How to Live Forever (10 page)

As the path continued to crumble behind them, more rocks fell into the river. Smaller rocks rolled into the gaps between the bigger ones. Then smaller ones still fell into the smaller gaps. The rocks were followed by pebbles and then gravel, until the cliff was a sheer smooth face. Fine sand and finally dust drifted down until the smallest cracks were sealed and the river had nowhere to run.

Very slowly, too slowly to notice at first, the river began to grow deeper as it crept up its banks towards the grass.

‘We better get out of here,' said Peter.

Trellis followed the river into the forest as night
arrived. The two children fell asleep, and when Trellis reached a patch of higher ground, she stopped and rested. This was to be her last journey. With the path lost forever, the valley would sink back into legend, and Trellis would spend the rest of her life in the valley.

The old horse lay down in the grass and the two children slid from her back without waking. While they slept, she thought about those she had carried down the mountain before, a mere handful in the sixty years since she had been born. The last, some ten years ago, had been a solitary man who had looked strangely like the boy that now slept with his head on her fetlocks.

Some time after midnight, in those hours when you wake up and the clock inside your head is completely confused, a hooded figure knelt beside Peter. It placed one hand over the boy's mouth and with the other shook him gently awake.

‘Don't be afraid,' whispered the figure. ‘I am here to help you. Come.'

Peter shrank back, but the figure lifted him to his feet and, still covering his mouth, took him off into the darkness. When they were far enough away to talk without waking Festival or Trellis, the figure stopped.

‘So, at last we meet in the flesh,' said the figure. ‘I am Darkwood.'

‘Most people don't think you exist,' said Peter. He pushed himself back against a tree trunk, trying to see in the darkness whether there was a path he could make a quick escape down.

‘They may be right,' said Darkwood. ‘There is no point in looking to escape. Wherever you go, I will be there before you. You see me now, so I must exist, at least at this moment, in this place.'

‘I don't understand,' said Peter.

‘Well, I may be who I am or I may be someone else or I may be just your imagination.'

Peter had heard Darkwood's voice before. It was the voice that had tried to make him read the book. It was the voice that had spoken as invisible hands tipped him back through the wall.

‘It was you who brought me here without the book, wasn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Darkwood, ‘and the others before you.'

‘Why?'

‘The book changes things,' said Darkwood. ‘I do not want change. Or rather, I did not want change. Now I have grown weary of being alone and so I have decided that change will come, but I will have control of it.'

‘But why did you bring us here at all?'

‘I did not bring you, the book did. Its power set you on this journey. For although I created the book, it has
grown like a wild child and it no longer obeys me. All I could do to try and control it was bring you here early,' Darkwood explained. ‘But now I want change and you will help me. Your father refused but he had no dying grandfather I could persuade him with.'

And seeing the fear in Peter's eyes, he added, ‘Don't be afraid. I am going to help you. Greatness is just around the corner.'

‘How?'

‘I shall bring you the book,' said Darkwood.

‘You can?' said Peter. ‘I knew there was a way back. How do we get there?'

The fear Darkwood had filled him with gave way to excitement. They were going to get the book. Everything was going to be all right.

‘
You
don't,' said Darkwood. ‘You must wait here while I go.'

‘Can't I come with you?' said Peter, growing afraid again.

‘No,' said Darkwood, though he gave Peter no reason why not.

‘But do you know where the book is?'

‘Of course I do,' said Darkwood. ‘I hear its gentle voice. It calls me from its prison inside that vile old woman's curtain. The child calling its father. It waits hidden beneath your bed. I will bring it to you, but there is a price.'

‘A price?'

‘Of course,' said Darkwood. ‘There is always a price. And the greater the prize, the greater the price.'

Peter said nothing. He was too scared to speak and too scared to let himself think. He didn't have to. He already knew the price.

‘Do you want to know the price?' said Darkwood.

‘I'll have to read the book, won't I?'

‘Clever boy,' said Darkwood. ‘A child as wise as you
should
read the book. A child as wise as you should live forever. You will read the book and together we will accomplish many great things. Together we will put an end to all this chaos.'

‘I …' Peter began.

