Lady Anne made a small gesture with her hand, and the school was silent.
‘Good morning, boys,’ she said. ‘I would like to say that I have been looking forward to returning here for many years, since my family left when I was a young girl. This place is extremely special to me. I am only sad that it is someone else’s misfortune that has given me the opportunity to throw myself fully into the life of Oldstone Manor. I hope that you will all help me to settle into the school as seamlessly as possible.
‘I have a special announcement for Eudoky. Instead of your usual English lesson this morning, I would like to meet you all individually so that we can get to know each other and plan the exciting things we shall be doing for your scholarships. So if you could all wait in the form room,’ she continued, ‘I will come to collect you at intervals. Thank you very much.’ She smiled the smile of a goddess, and melted to the side of the room. Mr Fraser took the floor again, and launched the assembly into ‘Onward Christian So-o-o-oldiers’, which the music mistress, voluptuous Mrs Frank, seemed to bang out rather faster than normal.
The boys all sang a little more loudly and brashly than usual, because they were showing off to Lady Anne. Assembly finished with a burst of school pride, Bartlett’s shame dispersed. The boys went straight out to their first lessons, which would start in a couple of minutes.
‘Hey, Strangore,’ said Edward as they filed into Eudoky. ‘I’ll talk to you at break, OK?’ He was nervous, excited, ideas flashing around his mind. Will nodded. Edward didn’t want to tell his cousin, but he had a plan. If he really was ‘chosen’ as the knight had told him, then would Will have the same experience as he did? He would have to find out.
Double Latin was seriously hard work that day. Everybody’s head was down, nibs scratched against exercise books, there was much consulting of grammar books and dictionaries, and before Edward knew it the bell rang for break, and as everyone else left Eudoky, he grabbed Will on his way out.
‘Strangore,’ he said, fiercely, tugging his elbow. Will peered at Edward as if he were a long way away. ‘I said I needed to talk to you.’ He realised quite how odd he sounded, gulped, and tried to calm himself.
‘OK. Let’s go. But be quick about it. I haven’t finished my maths prep. I don’t want to risk a kak. I’m in with a chance of winning this week.’ Strangore always took the competitions far too seriously.
They sneaked into the deserted dorms. No one was in the courtyard below, where the disrupted party had been. The whole place had been cleared by the efficient cleaning staff, and not a crumb, not a plastic plate, not a dropped strawberry remained. Edward took Will to the window seat.
Edward reached under his bed and unlocked his case. He took out the Other Book. It seemed to him as if it were alive. He shuddered as he picked it up. The pain was less sharp than it had been before, though, and it did not make him bleed. He laid it reverently on the bed.
‘It’s certainly real,’ said Will, suitably impressed, feeling the waves of power coming off it. He reached out a finger to touch it, and recoiled as if he’d been stung by a scorpion. A small drop of blood formed at the tip of his finger. ‘Ow! God, it’s really true!’
Sitting down on the window seat, they decided that Will would open the Other Book just as Edward had.
‘So what do I do?’ Will scratched his chin.
‘You just have to … open it.’ But Edward, in his excitement, had forgotten to tell him about putting up defences. And someone felt the power surge, someone felt their blood sing, and sent something out towards the source of it.
‘Here goes.’ Will took the Book and opened it. Watching him, Edward saw him cringe with pain.
‘Keep holding,’ he said. Edward watched Will stiffen, his eyes misting over. He waved a hand in front of him but Will did not register anything. He sat still, like a carved monument, eyes blank, face cold.
‘Will?’ said Edward. Will did not reply. Edward sat down on the bed and waited.
There was a trembling, so faint that Edward could hardly feel it at first. He wondered if it was coming from his own body. It happened again, much stronger this time. The room was definitely shaking.
Edward went to Will and shook him. Will was blacked-out, as if he’d been concussed. The room shook again. ‘Come on, Will, wake up,’ said Edward.
