Spellbinder (15 page)

“What?” said Steve.

“Someone will see the light!”

“No, they won’t,” he said, turning it back on again. “And if anyone does see it, they’ll just assume it’s a teacher or the watchman. If they see us moving around in here in the dark, they’re much more likely to think something’s up and call the police. It’s always better to act as if you’ve got every right to be where you are.”

“You’ve thought about this a bit too much,” observed Belladonna.

They went to opposite ends of the library and began peering at the books.

“I suppose,” said Steve, “that if we’re looking for a
secret passage, the door will open with a switch of some kind. In films it’s usually a decoration on the fireplace or an ornament or something.”

He mimed pulling a lever, while making a creaky noise. Belladonna stared at him and shook her head sympathetically.

“Well, okay, so there’s no fireplace,” said Steve, “or ornaments.”

“No,” said Belladonna, looking around at the ranks of books. “Hang on a sec, though. Ashe mentioned the classics. . . .”

She hunted through the sections until she came to a couple of shelves full of Greek and Latin language tutors and stories of the Roman Empire. She’d been sort of hoping there would be a statue of a head or something that you could turn or whose nose would slide to the right and open a hidden panel, but there was nothing. She shrugged, but Steve was more optimistic and began pushing the spines of each book in turn.

“I’ve seen some films where they push on a book and when they find the right one, it goes all the way in and a door opens!”

Belladonna thought that sounded entirely reasonable, so she started on the other shelf, giving each book a sharp shove, but nothing happened. Steve stepped back from the shelves and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“It’s useless,” he said. “I told you that Dr. Ashe was a nutbox.”

“Hmm.” Belladonna put her hands on her hips and glared at the books as if it was their fault, then she clicked her tongue in annoyance. “No wonder this library is so useless. Look, these two books are in the wrong order!”

“What?” Steve looked at her like he was adding her to his personal list of nutboxes.

“See,” she said, pulling one out, “Suetonius comes after Sophocles, not before.”

She shoved the Suetonius back into the shelf in the right place.

“Who cares? Honestly, Belladonna, you have the attention span of—”

He never finished his sentence because, as the book hit the back of the shelf, there was a distant thud and the entire wall of bookcases slid back and then sideways with a grinding, crunching sound, revealing a small stone alcove and the top steps of a narrow, spiral staircase leading downward into the dark.

“Whoa! Cool!”

Belladonna frowned. For some reason the idea of a secret panel that only opened if the books were in alphabetical order made the whole enterprise seem less like an adventure and more like a really elaborate English test. Steve was untroubled by such worries, however, and was already standing on the top step, peering down into the darkness.

“It’s really dark,” said Belladonna, peering over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” said Steve happily, “and cold.”

He rummaged about in his pocket for a moment and retrieved a set of house keys on a ring. Belladonna had never seen so many keys—she only had one—but Steve’s key ring jangled with at least six, as well as a small green cylinder.

“It’s a flashlight,” he explained, and clicked a small button on its side.

The light wasn’t much—it more sort of trickled out than illuminated—but at least they could see as far as the next few steps. With Steve leading the way, they began their descent.

“Could you stop the keys from making so much noise?” whispered Belladonna.

“Sure. Why?”

“Because if there’s anything nasty down there or anything with more legs than it should have, it would probably be a good idea not to let it know we’re coming.”

Steve glanced back at her for a moment and immediately silenced the rattling keys. Belladonna couldn’t help smiling as they continued down the steps: She felt fairly sure that his mind had turned to thoughts of ember beetles, long legs, and chandelier eyes.

Still, even without the rattling of the keys, their descent was not very quiet—every footstep echoed into the darkness and the smallest sound was amplified to almost deafening proportions.

“Steve . . .” whispered Belladonna. “Does it feel like it’s getting colder?”

He nodded. What had started out as a general chill had become icy like a winter morning. The stones on the sides of the staircase were slick with damp and their breath fogged the air in front of them. Belladonna didn’t want to mention the fact that this was the opposite of the way it was supposed to be. She had seen documentaries on television and read books about caverns and they all said the same thing—it got warmer the deeper you went.

