THE LIBRARY

Rest gentle and in silence deep,

Let not dreams disturb your sleep.

Shut tight your eyes and wipe your tears,

For the darkness knows your fears.

A Binders’ Lullaby, The Book of the Binders

Anna looked around in paranoia at the rows of faces coming up the escalator, seeing Aunt in every one of them. She knew it was a bad idea to leave Selene’s house. If Aunt found out where she was … but she had to help Rowan and she had her own motivations too. If this library was the vast and wondrous place that Effie promised perhaps it could give her the answers she craved?

The British Library rose up in front of them, full of jolting angles and imposing might. Aunt had taken her once and Anna had loved it – its clean, open foyer, its modern glass centre rising high with old books, the reading rooms silent with focus. Every part of it seemed to work together, like a quiet, ticking mind in the centre of London. How many secrets live within its walls?

It wasn’t busy inside: a few drowsy-looking students and milling staff members.

‘We’ve got to go up to come down,’ said Effie, cutting a path through the foyer and taking the stairs up to the top floor. No one was around. She walked to the glass centre of the building. Anna had always thought it impenetrable, but now before her, amidst the books, was a rather dilapidated-looking lift, its brown doors barely noticeable. Effie pressed the button and they waited. It arrived with a barely audible whoosh and they stepped inside.

It was small. They shuffled together and the doors squeezed themselves shut. The buttons went down to minus five. Anna wondered if they were going that deep. Effie reached out and pressed the intercom instead; there was a buzzing sound. She leant forwards and stated: ‘Eneke Beneke,’ into it clearly. The lift made a metal groaning sound and began to descend through the heart of the library, hidden from view by the wall of books around them. The electronic display followed their descent: minus one, minus two, minus three, minus four, minus five … minus six, minus seven …

Attis leant into her. ‘There are five official underground floors at the British Library. The rest are unofficial.’

The lift gained speed. Minus ten, minus eleven … Anna’s stomach began to do several tumultuous stomach flips.

He continued: ‘The underground site was actually a library of magical texts long before the British Library ever existed. Later it made sense to build the public library on top as a sort of cover.’ Minus fifteen, minus sixteen … ‘Many members of the British Library board are witches. They oversee the cowan library too but their real job is guarding the collections that lie beneath.’

Manda and Anna looked at each other, a similar excitement jumping between their eyes. Minus twenty, minus twenty-one …

‘Mum says we’re lucky we have access to so much knowledge,’ said Rowan. ‘That during the Dark Times witches had to bury it much deeper. It was too dangerous to put down in books. They hid it away instead, in folk songs, nursery rhymes, tarot cards, works of art … our secrets are everywhere.’

‘Are there librarians down here?’ asked Anna. Minus twenty-five, minus twenty-six … How deep are we going?

‘No,’ said Effie. ‘No one works down here. For that reason, it can be dangerous. Just don’t stray too deep.’

The excitement in Manda’s eyes had now turned to fear. Minus twenty-nine, minus thirty … The display went blank but the lift kept hurtling downwards until it stopped suddenly with a dull thump. It pinged open and several books fell in front of the doors. Stepping out, Anna wondered how it had managed to arrive at all. The lift appeared to be embedded in books. The doors shut and it was no longer possible to see where it had been.

The room ahead of them was dimly lit and full of swirling dust. Anna’s eyes took a moment to adjust. She looked down at her feet and saw that they were standing upon … books … a patchwork of covers and pages, puddles and streams of words, compacted with footprints and dust.

She lifted her gaze. The room around her was vast – corridors of books spread out around them as if they were in the centre of a wheel, spokes extending in all directions. Faded light trickled through some of the corridors while others seemed to swallow the light whole. Anna looked more closely at the shelves and realized that while they held books, they were also made out of books – stacks and stacks of them – forming the spines and ribs of each shelf. She tilted her head further again – it was hard to make out the ceiling, it was so far away. It was formed of books too, tightly knitted together, but some were falling loose, dripping pages and words over their heads.

‘Watch out for the loose ones,’ said Attis, smiling at her face. She wasn’t even sure what expression she was pulling.

