I looked at the book suspiciously. Like all the others it was oversized, bound in some grey fabric, old but perhaps never read. It looked more like a school book than a novel or a biography. I noticed that it had fewer pages than many of the others.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“Absolutely.” The Librarian seemed disappointed that I wasn’t more impressed.
“That’s my whole life?”
“Yes.”
“My whole life up to now…”
“Up to now and all the way to the end.”
The thought of that made my head swim. “Does it say when I die?”
“The book is all about you, Matt,” the Librarian explained patiently. “Inside its pages you will find everything you have ever done and everything you will do. Do you want to know when you next meet the Old Ones? You can read it here. And yes, it will tell you exactly when you will die and in what manner.”
“Are you telling me that someone has written down everything that happens to me before it happens?” I know that was exactly what he had just said but I had to get my head around it.
“Yes.” He nodded.
“Then that means that I’ve got no choice. Everything I do has already been decided.”
“Yes, Matt. But you have to remember, it was decided by you.”
“But my decisions don’t mean anything!” I pointed at the book and suddenly I was beginning to hate the sight of it. “Whatever I do in my life, the end is still going to be the same. It’s already been written.”
“Do you want to read it?” the Librarian asked.
“No!” I shook my head. “Put it away. I don’t want to see it.”
“That’s your choice,” the Librarian said with a sly smile. He slid the book back into the space it had come from. But I had one last question.
“Who wrote the book?” I asked.
“There is no author listed. All the books in the library are anonymous. That’s one of the reasons why it makes them so hard to catalogue.”
I was beginning to feel miserable. The dreamworld seemed to exist to help us, but every time we came here it was simply confusing. Jamie and Pedro had both found this too. “You call yourself a librarian,” I snapped at the man. “So why can’t you be more helpful? Why don’t you have any answers?”
He tapped the spine of the book. “All the answers are here,” he said. “But you just refused to look at them.”
“Then answer me this one question. Am I going to win or lose?”
“Win or lose?”
“Against the Old Ones.” I swallowed. “Am I going to get killed?”
“We are experiencing some turbulence…”
The Librarian was still looking at me, but he hadn’t spoken those words. With a sense of frustration, I felt myself being sucked away. There was someone leaning over me. A member of the cabin crew.
“I’m sorry I’ve had to wake you up,” she said. “The captain has put on the seat belt sign.”
I looked at my watch. We still had four more hours in the air. Richard and Jamie were asleep but I knew I wouldn’t be able to join them. I took out my notepad and started writing again.
Four hours until London.
Soon we will be home.
CROSSING PATHS
Scarlett thought she’d be safe, back at school. She’d slip back into the crowd and nobody would notice her. After all, nothing exciting ever happened at school. Wasn’t that the whole point? So, for the first time in her life, she found herself looking forward to the next Monday morning. There would be no bombs, no strange men in cars, no cryptic messages. She would be swallowed up by double maths and physics and everything would be all right.
But it didn’t happen that way.
Shortly before lunch, she was called into the headmistress’s office. There was no explanation, just a brief: “Mrs Ridgewell would like to see you at twelve fifteen.” Scarlett was nervous as she climbed the stairs. In a way, she’d been expecting trouble ever since the trip to St Meredith’s. She had been the centre of attention for far too long and for all the wrong reasons. Her work had gone rapidly downhill. She’d been told off twice for daydreaming in class. And then there had been that terrible maths test. The teachers had already decided that all the publicity had gone to her head and Scarlett fully expected Mrs Ridgewell to read her the riot act. Get your head down. Pull your socks up. That sort of thing.
But what the headmistress said came right out of the blue.
“Scarlett, I’m afraid you’re going to be leaving us for a few weeks. I’ve just had a phone call from your father. It seems that some sort of crisis has arisen…”
“What crisis?” Scarlett asked.
“He didn’t say. He was very mysterious, if you want the truth. But he wants you to join him immediately in Hong Kong. In fact, he’s already arranged the flight.”
There was a moment’s silence while Scarlett took this in. There were all sorts of questions that she wanted to ask, but she began with the most obvious. “Has this got something to do with what happened to me?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then what?”
“He didn’t say.” Mrs Ridgewell sighed. She had taught at St Genevieve’s for more than twenty years and it showed. Her office was cluttered and a little shabby, with antique furniture and books everywhere. A Siamese cat – it was called Chaucer – lay asleep in a basket in a corner. “You haven’t had a very good term, have you Scarlett?”
“No.” Scarlett shook her head miserably. “I’m sorry, Mrs Ridgewell. I don’t know what’s going on, really. Everything seems to have gone wrong.”
“Well, maybe we should look on the bright side. A complete break for a few weeks might do you good. I’ll ask your teachers to prepare some work for while you’re out there – and, of course, we’re going to have to recast the Christmas play. I have to say that it is all very inconvenient.”
“Didn’t he say anything?”
“I’ve told you everything I know, I’m afraid. I thought he would have discussed it with you.”
“No. I haven’t heard from him.”
“Well, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. He told me he’d ring you tonight. So you’ve just got time to say goodbye to your friends.”
“When am I leaving?”
“Your flight is tomorrow.”
Tomorrow! Scarlett couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Tomorrow was only a few hours away. How could her dad have done this to her? He hadn’t mentioned anything when they were in the Italian restaurant. What crisis could possibly have arisen in less than a week?
Scarlett spent the rest of the day in a complete daze. Her friends were equally surprised, although the truth was that she was beginning to get a bit of a reputation. She was weird. First the church and now this. She didn’t even get to see Aidan. She looked for him on the way home and tried texting him, but he didn’t reply. Mrs Murdoch had already heard the news. She had started packing by the time Scarlett got home. And she didn’t seem pleased.
“Not a word of warning,” she muttered. “And no explanation. What do you suppose I’m meant to do, sitting here on my own?”
Paul Adams rang that night as he had promised, but he didn’t tell Scarlett anything she wanted to know.
“I’m really sorry, Scarly…” His voice on the line was thin and very distant. “I didn’t want to do this to you. But things have happened… I don’t want to explain until I see you.”
“But you’ve got to tell me!” Scarlett protested. “Is Mum all right? Is it you?”
“We’re both fine. There’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s just that there are times when a family has to be together and this is one of them.”
“How long am I staying with you?”
“A couple of weeks. Maybe longer.”
“Why?” There was silence at the other end of the line. “Can’t you tell me anything?” Scarlett went on. “It’s not fair. It’s the middle of term and I’m going to miss the school play and all the parties and everything!”
“Look, I’m just going to have to ask you to trust me. You’ll be here in twenty-four hours and I want to explain everything to you face to face, not over the phone. Can you do that for me, Scarly? Just wait until you get out here… and try not to think too badly of me until you arrive.”