Something scuttled overhead. Steve stopped and began to arc the flashlight up to see what it was. Belladonna reached out and pushed the light back down.

“Let’s just keep going,” she said.

Steve glanced nervously into the darkness above their heads, but focused the light forward and moved on. The stairs seemed never ending and their knees were starting to wobble like jelly. Belladonna tried going backward for a while, but it didn’t really help. Every so often something else would scuttle about but other than that, the only sounds were the ones they made themselves. They had both long since fastened their jackets tightly and alternated shoving hands in pockets and blowing on them, but it didn’t help for long—the air just got colder and colder.

Belladonna was about to suggest that they turn around and go back, when Steve suddenly stopped.

“Look!” he said.

She peered into the dim light of the tiny torch and saw what she had been dreaming of for the last half hour: the end of the staircase.

They practically ran down the last few steps, through a stone archway and into a long stone corridor. The corridor walls were punctuated with small alcoves where there had probably once been candles, but now it was dark, dank, and silent except for the steady drip of water that was leaking through the wall on one side and into a small puddle on the stone floor. There was no mysterious scuttling, however, and nowhere for any surprises to hide. Steve recovered his confidence and strode forward, with Belladonna trailing behind.

“It smells funny,” she remarked.

The corridor ended with another stone arch. They stepped through and found themselves in an octagonal stone chamber. Steve flashed the light around.

“It’s just like the library.”

He was right. Belladonna turned slowly, following the light. It seemed to be the exact size and shape as the room far above, only this room was almost empty. The only furnishings were a stone chair flanked by two tall stands with what looked like brass bowls on the top. The wall above the chair had some carving that she couldn’t quite make out.

“Up there,” said Belladonna, “shine the light up there.”

Steve tilted the light up. There were several words
carved into the stone but they seemed to be written in Greek. Belladonna sighed and looked at Steve.

“Don’t look at me,” he grinned. “It’s all Greek to me.”

“Oh, great,” boomed a female voice, “like I haven’t heard that one before.”

Belladonna and Steve spun around, looking for the speaker, but even by the sickly light of the tiny flashlight it was clear that no one else was in the room.

“Um . . . hello?” said Belladonna nervously.

Her voice echoed around the chamber, but there was no reply. Steve turned the light onto the Greek carving again, and as he did so, fire suddenly shot up from the two brass bowls on either side of the stone chair, illuminating the octagonal room with a flickering yellow light, but there was still nobody there.

“It’s been a good while since anyone visited me,” said the voice. “I’ve almost forgotten how it goes.”

“How what goes?” asked Belladonna.

There was the distant sound of someone (or something) clearing its throat.

“Beware!” thundered the voice, bouncing off the walls and setting Steve’s and Belladonna’s ears ringing. “You who consult the oracle of Apollo, examine your souls! The unworthy, the abject, the abominable . . . depart! And live!”

As the echo of the last syllable died in the octagonal room, Steve sidled uncomfortably toward Belladonna. “Um . . . do you think the explosives on Mr. Morris’s
shoes count as . . . you know . . . unworthy?” he whispered.

“Or abject? Or abominable?” grinned Belladonna.

“Oh, right,” he hissed. “You don’t say three words together all year in school but now you decide you’re going to be funny.”

Belladonna smiled cheerfully and turned her attention back to the stone chair, imagining that the Sibyl must be sitting on it, but invisible.

“We’re fine,” she said.

“Basically,” said Steve, adding, “basically fine. Just . . . you know, minor infractions.”

There was silence for a moment, then the braziers flared up, the orange flame turning red.

“Such as the explosives on Mr. Morris’s shoes?” boomed the voice.

“I told you!” whispered Steve to Belladonna.

“Or the spiders in Philip Jones’s desk? Or the treacle in Sophie Warren’s shoes? Or the mass release of the lab mice?”

Steve began to smile in happy recollection as his greatest hits were recited.

“You put treacle in Sophie Warren’s shoes?” whispered Belladonna. “Score.”

“Or,” boomed the voice, “the theft of the Kit-Kat from Mr. Robinson’s sweet shop?”