‘It’s all books … everything …’ She lifted a foot and saw she’d scuffed the pages beneath it, crumpling the words. More books than she’d ever seen, that she’d ever been able to comprehend. It was beyond wonderful. The room was dark and crowded and heavy with words and yet Anna felt herself lifted, freed by the worlds waiting to be discovered all around her – the old, damp, dusty secret scents oddly comforting and strangely delightful.

There was no floorplan, no categories for the maze surrounding them. Only one sign, which appeared also to be made out of books. It read: ‘A story, a story, let it come, let it go’.

‘Where has the lift gone?’ Manda asked with controlled panic.

‘We’ll find it again. Come on.’ Effie moved forward.

‘I’m not so sure about this, I think I want to leave …’ Manda’s panic escaped and the books gobbled up her echo.

Anna began wandering down one of the corridors. She could locate no floorplan or categories for the maze surrounding them.

‘Hold your horses there, bookworm,’ Attis called out to her. ‘We need a plan or you will not be home by midday and your clothes will turn back into rags.’

Anna walked back to the centre. ‘How does it work then? How do I find the section I want?’

‘The Library is far too vast to be ordered in the traditional sense; instead it’s run by magic,’ Effie explained as if it was obvious. ‘You need to state your intention clearly, what it is you’re seeking. The Library will hear and guide you – unless it has other ideas …’

Rowan sniggered. ‘It always has other ideas. Just wait for the books to come to you. It’s best not to go digging or you could end up, you know, irrevocably damaged in some way. Try to avoid the really dark corridors. A lot of magic in here, both good and bad, some very old …’

‘I think I’ll just stay here and peruse the immediate area,’ said Manda, looking back hopefully as if the lift might appear again. ‘Anyone want to stay with me?’

Rowan laughed. ‘I’ll stay with you. I feel like Effie knows what she’s looking for and I’ll probably just get in the way or lost or injured or all three.’

‘OK, well, the rest of us should state our intention,’ said Effie. She stepped forward and narrowed her eyes. ‘Library, I’m seeking spells of vengeance – spells for those who deserve all they get. You know who I’m talking about.’ The light flickered in one of the corridors and darkened. ‘Guess I’m going that way then.’

‘Greetings. I’m seeking ancient symbols of metallurgy. New subject matter, please. Also a fun read, something with a spy and an irresistible love story.’ Attis turned and settled on the corridor he wanted to go down.

Anna wasn’t sure what to state. She didn’t want to bring up her parents’ death or a fear of curses in front of everyone. She stepped forward, opening her mouth to speak to a room full of books, feeling entirely insane, and yet, as she began, she felt them bend towards her like ears, eager and hungry. ‘Library.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’m seeking information about my family. The truth.’

The room around her was silent but she swore she could hear something – the whisper of words buried deep, stirring, stretching out their letters towards her like a finger unfurling. She turned and caught a whisper coming from a corridor to her left – it was dark but not as dark as some.

‘I’m this way.’ She pointed, unsure but trying to trust the sensations around her. Effie was giving her threateningly curious looks. Attis’s eyes were narrowed and unreadable in the semi-darkness.

When Effie made off down her corridor, he stepped back towards Anna. ‘I don’t think you ought to go into the Library alone, not as a first-timer.’

‘I want to go in alone.’

‘Well, unfortunately, the Library is now telling me to go the same way as you, so …’

Anna narrowed her eyes. ‘That seems convenient.’

He shrugged, an implacable expression in his eyes. Anna shook her head and made her way into the web of books, Attis’s footsteps behind her. The corridor was long and full of small sounds on the edge of hearing. She continued down it, feeling the heavy press of knowledge on either side, the rows of books on books within books narrowing around them. She reached a crossroads and took a right because it felt right. She walked deeper, noticing a large gap in one of the shelves which was filled with paper debris as if a book had exploded. The light overhead flickered. She almost screamed when she came across a woman sitting atop a pile of books, another pile on her lap. The woman shook her head and threw the one she was reading behind her; it was about to land on Anna’s head when Attis batted it out of the way.

‘Oh, sorry!’ the woman said. ‘Didn’t see you there.’