‘Take a few moments to consider,' said Darkwood. ‘Though we both know your answer, don't we?'

‘Yes,' said Peter softly. He saw the picture of his grandfather sitting white-faced on the floor and hung his head to hide his tears. But he also saw Bathline's grotesque child Bardick and imagined that was how he would end up. His love for his grandfather and the terror of an endless half-life fought inside him. His heart fought his head, but he knew that no matter how long he struggled, he would eventually read the book.

‘Wait here,' said Darkwood. ‘I will be back before dawn.'

After Darkwood had gone, Peter slumped down against a rock and stared into the darkness. Further upstream, a solitary owl called over and over again. Gradually its voice grew fainter until the only noise was the sound of the river through the trees.

Peter saw himself above the world looking down at himself sitting against a tree in the dark narrow valley between the volumes of the great encyclopaedia. He seemed so small, and the further his vision rose into the heavens, the smaller he became.

He saw a picture of one of those domes with a little world inside that you shake to make the snow fall. He was inside the dome holding another dome with a smaller world inside that. He felt trapped and helpless and it overwhelmed him.

All he wanted now was to be back in his bed in the little flat at the top of the museum, to forget about the hidden corridors and storerooms, to forget about his father, to forget about everything except the simple things of everyday life. But there was his grandfather. Without Peter's help he would die and now Darkwood was bringing him the book. Now he would be able to make the old man well again. If he had to read the book to do it, then he would.

Archimedes came out of the darkness and curled
up on his lap. As it always did when the cat came to him, his sadness lifted and he tried to find the good bits in what was happening.

Maybe it won't be so bad, living forever
, he thought.

No, it will be wonderful
, said the book inside Peter's head.
Paradise, perfect paradise forever and ever and ever. The whole world and everything in it, in the palm of your hand. Together, we will be God.

He would never have to leave his beloved museum, and with endless time at his disposal he could search for the route between the two worlds, a route that Darkwood had revealed must exist.

It was a frightening thought, though. Would he end up like Bathline and her grotesque child, in a windowless room, wishing for only one thing – death?

No, not him. Bathline was old when she read the book and her child was dying, but Peter was young and healthy. He could feel the irresistible power of the book, calling to him.

He would be God.

He and Darkwood.

Archimedes looked up at him, his yellow eyes catching the faint light of the moon and magnifying it. He rubbed his head against Peter's chin and purred as if to say, ‘No matter what happens
I
will always be here.'

‘Will you read the book too?' Peter whispered.

He tried to weigh the good against the bad. Over and over again, he went through the same thoughts until, as the moon rose and its light fell into the valley, there was a disturbance in the bushes and there was Darkwood. Archimedes gave a hiss and slipped away into the darkness.

‘Here,' he said, holding out the book.

‘I …'

‘It is too late for doubt,' said Darkwood. ‘Besides, the contract is made. The book is here. There is no going back.'

‘I know,' said Peter, and held out his hand.

The book was still wrapped in the strips of velvet. Peter took it. It felt alive in his hands, begging him to set it free, begging him to open it and read the words.

‘Go on,' said Darkwood. ‘You know it is your destiny. Did not the book speak to you as I brought it here?'

‘Yes.'

‘And do you think it speaks to just anyone?' said Darkwood. ‘It does not. It only speaks to the chosen few.'

Peter hesitated.

‘You may wait as long as you like,' said Darkwood, ‘but you know that eventually you will read it.
You know it has chosen you. You know that it is part of your destiny.'

‘I know,' said Peter. ‘If I read it, will you show me the way back?'

‘That was not part of the deal,' said Darkwood. ‘But if you align yourself with me, become my apprentice, then I will show you the way. We will travel between the two worlds many, many times, for they will be our worlds and all who live in them will do as we ask.'

‘I –' Peter began.

‘Do not think to trick me,' said Darkwood. ‘Just saying yes is not enough. You must do my bidding, obey me for ten years and a day. Then I will show you the way.'

Peter hung his head. His grandfather would probably be dead by then.

‘Tell me,' he said. ‘Why have you changed your mind?'

