Again, light showed from beneath it. And, again, low humming sounded behind it. He took a breath and then knocked on the door. The humming stopped, and the door creaked open.
“Ah,” the librarian said, with a raise of his bushy eyebrows. “It’s you. Again. Come in.”
Jonathan entered the lighted warmth of the library and let the door close behind him.
“Back for another book?”
“Um, no. Just to look, I guess.”
“Are you reading? Robinson Crusoe?”
“Yeah. A bunch of us are. It’s pretty good.”
“Yes. It is.” The librarian turned and walked back among the shelves. Jonathan followed, the candle still in his hand. He stepped quickly away when he saw the giant rat, Ninety-Nine, atop a shelf at his shoulder, sniffing and stretching toward him with his nose. The librarian saw and smiled.
“Oh. Don’t mind him. He just wants. To be petted.” The librarian reached back an arm, and the rat scrambled up it, his claws catching in the woolen sleeve, and curled up around the librarian’s neck.
“What is the Hatch?” Jonathan asked abruptly. The Hatch—the sound of its violent knocking and sloshing, how deeply it lurked in the darkness of the prison like a shameful secret, with the skull standing silent guard—had haunted his thoughts since he’d left it.
“The Hatch? Ah. Yes. Quite a curiosity. Isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It looks so … old. And it makes all these weird sounds.”
The librarian smiled a strange, knowing smile and shook his head.
“It is old. But it does not make any sounds. No. It’s what’s behind it. That makes the noise.”
“Well, what’s behind it, then?”
The librarian pursed his lips and leaned forward, cocking one sideways eye at Jonathan. Ninety-Nine’s beady eyes sparkled at him.
“The sea, my boy. It is. The sea itself. Behind that ancient door.”
“The sea? How?”
The librarian heaved a heavy breath and walked over to the closest window, mostly blocked by standing books. He pulled one of the books down and peered through the space where it had been. The gray light shone through the old man’s wispy white hair.
“The water,” the librarian whispered, looking out at the storm-tossed waves. “It is rising.” He cocked one eye back over his shoulder toward Jonathan. “Or the island is sinking. Both. I think.” He looked out again through the gap at the sea. When he spoke this time, his voice was different. Faster, smoother, less labored.
“Years ago, back in the asylum days, the water was not so high. There was a beach around Slabhenge then. A smooth stretch of sand. With shells, and logs, and pools. We had a pier, even. Big enough for large boats to dock at. I would sit on the pier, sometimes, and fish. Watch the sun set. Or rise. Look off at the distant mainland and wonder. Of course, I was a boy then. So long ago.”
Jonathan stepped to stand behind him. He stood on his toes to see the white-capped ocean.
“You … were here when you were a kid?”
The old man’s eyes were trained far off in the distance. His voice was feathery and far away.
“Oh, yes. I was born here. My mother and father were both … patients here. She was a madwoman. He, a lunatic. The asylum was my home. My school. My playground. The guards were my aunts and uncles. My friends. My tormentors, sometimes.” He brought one wrinkled hand up to stroke the rat perching on his shoulder. The gigantic animal twisted and stretched so that the old man’s fingers could scratch his itchy places.
“They offered to send me away to the high school on the mainland when I was old enough. The head warden, I mean. He was a kind enough man, I suppose. But I refused. It all seemed too terrifying. Leaving the island. The walls. The water. So I stayed.”
The librarian sighed. It was a weary sigh, tired and breathy and covered in the dust of years.
“I became the librarian’s assistant. I did my learning from these books. And my traveling. My living, really, right here in these pages. When the old man died, the warden let me take his place. Not long after that, my mother died. And my father. And I just … stayed. When the asylum closed, they allowed me to stay, to care for the facility. Run the lighthouse. Keep it all from falling apart. And when it reopened as a school, the Admiral kept me on.”
“So you’ve never left the island? You’ve always been here?” The librarian was still turned away, toward the sea, but Jonathan could tell from the old man’s voice when he answered that he was smiling.
“Oh, yes. Always. I have never once left this island. This beautiful, crumbling island. Not once. And I never will. Never.”
Jonathan took a breath and a step back. The rat turned on the librarian’s shoulders and narrowed his eyes at Jonathan, his pointy front teeth showing.