How to Live Forever (14 page)

He reached the apartment and opened the door. The warm smell of cooking welcomed him as he went inside. He'd never really noticed things like that before. It had always been there, one of the things he had grown up with and taken for granted. But now, after a week of eating mostly berries and fruit, the smell of his grandfather's stew was as comforting as his mother's arms.

Peter's grandfather was in the kitchen and his mother was collapsed in an armchair staring blankly into the fire.

‘First my husband and now my son,' she said as Peter came up behind her. ‘I hate this place.'

‘Don't worry, Stella, Peter knows the museum like the back of his hand,' said his grandfather from the other room. ‘I expect the door will open any minute and he'll just walk in.'

‘Yes, I will,' said Peter.

His mother turned, but before she could say a word, Peter threw himself into her arms.

‘Where have you been, where have you been?' was all she could say.

Peter's grandfather came out of the kitchen with a huge smile. He winked at Peter and said, ‘See, I told you he was all right.'

‘I was so worried,' said his mother.

Peter began to tell them what had happened but the minutes were ticking away and his father and Festival would be there any minute.

‘I'll tell you everything later,' he said, ‘but there's something else.'

‘You found him, didn't you?' said his grandfather.

Before Peter could answer, his mother grabbed his arm and cried, ‘Oh my God, what happened to your hand? Your finger, where's your finger?'

‘I'll tell you later,' Peter said, but his mother was too frantic to listen. She wrapped Peter up in her arms and rocked backwards and forwards.

‘At least you're okay,' she said.

‘Yes,' grinned Peter. ‘I'm fine.'

He realised that he'd almost forgotten about losing his finger. Things had been so frantic in the past few days that he'd barely had time to think about anything.

‘Where is he?' said Peter's grandfather.

‘Who?' said his mother.

‘My dad,' said Peter.

‘What, I can't, oh no, I mean, really?'

‘Yes, he'll be here in a minute.'

‘No, I mean, I'm not ready, I …'

She jumped out of the chair and ran into her bedroom.

‘So everything worked out?' said Peter's grandfather. ‘You took the book to the Ancient Child and he fixed everything?'

‘Yes,' said Peter. ‘You won't be ill anymore.'

‘Come here,' said the old man, taking his grandson's hands in his. ‘I am old and I have things wrong with me that no books or medicine or magic can fix, but that is life, real life how it should be, not a distortion of it that that wretched book offered. At some point in the future I will die and nothing can change that.'

‘But –'

‘No buts, that's how it is, and that is how I want it to be,' said Peter's grandfather.

‘I thought if I took the book to the Ancient
Child, everything would be all right,' said Peter. ‘I thought you would get well again.'

‘Remember what Bathline told you,' said the old man. ‘She said, “Every problem will find its answer.” Well, it has. There is no cure for Doctor Eisenmenger's gift, but if I take it easy, no more rushing round with heavy keys, I should have a good few years left in me yet.'

‘Everything will be all right. The point was not to try and make me live forever,' the old man continued. ‘The point was to restore the balance of time and put an end to the curse of the book, and find your father and bring him home. Now I can hang up the keys, and he is back to carry on our family tradition. My father and his father and grandfather before him were Caretakers. In the same way Festival was there to look after you, so our family is here to look after the museum. Without your father here that link would have been broken. Now it's complete again. Your father will follow me and you will follow your father. And eventually, your children will follow you.'

‘You knew this all the time, didn't you?'said Peter.

‘Oh yes, I've always known about Inside and Outside. It's why, as soon as you could walk, I showed you the secret storerooms and corridors. I knew that you were the only hope we had of finding your father.'

‘So who made me go there without the book?'

‘Darkwood. He wanted the book to survive.'

‘I wonder why he changed his mind and brought it to me?' said Peter.

‘I imagine he thought if you read the book, he would be able to control you,' said his grandfather.

Part of Peter felt he had been tricked, that his grandfather had somehow deceived and used him, but he realised that if the old man had told him everything, he would probably have been too scared to go through with it.

Peter knew there are many times in life when, if you sit down and think, you will run away or simply do nothing. As it was, everything had happened so fast, there had been little time to be scared. Besides, he loved his grandfather so much that he could never be angry with him for long. The old man may not have told him everything, or even anything, but he hadn't actually lied to him and, to top it all, Peter now had his father back.

The door opened and Peter's father and Festival came in. Peter's grandfather took his son in his arms and felt an enormous weight leave him. He had spent the past year hiding the pains of old age from his grandson and daughter-in-law. Now he could let go and relax. Now, he could cook dinner and sleep the afternoons away in front of the TV. His son could carry the keys.

Festival stood nervously in the doorway, unsure whether to come in or not. Peter went over and took her hand.

‘Come on,' he said. ‘I'll show you all my treasures.'

‘Later,' said his grandfather. ‘First, dinner.'

While Peter's father went to see his wife, his grandfather sat Peter and Festival down at the table and fed them rabbit stew. It was the most wonderful meal Peter had ever eaten. The warmth he had felt coming home now reached deep into every part of him. Festival ate silently. All she could think of was her family, who seemed not just another world away but another lifetime. It had only been about a week since she had last seen them, but that week had been filled with enough memories for a year. She wanted to ask Peter's grandfather if he knew how she could get back, but she was scared to in case he said no.

