The fingers were cold and very, very strong, and they gripped so tightly that I bellowed in both pain and terror.
“Victor, is this a joke?” Elizabeth demanded angrily.
I was pulling with all my might, trying to wrench my hand free. “It’s got me!” I roared. “It’s got my hand!”
“ What’s got your hand?” shouted Konrad from below.
In my hysteria all I could think was, If it has a hand, it has a head, and if it has a mouth, it has teeth.
I pounded at the door with my other fist. “Let me go, you fiend!”
The more I pulled, the tighter it held me. But even in my panic I suddenly realized that this grip did not feel like flesh. It was too hard and inflexible.
“It’s not a real hand!” I cried. “It’s some kind of machine!”
“Victor, you idiot, what have you done now?” Konrad said.
“It won’t release me!”
“I’m going for help,” said Elizabeth, carefully moving around me and up the narrow steps. But just before she reached the door, there was a dull thud, and the bar of light from the library disappeared.
“What happened?” Konrad called out.
“It closed itself!” Elizabeth called back. “There’s a handle, but it won’t turn!” She began to pound on the thick door and call for help. Her voice echoed about the shaft like a bat’s flurry of panic.
All this time I was still struggling to pull my hand free.
“Be calm,” said Konrad at my side. “Elizabeth, can you return the candle to us, please?”
“I’ll be trapped down here forever!” I wailed, thinking of the bone we’d seen in the dirt. I now understood the deep scratches in the door, no doubt gouged by desperate fingernails. “You’ll have to saw my hand off!”
Exhausted, I stopped fighting the mechanical hand, and instantly it stopped tightening-but it did not release me.
“‘Enter only with a friend’s welcome,’” Elizabeth said, reading the message painted on the door. “It’s some kind of riddle. “A friend’s welcome…”
“Crushing someone’s hand to pulp!” I said.
“No,” she said. “When you welcome a friend, you say hello, you ask how they’ve been, you… shake their hand! Victor, maybe it wants you to shake hands!”
“I’ve been shaking hands with it for ten minutes!”
But had I? I’d been pulling and thrashing wildly about. I forced myself to take a deep, calm breath. As smoothly as I could, I tried to lift my hand. Amazingly, I was permitted to do so. Then I pushed gently down-and then politely pumped up and down once more. Instantly the mechanical fingers sprang apart, my hand was released, and the door creaked open a few inches.
I cradled my molested hand, flexing my fingers to make sure none were broken. “Thank you,” I said to Elizabeth. “That was a very good idea.”
“You troublemaker,” she said angrily. “Your adventure’s got us locked in-Victor, what are you doing now?”
“Don’t you want to have a look inside?” I said, poking the door open a little more.
“You must be mad,” said Konrad, “after what that door just did to you.”
“It may be our only way out,” I said. I was aware that I’d done a good deal of wailing and shrieking. At least I hadn’t wept. But I wanted to save face-and I was genuinely curious to know what was inside.
“Come on,” I said to Elizabeth, plucking the candle from her.
I pushed the door wide, stood to one side, and waited. Nothing flew out. Cautiously I stepped in, and peered behind the door.
“Look at this!” I exclaimed.
An elaborate machine, all gears and pulleys, was bolted to the back of the door. Against the hole was an amazing mechanical hand with jointed wooden fingers.
“What an ingenious lock,” said Konrad in amazement.
“And look here,” I said, pointing up. “I bet those ropes go to the library door. Didn’t it close and lock after the machine grabbed my hand? I’d wager we can unlock it from here. A brilliant trap to guard the room.”
“But why,” Elizabeth began slowly, “does it need to be guarded?”
As one, we all turned toward the room. The skin of my neck was gooseflesh.
I held the candle high. We were in a surprisingly large chamber. Nearby was a torch jutting from a wall sconce, and I quickly lit it. The room brightened, an orange glow flickering over tables scattered with oddly shaped glassware and metal instruments-and row upon row of shelves groaning with thick tomes.
“It’s just a library,” I said, relieved.
“We must be the first to discover it,” Elizabeth said in wonder.
I stroked my finger through the thick dust on the closest table, looked at the cobwebs sagging from the corners of the low ceiling. “Maybe so,” I murmured.
“Curious instruments,” said Konrad, peering at the glassware and scales and sharply angled tools arranged atop the table.
“It looks a bit like an apothecary shop,” I said, noting the large sooty hearth. “Maybe one of our ancestors made primitive medicines.”
“That would explain the well,” Elizabeth said. “They’d have needed water.”
“But why do it in a secret chamber?” I wondered aloud. I walked over to the bookshelves and squinted at their cracked spines. “The titles are all Latin and Greek and… languages I’ve never seen.”
I heard Elizabeth laugh, and turned.
“Here is a spell to rid your garden of slugs,” she said, paging through a black tome. “And another to make someone fall in love with you.” Her eyes lingered a bit longer on this one. “And here is one to make your enemy sicken and die…” Her voice trailed off. “There is a very upsetting picture of a body covered in running sores.”
We laughed, or tried to laugh, but we were all, I think, in awe of this strange place and the books it held.
“And here,” said Konrad, paging through another volume, “are instructions on how to speak to the dead.”
I looked at my brother. I often had the uncanny feeling that I was waiting for his show of emotions so I could better know my own. Right now I saw fear rather than my own powerful fascination with the place.
He swallowed. “We should leave.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, replacing her book.
“I want to stay a little longer,” I said. I was not pretending. Books usually held little interest for me, but these had a dark luster, and I wanted to run my fingers over their ancient pages, gaze upon their strange contents.
I caught sight of a book titled Occulta Philosophia and thirstily drew it from the shelf.
“Occult philosophy,” said Konrad, looking over my shoulder.
I turned the first few vellum pages to find the author’s name.
“Cornelius Agrippa,” I read aloud. “Any idea who this old fellow was?”
“A medieval German magician,” said a voice, and Elizabeth gave a shriek, for the answer had come from behind us. We all whirled to behold, standing in the doorway, Father.
“You’ve discovered the Biblioteka Obscura, I see,” he said, torchlight and shadow dancing disconcertingly over his craggy face. He was a powerfully built man, leonine with his thick silver hair and steady hunter’s gaze. I would not have wanted to stand before him in his courtroom.
“It was an accident,” Elizabeth said. “I fell against the books, you see, and the door opened before us.”
Father’s mood was rarely as severe as his fierce demeanor, and he grinned now. “And naturally you had to descend the stairs.”
“Naturally,” I said.
“And would I be right in assuming, Victor, that you were the one to shake hands with the door?”
I heard Konrad chuckle.
“Yes,” I admitted, “and it very nearly crushed my hand!”
“No,” said my father, “it was not designed to crush the hand, just hold on to it. Forever.”
