Endymion Spring

impatient to be off.

'There was a face,' he said faintly. 'In the shadow. Only I don't know who it was. It could have been anyone.'

He couldn't bring himself to say more. He shivered, as though a cloud had blotted out the sun and coated the land in shadow. A touch of winter gripped the air.

The group stood motionlessly for a while, but finally Duck broke the silence. 'I want to go home.'

Blake nodded. He couldn't wait to get as far away from the clearing as possible. Still numb with fear, he reached down to pick up the remnants of Psalmanazar's book, which had been damaged even more in its fall. The spine had cracked and several pages lay scattered and torn on the ground. The boards felt curiously lifeless and empty in his hands, as though he was holding the memory — or ghost — of a book.

'Oh, Psalmanazar, what have I done?' he despaired when he realized the magical paper had slipped out too. He twirled round in a panic.

Then he saw it. There, in the trees, was a large sheet of blank paper, caught like a kite in a clutch of branches. He ran over to untangle it.

A flutter of hope passed through him as he once again touched Endymion Spring 's paper. Despite its unwieldy size, it folded naturally into a series of much smaller pages, like a miniature book that fitted neatly into the palm of his hand.

He hurried over to Psalmanazar. The man, however refused to take it. Instead, he gently folded Blake's fingers over the edges of the booklet. The gesture was clear:  Blake was meant to keep it.

Confused, Blake slipped the paper into his pocket. 'Um, thanks,' he murmured, unsure what else to say. He felt as though he had inherited a great responsibility. Even so, his heart was beating rapidly, an unmistakable buzz running through his veins. In exchange, he handed the man the dog's bandanna, which Psalmanazar promptly tied round the animal's grizzled neck.

As they were about to depart, Duck gripped her brother's arm. 'There's something we forgot to ask the book,' she said. 'What's the name of Psalmanazar's dog?'

Blake was tempted to laugh, but a weak, tremulous voice piped behind them:  'It's Alice.'

Both children spun round, startled.

Psalmanazar was smiling at them sheepishly, obviously ill at ease with his newly discovered voice. 'She was burrowing down a rabbit hole,' he continued, his throat rusty and sore. 'It seemed right somehow.'

Duck and Blake stared at him doubtfully for a moment, disbelieving what they'd heard; then, when no further sound was forthcoming, they turned and started the long trek back to the city.

The walked the rest of the way in silence, thinking exactly the same thing:  there was something oddly familiar about Psalmanazar's voice, something that made it sound like an echo of a voice they had heard before. But they didn't mention their suspicions to each other. His silence had been contagious.

16

Blake expected to see a crush of police cars when he rounded the bend into Millstone Lane. He expected  to find television cameras pointed at their front door and neighbors telling reporters how the foreign children had disappeared without a trace. Yet there was nothing. No megaphones, no television crews and no emergency tape cordoning off the front garden. The street was empty. Most of the people had left for work, their cars gone, the milk bottles taken in. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Blake checked his watch. They had been gone nearly two hours…two hours too long. He was worried how their mother would react. Each step brought them a little bit closer to the inevitable argument. Blake braced himself. He was no longer a hero in pursuit of a magical book, but a boy in trouble for sneaking out.

'Remember what I told you,' said Duck, sensing his anxiety. 'You caught me sneaking out of the house. Whatever you do, don't mention Psalmanazar or the blank book. She'll never understand.'

She'd been rehearsing the same excuse since they were within sight of the main road. She liked to take control whenever they were near home; it must be a female trait in his family. Well, she could shoulder all the blame if she wanted, he thought; he didn't mind.

He followed her up the garden path and inserted the key in the lock. He opened the door very slowly. It was like peeling back a plaster to see if the wound beneath had healed or was still inflamed and sore.

He got a nasty shock. His mother was slumped on the bottom step of the staircase facing the door. A rag doll. For one fearful moment, he thought she had collapsed, but then she looked up at him with tired, swollen eyes and his heart caved in inside him. They were in more than ordinary trouble.

'Um,' he said, not knowing where to begin.

His mother raised an eyebrow, waiting for more.

'Um,' he faltered again, feeling his pulse quicken.

'It's all my fault,' interjected Duck suddenly. 'I tried to run away, but Blake came after me and convinced me to come back. I didn't want to!'

She spoke in a great rush of words, as though she were afraid the truth might recoil inside her if she paused or hesitated.

Blake listened to her, astonished, and then caught his mother looking at him for corroboration, testing him with one of her quizzical eyebrows. He glanced at Duck, who was staring straight ahead, like a wall. There was a slight flicker in the corner of her eye, but it could have been a wink, a tear of even an angry twitch. He nodded unconvincingly.

His mother swore.

There was an uncomfortable silence; then Juliet Winters let out a long sigh. 'What am I to do with you?' she despaired at last.

Duck ground the edges of her boots together, while Blake studied the steps behind his mother's back. In his mind, he wanted to flee upstairs and, like the book, disappear.

'Do you realize how worried I was?' his mother said, her voice little more than a growl. 'What on earth made you go out without telling me?  Where were you anyway?'  She picked at him with her eyes — his muddy jeans and tousled hair — and Blake turned away, his cheeks reddening. 'You smell like smoke. What were you doing?'

'I'm sorry,' he said weakly.

'You're sorry?' she scoffed. 'Is that all?'  She stared up at the ceiling and swore.

Blake closed his eyes, blood hammering in his head, and tried to block out the next assault of words.

'I thought that you, Blake, would have been more responsible than this,' she said in a chilling tone. 'A different country, a fabulous city, a new chance. You could have learned so much. Yet all I get from you is trouble — from both of you!'  She glared at them each in turn, her eyes livid and sore. 'First, disappearing at night, and now this morning. What are you up to?  What game are you playing at?'

Neither child said anything. A tangle of emotions tore at Blake's throat. He was tempted to confess everything — to tell her about Endymion Spring, the Last Book and even the Person in Shadow — but he was silenced by her next comment.

'Do you want me to send you home?'

'Yes,' said Blake before he could stop himself.

Duck turned to him instantly in alarm, and he placed a protective hand over his pocket, which contained the sheet of Psalmanazar's paper.

'No,' he said, confused.

His mother eyed him savagely. 'Well, which is it?' she snapped. 'Your father or me?'

Blake felt the ground open beneath him and tried desperately to prevent himself from tumbling. The clock on the hall table ticked down the seconds, waiting for his response. He didn't know what to say. It was almost as if his mother wanted him to choose his father.

'I don't know,' he choked at last. 'I mean yes…I mean no…I mean…I mean…I don't know what I mean!  I just want you and Dad to be together again, the way you were before you started working all the time and he gave up his job to be with us!'