Anna nodded in return and continued down the corridor. Half of her was glad of Attis’s presence and the other half wished she could break away – her mission was not one for sharing. She took a fresh turn, following the whispering that disappeared as soon as she stopped to listen to it …

They passed a corridor of books all bound in red, another where all the titles were written backwards, another in which every book was tiny – no bigger than the size of her palm. Several corridors were lost in complete darkness, one releasing a strange gurgling noise which made her run in the other direction.

‘Anna, wait up!’ She heard Attis call from behind her, but the whispers were drawing her onwards. They grew louder and she took a sudden turn. ‘Anna—’ She turned again down a narrow corridor and the sound of his footsteps behind her stopped abruptly. She swivelled around to see where he’d gone but the turn she’d just taken no longer existed – there was nothing there but a wall of books.

‘Attis!’ she called, but there was no reply, no sound. ‘Attis?’ She felt suddenly very alone amidst the towering shelves, but alone was exactly what she needed to be …

She carried on down the snaking corridor, ignoring the tingle up her spine. She took in the many peculiar titles as she passed: Ancient Magical Mirrors. Topiary for Hedge Witches. Vasalisa and the Burning Skull. Magical Radios and Inhuman Frequencies. Symbology of the Taliswomen. Many were in other languages: French, Latin, Arabic, Greek; others she couldn’t place; some were not formed from words at all but strange images and symbols. Not all were still either: many moved, shifting and transforming. She stopped to stare at a gilded snake wriggling up and down a book’s spine. Others had no names at all.

Anna couldn’t resist opening a few, finding the pages old and dry, crackling under her fingers. She swore one yawned as she opened it. In another the ink was still wet and began to run when she held it up, ruining the words.

She soon had the distinct feeling she was walking in circles and was surely lost. Time felt as warped as the corridors – she wasn’t sure if minutes or hours had passed but she couldn’t stop. Something was pulling her onwards, books watching her pass, the light becoming even more emaciated, as if it had been trapped in the pages for too long.

The title of a book caught her eye: Whickstamp. She stopped and read the surrounding titles – they were all surnames. She reached for the Whickstamp book. Inside was a family tree spread across its pages, covering every Whickstamp who had ever lived, all the way back to 1376. Anna’s heart somersaulted with excitement. Family histories!

But the books were in no particular alphabetical order and there were thousands of them. ‘Where are you, Everdell?’ she said aloud, walking along the row. How is this library meant to work? She stumbled on a book underfoot and reached out a hand to steady herself. She turned and saw the book she was holding: Everdell!

‘Apologies – you do work. Thank you!’ she cried out to the surrounding silence.

She sat on the floor cross-legged and placed the book on her lap, finding her heart was now the loudest thing in the vicinity. The lighting overhead grew stronger as if to aid her reading. She opened it—

It was blank.

Anna turned the page – blank again – and the next, and the next. Feeling desperation take hold of her she rifled through the whole book, but all of it was the same – blank, blank, blank. She tipped the book up and shook it as if hoping the words might somehow spill out, but the pages remained stubbornly empty.

She grabbed at other books along the shelves and searched them in case they suffered from the same phenomenon. Gooderidge. Greene. Hedgel. Pike. They each contained full family trees. A word began to write itself into one of the pages making her stop midway through her frantic search. The word: ‘deceased’. It appeared next to one of the recent names in the family tree along with a date. Today’s date! Has the person just died? Anna closed the book and threw it away, realizing with a mixture of awe and horror that the family trees were alive … tracing the families they recorded in real time.

‘Then why is mine a magical black hole?’ she cried out to the Library, as if they had been in conversation.

She continued to look through the books desperately in case there was another Everdell book hiding from her, and then, fretting about the time, she put the one she had under her arm and set off in search of the way out, full of frustration. Why is everything a dead end? Like the third-floor room – closed off to me forever.

She tried to retrace her steps but either she’d forgotten or the corridors had moved because she was soon utterly lost. The Library seemed to be getting darker, as if night was setting within it. She walked faster. ‘Library, I’d like to leave now …’ Surely she could find a way. She turned down a well-lit corridor she thought she remembered. The end of it forked into three. She turned left; halfway down it the lights stuttered out. She swallowed a squeal and tried to get her bearings but the darkness was complete.

Stay calm. You’ve coped with darker places. One hand reached automatically for her Knotted Cord, the other out in front of her. She tried to feel her way, the shelves guiding her – tripping on books and stilling herself, heart beating, breath loud in the darkness. She thought she heard footsteps pass her by and stopped.

