“Do you know how to get back?” Colin asked. “Without any light?”
“I think so.” Jonathan started off, wading through the water, feeling the walls with his fingers.
“Hey,” Colin said, reaching out to stop him. “Thankth for coming back for me. For thaving me.”
“No problem.” Jonathan thought about the swim still ahead, past the Hatch. The water was even higher now. “But I’d save your thanks. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
They made their way through the twisting blackness. Jonathan ran through the mental map in his mind, retracing the path he’d taken three times now, negotiating turns and stairwells and pitch-black hallways. As they rose, the water got more shallow. Eventually, they could move quickly, with the water only splashing around their ankles.
Jonathan led them confidently down a corridor and started to turn, then stopped. Colin bumped into his back.
“Wait,” he said. “I need to warn him.”
“Warn who?”
Jonathan chewed on his lip. The water was still rising. Time was running out. They needed to get back. But he knew he had to.
“Follow me,” he said, and then turned and walked the other way. He knew exactly where he was now and he moved quickly, anticipating stairs before he got to them and turning corners confidently. Colin struggled to keep up.
“Where are we going?”
Jonathan stopped, gasping for breath. He could hear, all around him, rats splashing and flailing in the briny floodwaters.
“There,” he answered, pointing up ahead at the thin line of light gleaming just below the water, shining from under a closed door.
They jogged forward and Jonathan knocked urgently on the door.
It swung open.
“Ah,” the librarian said. “You’ve come back.” His hair was wet, stuck down to his head and over his face in a stringy mess. Wind whistled in the room behind him, tossing a blizzard of pages and papers around in the air. Ninety-Nine shivered on his shoulder, his pink tail dangling down the old man’s chest. Even soaking wet, the rat looked huge. Colin gasped and took a step back.
“Please. Come in. We can find you. Another book.”
The library, always so neat and dry and dustless, was in shambles.
The storm had shattered the windows here, too. Rain and wind howled and blustered inside, soaking the books and ripping out pages and leaving puddles on the floor and bookshelves.
“We’ve gotta go,” Jonathan blurted out, taking a step inside. “And you’ve got to come with us.”
“Oh,” the librarian answered calmly, turning and walking slowly into his wrecked library. “I don’t. Think so. What kind of book. Would you like?”
“No, really, we’ve all gotta go. This is a hurricane. The whole place is flooded. The island’s going under.”
The librarian stopped. He turned and looked at Jonathan in his hunched, twisted way. A small smile rose, just barely, to his lips.
“Yes,” he replied. “I know. It’s the sea. Come at last. To claim her own.”
“Then come on! We’ve got to get out! To higher ground!”
The librarian chuckled.
“Yes,” he said. “You do. The sea. Is coming.” He reached up and stroked Ninety-Nine’s dripping fur. “But I. Am staying.”
“You’ll die,” Jonathan insisted.
The librarian shrugged.
“I have lived. Long enough. I have never left. This island. Where else. Would I go?”
Jonathan shook his head and stammered.
“No … but … but …”
The librarian turned and looked out at the storm through his narrow, shattered windows.
“You must take the other boys. Higher. To the only part of Slabhenge. That will last.”
“What? Where is that?”
“The old lighthouse. Up, up. Up. Above the Admiral’s room. The lighthouse was here. First. Before the asylum. Before the school. It is built on the original stone. The true stone. Of the old island. The rest”—the librarian spread his arms to include the windswept stone structure around him—“the rest is all built on sand. But the lighthouse. Will stand.”
“Come on, Jonathan,” Colin whispered behind him. “We have to go.”
Jonathan cocked his head. There was something the librarian had said that stuck in his mind. You must take the other boys.
“You know,” he said, looking the librarian in the eyes. “You know about the Admiral. About the grown-ups.”
The man’s small smile grew just a bit.
“I am a lunatic. Not an idiot. I go at night. To the kitchen. It’s been terribly messy.” The librarian paused, working his fingers into Ninety-Nine’s fur. Ninety-Nine closed his eyes and leaned back into the scratching finger. “And ice cream is my favorite food. It’s kept. In the freezer. Of course.”
“We didn’t kill them. It was lightning. They were all outside, standing in a puddle. The Admiral had his sword in the air.”
“Hmm,” the librarian said thoughtfully. “The Admiral was a madman. Standing around in a puddle. Holding a metal sword in the air. During a lightning storm.” He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Sounds about right. For him.”