Endymion Spring

His mother remained silent for a long, dreadful moment, Blake's hands were trembling and, to hide his feelings, he tightened them into fists.

'Is that what you assumed?' she said at last. Her voice was different. Beaten, unemotional. 'Well, perhaps we should have told you.'

Blake's knees went weak.

It was then that he learned the truth. His father had lost his job several months ago and she was working extra hard to keep them all together. Blake pressed his fingernails deep into his skin until they formed bruised pruple moons in the palms of his hands. He was shivering.

His mother noticed his reaction and said, 'Honestly, Blake, you shouldn't go running off like that. You scared me. Anything could have happened to you. I'd be lost without you — without both of you.'

He barely heard the words she utterednext. She sounded just like a child. 'Please, I don't want to lose you too.'

Instinctively he moved closer and put his arms round her.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered, and this time he really meant it.

17

Everything after than happened in a blur. His mother told them to get ready, she needed to spend the rest of the day in the Bodleian Libaray. 'I really must get some work done.'

Obediently, Duck and Blake trudged upstairs.

In the bathroom, Blake studied his reflection in the mirror and frowned. What could Endymion Spring have seen in him?  He wasn't the heroic type. He was just a scrawny kid with ribs like xylophones and irregular eyes that never looked anyone in the face. They had the unnerving ability to change color according to his mood:  pale blue when he was worried or upset, but darkening when he was angry. His dad likened them to wet pebbles. He wished his dad were here now to describe them; they were an enigmatic shade.

He scrubbed his face and patted his hair into place, trying to erase his feelings of doubt and failure, and then returned to his room to change into cleaner clothes.

He was examining the paper dragon, turning it over and over in his hands, comparing it with the section of Psalmanazar's book (they were a perfect match), when he heard his mother approaching. Hastily, he concealed the dragon behind his pillow and grabbed his knapsack, pretending to look busy.

'OK, let's go,' she said. 'I'm going to take you to the college library, where Mrs. Richards can keep an eye on you. You're not to go off exploring without my permission. Have I made myself clear?'

Dutifully, Blake nodded and got up. He barely had time to stuff the wad of Psalmanazar's folded paper in his pocket before she marched him out of the room. He almost collided with Duck in the hall. She gave him a fleeting glance, but Blake ignored her and hurried down the stairs, still feeling bruised from the morning's proceedings.

He rushed out of the door without waiting for either his mother of sister to catch up.

?

His mother led them directly to the library, where she chose their seats for them:  right next to the office. Paula Richards, however, was darting back and forth along the corridor, preparing for an invasion of the Ex Libris Society, whose members had requested a chance to peruse the college's collections.

She glanced at the children each time she passed by, but didn't pause to speak or smile; she clearly had other things on her mind. Blake wondered privately if she suspected him of snooping around the library the other night and damaging the books on the floor. Her expression had little warmth in it.

He opened his knapsack and pulled out the worksheets his teacher had given him to complete during his absence. So far he had done his best to ignore them, but now his mother had warned him that she would check his assignments each night — to make sure he didn't fall even further behind. Duck, of course, had finished all of her homework ages ago.

He propped his elbows on the table and tried to concentrate. It was difficult. Duck was reading over his shoulder, tapping her fingers lightly on the back of his chair. He could feel the vibrations crawling all over him like a spider.

'Go away,' he said, brushing away her hand.

'I can help you.'

'I don't need your help.'  He stared at the words without seeing them. 'Don't you think you've caused enough trouble already?'

Duck hovered for a moment and then said condescendingly, 'Well, if you don't need me, I'll see what else I can find out about Endymion Spring.'

Her words stung and it took every ounce of his willpower for Blake not to retaliate. He buried his head in his hands and stared fiercely at the words in front of him. Identify the grammatical mistakes in the following paragraphs…He groaned, then began to circle all the errors he could find.

Five minutes later, he looked up. Who cared about split infinitives and dangling modifiers when you had a whole library full of books around you, each tempting you with its secret knowledge?  He scanned the rows of shelves. Who knew what sorts of information these books contained?  He couldn't resist:  he got up to take a closer look.

His mother had dumped them deep in the middle of the history section and each step carried him back a decade or two in time. There were fat volumes and thin, old books and new. The past, it seemed, was an unsolvable mystery, constantly being rewritten.

One of the books grabbed his attention. Unlike the others, it was a cream-colored volume with red silk ribbon tied round its body like a belt. It didn't have a title on its cover, but when he opened it, he saw the word Bestiary printed on the front page in fancy letters that reminded him of seahorses. He took it back to his desk.

Inside were lots of illustrations. Bizarre beasts with blue and silver scales, golden fur and elaborate tongues streaming from their mouths like banners stared out at him like exhibits in a medieval freak show. Some were familiar — hyenas, lions, pelicans and elephants — but many more were strange hybrids with horselike bodies, colossal wings and razor-sharp talons. He'd never encountered anything like them before. With any luck, they'd be extinct by now.

He turned the pages slowly. Surrounding the creatures were short descriptions of their characteristics and attributes. These were written in the same spiky lettering, which he found hard to decipher, but gradually he came to realize that some of the animals were dangerous, while others, like the unicorn, had beneficial qualities:  restorative powers and magical properties.

He flicked to a separate section — on dragons — and stopped.

On the page if front of him were four trees, and in each tree a well-camouflaged dragon. They were painted bright green, glossy gold, deep red and silver to coincide with the passing seasons. The fourth was almost invisible, barely discernible against its wintry background. He couldn't believe his eyes:  they were just like the creature he'd imagined the night before, the dragon in the tree…the animal Psalmanazar's book had revealed to him only that morning. His heart thudded inside him.

He studied the inscription more carefully:

A Leafdragon ys that single creature whose skynne ys believed to contayne the twofoulde propyrties of immortalitee and wisdom, unknowne to manne since Eve dede eat of that moste sacryd forboden Tree. It atchievyth a cloke of invisibilitie, out of sighte of manne, by chaungyng colour accordyng to the sesons of the yeer; yet should manne or his kynde spotte such a beaste, shall he be granted powyrs like unto God and knowlydge bothe Good and Evill…

A shiver of excitement ran through him. The Leafdragon sounded almost exactly like the Last Book  Jolyon had told them about — the power Fust had sold his soul to possess. Could the two be related?  Did this dragon have something to do with the magical book he had found?

He glanced up and down the corridor, wondering if Duck would know, but he couldn't see her anywhere. She had disappeared.