‘Hello? Attis? Effie?’ She heard the strange whispering in the air again, on the edge of hearing …

A narrow corridor to the right was releasing a dim light. Anna turned down it and realized immediately it was a corridor she shouldn’t be in. The books were bound in black and red and from the titles on the shelves and images staring up at her from open books on the floor she could tell they weren’t dealing in a good kind of magic. Mortuus Cantus Carnium. Black Hen Magic. Blood and Boils: A Hex Compendium. Hekate’s Grimoire … Many were sealed shut with thick chains and rusted locks.

She stood in something that squelched and looked down to see a dark red, sticky liquid beneath her feet. She screamed and put a hand on the shelf to steady herself, finding the shelf just as sticky and realizing with horror that the blood was oozing out of the books themselves.

She ran.

The end of the corridor was a dead end. She heard footsteps again … and then a book caught her eye. It was bound in black leather and locked shut – no title, just a symbol: seven concentric circles. The Eye. It beckoned her forwards. As she reached a hand towards it, the lock unclicked. She opened it and words began to fly up off the page, disappearing. A hand reached out from behind her and slammed it shut. A body, crouched and grey, wrestled with the lock. ‘I would not. I would not. Lock the Eye back up.’

Anna jumped back against the shelf, away from the creature. She screamed as her hair began to be sucked into one of the books behind her. She wrenched it free and stumbled forward again. The creature put its hands over its ears and screamed too, knocking books everywhere.

Anna realized then it was a man. A bundle of bones. He straightened up to look at her. She wasn’t sure whether to smile or run …

His face was long, the cranium large and hairless and his eyes deeply sunken as if they had been winched into the back of his skull. He wore only a vest and a pair of trousers that finished a few inches above his ankles; his feet were bare. The rest of his body was not skin at all. It was grey as ash and covered in words, as if he’d fallen asleep in a pile of books and left with their print marks all over him. It looked deeply unhealthy, much of it peeling off and flaking away like old paper.

She could make out the words ‘Veritas vos liberabit’ across his forehead and across his heart: EWORHEN – but as she read the word the letters moved, shifted into a new formation, alive on his skin. He blinked and Anna saw that even his eyelids had words on them.

He began to pick up the books he’d knocked over, putting them back on the shelves. ‘Little girl, getting lost in such a loquacious tomb, straying into the cimmerian plains of your imagination.’ His voice was a kind of dry wheezing.

Anna helped him in his task.

‘Be most careful,’ he said, taking a stack of books from her.

‘Where am I?’ asked Anna, unable to look away from him, the words writhing along his skin as he spoke. ‘What was that book that I tried to open? The locked one …’

‘That book is a mean book. Cursey. Induces cacodemonomania. Let the words free and you will be lost in the aphotic depths of your nightmares forever. Silly, silly to open.’

‘Thank you for saving me. What’s your name?’

He twitched and a sheaf of skin fell away from his arm, words and all. ‘Will you stay with me here, little girl?’

‘I need to get back to my friends …’ Anna backed away.

‘But you still seek, you still seek. Your expiscation has so far been most unsatisfactory. Though perhaps there is something in nothing.’ He looked at the Everdell book in her hands and his eyes twitched. ‘Why do you have that book? Explain.’

‘Well, my name is Anna Everdell and my mother was Marie …’

His eyes widened, retreating further into his skull. He took several steps closer to her and studied her face. He reached out a flaking hand and brushed it along her cheek. Anna stood frozen. ‘Yes. Marie’s daughter.’

‘You knew her?’

‘She was my friend.’

‘How did you know her?’

‘She came here. Searching, fossicking among the books, among the curses, as you have. Trying to find answers.’

‘What was she looking for?’

‘She did not say. I don’t believe she found it here but I know where she went. I will tell you if you will be my friend.’

‘I’ll be your friend,’ said Anna, as encouragingly as she could.

‘She went to see the Curse Witch.’ He began to sob, wetting the paper-skin of his face. ‘Nana Yaganov.’

‘Nana Yaganov.’ Anna repeated the name. It was difficult to say, full of sharp angles. ‘Who’s that?’

