How to Live Forever (13 page)

On a flat rock in front of him lay a blank book, a pen and a small lamp.

What if he wrote it wrong? What if he just changed a word here and there, so it seemed the same but was slightly different? Would it still work?

Probably not.

But Darkwood would almost certainly insist on testing it by making Peter read it before he showed them the way back. Then he would find out Peter had tricked him. Of course Peter could pretend he'd made an honest mistake, but then he'd have to fix it. At least it could buy him some time.

Except it wouldn't. Darkwood seemed to be able
to read his thoughts and he would know it wasn't an accident. Peter imagined Darkwood could make revenge very, very frightening.

You can be God
, said the book inside his head.
Bring me back and you will be the God of creation. Everyone will fall before you.

The voice paused then added,
Even Darkwood.

Even Darkwood! Was that possible? Peter felt his heart beating like a trapped bird. If that was true, he could read the book and have nothing to fear. He would have the power so he could decide what would happen. In the back of his head was a tiny thought that said the book was lying. Whatever he did, Darkwood would be more powerful than him. He struggled to stop the thought forming so the book would see it.

If only he could forget the book, but that was impossible. He knew that. He knew that if he lived to a hundred, if he lost all his other memories and ended up dribbling soup down his chest like a vegetable, every single word of the book would stay burnt into his brain until the second he took his last breath.

Darkwood knew it too.

Write me
, said the book.
Bring me back to life
.

Maybe Peter could do a deal with Darkwood, persuade him to show them the way back on the condition that Peter would write it down afterwards.
Maybe if he wrote down half of it, that would be enough to make Darkwood agree. There was the risk that, like reading it, once he started writing, he wouldn't be able to stop, but it was worth the risk.

He sat down and began to write. The whole book had only been fifty pages. Peter decided he would write exactly half and then stop. As he wrote, he would feel it willing him on. He wrote ten pages then stopped. He got up and walked around the cave, but the book was calling him back.

More
, it said.
I need to breathe again
.

Peter wrote ten more pages and found it almost impossible to stop. He pulled himself away and stared at the book. The pages seemed to be alive, their corners curled over like beckoning fingers.

He wrote another page then stopped. Then another.

He knew that if he passed the halfway point, he would not be able to stop again.

He wrote the twenty-fourth page and smashed the pen down on the rock, destroying it. Now, no matter how much the book called him, he was safe.

Use your blood
, said a voice inside his head.
Take the broken nib and cut your finger and write me back to life.

‘NO!' Peter shouted.

He slammed the book shut, grabbed the lamp and ran towards the tunnel.

He stopped. The water from the cave roof
seemed to be dripping faster now. If there was some way he could make it pour out, at least the underground lake would empty and he'd be able to get back to the island. He had to tell the others what had happened.

He hadn't noticed before but there were thin columns of stone from the roof to the floor. They had once been stalactites but had eventually reached the ground, and as the roof had been worn away, they had taken on the role of supports. In places they were no thicker than Peter's wrist, an interlinked network of fragile pillars that now held up the whole roof of the cave.

If he could break one of them, Peter was sure all the others would collapse too, like a row of dominoes. The tunnel that Darkwood had brought him down led back up to the lake. The tunnel that Darkwood had left by on the other side of the cave continued deeper into the ground. If Peter could bring down the roof, the water would run after Darkwood and maybe drown him.

He picked up the biggest rock he could and, standing at the entrance of his escape tunnel, threw it at the nearest column.

Nothing happened.

He tried again.

Nothing happened.

He tried again.

Nothing happened that he could see, but the third throw had made a fine crack, thinner than a human hair.

He tried again.

This time he could see the crack.

Each time he tried after that, he turned and ran up the tunnel before coming cautiously back to look. The crack was definitely growing. He could get his fingernail into it. With every smash of the rock, it grew a little more.

Across the cave, a light was coming up the far tunnel. Darkwood was returning.

Peter picked up the rock and, with every part of him, threw it and ran. The column came crashing down followed by a large rock. Darkwood appeared at the mouth of the far tunnel but it was too late. One by one the columns collapsed. Rocks and water crashed down on top of them. In the middle of the cave, the twenty-four pages of the book were ripped apart by the flood that raced towards Darkwood. He turned and fled, but the only place he had to go was the same place the torrent was going. The sunken boat fell through the hole in the cave roof and vanished into the tunnel.

Peter ran back up to the lake as the last of the water fell out of it. The waterfalls still ran but the hole
in the lake floor carried the water away, leaving the lake empty. The angry water swept Darkwood deeper and deeper into the heart of the earth. He managed to grab the boat as it raced by and hauled himself into it. The tunnel came out into an endless underground sea that circled the earth's core. So close was it to the centre of the planet, the water almost boiled. The boat slowly began to sink. Behind him, the last of the fallen rocks sealed up his escape route.

He may have been immortal, but he could still feel pain and to save himself from the boiling water, Darkwood jammed his thumb into the hole where the bung had been. With his free hand, he pulled out a knife and, with no one to hear his screams, cut off his thumb.

He may have been immortal, but the pain was unbearable. His blood had stopped moving when he became immortal so he could not even bleed to death. Severed from his body, his thumb was mortal again and over the next few weeks, it slowly cooked and disintegrated. But, he had another thumb to replace it with, and eight fingers and ten toes, so he had plenty of time to try and find somewhere to land, some small beach of scalding rock where he could spend the rest of eternity.

He may have been immortal, but there was no way out of hell.

