Nothing could have prepared me for what I learned in the school hall that day.

I had been struggling to hear the archaeologist over the constant fidgeting and murmuring. I understand why people might not be interested, really I do. But the poor woman was being ignored.

I suppose I did not help with my interjection about the Battle of Towton. I wanted to tell her, “I saw it with my own eyes! Field after field of unburied corpses and bloodstained snow, memories that come back to me in dreams even now…”

But of course I could not, and I stopped myself.

Then she showed the picture of Cockett Island (now called Coquet, rhyming with “poke-it,” though I have no idea why), and I felt a lurch deep inside me, a quickening of my heart.

In the twenty-first century, nowhere is secret. Coquet Island is a bird sanctuary, Dr. Heinz had said, and people cannot normally go there in case they disturb the puffins and other seabirds.

But now more people will be visiting, and digging and excavating.

Somebody may find the skeleton of Old Paul, and they will say things like “…believed to be a man in his seventies…bone samples sent for DNA testing…possibly a farmer…”

And I will be shouting, “No! It is Old Paul, the prior! He was like a father to me! He was eighty-two, which then was like a hundred and twenty now!”

It was not, however, the skeleton that concerned me most.

Buried deep in the dry cave was the only possibility that I might ever escape from the prison of my deathless life.

I can imagine the reports on the wireless: “A mysterious artifact of glass…appears to have been buried on purpose…radiocarbon dating…expert analysts…”

By the time Aidan came out to check I was all right, I was shaking and sweating, but I knew what I must do. I pushed my way through the crowd of students as they came out.

“Alfie! What the heck?” called Aidan, but he did not follow me.

The archaeologist was still there at the front, packing up her trowel and things, and her little computer.

“Dr. Heinz! I must ask you something!”

She looked up, surprised, and smiled. “Ach, hallo, young man. Our Battle of Towton expert, I see.” She was being friendly, which I was glad about.

“Yes, but your excavation of Cockett Island. When does it start?” I sounded too eager, too desperate, but I could not help it.

“Vell, let me see,” she said, taking out a mobile telephone and tapping it a couple of times. “Ze main dig is not due to start for anozzer month or so, although I have been on site already, setting up some initial—”

“Yes, yes, what about the cave?”

“Goodness me, young man! Aren’t you ensusiastic? It is so nice to meet someone vith a keen interest in archaeological pursuits. I remember—”

“What about the cave?” I was being rude, I could tell, but I was panicking. “I mean, that is…what are you looking for?”

Dr. Heinz stopped her packing and came round to sit on the edge of the table. She pushed her glasses up her nose and leaned in close. She looked at me so intensely that I felt myself shrinking back.

“Zere is a legend. Zere are references to it all over Europe, although it is werry little explored. A legend of a race of people who were immortal. Zey were known by different names. ‘Over-death’ is one: they had ‘overcome death,’ do you see?”

I nodded. My mouth was dry, my heart hammering.

“Some say zis legend gave rise to ze stories of vampires: nocturnal beings who never died. Zere are at least two references to a place called Karparty, meaning the Carpathian Mountains in Romania; zat, of course, is where the story of Count Dracula arose. Oh, I’m sorry—you look scared!”

“No, no—go on!”

“Anyhow, there is a mention in an ancient document by a medieval Northumbrian bishop, Walter. It is in ze British Museum now, but my interpretation is zat zere may be artifacts associated with ze legend buried or hidden on Coquet. Perhaps it was a semi-religious cult. Bishop Walter was unclear. Or perhaps…” And here she paused and winked at me. “Perhaps it vas all true! What do you sink, young man?”

I was speechless. Literally speechless. I managed to stammer, “Th-thank you,” and walked in a dreamlike state out of the hall into the sunshine, where I shaded my eyes until my glasses had adjusted their darkness.

A month, she had said. That was long enough to work out a plan, I told myself.

How wrong could I have been?