Hissing noises started at the edges of sound. The wallpaper, blue and white stripes, began to shiver, and then, to Edward’s amazement, patterns drawn on the paper began to unravel, and to snake out towards Will and Edward. The dimensions of the room changed. Walls bent in, curved.
Lines were drawing across Will, and he was becoming tangled in a net. A throbbing noise filled the room. Edward tried to reach him but he too was caught. Around his feet little loops had been drawn, and he could not move. Some horrific spider was drawing its web across them.
The loops were tightening around Will’s arms and neck now. Edward tore at them, but every time he broke one they came together again.
‘Will! Come on! Try and break free!’ But Will did not answer.
More and more of the living lines were enveloping them. And Edward could do nothing. The Other Book was with Will. He could not even hope to control it. How could he have let this happen?
Nine
Edward clawed at his bindings. The door began to open, and a figure came in, humanoid in shape. It advanced towards them. Caught, it whispered, and Edward felt all the hope go out of him. He thought of the knight. Help me, he thought. Please, I can’t fail you now …
There was a flash of light, a terrible tearing sound, and somebody, bright and noble, stood in between Edward and the figure. The lines, which had now become as thick as ropes, shrivelled away quickly into nothingness. The figure let out a shriek of disappointment, and vanished.
Though the light burned only for a second, even when Edward screwed up his eyes he could still feel it. When the light disappeared, he slowly opened his eyes again and saw strange colours in the air. It was the knight, thought Edward. He looked around.
The room was as it had been.
Will came to, and Edward felt a sudden surge of painful energy. He knew the Other Book had leapt back into him.
‘Will! What happened to you?’
‘Well …’ Will was reticent. A battle was going on inside him.
‘Did you see anything?’
‘No,’ said Will. He was a scientist. What he had seen defied rational explanation. Therefore, as far as he could work out, it had not happened. If he denied it, then it would not exist. It was as simple as that.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Edward, troubled. He could see how pale and trembling Will was, and remembered how ill he had felt after being sucked into the Book for the first time.
‘Right,’ said Strangore. He got up with difficulty. ‘Now that we’ve got that over with, let’s go down to Eudoky. We’re late already. And we’re meeting Lady Anne. So you can ask her about any conspiracy that she happens to be plotting. All right?’
Edward did not push him any further.
They made their way down to Eudoky, not speaking. Edward had expected his cousin to have the same experience as him. But he clearly hadn’t. Unless Strangore was lying. But why would he? Edward could not guess that Will was troubled, deeply. His ordered world had been invaded, his concrete beliefs had been liquified, and his response was to deny. Edward thought that if the same thing had happened to Will as had happened to him, then he would have to be on the alert for Will behaving strangely, and then he would know. He would know if the Book caused these things. He would know if he was not going mad. And he would also know if the Book had been chosen for him. It had come back to him after Will had read it. If it goes to Will after it does whatever Will’s made it do, then I’ll know, he thought.
They slipped quietly into Eudoky through the back door. Everyone was at their desks, reading Tennyson.
Edward and Will took their places in silence. Edward took out his book, looking over at his cousin for some sig
n of camaraderie or complicity, but Will was bent over the poem. Edward returned to his musings, which were troubled by the knight’s words, and the ever-present, low-level noise of the Book. It was like having a radio station play white noise all the time.
He couldn’t concentrate on the words of Idylls of the King, and instead found an interesting object of contemplation in a picture on the wall–The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse. A woman, dressed in a white dress, sat in a boat covered in rich tapestries, three candles guttering in the breeze. Her face was set in eternal sadness, the animals and woods around her indifferent. She was dying, and nobody cared.
So he didn’t notice when Montgomery, the boy before him, had come in, and was standing by his desk all but shouting, ‘You’re up next, Pollock.’
Reluctantly, almost stickily, Edward went through into the corridor, leaving his paperback face down on his desk. Lady Anne had got someone to set up a table and two chairs, and was sitting in one of them. She had a pile of folders and a gold pen, with which she was making notes on a pad of lined A4 paper. He didn’t admit it to himself, but he was terrified. He knew that Lady Anne had something to do with the ice monster and the attack in the dormitory on him and Will. He was on the alert.
