Jonathan stood pinned in the light. He blinked his eyes and squinted up at the looming shadow before him.
“I’m—I’m just—” He took another step back, but a hand reached out and grabbed hold of his sleeve.
“Get in here,” the voice rumbled. “Otherwise they will.”
Jonathan was pulled by his arm through the door. It slammed shut behind him and the hand released him. He shrank back against the closed door.
The light in the room wasn’t as bright as it had first seemed, after his stumbling nightmare in the total darkness. It was just candles, eight or nine of them, and one sputtering lantern.
Jonathan blinked and looked around. The room was full of—books. Shelves lined the stone walls, each covered end to end with large, leather-bound books. Low bookshelves divided the middle of the room, also full of neatly lined volumes, with more books standing up on top between heavy iron bookends. Along one long wall were evenly spaced window wells, deep and arched, but their views were blocked by leaning rows of books standing on their sills.
Jonathan knew in an instant that he’d stumbled into Slabhenge’s library. And it had a librarian.
He eyed the flickering candles nervously. A bunch of candles in a room full of books didn’t seem like a great idea, even in a prison made entirely of stone. He resisted the urge to jump and blow them out.
“Come for a book, did ye? Come to see? What we have?”
Jonathan looked to the source of the voice. The man was old. Incredibly old. Impossibly old. His face was deeply lined with wrinkles and creases. He was thin, and must have once been very tall, before he’d gotten so stooped over. He peered at Jonathan from behind thick, smudged glasses that magnified his eyes to silver dollars, shiny blue. His hair was thin and pure white and long, draping over his shoulders and far down his back.
He held his head to the side and tilted down, so his eyes had to look up into Jonathan’s. A shy smile snuck onto his lips, revealing small, crooked, yellow teeth, but the smile scurried quickly away into the shadows.
“Or else who will get in?” Jonathan finally managed to croak.
The man’s eyebrows crinkled and he frowned.
“I’m sorry?”
“When you—pulled me in. You said to get in or else they would. Who?”
The man’s smile returned and stayed. He leaned a little closer to Jonathan.
“Why, the rats. Of course. They will. Come in. And we don’t like them to.”
Jonathan licked his lips and looked away from the man’s eerie smile and shining eyes.
“No. I guess not.”
“It’s been a long time,” the man said. “A very long time. Since we’ve had a visitor. That wasn’t a rat.”
Jonathan just stood there, blinking stupidly. His mind was still wandering in the dark in a world where all the grown-ups were dead.
“Go ahead. Take a look. Around. Pick one out. Or two.” The man’s little smile came and went as he spoke, like a bobbing lantern on a boat lost in the fog. He took a step back and spread his arms. “Any book you like.”
Jonathan took a breath, then stepped past him and into the shelves of Slabhenge’s library.
The books were all old. Their spines were cracked and painted with the gold words of their titles. Some of them Jonathan recognized. Most he did not. Their pages were yellowed and worn. The smell of leather and ink and old paper mixed and mingled with the candlelight and filled the room. All the books, despite their age, shone with a well-cared-for light—there were no cobwebs in this forgotten library, no dust on these ancient books.
“What do ye like? To read?” The librarian’s voice trailed along behind him as he scanned the shelves. “Adventure, is it? Jonathan Swift? Mysteries, perhaps? Sherlock Holmes?”
“I used to read a lot,” Jonathan answered softly, his eyes exploring the titles of the books as his finger slid over their spines.
“Before? Coming here?”
“Not exactly. Just … before.”
Jonathan’s finger stopped on a dark, well-worn spine. The librarian leaned in to see where Jonathan was looking. He stayed there, his face close to Jonathan’s.
“Ah. Hamlet. A play, that is. By Shakespeare, of course. A good one. Dark. A prince. A ghost. A murder in a castle. And poor Ophelia. Hamlet loved her. But he thought it was his fault. Her dying.” The librarian sighed. “To be. Or not. To be.”
Jonathan pursed his lips and kept walking. He suddenly didn’t feel like any book at all. He felt like being back where all the grown-ups were dead.
“I’ve gotta go. Thanks.”
“But ye’ve got no book!”
“It’s all right. I don’t need one.”
The librarian gave him a long, steady look. “We want you to. Take a book. Don’t worry about the Admiral. And his rules. These books are for reading.”
Jonathan’s mind raced. The old librarian didn’t know about the Admiral. About the lightning.
“Are you always here, just — by yourself?”