‘You have to get in closer,’ Bavar hisses, as we walk past a row of desks and lowered heads.
‘This is stupid,’ I mutter, squishing myself into his side. ‘I mean, they probably won’t even care if we’re here. They probably wouldn’t even notice.’
‘Do you reckon?’ He shifts next to me. His feet are enormous. I wonder where he buys his shoes. I feel like a squirrel in a tree. ‘I think they’d notice you. Where’s the occult section then?’
‘Over here.’ I pull him to the left, and we hobble down a carpeted aisle that gets darker as we go, away from the windows and barely lit by the pale globe lanterns hanging from the ceiling.
The shelves stretch in front of us, thousands, millions of books, their spines gleaming with golden words and names of people I’ve never heard of, and – somewhere – my father’s words are here.
‘Alphabetical first,’ Bavar says. ‘We’ll find it.’ He moves away, and it’s suddenly colder and darker. ‘Falstaff . . . Falstaff . . .’
There’s a low rumble and I stare at him, as he flits about the shelves, eyes bright, fingers reaching out, touching the shelves, the books, and I realize he’s humming.
‘Here – F . . . Falk . . . Falstaff. Medieval mythology . . . ?’
‘No.’ I move closer, look up at where he’s pointing. ‘We’re looking for Marcel – M. Falstaff. He’s not here.’
‘So –’ he peers down the aisle – ‘hang on. This is medieval history; you said we needed occult.’
He moves down, running his fingers along the shelves, and I follow him. There’s a roaring in my ears. I don’t know how I’m going to feel if we find it. I remember how he held it, when I saw him in the mirror; as though it would all be better, if only they’d just let him show them. Do I really want to know what darkness he had found, while me and Mum just got on with our normal lives? Part of me just wants to run away right now and stop it all before it gets any harder. But I don’t. I just keep following Bavar as the shelves get narrower, and the library darkens around us.
‘Aha!’ he bursts out, making me jump. ‘History of the Occult. Falstaff . . . Marcel Falstaff . . .’
My heart thuds, and suddenly there’s movement behind us.
‘May I help you?’ breaks in the voice of the librarian, coming down the aisle towards us. She’s got a kind face, I think, but her eyes are guarded as she looks me up and down.
‘Uh, we’re just looking,’ I say.
‘I’m afraid this isn’t a public library,’ she says, almost regretfully. ‘You look a little young . . .’
‘Bavar, find it,’ I hiss, digging him in the side while I smile at the woman. ‘My father worked here; I just wanted to see his books.’
‘Your father?’
‘Um, yes. Professor Falstaff.’
‘Are you with him now?’
I stare at her. How can she not know?
‘Um, no . . .’
And then Bavar charges past me like a spooked elephant, a heavy book in his hands.
‘Run!’ he shouts.
‘Young man!’ Her voice rings out as I join him and we scarper through the aisles. He lengthens his stride. The lights wink out one by one as we pass through the library, heads raising, eyes wide as he runs, making the floor shudder. I’m running full pelt just to keep up with him, the librarian’s voice still ringing in my ears, and I really hope he got the right book, because now we’re running down the library steps, and when Bavar looks back at me his whole face is alight with excitement, a stupid great big grin, cheeks flushed.
‘Come on!’ he calls, as shouts break the silence behind us. They really care about their books here. Bavar reaches back, grabs my hand and we fly through the courtyard, past the great golden dome, and the cold air stings and the ground is slick with icy rainwater but his feet are firm and his hand is warm and it’s pretty exhilarating in all.
He’d better have the right flipping book.
I’ve never run like this.
There’s never been enough space, enough air to fill my lungs before. This city is as big and as scary as I feel, most of the time. It makes me small. Nothing ever makes me small.
I feel like even if I wasn’t who I am, people wouldn’t see me, just because there are so many of them, all of them different, all of them crowded together in this one city. Tall, golden houses rise up around us, little wrought-iron balconies beneath the windows. I try to imagine what it would be like to sit out on one of them, watching people go by. There’s so much to look at.
‘Bavar!’
I stop and turn, and she collides with me, breathing hard.
‘The book!’
I take it out of my pocket and hold it out to her. She takes it with two hands. I hadn’t realized how big it was.
‘Is it the right one?’
She stares at me. ‘You weren’t sure?’
‘I was mostly sure.’
Her fingers turn white around the battered leather cover.
‘OK.’
‘So, is it?’
‘I think so,’ she says, holding it to her chest.
It’s getting dark around us, the streetlights glowing pink as they come on. We sit in a darkened doorway and she opens the book. The pages are heavy and warped, though they can’t be that old.
Images of monsters, some of them familiar. Woodland crouched beneath angry skies. Creatures laying waste to hillside villages, smoke belching from farmlands.
Raksasa.
They’re everywhere.
‘It’s legends,’ she whispers, tracing her fingers over the small ink drawing of a hooded figure, watching from the shadows as creatures fight in the sky. ‘What did Mr Duke say? My dad collected them from around the world. I knew he travelled, looked into stuff – I just never knew he got this far. I never believed him when he told us all those old myths . . . they must have thought he was crazy.’
‘There are raksasa all over the world?’
Did my family do that? How can I fight them all over the world?
‘No,’ she says, her voice sharp. ‘Look.’ She flicks through pages of intricate drawings, diagrams. ‘There are all sorts of legends, old tales of creatures going back centuries, how different places saw them, and what they did to stop them.’
‘It’s happened all over the world?’
‘It’s happened a million times over,’ she whispers, leafing through the pages.
We huddle close as it gets colder, as ice begins to form on the iron railings, and there are dark things in those pages, things I never even imagined, and then we find a new thing. Different writing, like a page from something else entirely.
‘What is it?’ she asks in frustration.
‘It’s in Latin,’ I say. ‘It’s a spell.’
‘To close the rift?’
‘I think so, sort of.’
‘What do you mean, Bavar?’ She stares at me. ‘Don’t keep things from me now. We’re in this together.’
‘We need an angel.’ I try to smile, to make it a joke. ‘And other things I don’t really understand. Some kind of truth, and also salt.’
An angel’s tears, it says. And then something about sacrifice, and blood.
But it can’t mean her.
She’s already sacrificed too much, thanks to my family.
‘It’s just a name,’ she says. ‘I mean, you’re the one with all the magic. Not me.’