‘Grandfather,' said Peter. ‘Do you know how Festival can get home again? Everyone said you can only go one way once.'

‘Well, you and your father have proved that wrong, haven't you?' said the old man. ‘You two came back.'

‘Yes I know, but Festival can't get back the way we came,' said Peter. ‘Even if she gets back to the valley, there's no way to get out the other end.'

‘It's all right, there's another way,' said his grand
father. ‘Tonight, young lady, you will be back in your own bed.'

‘Really?' said Festival.

‘Besides,' the old man added, ‘we must seal up the door you came through. There is no way we want Darkwood or the Ancient Child to come here. Your way back, young lady, is much easier and much more exciting. Come with me.'

First Peter's grandfather had to close up the museum. The two children followed him downstairs to collect everyone's keys and lock themselves in for the night.

They stood by the great doors as one by one the gallery attendants handed in their keys and went back into the winter world. When all ninety-seven keys were collected and the last person had gone, they crossed the museum yard to lock the outside gates. Peter's grandfather took the great key from his belt, a key so heavy that Peter had barely been able to lift it until he was three years old, and locked out the world. Then they came back inside and locked the great doors behind them.

‘Follow me,' said the old man, and led them up to the fossil gallery.

The moon shone through the high windows, covering everything in a cool blue light.

‘Perfect,' said the old man, ‘a full moon.'

‘Why is that important?' said Peter.

‘You can only travel on a full moon,' his grandfather explained. ‘On the other twenty-seven days there isn't enough light.'

He looked at the gallery ceiling that curved up sixty feet above them. The giant bat
Pteropus Patagonius
, the one that the old professor had made from Peter's grandfather's drawings, hung right above them. The old man unlocked a cupboard under one of the display cabinets and took out a large bell. He hung it from a bracket on one of the columns and rang it.

It sang out, a heart-caressing, mournful song that Peter and Festival had heard before. It was the song of the Journey Bell.

The song echoed round and round the gallery, catching up with itself again and again, until it seemed as if the song was coming from everywhere, not just the bell itself.

Peter imagined the door at the far end of the fossil gallery would open and somehow Trellis would be there. But it didn't. Above them, though, something else moved.

The giant bat opened one eye and looked down at them. Peter's grandfather tapped the two children on their shoulders and pointed upwards.

The bat opened its other eye and stretched its wings. It yawned and stretched them again. It drifted free and, in wide lazy circles, floated to the floor.

‘If you ever want to come back here again,' Peter's grandfather said, ‘go back to the island when there is a full moon and ring the bell. The bat will come.'

Peter reached out and took Festival's hand. He had grown to think of her as the sister he had never had and he didn't want her to go.

‘I wish …' he started.

‘I know,' said Festival. She had grown close to him too and could finish the sentences he started. ‘But my mum and dad, I can't leave them.'

‘I know,' said Peter. ‘It's just that I'll miss you.'

‘Well, you can always visit each other,' said Peter's grandfather. ‘Whenever there's a clear sky and a full moon.'

‘You know when you were telling me about the dreams that you all have,' said Peter, ‘I wasn't really listening, but didn't you say there was one about a bat?'

‘Yes,' said Festival, ‘of course. There is. Oh wow, you know what that means?'

‘What?'

‘Well, we all dreamt about the Journey Bell and Trellis and the encyclopaedia, and it was all real,' said Festival. ‘And now the dream about crossing the world in the wings of a giant bat is true too. That means that maybe all the other dreams are true as well.'

‘What are the other dreams?' said Peter.

Before Festival could answer, Peter's grandfather pointed up at the moon. It was passing across the windows and in a few moments would disappear behind the back of the museum.

‘There's no time now,' he said. ‘It will have to wait until another day.'

Peter and Festival hugged each other and then the old man lifted her up into the soft fur between the bat's shoulders. He stroked the creature between its big sad eyes and said, ‘Take her home.'

The bat lifted itself into the air. Higher and higher up into the roof it flew, through the shafts of moonlight coming in the glass and on into the shadows at the far end of the gallery where it slipped into the darkness.

Before Peter and his grandfather went back up to the apartment, they went to the small side gallery where Peter's journey had begun. Archimedes was sitting on the chair staring straight at the mummy of Bastin the Cat God.

‘Why don't we …' Peter began, but his grandfather knew what he was thinking and the two of them lifted Archimedes off the chair and moved it to one side before pushing the mummy's glass case across the room until it covered the part of the wall where Peter, and others before him, had fallen through.

‘That should do it,' said Peter's grandfather.

As they left the room, Peter looked back and thought he saw the mummy tilt its head ever so slightly down towards Archimedes, who now sat on the floor staring up at it.

‘Come on, old cat,' said Peter, and the three of them went back up to the apartment.

His parents were sitting side by side in front of the fire and it was way into the early hours of the morning before tiredness overtook their stories and sent them all to bed.

Lying in the dark with his arm round Archimedes, Peter still had a head full of questions that hadn't been answered, questions for his grandfather and his father that would keep until another day.

Some questions, of course, might never be answered.