Peter scrambled down into the empty lake and went back over to the island where everyone was still fast asleep. He ran round waking them all up. When they were all together he told them what had happened.

‘Darkwood is my father?' said the Ancient Child.

‘He is,' said Peter.

‘No, no, he can't be. My father is dead,' said the Ancient Child. ‘Darkwood must have been lying.'

‘I don't think he was,' said Peter.

‘But he's evil. He can't be, please, no.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Peter. ‘I thought you'd be pleased to know your father was still alive.'

‘Yes, but not him.'

‘There's something else,' said Peter.

‘My mother's alive too?' said the Ancient Child.

‘No, I've found the way back.'

‘Are you sure?' said his father. ‘I went down that tunnel under the lake. I went right down the other one, until it got so hot I could hardly breathe.'

‘It isn't down there,' said Peter. ‘It's right under our noses.'

‘Where?' said Festival. ‘Come on, show us.'

‘Okay.'

He led them down to the little jetty and down the steps. Ten steps down, where the water line had been for hundreds of years, everything changed colour. Above, the wood was grey and the rocks a golden brown. Below the waterline everything was the same flat dark brown. And below the waterline, there were another ninety-seven steps down to the lake floor.

‘There it is,' said Peter, pointing at the rocks under the stairs as they stood on the bed of the lake.

‘Where?' said Festival, the Ancient Child and Peter's father.

‘There, look.'

But they couldn't see it. Even when Peter got a bucket of water and washed all the mud off the rocks, they still couldn't see it.

Peter slid his finger into a crack and pushed. The rock moved.

‘It's stuck,' said Peter.

His father stood beside him and father and son pushed together. ‘Back here you are again, the little saviour,' said a voice on the other side as the door opened.

It was Bathline.

‘Ready to die I am, oh yes, oh yes, so ready,' she said. ‘A long, last, lovely peaceful sleep. But happy to wait to see you again, my child, I am too.'

Peter and his father walked through the doorway back into their world. Festival hung back. The Outside was not her world. All she knew about it was the little Peter had told her. Peter turned back to her and the Ancient Child.

‘Come on,' he said.

He reached out his hand and Festival walked through.

‘I will stay,' said the Ancient Child. ‘One day the centre of the Earth will cool and the water in the underground sea will be cold enough to swim in. My father will need me then.'

‘But that could be hundreds of thousands of years from now,' said Peter.

‘I know. Your descendants' descendants will be long forgotten,' said the Ancient Child. ‘If mankind
survives that long, he will have evolved into something I will no longer recognise. But my father and I will still be like we are today. There will be no place for us out there.'

‘But –'

‘Go,' said the Ancient Child, and pulled the door closed behind them.

‘It is over,' said Bathline, ‘and you have brought us all peace. Now go. My time is almost past and I need to lie down and sleep. Besides, your mother and grandfather are looking everywhere for you. Your grandfather tells your mother everything will be all right but she finds it hard to believe him.'

‘Remember,' she added as Peter led his father and Festival back along the corridor, ‘it's the one hundred and ninety-second door.'

They came to the door and opened it. There were the stairs that would lead them back into the real world of the museum. That wonderful warm feeling you get when you return home after being away flooded through Peter and he felt happy. He wanted to reach out and kiss the very walls of the museum but he didn't, not with his father and Festival right behind him.

‘How will
I
get home again?' said Festival, unwilling to go down the stairs into Peter's world.

‘I don't know,' said Peter. ‘Maybe my grandfather
will know how. And if he doesn't, I can bring you back up here again.'

‘You better go first,' said Peter's father. ‘The shock of seeing me as well as you might be too much for your grandfather, not to mention your mother.'

That brought Peter back to earth. What about his father's new wife and child? Just when everything seemed perfect, it was all going to fall apart again.

‘What about your new wife?' said Peter.

‘Wife?' said his father. ‘What wife?'

‘And my sister,' said Peter.

‘Your sister? You've got a sister,' said his father. ‘You mean your mother has someone else?'

‘No,' said Peter. ‘You have, and the little girl Victoria.'

‘Victoria?' said his father. ‘Who's Victoria?'

‘When I went to your house, the woman, her daughter …' Peter blurted out. ‘Isn't she?'

‘How could she be?' said his father. ‘How old is she?'

‘Five.'

‘And I was stuck on the island for nearly ten years,' laughed Peter's father.

‘You mean, her mother's not your wife?' said Peter.

‘No, she's my aunt. She is your grandfather's sister.'

‘But she's the same age as you.'

‘She read the book,' said Peter's father. ‘She was the first one in our family to read it. You know how your mother works in the office cataloguing everything?'

‘Yes,' said Peter.

‘Well, Aunt Maud did that job before her. She kept all the museum records like your mother does. She was the one who found the library card for that wretched book. She became obsessed with it and wouldn't rest until she found it. There was no one to warn her so she read it.'

‘So how did she end up in the other world?'

‘She was tricked there, the same as you and I were.'

Peter was so happy he wanted to cry. He flung his arms round his father and the two of them stood at the top of the stairs in silence. Festival was also on the verge of tears, so father and son put their arms round her too.

‘If you can't get home,' said Peter, ‘you can always stay with us.'

‘We'll find a way to get you back,' said his father. ‘Don't worry. Go on,' he said to Peter, ‘go and find your mother and grandfather.'

‘Come down in fifteen minutes,' said Peter. ‘The door at the bottom of the stairs won't open from the other side, so I won't be able to come back and get you.'