‘The greatest Curse Witch who ever lived.’

‘OK,’ said Anna, swallowing her fear. ‘How do I find her?’

He shrugged his skeletal shoulders. ‘How do you find a shadow in the dark? Now stay with me. I can’t remember what I’m searching for.’ He wiped a tear away, smudging a word. ‘Stay with me.’

‘I really need to get going …’ But Anna found her foot was stuck – a black vine had crept out of one of the books on the floor and was wrapping itself around her leg. She cried out and the man cracked open his shrivelled mouth and began to wail.

Anna wrenched her leg free and ran blindly.

She heard wailing and whispers behind her, but couldn’t stop. She fled down the corridor, taking turns at random, hoping she was going the right way. She collided with a large figure.

‘Anna.’ Attis held her by the shoulders. ‘Where did you go? You look pale as a sheet.’

‘I – I—’ She tried to catch her breath, finding herself holding onto him. ‘I got lost.’

‘Are you OK?’ He searched her eyes. She met his for a moment and then pulled away. ‘Did you find anything?’ he said, looking at the book in her hands.

‘I – No, not really.’

‘Come on, we’re only two shelves from the entrance.’

They broke free of the corridors, back into the centre where they had arrived. Anna couldn’t understand how they had been so close; it felt as if she’d walked miles away. Manda was sitting reading a book, while a bored-looking Rowan tore strips of paper from the ground.

Effie was pacing. ‘There you are! I found the perfect grimoire, full of suitably vengeful revenge spells. What’s that?’

She grabbed the Everdell book from Anna’s hands.

‘It’s my family history, but—’

‘It’s blank.’

‘Yes.’

Effie frowned. ‘That’s so weird.’

The others gathered around. Effie, like Anna, shook the book upside down as if the words might drop out of it.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Rowan. ‘Those family trees are living records and you’re standing here in front of me. You should be in it at the very least. Are you OK? You look a bit spaced …’

‘I – I – met a man in there. He was scary and … sad.’

‘A witch?’

‘I don’t know what he was. He was covered in words, like they were part of his skin.’

Rowan dropped the books she was holding. ‘Maiden, mother and bloody crone! You met Pesachya! No one ever meets Pesachya. My brother and his friends went on a mission in here once to find him, trying to prove his existence.’

‘Who?’ said Effie.

‘They say he arrived here when he was just a young teen. Some say his family died in the Holocaust and he came here seeking answers and revenge, but he never left.’

‘The Holocaust?’ Anna exclaimed. She tried to think how old he was, but his face was impossible to place, he could have been forty, he could have been eighty, or older still.

‘That’s one of the stories anyway; there are lots. They say he’s part-man, part-book.’

‘That’s definitely true,’ said Anna, remembering his papery skin with a shiver.

‘How can he possibly live down here? That’s ridiculous. How does he eat?’ Manda scoffed.

‘He lives off words,’ Rowan replied as if she had it on good authority.

‘I want to find him. Which way was he?’ Effie looked back towards the corridors.

‘Not now,’ said Attis, guiding her arm. ‘We’ll come back and bring him some McDonald’s or something. It’s gone half eleven, let’s get these guys out of here.’

Anna had forgotten the time. She would be late. The empty book in her hands and the name of a curse witch from a madman probably wasn’t worth the punishment coming.

By some miracle, when she got home, Aunt was still at work. She ran upstairs to hide the Everdell book. She opened it hopefully, but it was still blank. She tried to think logically about the situation. Either the book’s magic had failed to record her family history, or the contents had been purposefully removed, by someone who didn’t want anyone discovering what it might contain. ‘Please!’ she begged the book, hoping talking to it might help. She opened it again but the pages remained maddeningly empty.

She threw it across the room, suddenly furious. It landed with a loud bang. She shut her eyes and breathed against the frustration ripping through her. She quickly fetched it and put it under her bed. She lay down thinking about the name Pesachya had given her. Nana Yaganov. The Curse Witch. Why was her mother searching among the curse section of the Library? And searching out curse witches? She went to her and after that she never came back …

Anna shivered, recalling the dark corner of the Library’s curse section, the wet sounds of blood beneath her feet – the curse mark, like a maze you can’t get out of once you enter.

How do you find a shadow in the dark?