied. ‘It's a lifetime since we saw each other face-to-face. He was like the son I never had, you know, and I was the last person he spoke to before he fled to your world.'

‘Do we need to write everything down here?' said Peter, looking around the room, but Foreclaw waved his concern away.

‘Not here, but I can't say the same for everywhere else,' he said. ‘I suggest you keep your wits about you and be very careful who you trust.'

The journey into Festival's world, although only less than a minute long, had left the two children exhausted. Years ago they had been uncertain how to think of Foreclaw, not sure if they could trust him or not, but now that Peter's grandfather had reassured them, they felt safe. Since Festival had come back to Peter's world, they felt as if they had been holding
their breaths and, at last, they could relax.

While the children fell asleep by the fire, Foreclaw pottered around his cramped apartment tidying up. This involved picking things up from one overcrowded place and moving them to another overcrowded place, which then meant he had to move something else to make room for the thing he had just moved and so on, until he could finally manage to squeeze something into a gap between two other things. It was more like musical chairs, without the chairs or the music, than tidying up. As he moved things around, he dusted and polished them and hummed happily to himself.

‘One of the good things about getting old,' he said when Peter woke up a couple of hours later, ‘is the stuff that bored you out of your head when you were young actually becomes quite fun. I can spend a whole day re-arranging bits of nothing and enjoy every moment of it.'

Later, when they had eaten, Foreclaw sat the two children down with a serious look on his face. ‘It is actually fortunate that you have come early,' he began. ‘The way things are, every day we can save is good.'

‘Yes,' said Festival. ‘I noticed how the water had risen since I left. It seems to be coming up faster and faster.'

‘I think it is,' said Foreclaw. ‘But for all the floods
in my world, and all the drought in yours, and all the pain and chaos they have brought, there is an even greater problem.'

‘How could there be?' said Festival. ‘Millions of people are going to die, maybe even everyone! What could be worse than that?'

‘What happens
after
that,' said the old man. ‘After they have passed away. Even now, as people die of old age or disease or from accidents, the disaster is too great to comprehend.'

‘What are you talking about?' said Peter. ‘When you die, that's it.'

‘No,' said Foreclaw. ‘It isn't.'

‘What, you mean heaven and hell and all that stuff?' said Festival. ‘I don't believe any of that.'

‘No, no, it's not like those stories,' said Foreclaw. ‘It's much bigger than that. It's not life after death. It's life during life, from the instant you are conceived until the last seconds and the final act.'

The more Foreclaw tried to explain, the more confused the children became until the old man finally sat down, buried his head in his hands and said softly, ‘I will have to show you.'

‘Show us what?' said Peter.

‘The Hourglasses.'

‘Hourglasses?'

‘It's like a library, but where there would be books
there are hourglasses,' said Foreclaw. ‘Millions upon millions of them – one for every living being on earth, not just humans, but every creature that draws breath.

‘The two of you, me, your parents – absolutely everyone. Even Darkwood, though his hourglass has turned black, making the sand inside invisible, not that it moves anyway,' Foreclaw continued. ‘There is an hourglass for every single living creature, not just humans, and when one of them dies, their hourglass . . . No, I have to take you, even though it is forbidden for anyone apart from the Warden to ever go there. It is so secret that it doesn't even have a name, but these are desperate times when rules must take second place.'

‘What's the point of it?' said Festival. ‘I mean, what are these hourglasses for?'

‘They count the passing of time,' said Foreclaw.

‘I've never heard of them,' said Peter.

‘Nor have I,' said Festival.

‘Almost no one has,' said Foreclaw. ‘The Warden is the only person there. When he was appointed to the job, he had to read the book to become immortal so he could watch over everyone else as the centuries passed without his own time passing.'

Foreclaw explained that since Peter and Festival had destroyed the original book, the Warden, who was supposed to be there forever, had begun to age.
He had been old to start with and was now close to death. ‘And when he dies, there will be no one to guard the Hourglasses and all life will slowly fade away.'

‘So why doesn't Darkwood become the Warden?' said Peter. ‘Then there would be no risk of him dying.'

‘True,' said Foreclaw. ‘And in the beginning he would have, but as time has passed, or in his case, refused to pass, it has eaten away at him and now his heart has turned against him. Darkwood wants to destroy everything in the hope that it will destroy him too.'

This was all too far-fetched for Peter and Festival to believe. It sounded like yet another fantasy religion made up to explain life, more like an exotic gothic fairy-story than something real. And even if there were such a place as the Hourglasses, what would it matter if it all stopped? It would hardly mean everyone would suddenly drop dead. If you destroyed all the books that had been written about something, that wouldn't destroy the thing itself. It wouldn't make any difference.

‘I can see you don't believe me,' said Foreclaw. ‘But when I take you there and show you the devastation, you will have no doubts about re-creating the book.'

‘Can't someone else just become the new Warden?'
said Festival.

Peter was about to tell Foreclaw that they had already re-written the book, but then he remembered his grandfather's advice about being very careful who he trusted and said nothing. He noticed that Festival had said nothing either.

‘But this is only a tiny part of the problem. We need the river to flow again,' said Foreclaw. ‘Come, we have talked enough. I must not put off taking you there, but it's difficult. What we are about to do is so forbidden that I am afraid.'

‘Tell me something,' said Festival. ‘If this place is so secret like you say it is, how come you know about it?'

‘I am a direct descendant of the Warden,' said Foreclaw. ‘His last living relative. I am the safety net.'

‘So if this Warden person does die of old age, then you could take over?' said Peter.