‘I have gone as far as I can alone,' said Darkwood. ‘The dreams I had have eluded me and to make them real I need allies. So now, I must share my secrets with others, others who have shown the kind of strength and determination that you have done. I offered the book to the one who came before you, but he refused. Of all the people who have come into this world you are the first with whom I could
form an alliance. There may be others, but you are the first.'

Peter felt fear building up inside him. He found it hard to breathe. It was all getting too far out of control. He had agreed to read the book, but forming an alliance, whatever that meant, with this awful creature was not part of the deal.

‘We will talk more later,' said Darkwood. ‘Now, read.'

One by one, Peter peeled away the red velvet strips until the book lay naked in his hands. He could feel its terrible power calling to him and he opened the cover.

‘Do not read it aloud,' said Darkwood, walking away into the trees, ‘for any living thing, not just human or animal, but insects and even plants, that hears the words will live forever too.'

The moonlight seemed to gather itself into a narrow beam that shone through the branches onto the book to light the words. Peter looked up at the moon in desperation. Even that had turned against him.

Turning his face away from the book, Peter opened the cover just enough to reach inside it. His father's photo was still there. He slipped it out and closed the cover. He could feel a force pushing back against him and a soft voice inside his head coaxing him to read the book.

He turned the photo over in the shaft of moonlight and looked into his father's face. The eyes seemed to stare right into him, but whatever message they were trying to send him, if indeed there was a message at all, Peter couldn't work out. He felt tears coming and quickly put the photo in his shirt pocket.

Maybe he could escape, wake Festival and the two of them run and find the Ancient Child before Darkwood could catch them. Maybe the Ancient Child would be able to fix everything without Peter having to read the book. But Peter knew Darkwood would find them before they reached the waterfall.

He sat in silence, unable to think of any other way out, knowing of course that there wasn't one. Finally, he moved the book into the moonlight and opened the cover.

The pages were frayed at the edges and as Peter turned them, tiny flakes of paper fell into the grass. He wondered what would happen if he stopped reading halfway. Would the spell be only half complete? Would he possibly live for a hundred and fifty years and not forever? But even as he turned the next page, he knew his speculation was pointless. He knew, having read the first word, there was no way he could stop until he had read the last.

He also knew that reading the first word was all it took. By the time he read the second, he had become immortal. Reading the rest was merely a ritual.

From this moment on, he would live forever.

As it grew light, the valley filled with a carpet of mist. It made the air damp and cold. Archimedes was not there. Peter walked back to the river and washed his face. As he knelt by the water he realised how little thought they had given to their journey. They had brought nothing, no food, no spare clothes, no map if one even existed. He washed his face in the river, cupped his hands and drank some water.

During the night the river had followed them up the valley. It had crawled between the blades of grass, long narrow fingers of water that twisted and turned across the earth and vanished into dry cracks. The earth had drunk the river until it was full, then
the cracks had closed, the fingers joined and the water had formed a lake at the foot of the cliff, a lake that was growing forever deeper and deeper.

Peter walked back to where Festival lay asleep, cradled into Trellis's flank. The horse looked up as Peter appeared. He noticed her tilt her head very slightly and stare at him with a strange expression. He sat down beside Trellis and stroked her head. She nuzzled against his shirt where the book was hidden. A look of fear came into her eyes and she pulled back.

Peter thought also about when he would tell Festival what had happened or if he would tell her at all. Maybe he was supposed to keep it all a secret, though Darkwood hadn't said he should.

As Trellis moved to get to her feet, Festival woke up.

‘I'm hungry,' she said. ‘We should have brought some food with us.'

‘I suppose,' said Peter.

‘Well, aren't you hungry too?' said Festival.

He wasn't, but he couldn't tell her why. If you are immortal, it means nothing can kill you, which means that even if you never eat again, you will not die. You will grow thin. You might grow ill, but you will survive. People who had read the book and felt its curse had thought starvation would set them free, but it didn't.

There seemed to be nothing to eat. There were no berries growing here. There were no mushrooms in the damp places where mushrooms would normally grow. Festival picked a thick piece of grass and chewed the end to try and calm her hunger. Maybe there would be something further up the path.

Trellis, who had been eating the lush grass around their camp site, went down to the river and drank. She then came over and stood beside them, ready to take them further up the valley.

