… Steve?” he called. Nobody answered.
Now he went more quickly, trying to keep to the open spaces at the center of the room. Who knew how big it was on this side of the mirror? Maybe it was a whole world! Tyler began to feel quite hopeless about ever finding the boy from the neighboring farm. He raised his voice a little. “Steve?”
“Ssssssssteeeeeeeeeev… ” It wasn’t an echo that whispered through the room but something stranger and far more disturbing, as though a creature that had never spoken before was trying to imitate his voice. Tyler turned again and saw a cluster of shadows down one of the aisles, something that looked as though it was covered with swinging rags and moved in a hunched-over, sideways motion like a crab. It was visible only for a moment, then scuttled away into the darkness beyond the candle flames again.
“ Sssteeeee,” the cracked voice whispered from of the shadows, then the shape appeared again, one row nearer this time. The rags waved like seaweed straining for the surface and the light.
Tyler ran.
He crossed the nearest part of the library in moments, trying to put as many shelves as he could between himself and whatever was following him. He found himself in a gallery of ancient photographs along the back wall, black-and-white pictures of half-built machinery and monuments. A door stood ajar and he ducked through it into a hallway beyond, closing it behind him as quietly as he could. The corridor was lined with more old photos-children wearing ceremonial outfits so strange they looked like Halloween costumes, fantastical combinations of scarves and turbans and long coats. He pushed himself back against the wall between two pictures and tried to be absolutely silent.
When a few minutes had passed without any new noise, and the door between himself and the library still remained shut, he began to breathe a little easier. He was just mopping the sweat off his forehead when a voice spoke quietly beside his ear.
“I think it’s gone now.”
Tyler squeaked and jumped. He looked up and down the hallway but there was nothing and nobody to be seen.
“I’m here,” the voice said-a woman’s voice, shaky with age but calm and refined, like something you might hear on television. “Turn around.”
Tyler turned, his heart beating so fast he felt weak in the knees. Then he saw something moving and took a step closer to the wall. One of the two rectangles he had stood between was not a photo like the others but some kind of ironwork grille in the wall. On the other side of it, barely visible in the uneven lamplight, was what looked like a woman’s face and a suggestion of white hair.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” she said. “Who are you? Why are you out when the Bandersnatch is hunting?”
“Bandersnatch?” The name seemed familiar.
“That’s just what I call it. Like in the old story… or is it a rhyme?” She laughed a little, and for the first time she didn’t sound quite right. “I… I can’t remember everything I should. In fact, I can’t remember much of anything.”
It suddenly hit him who he might be talking to. “Grace? Are you Grace?”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “You really should find somewhere to hide. There’s nothing I can do for you. I’m too frightened of that thing. It’s been after me for… for years.”
“Where are you?” Tyler leaned forward, trying to get a good look at her face, but his sudden movement startled her and she moved back. He was terrified he might lose her. “Don’t go away! Where are you? How can I get to where you are?”
“You can’t. At least, I don’t know how. I’m lost right now myself.” She sounded sad about it, but not devastated, as though it happened fairly often.
“You mean you can’t get to me, either?”
“No.” He thought he saw her shake her head. “But you need to find someplace safer. The Bandersnatch can… well, it can find you. And it can be very quiet. It likes the shadows. Look for the light. There’s a place at the top of the library where it hardly ever goes. Too bright.” She started to move back from the grating. “Be careful. What did the poem say? ‘Beware the Jubjub bird… and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!’ Something like that.”
“Wait! Are you Grace?”
The face hesitated, half gone into the shadows. “Grace?”
“Is that your name? Are you Grace? Gideon’s wife? I’m his nephew, Tyler.”
“Grace.” She sounded as though she was drifting away. “The name
… is familiar. Gideon? Gideon. I remember… I think I remember.” For a moment she disappeared from the grille entirely, then her face reappeared and her fingers came through the bars dangling something shiny. “Take this. Give it to… No, Gideon, he gave it to… ” It slid from her and chinked to the floor, coiling there like a tiny, gleaming snake.
When he stood up again with the gold locket and chain in his hand, she was gone.
The last thing Tyler had wanted to do was go back into the library, but he had to find Steve. The only alternative was to look for him down in the cellar, and Tyler knew it would be a long time before he decided to do that.
Grace, if that was the woman behind the grating, had told him to head for the high part of the library-that he would be safe where it was lightest. He moved as quickly across the library floor as he could, staying out in the open, until he found the main staircase. This led up to a level that ran all the way around the top of the great room, but then a set of stairs rose from there toward the building’s pitched ceiling, a floor that seemed to have been used as an attic, with boxes of old books and clothing and other things stacked haphazardly all around. Tyler climbed the steps as quietly as he could. It was indeed brighter than the rest of the library up on the platform below the ceiling: it was flooded with flickering oil light from the central chandelier, but there were also dormer windows in the top of the roof that let in the light from an oily gray sky.
“If you stand on a pile of boxes you can see the rest of the house,” someone said.
This time the voice wasn’t quite as much of a shock. Tyler managed to stifle his shriek of alarm before he turned and found Steve Carrillo sitting cross-legged on the floor, carving a piece of wood with an antique pocketknife.
“Steve!” said Tyler, relief washing through him.
The black-haired boy looked at him, puzzled. “Do I know you?”
“Do you know me? I’m Tyler! You came to find us, remember? You and your sisters?”
Steve squinted for a moment. “Tyler. Yeah. It’s just that I’ve been here so long…”
“What do you mean? You just came through a little while ago!”
The look of confusion came back to Steve Carrillo’s face. “Days. I’ve been here for days and days.”
“Look, never mind. We have to get you back. Come on.” Tyler turned and headed for the stairwell, but quickly realized no one was following him. “Steve?”
The other boy looked pale with alarm. “I’m not going down there! It’ll get me.”
“That Sanderbatch thing?” Tyler shook his head. “We’ll just stay in the open. Maybe we can find a flashlight or something-I don’t think it likes light.”
Steve shook his head emphatically. “It’s… it’s made out of dust and paper, I think. I hear it all the time. It’s just waiting. Waiting for me to come down.”
“Look, don’t you want to see your family again? Your sisters? Your mom and dad?”
Steve looked at him doubtfully.
“Trust me. I’ll get us back.” A thought occurred to Tyler. “You find any matches up here?”
Once they were through the library and into the corridors beyond they lit the bundles of mirror-written book pages Tyler had tied to two halves of a broken broom handle. The paper was so old and damp it burned slowly. Torches in hand, they scurried along the passageways, talking only in whispers, stopping every few minutes when Steven’s courage started to fade. He really did act like someone who had been here for months, not minutes, Tyler thought-like a prisoner of war in some movie, his spirit almost crushed. Every echo of their own passage made Steve jump like a rabbit, and Tyler couldn’t imagine what would happen if they actually ran into anything serious. He would probably just fall down and die.
Finally, in an effort to take the other boy’s mind off what was happening, Tyler began talking about their