‘Edward Pollock. How nice to finally meet you, properly, as it were. Do sit down.’ She shuffled the papers, and searched through them. ‘Ah, here you are.’ She pulled out a file which had Edward’s name on it in thick, black letters. She took out the first piece of paper.
‘Edward Scipio Aubrey Pollock. What interesting middle names.’ Lady Anne flipped her pen around on her finger.
Edward said nothing.
‘Now … I’ve been wondering why you look so familiar. Do you think we have met before?’
Edward shook his head. ‘No, Lady Anne.’
‘Are you sure? Because you do look so familiar.’ She flipped her pen again, and studied the report. ‘Ah, yes. It says here …’ she shuffled the papers, ‘that you’re quite the reader.’
‘Not really,’ said Edward, trying to sound offhand.
‘Now, Mr Pollock! Mr Fraser tells me that you’re always in the library. A lot of those books were there when my family was here, you know.’ She leant back in her chair, and put down her papers. She placed her long, thin fingers on her knees.
‘There must be quite a few treasures in there. Have you ever found anything in there? Anything that’s really beautiful, or really old, or so marvellous that you weren’t able to put it down?’
Her eyes rested on Edward’s. They were green and calm, oases in the sudden desert of her face. Edward felt drowsy, contented.
‘You know, Edward,’ she said, leaning in confidentially, ‘I’ve studied a lot of books over the years. I think that this library of ours must have some real gems in it. Don’t you?’
‘I do,’ said Edward warmly.
‘Real gems, Edward. Books which leave your spine aching from sitting up all night reading them; books whose characters live in the bright corners of your mind. Books which hold the limits of space and time within them; books which teach you all that man knows and all that man wants. Books, Edward, are power. And once you learn how to control this power–Edward–the possibilities are endless.’ She was speaking quietly but with such a deadly edge that Edward was frightened. Something of her hunger showed itself in her eyes now, and the strength of it caused Edward to stand up very quickly.
‘I think it’s time for the next boy, Lady Anne,’ said Edward and, getting up, prepared to rush through the door.
‘Why, don’t be silly,’ he heard her say. ‘Come back here.’
The cold iron in her voice made Edward turn round.
‘Sit down.’
He sat.
‘Edward. I won’t play around any more. I saw you on the drive the first night I arrived here.’
‘So what?’ said Edward.
‘Will you help me, Edward?’ she said.
‘Help you to do what?’
‘To settle into the school. That’s all I want, Edward. To be a good teacher, until a replacement comes, and then to go back to being a governor. And to see the house that belonged to my family in good hands.’
Edward shrugged.
‘So,’ she said. ‘Are you on my side? We can do so many great things together.’
Her words hung in the air like fireworks, blazing against the sky, promising glorious things, and Edward was tempted by the noise, the light, the wonder; but the sad face of the knight came back to him, and he said, ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘You’re making a very serious mistake, Edward,’ said Lady Anne. She could feel the pulse of the Book within him; it had called to her all her life, and now that it was so near her and she could not get it, she could hardly bear it.
Edward found that his throat was constricting. He noticed Lady Anne was holding a rubber, and that she was squeezing it. He coughed out, ‘Stop it.’
But she pressed harder, and he felt the weight crushing his throat. Just when he thought he was about to pass out, she released the rubber. Edward sprang out of his chair.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘when you have thought about it, you know where to find me. Thank you, Edward. Call in the next boy. Rolandson.’
Edward went out. He sat down at his desk, calling the next boy on the way. He was hugely grateful that his next lesson was Greek and that safe, normal, sensible Mr Fraser was coming. But he realised that in Mr Fraser lay no avenue of escape from the burden that he carried; in Mr Fraser was no hope of rescue. And to make it worse, Strangore still wouldn’t look at him.