‘Even the horse is better organised than we are,' said Festival as Trellis carried them through a stand of oak trees.

The path grew narrower until Trellis had to watch her every step to keep from slipping into the river. Peter and Festival, riding on her back, could reach out and touch the great books that rose up on their left and vanished in the low clouds that hung over the top of the valley. There were no doors or windows in these books, just cracks lined with lichen and moss. The river, squeezed between the narrowing walls, ran faster and faster. The noise of the rushing water drowned out every other sound, making it impossible for the two children to speak to each other. So they retreated into their thoughts.

It was only a few hours since he had read the book. With every jolt of Trellis's feet, Peter felt it
move beneath his shirt. It called him, telling him that he had become another page, bound forever between its ancient covers. Did every page represent someone who had read the book? Had it started off with the one single leaf, the leaf that was the Ancient Child? Peter wanted to take the book out and see if there really was a new page added after all the others. His page.

He wondered if his immortality made him seem any different. Could people tell he'd read the book?

He had wanted to tell Festival what had happened when he'd woken up, but something had stopped him. What had it been?

Shame?

Guilt?

Did he feel that by reading the book, he had somehow failed? In a way it was the opposite. Everyone, especially Festival, had been heartbroken when he had arrived without it. So he wanted to tell her it was okay. He had the book now. Everything was how it was supposed to have been.

Except he wasn't supposed to have read it.

They came round a bend and ahead of them was the waterfall. The valley widened, worn away by the endless river that poured from the dark cave halfway up the mountain.

There appeared to be no way to reach the cave.
The rock face was as smooth and sheer as glass with nowhere to get a foothold. And now with the path collapsed and the flooding river only an hour behind them, everything seemed to have been for nothing.

Festival and Trellis would drown. Peter, now he was immortal, would not. He assumed that eventually the valley would flood so deeply that its surface would reach the cave and he would be able to escape. Even if he could find a tree trunk that he and Festival could float on, she would starve to death long before the water rose high enough.

He sat down against a tree. The book was calling him, demanding to be brought out into the light. Peter wished he'd bound it up again in the velvet ribbons. At least then he would be able to hold it without the temptation of reading it again.

If you are immortal
, he thought,
and you read the book again, what can possibly happen?

He gripped it through his shirt, ran his fingers over the embossed ridges on its spine. He knew he had made a terrible mistake, but there was no going back. He wanted to curl up in the grass and go to sleep and forget everything, but he had made his choice and now he could never go back.

You are mine
, the book said inside his head.
Forever and ever and ever.

‘What's that?' said Festival.

‘The book.'

‘What? How … I mean –'

‘Darkwood brought it to me last night,' said Peter.

‘You saw Darkwood?'

‘Yes. Well, no,' said Peter. ‘I never saw his face. He was wearing a cloak with a big hood. I never actually saw him.'

‘But he said he was Darkwood?'

‘Yes.'

‘And he brought you the book?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is it trying to make you read it?' said Festival.

Peter said nothing. He took his hands away from his shirt and wrapped his arms round his knees. The tears he thought he had control over began to fall. No noise, just silent tears from a great weariness that had grown in him since reading the book. Was he tied to everyone else who had read the book? Was that it? All their never-ending sadness added to his own in a terrible pain that felt like his heart was breaking.

Festival came over and knelt in front of him. She put her hands on his shoulders and said, ‘You've read it already, haven't you?'

Peter nodded.

‘Why?'

‘Darkwood said it was the price I had to pay for him bringing it to me,' said Peter. ‘He said if I didn't have the book, my grandfather would die. So I read it.'

‘I have to read it too,' said Festival.

‘I know,' said Peter, ‘or you'll drown.'

Peter reached inside his shirt and took out the book, but something had happened. The cover wouldn't open. Peter gripped both halves and pulled as hard as he could. The pages seemed to be stuck together and no matter what he did, he could not force them apart.

At first, he couldn't understand it. Hadn't the book been calling to him only a few moments before?

‘I can't open it,' he said.

‘Give it to me,' said Festival.