Steve’s face fell. Belladonna looked at him with disbelief—he had actually stolen.

“I took it back,” he said weakly.

The Sibyl was silent. He shifted his appeal to Belladonna.

“I took it back. It was just a dare. You know, to see if I could. And if I would.”

Belladonna looked away. She felt disappointed. Which was silly, she knew, because how could he know how to break into buildings unless . . . But still . . .
stealing
.

“Perhaps I should go,” he said gloomily.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the Sibyl, who no longer seemed to be by the chair, but on the other side of the room, about halfway up the wall. “They were, as you said yourself, just minor infractions. Such trifling matters are nothing to me. I have known men who have set rivers running with blood, murdered those they should have loved, and betrayed entire nations. Stealing a small chocolate bar really isn’t in the running.”

Steve looked relieved and glanced at Belladonna.

“Of course”—the voice was suddenly at his right ear, sibilant as a snake—“that’s on the understanding that it won’t happen again.”

Steve shook his head.

“Where
are
you?” asked Belladonna.

“Everywhere,” said the Sibyl, “and nowhere. I was somewhere once, of course. Back then, gods marveled at my beauty.”

“Huh,” muttered Steve, who had got some of his nerve back, “sounds like my Mum.”

“Apollo himself,” she continued, clearly enjoying
the opportunity of telling the story, “offered me anything I wanted if I would only return his love.”

“What did you ask for?” said Belladonna.

“For life, of course, fool as I was. I reached into the sand—I lived near the beach then, but that’s another story—anyway, I reached into the sand and filled my hand. I asked to live as many years as there were grains in my hand.”

“What did you forget?” asked Belladonna.

“Forget?”

“Well, in stories about wishes, people always forget something.”

“You make me sound so conventional,” sniffed the Sibyl. “Well, as it happens, I did forget something. I forgot to ask to remain young. I also told Apollo that I didn’t really love him.”

“Oops,” said Steve quietly.

“Oops, indeed,” said the Sibyl. “I grew older and older, my beauty vanished, and after many hundreds of years, I became so small and old and frail that I was kept in a jar. Still I aged. A thousand years passed, then two thousand, until all that was left was my voice.”

“How awful.”

“It’s better than the jar. Now, what do you want to know?”

She seemed to be back in the vicinity of the chair, so Belladonna turned and faced it again.

“We’re looking for an amulet,” she said. “Made from draconite. That’s the stone from—”

“I know what draconite is,” snapped the voice.

“It’s supposed to be somewhere close by.”

“We’ll see. . . .”

The flames in the braziers flared blue, then green, and filled the room with a sweet, acrid smoke that made Belladonna and Steve feel dizzy. Through the light and smoke, Belladonna almost imagined she could see the Sibyl as she once was, sitting in the stone chair, gripping its arms, and throwing her head back to allow the gods entry to her mind.

“Peering proudly through the welkin way,

The radiant raptor rends the ruddy day,

Protecting the paragon in plain sight

Under arches and angles in motley light.”

The flames sank to orange and the Sibyl seemed to sigh.

“Um . . . is that it?” asked Belladonna.

“Did it make sense?”

“No, it didn’t make sense!” said Steve. “It was like something from one of those crosswords where the clue is a train and the answer is a caterpillar.”

“Oh, good,” said the Sibyl, “I was afraid I’d lost my touch.”

Belladonna and Steve looked at each other and then at the empty chair.

“Oh, you’d better write it down,” suggested the
Sibyl, her voice drifting down from the ceiling. “Sometimes they’re difficult to remember.”

“That’s because they’re rubbish,” muttered Steve.

“If you wanted something easy,” said the Sibyl icily, “you could try the horoscopes in the morning paper. They’re a pack of meaningless drivel, of course, but you can understand them right away.”

Belladonna scowled at Steve, who kicked the earth floor a couple of times, took a deep breath, and managed what he hoped was a conciliatory smile.

“Don’t try that,” hissed the Sibyl. “I have heard the honey words of great men and greater women. Lies are as clear to me as the mountains on a sunny day.”