Why shouldn’t I help her? he thought. How do I know that she wants to be bad? How do I know anything? He felt his neck with trepidation. He wondered if there were marks round it. It was no use. How could he fight against this person? He did not understand her, or her powers. Why shouldn’t I give it to Lady Anne and get rid of it? It would only take a minute … and with this note of despair, like the sound of a horn at the death of a hound, he slumped on to the scarred wood of his desk.
Ten
The lesson went on. The rest of the boys filed in to see Lady Anne. Edward watched the sun filling the valley with its rays, so thick it was like mist. Eudoky had a stone floor, which kept the classroom cool in summer, but Edward felt far from cool. The last boy came into the room. Lady Anne did not follow him.
The ancient piano in the corner creaked and grunted lazily. There was a tapping at the window, startling the boys into action. They all looked up, surprised to see Lady Anne outside, wreathed in smiles, with flowers woven into her hair, wearing a long blue dress.
‘Well, come on, then!’ she said. ‘Don’t stand there gawping like a lot of fish! Come with me!’ She started walking off in the direction of the pond and the river. The boys all stared at each other and then got up, rushing out of the room. In other circumstances, Edward would have welcomed this, would have felt like a young cavalier going a-maying with his Queen in the greenwood. But suspicion had settled in his heart.
Lady Anne led them down to the pond, where the large oak tree stood. She walked around it with a grace and beauty that made them all quiet–except Edward, who was on edge. She embraced the tree for a second, then smiled.
‘Sit down boys!’ she said. ‘I’m going to read you the tale of Merlin and Vivien from Idylls of the King.’
The trees were trailing their branches in the water like schoolboys in a boat, holding their hands in the river as they drift downstream. Sunlight splintered off the water. The boys arranged themselves around Lady Anne, who was sitting right underneath the tree. Edward lay on his front and buried his face in the grass. Lady Anne started to read:
‘A storm was coming, but the winds were still,
And in the wild woods of Broceliande,
Before an oak, so hollow huge and old
It look’d a tower of ruin’d mason work,
At Merlin’s feet the wily Vivien lay.’
She read quietly, with a gentle expres
sion that made the scenes come vividly to life. Edward couldn’t help but think that Lady Anne had chosen the story of Merlin and Vivien for a reason.
He remembered the prophecy–the line of the wizard and the witch is strong. What did it mean? And the Ms and Vs around the tomb? In the hazy summer heat of the day, with the calm voice of Lady Anne washing over them, Edward lay, holding his nervousness in secret. The boys were around her, squires enchanted at the feet of Vivien herself.
Lady Anne was reaching the middle of the poem.
‘A little glassy-headed hairless man,
Who lived alone in a great wild on grass;
Read but one book …’
A book, he thought. But one book. How strange to read only one book.
‘… to him the wall
That sunders ghosts and shadow-casting men
Became a crystal, and he saw them thro’ it …’
The wall between ghosts and men? Edward cast back to the prophecy … something about the wall between ghosts and men … He couldn’t remember. Lady Anne’s voice was so soothing, he couldn’t think very clearly. The Other Book was beginning to stir and buzz, as it had on the night of the party.
But Edward was almost transported into the poem. Lady Anne read beautifully, evocatively, and the warm sun, the delicious smell of the grass, the gentle lapping of the pond and the whispering of the trees all combined to make him drowsy and forgetful. He pressed his mouth against the grass and felt the world spin around him. He was drifting away.
‘… and his book came down to me.
And Vivien answer’d smiling saucily:
“Ye have the book: the charm is written in it.”’
Edward rolled over, sitting up, his legs out straight in front of him, a clump of torn grass in his hand, a crushed daisy staining his fingers with its yellowness. Noisy rumblings and a clatter of glass equipment could be heard approaching. Lady Anne read the words again. This was a trap. She was hoping to see Edward’s reaction, hoping to quell him into admitting what he knew. She was taking a chance, but it was built on strong grounds. Her agent had already been unsuccessful. Now it was up to her.
The Other Book Page 9