The water rounded the last bend and was moving steadily towards them. It swallowed everything in its path. Trees fell as other trees, uprooted earlier, crashed into them. Trellis backed away towards the higher ground at the foot of the cliff, her eyes wild and her breathing full of fear.

‘How much longer do you think we've got?' said Festival.

‘I don't know,' said Peter, ‘half an hour?'

‘I'm scared,' said Festival. ‘It isn't like this in the dream. The river stays still and the valley has no end.'

‘Maybe you just wake up before you reach it,' said Peter.

‘I suppose,' said Festival. ‘Give me the book.'

‘Darkwood said that anyone or anything that hears you read the book will live forever too,' said Peter. ‘So read it out loud, then Trellis will be okay too.'

Festival took the book and for her it opened easily, just the same as any normal book. She turned the first page and began to read out loud.

‘All ye who read these words shall forever be …'

At first nothing happened. Peter hadn't expected it to, not to him anyway. When
he
had read the book, he had been so scared, he hadn't noticed any changes coming over him, any slowing down. Now, as he listened to Festival, his blood began to move faster and as it did so, it seemed to speed everything else up. His heartbeat, his breathing, every move he made from his fingertips to his eyelids all ran faster.

Everything within earshot of Festival was changing too. Trees that had heard the book before and been stuck in perpetual autumn now dropped their yellow leaves. Their sleeping buds burst into life with the bright green leaves of spring.

But it was the change in the river that was most dramatic.

For a brief second it stopped moving as if turned to ice, every drop of water frozen in midair. The
waterfall hung like a curtain of silk. And then, very slowly at first, it began to move again. As Festival turned the pages and read on, it picked up speed. By the time she had read the last page and closed the covers, the river was running full speed again.

Except now it was running in the opposite direction.

The very first time the book had been read it had happened in exactly the same spot that Festival was now sitting. There had been no dark valley then, but a land of gentle fields with a small cave at one end where the river disappeared beneath green hills. But the reading of the book had made the river run backwards and over time it had worn the earth away, creating the deep chasm and leaving the cave halfway up a sheer cliff.

Now it was running in the direction nature had intended. It no longer poured out of the cave above them into the valley, but climbed up the sheer cliff face back into the cave. Slowly the water level began to fall. Trees that had been uprooted by the flood were carried up the mountain too.

‘Come on,' shouted Peter as a large oak tree floated towards them. ‘Jump.'

The two children threw themselves into the branches and held on as they floated up towards the dark mouth of the cave. The huge weight of the
tree fought to obey the laws of gravity. Several times they drifted backwards but inch by inch they moved up the sheer mountain until at last the great tree tipped over and they were inside the cave.

‘Where's the book?' Peter called out over the roar of the river.

‘I dropped it in the water when I grabbed hold of the tree,' Festival shouted.

The tree carried them into the cave for a hundred feet or so and then stuck fast. There were flat rocks on one side of the river so the two children climbed through the branches and jumped down onto them.

They were safe and they had reached the cave.

And the book was not to be given up so easily. Somehow, the frantic thrashing of the river had wrapped the velvet ribbons back round it and thrown it out onto the same rocks that Peter and Festival were now standing on. Peter picked it up. It felt warm. He expected it to be wet through but it was perfectly dry.

The two children were not. Soaking wet and shivering with cold, they sat down exhausted. So much had happened since the blind man had brought them to the island, it felt as if it had happened weeks ago. To Peter, it seemed like months since he had last seen his mother and grandfather. He wondered if and
when he would ever see them again. His injured hand had smashed against a rock as the tree carried them up the waterfall, and the pain was making him feel faint.

He felt in his pocket, but he knew before he did that the photo would be gone. He had been forced to sacrifice the watch to get into the valley and now he had given up the photo to escape. The only two things he had to remind him of his father, two things he had only possessed for such a short time, were lost forever.

‘Are you all right?' said Festival, seeing how white he had gone.

‘I hit my hand,' said Peter, unable to talk about the loss. ‘Feeling faint again …'

In the valley below, the river had fallen back to its original level. Soon, with the far end closed off, the water would stop running altogether. The old horse may have been trapped down there, but at least now she was safe.

The river ran slower and slower.